IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 1.1 
 
 1.25 
 
 I^|2j8 125 
 1^ Kii II 2.2 
 
 ui Hi 
 lit 
 
 lU 
 ■it 
 
 1.4 
 
 U4 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 33 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
 \ 
 
 ;v 
 
 ^ 
 
 SJ 
 
 <^ 
 
 
 6^ 
 
 <<^J^ 
 
4^ 
 
 % 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHIVI/ICIVIH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographlcally unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 V 
 
 D 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 I I Covers damaged/ 
 
 Couverture endommagie 
 
 Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaurie et/ou pelliculAe 
 
 □ Cover title missing/ 
 Letit 
 
 titre de couverture manque 
 
 I I Coloured maps/ 
 
 Cartes giographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Reli6 avec d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La re liure serrde peut causer de I'ombre ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intirieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela Atait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas 6t6 filmdes. 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Commentaires suppldmentaires; 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-Atre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la methods normale de filmage 
 sont indiquis ci-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ 
 
 v/ 
 
 
 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommagies 
 
 □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 Pages restauries et/ou pelliculdes 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 Pages ddcoiordes, tachetdes ou piqu( 
 
 Pages 
 
 Pages 
 
 Pages ddtach^es 
 
 piqudes 
 
 I I Pages detached/ 
 
 Showthrough/ 
 Transparence 
 
 I I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 Quality indgale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary material/ 
 Comprend du matdriel supplementaire 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seule Edition disponible 
 
 T 
 s 
 T 
 v« 
 
 l\/ 
 
 t 
 
 b( 
 ri{ 
 re 
 nfi 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de facon h 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est filmi au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 
 
 
 
 
 14X 
 
 
 
 
 18X 
 
 
 
 
 22X 
 
 
 
 
 26X 
 
 
 
 
 30X 
 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
ire 
 
 details 
 les du 
 modifier 
 ler une 
 filmage 
 
 es 
 
 The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol —»> (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 L'exemplaire film6 f ut reproduit grflce d la 
 g6n6rosit6 de: 
 
 Bibliothdque nationale du Canada 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avsc le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la nettet6 de I'exempiaire film6, et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprimde sont filmds en commen^ant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont fiimds en commengant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbole — ^ signifie "A SUIVRE", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 fiimds d des taux de reduction diffirents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clich6, il est film6 d partir 
 de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mdthode. 
 
 errata 
 to 
 
 I pelure, 
 }n d 
 
 n 
 
 32X 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
m 
 
 M 
 
 i r ^mjvi^jwwwwwww ^mmw\i^j^/ww^w^^W'^3J^ 
 
 ^;^' 
 
 f 
 
 THE WORLDS 
 GREAT CLASSICS 
 
 (s 
 
 Timothy Dwighx D.D. LLD. 
 Richard Henry5toddard 
 Arthvr Richmond Marsh. AB. 
 Pavlvan Dyke.D.D. 
 Albert Ellery Bergh ^^ 
 
 ITH.NFADIY TNX'O- yp: V 
 
 •ILLV5TRATED • WITH- NEARLY TWO- 
 •HVNDREDPHOTOCRAVVRE5 • ETCH= 
 •INCS COLOREDPLATE5AND FVLL- 
 • PAGE- P0RTRAIT50F GREAT- AVTH0R5 • 
 
 Clarence Cook Art Editor. 
 
 *-,; 
 
 o 
 
 •the -COLONIAL- PRESS 
 
 • NEW-YORK ^fe, MDCCCXCIX 
 
 'l^ax^^(^ca\(C^(G^rn^(ci^C(t^(c ^ Cii\fdhC^ ^ 
 
 / 
 

A/JSXIS DR TOCQUEVILLE. 
 
 Photogravure from a sh\l ct^raviii,^. 
 
 } -n 
 
 uiS 
 
;-*«f 
 
 _i'-. 
 
eO ^ 
 
 i^( JUN 18 1901 V-^ 
 
 >^'A^2) 
 
 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 (Translated by Henry Reeve) 
 
 WITH SPECIAL INTRODUCTIONS BY 
 HON. JOHN T. MORGAN 
 
 SENATOR FROM ALABAMA 
 AND 
 
 HON. JOHN J. INGALLS, LL.a 
 
 EX-SENATOR FROM KANSAS 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 r>miixifim.\uism. 
 
 
lc 
 
 I DC.€^ IE U/ J~l.£ n 
 
 i 
 
 CopvRinHT, 1899, 
 Bv THE COLONIAL PRKSS. 
 
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the 
 Independence of the United States from the completion 
 of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, 
 the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the 
 principles of government that were essential to the preserva- 
 tion of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with 
 heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in 
 view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the 
 government of the Confederation, and they were, therefore, 
 practical and thorough. 
 
 When the Constitution was thus perfected and established, 
 a new form of government was created, but it was neither spec- 
 ulative nor experimental as to the principles on which it was 
 based. If they were true principles, as they were, the govern- 
 ment founded upon them was destined to a life and an influence 
 that would continue while the liberties it was intended to pre- 
 serve should be valued by the human family. Those liberties 
 had been wrung from reluctant monarchs in many contests, in 
 many countries, and were grouped into creeds and established in 
 ordinances sealed with blood, in many great struggles of the 
 people. They were not new to the people. They were conse- 
 crated theories, but no government had been previously estab- 
 lished for the great purpose of their preservation and enforce- 
 ment. That which was experimental in our plan of govern- 
 ment was the question whether democratic rule could be so 
 organizcil and conducted that it would not degenerate into li- 
 cense and result in the tyranny of absolutism, without saving 
 to the people the power so often found necessary of repressing 
 or destroying their enemy, when he was found in the person of 
 a single despot. 
 
 When, in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to study Democ- 
 racy in America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the work- 
 
 iii 
 
 ■li«lW»n 
 
IV 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ing of our system had been made, and it had been proved, by 
 many crucial tests, to be a government of " liberty regulated by 
 law," with such results in the development of strength, in popu- 
 lation, wealth, and military and commercial power, as no age 
 had ever witnessed. 
 
 De Tocqueville had a special inquiry to prosecute, in his 
 visit to America, in which his generous and faithful soul and 
 the powers of his great intellect were engaged in the patriotic 
 effort to secure to the people of France the blessings that De- 
 mocracy in America had ordained and established throughout 
 nearly the entire Western Hemisphere. He had read the story 
 of the French Revolution, much of which had been recently 
 written in the blood of men and women of great distinction 
 who were his progenitors; and had witnessed the agitations 
 and terrors of the Restoration and of the Second Republic, 
 fruitful in crime and sacrifice, and barren of any good to 
 mankind. 
 
 He had just witnessed the sprcLd of republican government 
 through all the vast continental possessions of Spain in Amer- 
 ica, and the loss of her great colonies. He had seen that these 
 revolutions were accomplished almost without the shedding of 
 blood, and he was filled with anxiety to learn the causes that 
 had placed republican government, in France, in such contrast 
 with Democracy in America. 
 
 De Tocqueville was scarcely thirty years old when he began 
 his studies of Democracy in America. It was a bold effort for 
 one who had no special training in government, or in the study 
 of political economy, but he had the example of Lafayette in 
 establishing the military foundation of these liberties, and of 
 Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, all of whom 
 were young men, in building upon the Independence of the 
 United States that wisest and best plan of general govern- 
 ment that was ever devised for a free people. 
 
 He found that the American people, through their chosen 
 representatives who were instructed by their wisdom and ex- 
 perience and were supported by their virtues — cultivated, puri- 
 fied and ennobled by self-reliance and the love of God — had 
 matured, in the excellent wisdom of their counsels, a new plan 
 of government, which embraced every security for their liber- 
 ties and equal rights and privileges to all in the pursuit of 
 happiness. He came as an honest and impartial student and 
 
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 his great commentary, like those of Paul, was written for the 
 benefit of all nations and people and in vindication of truths 
 that will stand for their deliverance from monarchical rule, 
 while time shall last. 
 
 A French aristocrat of the purest strain of blood and of the 
 most honorable lineage, whose family influence was coveted 
 by crowned heads ; who had no quarrel with the rulers of the 
 nation, and was secure against want by his inherited estates; 
 was moved by the agitations that compelled France to attempt 
 to grasp suddenly the liberties and happiness we had gained in 
 our revolution and, by his devout love of France, to search out 
 and subject to the test of reason the basic principles of free 
 government that had been embodied in our Constitution. This 
 was the mission of De Tocqueville, and no mission was ever 
 more honorably or justly conducted, or concluded with greater 
 eclat, or better results for the welfare of mankind. 
 
 His researches were logical and exhaustive. They included 
 every phase of every question that then seemed to be apposite 
 to the great inquiry he was making. 
 
 The judgment of all who have studied his commentaries 
 seems to have been unanimous, that his talents and learning 
 were fully equal to his task. He began with the physical geog- 
 raphy of this country, and examined the characteristics of the 
 people, of all races and conditions, their social and religious sen- 
 timents, their education and tastes ; their industries, their com- 
 merce, their local governments, their passions and prejudices, 
 and their ethics and literature ; leaving nothing unnoticed that 
 might afford an argument to prove that our plan and form of 
 government was or was not adapted especially to a peculiar 
 people, or that it would be impracticable in any different coun- 
 try, or among any different people. 
 
 The pride and comfort that the American people enjoy in the 
 great commentaries of De Tocqueville are far removed from the 
 selfish adulation that comes from a great and singular success. 
 It is the consciousness of victory over a false theory of govern- 
 ment which has aflfilicted mankind for many ages, that gives 
 joy to the true American, as it did to De Tocqueville in his 
 great triumph. 
 
 When De Tocqueville wrote, we had lived less than fifty 
 years under our Constitution. In that time no great national 
 commotion had occurred that tested its strength, or its power 
 
 ^ 
 
VI 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 of resistance to internal strife, such as had converted his be- 
 loved P'rance into fields of slaughter torn by tempests of wrath. 
 
 He had a strong conviction that no government could be 
 ordained that could resist these internal forces, when, they are 
 directed to its destruction by bad men, or unreasoning mobs, 
 and many then believed, as some yet believe, that our govern- 
 ment is unequal to such pressure, when the assault is thor- 
 oughly desperate. 
 
 Had De Tocqueville lived to examine the history of the 
 United States from i860 to 1870, his misgivings as to this 
 power of self-preservation would, probably, have been cleared 
 off. He would have seen that, at the end of the most de- 
 structive civil war that ever occurred, when animosities of the 
 bitterest sort had banished all good feeling from the hearts of 
 our people, the States of the American Union, still in complete 
 organization and equipped with all their official entourage, 
 aligned themselves in their places and took up the powers and 
 duties of local government in perfect order and without em- 
 barrassment. This would have dispelled his apprehensions, 
 if he had any, about the power of the United States to with- 
 stand the severest shocks of civil war. Could he have, traced 
 the further course of events until they open the portals of the 
 twentieth century, he would have cast away his fears of our 
 ability to restore peace, order, and prosperity, in the face of any 
 difficulties, and would have rejoiced to find in the Constitution 
 of the United States the remedy that is provided for the healing 
 of the nation. 
 
 De Tocqueville examined, with the care that is worthy the 
 importance of the subject, the nature and value of the system 
 of " local self-government," as we style this most important 
 feature of our plan, and (as has often happened) when this 
 or any subject has become a matter of anxious concern, his 
 treatment of the questions is found to have been masterly and 
 his preconceptions almost prophetic. 
 
 We are frequently indebted to him for able expositions and 
 true doctrines relating to subjects that have slumbered in the 
 minds of the people until they were suddenly forced on our at- 
 tention by unexpected events. 
 
 In his introductory chapter, M. De Toci 'eville says: 
 " Amongst the novel objects that attracted my atu ntion during 
 my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly 
 
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 vii 
 
 than the general equaUty of conditions." He referred, doubt- 
 less, to social and political conditions among the people of the 
 white race, who are described as " We, the people," in the open- 
 ing sentence of the Constitution. The last three amendments 
 of the Constitution have so changed this, that those who were 
 then negro slaves are clothed with the rights of citizenship, 
 including the right of suffrage. This was a political party 
 movement, intended to be radical and revolutionary, but it 
 will, ultimately, react because it has not the sanction of public 
 opinion. 
 
 If M. De Tocqueville could now search for a law that would 
 negative this provision in its effect upon social equality, he 
 would fail to find it. But he would find it in the unwritten law 
 of the natural aversion of the races. He would find it in public 
 opinion, which is the vital force in every law in a free govern- 
 ment. This is a subject that our Constitution failed to regulate, 
 because it was not contemplated by its authors. It is a question 
 that will settle itself, without serious difficulty. The equality 
 in the suffrage, thus guaranteed to the negro race, alone — 
 for it was not intended to include other colored races — creates 
 a new phase of political conditions that M. De Tocqueville could 
 not foresee. Yet, in his commendation of the local town and 
 county governments, he applauds and sustains that elementary 
 feature of our political organization which, in the end, will 
 render harmless this wide departure from the original plan 
 and purpose of American Democracy. " Local Self-Govem- 
 ment," independent of general control, except for general pur- 
 poses, is the root and origin of all free republican government, 
 and is the antagonist of all great political combinations that 
 threaten the rights of minorities. It is the public opinion 
 formed in the independent expressions of tOAvns and other 
 small civil districts that is the real conservatism of free gov- 
 ernment. It is equally the enemy of that dangerous evil, the 
 corruption of the ballot-box, from which it is now apprehended 
 that one of our greatest troubles is to arise. 
 
 The voter is selected, under our laws, because he has cer- 
 tain physical qualifications — ^age and sex. His disqualifications, 
 when any are imposed, relate to his education or property, 
 and to the fact that he has not been convicted of crime. Of 
 all men he should be most directly amenable to public opinion. 
 
 The test of moral character and devotion to the duties of 
 
 vl 
 
• •• 
 
 VIU 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 / 
 
 good citizenship are ignored in the laws, because the courts can 
 seldom deal with such questions in a uniform and satisfactory 
 way, under rules that apply alike to all. Thus the voter, se- 
 lected by law to represent himself and four other non-voting 
 citizens, is often a person who is unfit for any public duty or 
 trust. In a town government, having a small area of jurisdic- 
 tion, where the voice of the majority of qualified voters is 
 conclusive, the fitness of the person who is to exercise that 
 high representative privilege can be determined by his neigh- 
 bors and acquaintances, and, in the great majority of cases, 
 it will be decided honestly and for the good of the country. In 
 such meetings, there is always a spirit of loyalty to the State, 
 because that is loyalty to the people, and a reverence for 
 God that gives weight to the duties and responsibilities of 
 citizenship. 
 
 M. De Tocqueville found in these minor local jurisdictions 
 the theoretical conservatism which, in the aggregate, is the 
 safest reliance of the State. So we have found them, in 
 practice, the true protectors of the purity of the ballot, without 
 which all free government will degenerate into absolutism. 
 
 In the future of the Republic, we must encounter many diffi- 
 cult and dangerous situations, but the principles established 
 in the Constitution and the check upon hasty or inconsiderate 
 legislation, and upon executive action, and the supreme arbitra- 
 ment of the courts, will be found sufficient for the safety of 
 personal rights, and for the safety of the government, and the 
 prophetic outlook of M. De Tocqueville will be fully realized 
 through the influence of Democracy in America. Each suc- 
 ceeding generation of Americans will find in the pure and im- 
 partial reflections of De Tocqueville a new source of pride in 
 our institutions of government, and sound reasons for patriotic 
 effort to preserve them and to inculcate their teachings. They 
 have mastered the power of monarchical rule in the American 
 Hemisphere, freeing religion from all shackles, and will spread, 
 by a quiet but resistless influence, through the islands of the 
 seas to other lands, where the appeals of De Tocqueville for 
 human rights and liberties have already inspired the souls of 
 the people. 
 
 j^. 
 
 i 
 
 tn 
 
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 NEARLY two-thirds of a century has elapsed since the 
 appearance of " Democracy in America," by Alexis 
 Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville, a French noble- 
 man, born at Paris, July 29, 1805. 
 
 Bred to the law, he exhibited an early predilection for 
 philosophy and political economy, and at twenty-two was 
 appointed judge-auditor at the tribunal of Versailles. 
 
 In 183 1, commissioned ostensibly to investigate the peni- 
 tentiary system of the United States, he visited this country, 
 with his friend, Gustave de Beaumont, travelling extensively 
 through those parts of the Republic then subdued to settle- 
 ment, studying the methods of local. State, and national ad- 
 ministration, and observing the manners and habits, the daily 
 life, the business, the industries and occupations of the people. 
 
 " Democracy in America," the first of four volumes upon 
 "American Institutions and their Influence," was published 
 in 1835. It was received at once by the scholars and thinkers 
 of Europe as a profound, impartial, and entertaining exposi- 
 tion of the principles of popular, representative self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Napoleon, " the mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream," 
 had abolished feudalism and absolutism, made monarchs and 
 dynasties obsolete, and substituted for the divine right of 
 kings the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 Although by birth and sympathies an aristocrat, M. de 
 Tocqueville saw that the reign of tradition and privilege at 
 last was ended. He perceived that civilization, after many 
 bloody centuries, had entered a new epoch. He beheld, and 
 deplored, the excesses that had attended the genesis of the 
 democratic spirit in France, and while he loved liberty, he 
 detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Be- 
 longing neither to the class which regarded the social revolu- 
 
 iX 
 
 N 
 
DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 li 7 
 
 ' !l 
 
 I 
 
 tion as an innovation to be resisted, nor to that which con- 
 sidered political equality the universal panacea for the evils 
 of humanity, he resolved by personal observation of the re- 
 sults of democracy in the New World to ascertain its natural 
 consequences, and to learn what the nations of Europe had to 
 hope or fear from its final supremacy. 
 
 That a youth of twenty-six should entertain a design so 
 broad and bold implies singular intellectual intrepidity. He 
 had neither model nor precedent. The vastness and novelty 
 of the undertaking increase admiration for the remarkable 
 ability with which the task was performed. 
 
 Were literary excellence the sole claim of " Democracy in 
 America " to distinction, the splendor of its composition alone 
 would entitle it to high place among the masterpieces of the 
 century. The first chapter, upon the exterior form of North 
 America, as the theatre upon which the great drama is to be 
 enacted, for graphic and picturesque description of the physical 
 characteristics of the continent is not surpassed in literature: 
 nor is there any subdivision of the work in which the severest 
 philosophy is not invested with the grace of poetry, and the 
 driest statistics with the charm of romance. Western emigra- 
 tion seemed commonplace and prosaic till M. de Tocqueville 
 said, " This gradual and continuous progress of the European 
 race toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a 
 providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising un- 
 abatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God ! " 
 
 The mind of M. de Tocqueville had the candor of the photo- 
 graphic camera. It recorded impressions with the impartiality 
 of nature. The image was sometimes distorted, and the 
 perspective was not always true, but he was neither a pane- 
 gyrist, nor an advocate, nor a critic. He observed American 
 phenomena as illustrations, not as proof nor arguments; and 
 although it is apparent that the tendency of his mind was not 
 wholly favorable to the democratic principle, yet those who 
 dissent from his conclusions must commend the ability and 
 courage with which they are expressed. 
 
 Though not originally written for Americans, " Democracy 
 in America " must always remain a work of engrossing and 
 constantly increasing interest to citizens of the United States 
 as the first philosophic and comprehensive view of our so- 
 ciety, institutions, and destiny. No one can rise even from 
 
SPECIAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 XI 
 
 the most cursory perusal without clearer insight and more 
 patriotic appreciation of the blessings of liberty protected by 
 law, nor without encouragement for the stability and per- 
 petuity of the Republic. The causes which appeared to M. 
 de Tocqueville to menace both, have gone. The despotism of 
 public opinion, the tyranny of majorities, the absence of in- 
 tellectual freedom which seemed to him to degrade adminis- 
 tration and bring statesmanship, learning, and literature to 
 the level of the lowest, are no longer considered. The violence 
 of party spirit has been mitigated, and the judgment of the 
 wise is not subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant. 
 
 Other dangers have come. Equality of conditions no longer 
 exists. Prophets of evil predict the downfall of democracy, 
 but the student of M. de Tocqueville will find consolation 
 and encouragement in the reflection that the same spirit which 
 has vanquished the perils of the past, which he foresaw, will 
 be equally prepared for the responsibilities of the present and 
 the future. 
 
 The last of the four volumes of M. de Tocqueville's work 
 upon American institutions appeared in 1840. 
 
 In 1838 he was chosen member of the Academy of Moral 
 and Political Sciences. In 1839 he was elected to the Chamber 
 of Deputies. He became a member of the French Academy 
 in 1841. 
 
 In 1848 he was in the Assembly, and from June 2nd to Oc- 
 tober 31st he was Minister of Foreign Affairs. The coup d'etat 
 of December 2, 185 1 drove him from the public service. In 
 1856 he published "The Old Regime and the Revolution." 
 He died at Cannes, April 15, 1859, at the age of fifty-four. 
 
 5^€^«^*^ 
 
 J^^^iM- 
 
 \\ 
 

 
 I 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 99 
 
 THE FIRST PART 
 
 PACK 
 
 Introductory chapter 3 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Exterior form of North America 17 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 Origin of the Anglo-Americans, and its importance in relation to 
 
 their future condition 26 
 
 Reasons of certain anomalies which the laws and customs of 
 the Anglo-Americans present 43 
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 Social condition of the Anglo-Americans 46 
 
 The striking characteristic of the social condition of the Anglo- 
 
 Americann is its essential democracy 46 
 
 Political consequences of the social condition of the Anglo- 
 Americans S3 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The principle of the sovereignty of the people in America 55 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Necessity of examining the condition of the States before that of 
 
 the Union at large 58 
 
 The American system of townships and municipal bodies 59 
 
 Limits of the township 61 
 
 Authorities of the township in New England 61 
 
 Existence of the township 63 
 
 Public spirit of the townships of New England 65 
 
 The counties of New England 68 
 
 Administration in New England 69 
 
 General remarks on the administration of the United States ... 77 
 
 Of the State 81 
 
 xiii 
 
 ,1 
 
Xiv hl<. KKUUIsVII.I.I'. 
 
 LriiiNlitllvr iinwrr of llic Slati' ..,,, ,,,,. Hi 
 
 'lilt' rmrillivr piiwt'l ii( ||i«< SliiU- H,\ 
 
 J'dlilit'iil t'lfi'dt m( (lie NyNlnii n( Itu-iil itiliiiiiii>t|niliiiii in Ili«< 
 
 UiiikHl SlulcN 84 
 
 CIIAITI'U VI 
 
 Jit«lt«'litl |i(iw«'i' ill llio UiiilrtI SliUcN, ami iU iiill^U'iUT mi iMililical 
 
 Mitt icly i/i 
 
 Oilier iiowcrN Hriiiiloil In Aiiiciit'iiii JiiiIkc'* 101 
 
 IIIAI'II'.U VII 
 
 Polilicill Jllli!(«llclillll III llU< dllilCll SllllOH Il).t 
 
 t'llAI'TKU VIII 
 
 'I'lio I'Vtlcriil I'onsliMilinii 1 ki 
 
 llisloiy of llic I'Vilt'i'til ('oiiNliliiliiMi no 
 
 Siniiiiiuiy of tlio I'VtInal (oiiMlilnlion , uj 
 
 l'ivio)(i«tivi< of llu' I'Vilnal (iovcninu'iil 1 ij 
 
 l'\'<lrrttl |>owoi?« 115 
 
 I.CItisllklivC (tOWCIN \\\, 
 
 A fiiillici ililTnriKT hclwccii (lie Sciialc aiul llii' lioiisc «»( K«'p 
 
 iTsoiitrtlivcs I iH 
 
 Tlio cxcoiUivc v»»w»r 1 K) 
 
 DitToiTiUTs liolwiHMi (lie position of (lu< I'lcsiiK'iil of llu< UiiiU-d 
 
 StuloN aiitl lliiit of a C'oiistiliitioiial KIiik of iMaiuc 1 ji 
 
 Awiilctital caiisrs wtiicli may iiu'ioasc tlio iiilliicitcc «i( tlic l<'x- 
 
 tvntivo (ioviMiiiiU'iil I j.| 
 
 Why tlio I'losiiloiit of tho UiiitotI Statos «Iooh not roqniro llio 
 
 iiiitjoiity of tlio two IloiiKOH in «)nlor to carry on tlio (iovorn 
 
 IllOIlt Uf, 
 
 Ivtoctioii t»f tlio I'rositlonI tj() 
 
 Moilo of olootioii i,<o 
 
 iVisis of (lio olootion i.y 
 
 Ro oUvtion of tlio Prosiilont i.»s 
 
 I'Vdoral courts 1,^7 
 
 Moans of tlotonnininn tlio {iiris«tiction of the I'otloral ct>iirts. ., . 141 
 
 DitToront cases of inris«tiction 14J 
 
 l*rocoilnro of tho I'V«loral courts 14(1 
 
 llinh rank of tho Supremo Court anuHiRst tho mroat powers 
 
 of State 141) 
 
 In what respects the Fe«leral Constitution is superior to that 
 
 of the States 151 
 
 Characteristics which (listiuRuish t!io I'Vderal Constitution of 
 
 the I'nited States of America from all other I'Vtleral Ci>n- 
 
 stitutions 155 
 
 Ailvantages of the Federal system in K^^iteral, ami its special 
 
 utility in America 158 
 
 Why tlie Foilcral system is not ada|>le»l to all peoples, ami how 
 
 the Anglo- Americans were onablcil to adopt it 164 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XV 
 
 CHAI'TKk IX 
 
 fAOII 
 
 Wliy llir pniplc limy Htriclly Iw Niiid lo Knvcrri in tht Uiiilcil SuttH. 173 
 
 CHAI'TKK X 
 
 I'arlii'H ill llir I liijicd SIiiIi-h 174 
 
 Ui-iiiiiiii>4 of ihf ariKlocrulic piiriy in the United SttttcH 17<> 
 
 CIIAI'TICk XI 
 l.ilicriy of llitr preNn in the United StalcH iKi 
 
 CIIAI'TKU XII .. 
 l*otilirid nsHocinlionH in the United StutcH lyi 
 
 CIIAl'IKK XIII 
 
 (ioveriiiiient of the deiiioeruey in Atiieriea m)i> 
 
 I IniverHal siilTiiiKe aoo 
 
 Choice of (he peopK", and iiisliiu-tive prefereiieeH r)f (he Aincri- 
 
 cnii denioeraey ;joi 
 
 Causes which may partly correct these tendencies of the «le- 
 
 iiiocracy 204 
 
 Inlliience which the American <leinocracy has exercised on the 
 
 laws relatiiiK to electioiiH 207 
 
 IMililic ollicers im<ler the control of the <lemocracy in America. . joij 
 Arliitrary power of the inagistratCH under the rule of the 
 
 American democracy 2H 
 
 Instability of the administration in the United States 213 
 
 CliarKcs levied by the State under the rule of the American 
 
 democracy 215 
 
 Tendencies of the American «lemocracy as regards the salaries 
 
 of public officers 219 
 
 Difliculty of distinguishinR the causes which contribute to the 
 
 economy of the American Government 221 
 
 Whether the expenditure of the United States can be compared 
 
 to (hat of Franco 222 
 
 Corruption and vices of the rulers in a democracy, and con- 
 
 se(pient effects upf)n public morality 227 
 
 Efforts of which a democracy is capable 229 
 
 Self-control of the American democracy 232 
 
 Conduct of foreign affairs by the American democracy 235 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 What the real advantages arc which American society derives from 
 
 the government of the democracy 240 
 
 (jcneral tendency of the laws under the rule of the American 
 democracy, and habits of those who apply them 240 
 
 11 
 
 miKvesiHsaa 
 
xvi DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 rAOB 
 
 Public spirit in the United States 34s 
 
 Notion of rights in the United States 348 
 
 Respect fur the law in the United States aji 
 
 Activity which pervades all the brandies of the body politic in 
 the United States; inlUicncc which it exercises upon society. . 253 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Unlimited power of the majority m the United States, and its con- 
 sequences 258 
 
 How the unlimited power of the majority increases in America 
 the instability of legislation and administration inherent in 
 
 democracy 261 
 
 Tyranny of the majority 263 
 
 Effects of the unlimited power of the majority upon the ar- 
 bitrary authority of the American public officers 266 
 
 Power exercised by the majority in America upon opinion 267 
 
 Effects of the tyranny of the majority upon the national char- 
 acter of the Americans 270 
 
 The greatest dangers of the American republics proceed from 
 the unlimited power of the majority 273 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Causes which mitigate the tyranny of the majority in the United 
 
 States 275 
 
 Absence of central administration 275 
 
 The profession of the law in the United States serves to coun- 
 terpoise the democracy 277 
 
 Trial by jury in the United States considered as a political insti- 
 tution 285 
 
 CHAPTER XVn 
 
 Principal causes which tend to maintain the democratic republic in 
 the United States 292 
 
 Accidental or providential causes which contribute to the main- 
 tenance of the democratic republic in the United States 292 
 
 Influence of the laws upon the maintenance of the democratic 
 republic in the United States 303 
 
 Influence of manners upon the maintenance of the democratic 
 republic in the United States 304 
 
 Religion considered as a political institution which powerfully 
 contributes to the maintenance of the democratic republic 
 amongst the Americans 304 
 
 Indirect influence of religious opinions upon political society in 
 the United States 308 
 
 Principal causes which render religion powerful in America 313 
 
 How the instruction, the habits, and the practical experience of 
 the Americans promote the success of their democratic insti- 
 tutions 320 
 
 IK 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XVIl 
 
 The laws contribute more to the maintenance of the democratic 
 republic in the United States than the physical circumstance!! 
 of the country, ikI the manners more than the laws 324 
 
 Whether laws an«l manners arc sufficient to maintain demo- 
 cratic institutions in other countries besides America JJ19 
 
 Importance of what precedes with respect to the state of Europe 33J 
 
 CHAi' rr.R xvui 
 
 The present and probable future conditiufi ni the three races which 
 inhabit the territory of the United States 337 
 
 The present and probable future condition of the Indian tribes 
 which inhabit the territory possessed by the Union 343 
 
 Situation of the black population in the United States, and dan- 
 gers with which its presence threatens the whites 361 
 
 What arc the chances in favor of the duration of the American 
 Union, and what dangers threaten it 387 
 
 Of the republican institutions of the United States, and what 
 their chances of duration are 422 
 
 Reflection on the causes of the commercial prosperity of the 
 United States 438 
 
 Conclusion of the First Part 436 
 
 ■/ 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 'I 
 
 i 
 
 Hi 
 
 i/j 
 
m 
 
 Km 
 
 ,'1 
 \ 
 
 It • 
 
 ■; si 
 
 Mi 
 
 
 ■ 'ii' 
 
 f 
 
 il 
 
 '1' 
 
 i 
 
 « i ii 
 
 1 lit ' 
 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 Fac-siniiles from Rare iind Curious Books. 
 
 i 
 
 EARLY VENETIAN PRINTING. 
 
 From the Liliro del Peref^rino. frinteci !■>■ Mnnfrcdus Bonus dc Montis Frrrato 
 at X'cnice in 1512. A copy of tlic work i> [jrcbervcd in the liiblioteca Marciana, 
 
 f ' 
 
 Ml 
 % 
 

 Abzo M l^crcgrino Tlouamc^ 
 re ^inpjelTocrcdiUto alia 
 fuafinccritacofitavi* 
 tatJdloBii' 
 ctoic, 
 
 Dilvo itiio (c afpcrtiiito o reiccro fotKs'&C' 
 
 re poterai:lecrojc.1Hbnle circrniinio 
 
 oc'Croia.inoIefoitucocl^oma.lHd 
 
 li erro:i oc ^litc. rOa oe vno pudi 
 
 coAmo;€lQ biftoziflpozro e.narro 
 
 IJbcrbo fccuro vcngo pcrcbe 
 
 amoic c pietadcincfannola 
 
 fcbo«a'<€tfc oclfcriproie 
 
 parole intende refpodc 
 
 re porerjJh '^aco/iio 
 
 jCamc.ico 0.1 ipsa r 
 
 ma fidclc rccira/ 
 
 to:e viiict valc' <€t come iiircfc fcripfe. 
 
 C^'/^ 
 
 S#*5 
 
 Manfredus Bonum de Moaii»F(«ni*. 
 
 1 
 
 I "I 
 
 (I 
 
! [fit 
 
4' 
 
 m 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PACING PAGB 
 
 FronHsfUci 
 
 xvm 
 
 54 
 
 Alexis de Tocqueville .... 
 Photogravure from a steel engraving 
 
 Early Venetian Printing 
 
 Fac-simile from a Book printed in 15 12 
 
 Teiresias and Odysseus .... 
 Photo-engraving from the original marble relief 
 
 Portions of Pages from the First English Prayer- 
 book . . . . . . . , , .172 
 
 Fac-simile example of Printing in the Sixteenth Century 
 
 Diana 
 
 Photo-engraving from the original marble statue 
 
 274 
 
 if 
 I 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 I'' 
 
I 
 
 Ul!' 
 
 ■l 
 
 i 
 
 ,!!«■ 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 AMONGST the novel objects that attracted my attention 
 during my stay in the United States, nothing struck 
 me more forcibly than the general equality of condi- 
 tions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this 
 primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving 
 a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the 
 laws ; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and 
 peculiar habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the 
 influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character 
 and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over 
 civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions, 
 engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, 
 and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I ad- 
 vanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived 
 that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from 
 which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at 
 which all my observations constantly terminated. 
 
 I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I 
 imagined that I discerned something analogous to the spectacle 
 which the New World presented to me. I observed that the 
 equality of conditions is daily progressing towards those ex- 
 treme limits which it seems to have reached in the United States, 
 and that the democracy which governs the American communi- 
 ties appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence 
 conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader. 
 
 It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution 
 is going on amongst us ; but there are two opinions as to its 
 nature and consequences. To some it appears to be a novel 
 accident, which as such may still be checked ; to others it seems 
 irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most ancient, 
 and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in his- 
 tory. Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred 
 years ago, when the territory was divided amongst a small 
 
 3 
 
 
 fl 
 
 ¥ 
 
 'I 
 
\ 1 
 
 ¥ 
 
 !^* 1 
 
 I I 
 
 I •< 
 
 tl 
 
 4 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the 
 rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended 
 with the family inheritance from generation to generation; 
 force was the only means by which man could act on man, and 
 landed property was the sole source of power. Soon, however, 
 the political power of the clergy was founded, and began to 
 exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all classes, to the 
 poor and the rich, the villein and the lord ; equality penetrated 
 into the Government through the Church, and the being who 
 as a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his 
 place as a priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently 
 above the heads of kings. 
 
 The different relations of men became more complicated and 
 more numerous as society gradually became more stable and 
 more civilized. Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and 
 the order of legal functionaries soon rose from the obscurity 
 of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the court 
 of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine 
 and their mail. Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by 
 their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their re- 
 sources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching them- 
 selves by commerce. The influence of money began to be per- 
 ceptible in State affairs. The transactions of business opened 
 a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of politi- 
 cal influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. 
 Gradually the spread of mental acquirements, and the increas- 
 ing taste for literature and art, opened chances of success to 
 talent; science became a means of government, intelligence 
 led to social power, and the man of letters took a part in the 
 affairs of the State. The value attached to the privileges of 
 birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new paths were 
 struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility 
 was beyond all price ; in the thirteenth it might be purchased ; 
 it was conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was 
 thus introduced into the Government by the aristocracy itself. 
 
 In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes hap- 
 pened that in order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to 
 diminish the power of their rivals, the nobles granted a certain 
 share of political rights to the people. Or, more frequently, the 
 king permitted the lower orders to enjoy a degree of power, 
 with the intention of repressing the aristocracy. In France the 
 
 i/v 
 
 1^' 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 kings have always been the most active and the most constant 
 of levellers. When they were strong and ambitious they spared 
 no pains to raise the people to the level of the nobles; when 
 they were temperate or weak they allowed the pec to rise 
 above themselves. Some assisted the democracy by ^neir tal- 
 ents, others by their vices. Louis XI and Louis XIV reduced 
 every rank beneath the throne to the same subjection; Louis 
 XV descended, himself and all his Court, into the dust. 
 
 As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, 
 and personal property began in its turn to confer influence and 
 power, every improvement which was introduced in commerce 
 or manufacture was a fresh element of the equality of condi- 
 tions. Henceforward every new discovery, every new want 
 which it engendered, and every new desire which craved satis- 
 faction, was a step towards the universal level. The taste for 
 luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, and the most 
 superficial as well as the deepest passions of the human heart, 
 co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich. 
 
 From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the 
 source of strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to con- 
 sider every addition to science, every fresh truth, and everv 
 new idea as a germ of power placed within the reach of the 
 people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the grace of wit, the 
 glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all the gifts 
 which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned 
 to the advantage of the democracy ; and even when they were 
 in the possession of its adversaries they still served its cause 
 by throwing into relief the natural greatness of man ; its con- 
 quests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowl- 
 edge, and literature became an arsenal where the poorest and 
 the weakest could always find weapons to their hand. 
 
 In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet 
 with a single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, 
 which has not turned to the advantage of equality. The Cru- 
 sades and the wars of the English decimated the nobles and 
 divided their possessions; the erection of communities intro- 
 duced an element of democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal 
 monarchy ; the invention of fire-arms equalized the villein and 
 the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the same re- 
 sources to the minds of all classes ; the post was organized so 
 as to bring the same information to the door of the poor man's 
 
 I*; 
 
 ft 
 
 ' 
 
 I; 
 
 i:! 
 
!^ 
 
 
 
 6 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 cottage and to the gate of the palace ; and Protestantism pro- 
 claimed that all men are alike able to find the road to heaven. 
 The discovery of America offered a thousand new paths to 
 fortune, and placed riches and power within the reach of the 
 adventurous and the obscure. If we examine what has hap- 
 pened in France at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the 
 eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a twofold 
 revolution has taken place in the state of society. The noble 
 has gone down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone 
 up; the one descends as the other rises. Every half century 
 brings them nearer to each other, and they will very shortly 
 meet. 
 
 Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whither- 
 soever we turn our eyes we shall witness the same continual 
 revolution throughout the whole of Christendom. The various 
 occurrences of national existence have everywhere turned to 
 the advantage of democracy ; all men have aided it by their ex- 
 ertions : those who have intentionally labored in its •.^use, and 
 those who have served it unwittingly ; those who ha"e fought 
 for it and those who have declared themselves its opponents, 
 have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to 
 one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly ; all have been 
 blind instruments in the hands of God. 
 
 The gradual development of the equality of conditions is 
 therefore a providential fact, and it possesses all the characteris- 
 tics of a divine decree : it is universal, v' '"s durable, it constantly 
 eludes all human interference, and all events as well as all men 
 contribute to its progress. Would it, then, be wise to imagine 
 that a social impulse which dates from so far back can be checked 
 by the efforts of a generation ? Is it credible that the democracy 
 which has annihilated the feudal system and vanquished kings 
 will respect the citizen and the capitalist? Will it stop now that 
 it has grown so strong and its adversaries so weak ? None can 
 say which way we are going, for all terms of comparison are 
 wanting: the equality of conditions is more complete in the 
 Christian countries of the present day than it has been at any 
 time or in any part of the world ; so that the extent of what al- 
 ready exists prevents us from foreseeing what may be yet to 
 come. 
 
 The whole book which is here offered to the public has been 
 written under the impression of a kind of religious dread pro- 
 
 ', 
 
\ 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 1 
 
 duced in the author's mind by the contemplati(/ of so in - 
 sistible a revolution, which has advanced for centuries in spite ui 
 such amazing obstacles, and which is still proceeding in the 
 midst of the ruins it has made. It is not necessary that God 
 himself should speak in order to disclose to us the unquestion- 
 able signs of His will; we can discern them in the habitual 
 course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events : I 
 know, without a special revelation, that the planets move in the 
 orbits traced by the Creator's finger. If the men of our time 
 were led by attentive observation and by sincere reflection to 
 acknowledge that the gradual and progressive development of 
 social equality is at once the past and future of their history, 
 this solitary truth would confer the sacred character of a Divine 
 decree upon the change. To attempt to check democracy would 
 be in that case to resist the will of God ; and the nations would 
 then be constrained to make the best of the social lot awarded to 
 them by Providence. 
 
 The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most 
 alarming spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along 
 is so strong that it cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid 
 that it cannot be guided : their fate is in their hands ; yet a little 
 while and it may be so no longer. The first duty which is at this 
 time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate the 
 democracy ; to warm its faith, if that be possible ; to purify its 
 morals; to direct its energies; to substitute a knowledge of 
 business for its inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true 
 interests for its blind propensities ; to adapt its government to 
 time and place, and to modify it in compliance with the occur- 
 rences and the actors of the age. A new science of politics is in- 
 dispensable to a new world. This, however, is what we think 
 of least ; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we obsti- 
 nately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be described upon 
 the shore we have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and 
 drives us backwards towards the gulf. 
 
 In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which 
 I have been describing made such rapid progress as in France ; 
 but it has always been borne on by chance. The heads of the 
 State have never had any forethought for its exigencies, and 
 its victories have been obtained without their consent or with- 
 out their knowledge. The most powerful, the most intelligent, 
 and the most moral classes of the nation have never attempted to 
 
 |l 
 
 y 
 
 
Li 
 
 ft 
 \ 
 
 8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I ( 
 
 \\^i^. 
 
 •t 
 
 r 
 
 i 
 
 fl 
 
 connect themselves with it in order to guide it. The people 
 has consequently been abandoned to its wild propensities, and 
 it has grown up like those outcasts who receive their education 
 in the public streets, and who arc unacquainted with aught but 
 the vices and wretchedness of society. The existence of a de- 
 mocracy was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took 
 possession of the supreme power. Everything was then sub- 
 mitted to its caprices ; it was worshipped as the idol of strength ; 
 until, when it was enfeebled by its own excesses, the legislator 
 conceived the rash project of annihilating its power, instead of 
 instructing it and correcting its vices;, no attempt was made to 
 fit it to govern, but all were bent on excluding it from the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolu- 
 tion has been effected only in the material parts of society, with- 
 out that concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and man- 
 ners which Was necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. 
 We have gotten a democracy, but without the conditions which 
 lessen its vices and render its natural advantages more promi- 
 nent ; and although we already perceive the evils it brings, we 
 are ignorant of the benefits it may confer. 
 
 While the power of the Crown, supported by the aristocracy, 
 peaceably governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, 
 in the midst of its wretchedness, several different advantages 
 which can now scarcely be appreciated or conceived. The power 
 of a part of his subjects was an insurmountable barrier to the 
 tyranny of the prince; and the monarch, who felt the almost 
 divine character which he enjoyed in the eyes of the multitude, 
 derived a motive for the just use of his power from the respect 
 which he inspired. High as they were placed above the people, 
 the nobles could not but take that calm and benevolent interest in 
 its fate which the shepherd feels towards his flock ; and with- 
 out acknowledging the poor as their equals, they watched over 
 the destiny of those whose welfare Providence had entrusted to 
 their care. The people never having conceived the idea of a 
 social condition different from its own, and entertaining no 
 expectation of ever ranking with its chiefs, received benefits 
 from them without discussing their rights. It grew attached to 
 them when they were clement and just, and it submitted with- 
 out resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevit- 
 able visitations of the arm of God. Custom, and the manners 
 
 :^ji 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 of the time, had moreover created a species of law in the midst 
 of violence, and established certain limits to oppression. As the 
 noble never suspected that anyone would attempt to deprive him 
 of the privileges which he believed to be legitimate, and as the 
 serf looked upon his own inferiority as a consequence of the 
 immutable order of nature, it is easy to imagine that a mutual 
 exchange of good-will took place between two classes so diflfer- 
 ently j;iftcd by fate. Inequality and wretchedness were then to 
 be found in society ; but the souls of neither rank of men were 
 degraded. Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or 
 debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power 
 which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which 
 they consider to be usurped and oppressive. On one side was 
 wealth, strength, and leisure, accompanied by the refinements 
 of luxury, the elegance of taste, the pleasures of wit, and the re- 
 ligion of art. On the other was labor and a rude ignorance ; but 
 in the midst of this coarse and ignorant multitude it was not un- 
 common to meet with energetic passions, generous sentiments, 
 profound religious convictions, and independent virtues. The 
 body of a State thus organized might boast of its stability, its 
 power, and, above all, of its glory. 
 
 But the scene is now changed, and gradually the two ranks 
 mingle ; the divisions which once severed mankind are lowered, 
 property is divided, power is held in common, the light of intelli- 
 gence spreads, and the capacities of all classes are equally culti- 
 vated ; the State becomes democratic, and the empire of de- 
 mocracy is slowly and peaceably introduced into the institutions 
 and the manners of the nation. I can conceive a society in which 
 all men would profess an equal attachment and respect for the 
 laws of which they are the common authors ; in which the au- 
 thority of the State would be respected as necessary, though 
 not as divine ; and the loyalty of the subject to its chief magis- 
 trate would not be a passion, but a quiet and rational persua- 
 sion. Every individual being, in the possession of rights which 
 he is sure to retain, a kind of manly reliance and reciprocal 
 courtesy would arise between all classes, alike removed from 
 pride and meanness. The people, well acquainted with its true 
 intcvests, would allow that in order to profit by the advantages 
 of society it is necessary to satisfy its demands. In this state 
 of things the voluntary association of the citizens might supply 
 
 "/ 
 
 K 
 
 
 I: 
 
 
lO 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the individual exertions of the nobles, and the community would 
 be alike protected from anarchy and from oppression. 
 
 I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society 
 will not be stationary ; but the impulses of the social body may 
 be regulated and directed forwards; if there be less splendor 
 than in the li ills of an aristocracy, the contrast of misery will 
 be less frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may be less 
 excessive, but those of comfort will be more general ; the sci- 
 ences may be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less 
 common ; the impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and 
 the habits of the nation softened ; there will be more vices and 
 fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent 
 faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a 
 commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their 
 experience ; each individual will feel the same necessity for unit- 
 ing with his fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness ; and as 
 he knows that if they are to assist he must co-operate, he will 
 readily perceive that his personal interest is identified with the 
 interest of the community. The nation, taken as a whole, will be 
 less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong; but the 
 majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of pros- 
 perity, and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs 
 of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the advantages 
 of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of things 
 were not good or useful, society would at least have appropri- 
 ated all such as were useful and good ; and having once and for 
 ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind 
 would enter into possession of all the benefits which democracy 
 can afiford. 
 
 But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place 
 of those institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our fore- 
 fathers which we have abandoned. The spell of royalty is 
 broken, but it has not been succeeded by the majesty of the laws ; 
 the people has learned to despise all authority, but fear now ex- 
 torts a larger tribute of obedience than that which was formerly 
 paid by reverence and by love. 
 
 I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings 
 which were able to cope with tyranny single-handed ; but it is 
 the Government that has inherited the privileges of which fam- 
 ilies, corporations, and individuals have been deprived ; the 
 weakness of the whole community has therefore succeeded that 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 II 
 
 influence of a small body of citizens, which, if it was sometimes 
 oppressive, was often conservative. The division of property 
 has lessened the distance which separated the rich from the poor ; 
 but it would seem that the nearer they draw to each other, the 
 greater is their mutual hatred, and the more vehement the envy 
 and the dread with which they resist each other's claims to 
 power ; the notion of Right is alike insensible to both classes, 
 and Force affords to both the only argument for the present, and 
 the only guarantee for the future. The poor man retains the 
 prejudices of his forefathers without their faith, and their ig- 
 norance without their virtues ; he has adopted the doctrine of 
 self-interest as the rule of his actions, without understanding 
 the science which controls it, and his egotism is no less blind 
 than his devotedness was formerly. If society is tranquil, it is 
 not because it relies upon its strength and its well-being, but 
 because it knows its weakness and its infirmities ; a single eflfort 
 may cost it its life; everybody feels the evil, but no one has 
 courage or energy enough to seek the cure; the desires, the 
 regret, the sorrows, and the joys of the time produce nothing 
 that is visible or permanent, like the passions of old men which 
 terminate in impotence. 
 
 We have, then, abandoned whatever advantages the old state 
 of things aflforded, without receiving any compensation from 
 our present condition ; we have destroyed an aristocracy, and 
 we seem inclined to survey its ruins with complacency, and to 
 fix our abode in the midst of them. 
 
 The phenomena which the intellectual world presents are not 
 less deplorable. The democracy of France, checked in its course 
 or abandoned to its lawless passions, has overthrown whatever 
 crossed its path, and has shaken all that it has not destroyed. 
 Its empire on society has not been gradually introduced or 
 peaceably established, but it has constantly advanced in the 
 midst of disorder and the agitation of a conflict. In the heat of 
 the struggle each partisan is hurried beyond the limits of his 
 opinions by the opinions and the excesses of his opponents, un- 
 til he loses sight of the end of his exertions, and holds a language 
 which disguises his real sentiments or secret instincts. Hence 
 arises the strange confusion which we are witnessing. I can- 
 not recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of sor- 
 row and of pity than the scenes which are happening under our 
 eyes ; it is as if the natural bond which unites the opinions of 
 
 
 Ml 
 
 » f )i 
 
 III 
 
 As 
 
 .r: 1 
 
 if 
 
 
 i M 
 
 \(\ 
 
 V* 
 
 .'.». 
 
12 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 man to his tastes and his actions to his principles was now 
 broken ; the sympathy which has always been acknowledged be- 
 tween the feelings and the ideas of mankind appears to be dis- 
 solved, and all the laws of moral analogy to be abolished. 
 
 Zealous Christians may be found amongst us whose minds 
 are nurtured in the love and knowledge of a future life, and 
 who readily espouse the cause of human liberty as the source of 
 all moral greatness. Christianity, which has declared that all 
 men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to acknowl- 
 edge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. But, by a 
 singular concourse of events, religion is entangled in those insti- 
 tutions which democracy assails, and it is not unfrequently 
 brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that cause 
 of liberty as a foe which it might hallow by its alliance. 
 
 By the side of these religious men I discern others whose 
 looks are turned to the earth more than to Heaven ; they are 
 the partisans of liberty, not only as the source of the noblest 
 virtues, but more especially as the root of all solid advantages ; 
 and they sincerely desire to extend its sway, and to impart its 
 blessings to mankind. It is natural that they should hasten to 
 invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that liberty 
 cannot be established without morality, nor morality without 
 faith ; but they have seen religion in the ranks of their adver- 
 saries, and they inquire no further; some of them attack it 
 openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it. 
 
 In former ages slavery has been advocated by the venal and 
 slavish-minded, whilst the independent and the warm-hearted 
 were struggling without hope to save the liberties of mankind. 
 But men of high and generous characters are now to be met 
 with, whose opinions are at variance with their inclinations, and 
 who praise that servility which they have themselves never 
 known. Others, on the contrary, speak in the name of liberty, 
 as if they were able to feel its sanctity and its majesty, and 
 loudly claim for humanity those rights which they have always 
 disowned. There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose 
 pure morality, quiet habits, affluence, and talents fit them to be 
 the leaders of the surrounding population ; their love of their 
 country is sincere, and they are prepared to make the greatest 
 sacrifices to its welfare, but they confound the abuses of civiliza- 
 tion with its benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their 
 minds from that of novelty. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 13 
 
 Not far from this class is another party, whose object is to 
 materialize mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without 
 heeding what is just, to acquire knowledge without faith, and 
 prosperity apart from virtue ; assuming the title of the cham- 
 pions of modern civilization, and placing themselves in a station 
 which they usurp with insolence, and from which they are 
 driven by their own unworthiness. Where are we then? The 
 religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty 
 attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate sub- 
 jection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach inde- 
 pendence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all 
 progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles 
 are the apostles of civilization and of intelligence. Has such 
 been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? 
 and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where 
 nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and 
 genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded 
 with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a 
 contempt of law ; where the light thrown by conscience on hu- 
 man actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer 
 forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? I 
 cannot, however, believe that the Creator made man to leave him 
 in an endless struggle with the intellectual miseries which sur- 
 round us : God destines a calmer and a more certain future to 
 the communities of Europe ; I am unacquainted with His de- 
 signs, but I shall not cease to believe in them because I cannot 
 fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity than 
 His justice. 
 
 There is a country in the world where the great revolution 
 which I am speaking of seems nearly to have reached its natural 
 limits ; it has been effected with ease and simplicity, say rather 
 that this country has attained the consequences of the demo- 
 cratic revolution which we are undergoing without having 
 experienced the revolution itself. The emigrants who fixed 
 themselves on the shores of America in the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century severed the democratic principle from all 
 the principles which repressed it in the old communities of Eu- 
 rope, and transplanted it unalloyed to the New World. It has 
 there been allowed to spread in perfect freedom, and to put forth 
 its consequences in the laws by influencing the manners of the 
 country. 
 
 f 
 
 
 r 
 
 hi 11 
 
 
 
 '^ 
 
 ■,13 
 
 i 
 
 
 '% 
 
 1 
 
 V7J 
 
14 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall 
 arrive, like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of 
 conditions. But I do not conclude from this that we shall ever 
 be necessarily led to draw the same political consequences which 
 the Americans have derived from a similar social organization. 
 I am far from supposing that they have chosen the only form 
 of government which a democracy may adopt ; but the identity 
 of the efficient cause of laws and manners in the two countries is 
 sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in becom- 
 ing acquainted with its effects in each of them. 
 
 It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that 
 I have examined America ; my wish has been to find instruction 
 by which we may ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine 
 that I have intended to write a panegyric will perceive that such 
 was not my design ; nor has it been my object to advocate any 
 form of government in particular, for I am of opinion that ab- 
 solute excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation ; I have 
 not even affected to discuss whether the social revolution, which 
 I believe to be irresistible, is advantageous or prejudicial to man- 
 kind; I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact already 
 accomplished or on the eve of its accomplishment ; and I have 
 selected the nation, from amongst those which have undergone 
 it, in which its development has been the most peaceful and the 
 most complete, in order to discern its natural consequences, and, 
 if it be possible, to distinguish the means by which it may be 
 rendered profitable. I confess that in America I saw more than 
 America ; I sought the image of democracy itself, with its in- 
 clinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in or- 
 der to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its progress. 
 
 In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the 
 te dency given to the laws by the democracy of America, which 
 is abandoned almost without restraint to its instinctive propen- 
 sities, and to exhibit the course it prescribes to the Government 
 and the influence it exercises on affairs. I have sought to dis- 
 cover the evils and the advantages which it produces. I have 
 examined the precautions used by the Americans to direct it, 
 as well as those which they have not adopted, and I have under- 
 taken to point out the causes which enable it to govern so- 
 ciety. I do not know whether I have succeeded in making 
 known what I saw in America, but I am certain that such has 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 15 
 
 been my sincere desire, and that I have never, knowingly, 
 moulded facts to ideas, instead of ideas to facts. 
 
 Whenever a point could be established by the aid of written 
 documents, I have had recourse to the original text, and to the 
 most authentic and approved works, I have cited my au- 
 thorities in the notes, and anyone may refer to them. Whenever 
 an opinion, a political custom, or a remark on the manners of 
 the country was concerned, I endeavored to consult the most 
 enlightened men I met with. If the point in question was im- 
 portant or doubtful, I was not satisfied with one testimony, but 
 I formed my opinion on the evidence of several witnesses. Here 
 the reader must necessarily believe me upon my word. I could 
 frequently have quoted names which are either known to him, 
 or which deserve to be so, in proof of what I advance | but I 
 have carefully abstained from this practice. A stranger fre- 
 quently hears important truths at the fire-side of his host, which 
 the latter would perhaps conceal from the ear of friendship ; he 
 consoles himself with his guest for the silence to which he is 
 restricted, and the shortness of the traveller's stay takes away 
 all fear of his indiscretion. I carefully noted every conversation 
 of this nature as soon as it occurred, but these notes will never 
 leave my writing-case; I had rather injure the success of my 
 statements than add my name to the list of those strangers who 
 repay the generous hospitality they have received by subsequent 
 chagrin and annoyance. 
 
 I am aware that, notwithstanding my care, nothing will be 
 easier than to criticise this book, if anyone ever chooses to criti- 
 cise it. Those readers who may examine it closely will discover 
 the fundamental idea which connects the several parts together. 
 But the diversity of the subjects I have had to treat is exceed- 
 ingly great, and it will not be difficult to oppose an isolated fact 
 to the body of facts which I quote, or an isolated idea to the body 
 of ideas I put forth. I hope to be read in the spirit which has 
 guided my labors, and that my book may be judged by the gen- 
 eral impression it leaves, as I have formed my own judgment 
 not on any single reason, but upon the mass of evidence. It must 
 not be forgotten that the author who wishes to be understood is 
 obliged to push all his ideas to their utmost theoretical conse- 
 quences, and often to the verge of what is false or impractic- 
 able ; for if it be necessary sometimes to quit the rules of logic 
 in active life, such is not the case in discourse, and a man finds 
 
 ■I 
 
 ill 
 
 'I 
 
 V. 
 
 m 
 % 
 
 k 
 
 I ' 
 
 
 I! 
 
 r 
 
 i',: II 
 
 1; 
 
 II 
 
I6 
 
 f* I 
 
 ti! 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 that almost as many difficulties spring from inconsistency of 
 language as usually arise from inconsistency of conduct. 
 
 I conclude by pointing out myself what many readers will 
 consider the principal defect of the work. This book is written 
 to favor no particular views, and in composing it I have enter- 
 tained no designs of serving or attacking any party; I have 
 undertaken not to see differently, but to look further than par- 
 ties, and whilst they are busied for the morrow I have turned 
 my thoughts to the Future. 
 
 
 I) 
 
 \ 
 
 .^:^ 
 
:i 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EXTERIOR FORM OF NORTH AMERICA 
 
 North America divided into two vast regions, one inclining towards 
 the Pole, the other towards the Equator — Valley of the Mississippi 
 — Traces of the Revolutions of the Globe — Shore of the Atlantic 
 Ocean where the English Colonies were founded — Difference in the 
 appearance of North and of South America at ti.e time of their 
 Discovery — Forests of North America — Prairies — Wandering 
 Tribes of Natives — Their outward appearance, manners, and lan- 
 guage — Traces of an unknown people. 
 
 NORTH AMERICA presents in its external form certain 
 general features which it is easy to discriminate at the 
 
 first glance. A sort of methodical order seems to have 
 regulated the separation of land and water, mountains and val- 
 leys. A simple, but grand, arrangement is discoverable amidst 
 the confusion of objects and the prodigious variety of scenes. 
 This continent is divided, almost equally, into two vast regions, 
 one of which is bounded on the north by the Arctic Pole, and by 
 the two great oceans on the east and west. It stretches towards 
 the south, forming a triangle whose irregular sides meet at 
 length below the great lakes of Canada. The second region 
 begins where the other terminates, and includes all the re- 
 mainder of the continent. The one slopes gently towards the 
 Pole, the other towards the Equator. 
 
 The territory comprehended in the first region descends 
 towards the north with so imperceptible a slope that it may 
 almost be said to form a level plain. Within the bounds of this 
 immense tract of country there are neither high mountains nor 
 deep valleys. Streams meander through it irregularly : great 
 rivers mix their currents, separate and meet again, disperse and 
 form vast marshes, losing all trace of their channels in the laby- 
 rinth of waters they have themselves created ; and thus, at 
 length, after innumerable windings, fall into the Polar Seas. 
 The great lakes which bound this first region are not walled in, 
 
 Vol. I. — 2 17 
 
 '^1 
 
 \ 
 
 h^' 
 
 ,1 
 
 il 
 
 
 rhH 
 
 -*) 
 
Wi' 
 
 m 
 
 i8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 like most of those in the Old World, between hills and rocks. 
 Their banks are flat, and rise but a few feet above the level of 
 their waters ; each of them thus forming a vast bowl filled to 
 the brim. The slightest change in the structure of the globe 
 would cause their waters to rush either towards the Pole or to 
 the tropical sea. 
 
 The second region is more varied on its surface, and better 
 suited for the habitation of man. Two long chains of moun- 
 tains divide it from one extreme to the other ; the Alleghany 
 ridge takes the form of the shores of the Atlantic Ocean ; the 
 other is parallel with the Pacific. The space which lies between 
 these two chains of mountains contains 1,341,649 square miles.o 
 Its surface is therefore about six times as great as that of 
 France. This vast territory, however, forms a single valley, 
 one side of which descends gradually from the rounded sum- 
 mits of the Alleghanies, while the other rises in an uninter- 
 rupted course towards the tops of the Rocky Mountains. At 
 the bottom of the valley flows an immense river, into which 
 the various streams issuing from the mountains fall from all 
 parts. In memory of their native land, the French formerly 
 called this river the St. Louis. The Indians, in their pompous 
 language, have named it the Father of Waters, or the Missis- 
 sippi. 
 
 The Mississippi takes its source above the limit of the two 
 great regions of which I have spoken, not far from the highest 
 point of the table-land where they unite. Near the same spot 
 rises another river,& which empties itself into the Polar seas. 
 The course of the Mississippi is at first dubious: it winds 
 several times towards the north, from whence it rose; and at 
 leiiglh, after having been delayed in lakes and marshes, it flows 
 slowly onwards to the south. Sometimes quietly gliding along 
 the argillaceous bed which nature has assigned to it, some- 
 times swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in 
 its course.c At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this 
 river attains an average depth of fifteen feet ; and it is navigated 
 by vessels of 300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles. 
 Fifty-seven large navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters 
 of the Mississ''^ipi ; amongst others, the Missouri, which trav- 
 erses a space of 2,500 miles ; the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the 
 
 View of the United __f Warden's _ " Description of the 
 
 a Darby's 
 States." 
 bThe Red River. 
 
 f Warden's 
 United States.' 
 
 \ 
 
 I,'.. 
 
 (1 
 
ii 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMI lUCA 
 
 »9 
 
 Red River i,ooo miles, four whose course is from 800 to 1,000 
 miles in length, viz., the Illinois, the St. Peter's, the St. Francis, 
 and the Moingona; besides a countless multitude of rivulets 
 which unite from all parts their tributary streams. 
 
 The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed 
 to be the bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of antiquity, 
 dispenses both good and evil in its course. On the shores of the 
 stream nature displays an inexhaustible fertility; in propor- 
 tion as you recede from its banks, the powers of vegetation 
 languish, the soil becomes poor, and the plants that survive 
 have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the great convulsions of 
 the globe left more evident traces than in the valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi ; the whole aspect of the country shows the powerful 
 effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness. The 
 waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of 
 vegetable mould in the valley, which they levelled as they retired. 
 Upon the right shore of the river are seen immense plains, as 
 smooth as if the husbandman had passed over them with his 
 roller. As you approach the mountains the soil becomes more 
 and more unequal and sterile ; the ground is, as it were, pierced 
 in a thousand places by primitive rocks, which appear like the 
 bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly consumed. The sur- 
 face of the earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irreg- 
 ular masses of stone, among which a few plants force their 
 growth, and give the appearance of a green field covered with 
 the ruins of a vast edifice. These stones and this sand discover, 
 on examination, a perfect analogy with those which compose 
 the arid and broken summits of the Rocky Mountains. The 
 flood of waters which washed the soil to the bottom of the val- 
 ley afterwards carried away portions of the rocks themselves; 
 and these, dashed and bruised against the neighboring cliffs, 
 were left scattered like wrecks at their feet.d The valley of 
 the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwell- 
 ing-place prepared by God for man's abode; and yet it may 
 be said that at present it is but a mighty desert. 
 
 On the eastern side of the Alleghanies, between the base of 
 these mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, there lies a long ridge 
 of rocks and sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as 
 it retired. The mean breadth of this territory does not exceed 
 one hundred miles ; but it is about nine hundred miles in length. 
 
 d See Appendix, A. 
 
 i 
 
 I''' 
 1,1 •■ 
 
 It 
 
 1! 
 
 li 
 
 riscS?SKii^f2*rrTKfjn«M 
 
 vU 
 
20 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 . i 
 
 This part of the American continent has a soil which offers 
 every obstacle to the husbandman, and its vegetation is scanty 
 and unvaried. 
 
 Upon this inhospitable coast the first united efforts of human 
 industry were made. The tongue of arid land was the cradle of 
 those English colonies which were destined one day to become 
 the United States of America. The centre of power still re- 
 mains here; whilst in the backwoods the true elements of the 
 great people to whom the future control of the continent be- 
 longs are gathering almost in secrecy together. 
 
 When the Europeans first landed on the shores of the West 
 Indies, and afterwards on the coast of South America, they 
 thought themselves transported into those fabulous regions 
 of which poets had sung. The sea sparkled with phosphoric 
 light, and the extraordinary transparency of its waters dis- 
 covered to the view of the navigator all that had hitherto been 
 hidden in the deep abyss.^ Here and there appeared little 
 islands perfumed with odoriferous plants, and resembling bask- 
 ets of flowers floating on the tranquil surface of the ocean. 
 Every object which met the sight, in this enchanting region, 
 seemed prepared to satisfy the wants or contribute to the pleas- 
 ures of man. Almost all the trees were loaded with nourishing 
 fruits, and those which were useless as food delighted the eye 
 by the brilliancy and variety of their colors. In groves of 
 fragrant lemon-trees, wild figs, flowering myrtles, acacias, and 
 oleanders, which were hung with festoons of various climbing 
 plants, covered with flowers, a multitude of birds unknown in 
 Europe displayed their bright plumage, glittering with purple 
 and azure, and mingled their warbling with the harmony of a 
 world teeming with life and motion.^ Underneath this brilliant 
 exterior death was concealed. But the air of these climates had 
 so enervating an influence that man, absorbed by present enjoy- 
 ment, was rendered regardless of the future. 
 
 North America appeared under a very different aspect ; there 
 everything was grave, serious, and solemn: it seemed created 
 to be the domain of intelligence, as the South was that of 
 sensual delight. A turbulent and foggy ocean washed its 
 
 e Malte Brun tells us (vol. v. p. 726) 
 that the water of the Caribbean Sea is 
 so transparent that corals and fish are 
 discernible at a depth of sixty fathoms. 
 The ship seemerl to float in air, the navi- 
 gator became giddy as his eye pene- 
 
 trated through the crystal flood, and 
 beheld submarine gardens, or beds of 
 shells, or gilded fishes gliding among 
 tufts and thickets of seaweed. 
 / See Appendix, B. 
 
 I 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 •I 
 
 V 
 
 shores. It was girt round by a belt of granite rocks, or by 
 wide tracts of sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and 
 gloomy, for they were composed of firs, larches, evergreen 
 oaks, wild olive-trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt 
 lay the thick shades of the central forest, where the largest 
 trees which are produced in the two hemispheres grow side by 
 side. The plane, the catalpa, the sugar-maple, and the Vir 
 ginian poplar mingled their branches with those of the oak, 
 the beech, and the lime. In these, as in the forests of the Old 
 World, destruction was perpetually going on. The ruins of 
 vegetation were heaped upon each other; but there was no 
 laboring h?:id to remove them, and their decay was not rapid 
 enough to make room for the continual work of reproduction. 
 Climbing plants, grasses, and other herbs forced their way 
 through the mass of dying trees ; they crept along their bend - 
 ing trui>ks, found nourishment in their dusty cavities, and a 
 passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay gave its assist- 
 ance to life, and their respective productions were mingled 
 together. The depths of these forests were gloomy and ob- 
 scure, and a thousand rivulets, undirected in their course by 
 human industry, preserved in them a constant moisture. It 
 was rare to meet with flowers, wild fruits, or birds beneath their 
 shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by age, the rushing tor- 
 rent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and the howling 
 of the wind were the only sounds which broke the silence of 
 nature. 
 
 To the east of the great river, the woods almost disappeared : 
 in their stead were seen prairies of immense extent. Whether 
 Nature in her infinite variety had denied the germs of trees to 
 these fertile plains, or whether they had once been covered 
 with forests, subsequently destroyed by the hand of man, is a 
 question which neither tradition nor scientific research has been 
 able to resolve. 
 
 These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human 
 inhabitants. Some wandering tribes had been for ages scat- 
 tered among the forest shades or the green pastures of the 
 prairie. From the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the delta of 
 the Mississippi, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, 
 these savages possessed certain points of resemblance which 
 bore witness of their common origin ; but at the same time they 
 
 
 
 (ill 
 
 1 1 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 
 i 
 
 M 
 
i2 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLR 
 
 t^ ' 
 
 l.fr 
 
 (lifTcrcd from all other known races of men :g they were neither 
 white like the ICuropcans, nor yellow like most of the Asiatics, 
 nor black like the negroes. Their skin was reddish brown, 
 their hair long and shining, their lips thin, and their cheek- 
 bones very prominent. The languages spoken by the North 
 American tribes are various as far as regarded their words, 
 but they were subject to the same grammatical rules. These 
 rules differed in several points from such as had been observed 
 to govern the origin of language. The idiom of the Americans 
 .seemed to be the product of new combinations, and !)espoke 
 an efifort of the understanding of which the Indians of our days 
 would be incapable.* 
 
 The social state of these tribes differed also in many respects 
 from all that was seen in the Old World. They seemed to have 
 multiplied freely in the midst of their deserts without coming 
 in contact with other races more civilized than their own. Ac- 
 cordingly, they exhibited none of those indistinct, incoherent 
 notions of right and wrong, none of that deep corruption of 
 manners, which is usually joined with ignorance and rudeness 
 among nations which, after advancing to civilization, have re- 
 lapsed into a state of barbarism. The Indian was indebted to 
 no one but himself; his virtues, his vices, and his prejudices 
 were his own work ; he had grown up in the wild independence 
 of his nature. 
 
 Tf, in polished countries, the lowest of the people are rude 
 and uncivil, it is not merely because they are poor and ignorant, 
 but that, being so, they are in daily contact with rich and en- 
 lightened men. The sight of their own hard lot and of their 
 weakness, which is daily contrasted with the happiness and 
 power of some of their fellow-creatures, excites in their hearts 
 at the same time the sentiments of anger and of fear : the con- 
 sciousness of their inferiority and of their dependence irritates 
 while it humiliates them. This state of mind displays itself in 
 their manners and language; they are at once insolent and 
 servile. The truth of this is easily proved by observation ; 
 
 g With the progress of discovery some 
 resemblance has been found to exist be- 
 tween the physical conformation, the 
 language, and the habits of the Indians 
 of North America, and those of the 
 Tongous, Mantchous, Mongols, Tar- 
 tars, and other wandering tribes of 
 Asia. The land occupied by these 
 tribes is not very distant from Behring's 
 Strait, which allows of the supposition. 
 
 that at a remote period they gave in- 
 habitants to the desert continent of 
 America. But this is a point which has 
 not yet been clearly elucidated by 
 science. See Malte Brun, vol. v.; the 
 works of Humboldt; Fischer, "Conjec- 
 ture sur rOrigine des Americains"; 
 Adair, " History of the American In* 
 dians." 
 h See Appendix, C. 
 
 il'l 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 •3 
 
 the people arc more rude in aristocratic countries than else- 
 where, in opulent cities than in rural districts. In those places 
 where the rich and powerful are assembled together the weak 
 and the indigent feel themselves oppressed by their inferior 
 condition. Unable to perceive a single chance of regaining 
 their equality, they give up to <lcspair, and allow themselves to 
 fall below the dignity of human nature. 
 
 This unfortunate efifect of the disparity of conditions is not 
 observable in savage life: the Indians, although they are 
 ignorant and poor, are equal and free. At the period when 
 Europeans first came among them the natives of North Amer- 
 ica were ignorant of the value of riches, and indiflferent to the 
 enjoyments which civilized man procures to himself by their 
 means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their de- 
 meanor ; they practised an habitual reserve and a kind of aristo- 
 cratic politeness. Mild and hospitable when at peace, though 
 merciless in war beyond any known degree of human ferocity, 
 the Indian would expose himself to die of hunger in order to 
 succor the stranger who asked admittance by night at the door 
 of his hut ; yet he could tear in pieces with his hands the still 
 quivering limbs of his prisoner. The famous republics of 
 antiquity never gave exn' pies of more unshaken courage, 
 more haughty spirits, c aiore intractable love of independence 
 than were hidden in former times among the wild forests of the 
 New World.! The Europeans produced no great impression 
 when they landed upon the shores of North America; their 
 presence engendered neither envy nor fear. What influence 
 could they possess over such men as we have described ? The 
 Indian could live without wants, suffer without complaint, and 
 pour out his death-song at the stake.;' Like all the other mem- 
 bers of the great human family, these savages telieved in the 
 existence of a better world, and adored, under different names, 
 
 I 
 
 '\ 
 
 
 ■ I 
 
 U. 
 ^ 
 
 )'!'• 
 
 »^ 
 
 m; 
 
 in- 
 
 of 
 
 I has 
 
 I the 
 Ijec- 
 
 lln- 
 
 i We learn from President Jefferson's 
 " Notes upon Virginia," p. 148, that 
 among the Iroquois, when attacked by 
 a superior force, aged men refused to 
 fly or to survive the destruction of their 
 country; and they braved death like the 
 ancient Romans when their capital was 
 lacked by the Gauls. Further on, p. 
 150, he tells us that there is no example 
 01 an Indian who, having fallen into the 
 hands of his enemies, begged for his 
 life; on the contrary, the captive sought 
 to obtain death at the hands of his 
 conquerors by the use of insult and 
 provocation. 
 
 .'., by 
 '' His- 
 
 »■ See " Histoire de la Louisiane,' 
 Lepage Dupratz ; Charlevoix, 
 toire de la Nouvelle France"; " Let- 
 tres du Rev. G. Hecwelder ;" " Trans- 
 actions of the American Philosophical 
 Societjf," V. I ; Jefferson's " Notes on 
 Vir/?inia," pp. 135-190. What is said by 
 Jefferson is of especial weight, on ac- 
 count of the personal merit of the 
 writer, of his peculiar position, and of 
 the matter-of-fact age in which he lived. 
 
 
 ? i 1 
 
 fe 
 
 
34 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Ul' 
 
 ■(;' 
 
 m 
 
 \ 
 
 God, the creator of the universe. Their notions on the great 
 intellectual truths were in general simple and philosophical.* 
 
 Although we have here traced the character of a primitive 
 people, yet it cannot be doubted that another people, more 
 civilized and more advanced in all respects, had preceded it in 
 the same regions. 
 
 An obscure tradition which prevailed among the Indians to 
 the north of the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes 
 formerly dwelt on the west side of the Mississippi. Along the 
 banks of the Ohio, and throughout the central valley, there are 
 frequently found, at this day, tumuli raised by the hands of 
 men. On exploring these heaps of earth to their centre, it is 
 usual to meet with human bones, strange instruments, arms 
 and utensils of all kinds, made of metal, or destined for pur- 
 poses unknown to the present race. The Indians of our time 
 are unable to give any information relative to the history of 
 this unknown people. Neither did those who lived three hun- 
 dred years ago, when America was first discovered, leave any 
 accounts from which even an hypothesis could be formed. 
 Tradition — that perishable, yet ever renewed monument of the 
 pristine world — throws no light upon the subject. It is an 
 undoubted fact, however, that in this part of the globe thou- 
 sands of our fellow-beings had lived. When they came hither, 
 what was their origin, their destiny, their history, and how 
 they perished, no one can tell. How strange does it appear 
 that nations have existed, and afterwards so completely dis- 
 appeared from the earth that the remem^iCice of their very 
 names is effaced ; their languages are Iojsl , ..leir glory is van- 
 ished like a sound without an echo; though perhaps there is 
 not one which has not left behind it some tomb in memory of 
 its passage ! The most durable monument of human labor is 
 that which recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man. 
 
 Although the vast country which we have been describing 
 was inhabited by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said 
 at the time of its discovery by Europeans to have formed one 
 great desert. The Indians occupied without possessing it. It 
 is by agricultural labor that man appropriates the soil, and the 
 early inhabitants of North America lived by the produce of the 
 chase. Their implacable prejudices, their uncontrolled pas- 
 sions, their rices, and still more perhaps their savage virtues, 
 
 k See Appendix, D. 
 
 %■ 
 
 
M 
 
 ' 1 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 25 
 
 consigned them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these 
 nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their 
 shores ; it has proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing 
 the completion of it. They seem to have been placed by Provi- 
 dence amidst the riches of the New World to enjoy them for a 
 season, and then surrender them. Those coasts, so admirably 
 adapted for commerce and industry; those wide and deep 
 rivers ; that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi ; the whole 
 continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great 
 nation, yet unborn. 
 
 In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized 
 man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis ; and 
 it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, 
 or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which 
 the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. 
 
 j) 
 
 1 
 
 h 
 
 I V 
 
 'Jf 
 
 .* 
 
 ■ '' n 
 
 ' i 
 
 !? f ' 
 
 il ' 
 
 \<. 
 
 \l 
 
 ■\j 
 
 ii 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ORIGIN OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS, AND ITS IMPOR- 
 TANCE IN RELATION TO THEIR FUTURE CONDITION 
 
 Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their 
 social condition and their laws — America the only country in which 
 the starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable — 
 In what respects all who emigrated to British America were similar 
 — In what they differed — Remark applicable to all Europeans who 
 established themselves on the shores of the New World — Coloniza- 
 tion of Virginia — Colonization of New England — Original char- 
 acter of the first inhabitants of New England — Their arrival — 
 Their first laws — Their social contract— Penal code borrowed from 
 the Hebrew legislation — Religious fervor — Republican spirit — In- 
 timate union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of liberty. 
 
 AFTER the birth of a human being his early years are 
 obscurely spent in the toils or pleasures of childhood. 
 As he grows up the world receives him. when his 
 manhood begins, and he enters into contact with his fel- 
 lows. He is then studied for the first time, and it is imagined 
 that the germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years 
 is then formed. This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. 
 We must begin higher up; we must watch the infant in its 
 mother's arms ; we must see the first images which the external 
 world casts upon the dark mirror of his mind ; the first occur- 
 rences which he witnesses ; we must hear the first words which 
 awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by his earliest 
 efforts, if we would understand the prejudices, the habits, and 
 the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to 
 speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child. 
 
 The growth of nations presents something analogous to this : 
 they all bear some marks of their origin ; and the circumstances 
 which accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise 
 aflfcct the whole term of their being. If we were able to go 
 back to the elements of states, and to examine the oldest monu- 
 ments of their history, I doubt not that we should discover 
 the primal cause of the prejudices, the habits, the ruling pas- 
 
 26 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 91 
 
 ptons, and, in short, of all that constitutes what is called the 
 national character; we should then find the explanation of 
 certain customs which now seem at variance with the prevail- 
 ing manners; of such laws as conflict with established prin- 
 ciples ; and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there 
 to be met with in society, like those fragments of broken chains 
 which we sometimes see hanging from the vault of an edifice, 
 and supporting nothing. This might explain the destinies of 
 certain nations, which seem borne on by an unknown force 
 to ends of which they themselves are ignorant. But hitherto 
 facts have been wanting to researches of this kind: the spirit 
 of inquiry has only come upon communities in their latter days ; 
 and when they at length contemplated their origin, time had 
 already obscured it, or ignorance and pride adorned it with 
 truth-concealing fables. 
 
 America is the only country in which it has been possible 
 to witness the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where 
 the influences exercised on the future condition of states by 
 their origin is clearly distinguishable. At the period when the 
 peoples of Europe landed in the New World their national 
 characteristics were already completely formed ; each of them 
 had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had already at- 
 tained that stage of civilization at which men are led to study 
 themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of 
 their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The men of the 
 sixteenth century are almost as well known to us as our con- 
 temporaries. America, consequently, exhibits in the broad 
 light of day the phenomena which the ignorance or rudeness 
 of earlier ages conceals from our researches. Near enough to 
 the time when the states of America were founded, to be ac- 
 curately acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently re- 
 moved from that period to judge of some of their results, the 
 men of our own day seem destined to see further than their 
 predecessors into the series of human events. Providence has 
 given us a torch which our forefathers did not possess, and has 
 allowed us to discern fundamental causes in the history of the 
 world which the obscurity of the past concealed from them. If 
 we carefully examine the social and political state of America, 
 after having studied its history, we shall remain perfectly con- 
 vinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may even 
 say not an event, is upon record which the origin of that people 
 
 A, 
 
 ■s „ 
 
 i 
 
 1 1 
 
 1 
 
 • 
 
 ■ t 
 
 , '\ 
 
 k 
 
 1' 
 jl 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 il 
 
 r' 
 
 ■' 
 
 1 
 
 ■M 
 
 <) 
 
 r: 
 
 rH 
 
 rti 
 
I;' 
 
 38 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 will not explain. The readers of this book will find the germ of 
 all that is to follow in the present chapter, and the key to almost 
 the whole work. 
 
 The emigrants who came, at different periods to occupy the 
 territory now covered by the American Union differed from 
 each other in many respects; their aim was not the same, and 
 they governed themselves on different principles. These men 
 had, however, certain features in common, and they were all 
 placed in an analogous situation. The tie of language is per- 
 haps the strongest and the most durable that can unite man- 
 kind. All the emigrants spoke the same tongue ; they were all 
 offsets from the same people. Born in a country which had 
 been agitated for centuries by the struggles of faction, and in 
 which all parties had been obliged in their turn to place them- 
 selves under the protection of the laws, their political education 
 had been perfected in this rude school, and they were more 
 conversant with the notions of right and the principles of true 
 freedom than the greater part of their European contempor- 
 aries. At the period of their first emigrations the parish sys- 
 tem, that fruitful germ of free institutions, was deeply rooted in 
 the habits of the English; and with it the doctrine of the 
 sovereignty of the people had been introduced into the bosom 
 of the monarchy of the House of Tudor. 
 
 The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian 
 world were then rife. England had plunged into the new order 
 of things with headlong vehemence. The character of its in- 
 habitants, which had always been sedate and reflective, became 
 argumentative and austere. General information had been 
 increased by intellectual debate, and the mind had received a 
 deeper cultivation. Whilst religion was the topic of discussion, 
 the morals of the people were reformed. All these national 
 features are more or less discoverable in the physiognomy of 
 those adventurers who came to seek a new home on the opposite 
 shores of the Atlantic. 
 
 Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion 
 to recur, is applicable not only to the English, but to the 
 French, the Spaniards, and all the Europeans who successively 
 "tablished themselves in the New World. All these European 
 colonies contained the elements, if not the development, of a 
 complete democracy. Two causes led to this result. It may 
 safely be advanced, that on leaving the mother-country the emi- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 a9 
 
 grants had in general no notion of superiority over one another. 
 The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are 
 no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and 
 misfortune. It happened, however, on several occasions, that 
 persons of rank were driven to America by political and re- 
 ligious quarrels. Laws were made to establish a gradation 
 of ranks ; but it was soon found that the soil of America was 
 opposed to a territorial aristocracy. To bring that refractory 
 iand into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions of 
 the owner himself were necessary ; and when the ground was 
 prepared, its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a 
 master and a farmer at the same time. The land was then 
 naturally broken up into small portions, which the proprietor 
 cultivated for himself. Lc;nd is the basis of an aristocracy, 
 which clings to the soil that supports it ; for it is not by privi- 
 leges alone, nor by birth, but by landed property handed down 
 from generation to generation, that an aristocracy is consti- 
 tuted. A nation may present immense fortunes and extreme 
 wretchedness, but unless those fortunes are territorial there is 
 no aristocracy, but simply the class of the rich and that of the 
 poor. 
 
 All the British colonies had then a great degree of similarity 
 at the epoch of their settlement. All of them, from their first 
 beginning, seemed destined to witness the growth, not of the 
 aristocratic liberty of their mother-country, but of that free- 
 dom of the middle and lower orders of which the history of the 
 world had as yet furnished no complete example. 
 
 In this general uniformity several striking differences were 
 however discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two 
 brandies may be distinguished in the Anglo-American family, 
 which have hitherto grown up without entirely commingling; 
 the one in the South, the other in the North. 
 
 Virginia received the first English colony; the emigrants 
 took possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold 
 and silver are the sources of national wealth was at that time 
 singularly prevalent in Europe ; a fatal delusion, which has 
 done more to impoverish the nations which adopted it, and has 
 cost more lives in America, than the united influence of war 
 and bad laws. The men sent to Virginia o were seekers of gold, 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 ( 
 
 )• 
 
 t: 
 
 I- 
 
 -■ i 
 
 J > 
 
 I- 
 
 'A 
 
 I 
 
 ifi 
 
 a The charter granted by the Crown 
 of England in 1609 stipulated, amongst 
 
 other conditions, that the adventurers 
 should pay to the Crown a fifth of the 
 
30 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 k 
 
 Hi 
 
 adventurers, without resources and without character, whose 
 turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony ,* and 
 rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and agricultur- 
 ists arrived afterwards ; and, although they were a more moral 
 and orderly race of men, they were in nowise above the level 
 of the inferior classes in England.c No lofty conceptions, no 
 intellectual system, directed the foundation of these new settle- 
 ments. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was 
 introduced,^ and this was the main circumstance which has ex- 
 ercised so prodigious an influence on the character, the laws, 
 and all the future prospects of the South. Slavery, as we shall 
 afterwards show, dishonors labor; it introduces idlenes's into 
 society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and dis- 
 tress. It enervates the powers of the mind, and benumbs the 
 activity of man. The influence of slavery, united to the Eng- 
 lish character, explains the manners and the social condition of 
 the Southern States. 
 
 In the North, the same English foundation was modified by 
 the most opposite shades of character ; and here I may be al- 
 lowed to enter into some details. The two or three main ideas 
 which constitute the basis of the social theory of the United 
 States were first combined in the Northern English colonies, 
 more generally denominated the States of New England.^ The 
 principles of New England spread at first to the neighboring 
 states ; they then passed successively to the more distant ones ; 
 and at length they imbued the whole Confederation. They now 
 extend their influence beyond its limits over the whole Ameri- 
 can world. The civilization of New England has been like a 
 beacon lit upon a hill, which, after it has diffused its warmth 
 around, tinges the distant horizon with its glow. 
 
 The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and 
 
 §rociuce of all cold and silver mines, 
 ee Marshall's " Life of Washington," 
 vol. i. pp. i8-66. 
 
 b A large portion of the adventurers, 
 says Stith (" History of Virginia "), 
 were unprincipled young men of family, 
 whom tneir parents were glad to ship 
 off, discharged servants, fraudulent 
 bankrupts, or debauchies ; and others of 
 the same class, people more apt to 
 pillage and destroy than to assist the 
 settlement, were the seditious chiefs, 
 who easily led this hand into every kind 
 of extravagance and excess. See for 
 the history of Virginia the following 
 works : — 
 
 " History of Virginia, from the First 
 Settlements in the year 1624," b '^mith. 
 
 " History of Virginia," by William 
 Stith. 
 
 " History of Virginia, from the Ear- 
 liest Period," by Beverley. 
 
 c It was not till some time later that 
 a certain number of rich English capital- 
 ists came to fix themselves in the colony. 
 
 d Slavery was introduced about the 
 year 1620 by a Dutch vessel which landed 
 twenty negroes on the banks of the river 
 JamoB. See Ch'almer. 
 
 c The States of New England are those 
 situated to the east of the Hudson ; 
 they are now six in number : i, Con- 
 necticut ; 2, Rhode Island : 3, Massa- 
 chusetts; 4, Vermont; 5, New Hamp- 
 shire ; 6, Maine. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3t 
 
 all the circumstances attending it were singular and original. 
 The large majority of colonies have been first inhabited either 
 by men without education and without resources, driven by 
 their poverty and their misconduct from the land which gave 
 them birth, or by speculators and adventurers greedy of gain. 
 Some settlements cannot even boast so honorable an origin; 
 St. Domingo was founded by buccaneers; and the criminal 
 courts of England originally supplied the population of Aus- 
 tralia. 
 
 The settlers who established themselves on the shores of 
 New England all belonged to the more independent classes 
 of their native country. Their union on the soil of America 
 at once presented the singular ph '-^r^enon of a society con- 
 taining neither lords nor common p uic, neither rich nor poor. 
 These men possessed, in proportion to their number, a greater 
 mass of intelligence than is to be found in any European nation 
 of our own time. All, without a single exception, had received 
 a good education, and many of them were known in Europe 
 for their talents and their acquirements. The other colonies 
 had been founded by adventurers without family; the emi- 
 grants of New England brought with them the best elements 
 of order and morality — they landed in the desert accompanied 
 by their wives and children. But what most especially dis- 
 tinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They had 
 not been obliged by necessity to leave their country ; the social 
 position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their 
 means of subsistence were certain. Nor did they cross the At- 
 lantic to improve their situation or to increase their wealth; 
 the call which summoned them from the comforts of their homes 
 was purely intellectual ; and in facing the inevitable sufferings 
 of exile their object was the triumph of an idea. 
 
 The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the 
 Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose 
 principles had acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puri- 
 tanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded 
 in many points with the most absolute democratic and republi- 
 can theories. It was this tendency which had aroused its most 
 dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the Government of the 
 mother-country, and disgusted by the habits of a society op- 
 posed to the rigor of their own principles, the Puritans went 
 forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, 
 
 
 '1 
 
 !* 
 
 1 1 
 
 4 
 
 
 4 
 
 ■■\f. 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 ^■■.l! 
 
32 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 where they could live according to their own opinions, and 
 worship God in freedom. 
 
 A few quotations will throw more light upon the spirit of 
 these pious adventurers thar , 11 we can say of them. Nathan- 
 iel Morton/ the historian of the first years of the settlement, 
 thus opens his subjei t : 
 
 " Gentle Reader, — I have for some length of time looked upon 
 it as a duty incumoent, especially on the immediate successors 
 of those that have had so large experience of those many mem- 
 orable and signal demonstratioas of God's goodness, viz., the 
 first beginners of this Plantation in New England, to commit 
 to writing his gracious dispensations on that behalf; having 
 so many inducements thereunto, not onely otherwise but so 
 plentifully in the Sacred Scriptures : that so, what we have seen, 
 and what our fathers have told us (Psalm Ixxvili. 3, 4), we may 
 not hide from our children, showing to the generations to 
 come the praises of the Lord ; that especially the seed of Abra- 
 ham his servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen (Psalm 
 cv. 5, 6), may remember his marvellous works in the beginnin' 
 and progress of the planting of New England, his wonders and 
 the judgments of his mouth ; how that God brought a vine into 
 this wilderness ; that he cast out the heathen, and planted it ; 
 that he made room for it and caused it to take deep root ; and 
 it filled the land (Psalm Ixxx. 8, 9). And not onely so, but also 
 that he hath guided his people by his strength to his holy habi- 
 tation and planted them in the mountain of liis inheritance in re- 
 spect of precious Gospel enjoyments: and that as especially 
 God may have the glory of all unto whom it is most due ; so 
 also some rays of glory may reach the names of those blessed 
 Saints that were the main instruments and the beginning of 
 this happy enterprise." 
 
 It is impossible to read this opening paragraph without an 
 involuntary feeling of religious awe ; it breathes the very savor 
 of Gospel antiquity. The sincerity of the author heightens his 
 power of language. The band which to his eyes was a mere 
 party of adventurers gone forth to seek their fortune beyond 
 seas appears to the reader as the germ. of a great nation wafted 
 by Providence to a predestined shore. 
 
 ^"New England's Memorial," p. 13; Boston, 1826. See also "Hutchinson's 
 History," vol. ii. p. 440. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 33 
 
 The author thus continues his narrative of the departure of 
 the first pilgrims : — 
 
 *' So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden,« which 
 had been their resting-place for above eleven years ; but they 
 knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and 
 looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to 
 Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for 
 them a city (Heb. xi. i6), and therein quieted their spirits. 
 When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all 
 things ready ; and such of their friends as could not come with 
 them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam 
 to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night 
 was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly en- 
 tertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions 
 of true Christian love. The next day they went on board, and 
 their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that 
 sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and 
 prayers did sound amongst them ; what tears did gush from 
 every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's heart, that 
 sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as specta- 
 tors could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for 
 no man) calling them away, that were thus loth to depart, their 
 Reverend Pastor falling down on his knees, and they all with 
 him, with watery cheeks commended them with most fervent 
 prayers unto the Lord and his blessing ; and then, with mutual 
 embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, 
 which proved to be the last leave to many of them." 
 
 The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the 
 women and the children. Their object was to plant a colony 
 on the shores of the Hudson; but after having been driven 
 about for some time in the Atlantic Ocean, they were forced 
 to land on that arid coast of New England which is now the 
 site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is still shown on which 
 the pilgrims disembarked.* 
 
 g The emigrants were, for the most 
 part, godly Christians from the North of 
 England, who had quitted their native 
 country because they were " studious of 
 reformation, and entered into covenant 
 to walk with one another according to 
 the primitive pattern of the Word of 
 God. They emigrated to Holland, and 
 settled in the city of Leyden in 1610, 
 where they abode, being lovingly re- 
 spected by the Dutch, for many years : 
 they left it in 1620 for several reasons, 
 
 Vol. I.— 3 
 
 the last of which was, that their pos> 
 terity would in a few generations be- 
 come Dutch, and so lose their interest 
 in the English nation ; they being 
 desirous rather to enlarge His Majesty's 
 dominions, and to live under their 
 natural prince. — Translator's Note. 
 
 h Thi rock is become an object of 
 veneration in the United States. I have 
 seen bits of it carefuU?; preserved in 
 several towns of the Union. Does not 
 this sufficiently show how entirely all 
 
 I 
 
 ! •» 
 
 % 
 
 lit 
 
 t 
 
 UlltliiMIWlWl'a 
 
34 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 If ' 
 
 Pi: 
 
 " But before \vc pass on," continues our historian, " let the 
 reader with me make a pause and seriously consider this poor 
 people's present condition, the more to be raised up to admira- 
 tion of God's goodness towards them in their preservation : for 
 being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before 
 them in expectation, they had now no friends to welcome them, 
 no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less 
 towns to repair unto to seek for succour : and for the season 
 it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country 
 know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce 
 storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to 
 search unknown coasts. Besides, what could they see but a 
 hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts, and wilde 
 men ? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew 
 not : for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward 
 to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in re- 
 spect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all 
 things stand in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the 
 whole country full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and 
 savage hew ; if they looked behind them, there was the mighty 
 ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or 
 gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world." 
 
 It must not be imagined that the piety of the Puritans was of 
 a merely speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the 
 course of worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already re- 
 marked, was scarcely less a political than a religious doctrine. 
 No sooner had the emigrants landed on the barren coast de- 
 scribed by Nathaniel Morton than it was their first care to con- 
 stitute a society, by passing the following Act : 
 
 " In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are under- 
 written, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King 
 James, etc., etc.. Having undertaken for the glory of God, and 
 advancement of the Christian Faith, and the honour of our King 
 and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern 
 parts of Virginia ; Do by these presents solemnly and mutually, 
 in the presence of God and one another, covenant . nd combine 
 ourselves together into a civil body politick, for ou better order- 
 ing and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid: 
 
 human power and greatness is in the 
 soul of man? Here is a stone wliicli 
 tlie feet of a few outcasts presserl for an 
 instant, and this stone becomes famous ; 
 
 it is treasured by a great nation, its 
 very dust is shared as a relic : and what 
 is become of the gateways of a thousand 
 palaces? 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 35 
 
 and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute and frame such just 
 and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers, 
 from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient 
 for the general good of the Colony: unto which we promise 
 all due submission and obedience," etc.* 
 
 This happened in 1620, and from that time forwards the emi- 
 gration went on. The religious and political passions which 
 ravaged the British Empire during the whole reign of Charles 
 I drove fresh crowds of sectarians every year to the shores of 
 America. In England the stronghold of Puritanism was in the 
 middle classes, and it was from the middle classes that the ma- 
 jority of the emigrants came. The population of New Eng- 
 land increased rapidly ; and whilst the hierarchy of rank despot- 
 ically classed the inhabitants of the mother-country, the colony 
 continued to present the novel spectacle of a community homo- 
 geneous in all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than any 
 which antiquity had dreamt of, started in full size and panoply 
 from the midst of an ancient feudal society. 
 
 The English Government was not dissatisfied with an emi- 
 gration which removed the elements of fresh discord and of 
 further revolutions. On the contrary, everything was done 
 to encourage it, and great exertions were made to mitigate the 
 hardships of those who sought a shelter from the rigor of their 
 country's laws on the soil of America. It seemed as if New 
 England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and the 
 unrestrained experiments of innovators. 
 
 The English colonies (and this is one of the main causes of 
 their prosperity) have always enjoyed more internal freedom 
 and more political independence than the colonies of other na- 
 tions ; but this principle of liberty was nowhere more extensive- 
 ly applied than in the States of New England. 
 
 It was generally allowed at chat period that the territories of 
 the New World belonged to that European nation which had 
 been the first to discover them. Nearly the whole coast of 
 North America thus became a British possession towards the 
 end of the sixteenth century. The means used by the English 
 Government to people these new domains were of several kinds ; 
 the King sometimes appointed a governor of his own choice, 
 
 «■ The emigrants who founded the State 
 of Rhode Island in 1638, those who 
 landed at Nt.- Haven in 1637, the first 
 settlers in Connecticut in 1639, and the 
 founders of Providence in 1640, began 
 
 in like manner by drawinf? up a social 
 contract, which was acceded to by all 
 the interested parties. See " Pitkin's 
 History," pp. 42 and 47. 
 
 
 .? 
 
 '/ 
 
 / ■* 
 
 y 
 
 ' •:! 
 
 i> 
 
 I! 
 I ■ 
 
 :'»l 
 
36 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I' 
 
 who ruled a portion of the New World in the name and under 
 the immediate orders of the Crown ; i this is the colonial systctn 
 adopted by other countries of Europe. Sometimes grants of 
 certain tracts were made by the Crown to an individual or to a 
 company,^ in which case all the civil and political power fell into 
 the hands of one or more persons, who, under the inspection and 
 control of the Crown, sold the lands and governed the inhab- 
 itants. Lastly, a third system consisted in allowing a certain 
 number of emigrants to constitute a political society under the 
 protection of the mother-country, and to govern themselves in 
 whatever was not contrary to her laws. This mode of colo- 
 nization, so remarkably favorable to liberty, was only adopted 
 in New England.' 
 
 In 1628 m a charter of this kind was granted by Charles I 
 to the emigrants who went to form the colony of Massachusetts. 
 But, in general, charters were not given to the colonies of New 
 England till they had acquired a certain existence. Plymouth, 
 Providence, New Haven, the State of Connecticut, and that of 
 Rhode Island « were founded without the co-operation and al- 
 most without the knowledge of the mother-country. The new 
 settlers did not derive their incorporation from the seat of the 
 empire, although they did not deny its supremacy; they con- 
 stituted a society of their own accord, and it was not till thirty 
 or forty years afterwards, under Charles II. that their existence 
 was legally recognized by a royal charter. 
 
 This frequently renders it difficult to detect the link which 
 connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers in 
 studying the earliest historical and legislative records of New 
 England. They exercised the rights of sovereignty; they 
 named their magistrates, concluded peace or declared war, made 
 
 /This was the case In the State of 
 New York. 
 
 k Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsyl- 
 vania, and New Jersey were in this sit- 
 uation. See " Pitkin's History," vol. i. 
 pp. 11-31. 
 
 I See the work entitled " Historical 
 Collection of State Papers and other 
 authentic Documents intended as ma- 
 terials for a History of the United States 
 of America, by Ebenezer HasarJ. Phila- 
 delphia, 1792,'' for a great number of 
 documents relating to the commence- 
 ment of the colonies, which are valuable 
 from their contents and their authenti- 
 city: amonpst them are the various 
 charters granted by the King of Eng- 
 land, and the first acts of the local 
 governments. 
 
 See also the analysis of all these 
 charters given by Mr. Story, Judge of 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 in the Introduction to his " Commen- 
 tary on the Constitution of the United 
 States." It results from these docu- 
 ments that the principles of representa- 
 tive government and the external forms 
 of political liberty were introduced into 
 all the colonies at their origin. These 
 principles were more fully acted upon 
 in the North than in the South, hut 
 they existod everywhere. 
 
 m See " Pitkin's History," p. 35- See 
 the "History of the Colony of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay," by Hutchinson, vol. i. 
 p. 9. 
 
 n See " Pitkin's History," pp. 42. 47- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMKRICA 
 
 37 
 
 police regulations, and enacted laws as if their allegiance was 
 due only to God." Nothing can he more curious and, at the 
 same time more instructive, than the legislation of that period ; 
 it is there that the solution of the great social problem which the 
 United States now present to the world is to be found. 
 
 Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially char- 
 acteristic, the code of laws promulgated by the little State of 
 Connecticut in i6$o.P The legislators of Connecticut? begin 
 with the penal laws, and, strange to say, they borrow their pro- 
 visions from the text of Holy Writ. " Whosoever shall worship 
 any other God than the Lord," says the preamble of the Code, 
 " shall surely be put to death." This is followed by ten or twelve 
 enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the books of 
 Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Blasphemy, "orcery, 
 adultery ,»" and rape were punished with death; an outrage 
 offered by a son to his parents was to 'u; expiated by the same 
 penalty. The legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was 
 thus applied to an enlightened and moral comirunit;/. The con- 
 sequence was that the punishment of deat'i was ncer more fre- 
 quently prescribed by the statute, and never more rarel en- 
 forced towards the guilty. 
 
 The chief care of the legislators, in this body M penal laws, 
 was the maintenance of orderly conduct and ;o -a morals in 
 the community: they constantly invaded the lomain of con- 
 science, and there was scarcely a sin which was not subject to 
 magisterial censure. The reader is aware of the rigor with 
 which these laws punished rape and adultery ; intercourse be- 
 tween unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The 
 judge was empowered to inflict a pecuniary penaUy, a whipping, 
 or marriage s on the misdemeanants ; and if the records of the 
 
 o The inhabitants of Massachusetts 
 had deviated from thf forms which are 
 preserved in the criminal and civil pro- 
 cedure of England ; in 1650 the decrees 
 of justice were not yet headed by the 
 royal style. See Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 
 452. 
 
 p Code of 1650, p. 28 ; Hartford, 1830. 
 
 a See also in " Hutchinson's History," 
 vol. i. pp. 435, 456, the analysis of the 
 penal code adopted in 1648 by the 
 Colony of Massachusetts : this code is 
 drawn up on the same principles as that 
 of Connecticut. 
 
 r Adultery was also punished with 
 death by the law of Massachusett? : > nci 
 Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 441, says that sev- 
 eral persons actually suffered for this 
 crime. He quotes a curious anecdote on 
 this subject, which occ.irred in the year 
 
 1663. A married woman had had crimi- 
 nal intercourse with a young man ; her 
 husband died, and she married the lover. 
 Several years had elapsed, when the 
 public began to suspect the previous in- 
 tercourse of this couple : they were 
 th. ■ v:;: into prison, put upon trial, and 
 v:rj '■■.'crowly escaped capital punish- 
 meui 
 
 * Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems some- 
 times to have happened that the judges 
 superadded these punishments to each 
 other, as is seen in a sentence pro- 
 nounced in 1643 (p. 114, " New Haven 
 Antiquities "), by which Margaret Bed- 
 ford, convicted of loose conduct, was 
 condemned to be whipped, and after- 
 wards to marry Nicholas Jemmings, her 
 accomplice. 
 
38 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 III 
 
 y 
 
 cld courts of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this 
 kind were not unfrequent. We find a sentence bearing date the 
 first of May, 1660, inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young 
 woman who was accused of using improper language, and of 
 allowing herself to be kissed.* The Code of 1650 abounds in 
 preventive measures. It punishes idleness and drunkenness 
 with severity." Innkeepers are forbidden to furnish more than 
 a certain quantity of liquor to each consumer ; and simple ly- 
 ing, whenever it may be injurious,^' is checked by a fine or a 
 flogging. In other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting 
 the great principles of religious toleration which he had him- 
 self upheld in Europe, renders attendance on divine service 
 compulsory .w and goes so far as to visit with severe punish- 
 ment,* and even with death, the Christians who chose to wor- 
 ship God according to a ritual differing from his own.^ Some- 
 times indeed the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend 
 to the most frivolous particulars : thus a law is to be found in 
 the same Code which prohibits the use of tobacco.y It must 
 not be forgotten that these fantastical and vexatious laws were 
 not imposed by authority, but that they were freely voted by 
 all the persons interested, and that the manners of the com- 
 munity were even more austere and more puritanical than the 
 laws. In 1649 a solemn association was formed in Boston to 
 check the worldly luxury of long hair .2 
 
 These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; 
 they attest the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of 
 laying firm hold upon what is true and just, and is often reduced 
 to the alternative of two excesses. In strict connection with this 
 penal legislation, which bears such striking marks of a narrow 
 sectarian spirit, and of those religious passions which had been 
 warmed by persecution and were still fermenting among the 
 
 I " New Haven Antiquities," p. 104. 
 See also " Hutchinson's History," for 
 several causes equally extraordinary. 
 
 « Code of 1650, pp. so, 57. 
 
 V Ibid., p. 64. 
 
 wlbid., p. 44- 
 
 • This was not peculiar to Connecti- 
 cut. See, for instance, the law Arhich, 
 on September 13, 1644, banished the Ana- 
 baptists from the State of Massachusetts. 
 (" Historial Collection of State Papers," 
 vol. i. p. 53S,) See also the law against 
 the Quakers, passed on October 14, 
 1656 : " Whereas," says the preamble, 
 " an accursed race of heretics called 
 Quakers has sprung up." etc. The 
 clauses of the statute inflict a heavy 
 fine on all captains of ships who should 
 
 import Quakers into the country. The 
 Quakers who maj^ be found there shall 
 be whipped and imprisoned with hard 
 labor. Those members of the sect who 
 should defend their opinions shall be 
 first fined, then imprisoned, and finally 
 driven out of the province.—" Historical 
 Collection of State Papers," vol. i. p. 
 630. 
 
 X By the penal law of Massachusetts, 
 any Catholic priest who should set foot 
 in the colony after having been once 
 driven out of it was liable to capital 
 punishment. 
 
 jr Code of 1650, p. q6. 
 
 s " New England's Memorial," p. 316. 
 See Appendix, E. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 39 
 
 people, a body of political laws is to be found, which, though 
 written two hundred years ago, is still ahead of the liberties of 
 our age. The general principles which are the groundwork of 
 modern constitutions — principles which were imperfectly known 
 in Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, 
 in the seventeenth century — were all recognized and determined 
 by the laws of New England: the intervention of the people 
 in public affairs, the free voting of taxes, the responsibility of 
 authorities, personal liberty, and trial by jury, were all posi- 
 tively established without discussion. From these fruitful prin- 
 ciples consequences have been derived and applications have 
 been made such as no nation in Europe has yet ventured to 
 attempt. 
 
 In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, 
 of the whole number of citizens ; and this is readily to be under- 
 stood,o when we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost 
 perfect equality of fortune, and a still greater uniformity of 
 opinions.^ In Connecticut, at this period, all the executive 
 functionaries were elected, including the Governor of the State.c 
 The citizens above the age of sixteen were obliged to bear 
 arms ; they formed a national militia, which appointed its own 
 officers, and was to hold itself at all times in readiness to march 
 for the defence of the country.^ 
 
 In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New Eng- 
 land, we find the germ and gradual development of that town- 
 ship independence which is the life and mainspring of Ameri- 
 can liberty at the present day. The political existence of the 
 majority of the nations of Europe commenced in the superior 
 ranks of society, and was gradually and imperfectly communi- 
 cated to the different members of the social body. In America, 
 on the other hand, it may be said that the township was or- 
 ganized before the county, the county before the State, the 
 State before the Union. In New England townships were com- 
 pletely and definitively co^-stituted as early as 1650. The inde- 
 pendence of the township was the nucleus round which the local 
 interests, passions, rights, and duties collected and clung. It 
 gave scope to the activity of a real political life most thoroughly 
 
 U 
 
 ^ 
 
 i '/ 
 
 a Constitution of 1638, p. 17. 
 
 b In 1641 the General Assembly of 
 Rhode Island unanimously declared that 
 the Rovernment of the State was a 
 democracy, and that the power was 
 vested in the body of free citizens, who 
 
 alone had the right to make the laws 
 and to watch their execution. — Code of 
 1650, p. 70. 
 
 f " Pitkin's History," p. 47. 
 
 d Constitution of 163!!, p. 12. 
 
 i| 
 
40 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ^^ 
 
 II' 
 
 democratic and republican. The colonies still recognized the 
 supremacy of the mother-country ; monarchy was still the law 
 of the State ; but the republic was already established in every 
 township. The towns named their own magistrates of every 
 kind, rated themselves, and levied their own taxes.^ In the 
 parish of New England the law of representation was not 
 adopted, but the affairs of the community were discussed, as at 
 Athens, in the market-place, by a general assembly of the citi- 
 zens. 
 
 In studying the laws which were promulgated at this first 
 era of the American republics, it is impossible not to be struck 
 by the remarkable acquaintance with the science of govern- 
 ment and the advanced theory of legislation which they display. 
 The ideas there formed of the duties of society towards its 
 members are evidently much loftier and more comprehensive 
 than those of the European legislators at that time: obliga- 
 tions were there imposed which were elsewhere slighted. In the 
 States of New England, from the first, the condition of the 
 poor was provided for ; f strict measures were taken for the 
 maintenance of roads, and surveyors were appointed to attend 
 to them ; g registers were established in every parish, in which 
 the results of public deliberations, and the births, deaths, and 
 marriages of the citizens were entered ; h clerks were directed to 
 keep these registers ; « officers were charged with the adminis- 
 tration of vacant inheritances, and with the arbitration of liti- 
 gated landmarks; and many others were created whose chief 
 functions were the maintenance of public order in the com- 
 munity.; liie law enters into a thousand useful provisions for 
 a number of social wants which are at present very inadequately 
 felt in France. 
 
 But it is by the attention it pays to Public Education that the 
 original character of American civilization is at once placed in 
 the clearest light. " It being," says the law, " one chief project 
 of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by 
 persuading from the use of tongues, to the end that learning 
 may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church 
 and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors. . . ."ft 
 Here follow clauses establishing schools in every township, and 
 
 e Code of i6so, p. 80. 
 
 / Ibid., p. 78. 
 
 g Ibid., p. 49. 
 
 h See "Hutchinson's History," vol. i. 
 
 t'Cbde of 1650, p. 86. 
 i Ibid., p. 40. 
 k Ibid., p. 90. 
 
 I 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 41 
 
 obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to support 
 them. Schools of a superior kind were founded in the same 
 manner in the more populous districts. The municipal authori- 
 ties V ere bound to enforce the sending of children to school by 
 their parents ; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who 
 refused compliance; and in case of continued resistance so- 
 ciety assumed the place of the parent, took possession of the 
 child, and deprived the father of those natural rights which 
 he used to so bad a purpose. The reader will undoubtedly have 
 remarked the preamble of these enactments : in America religion 
 is the road to knowledge, and the obsei vance of the divine laws 
 leads man to civil freedom. 
 
 If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of Ameri- 
 can society in 1650, we turn to the condition of Europe, and 
 more especially to that of the Continent, at the same period, we 
 cannot fail to be struck with astonishment. On the Continent 
 of Europe, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, abso- 
 lute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over the ruins of the 
 oligarchical and feudal liberties of the Middle Ages. Never 
 were the notions of right more completely confounded than in 
 the midst of the splendor and literature of Europe ; never was 
 the'-e less political activity among the people ; never were the 
 principles of true freedom less widely circulated ; and at that 
 very time those principles, which were scorned or unknown by 
 the nations of Europe, were proclaimed in the deserts of the 
 New World, and were accepted as the future creed of a great 
 people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put 
 into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman 
 condescended to attend to it ; and a legislation without a prec- 
 edent was produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens. 
 In the bosom of this obscure democracy, which had as yet 
 brought forth neither generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, 
 a man might stand up in the face of a free people and pronounce 
 the following fine definition of liberty.^ 
 
 " Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own 
 liberty. There is a liberty of a corrupt nature which is effected 
 both by men and beasts to do what they list, and this liberty is 
 inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint ; by this 
 
 ' -Vt 
 
 })'M 
 
 I Mather's " Magnalia Christi Ameri- 
 cana," vol. ii. p. 13. This speech was 
 made by Winthrop ; he was accused of 
 havinK committed arbitrary actions dur- 
 ing his magistracy, but after having 
 
 made the speech of which the above is 
 a fraRment, he was acquitted by ac- 
 clamation, and from that time forwards 
 he was always re-elected governor of the 
 State. See Marshal, vol. i. p. i66. 
 
4a 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ft-. 
 
 liberty ' snvius omnes deteriores ': 'tis the grand enemy of truth 
 and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. 
 But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty which is the proper 
 end and object of authority ; it is a liberty for that only which 
 is just and good: for this liberty you are to stand with the 
 hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses it is not au- 
 thority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained 
 in a way of subjection to authority ; and the authority set over 
 you will, in all administrations for your good, be quietly sub- 
 mitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to shake off 
 the yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the 
 honor and power of authority." 
 
 The remarks I have made will suffice to display the charac- 
 ter of Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the 
 result (and this should be constantly present to the mind of 
 two distinct elements, which in other places have been in fre- 
 quent hostility, but which in America have been admirably in- 
 corporated and combined with one another. I allude to the 
 spirit of Religion and the spirit of Liberty. 
 
 The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent 
 sectarians and daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some 
 of their religious opinions were, they were entirely free from 
 political prejudices. Hence a-ose two tendencies, distinct but 
 not opposite, which are constantly discernible in the manners 
 as well as in the laws of the country. 
 
 It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, 
 their family, and their native land to a religious conviction were 
 absorbed in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which 
 they purchased at so dear a rate. The energy, however, with 
 which they strove for the acquirement of wealth, moral enjoy- 
 ment, and the comforts as well as liberties of the world, is 
 scarcely inferior to that with which they devoted themselves to 
 Heaven. 
 
 Political principles and all human laws and institutions were 
 moulded and altered at their pleasure ; the barriers of the so- 
 ciety in which they were born were broken down before them ; 
 the old principles which had governed the world for ages were 
 no more ; a path without a turn and a field without an horizon 
 were opened to the exploring and ardent curiosity of man : but 
 at the limits of the political world he checks his researches, he 
 discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable faculties, he 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 43 
 
 no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully ab- 
 staining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields 
 with submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss. 
 Thus, in the moral world everything is classed, adapted, decided, 
 and foreseen ; in the political world everything is agitated, un- 
 certain, and disputed : in the one is a passive, though a volun- 
 tary, obedience ; in the other an independence scornful of ex- 
 perience and jealous of authority. 
 
 These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from 
 conflicting ; they advance together, and mutually support each 
 other. Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble ex- 
 ercise to the faculties of man, and that ihe political world is a 
 field prepared by the Creator for the efforts of the intelligence. 
 Contented with the freedom and the power which it enjoys in 
 its own sphere, and with the place which it occupies, the em- 
 pire of religion is never more surely established than Avhen it 
 reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by aught beside its 
 native strength. Religion is no less the companion of liberty 
 in all its battles and its triumphs ; the cradle of its infancy, and 
 the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is re- 
 ligion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest 
 pledge of freedom.*** 
 
 W 
 
 
 Reasons of Certain Anomalies which the Laws and 
 Customs of the Anglo-Americans present 
 
 Remains of aristocratic institutions in the midst of a complete de- 
 mocracy — Why? — Distinction carefully to be drawn between what 
 is of Puritanical and what is of English origin. 
 
 The reader is cautioned not to draw too general or too abso- 
 lute an inference from what has been said. The social condi- 
 tion, the religion, and the manners of the first emigrants un- 
 doubtedly exercised an immense influence on the destiny of 
 their new country. Nevertheless they were not in a situation 
 to found a state of things solely dependent on themselves : no 
 man can entirely shake oflf the influence of the past, and the 
 settlers, intentionally or involuntarily, mingled habits and no- 
 tions derived from their education and from the traditions of 
 their country with those habits and notions which were exclu- 
 sively their own. To form a judgment on the Anglo- Ameri- 
 
 m See Appendix, F. 
 
44 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 h 
 
 I 
 
 cans of the present day it is therefore necessary to distinguish 
 what is of Puritanical and what is of English origin. 
 
 Laws and customs are frequently to be met with in the 
 United States which contrast strongly with all that surrounds 
 them. These laws seem to be drawn up in a spirit contrary 
 to the prevailing tenor of the American legislation ; and these 
 customs are no less opposed to the tone of society. If the Eng- 
 lish colonies had been founded in an age of darkness, or if their 
 origin was already lost in the lapse of years, the problem would 
 be insoluble. 
 
 I shall quote a single example to illustrate what I advance. 
 The civil and criminal procedure of the Americans has only 
 two means of action — committal and bail. The first measure 
 taken by the magistrate is to exact security from the defendant, 
 or, in case of refusal, to incarcerate him: the ground of the 
 accusation and the importance of the charges against him are 
 then discussed. It is evident that a legislation of this kind is 
 hostile to the poor man, and favorable only to the rich. The 
 poor man has not always a security to produce, even in a civil 
 cause ; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he is 
 speedily reduced to distress. The wealthy individual, on the 
 contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, 
 more, he may readily elude the punishment which awaits him 
 for a delinquency by breaking his bail. So that all the penalties 
 of the law are, for him, reducible to fines." Nothing can be 
 more aristocratic than this system of legislation. Yet in 
 America it is the poor who make the la , and they usually re- 
 serve the greatest social advantages to themselves. The ex- 
 planation of the phenomenon is to be found in England ; the 
 laws of which I speak are English,© and the Americans have re- 
 tained them, however repugnant they may be to the tenor of 
 their legislation and the mass of their ideas. Next to its habits, 
 the thing which a nation is least apt to change is its civil legis- 
 lation. Civil laws are only familiarly known to legal men, 
 whose direct interest it is to maintain them as they are, whether 
 good or bad, simply because they themselves are conversant 
 with them. The body of the nation is scarcely acquainted with 
 them ; it merely perceives their action in particular cases ; but 
 
 M Crimes no doubt exist for which 
 bail is inadmissible, but they are few 
 in number. 
 
 See Blackstone ; and Delolme, book 
 I chap. X. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 45 
 
 it has some difficulty in seizing their tendency, and obeys them 
 without premeditation. I have quoted one instance where it 
 would have been easy to adduce a great number of others. The 
 surface of American society is, if I may use the expression, 
 covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old 
 aristocratic colors sometimes peep. 
 
 > 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS 
 
 
 ASOCIAL condition is commonly the result of circum- 
 stances, sometimes of laws, oftener still of these two 
 causes united ; but wherever it exists, it may justly be 
 considered as the source of almost all the laws, the usages, and 
 the ideas which regulate the conduct of nations ; whatever it 
 does not produce it modifies. It is therefore necessary, if we 
 would become acquainted with the legislation and the manners 
 of a nation, to begin by the study of its social condition. 
 
 I* ' 
 
 The Striking Characteristic of the Social Condition 
 OF THE Anglo-Americans in its Essential Democracy 
 
 The first emigrants of New England — Their equality — Aristocratic 
 laws introduced in the South — Period of the Revolution — Change 
 in the law of descent — Effects produced by this change — Democracy 
 carried to its utmost limits in the new States of the West — Equality 
 of education. 
 
 Many important observations suggest themselves upon the 
 social condition of the Anglo-Americans, but there is one which 
 takes precedence of all the rest. The social condition of the 
 Americans is eminently democratic ; this was its character at 
 the foundation of the Colonies, and is still more strongly marked 
 at the present day. I have stated in the preceding chapter that 
 great equality existed among the emigrants who settled on the 
 shores of New England. The germ of aristocracy was never 
 planted in that part of the Union. The only influence which 
 obtained there was that of intellect ; the people were used to 
 reverence certain names as the emblems of knowledge and 
 virtue. Some of their fellow-citizens acquired a power over 
 the rest which might truly have been called aristocratic, if it 
 had been capable of transmission from father to son. 
 
 This was the state of things to the east of the Hudson : to the 
 
 46 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 47 
 
 south-west of that river, and in the direction of the Floridas, 
 the case was different. In most of the States situated to the 
 south-west of the Hudson some great English proprietors had 
 settled, who had imported with them aristocratic principles ind 
 the English law of descent. I have explained the reasons why 
 it was impossible ever to establish a powerful aristocracy in 
 America ; these reasons existed with less force to the south-west 
 of the Hudson. In the South, one man, aided by slaves, could 
 cultivate a great extent of country : it was therefore common 
 to see rich landed proprietors. But their influence was not 
 altogether aristocratic as that term is understood in Europe, 
 since they possessed no privileges ; and the cultivation of their 
 estates being carried on by slaves, they had no tenants depend- 
 ing on them, and consequently no patronage. Still, the great 
 proprietors south of the Hudson constituted a superior class, 
 having ideas and tastes of ils own, and forming the centre of 
 political action. This kind of aristocracy sympathized with the 
 body of the people, whose passions and interests it easily em- 
 braced ; but it was too weak and too short-lived to excite either 
 love or hatred for itself. This was the class which headed the 
 insurrection in the South, and furnished the best leaders of the 
 American revolution. 
 
 At the period of which we are now speaking society was 
 shaken to its centre : the people, in whose name the struggle 
 had taken place, conceived the desire of exercising the author- 
 ity which it had acquired ; its democratic tendencies were 
 awakened ; and having thrown off the yoke of the mother- 
 country, it aspired to independence of every kind. The influ- 
 ence of individuals gradually ceased to be felt, and custom and 
 law united together to produce the same result. 
 
 But the law of descent was the last step to equality. I am 
 surprised that ancient and modern jurists have not attributed 
 to this law a greater influence on human aflFairs.o It is true 
 that these laws belong to civil affairs ; but they ought neverthe- 
 less to be placed at the head of all political institutions ; for, 
 whilst political laws are only the symbol of a nation's condi- 
 tion, they exercise an incredible influence upon its social state. 
 
 a I understand by the law of descent 
 all those laws whose principal object is 
 to regulate the distribution of property 
 after the death of its owner. The law of 
 entail is of this number ; it certainly 
 prevents the owner from disposing of 
 his possessions before his death ; but 
 
 this is solely with the view of preserving 
 them entire for the heir. The principal 
 object, therefore, of the law of entail 
 is to regulate the descent of property 
 after the death of its owner : its other 
 provisions are merely means to this 
 end. 
 
M 
 
 48 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 They have, moreover, a sure and uniform manner of operating 
 upon society, affecting, as it were, generations yet unborn. 
 
 Through their means man acquires a kind of preternatural 
 power over the future lot of his fellow-creatures. When the 
 legislator has regulated the law of inheritance, he may rest from 
 his labor. The machine once put in motion will go on for ages, 
 and advance, as if self-guided, towards a given point. When 
 framed in a particular manner, this law unites, draws together, 
 and vests property and power in a few hands : its tendency is 
 clearly aristocratic. On opposite principles its action is still 
 more rapid ; it divides, distributes, and disperses both property 
 and power. Alarmed by the rapidity of its progress, those who 
 despair of arresting its motion endeavor to obstruct it by diffi- 
 culties and impediments; they vainly seek to counteract its 
 effect by contrary efforts ; but it gradually reduces or destroys 
 every obstacle, until by its incessant activity the bulwarks of the 
 influence of wealth are ground down to the fine and shifting 
 sand which is the basis of democracy. When the law of inheri- 
 tance permits, still more when it decrees, the equal division 
 of a father's property amongst all his children, its effects are of 
 two kinds : it is important to distinguish them from each other, 
 although they tend to the same end. 
 
 In virtue of the law of partible inheritance, the death of every 
 proprietor brings about a kind of revolution in property ; not 
 only do his possessions change hands, but their very nature is 
 altered, since they are parcelled into shares, which become small- 
 er and smaller at each division. This is the direct and, as it 
 were, the physical effect of the law. It follows, then, that in 
 countries where equality of inheritance is ertablished by law, 
 property, and especially landed property, must have a tendency 
 to perpetual diminution. The effects, however, of such legis- 
 lation would only be perceptible after a lapse of time, if the 
 law was abandoned to its own working; for supposing the 
 family to consist of two children (and in a country peopled as 
 France is the average number is not above three), these children, 
 sharing amongst them the fortune of both parents, would not 
 be poorer than their father or mother. 
 
 But the law of equal division exercises its influence not 
 merely upon the property itself, but it affects the minds of the 
 heirs, and brings their passions into play. These indirect con- 
 sequences tend powerfully to the destruction of large fortunes, 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 49 
 
 and especially of large domains. Among nations whose law of 
 descent is founded upon the right of primogeniture landed es- 
 tates often pass from generation to generation without undergo- 
 ing division, the consequence of which is that family feeling is to 
 a certain degree incorporated with the estate. The family repre- 
 sents the estate, the estate the family ; whose name, together 
 with its origin, its glory, its power, and its virtues, is thus per- 
 petuated in an imperishable memorial of the past and a sure 
 pledge of the future. 
 
 When the equal partition of property is established by law, 
 the intimate connection is destroyed between family feeling 
 and the preservation of the paternal estate ; the property ceases 
 to represent the family ; for as it must inevitably be divided 
 after one or two generations, it has evidently a constant ten- 
 dency to diminish, and must in the end be completely dispersed. 
 The sons of the great landed proprietor, if they are few in num- 
 ber, or if fortune befriends them, may indeed entertain the hope 
 of being as wealthy as their father, but not that of possessing 
 the same property as he did ; the riches must necessarily be com- 
 posed of elements different from his. 
 
 Now, from the moment that you divest the landowner of 
 that interest in the preservation of his estate which he derives 
 from association, from tradition, and from family pride, you 
 may be certain that sooner or later he will dispose of it ; for 
 there is a strong pecuniary interest in favor of selling, as float- 
 ing capital produces higher interest than real property, and is 
 more readily available to gratify the passions of the moment. 
 
 Great landed estates which have once been divided never 
 come together again ; for the small proprietor draws from his 
 land a better revenue, in proportion, than the large owner does 
 from his, and of course he sells it at a higher rate.& The calcu- 
 lations of gain, therefore, which decide the rich man to sell his 
 domain will still more powerfully influence him against buying 
 small estates to unite them i: to a large one. 
 
 What is called family pride is often founded upon an illusion 
 of self-love. A man wishes to perpetuate and immortalize 
 himself, as it were, in his great-grandchildren. Where the 
 esprit de famille ceases to act individual selfishness comes into 
 play. When the idea of family becomes vague, indeterminate, 
 
 6 I do not mean to say that the small 
 proprietor cnltivates his land better, but 
 he cultivates it with more ardor and 
 
 Vol. I.— 4 
 
 care j so that he makes up by his labor 
 for his want of skill. 
 
so 
 
 DK TOCQUKVILLE 
 
 aiul uncertain, a man thinks of his present convnicncc; he 
 provides for the establishment of his succ»'«'<i; ii ^jcntration, 
 and no more. Either a man gives up the ideu ■ ccri •. tu'iting 
 his family, or at any rate he seeks to accompliiii it by other 
 means than that of a landed estate. Thus not only does tli ; law 
 of partible inheritance render it difficult for families to preserve 
 their ancestral domains entire, but it deprives them of the in- 
 clination to attempt it, and compels them in some measure tn 
 co-operate with the law in their own extinction. 
 
 The law of equal distribution proceeds by two methods : by 
 acting upon things, it acts upon persons ; by influencing per- 
 sons, it aflfects things. By these means the law succeeds in 
 striking at the root of landed property, and dispersing rapidly 
 both families and fortunes.^ 
 
 Most certainly it is not for us Frenchmen of the nineteenth 
 century, who daily witness the political and social changes 
 which the law of partition is bringing to pass, to question its in- 
 fluence. It is perpetually conspicuous in our country, over- 
 throwing the walls of our dwellings and removing the land- 
 marks of our fields. But although it has produced great 
 effects in France, much still remains for it to do. Our recollec- 
 tions, opinions, and habits present powerful obstacles to its 
 progress. 
 
 In the United States it has nearly completed its work of de- 
 struction, and there we can best study its results. The Eng- 
 lish laws concerning the transmission of property were abol- 
 ished in almost all the States at the time of the Revolution. The 
 law of entail was so modified as not to interrupt the free cir- 
 culation of property.^ The first generation having passed 
 away, estates began to be parcelled out, and the change became 
 more and more rapid with the progress of time. At this mo- 
 ment, after a lapse of a little more than sixty years, the aspect 
 of society is totally altered ; the families of the great landed 
 
 c Land being the most stable kind 
 of property, we find, from time to time, 
 rich individuals who are disposed to 
 make ereat sacrifices in order to obtain 
 it, and wno willinfjrly forfeit a consid- 
 erable part of their income to make sure 
 of the rest, llut these are accidental 
 cases. The preference for landed prop- 
 erty is no longer found habitually in any 
 class but among the poor. The smnll 
 landowner, who has less information, 
 less imagination, and fewer p.issions 
 than the great one, is generally oc- 
 cupied with the desire of increasing his 
 
 estate : and it often happens that by in- 
 heritance, by marriajrc, or by the chances 
 of trade, he is gradually furnished with 
 the means. Thus, to balance the ten- 
 dency which leads men to divide their 
 estates, there exists another, which in- 
 cites them to add to them. This ten- 
 dency, which is sufficient to prevent 
 estates from being divided ad infinilum, 
 is pot strong enough to create great ter- 
 ritorial possessions, certainly not to 
 keep them up in the same family. 
 d See Appendix, G. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMKRICA 
 
 5» 
 
 proprietors are almost all comniinplcd with the general mass. 
 In the State of New York, which formerly contained many of 
 these, there arc but two who still keep their heads above the 
 stream, and they must shortly disappear. The sons of these 
 opulent citizens arc become merchants, lawyers, or physicians. 
 Most of them have lapsed into obscurity. The last trace of 
 hereditary ranks and distinctions is destroyed — the law of par- 
 tition has reduced all to one level. 
 
 I do not mean that there is any deficiency of wealthy individ- 
 uals in the United States ; I know of no country, indeed, where 
 the love of money has taken stronger hold on the affections of 
 men, and where the profounder contempt is expressed for the 
 theory of the permanent equality of property. But wealth cir- 
 culates with inconceivable rapidity, and experience shows that 
 it is rare to find two succeeding generations in the full enjoy- 
 ment of it. 
 
 This picture, which may perhaps be thought to be over- 
 charged, still gives a very imperfect idea of what is taking place 
 in the new States of the West and South-west. At the end of 
 the last century a few bold adventurers began to penetrate into 
 the valleys of the Mississippi, and the mass of the population 
 very soon began to move in that direction : communities un- 
 heard of till then were seen to emerge from the wilds : States 
 whose names were not in existence a few years before claimed 
 their place in the American Union ; and in the Western settle- 
 ments we may behold democracy arrived at its utmost extreme. 
 In these States, founded off-hand, and, as it were, by chance, 
 the inhabitants are but of yesterday. Scarcely known to one 
 another, the nearest neighbors are ignorant of each other's his- 
 tory. In this part of the American continent, therefore, the 
 population has not experienced the influence of great names 
 and great wealth, nor even that of the natural aristocracy of 
 knowledge and virtue. None are there to wield that respecta- 
 ble power which men willingly grant to the remembrance of a 
 life spent in doing good before their eyes. The new States of 
 the West are already inhabited, but society has no existence 
 among them.^ 
 
 It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in Amer- 
 
 e This may have been true in 1832, 
 but is not so in 1874, when great cities 
 like Chicago and San Francisco have 
 sprung up in the Western States. But 
 
 as yet the Western States exert no 
 powerful influence on American society. 
 — Tratislafar's Note. 
 
s« 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 li 
 
 If 
 
 ica; even their requirements partake in some degree of the 
 same uniformity. I do not beHeve that there is a country in 
 the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so 
 few uninstructed and at the same time so few learned individu- 
 als. Primary instruction is within the reach of everybody; 
 superior instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any. This 
 is not surprising ; it is in fact the necessary consequence of what 
 we have advanced above. Almost all the Americans are in easy 
 circumstances, and can therefore obtain the first elements of 
 human knowledge. 
 
 In America there are comparatively few who are rich enough 
 to live without a profession. Every profession requires an ap- 
 prenticeship, which limits the time of instruction to the early 
 years of life. At fifteen they enter upon their calling, and thus 
 their education ends at the age when ours begins. Whatever 
 is done afterwards is with a view to some special and lucrative 
 object ; a science is taken up as a matter of business, and the 
 only branch of it which is attended to is such as admits of an 
 immediate practical application. In America most of the rich 
 men were formerly poor ; most of those who now enjoy leisure 
 were absorbed in business during their youth ; the consequence 
 of which is, that when they might have had a taste for study 
 they had no time for it, and when time is at their disposal they 
 have no longer the inclination. 
 
 There is no class, then, in America, in which the taste for 
 intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune 
 and leisure, and by which the labors of the intellect are held 
 in honor. Accordingly there is an equal want of the desire and 
 the power of application to these objects. 
 
 A middle standard is fixed in America for human knowledge. 
 All approach as near to it as they can ; some as they rise, others 
 as they descend. Of course, an immense multitude of persons 
 are to be found who entertain the same number of ideas on 
 religion, history, science, political economy, legislation, and gov- 
 ernment. The gifts of intellect proceed directly from God, and 
 man cannot prevent their unequal distribution. But in conse- 
 quence of the state of things which we have here represented it 
 happens that, although the capacities of men are widely diflfer- 
 ent, as the Creator has doubtless intended they should be, they 
 are submitted to the same method of treatment. 
 
 In America the aristocratic element has always been feeble 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 53 
 
 from its birth ; and if at the present day it is not actually de- 
 stroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled that we can 
 scarcely assign to it any degree of influence in the course of af- 
 fairs. The democratic principle, on the contrary, has gained 
 so much strength by time, by events, and by legislation, as to 
 have become not only predominant but all-powerful. There is 
 no family or corporate authority, and it is rare to find even the 
 influence of individual character enjoy any durability. 
 
 America, then, exhibits in her social state a most extraordi- 
 nary phenomenon. Men are there seen on a greater equality in 
 point of fortune and intellect, or, in other words, more equal 
 in their strength, than in any other country of the world, or in 
 any age of which history has preserved the remembrance. 
 
 • 
 .1 
 
 Political Consequences of the Social Condition of the 
 
 Anglo-Americans 
 
 The political consequences of such a social condition as this 
 are easily deducible. It is impossible to believe that equality will 
 not eventually find its way into the political world as it does 
 everywhere else. To conceive of men remaining forever un- 
 equal upon one single point, yet equal on all others, is impos- 
 sible ; they must come in the end to be equal upon all. Now I 
 know of only two methods of establishing equality in the polit- 
 ical world ; every citizen must be put in possession of his rights, 
 or rights must be granted to no one. For nations which are ar- 
 rived at the same stage of social existence as the Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans, it is therefore very difficult to discover a medium between 
 the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man : and 
 it would be vain to deny that the social condition which I have 
 been describing is equally liable to each of these consequences. 
 
 There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality 
 which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This 
 passion tends to elevate the humble to the rank of the great ; but 
 there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equal- 
 ity, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to 
 their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to 
 inequality with freedom. Not that those nations whose social 
 condition is democratic naturally despise liberty ; on the con- 
 trary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is not the 
 chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: 
 
?i^: 
 
 N 
 
 54 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty, and if they 
 miss their aim resign themselves to their disappointment ; but 
 nothing can satisfy them except equahty, and rather than lose it 
 they resolve to perish. 
 
 On the other hand, in a State where the citizens are nearly 
 on an equality, it becomes difficult for them to preserve their 
 independence against the aggressions of power. No one among 
 them being strong enough to engage in the struggle with ad- 
 vantage, nothing but a general combination can protect their 
 liberty. And such a union is not always to be found. 
 
 From the same social position, then, nations may derive one 
 or the other of two great political results; these results are 
 extremely different from each other, but they may both proceed 
 from the same cause. 
 
 The Anglo-Americans are the first nations who, having been 
 exposed to this formidable alternative, have been happy enough 
 to escape the dominion of absolute power. They have been al- 
 lowed by their circumstances, their origin, their intelligence, and 
 especially by their moral feeling, to establish and maintain the 
 sovereignty of the people. 
 
 ii n 
 
1 
 
 3M ;.T'{j:j j^ ji?,^ 
 
 f- I .) '\j ^j j !."<"A,G ^ >K !H:i 
 
 ,'A'^'»-!?; 
 
 •^i ji." 
 

 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC SCULPTURE. 
 
 TE IRES/ AS AXn ODVSSEL'S. 
 
 Photou.f,,av,>,i iron', the o,,„nal nurhU r.l,,f,„ tkL.uvrr at Parn 
 
 ',-^ 
 
 , 'J 
 
 ir. f 
 
 h 
 
:r 
 
 !■ I 
 
 
 !■: 
 
 I'ii 
 
 r )' 
 
 ?r 
 
 1 M 
 
 
 1 I'i 
 
 ffl 
 
 ? /; 
 
 V 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 IN AMERICA 
 
 It predominates over the whole of society in America — Application 
 made of this principle by the Americans even before their Revolu- 
 tion — Development given to it by that Revolution — Gradual and ir- 
 resistible extension of the elective qualification. 
 
 WHENEVER the political laws of the United States are 
 to be discussed, it is with the doctrine of the sover- 
 eignty of the people that we must begin. The prin- 
 ciple of the sovereignty of the people, which is to be found, more 
 or less, at the bottom of almost all human institutions, generally 
 remains concealed from view. It is obeyed without being recog- 
 nized, or if for a moment it be brought to light, it is hastily cast 
 back into the gloom of the sanctuary. " The will of the nation " 
 is one of those expressions which have been most profusely 
 abused by the wily and the despotic of every age. To the eyes 
 of some it has been represented by the venal suffrages of a few 
 of the satellites of power ; to others by the votes of a timid or an 
 interested minority; and some have even discovered it in the 
 silence of a people, on the supposition that the fact of submis- 
 sion established the right of command. 
 
 In America the principle of the sovereignty of the people is 
 not either barren or concealed, as it is with some other nations ; 
 it is recognized by the customs and proclaimed by the laws ; it 
 spreads freely, and arrives without impediment at its most re- 
 mote consequences. If there be a country in the world where 
 the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appre- 
 ciated, where it can be studied in its application to the aflfairs of 
 society, and where its dangers and its advantages may be fore- 
 seen, that country is assuredly /America. 
 
 I have already observed that, from their origin, the sover- 
 eignty of the people was the fundamental principle of the greater 
 number of British colonies in America. It was far, however, 
 
 55 
 
 ^1 
 
 ! 1 
 
 \ : 
 
 _/ 
 
56 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 from then exercising as much influence on the government of 
 society as it now does. Two obstacles, the one external, the 
 other internal, checked its invasive progress. It could not os- 
 tensibly disclose itself in the laws of colonies which were still 
 constrained to obey the mother-country: it was therefore 
 obliged to spread secretly, and to gain ground in the provincial 
 assemblies, and especially in the townships. 
 
 American society was not yet prepared to adopt it with all 
 its consequences. The intelligence of New England, and the 
 wealth of the country to the south of the Hudson (as I have 
 shown in the preceding chapter), long exercised a sort of aris- 
 tocratic influence, which tended to retain the exercise of social 
 authority in the hands of a few. The public functionaries were 
 not universally elected, and the citizens were not all of them elec- 
 tors. The electoral franchise was everywhere placed within cer- 
 tain limits, and made dependent on a certain qualification, which 
 was exceedingly low in the North and more considerable in the 
 South. 
 
 The American revolution .broke out, and the doctrine of the 
 sovereignty of the people, which had been nurtured in the town- 
 ships and municipalities, took possession of the State : every 
 class was enlisted in its cause ; battles were fought, and victories 
 obtained for it, until it became the law of laws. 
 
 A no less rapid change was effected in the interior of society, 
 where the law of descent completed the abolition of local in- 
 fluences. 
 
 At the very time when this consequence of the laws and of 
 the revolution was apparent to every eye, victory was irre- 
 vocably pronounced in favor of the democratic cause. All 
 power was, in fact, in its hands, and resistance was no longer 
 possible. The higher orders submitted without a murmur and 
 without a struggle to an evil which was thenceforth inevitable. 
 The ordinary fate of falling powers awaited them ; each of 
 their several members followed his own interests ; and as it was 
 impossible to wring the power from the hands of a people which 
 they did not detest sufficiently to brave, their only aim was to 
 secure its good-will at any price. The most democratic laws 
 were consequently voted by the very men whose interests they 
 impaired ; and thus, although the higher classes did not excite 
 the passions of the people against their order, they accelerated 
 the triumph of the new state of things ; so that by a singular 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 57 
 
 w • 
 
 change the democratic impulse was found to be most irresistible 
 in the "cry States where the aristocracy had the firmest hold. 
 The State of Maryland, which had been founded by men of 
 rank, was the first to proclaim universal suffrage, and to intro- 
 duce the most democratic forms into the conduct of its govern- 
 ment. 
 
 When a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily 
 be foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be en- 
 tirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history 
 of society : the further electoral rights are extended, the greater 
 is the need of extending them; for after each concession the 
 strength of the democracy increases, and its demands increase 
 with its strength. The ambition of those who are below the 
 fippointed rate is irritated in exact proportion to the great num- 
 ber of those who are above it. The exception at last becomes the 
 rule, concession follows concession, and no stop can be made 
 short of universal suffrage. 
 
 At the present day the principle of the sovereignty of the peo- 
 ple has acquired, in the United States, all the practical develop- 
 ment which the imagination can conceive. It is unencumbered 
 by those fictions which have been thrown over it in other coun- 
 tries, and it appears in every possible form according to the 
 exigency of the occasion. Sometimes the laws are made by the 
 people in a body, as at Athens ; and sometimes its representa- 
 tives, chosen by universal suffrage, transact business in its name, 
 and almost under its immediate control. 
 
 In some countries a power exists which, though it is in a de- 
 gree foreign to the social body, directs it, and forces it to pur- 
 sue a certain track. In others the ruling force is divided, being 
 partly within and partly without the ranks of the people. But 
 nothing of the kind is to be seen in the United States ; there so- 
 ciety governs itself for itself. All power centres in its bosom ; 
 and scarcely an individual is to be meet with who would venture 
 to conceive, or, still less, to express, the idea of seeking it else- 
 where. The nation participates in the making of its laws by the 
 choice of its legislators, and in the execution of them by the 
 choice of the agents of the executive government ; it may al- 
 most be said to govern itself, so feeble and so restricted is the 
 share left to the administration, so little do the authorities forget 
 their popular origin and the power from which they emanate.o 
 
 a See Appendix, H. 
 
 (i 
 
 '/I 
 
 ll 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 NECESSITY OF EXAMINING THE CONDITION OF THE 
 STATES BEFORE THAT OF THE UNION AT LARGE 
 
 IT is proposed to examine in the following chapter v/hat is 
 the form of government established in America on the prin- 
 ciple of the sovereignty of the people; what are its re- 
 sources, its hindrances, its advantages,. and its dangers. The 
 first difficulty which presents itself arises from ihe complex 
 nature of the constitution of the United States, which consists 
 of two distinct soo'ul structures, connected and, as it were, en- 
 cased one within the other ; two governments, completely sepa- 
 rate and almost independent, the one fulfilling the ordinary 
 duties and responding to the daily and indefinite calls of a com- 
 munity, the other circumscribed within certain limits, and only 
 exercising an exceptional authority over the general interests of 
 the country. In short, there are twenty-four small sovereign 
 nations, whoso agglomeration constitutes the body of the Union. 
 To examine the Union before we have studied the States would 
 be to adopt a method filled with obstacles. The form of the 
 Fedt ral Government of the United States was the last which 
 was adopted ; and it is in fact nothing more than a modifica- 
 tion or a summary of those republican principles which were 
 current in the whole community before it existed, and inde- 
 pendently of its existence. Moreover, the Federal Government 
 is, as I have just observed, the exception ; the Government of 
 the States is the rule. The author who should attempt to exhibit 
 the picture as a whole before he had explained its details would 
 necessarily fall into obscurity and repetition. 
 
 The great political principles which govern American society 
 at this day undoubtedly took their origin and their growth in 
 the State. It is therefore necessary to become acquainted with 
 the State in order to possess a clue to the remainder. The 
 States which at present compose the American Union all present 
 the same features, as far as regards the external aspect of their 
 
 58 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 59 
 
 OF THE 
 LARGE 
 
 ;r v/hat is 
 1 tlic prin- 
 ire its re- 
 fers. The 
 3 complex 
 ;h consists 
 were, en- 
 iitely sepa- 
 : ordinary 
 of a com- 
 , and only 
 nterests of 
 sovereign 
 he Union, 
 ites would 
 rm of the 
 ast which 
 modifica- 
 lich were 
 and inde- 
 )vemment 
 nment of 
 to exhibit 
 lils would 
 
 in society 
 rowth in 
 nted with 
 er. The 
 11 present 
 t of their 
 
 institutions. Their political or administrative existence is cen- 
 tred in three focuses of action, which may not inaptly be com- 
 pared to the different nervous centres which convey motion to 
 the liuii.'an body. The township is the lowest in order, then the 
 county, and lastly the State ; and I propose to devote the fol- 
 lowing chapter to the examination of these three divisions. 
 
 The American System of Townships and Municipal 
 
 Bodies 
 
 Why the Author begins the examination of the political institutions 
 with the township — Its existence in all rations — Difficulty of es- 
 tablishing and preserving municipal independence — Its importance 
 — Why the Author has selected the township system of New Eng- 
 land as the main topic of his discussion. 
 
 It li not undc ign< Miat I begin this subject with the 
 Township. The vill .r township is the only association 
 
 which is so perfectly natural that wherever a number of men 
 are collected it si'ems to constitute itself. 
 
 The town, or tithing, as the smallest division of a community, 
 must necessarily exist in all nations, whatever their laws and 
 customs may be : if man makes monarchies and establishes re- 
 publics, the first association of mankind seems constituted by 
 the hand of God. But although the existence of the township 
 is coeval with that of man, its liberties are not the less rarely re- 
 spected and easily destroyed. A nation is always able to estab- 
 lish great political assemblies, because it habitually contains a 
 certain number of individuals fitted by their talents, if not by 
 their habits, for the direction of affairs. ' The township is, on 
 the contrary, composed of coarser materials, which are less 
 easily fashioned by the legislator. The difficulties which attend 
 the consolidation of its independence rather augment than di- 
 minish with the increasing enlightenment of the people. A 
 highly civilized community spurns the attempts of a local in- 
 dependence, is disgusted at its numerous blunders, and is apt 
 to despair of success before the experiment is completed. Again, 
 no immunities are so ill protected from the encroachments of 
 the supreme power as those of municipal bodies in general: 
 they are unable to struggle, single-handed, against a strong or 
 an enterprising government, and they cannot defend their cause 
 with success unless it be identified with the customs of the na- 
 tion and supported by public opinion. Thus until the inde- 
 
"Ju 
 
 &. 
 
 as^ .WJ 
 
 %:^,-.o. 
 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 y 
 
 
 
 
 &. 
 
 ^ 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 If iiii lllllil 
 
 ■^ 1^ III 2.2 
 
 " 1^ IIIIIM 
 
 1.8 
 
 11.25 ill 1.4 111.6 
 
 V] 
 
 <^ 
 
 7 
 
 
 /^ 
 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14SB0 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
4^ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 f<> 
 
 6^ 
 
6o 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 t 
 
 I :i 
 
 i 
 
 pendence of townships is amalgamated with the manners of a 
 people it is easily destroyed, and it is only after a long existence 
 in the laws that it can be thus amalg^amated. Municipal free- 
 dom is not the fruit of human device ; it is rarely created ; but 
 it is, as it were, secretly and spontaneously engendered in the 
 midst of a semi-barbarous state of society. The constant ac- 
 tion of the laws and the national habits, peculiar circumstances, 
 and above all time, may consolidate it ; but there is certainly no 
 nation on the continent of Europe which has experienced its 
 advantages. Nevertheless local assemblies of citizens consti- 
 tute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty 
 what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the 
 people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. 
 A nation may establish a system of free government, but with- 
 out the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit 
 of liberty. The transient passions and the interests of an hour, 
 or the chance of circumstances, may have created the external 
 forms of independence; but the despotic tendency which has 
 been repelled will, sooner or later, inevitably reappear on the 
 surface. 
 
 In order to explain to the reader the general principles on 
 which the political organization of the counties and townships 
 of the United States rests, I have thought it expedient to choose 
 one of the States of New England as an example, to examine 
 the mechanism of its constitution, and then to cast a general 
 glance over the country. The township and the county are not 
 organized in the same manner in every part of the Union ; it is, 
 however, easy to percdve that the same principles have guided 
 the formation of both of them throughout the Union. I am in- 
 clined to believe that these principles have been carried further 
 in New England than elsewhere, and consequently that they of- 
 fer greater facilities to the observations of a stranger. The in- 
 stitutions of New England form a complete and regular whole ; 
 they have received the sanction of time, they have the support of 
 the laws, and the still stronger support of the manners of the 
 community, over which they exercise the most prodigious in- 
 fluence ; they consequently deserve our attention on every ac- 
 count. • 
 
 ■- ^ytittwufiJfM'^ Jill** 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 6i 
 
 Limits of the Township 
 
 The township of New England is a division which stands 
 between the commune and the canton of France, and which cor- 
 responds in general to the English tithing, or town. Its average 
 population is from two to three thousand ; a so that, on the one 
 hand, the interests of its inhabitants are not likely to conflict, 
 and, on the other, men capable of conducting its affairs are al- 
 ways to be found among its citizens. 
 
 / 
 
 )' ^ 
 
 Authorities of the Township in New England 
 
 The people the source of all power here as elsewhere — Manages its 
 own affairs — No corporation — The greater part of the authority 
 vested in the hands of the Selectmen — How the Selectmen act — 
 Town-meeting — Enumeration of the public officers of the township 
 — Obligatory and remunerated functions. 
 
 In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the 
 only source of power ; but in no stage of government does the 
 body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence. In 
 America the people is a master whose exigencies demand obedi- 
 ence to the utmost limits of possibility. 
 
 In New England the majority acts by representatives in the 
 conduct of the public business of the State ; but if such an ar- 
 rangement be necessary in general affairs, in the townships, 
 where the legislative and administrative action of the govern- 
 ment is in more immediate contact with the subject, the system 
 of representation is not adopted. There is no corporation ; but 
 the body of electors, after having designated its magistrates, 
 directs them in everything that exceeds the simple and ordi- 
 nary executive business of the State.6 
 
 This state of things is so contrary to our ideas, and so differ- 
 ent from our customs, that it is necessary for me to adduce 
 some examples to explain it thoroughly. 
 
 The public duties in the township are extremely numerous 
 and minutely divided, as we shall see further on ; but the larger 
 proportion of administrative power is vested in the hands of a 
 
 a In 1830 there were 305 townships in 
 the State of Massachusetts, and 610,014 
 inhabitants, which gives an average of 
 about 2,000 inhabitants to each township. 
 
 ft The same rules are not applicable to 
 the great towns, which generally have 
 
 a mayor, and a corporation divided into 
 two bodies ; this, however, is an ex- 
 ception which requires the sanction of 
 
 a law.— See the Act of February 22, 
 1822, for appointing the authorities of 
 the city of Boston. It frequently hap- 
 pens that small towns as well as cities 
 are subject to a peculiar administration. 
 In 1832, 104 townships in the State of 
 New York were governed in this man- 
 ner.— WiV/wmj' Register. 
 
 \i; 
 
 i 
 
u 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 < 
 
 K>« 
 
 small number of individuals, called " the Selectmen." e The 
 general laws of the State impose a certain number of obliga- 
 tions on the selectmen, which they may fulfil without the au- 
 thorization of the body they represent, but which they can only 
 neglect on their own responsibility. The law of the State 
 obliges them, for instance, to draw up the list of electors in 
 their townships ; and if they omit this part of their functions, 
 they are guilty of a misdemeanor. In all the affairs, however, 
 which are determined by the town-meeting, the selectmen are 
 the organs of the popular mandate, as in France the Maire exe- 
 cutes the decree of the municipal council. They usually act 
 upon their own responsibility, and merely put in practice prin- 
 ciples which have been previously recognized by the majority. 
 But if any change is to be introduced in the existing state of 
 things, or if they wish to undertake any new enterprise, they 
 are obliged to refer to the source of their power. If, for in- 
 stance, a school is to be established, the selectmen convoke the 
 whole body of the electors on a certain day at an appointed 
 place; they explain the urgency of the case; they give their 
 opinion on the means of satisfying it, on the probable expense, 
 and the site which seems to be most favorable. The meeting is 
 consulted on these several points ; it adopts the principle, marks 
 out the site, votes the rate, and confides the execution of its 
 resolution to the selectmen. 
 
 The selectmen have alone the right of calling a town-meeting, 
 but they may be requested to do so : if ten citizens are desirous 
 of submitting a new project to the assent of the township, they 
 may demand a general convocation of the inhabitants ; the se- 
 lectmen are obliged to comply, but they have only the right of 
 presiding at the meeting.^ 
 
 The selectmen are elected every year in the month of April 
 or of May. The town-meeting chooses at the same time a num- 
 ber of other municipal magistrates, who are entrusted with im- 
 portant administrative functions. The assessors rate the town- 
 ship ; the collectors receive the rate. A constable is appointed to 
 keep the peace, to watch the streets, and to forward the execu- 
 tion of the laws; the town-clerk records all the town votes. 
 
 c Three selectmen are appointed in the 
 small townships, and nine in t' 
 ones. See " The Town-Officer,' . 
 See also the principal laws of the State 
 of Massachusetts relative to the select- 
 men : 
 
 Act of February 20, 1786, vol. 1. p. 
 
 ted in the 219 ; February 24, 1706, vol. t. p. 488 ; 
 the large March 7, 1801, vol. ii. p. 45 ; June 16, 
 ," p. 186. 179s, vol. i. p. 475 ; March 12, 1808, vol. 
 
 ii. p. i8ti ; February 28, 1787, vol. i. p. 
 
 302; June 22, 1797, vol. i. p. 539. 
 d See Laws of Massachusetts, vol, L 
 
 p. 150, Act of March 25, 1786. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA ^ 
 
 orders, grants, births, deaths, and marriages; the treasurer 
 keeps the funds ; the overseer of the poor performs the difficult 
 task of superintending the action of the poor-laws ; committee- 
 men are appointed to attend to the schools and to public instruc- 
 tion ; and the road-surveyors, who take care of the greater and 
 lesser thoroughfares of the township, complete the list of the 
 principal functionaries. They are, however, still further sub- 
 divided; and amongst the municipal officers are to be found 
 parish commissioners, who audit the expenses of public wor- 
 ship ; different classes of inspectors, some of whom are to direct 
 the citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers, hay wards, 
 chimney-viewers, fence-viewers to maintain the bounds of prop- 
 erty, timber-measurers, and sealers of weights and measures.? 
 
 There are nineteen principal officers in a township. Every 
 inhabitant is constrained, on the pain of being fined, to under- 
 take these different functions; which, however, are almost all 
 paid, in order that the poorer citizens may be able to give up 
 their time without loss. In general the American system is not 
 to grant a fixed salary to its functionaries. Every service has 
 its price, and they are remunerated in proportion to what they 
 have done. 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 in 
 
 ,1 
 
 ' tj 
 
 Existence of the Township 
 
 Every one the best judge of his own interest — Corollary of the principle 
 of the sovereignty of the people — Application of those doctrines in 
 the townships of America — The township of New England is sover- 
 eign in all tha.. concerns itself alone: subject to the State in all other 
 matters — Bond of the township and the State — In France the Gov- 
 ernment lends its agent to the Commune — In America the reverse 
 occurs. 
 
 I have already observed that the principle of the sovereignty 
 of the people governs the whole political system of the Anglo- 
 Americans. Every page of this book will afford new instances 
 of the same doctrine. In the nations by which the sovereignty 
 of the people is recognized every individual possesses an equal 
 share of power, and participates alike in the government of the 
 State. Every individual is, therefore, supposed to be as well 
 informed, as virtuous, and as strong as any of his fellow-citi- 
 zens. He obeys the government, not because he is inferior to 
 
 e All these magistrates actually exist : 
 their different functions are all detailed 
 in a book called " The Town-Officer," 
 
 by Isaac Goodwin, Worcester, 1827 : and 
 in the " Collection of the General Laws 
 of Massachusetts," 3 vols., Boston, 1823. 
 
 y 
 
ft 
 
 h i 
 
 •i 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 64 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the authorities which conduct it, or that he is less capable than 
 his neighbor of governing himself, but because he acknowledges 
 the utility of an association with his fellow-men, and because 
 he knows that no such association can exist without a regulat- 
 ing force. If he be a subject in all that concerns the mutual rela- 
 tions of citizens, he is free and responsible to God alone for all \ 
 that concerns himself. Hence arises the maxim that every one 
 is the best and the sole judge of his own private interest, and 
 that society has no right to control a man's actions, unless they 
 are prejudicial to the common weal, or unless the common weal 
 demands his co-operation. This doctrine is universally ad- 
 mitted in the United States. I shall hereafter examine the 
 general influence which it exercises on the ordinary actions of ' 
 life ; I am now speaking of the nature of municipal bodies. 
 
 The township, taken as a whole, and in relation to the gov- 
 ernment of the country, may be looked upon as an individual to 
 whom the theory I have just alluded to is applied. Municipal 
 independence is therefore a natural consequence of the prin- 
 ciple of the sovereignty of the people in the United States : all 
 the American republics recognize it more or less ; but circum- 
 stances have peculiarly favored its growth in New England. 
 
 In this part of the Union the impulsion of political activity 
 was given in the townships; and it may almost be said that 
 each of them originally formed an independent nation. When 
 the Kings of England asserted their supremacy, they were con- 
 tented to assume the central power of the State. The town- 
 ships of New England remained as they were before ; and al- 
 though they are now subject to the State, they were at first 
 scarcely dependent upon it. It is important to remember that 
 they have not been invested with privileges, but that they have, 
 on the contrary, forfeited a portion of their independence to tht 
 State. The townships are only subordinate to the State in 
 those interests which I shall term social, as they are common 
 to all the citizens. They are independent in all that concerns 
 themselves; and amongst the inhabitants of New England I 
 believe that not a man is to be found who would acknowledge 
 that the State has any right to interfere in their local interests. 
 The towns of New England buy and sell, sue or are sued, aug- 
 ment or diminish their rates, without the slightest opposition on 
 the part of the administrative authority of the State. 
 
 They are bound, however, to comply with the demands of the 
 
 IT 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 65 
 
 / 
 
 ^ 
 
 community. If the State is in need of money, a town can 
 neither give nor withhold the supplies. If the State projects 
 a road, the township cannot refuse to let it cross its territory ; 
 if a police regulation is made by the State, it must be enforced 
 by the town. A uniform system of instruction is organized all 
 over the country, and every town is bound to establish the 
 schools which the law ordains. In speaking of the administra- 
 tion of the United States I shall have occasion to point out the 
 means by which the townships are compelled to obey in these 
 different cases: I here merely show the existence of the obliga- 
 tion. Strict as this obligation is, the government of the State 
 imposes it in principle only, and in its performance the town- 
 ship resumes all its independent rights. Thus, taxes are voted 
 by the State, but they are levied and collected by the township ; 
 the existence of a school is obligatory, but the township builds, 
 pays, and superintends it. In France the State-collector re- 
 ceives the local imposts ; in America the town-collector receives 
 the taxes of the State. Thus the French Government lends its 
 agents to the commune ; in America the township is the agent 
 of the Government. This fact alone shows the extent of the 
 differences which exist between the two nations. 
 
 / 
 # 
 
 
 m 
 
 the 
 
 Public Spirit of the Townships of New England 
 
 How the township of New England wins the affections of its inhabi- 
 tants — Difficulty of creating local public spirit in Europe — The 
 rights and duties of the American township favorable to it — Char- 
 acteristics of home in the United States — Manifestations of public 
 spirit in New England — Its happy effects. 
 
 In America, not only do municipal bodies exist, but they 
 are kept alive and supported by public spirit. The township 
 of New England possesses two advantages which infallibly V 
 secure the attentive interest of mankind, namely, independence y 
 and authority. Its sphere is indeed small and limited, but 
 within that sphere its action is unrestrained ; and its independ- 
 ence gives to it a real importance which its extent and popula- 
 tion may not always ensure. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the affections of men generally 
 lie on the side of authority. Patriotism is not durable in a con- 
 quered nation. The New Englander is attached to his town- 
 ship, not only because he was born in it, but because it con- 
 VoL. I.— 5 
 
66 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 stitutes a social body of which he is a member, and whose 
 government claims and deserves the exercise of his sagacity. 
 In Europe the absence of local public spirit is a frequent sub- 
 ject of regret to those who are in power; every one agrees 
 that there is no surer guarantee of order and tranquillity, and 
 yet nothing is more difficult to create. If the municipal bodies 
 were made powerful and independent, the authorities of the 
 nation might be disunited and the peace of the country endan- 
 gered. Yet, without power and independence, a town may 
 contain good subjects, but it can have no active citizens. An- 
 other important fact is that the township of New England is so 
 constituted as to excite the warmest of human affections, with- 
 out arousing the ambitious passions of the heart of man. The 
 officers of the county are not elected, and their authority is very 
 limited. Even the State is only a second-rate community, 
 whose tranquil and obscure administration offers no induce- 
 ment sufficient to draw men away from the circle of their in- 
 terests into the turmoil of public affairs. The federal govern- 
 ment confers power and honor on the men who conduct it; 
 but these individuals can never be very numerous. The high 
 station of the Presidency can only be reached at an advanced 
 period of life, and the other federal functionaries are generally 
 men who have been favored by fortune, or distinguished in 
 some other career. Such cannot be the permanent aim of the 
 ambitious. But the township serves as a centre for the desire 
 of public esteem, the want of exciting interests, and the taste 
 for authority and popularity, in the midst of the ordinary rela- 
 tions of life ; and the passions which commonly embroil society 
 change their character when they find a vent so near the do- 
 mestic hearth and the family circle. 
 
 In the American States power has been disseminated with 
 admirable skill for the purpose of interesting the greatest pos- 
 sible number of persons in the common weal. Independently 
 of the electors who are from time to time called into action, the 
 body politic is divided into innumerable functionaries and offi- 
 cers, who all, in their several spheres, represent the same power- 
 ful whole in whose name they act. The local administration 
 thus affords an unfailing source of profit and interest to a vast 
 number of individuals. 
 
 The American system, which divides the local authority 
 fimong so n\^ny citizens, does not scruple to multiply the func- 
 
 mtBsaanMim 
 
:i 
 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA ^| 
 
 tions of the town officers. For in the United States it is be- 
 Heved, and with truth, that patriotism is a kind of devotion 
 which is strengthened by ritual observance. In this manner 
 the activity of the township is continually perceptible ; it is daily 
 manifested in the fulfilment of a duty or the exercise of a right, 
 and a constant though gentle motion is thus kept up in society 
 which animates without disturbing it. 
 
 The American attaches himself to his home as the moun- 
 taineer clings to his hills, because the characteristic features of 
 his country are there more distinctly marked than elsewhere. 
 The existence of the townships of New England is in general 
 a happy one. Their government is suited to their tastes, and 
 chosen by themselves. In the midst of the profound peace and 
 general comfort which reign in America the commotions of 
 municipal discord are unfrequent. The conduct of local busi- 
 ness is easy. The political education of the people has long 
 been complete ; say rather that it was complete when the peo- 
 ple first set foot upon the soil. In New England no tradition 
 exists of a distinction of ranks ; no portion of the community 
 is tempted to oppress the remainder; and the abuses which 
 may injure isolated individuals are forgotten in the general 
 contentment which prevails. If the government is defective 
 (and it would no doubt be easy to point out its deficiencies), 
 the fact that it really emanates from those it governs, and that 
 it acts, either ill or well, casts the protecting spell of a parental 
 pride over its faults. No term of comparison disturbs the sat- 
 isfaction of the citizen : England formerly governed the mass 
 of the colonies, but the people vvas always sovereign in the 
 township where its rule is not only an ancient but a primitive 
 state. 
 
 The native of New England is attached to hi? mwnship be- 
 cause it is independent and free : his co- operation ' n its affairs 
 ensures his attachment to its interest ; the well-being it affords 
 him secures his affection; and its welfare is the aim of his 
 ambition and of his future exertions : he takes a part in every 
 occurrence in the place ; he practises the art of government in 
 the small sphere within his reach; he accustoms himself to 
 those forms which can alone ensure the steady progress of 
 liberty; he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, 
 comprehends the union or the balance of powers, and collects 
 
 / 
 
 h' 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 : 
 
I 
 
 h >li 
 
 r :i/ 
 
 I r 
 
 ■II 
 
 ! I 
 
 S; ; 
 ! • 
 
 ;i'i i 
 
 n i 
 
 68 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 clear practical notions on the nature of his duties and the ex- 
 tent of his rights. 
 
 The Counties of New England 
 
 The division of the counties in America has considerable 
 analogy with that of the arrondissements of France. The limits 
 of the counties are arbitrarily laid down, and the various dis- 
 tricts which they contain have no necessary connection, no 
 common tradition or natural sympathy ; their object is simply 
 to facilitate the administration of justice. 
 
 The extent of the township was too small to contain a system 
 of judicial institutions ; each county has, however, a court of 
 justice,' a sheriflf to execute its decrees, and a prison for crimi- 
 nals. There are certain wants which are felt alike by all the 
 townships of a county ; it is therefore, natural that they should 
 be satisfied by a central authority. In the State of Massachu- 
 setts this authority is vested in the hands of several magistrates, 
 who are appointed by the Governor of the State, with the 
 advice 8 of his council.* The officers of the county have only a 
 limited and occasional authority, which is applicable to certain 
 predetermined cases. The State and the townships possess all 
 the power requisite to conduct public business. The budget 
 of the county is drawn up by its officers, and is voted by the 
 legislature, but there is no assembly which directly or indi- 
 rectly represents the county. It has, therefore, properly speak- 
 ing, no political existence. 
 
 A twofold tendency may be discerned in the American con- 
 stitutions, which impels the legislator to centralize the legisla- 
 tive and to disperse the executive power. The township of 
 New England has in itself an indestructible element of inde- 
 pendence ; and this distinct existence could only be fictitiously 
 introduced into the county, where its utility has not been felt. 
 But all the townships united have but one representation, which 
 is the State, the centre of the national authority : beyond the 
 action of the township and that of the nation, nothing can be 
 said to exist but the influence of individual exertion. 
 
 fSee the Act of Februarjr 14, 1821, 
 Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 551. 
 
 g Sec the Act of Februarjr 20, 1819, 
 Laws of Massachusetts, vol. li. p. 494. 
 
 h The council of the Governor is an 
 elective body. 
 
DE rOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 Administration in New England 
 
 Administration not perceived in America— Why? — The Europeans be- 
 lieve that liberty is promoted by depriving the social authority of 
 some of its rights; the Americans, by dividing its exercise — Almost 
 all the administration confined to the township, and divided amongst 
 the town-officers — No trace of an administrative body to be per- 
 ceived, either in the township or above it— The reason of this— How 
 it happens that the administration of the State is uniform — Who is 
 empowered to enforce the obedience of the township and the county 
 to the law — The introduction of judicial power into the administra- 
 tion — Consequence of the extension of the elective principle to all 
 functionaries — The Justice of the Peace in New England — By whom 
 appointed — County officer: ensures the administration of the town- 
 ships — Court of Sessions — Its action — Right of inspection and in- 
 dictment disseminated like the other administrative functions — In- 
 formers encouraged by the division of fines. 
 
 Nothing is more striking to an European traveller in the 
 United States than the absence of what we term the Govern- 
 ment, or the Administration. Written laws exist in America, 
 and one sees that they are daily executed ; but although every- 
 thing is in motion, the hand which gives the impulse to the 
 social machine can nowhere be discovered. Nevertheless, as all 
 peoples are obliged to have recourse to certain grammatical 
 forms, which are the foundation of human language, in order 
 to express their thoughts; so all communities are obliged to 
 secure their existence by submitting to a certain dose of author- 
 ity, without which they fall a prey to anarchy. This authority 
 may be distributed in several ways, but it must always exist 
 somewhere. 
 
 There are two methods of diminishing the force of authority 
 in a nation : The first is to weaken the supreme power in its 
 very principle, by forbidding or preventing society from acting 
 in its own defence under certain circumstances. To weaken 
 authority in this manner is what is generally termed in Europe 
 to lay the foundations of freedom. The second manner of 
 diminishing the influence of authority does not consist in strip- 
 ping society of any of its rights, nor in paralyzing its efforts, 
 but in distributing the exercise of its privileges in various 
 hands, and in multiplying functionaries, to each of whom the 
 degree of power necessary for him to perform his duty is en- 
 trusted. There may be nations whom this distribution of social 
 powers might lead to anarchy ; but in itself it is not anarchical. 
 
It 
 
 H 
 
 \i 
 
 |» DR TOCQUF.VILLE 
 
 The action of authority is indeed thus rendered less irresistible 
 and less perilous, hut it is not totally suppressed. 
 
 The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature 
 and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined 
 craving for independence. It contracted no alliance with the 
 turbulent passions of anarchy ; but its course was marked, on 
 the contrary, by an attachment to whatever was lawful and 
 orderly. 
 
 It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen 
 of a free country has a right to do whatever he pleases ; on the 
 contrary, social obligations were there imposed upon him more 
 various than anywhere else. No idea was ever entertained of 
 attacking the principles or of contesting the rights of society ; 
 but the exercise of its authority was divided, to the end that 
 the office might be powerful and the officer insignificant, and 
 that the community should be at once regulated and free. In 
 no country in the world does the law hold so absolute a lan- 
 guage as in America, and in no country is the right of applying 
 it vested in so many hands. The administrative power in the 
 Unit' d States presents nothing either central or hierarchical 
 in its constitution, which accounts for its passing, unperceived. 
 The power exists, but its representative is not to be perceived. 
 
 We have already seen that the independent townships of 
 New England protect their own private interests; and the 
 municipal magistrates are the persons to whom the execution 
 of the laws of the State is most frequently entrusted.* Besides 
 the general laws, the State sometimes passes general police 
 regulations; but more commonly the townships and town- 
 officers, conjointly with the justices of the peace, regulate the 
 minor details of social life, according to the necessities of the 
 different localities, and promulgate such enactments as concern 
 the health of the community, and the peace as well as morality 
 of the citizens./ Lastly, these municipal magistrates provide, 
 of their own accord and without any delegated powers, for 
 
 i5?ee "The Town-Officer," especially 
 at the words Selectmen, Assessors, Col- 
 lectors, Schools, Surveyors of High- 
 ways. I take one ex.nmple in a thou- 
 sand : the State prohibits travelling on 
 the Sunday ; the tylhinp-men, who are 
 town-officers, are specially charged to 
 keep watch and to execute the law. _ See 
 the Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 
 
 410. 
 
 The selectmen draw up the lists of 
 
 electors for the election of the Governor, 
 and transmit the result of the ballot to 
 the Secretary of the State. Cee Act of 
 February 24, 1796 : Id., vol. i. p. 488. 
 
 i Thus, for instance, the selectmen au- 
 thorize the construction of drains, point 
 out the proper sites for slaughter-houses 
 and other trades which are a nuisance 
 to the neighborhood. See the Act of 
 June 7, 178s : Id., vol, I. p. 193. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 »1 
 
 
 those unforeseen emergencies which frequently occur in so- 
 ciety.* 
 
 It results from what we have said that in the State of Massa- 
 chusetts the administrative authority is almost entirely re- 
 stricted to the township,/ but that it is distributed among a great ^ 
 number of individuals. In the French commune there is prop- 
 erly but one official functionary, namely, the Maire; and in J 
 New England we have seen that there are nineteen. These 
 nineteen functionaries do not in general depend upon one an- 
 other. The law carefully prescribes a circle of action to each 
 of these magistrates ; and within that circle they have an entire 
 right to perform their functions independently of any other 
 authority. Above the township scarcely any trace of a series 
 of official dignitaries is to be found. It sometimes happens, 
 that the county officers alter a decision of the townships or 
 town magistrates.tw but in general the authorities of the county 
 have no right to interfere with the authorities of the township,n 
 except in such matters as concern the county. 
 
 The magistrates of the township, as well as those of the 
 county, are bound to communicate their acts to the central 
 government in a very small number of predetermined cases.o 
 But the central government is not represented by an individual 
 whose business it is to publish police regulations and ordi- 
 nances enforcing the execution of the laws ; to keep up a regular 
 communication with the officers of the township and the 
 county ; to inspect their conduct, to direct their actions, or to « 
 reprimand their faults. There is no point which serves as a 
 centre to the radii of the administration. 
 
 What, then, is the uniform plan on which the government is 
 conducted, and how is the compliance of the counties and their 
 
 aions, and they may grant the license. 
 See Act of March la, 1808, vol. ii. p. 186. 
 The townships have the right to make 
 by-laws, and to enforce them by fines 
 which are fixed by law ; but these by- 
 laws must be approved by the Court of 
 Sessions. See Act of March 
 
 k The selectmen take measures for the 
 security of the public in case of con- 
 tagious diseases, conjointly with the 
 justices of the peace. See Act of June 
 22. 1797, vol. i. p. 530. 
 
 / 1 say almost, for there are various 
 circumst.inces in the annnts of a town- 
 ship which are regulated by the justice 
 of the peace in his individual capacity, 
 or by the justices of the peace assembled 
 in the chief town of the county ; thus 
 licenses are granted by the justices. See 
 the Act of February 28, 1787, vol. i. p. 
 297. 
 
 m Thus licenses are only granted to 
 such persons as can produce a certifi- 
 cate 01 good conduct from the selectmen. 
 If the selectmen refuse to give the certi- 
 ficate, the party may appeal to the jus- 
 tices assembled in the Court of Ses- 
 
 vol. i. p. 254, 
 n In M 
 
 23, 1786, 
 
 assachusetts the county magis- 
 trates are frequently called upon to in- 
 vestigate the acts of the town magis- 
 trates ;_ but it will be shown further on 
 that this investigation is a consequence, 
 not of their administrative, but of their 
 judicial power. 
 
 oThe town committees of schools are 
 obliged to make an annual report to the 
 Secretary of the State on the condition 
 of the school. See Act of March lo^ 
 1827, vol. iii. p. i8j. 
 
»« 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLfi . 
 
 :■ ; 
 
 tl i 
 
 ir ' 
 
 'i 
 
 !i 
 
 magistrates or the townships and their officers enforced? In 
 the States of New England the legislative authority embraces 
 more subjects than it does in France ; the legislator penetrates 
 to the verv core of the administration : the law descends to the 
 most minute details; the same enactment prescribes the prin- 
 ciple and the method of its application, and thus imposes a mul- 
 titude of strict and rigorously defined obligations on the second- 
 ary functionaries of the State. Tlie consequence of this is that 
 if all the secondary functionaries of the administration conform 
 to the law, society in all its branches proceeds with the greatest 
 uniformity : the difficulty remains of compelling the secondary 
 functionaries of the administration to conform to the law. It 
 may be affirmed that, in general, society has only two methods 
 of enforcing the execution of the laws at its disposal: a dis- 
 cretionary power may be entrusted to a superior functionary of 
 directing all the others, and of cashiering them in case of dis- 
 obedience ; or the courts of justice may be authorized to inflict 
 judicial penalties on the offender: but these two methods are 
 not always available. 
 
 The right of directing a civil officer presupposes that of 
 cashiering him if he does not obey orders, and of rewarding 
 him by promotion if he fulfils his duties with propriety. But an 
 elected magistrate can neither be cashiered nor promoted. All 
 elective functions are inalienable until their term is expired. In 
 fact, the elected magistrate has nothing either to expect or to 
 fear from his constituents ; and when all public offices are filled 
 by ballot there can be no series of official dignities, because the 
 double right of commanding and of enforcing obedience can 
 never be vested in the same individual, and because the power 
 of issuing an order can never be joined to that of inflicting a 
 punishment or bestowing a reward. 
 
 The communities therefore in which the secondary function- 
 aries of the government are elected are perforce obliged to make 
 great use of judicial penalties as a means of administration. 
 This is not evident at first sight ; for those in power are apt to 
 look upon the institution of elective functionaries as one con- 
 cession, and the subjection of the elected magistrate to the 
 judges of the land as another. They are equally averse to both 
 these innovations ; and as they are more pressingly solicited to 
 grant the former than the latter, they accede to the election of 
 the magistrate, and leave him independent of the judicial power. 
 
 tl 
 
 i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 73 
 
 Nevertheless, the second of these measures is the only thing that 
 can possibly counterbalance the first ; and it will be found that 
 an elective authority which is not subject to judicial power wil!, 
 sooner or later, either elude all control or be destroyed. The 
 courts of justice are the only possible medium between the cen- 
 tral power and the administrative bodies ; they alone can com- 
 pel the elected functionary to obey, without violating the rights 
 of the elector. The extension of judicial power in the political 
 world ought therefore to be in the exact ratio of the extension of 
 elective offices : if these two institutions do not go hand in hand, 
 the State must fall into anarchy or into subjection. 
 
 It has always been remarked that habits of legal business 
 do not render men apt to the exercise of administrative author- 
 ity. The Americans have borrowed from the English, their 
 fathers, the idea of an institution which is unknown upon the 
 continent of Europe: I allude to that of the Justices of the 
 Peace. The Justice of the Peace is a sort of mezzo termine be- 
 tween the magistrate and the man of the world, between the civil 
 officer and the judge. A justice of the peace is a well-informed 
 citizen, though he is not necessarily versed in the knowledge 
 of the laws. His office simply obliges him to execute the police 
 regulations of society ; a task in which good sense and integrity 
 are of more avail than legal science. The justice introduces 
 into the administration a certain taste for established forms and 
 publicity, which renders him a most unserviceable instrument of 
 despotism ; and, on the other hand, he is not blinded by those 
 superstitions which render legal officers unfit members of a 
 government. The Americans have adopted the system of the 
 English justices of the peace, but they have deprived it of that 
 aristocratic character which is discernible in the mother-coun- 
 try. Thfe Governor of Massachusetts/" appoints a certain num- 
 ber of justices of the peace in every county, whose functions 
 last seven years.9 He further designates three individuals from 
 amongst the whole body of justices who form in each county 
 what is called the Court of Sessions. The justices take a per- 
 sonal share in public business; they are sometimes entrusted 
 with administrative functions in conjunction with elected of- 
 ficers/ they sometimes constitute a tribunal, before which the 
 
 ^We shall 
 Governor is 
 
 hereafter learn what a 
 I shall content myself 
 
 with remarking in this place that he rep- 
 resents the executive power of the whole 
 State. 
 
 <7 See the Constitution of Massachu- 
 setts, chap. II. sect. i. 5 g; chap. III. 
 8 3- 
 
 r Thus, for example, a stranfrer ar- 
 rives in a township from a country 
 
 \ 
 
74 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 i' 
 
 ^J 
 
 f|l 
 
 1 
 
 i ;1 
 
 ^' 
 
 
 magistrates summarily prosecute a refractory citizen, or the 
 citizens inform against the abuses of the magistrate. But it is 
 in the Court of Sessions that they exercise their most important 
 functions. This court meets twice a year in the county town ; 
 in Massachusetts it is empowered to enforce the obedience of the 
 greater number s of public officers.* It must be observed, that in 
 the State of Massachusetts the Court of Sessions is at the same 
 time an administrative body, properly so-called, and a political 
 tribunal. It has been asserted that the county is a purely ad- 
 ministrative division. The Court of Sessions presides over that 
 small number of affairs which, as they concern several town- 
 ships, or all the townships of the county in common, cannot 
 be entrusted to any one of them in particular." In all that con- 
 cerns county business the duties of the Court of Sessions are 
 purely administrative ; and if in its investigations it occasionally 
 borrows the forms of judicial procedure, it is only with a view 
 to its own information.^ or as a guarantee to the community 
 over which it presides. But when the administration of the 
 township is brought before it, it always acts as a judicial body, 
 and in some few cases as an official assembly. 
 
 The first difficulty is to procure the obedience of an authority 
 as entirely independent of the general laws of the State as the 
 township is. We have stated that assessors are annually named 
 by the town-meetings to levy the taxes. If a township attempts 
 to evade the payment of the taxes by neglecting to name 
 its assessors, the Court of Sessions condemns it to a heavy 
 penalty .w The fine is levied on each of the inhabitants; and 
 the sheriff of the county, who is the officer of justice, executes 
 the mandate. Thus it is that in the United States the authority 
 of the Government is mysteriously concealed under the forms 
 
 where a contagious disease prevails, and 
 he falls ill. Two justices of the peace 
 can, with the assent of the selectmen, 
 order the sheriff of the county to remove 
 and take care of him. — Act of June 22, 
 1797, vol. i. p. 540. 
 
 In general the justices interfere in 
 all the important acts of the adminis- 
 tration, and give them a semi-judicial 
 character. 
 
 J I say the greater number, because 
 certain administrative misdemeanors 
 are brought before ordinary tribunals. 
 If, for instance, a township refuses to 
 make the necessary expenditure for its 
 schools or to name a school-committee, 
 it is liable to a heavy fine. Rut this 
 penalty is pronounced by the Supreme 
 Judicial Court or the Court of Common 
 Fleas. See Act of March 10, 1827, Laws 
 
 of Massachusetts, vol. iii. p. 190. Or 
 when a township neglects to provide the 
 necessary war-stores. — Act of February 
 21, 1822 : Id., vol. ii. p. 570. 
 
 t In their individual capacity the jus- 
 tices of the peace take a part in the bus- 
 iness of the counties and townships. 
 
 u These affairs may be brought under 
 the following heads: — i. The erection of 
 prisons and courts of justice. 2. The 
 county budget, which is afterwards 
 voted by the State. 3. The distribution 
 of the taxes so voted. 4. Grants of cer- 
 tain patents. 5. The laying down and 
 repairs of the country roads. 
 
 V Thus, when a road is under consid- 
 eration, almost all difficulties are dis- 
 posed of by the aid of the jury. 
 
 w See Act of February 20, 1786, Laws 
 of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 217. 
 
 / 
 
 .i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 75 
 
 of a judicial sentence; and its influence is at the same time 
 fortified by that irresistible power with which men have invested 
 the formalities of law. 
 
 These proceedings are easy to follow and to understand. The 
 demands made upon a township are in general plain and accu- 
 rately defined ; they consist in a simple fact without any com- 
 plication, or in a principle without its application in detail.*" 
 But the difficulty increases when it is not the obedience of the 
 township, but that of the town officers which is to be enforced. 
 All the reprehensible actions of which a public functionary may 
 be guilty are reducible to the following heads : 
 
 He may execute the law without energy or zeal ; 
 
 He may neglect to execute the law; 
 
 He may do what the law enjoins him not to do. 
 
 The last two violations of duty can alone come under the 
 cognizance of a tribunal; a positive and appreciable fact is 
 the indispensable foundation of an action at law. Thus, if 
 the selectmen omit to fulfil the legal formalities usual at town 
 elections, they may be condemned to pay a fine ; y but when the 
 public officer performs his duty without ability, and when he 
 obeys the letter of the law without zeal or energy, he is at least 
 beyond the reach of judicial interference. The Court of Ses- 
 sions, even when it is invested with its official powers, is in this 
 case unable to compel him to a more satisfactory obedience. 
 The fear of removal is the only check to these quasi-oflFences ; 
 and as the Court of Sessions does not originate the town author- 
 ities, it cannot remove functionaries whom it does not appoint. 
 Moreover, a perpetual investigation would be necessary to con- 
 vict the officer of negligence or lukewarmness ; and the Court 
 of Sessions sits but twice a year and then only judges such 
 offences as are brought before its notice. The only security 
 of that active and enlightened obedience which a court of jus- 
 tice cannot impose upon public officers lies in the possibility of 
 their arbitrary removal. In France this security is sought for 
 in powers exercised by the heads of the administration; in 
 America it is sought for in the principle of election. 
 
 the Court of Sessions, he is sure to em- 
 ploy the extraordinary right which the 
 law 
 
 *■ There is an indirect method of en- 
 forcing the obedience of a township. 
 Suppose that the funds which the law 
 demands for the maintenance of the 
 roads have not been voted, the town sur- 
 veyor is then authorized, ex officio, to 
 levy the supplies. As he is personally 
 responsible to private individuals for the 
 state of the roads, and indictable before 
 
 law gives him against the township. 
 Thus by threatening the officer the 
 Court of Sessions exacts compliance 
 from the town. See Act of March 5, 
 1787. Id., vol. i. p. 305- . .. 
 
 y Laws of Massachusetts, vol. it. p. 45. 
 
li I 
 
 (' 
 
 i 
 
 H 
 
 ■'1 1>. 
 
 
 i; 
 
 76 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Thus, to recapitulate in a few words what I have been show- 
 ing: If a pubHc officer in New England commits a crime in 
 the exercise of his functions, the ordinary courts of justice arc 
 always called upon to pass sentence upon him. If he commits 
 a fault in his official capacity, a purely administrative tribunal 
 is empowered to punish him; and, if the aifair is important 
 or urgent, the judge supplies the omission of the functionary.^ 
 Lastly, if the same individual is guilty of one of those intangible 
 offences of which human justice has no cognizance, he annually 
 appears before a tribunal from which there is no appeal, which 
 can at once reduce him to insignificance and deprive him of his 
 charge. This system undoubtedly possesses great advantages, 
 but its execution is attended with a practical difficulty which it 
 is important to point out. 
 
 I have already observed that the administrative tribunal, 
 which is called the Court of Sessions, has no right of inspection 
 over the town officers. It can only interfere when the conduct 
 of a magistrate is specially brought under its notice ; and this 
 is the delicate part of the system. The Americans of New 
 England are unacquainted with the office of public prosecutor 
 in the Court of Sessions,o and it may readily be perceived that 
 it could not have been established without difficulty. If an 
 accusing magistrate had merely been appointed in the chief 
 town of each county, and if he had been unassisted by agents 
 in the townships, he would not have been better acquainted with 
 what was going on in the county than the members of the Court 
 of Sessions. But to appoint agents in each township would 
 have been to centre in his person the most formidable of powers, 
 that of a judicial administration. Moreover, laws are the chil- 
 dren of habit, and nothing of the kind exists in the legislation 
 of England. The Americans have therefore divided the offices 
 of inspection and of prosecution, as well as all the other func- 
 tions of the administration. Grand jurors are bound by the 
 law to apprise the court to which they belong of all the mis- 
 demeanors which may have been committed in their county.^ 
 There are certain great offences which are officially prosecuted 
 
 s If, for instance, a township persists 
 in refusini; to name its assessors, the 
 Court of Sessions nominates them ; and 
 the magistrates thus appointed are in- 
 vested with the same authority as elected 
 ofiicers. See the Act quoted above, 
 February 20, 1787. 
 
 a I say the Court of Sessions, because 
 
 in common courts there is a maeistrate 
 who exercises some of the functions of 
 a public prosecutor. 
 
 &The grand-jurors arc, for instance, 
 bound to inform the court of the bad 
 state of the roads. — Laws of Massachu- 
 setts, vol. i. p. 308. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 77 
 
 by the States ; c but more frequently the task of punishing de- 
 linquents devolves upon the fiscal officer, whose province it is 
 to receive the fine : thus the treasurer of the township is charged 
 with the prosecution of such administrative otfences as fall 
 under his notice. But a more special appeal is made by Ameri- 
 can legislation to the private interest of the citizen ; d and this 
 great principle is constantly to be met with in studying the laws 
 of the United States. American legislators are more apt to 
 give men credit for intelligence than for honesty, and they rely 
 not a little on personal cupidity for the execution of the laws. 
 When an individual is really and sensibly injured by an admin- 
 istrative abuse, it is natural that his personal interest should 
 induce him to prosecute. But if a legal formality be required, 
 which, however advantageous to the community, is of small 
 importance to individuals, plaintiffs may be less easily found; 
 and thus, by a tacit agreement, the laws may fall into disuse. 
 Reduced by their system to this extremity, the Americans are 
 obliged to encourage informers by bestowing on them a portion 
 of the penalty in certain cases,^ and to insure the execution 
 of the laws by the dangerous expedient of degrading the morals 
 of the people. The only administrative authority above the 
 county magistrates is, properly speaking, that of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 V; 
 
 1/ 
 
 ince, 
 bad 
 
 General Remarks on the Administration of the 
 
 United States 
 
 Differences of the States of the Union in their system of administra- 
 tion — Activity and perfection of the local authorities decrease to- 
 wards the South — Power of the magistrate increases ; that of the elec- 
 tor diminishes — Administration passes from the township to the 
 county — States of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania — Principles of 
 administration applicable to the whole Union — Election of public 
 officers, and inalienability of their functions — Absence of gradation 
 of ranks — Introduction of judicial resources into the administration. 
 
 I have already premised that, after having examined the 
 constitution of the township and the county of New England 
 
 c If, for instance, the treasurer of the 
 county holds back his accounts. — Laws 
 of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 406. 
 
 d Thus, if a private individual breaks 
 down or is wounded in consequence of 
 the badness of a road, he can sue the 
 township or the county for damages at 
 the sessions. — Laws of Massachusetts, 
 vol. i. p. 309. 
 
 c In cases of invasion or insurrection, 
 if the town-officers neglect to furnish 
 
 the necessary stores and ammunition for 
 the militia, the township may be con- 
 demned to a fine of from $200 to $soo. 
 It may readily be imagined that in such 
 a case it might happen that no one cared 
 to prosecute ; hence the law adds that 
 all the citizens mav indict offences of 
 this kind, and that half of the fine shall 
 belong to the plaintiff. See Act of 
 March 6, 1810, vol. ii. p. 236. The same 
 clause is frequently to be met with in 
 
r ir 
 
 78 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 in detail, I should take a general view of the remainder of the 
 Union. Townships and a local activity exist in every State; 
 but in no part of the confederation is a township to be met with 
 precisely similar to those of New England. The more we de- 
 scend towards the South, the less active does the business of 
 the township or parish become ; the number of magistrates, of 
 functions, and of rights decreases; the population exercises 
 a less immediate influence on affairs; town meetings are less 
 frequent, and the subjects of debate less numerous. The power 
 of the elected magistrate is augmented and that of the elector 
 diminished, whilst the public spirit of the local communities 
 is less awakened and less influential./^ These differences may 
 be perceived to a certain extent in the State of New York; 
 they are very sensible in Pennsylvania; but they become less 
 striking as we advance to the northwest. The majority of the 
 emigrants who settle in the northwestern States are natives 
 of New England, and they carry the habits of their mother 
 country with them into that which they adopt. A township in 
 Ohio is by no means dissimilar from a township in Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 We have seen that in Massachusetts the mainspring of public 
 administration lies in the township. It forms the common 
 centre of the interests and affections of the citizens. But this 
 ceases to be the case as we descend to States in which knowledge 
 is less generally diffused, and where the township consequently 
 offers fewer guarantees of a wise and active administration. 
 As we leave New England, therefore, we find that the impor- 
 tance of the town is gradually transferred to the county, which 
 becomes the centre of administration, and the intermediate 
 power between the Government and the citizen. In Massachu- 
 setts the business of the county is conducted by the Court of 
 Sessions, which is composed of a quorum named by the Gov- 
 ernor and his council; but the county has no representative 
 
 and Privileges of 
 
 [}'\ 
 
 the law of Massachusetts. Not only are 
 private individuals thus incited to prose- 
 cute the public officers, but the public 
 officers are encouraged in the same man- 
 ner to bring the disobedience of private 
 individuals to justice. If a citizen re- 
 fuses to perform the work which has 
 been assigned to him upon a road, the 
 road surveyor may prosecute him, and 
 he receives half the penalty for himself. 
 See the Laws above quoted, vol. i. p. 
 308. 
 
 f For details see the Revised Statutes 
 of the State of New York, part i. chap, 
 xi. vol. i. pp. 33<!-364i entitled, " Of the 
 
 Powers, Duties, 
 Towns.'' 
 
 See in the Digest of the Laws of Penn- 
 sylvania, the words Assessors, Collec- 
 tor, Constables, Overseer of the Poor, 
 Supervisors of Highways ; and in the 
 Acts of a general nature of the State 
 of Ohio, the Act of February as, jSm, 
 relating to townships, p. 412 ; besides 
 the peculiar dispositions relating to 
 divers town-officers, such as Town- 
 ship's Clerk, Trustees, Overseers of the 
 Poor, Fence Viewers, Appraisers of 
 Property. Township's Treasurer, Con- 
 stables, Supervisors of Highways. 
 
 I \ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 t9 
 
 assembly, and its expenditure is voted by the national legis- 
 lature. In the great State of New York, on the contrary, and 
 in those of Ohio and Pennsylvania, the inhabitants of each 
 county choose a certain number of representatives, who con- 
 stitute the assembly of the county .g The county assembly has 
 the right of taxing the inhabitants to a certain extent ; and in 
 this respect it enjoys the privileges of a real legislative body : 
 at the same time it exercises an executive power in the county, 
 frequently directs the administration of the townships, and 
 restricts their authority within much narrower bounds than in 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Such are the principal differences which the systems of 
 county and town administration present in the Federal States. 
 Were it my intention to examine the provisions of American 
 law minutely, I should have to point out still further diflferences 
 in the executive details of the several conmiunities. But what 
 I have already said may suffice to show the general principles 
 on which the administration of the United States rests. These 
 principles are differently applied ; their consequences are more 
 or less numerous in various localities ; but they are always sub- 
 stantially the same. The laws differ, and their outward feat- 
 ures change, but their character does not vary. If the township 
 and the county are not everywhere constituted in the same 
 manner, it is at least true that in the United States the county 
 and the township are always based upon the same principle, 
 namely, that everyone is the best judge of what concerns him- ^ 
 self alone, and the most proper person to supply his private 
 wants. The township and the county are therefore bound to 
 take care of their special interests: the State governs, but it 
 does not interfere with their administration. Exceptions to 
 this rule may be met with, but not a contrary principle. 
 
 The first consequence of this doctrine has been to cause all 
 the magistrates to be chosen either by or at least from amongst 
 the citizens. As the officers are everywhere elected or ap- 
 pointed for a certain period, it has been impossible to establish 
 the rules of a dependent series of authorities ; there are almost 
 as many independent functionaries as there are functions, and 
 
 g See the Revised Statutes of the 
 State of New York, part i. chap. xi. vol. 
 i. p. 340. Id. chap. xii. p. 366; also in 
 the Acts of the State of Ohio, an act re- 
 lating to county commissioners, Febru- 
 ary i§, 1824, p. 263, 3i;e the Digest 
 
 of the Laws of Pennsylvania, at the 
 words County-rates and Levies, p. 170. 
 In the State of New York each town- 
 ship elects a rei^resentative, who has a 
 share in the administration of the county 
 M VtM as in that of the township. 
 
^•i-' 
 
 
 5i, 
 
 M ( . 
 
 ' I' '' 
 
 ' i ^ 
 
 ^ ill 
 
 ! I 
 
 i: 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ,V^' 
 
 :/^^ 
 
 
 >. iT 
 
 .) 
 
 V 
 
 !^^ 
 
 8e 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the executive power is disseminated in a multitude of hands. 
 Hence arose the indispensable necessity of introducing the con- 
 trol of the courts of justice over the administration, and the 
 system of pecuniary penalties, by which the secondary bodies 
 and their representatives are constrained to obey the laws. This 
 system obtains from one end of the Union to the other. The 
 power of punishing the misconduct of public officers, or of 
 performing the part of the executive in urgent cases, has not, 
 however, been bestowed on the same judges in all the States. 
 The Anglo-Americans derived the institution of justices of the 
 peace from a common source; but although it exists in all 
 the States, it is not always turned to the same use. The jus- 
 tices of the peace everywhere participate in the administration 
 of the townships and the counties,/* either as puWic officers or 
 as the judges of public misdemeanors, but in most of the States 
 the more important classes of public offences come under the 
 cognizance of the ordinary tribunals. 
 
 The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their 
 functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the intro- 
 duction of a judicial control over the secondary branches of 
 the administration, are the universal characteristics of the 
 American system from Maine to the Floridas. In some States 
 (and that of New York has advanced most in this direction) 
 traces of a centralized administration begin to be discernible. 
 In the State of New York the officers of the central government 
 exercise, in certain cases, a sort of inspection or control over 
 the secondary bodies.* 
 
 At other times they constitute a court of appeal for the deci- 
 sion of affairs./ In the State of New York judicial penalties 
 
 h In some of the Southern States the 
 county courts are charfjed with all the 
 details of the administration. See the 
 Statutes of the State of Tennessee, arts. 
 Judiciary, Taxes, etc. 
 
 t For instance, the direction of public 
 instruction centres in the hands of the 
 Government. The legislature names the 
 members of the University, who are de- 
 nominated Regents ; the Governor and 
 Lieutentant-Governor of the State are 
 necessarily of the number.— Revised 
 Statutes, vol. i. p. 455. The Regents of 
 the University annually visit the col- 
 leges and academies, and make their re- 
 port to the 1.- -islature. Their superin- 
 te'idence is i.ot inefficient, for several 
 .easons : the colleges in order to be- 
 come corporations stand in need of a 
 charter, which is only granted on the 
 recommendation of the Regents ; every 
 year funds are distributed by the State 
 
 for the encouragement of learning, and 
 the Regents are the distributors of this 
 money. Sec chap. xv. " Public Instruc- 
 tion, Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 4^5. 
 
 The school-commissioners are obliged 
 to send an annual report to the Superin- 
 tendent of the Republic— /rf. p. 488. 
 
 A similar report is annually made to 
 the same person on the number and 
 condition of the poor. — Id. p. 631. 
 
 / If any one conceives himself to be 
 wronged by the school-commissioners 
 (who are town-officers), he can appeal 
 to the superintendent of the primary 
 schools, whose decision is final.— Re- 
 vised Statutes, vol. i. p. 487. 
 
 Provisions similar to those above 
 cited are to be met with from time 
 to time in the laws of the State of New 
 York; hut in general these attempts at 
 centralization are weak and unproduc- 
 tive. The great authorities of the State 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 8x 
 
 are less used than in other parts as a means of administration, 
 and the right of prosecuting the offences of public officers is 
 vested in fewer hands.* The same tendency is faintly observ- 
 able in some other States ; ' but in general the prominent feat- 
 ure of the administration in the United States is its excessive 
 local independence. 
 
 Of THE State 
 
 I have described the townships and the administration; it 
 now remains for me to speak of the State and the Government. 
 This is ground I may pass over rapidly, without fear of being 
 misunderstood; for all I have to say is to be found in written 
 forms of the various constitutions, which are easily to be pro- 
 cured. These constitutions rest upon a simple and rational 
 theory; their forms have been adopted by all constitutional 
 nations, and are become familiar to us. In this place, therefore, 
 it is only necessary for me to give a short analysis; I shall 
 endeavor afterwards to pass judgment upon what I now de- 
 scribe. 
 
 Legislative Power of the State 
 
 Division of the Legislative Body into two Houses — Senate — House of 
 Representatives — Different functions of these two Bodies. 
 
 The legislative power of the State is vested in two assemblies, 
 the first of which generally bears the name of the Senate. The 
 Senate is commonly a legislative body ; but it sometimes be- 
 comes an executive and judicial one. It takes a part in the 
 government in several ways, according to the constitution of 
 the different States ;»» but it is in the nomination of public 
 functionaries that it most commonly assumes an executive 
 power. It partakes of judicial power in the trial of certain po- 
 litical offences, and sometimes also in the decision of certain 
 civil cases." The number of its members is always small. The 
 
 k Thus the district-attorney is directed 
 to recover all fines below the sum of 
 fifty dollars, unless such a riRht has 
 been specially awarded to another mag- 
 istmte.— Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 383. 
 
 I Several traces of centralization may 
 be discovered in Massachusetts ; for in- 
 stance, the committees of the town- 
 schools are directed to make an annual 
 report to the Secretary of State. See 
 Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 367. 
 
 in In Massachusetts the Senate is not 
 invested with any administrative func- 
 tions. 
 
 » As in the State of New York. 
 
 have the right of watching and con- 
 trolling the subordinate agents, without 
 that of rewarding or punishing them. 
 The same individual is never empowered 
 to give an order and to punish diso- 
 bedience ; he has therefore the right 
 of commanding;, without the means of 
 exacting compliance. In 1830 the Super- 
 intendent of Schools complained in his 
 Annual Report addressed to the legis- 
 lature that several school-commissioners 
 had neglected, notwithstanding his ap« 
 plication, to furnish him with the ac- 
 counts which were due. He added that 
 if this omission continued he should 
 be obliged to prosecute them, as the law 
 directs, before the proper tribunals. 
 
 Vol. I.— 6 
 
83 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 if 
 
 f ' 
 
 % ; 
 
 
 M' 
 
 [. 
 
 t I- 
 
 , I 
 
 ':i 
 
 
 other branch of the legislature, which is usually called the 
 House of Representatives, has no share whatever in the ad- 
 ministration, and only takes a part in the judicial power inas- 
 much as it impeaches public functionaries before the Senate. 
 The members of the two Houses are nearly everywhere subject 
 to the same conditions of election. They are chosen in the 
 same manner, and by the same citizens. The only difference 
 which exists between them is, that the term for which the 
 Senate is chosen is in general longer than that of the House 
 of Representatives. The latter seldom remain in office longer 
 than a year; the former usually sit two or three years. By 
 granting to the senators the privilege of being chosen for sev- 
 eral years, and being renewed seriatim, the law takes care to 
 preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already ac- 
 customed to public business, and capable of exercising a salu- 
 tary influence upon the junior members. 
 
 The Americans, plainly, did not desire, by this separation of 
 the legislative body into two branches, to make one house 
 hereditary and the other elective ; one aristocratic and the other 
 democratic. It was not their object to create in the one a bul- 
 wark to power, whilst the other represented the interests and 
 passions of the people. The only advantages which result from 
 the present constitution of the United States are the division of 
 the legislative power and the consequent check upon political 
 assemblies ; with the creation of a tribunal of appeal for the 
 revision of the laws. 
 
 Time and experience, however, have convinced the Ameri- 
 cans that if these are its only advantages, the division of the 
 legislative power is still a principle of the greatest necessity. 
 Pennsylvania was the only one of the United States which at 
 first attempted to establish a single House of Assembly, and 
 Franklin himself was so far carried away by the necessary con- 
 sequences of the principle of the sovereignty of the people as 
 to have concurred in the measure ; but the Pennsylvanians were 
 soon obliged to change the law, and to create two Houses. 
 Thus the principle of the division of the legislative power was 
 finally established, and its necessity may henceforward be re- 
 garded as a demonstrated truth. This theory, which was near- 
 ly unknown to the republics of antiquity — which was introduced 
 into the world almost by accident, like so many other great 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 83 
 
 truths — and misunderstood by several modern nations, is at 
 length become an axiom in the political science of the present 
 age. 
 
 The Executive Power of the State 
 
 Office of Governor in an American State — The place he occupies in re- 
 lation to the Legislature— His rights and his duties— His depen- 
 dence on the people. 
 
 The executive power of the State may with truth be said to 
 be represented by the Governor, although he enjoys but a por- 
 tion of its rights. The supreme magistrate, under the title of 
 Governor, is the official moderator and counsellor of the legis- 
 lature. He is armed with a veto or suspensive power, which 
 allows him to stop, or at least to retard, its movements at pleas- 
 ure. He lays the wants of the country before the legislative 
 body, and points out the means which he thinks may be usefully 
 employed in providing for them ; he is the natural executor of 
 its decrees in all the undertakings which interest the nation at 
 large.o In the absence of the legislature, the Governor is bound 
 to take all necessary steps to guard the State against violent 
 shocks and unforeseen dangers. The whole military power of 
 the State is at the disposal of the Governor. He is the com- 
 mander of the militia, and head of the armed force. When the 
 authority, which is by general consent awarded to the laws, is 
 disregarded, the Governor puts himself at the head of the 
 armed force of the State, to quell resistance, and to restore or- 
 der. Lastly, the Governor takes no share in the administration 
 of townships and counties, except it be indirectly in the nomina- 
 tion of Justices of the Peace, which nomination he has not the 
 power to cancel./' The Governor is an elected magistrate, and 
 is generally chosen for one or two years only ; so that he always 
 continues to be strictly dependent upon the majority who re- 
 turned him. 
 
 Practically speaking, it is not always 
 the Governor who executes the plans 
 of the Legislature ; it often happens 
 that the latter, in voting a measure, 
 names special agents to superintend the 
 execution of it. 
 
 / 
 
 P In some of the States the justices of 
 the peace are not elected by the Gover- 
 nor. 
 
DE TOCQUliVILLE 
 
 \ » 
 
 I I 
 
 Political Ekfkcts oi- the System of Local Administra- 
 tion IN TMK United States 
 
 Necessary distinction between the general centralization of Govern- 
 ment and the centralization of the local administration — Local ad- 
 ministration not centralized in the United States: great general 
 centralization of the Government — Some bad consequences result- 
 ing to the United States from the local administration — Adminis- 
 trative advantages attending this order of things — The power which 
 conducts the Government is less regular, less enlightened, less 
 learned, but much greater than in Europe — Political advantages of 
 this order of things — In the United States the interests of the country 
 are everywhere kept in view — Support given to the Government by 
 the community — Provincial institutions more necessary in propor- 
 tion as the social condition becomes more democratic — Reason of 
 this. 
 
 Centralization is become a word of general and daily use, 
 without any precise meaning being attached to it. Neverthe- 
 less, there exist two distinct kinds of centralization, which it is 
 necessary to discriminate with accuracy. Certain interests are 
 connnon to all parts of a nation, such as the enactment of its 
 general laws and the maintenance of its foreign relations. 
 Other interests are peculiar to certain parts of the nation ; such, 
 for instance, as the business of different townships. When the 
 power which directs the general interests is centred in one 
 place, or vested in the same persons, it constitutes a central 
 government. In like manner the power of directing partial or 
 local interests, when brought together into one place, consti- 
 tutes what may be termed a central administration. 
 
 Upon some points these two kinds of centralization coalesce ; 
 but by classifying the objects which fall more particularly with- 
 in the province of each of them, they may easily be distin- 
 guished. It is evident that a central government acquires im- 
 mense power when united to administrative centralization. 
 Thus combined, it accustoms men to set their own will habitu- 
 ally and completely aside ; to submit, not only for once, or upon 
 one point, but in every respect, and at all times. Not only, 
 therefore, does this union of power subdue them compulsorily, 
 but it aflfects them in the ordinary habits of life, and influences 
 each individual, first separately and then collectively. 
 
 These two kinds of centralization mutually assist and attract 
 each other ; but they must not be supposed to be inseparable. 
 It is impossible to imagine a more completely central govern- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMF-RICA 
 
 nient than that which existed in Franct- under Louis XIV.; 
 when the same inchvifhial was the author and the interpreter 
 of the laws, and the representative of France at home and 
 abroad, he was justified in ;isserting that the State was identified 
 with his person. Nevertheless, the administration was much 
 less centralized under i mis XIV. than it is at the present day. 
 
 In England the centralization of the government is carried 
 to great perfection ; the State has the compact vigor nf a man, 
 and by the sole act of its will it puts immense engines in mo- 
 tion, and wields or collects the efforts of its authority. Indeed, 
 I cannot conceive that a nation can enjoy a secure or prosper- 
 ous existence without a powerful centralization of government. 
 But I am of opinion that a central administration enervates the 
 nations in which it exists by incessantly diminishing their pub- 
 lic spirit. If such an administration succeeds in condensing at 
 a given moment, on a given point, all the disposable resources 
 of a people, it impairs at least the renewal of those resources. 
 It may ensure a victory in the hour of strife, but it gradually 
 relaxes the sinews of strength. It may contribute admirably 
 to the transient greatness of a man, but it cannot ensure the 
 durable prosperity of a nation. 
 
 If we pay proper attention, we shall find that whenever it is 
 said that a State cannot act because it has no central point, it is 
 the centralization of the government in which it is deficient. 
 It is frequently asserted, and we are prepared to assent to the 
 proposition, that the German empire was never able to bring 
 all its powers into action. But the reason was, that the State 
 was never able to enforce obedience to its general laws, because 
 the several members of that great body always claimed the 
 right, or found the means, of refusing their co-operation to the 
 representatives of the common authority, even in the affairs 
 which concerned the mass of the people ; in other words, be- 
 cause there was no centralization of government. The same 
 remark is applicable to the Middle Ages ; the cause of all the 
 confusion of feudal society was that the control, not only of 
 local but of general interests, was divided amongst a thousand 
 hands, and broken up in a thousand different ways; the ab- 
 sence of a central government prevented the nations of Europe 
 from advancing with energy in any straightforward course. 
 
 We have shown that in the United States no central admin- 
 istration and no dependent series of public functionaries exist. 
 
i 1 1' 
 
 ■ : \ 
 
 86 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Local authority has been carried to lengths which no European 
 nation could endure without great inconvenience, and which 
 has even produced some disadvantageous consequences in 
 America. But in the United States the centralization of the 
 Government is complete ; and it would be easy to prove that 
 the national power is more compact than it has ever been in 
 the old nations of Europe. Not only is there but one legis- 
 lative body in each State; not only does there exist but one 
 source of political authority ; but district assemblies and county 
 courts have not in general been multiplied, lest they should be 
 tempted to exceed their administrative duties, and interfere 
 with the Government. In America the legislature of each State 
 is supreme; nothing can impede its authority; neither priv- 
 ileges, nor local immunities, nor personal influence, nor even 
 the empire of reason, since it represents that majority which 
 claims to be the sole organ of reason. Its own determination 
 is, therefore, the only limit to this action. In juxtaposition to 
 it, and under its immediate control, is the representative of the 
 executive power, whose duty it is to constrain the refractory 
 to submit by superior force. The only symptom of weakness 
 lies in certain details of the action of the Government. The 
 American republics have no standing armies to intimidate a dis- 
 contented minority ; but as no minority has as yet been reduced 
 to declare open war, the necessity of an army has not been felt.? 
 The State usually employs the officers of the township or the 
 county to deal with the citizens. Thus, for instance, in New 
 England, the assessor fixes the rate of taxes ; the collector re- 
 ceives them ; the town-treasurer transmits the amount to the 
 public treasury ; and the disputes which may arise are brought 
 before the ordinary courts of justice. This method of collect- 
 ing taxes is slow as well as inconvenient, and it would prove a 
 perpetual hindrance to a Government whose pecuniary de- 
 mands were large. It is desirable that, in whatever materially 
 affects its existence, the Government should be served by offi- 
 •cers of its own, appointed by itself, removable at pleasure, and 
 accustomed to rapid methods of proceeding. But it will al- 
 ways be easy for the central government, organized as it is in 
 
 q [The Civil War of 1860-65 cruelly be- 
 lied this statement, and in the course of 
 the struggle the North alone called two 
 millions and a half of men to arms; but 
 to the honor of the United States it must 
 
 be added that, wtththe cessation of the 
 contest, this army disappeared as rapidly 
 as it had been raised.— TVan^/atort 
 Note.1 
 
 :% 
 
 / 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 87 
 
 America, to introduce new and more efficacious modes of action, 
 proportioned to its wants. 
 
 Tlie absence of a central government will not, then, as has 
 often been asserted, prove the destruction of the republics of 
 the New World ; far from supposing that the American govern- 
 ments are not sufficiently centralized, I shall prove hereafter 
 that they are too much so. The legislative bodies daily en- 
 croach upon the authority of the Government, and their ten- 
 dency, like that of the French Convention, is to appropriate it 
 entirely to themselves. Under these circumstances the social 
 power is constantly changing hands, because it is subordinate 
 to the power of the people, which is too apt to forget the max- . 
 ims of wisdom and of foresight in the consciousness of its / 
 strength : hence arises its danger ; and thus its vigor, and not 
 its impotence, will probably be the cause of its ultimate de- 
 struction. 
 
 The system of local administration produces several different 
 effects in America. The Americans seem to me to have out- 
 stepped the limits of sound policy in isolating the administra- 
 tion of the Government ; for order, even in second-rate affairs, 
 is a matter of national importance.*" As the State has no ad- 
 ministrative functionaries of its own, stationed on different 
 points of its territory, to whom it can give a common impulse, 
 the consequence is that it rarely attempts to issue any general 
 police regulations. The want of these regulations is severely 
 felt, and is frequently observed by Europeans. The appearance 
 of disorder which prevails on the surface leads him at first to 
 imagine that society is in a state of anarchy ; nor does he per- 
 ceive his mistake till he has gone deeper into the subject. Cer- 
 tain undertakings are of importance to the whole State; but 
 they cannot be put in execution, because there is no national ^ 
 administration to direct them. Abandoned to the exertions of 
 the towns or counties, under the care of elected or temporary 
 agents, they lead to no result, or at least to no durable benefit. 
 
 The partisans of centralization in Europe are wont to main- 
 
 rThe authority which represents the 
 State ought not, I think, to waive the 
 right of inspecting the local administra- 
 tion, even when it does not interfere 
 more actively. Suppose, for instance, 
 that an agent of the Government was 
 stationed at some appointed spot in the 
 country, to prosecute the misdemeanors 
 of the town and county officers, would 
 
 not a more uniform order be the result, 
 without in any way compromising the 
 independence of the township? Nothing 
 of the kind, however, exists in America : 
 there is nothing above the county- 
 courts, v/hich have, as it were, only an 
 incidental cognizance of the offences 
 they are meant to repress. 
 
IV . 
 
 H • M 
 
 J 
 
 88 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 tain that the Government directs the affairs of each locality 
 better than the citizens could do it for themselves ; this may 
 be true when the central power is enlightened, and when the 
 local districts are ignorant ; when it is as alert as they are slow ; 
 when it is accustomed to act, and they to obey. Indeed, it 
 is evident that this double tendency must augment with the 
 increase of centralization, and that the readiness of the one and 
 the incapacity of the others must become more and more prom- 
 inent. But I deny that such is the case when the people is as 
 enlightened, as awake to its interests, and as accustomed to re- 
 flect on them, as the Americans are. I am persuaded, on the 
 contrary, that in this case the collective strength of the citi- 
 zens will always conduce more efficaciously to the public wel- 
 fare than the authority of the Government, It is difficult to 
 point out with certainty the means of arousing a sleeping popu- 
 lation, and of giving it passions and knowledge which it does 
 not possess ; it is, I am well aware, an arduous task to persuade 
 men to busy themselves about their own affairs ; and it would 
 frequently be easier to interest them in the punctilios of court 
 etiquette than in the repairs of their common dwelling. But 
 whenever a central administration affects to supersede the per- 
 sons most interested, I am inclined to suppose that it is either 
 misled or desirous to mislead. However enlightened and how- 
 ever skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace 
 all the details of the existence of a great nation. Such vig- 
 ilance exceeds the powers of man. And when it attempts to 
 create and set in motion so many complicated springs, it must 
 submit to a very imperfect result, or consume itself in bootless 
 efforts. 
 
 Centralization succeeds more easily, indeed, in subjecting the 
 external actions of men to a certain uniformity, which at least 
 commands our regard, independently of the objects to which 
 it is applied, like those devotees who worship the statue and 
 forget the deity it represents. Centralization imparts without 
 difficulty an admirable regularity to the routine of business; 
 provides for the details of the social police with sagacity ; re- 
 presses the smallest disorder and the most petty misdemean- 
 ors ; maintains society in a status quo alike secure from improve- 
 ment and decline ; and perpetuates a drowsy precision in the 
 conduct of affairs, which is hailed by the heads of the adminis- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 89 
 
 tration as a sign of perfect order and public tranquillity : s in 
 short, it excels more in prevention than in action. Its force de- 
 serts it when society is to be disturbed or accelerated in its 
 course ; and if once the co-operation of private citizens is neces- 
 sary to the furtherance of its measures, the secret of its impo- 
 tence is disclosed. Even whilst it invokes their assistance, it is 
 on the condition that they shall act exactly as much as the 
 Government chooses, and exactly in the manner it appoints. 
 They are to take charge of the details, without aspiring to guide 
 the system ; they are to work in a dark and subordinate sphere, 
 and only to judge the acts in which they have themselves co- 
 operated by their results. These, however, are not conditions 
 on which the alliance of the human will is to be obtained ; its 
 carriage must be free and its actions responsible, or (such is the 
 constitution of man) the citizen had rather remain a passive 
 spectator than a dependent actor in schemes with which he is 
 unacquainted. 
 
 It is undeniable that the want of those uniform regulations 
 which control the conduct of every inhabitant of France is not 
 unfrequently felt in the United States. Gross instances of so- 
 cial indifference and neglect are to be met with, and from time 
 to time disgraceful blemishes are seen in complete contrast 
 with the surrounding civilization. Useful undertakings which 
 cannot succeed without perpetual attention and rigorous ex- 
 actitude are very frequently abandoned in the end ; for in Amer- 
 ica, as well as in other countries, the people is subject to sud- 
 den impulses and momentary exertions. The European who 
 is accustomed to find a functionary always at hand to interfere 
 with all he undertakes has some difficulty in accustoming him- 
 self to the complex mechanism of the administration of the 
 townships. In general it may be affirmed that the lesser de- 
 tails of the police, which render life easy and comfortable, are 
 neglected in America ; but that the essential guarantees of man 
 in society are as strong there as elsewhere. In America the 
 power which conducts the Government is far less regular, less 
 enlightened, and less learned, but an hundredfold more au- 
 
 « China appears to me to present the 
 most perfect instance of that species 
 nf \vellbein(» which a completely central 
 administration may furnish to the na- 
 tions amonR which it exists. Travellers 
 assure us that the Chinese have peace 
 without happiness, industry without im- 
 provement, stability witliout strength, 
 
 and public order without public moral- 
 ity. The condition of society is always 
 tolerable, never excellent, I am con- 
 vinced that, when China is opened to 
 European observation, it will be found 
 to contain the most perfect model of a 
 central administration which exists in 
 the universe. 
 
 / 
 
 
 :\ 
 
90 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 m " 
 
 ■i> . 1 
 
 /' 
 
 thoritative than in Europe. In no country in the world do the 
 citizens make such exertions for the common weal ; and I am 
 acquainted with no people which has established schools as 
 numerous and as efficacious, places of public worship better 
 suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in better 
 repair. Uniformity or permanence of design, the minute ar- 
 rangement of details,* and the perfection of an ingenious ad- 
 ministration, must not be sought for in the United States ; but 
 it will be easy to find, on the other hand, the symptoms of a 
 power which, if it is somewhat barbarous, is at least robust ; 
 and of an existence which is checkered with accidents indeed, 
 but cheered at the same time by animation and effort. 
 
 Granting for an instant that the villages and counties of the 
 United States would be more usefully governed by a remote 
 authority which they had never seen than by functionaries 
 taken from the midst of them — admitting, for the sake of argu- 
 ment, that the country would be more secure, and the resources 
 of society better employed, if the whole administration centred 
 in a single arm — still the political advantages which the Amer- 
 icans derive from their system would induce me to prefer it to 
 the contrary plan. It profits me but little, after all, that a 
 vigilant authority should protect the tranquillity of my pleas- 
 ures and constantly avert all dangers from my path, without 
 my care or my concern, if this same authority is the absolute 
 mistress of my liberty and of i.iy life, and if it so monopolizes 
 all the energy of existence that when it languishes everything 
 languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, 
 that when it dies the State itself must perish. 
 
 [ '\ 
 
 * A writer of talent, who, in the com- 
 parison which he has drawn between 
 the finances of France and those of the 
 United States, has proved that ingenuity 
 cannot always supply the place of a 
 knowledge of facts, very justly re- 
 proaches the Americans for the sort 
 of confusion which exists in the ac- 
 counts of the expenditure in the town- 
 ships; and after giving the model of 
 a departmental budget in France, he 
 adds: — "We are indebted to centrali- 
 zation, that admirable invention of a 
 great man, for the uniform order and 
 method which prevail alike in all the 
 municipal budgets, from the largest 
 town to the humblest commune." What- 
 ever may be my admiration of this 
 result, when I see the communes of 
 France, with their excellent system of 
 accounts, plunged into the grossest 
 ignorance of their true interests, and 
 abandoned to so incorrigible an apathy 
 
 that they seem to vegetate rather than 
 to live; when, on the other hand, I 
 observe the activity, the information, 
 and the spirit of enterprise which keep 
 society in perpetual labor, in those Am- 
 erican townships whose budgets are 
 drawn up with small method and with 
 still less uniformity, I am struck by the 
 spectacle; for to my mind the end of a 
 good government is to ensure the wel- 
 fare of a people, and not to establish 
 order and regularity in the midst of its 
 misery and its distress. I am therefore 
 led to suppose that the prosperity of 
 the American townships and the ap- 
 parent confusion of their accounts, the 
 distress of the French communes and 
 the perfection of their budget, may be 
 attributable to the same cause. At any 
 rate I am suspicious of a benefit which 
 is united to so many evils, and I am 
 not averse to an evil which is compen- 
 sated by so many benefits. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 9» 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 In certain countries of Europe the natives consider them- 
 selves as a kind of settlers, indifferent to the fate of the spot 
 upon which they live. The greatest changes are effected with- 
 out their concurrence and (unless chance may have apprised 
 them of the event) without their knowledge; nay more, the 
 citizen is unconcerned as to the condition of his village, the 
 police of his street, the repairs of the church or of the par- 
 sonage ; for he looks upon all these things as unconnected with 
 himself, and as the property of a powerful stranger whom he 
 calls the Government. He has only a life-interest in these pos- 
 sessions, and he entertains no notions of ownership or of im- 
 provement. This want of interest in his own affairs goes so far 
 that, if his own safety or that of his children is endangered, in- 
 stead of trying to avert the peril, he will fold his arms, and wait 
 till the nation comes to his assistance. This same individual, 
 who has so completely sacrificed his own free will, has no nat- 
 ural propensity to obedience ; he cowers, it is true, before the 
 pettiest officer ; but he braves the law with the spirit of a con- 
 quered foe as soon as its superior force is removed : his oscilla- 
 tions between servitude and license are perpetual. When a 
 nation has arrived at this state it must either change its customs 
 and its laws or perish : the source of public virtue is dry, and, 
 though it may contain subjects, the race of citizens is extinct. 
 Such communities are a natural prey to foreign conquests, and 
 if they do not disappear from the scene of life, it is because they 
 are surrounded by other nations similar or inferior to them- 
 selves: it is because the instinctive feeling of their country's 
 claims still exists in their hearts ; and because an involuntary 
 pride in the name it bears, or a vague reminiscence of its bygone 
 fame, suffices to give them the impulse of self-preservation. 
 
 Nor can the prodigious exertions made by tribes in the de- 
 fence of a country to which they did not belong be adduced in 
 favor of such a system ; for it will be found that in these cases 
 their main incitement was religion. The permanence, the 
 glory, or the prosperity of the nation were become parts of their 
 faith, and in defending the country they inhabited they defend- 
 ed that Holy City of which they were all citizens. The Turkish 
 tribes have never taken an active share in the conduct of the 
 affairs of society, but they accomplished stupendous enterprises 
 as long as the victories of the Sultan were the triumphs of the 
 Mohammedan faith. In the present age they are in rapid de- 
 
1-' 
 
 I 
 
 t't 
 
 92 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I ■■ u 
 
 1\\ 
 
 cay, because their religion is departing, and despotism only 
 remains. Montesquieu, who attributed to absolute power an 
 authority peculiar to itself, did it, as I conceive, an undeserved 
 honor ; for despotism, taken by itself, can produce no durable 
 results. On close inspection we shall find that religion, and 
 not fear, has ever been the cause of the long-lived prosperity 
 of an absolute government. Whatever exertions may be made, 
 no true power can be founded among men which does not de- 
 pend upon the free union of their inclinations ; and patriotism 
 and religion are the only two motives in the world which can 
 permanently direct the whole of a body politic to one end. 
 
 Laws cannot succeed in rekindling the ardor of an extin- 
 guished faith, but men may be interested in the fate of their 
 country by the laws. By this influence the vague impulse of 
 patriotism, which never abandons the human heart, may be 
 directed and revived ; and if it be connected with the thoughts, 
 the passions, and the daily habits of life, it may be consolidated 
 into a durable and rational sentiment. 
 
 Let it not be said that the time for the experiment is already 
 past ; for the old age of nations is not like the old age of men, 
 and every fresh generation is a new people ready for the care of 
 the legislator. 
 
 It is not the administrative but the political eflfects of the 
 local system that I most admire in America. In the United 
 States the interests of the country are everywhere kept in view ; 
 they are an object of solicitude to the people of the whole Un- 
 ion, and every citizen is as warmly attached to them as if they 
 were his own. He takes pride in the glory of his nation ; he 
 boasts of its success, to which he conceives himself to have 
 contributed, and he rejoices in the general prosperity by which 
 he profits. The feeling he entertains towards the State is an- 
 alogous to that which unites him to his family, and it is by a 
 kind of egotism that he interests himself in the welfare of his 
 country. 
 
 The European generally submits to a public officer because 
 he represents a superior force ; but to an American he represents 
 a right. In America it may be said that no one renders obedi- 
 ence to man, hut to justice and to law. If the opinion which 
 the citizen entertains of himself is exaggerated, it is at least 
 salutary ; he unhesitatingly confides in his own powers, which 
 appear to him to be all-sufficient. When a private iruivi.iual 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 93 
 
 meditates an undertaking, however directly connected it may 
 be with the welfare of society, he never thinks of soliciting the 
 co-operation of the Government, but he publishes his plan, of- 
 fers to execute it himself, courts the assistance of other indi- 
 viduals, and struggles manfully against all obstacles. Un- 
 doubtedly he is often less successful than the State might have 
 been in his position ; but in the end the sum of these private 
 undertakings far exceeds all that the Government could have 
 done. 
 
 As the administrative authority is within the reach of the 
 citizens, whom it in some degree represents, it excites neither 
 their jealousy nor their hatred; as its resources are limited, 
 every one feels that he must not rely solely on its assistance. 
 Thus, when the administration thinks fit to interfere, it is not 
 abandoned to itself as in Europe ; the duties of the private citi- 
 zens are not supposed to have lapsed because the State assists 
 in their fulfilment, but every one is ready, on the contrary, to 
 guide and to support it. This action of individual exertions, 
 joined to that of the public authorities, frequently performs what 
 the most energetic central administration would be unable to 
 execute. It would be easy to adduce several facts in proof of 
 what I advance, but I had rather give only one, with which I 
 am more thoroughly acquainted." In America the means 
 which the authorities have at their disposal for the discovery of 
 crimes and the arrest of criminals are few. The State police 
 does not exist, and passports are unknown. The criminal po- 
 lice of the United States cannot be compared to that of France ; 
 the magistrates and public prosecutors are not numerous, and 
 the examinations of prisoners are rapid and oral. Neverthe- 
 less in no country does crime more rarely elude punishment. 
 The reason is, that every one conceives himself to be inter- 
 ested in furnishing evidence of the act committed, and in stop- 
 ping the delinquent. During my stay in the United States 
 I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees for the 
 pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great 
 crime in a certain county. In Europe a criminal is an unhappy 
 being who is struggling for his life against the ministers of 
 justice, whilst the population is merely a spectator of the con- 
 flict ; in America he is looked upon as an enemy of the human 
 race, and the whole of mankind is against him. 
 
 w See Appendix, I. 
 
94 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 n: !■ 
 
 ;( 
 
 I believe that provincial institutions are useful to all nations, 
 but nowhere do they appear to me to be more indispensable 
 than amongst a democratic people. In an aristocracy order 
 can always be maintained in the midst of liberty, and as the 
 rulers have a great deal to lose order is to them a first-rate 
 consideration. In like manner an aristocracy protects the peo- 
 ple from the excesses of despotism, because it always possesses 
 an organized power ready to resist a despot. But a democ- 
 racy without provincial institutions has no security against 
 these evils. How can a populace, unaccustomed to freedom 
 in small concerns, learn to use it temperately in great affairs ? 
 What resistance can be offered to tyranny in a country where 
 every private individual is impotent, and where the citizens are 
 united by no common tie? Those who dread the license of 
 the mob, and those who fear the rule of absolute power, ought 
 alike to desire the progressive growth of provincial liberties. 
 
 On the other hand, I am convinced that democratic nations 
 are most exposed to fall beneath the yoke of a central adminis- 
 tration, for several reasons, amongst which is the following. 
 The constant tendency of these nations is to concentrate all 
 the strength of the Government in the hands of the only power 
 which directly represents the people, because beyond the peo- 
 ple nothing is to be perceived but a mass of equal individuals 
 confounded together. But when the same power is already in 
 possession of all the attributes of the Government, it can scarce- 
 ly refrain from penetrating into the details of the administra- 
 tion, and an opportunity of doing so is sure to present itself in 
 the end, as was the case in France. In the French Revolution 
 there were two impulses in opposite directions, which must 
 never be confounded — the one was favorable to liberty, the 
 other to despotism. Under the ancient monarchy the King 
 was the sole author of the laws, and below the power of the 
 sovereign certain vestiges of provincial institutions, half de- 
 stroyed, were still distinguishable. These provincial institu- 
 tions were incoherent, ill compacted, and frequently absurd ; in 
 the hands of the aristocracy they had sometimes been convert- 
 ed into instruments of oppression. The Revolution declared 
 itself the enemy of royalty and of provincial institutions at the 
 same time; it confounded all that had preceded it — despotic 
 power and the checks to its abuses — in indiscriminate hatred, 
 and its tendency was at once to overthrow and to centralize. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 98 
 
 This double character of the French Revolution is a fact which 
 has been adroitly handled by the friends of absolute power. 
 Can they be accused of laboring in the cause of d' • <otism 
 when they are defending that central administration wi. .1 was 
 one of the great innovations of the Revolution ?f In this 
 manner popularity may be conciliated with hostility to the 
 rights of the people, and the secret slave of tyranny may be the 
 professed admirer of freedom. 
 
 I have visited the two nations in which the system of pro- 
 vincial liberty has been most perfectly established, and I have 
 listened to the opinions of different parties in those countries. 
 In America I met with men who secretly aspired to destroy 
 the democratic institutions of the Union ; in England I found 
 others who attacked the aristocracy openly, but I know of no 
 one who does not regard provincial independence as a great 
 benefit. In both countries I have heard a thousand different 
 causes assigned for the evils of the State, but the local system 
 was never mentioned amongst them. I have heard citizens 
 attribute the power and prosperity of their country to a multi- 
 tude of reasons, but they all placed the advantages of local in- 
 stitutions in the foremost rank. Am I to suppose that when 
 men who are naturally so divided on religious opinions and on 
 political theories agree on one point (and that one of which they 
 have daily experience), they are all in error ? The only nations 
 which deny the utility of provincial liberties are those which 
 have fewest of them ; in other words, those who are unacquaint- 
 ed with the institution are the only persons who pass a censure 
 upon it. 
 
 vSee Appendix K 
 
 J!ii;;jaL 
 
,1 
 
 y { 
 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 JUDICIAL POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND ITS IN- 
 FLUENCE ON POLITICAL SOCIETY 
 
 The Anglo-Americanb have retained the characteristics of judicial 
 power which are common to all nations — They have, however, made 
 it a powerful political organ — How — In what the judicial system of 
 the Anglo-Americans differs from that of all other nations — Why the 
 American judges have the right of declaring the laws to be uncon- 
 stitutional—How they use this right — Precautions taken by the 
 legislator to prevejit its abuse. 
 
 I HAVE thought it essential to devote a separate chapter to 
 the judicial authorities of the United States, lest their 
 great political importance should be lessened in the read- 
 er's eyes by a merely incidental mention of them. Confedera- 
 tions have existed in other countries beside America, and re- 
 publics have not been established upon the shores of the New 
 World alone; the representative system of government has 
 been adopted in several States of Europe, but I am not aware 
 that any nation of the globe has hitherto organized a judicial 
 power on the principle now adopted by the ^\inencans. The 
 judicial organization of the United States is the institution 
 which a stranger has the greatest difficulty in understanding. 
 He hears the authority of a judge invoked in the political oc- 
 currences of every day, and he naturally concludes that in the 
 United States the judges are important political functionaries ; 
 nevertheless, when he examines the nature of the tribunals, they 
 offer nothing which is contrary to the usual habits and priv- 
 ileges of those bodies, and the magistrates seem to him to inter- 
 fere in public affairs of chance, but by a chance which recurs 
 every day. 
 
 When the Parliament of Paris remonstrated, or refused to 
 enregister an edict, or when it summoned a functionary accused 
 of malversation to its bar, its political influence as a judicial 
 body was clearly visible ; but nothing of the kind is to be seen 
 in the United States. The Americans have retained all the ordi- 
 
 96 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMKRICA 
 
 nary characteristics of judicial autliority, and have carefully 
 restricted its action to the ordinary circle of its functions. 
 
 The first characteristic of judicial power in all nations is the 
 duty of arbitration. But rights must be contested in order to 
 warrant the interference of a tribunal ; and an action nuist be 
 brought to obtain the decision of a judge. As long, therefore, 
 as the law is uncontested, the judicial authority is not called 
 upon to discuss it, and it may exist without being perceived. 
 When a judge in a given case attacks a law relating to that 
 case, he extends the circle of his customary duties, without 
 however stepping beyond it; since he is in some measure 
 obliged to decide upon the law in order to decide the case. But 
 if he pronounces upon a law without resting upon a case, he 
 clearly steps beyond his sphere, and invades that of the legis- 
 lative authority. 
 
 The second characteristic of judicial power is that it pro- 
 nounces on special cases, and not upon general principles. If 
 a judge in deciding a particular point destroys a general prin- 
 ciple, by passing a judgment which tends to reject all the in- 
 ferences from that principle, and consequently to annul it, he 
 remains within the ordinary limits of his functions. But if he 
 directly attacks a general principle without having a particular 
 case in view, he leaves the circle in which all nations have agreed 
 to confine his authority, he assumes a more important, and per- 
 haps a more useful, influence than that of the magistrate, but 
 he ceases to be a representative of the judicial power. 
 
 The third characteristic of the judicial power is its inability 
 to act unless it is appealed to, or until it has taken cognizance 
 of an affair. This characteristic is less general than the other 
 two; but, notwithstanding the exceptions, I think it may be 
 regarded as essential. The judicial power is by its nature de- 
 void of action ; it must be put in motion in order to produce 
 a result. When it is called upon to repress a crime, it punishes 
 the criminal; when a wrong is to be redressed, it is ready to 
 redress it; when an act requires interpretation, it is prepared 
 to interpret it; but it does not pursue criminals, hunt out 
 wrongs, oi* examine into evidence of its own accord. A judicial 
 functionary who should open proceedings, and usurp the cen- 
 sorship of the laws, would in some measure do violence to the 
 passive nature of his authority. 
 
 The Americans have retained these three distinguishing char- 
 VoL. L—J 
 
i I 
 
 DK TOl'OUI'.VIIXF, 
 
 artcristirs of the jiiditial powrr; an Anu'rican jtulpc can only 
 piuiKiima' a (Urisinn wluii litijjation has arisi-ii, lii" is only 
 conversant with sinrial lasts, and ht' cannot act until the catisc 
 has Iktii duly hrouj^ht luforc the court. Mis position is tlurc- 
 foic pcrfirtly similar to that of the inaj^istratc of otiicr nations; 
 and lie is nevertheless invested with immense political p(»wer. 
 If the sphere of his authority and his means of action are the 
 same as those of other judj;es, it may he asked whence he de- 
 rives a power which they do not possess. The cause of this 
 dilTirencc lies in the simple fact that the Americans have ac- 
 Uiiowled^jed the rij^ht of the judj^es to found their decisions on 
 the constitution rather than on the laws. Tn other words, they 
 have left them at liherty not to apply such laws as may appear 
 to them to he unconstitutional. 
 
 I am aware that a similar rij^ht has heen claimed — hut claimed 
 in vain — hy courts of justice in other countries ; hut in America 
 it is recojjui/ed hy .nil authorities; and not a party, nor so 
 much as an individual, is found to contest it. This fact can 
 only he explained by the principles of the American constitu- 
 tion. In I'Vance the constitution is (or at least i.s suppose<l 
 to he) innnutahle; and the received theory is that no power 
 has the rij^ht of chan^inj; any j)art of it. Tn En^^land the I'ar- 
 liametU has an acknowledji^ed rijjht to modify the constitution; 
 as, therefore, the constitution may undergo perpetual chanj^es, 
 it does not in reality exist ; the T*arliament is at once a legis- 
 lative and a constituent assembly. The political theories of 
 America are more simple and more rational. An American con- 
 .stitntion is not sujiposed to be immutable as in I'Vance, nor is 
 it susceptible of mollification by the ordinary powers of society 
 as in luij^land. Tt constitutes a detached whole, which, as it 
 represents the determination of the whole people, is no less 
 biiulinj; on the lejjislator than on the private citizen, biU which 
 may be altered by the will of the people in predetermined cases, 
 accordinjj to established rules. In America the constitution 
 may therefore vary, but as lonp as it exists it is the origin of all 
 authority, and the sole vehicle of the predominatiufj; force.« 
 
 a [Tlir fifth nrticlc of the oriftinat 
 Conslitution of the United St.itcs prn- 
 vitlcs tho ttiodo in which nmcndmcnts of 
 the Ciinstitution ni.iy be nmde. Ainrnd- 
 tiifiits nuist be propcisei! by two-thinl.t 
 cif both Houses of Connrcss, nml ratified 
 by tlie I.e^•islalllrl•s of Ihree-foiirlhs of 
 the several Stales. I'ifleen aiiien<IiMents 
 of the Constitiitioit have fiecn made at 
 
 different times since 1780. the most im- 
 portant of which arc the Tliirleenth. 
 iMMirteenth, and l-^ifteentb, framed and 
 ratified after the Civil War. Tlie origi- 
 nal Constitution of the United Stales, 
 followed by these fifteen amendments, 
 is jirinted at the end of this edition.— 
 Translator's Note, 1874.] 
 
UICMOCKALY IN AMI- RICA 
 
 99 
 
 Tt is easy to ixrciivc in what tuatiiRT tlu'sc dirfcrcnccs must 
 ait u\H)U ilif position and tin* rights of tlic judicial hodics in 
 the thiTc (ounlriis I liave citi-d. If in !•' ranee the trihinials 
 were authorized to (hsohey the hiwson the ground of their heinj; 
 o|)|)osed Ift the constitution, tlie supreme power would in fact 
 lie plaird in their hands, since tijey alone would have the rif^ht 
 of inlerpK ' in^' a constitution, the clauses of which can he modi- 
 fied hy iin authority, 'i'hey would therefore take the place of 
 the nation, and exercise as ahsolute a sway over society as the 
 inlnTiiit weakness of judicial power would alhjw them to do, 
 Undouhtedly, as the I'Vench judges are incompetent to declare 
 a law to he unconstitutional, the power of changing the consti- 
 tution is indirectly given to the legislative hody, since no legal 
 harrier vvt)uld ojjpose the alterations whicli it might prescrihe. 
 I hit it is hetter to grant the power of changing the constitution 
 of the i)eople to men who represent (however imperfectly) the 
 will of the people, than to men who represent no one but them- 
 selves. 
 
 It would be still more unreasonable to invest the English 
 judges with the right of resisting tRc decisions of the legis- 
 lative hody, sitice the Parliament which makes the laws also 
 makes the constitution ; and consequently a law emanating from 
 the three powers of the State can in no case be unconstitutional. 
 But neither of these remarks is applicable to America. 
 
 Tn the United States the constitution governs the legislator 
 as much as the private citizen ; as it is the first of laws it can- 
 not be modified by a law, and it is therefore just that the tribu- 
 nals should obey the constitution in preference to any law. This 
 condition is essential to the power of the judicature, for to select 
 that legal obligation by which he is most strictly bound is the 
 natural right of every magistrate. 
 
 In France the constitution is also the first of laws, and the 
 judges have the same right to take it as the ground of their 
 decisions, but were they to exercise this right they must perforce 
 encroach on rights more sacred than their own, namely, on those 
 of society, in whose name they are acting. In this case the 
 State-mot ic clearly prevails over the motives of an individual. 
 In America, where the nation can always reduce its magistrates 
 to obedience by changing its constitution, no danger of this kind 
 is to be feared. Upon this point, therefore, the i)olitical and 
 the logical reasons agree, and tli-: people as well as the judges 
 preserve their privileges. 
 
 k 
 
 k 
 
m 
 
 100 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Whenever a law which the judge holds to be unconstitutional 
 is argued in a tribunal of the United States he may refuse to 
 admit it as a rule ; this power is the only one which is peculiar 
 to the American magistrate, but it gives rise to immense politi- 
 cal influence. Fev laws can escape the searching analysis of 
 the judicial power for any length of time, for there are few 
 which are not prejudicial to some private interest or other, and 
 none which may not be brought before a court of justice by the 
 choice of parties, or by the necessity of the case. But from the 
 time that a judge has refused to apply any given law in a case, 
 that law loses a portion of its moral cogency. The persons to 
 whose interests it is prejudicial learn that means exist of evad- 
 ing its authority, and similar suits are multiplied, until it be- 
 comes powerless. One of two alternatives must then be resorted 
 to: the people must alter the constitution, or the legislature 
 must repeal the law. The political power which the Americans 
 have intrusted to their courts of justice is therefore immense, 
 but the evils of this power are considerably diminished by the 
 obligation which has been imposed of attacking the laws through 
 the courts of justice alone. If the judge had been empowered 
 to contest the laws on the ground of theoretical generalities, 
 if he had been enabled to open an attack or to pass a censure 
 on the legislator, he would have played a prominent part in the 
 political sphere; and as the champion or the antagonist of a 
 party, he would have arrayed the hostile passions of the nation 
 in the conflict. But when a judge contests a law applied to 
 some particular case in an obscure proceeding, the importance 
 of his attack is concealed from the public gaze, his decision 
 bears upon the interest of an individual, and if the law is slighted 
 it is only collaterally. Moreover, although it is censured, it is 
 not abolished ; its moral force may be diminished, but its co- 
 gency is by no means suspended, and its final destruction can 
 only be accomplished by the reiterated attacks of judicial func- 
 tionaries. It will readily be understood that by connecting the 
 censorship of the laws with the private interests of members of 
 the community, and by intimately uniting the prosecution of 
 the law with the prosecution of an individual, legislation is pro- 
 tected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions 
 of party spirit. The errors of the legislator are exposed when- 
 ever their evil consequences are most felt, and it is always a 
 poaitive and appreciable fact which serves as the basis of a 
 prosecution. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 lOI 
 
 I am inclined to believe this practice of the American courts 
 to be at once the most favorable to liberty as well as to public 
 order. If the judge could only attack the legislator openly and 
 directly, he would sometimes be afraid to oppose any resistance 
 to his will ; and at other moments party spirit might encourage 
 him to brave it at every turn. The In vs would consequently 
 be attacked when the power from which they emanate is weak, 
 and obeyed when it is strong. That is to say, when it would 
 be useful to respect them they would be contested, and when it 
 would be easy to convert them into an instrument of oppression 
 they would be respected. But the American judge is brought 
 into the political arena independently of his own will. He only 
 judges the law because he is obliged to judge a case. The 
 political question which he is called upon to resolve is connected 
 with the interest of the suitors, and he cannot refuse to decide 
 it without abdicating the duties of his post. He performs his 
 functions as a citizen by fulfilling the precise duties which be- 
 long to his profession as a magistrate. It is true that upon 
 this system the judicial censorship which is exercised by the 
 courts of justice over the legislation cannot extend to all laws 
 indiscriminately, inasmuch as some of them can never give rise 
 to that exact species of contestation which is termed a lawsuit ; 
 and even when such a contestation is possible, it may happen 
 that no one cares to bring it before a court of justice. The 
 Americans have often felt this disadvantage, but they have left 
 the remedy incomplete, lest they should give it an efficacy which 
 might in some cases prove dangerous. Within these limits the 
 power vested in the American courts of justice of pronouncing 
 a statute to be unconstitutional forms one of the most powerful 
 barriers which has ever been devised against the tyranny of 
 political assemblies. 
 
 Other Powers Granted to American Judges 
 
 In the United States all the citizens have the right of indicting public 
 functionaries before the ordinary tribunals — How they use this 
 right — Art. 75 of the French Constitution of the An VIII — The 
 Americans and the English cannot understand the purport of this 
 clause. 
 
 It is perfectly natural that in a free country like America all 
 the citizens should have the right of indicting public function- 
 aries before the ordinary tribunals, and that all the judges 
 
■v^ 
 
 1 h 
 
 ". :.*. 
 
 
 / \ 
 
 W 
 
 f/ I 
 
 102 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 sliotiUl have the power of punishing public oflfcnccs. The right 
 granted to the courts of justice of judging the agents of the 
 executive government, when they have violated the laws, is so 
 natural a one that it cannot be looked upon as an extraordinary 
 privilege. Nor do the springs of government appear to me to 
 be weakened in the United States by the custom which renders 
 all public officers responsible to the judges of the land. The 
 Americans seem, on the contrary, to have increased by this 
 means that respect which is due to the authorities, and at the 
 same time to have rendered those who are in power more scru- 
 pulous of offending public opinion. I was struck by the small 
 number of political trials which occur in the United States, but 
 1 had no difficulty in accounting for this circumstance. A law- 
 suit, of whatever nature it may be, is always a difficult and ex- 
 pensive undertaking. It is easy to attack a public man in a 
 journal, but the motives which can warrant an action at law 
 must be serious. A solid ground of complaint must therefore 
 exist to induce an individual to prosecute a public officer, and 
 public officers are careful not to furnish these grounds of com- 
 plaint when they are afraid of being prosecuted. 
 
 This does not depend upon the republican form of American 
 institutions, for the same facts present themselves in England. 
 These two nations do not regard the impeachment of the prin- 
 cipal officers of State as a sufficient guarantee of their inde- 
 pendence. But they hold that the right of minor prosecutions, 
 which are within the reach of the whole community, is a better 
 pledge of freedom than those great judicial actions which arc 
 rarely employed imtil it is too late. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, when it was very difficult to overtake 
 offenders, the judges inflicted the most dreadful tortures on 
 the few who were arrested, which by no means diminished the 
 number of crimes. It has since been discovered that when 
 justice is more certain and more mild, it is at the same time 
 more efficacious. The English and the Americans hold that 
 tyranny and oppression are to be treated like any other crime, 
 by lessening the penalty and facilitating conviction. 
 
 In the year VIII of the French Republic a constitution was 
 drawn up in which the following clause was introduced : " Art. 
 75. All the agents of the government below the rank of min- 
 isters can only be prosecuted for offences relating to their sev- 
 eral functions by virtue of a decree of the Conseil d'Etat; in 
 
DEMOrRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 103 
 
 which case the prosecution takes place before the ordinary 
 tribunals." This clause survived the " Constitution de I'An 
 VllI," and it is still maintained in spite of the just complaints 
 of the nation. I have always found the utmost difficulty in 
 explaining its meaning to Englishmen or Americans. They 
 were at once led to conclude that the Conseil d'Etat in France 
 was a great tribunal, established in the centre of the kingdom, 
 which exercised a preliminary and somewhat tyrannical juris- 
 diction in all political causes. But when I told them that the 
 Conseil d'Etat was not a judicial body, in the common sense 
 of the term, but an administrative council composed of men 
 dependent on the Crown, so that the king, after having ordered 
 one of his servants, called a Prefect, to commit an injustice, has 
 the power of commanding another of his servants, called a 
 Councillor of State, to prevent the former from being pun- 
 ished ; when I demonstrated to them that the citizen who has 
 been injured by the order of the sovereign is obliged to solicit 
 from the sovereign permission to obtain redress, they refused 
 to credit so flagrant an abuse, and were tempted to accuse me 
 of falsehood or of ignorance. It frequently happened before the 
 Revolution that a Parliament issued a warrant against a public 
 officer who had committed an offence, and sometimes the pro- 
 ceedings were stopped by the authority of the Crown, which 
 enforced compliance with its absolute and despotic will. It is 
 painful to perceive how much lower we are sunk than our fore- 
 fathers, since we allow things to pass under the color of justice 
 and the sanction of the law which violence alone could impose 
 upon them. 
 
 il 
 

 I'; 
 
 If 
 
 it 
 
 hi'' 
 
 I i'\ 
 
 Av 
 
 I ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 POLITICAL JURISDICTION IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Definition of political jurisdiction — What is understood by political 
 jurisdiction in P'rance, in England, and in the United States — In 
 America the political judge can only pass sentence on public of- 
 ficers — He more frequently passes a sentence of removal from office 
 than a penalty — Political jurisdiction as it exists in the United States 
 is, notwithstanding its mildness, and perhaps in consequence of that 
 mildness, a most powerful instrument in the hands of the majority. 
 
 I UNDERSTAND, by political jurisdiction, that temporary 
 right of pronouncing a legal decision with which a political 
 body may be invested. 
 In absolute governments no utility can accrue from the intro- 
 duction of extraordinary forms of procedure; the prince in 
 whose name an offender is prosecuted is as much the sovereign 
 of the courts of justice as of everything else, and the idea which 
 is entertained of his power is of itself a sufficient security. The 
 only thing he has to fear is, that the external formalities of 
 justice should be neglected, and that his authority should be 
 dishonored from a wish to render it more absolute. But in 
 most free countries, in which the majority can never exercise 
 the same influence upon the tribunals as an absolute monarch, 
 the judicial power has occasionally been vested for a time in 
 the representatives of the nation. It has been thought better 
 to introduce a temporary confusion between the functions of the 
 different authorities than to violate the necessary principle of 
 the unity of government. 
 
 England, France, and the United States have established 
 this political jurisdiction by law ; and it is curious to examine 
 the different adaptations which these three great nations have 
 made of the principle. In England and in France the House 
 of Lords and the Chambre des Paris o constitute the highest 
 criminal court of their respective nations, and although they 
 
 a [As it existed under tlie constitutional monarchy down to 1848.] 
 
 104 
 
 ¥H 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 105 
 
 do not habitually try all political offences, they are competent 
 to try them all. Another political body enjoys the right of im- 
 peachment before the House of Lords: the only difference 
 which exists between the two countries in this respect is, that 
 in England the Commons may impeach whomsoever they please 
 before the Lords, whilst in France the Deputies can only employ 
 this mode of prosecution against the ministers of the Crown. 
 
 In both countries the Upper House may make use of all the 
 existing penal laws of the nation to punish the delinquents. 
 
 In the United States, as well as in Europe, one branch of the 
 legislature is authorized to impeach and another to judge : the 
 House of Representatives arraigns the offender, and the Sen- 
 ate awards his sentence. But the Senate can only try such per- 
 sons as are brought before it by the House of Representatives, 
 and those persons must belong to the class of public function- 
 aries. Thus the jurisdiction of the Senate is less extensive than 
 that of the Peers of France, whilst the right of impeachment 
 by the Representatives is more general than that of the Depu- 
 ties. But the great difference which exists between Europe and 
 America is, that in Europe political tribunals are empowered 
 to inflict all the dispositions of the penal code, while in America, 
 when they have deprived the offender of his official rank, and 
 have declared him incapable of filling any political office for the 
 future, their jurisdiction terminates and that of the ordinary 
 tribunals begins. 
 
 Suppose, for instance, that the President of the United States 
 has committed the crime of high treason ; the House of Repre- 
 sentatives impeaches him, and the Senate degrades him ; he 
 must then be tried by a jury, which alone can deprive him of 
 his liberty or his life. This accurately illustrates the subject 
 we are treating. The political jurisdiction which is established 
 by the laws of Europe is intended to try great offenders, what- 
 ever may be their birth, their rank, or their powers in the State ; 
 and to this end all the privileges of the courts of justice are 
 temporarily extended to a great political assembly. The legis- 
 lator is then transformed into the majristrate ; he is called upon 
 to admit, to distinguish, and to punish the offence ; and as he 
 exercises all the authority of a judge, the law restricts him to 
 the observance of all the duties of that high office, and of all 
 the formalities of justice. When a public functionary is im- 
 peached before an English or a French political tribunal, and 
 

 yi 
 
 ■i'i 
 
 \-> 
 
 . i 
 
 io6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 is found guilty, the sentence deprives him ipso facto of his 
 functions, and it may pronounce him to be incapable of resum- 
 ing them or any others for the future. But in this case the 
 political interdict is a consequence of the sentence, and not the 
 sentence itself. In Europe the sentence of a political tribunal 
 is to be regarded as a judicial verdict rather than as an admin- 
 istrative measure. In the United States the contrary takes 
 place; and although the decision of the Senate is judicial in 
 its form, since the Senators are obliged to comply with the 
 practices and formalities of a court of justice; although it is 
 judicial in respect to the motives on which it is founded, 
 since the Senate is in general obliged to take an offence at 
 common law as the basis of its sentence; nevertheless the ob- 
 ject of the proceeding is purely administrative. If it had 
 been the intention of the American legislator to invest a po- 
 litical body with great judicial authority, its action would 
 not have been limited to the circle of public functionaries, since 
 the most dangerous enemies of the State may be in the posses- 
 sion of no functions at all ; and this is especially true in repub- 
 lics, where party influence is the first of authorities, and where 
 the strength of many a leader is increased by his exercising 
 no legal power. 
 
 If it had been the intention of the American legislator to give 
 society the means of repressing State offences by exemplary 
 punishment, according to the practice of ordinary justice, the 
 resources of the penal code would all have been placed at the 
 disposal of the political tribunals. But the weapon with which 
 they are intrusted is an imperfect one, and it can never reach 
 the most dangerous offenders, since men who aim at the entire 
 subversion of the laws are not likely to murmur at a political 
 interdict. 
 
 The main object of the political jurisdiction which obtains 
 in the United States is, therefore, to deprive the ill-disposed 
 citizen of an authority which he has used amiss, and to prevent 
 him from ever acquiring it again. This is evidently an admin- 
 istrative measure sanctioned by the formalities of a judicial 
 decision. In this matter the Americans have created a mixed 
 system ; they have surrounded the act which removes a public 
 functionary with the securities of a political trial; and they 
 have deprived all political condemnations of their severest pen- 
 alties. Every link of the system may easily be traced from this 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 107 
 
 point; we at once perceive why the American constitutions 
 subject all the civil functionaries to the jurisdiction of the Sen- 
 ate, whilst I. e military, whose crimes are nevertheless more 
 formidable, are exempted from that tribunal. In the civil ser- 
 vice none of the American functionaries can be said to be re- 
 movable ; the places which some of them occupy are inalienable, 
 and the others are chosen for a term which cannot be shortened. 
 It is therefore necessary to try them all in order to deprive them 
 of their authority. But military officers are dependent on the 
 chief magistrate of the State, who is himself a civil function- 
 ary, and the decision which condemns him is a blow upon 
 them all. 
 
 If we now compare the American and the European systems, 
 we shall meet with differences no less striking in the different 
 effects which each of them produces or may produce. In France 
 and in England the jurisdiction of political bodies is looked 
 upon as an extraordinary resource, which is only to be employed 
 in order to rescue society from unwonted dangers. It is not 
 to be denied that these tribunals, as they are constituted in 
 Europe, are apt to violate the coservative principle of the balance 
 of power in the State, and to threaten incessantly the lives and 
 liberties of the subject. The same political jurisdiction in the 
 United States is only indirectly hostile to the balance of power ; 
 it cannot menace the lives of the citizens, and it does not hover, 
 as in Europe, over the heads of the community, since those 
 only who have submitted to its authority on accepting office 
 are exposed to the severity of its investigations. It is at the 
 same time less formidable and less efficacious; indeed, it has 
 not been considered by the legislators of the United States as 
 a remedy for the more violent evils of society, but as an ordi- 
 nary means of conducting the government. In this respect it 
 probably exercises more real influence on the social body in 
 America than in Europe. We must not be misled by the appar- 
 ent mildness of the American legislation in all that relates to 
 political jurisdiction. It is to be observed, in the first place, 
 that in the United States the tribunal which passes sentence is 
 composed of the same elements, and subject to the same influ- 
 ences, as the body which impeaches the offender, and that this 
 uniformity gives an almost irresistible impulse to the vindictive 
 passions of parties. If political judges in the United States can- 
 not inflict such heavy penalties as those of Europe, there is 
 
 fvil 
 
 f 
 
i 
 
 '( 
 
 ) 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 ■I'! 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 
 \ 
 
 \ { 
 
 ) I 
 
 \ 
 
 \\ 
 
 i 
 
 < • 
 
 \ . 
 
 V ; 
 
 *h 
 
 io8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the less chance of their acquitting a prisoner ; and the convic- 
 tion, if it is less formidable, is more certain. The principal 
 object of the political tribunals of Europe is to punish the of- 
 fender ; the purpose of those in America is to deprive him of 
 his authority. A political condemnation in the United States 
 may, therefore, be looked upon as a preventive measure ; and 
 there is no reason for restricting the judges to the exact defini- 
 tions of criminal law. Nothing can be more alarming than the 
 excessive latitude with which political oflfences are described 
 in the laws of America. Article II., Section 4, of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States runs thus : — " 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." 
 Many of the Constitutions of the States are even less explicit. 
 "Public officers," says the Constitution of Massachusetts,* "shall 
 be impeached for misconduct or maladministration ; " the Con- 
 stitution of Virginia declares that all the civil officers who shall 
 have oflfended against the State, by maladministration, corrup- 
 tion, or other high crimes, may be impeached by the House of 
 Delegates; in some constitutions no offences are specified, in 
 order to subject the publjc functionaries to an unlimited respon- 
 sibility.c But I will venture to affirm that it is precisely their 
 mildness which renders the American laws most formidable in 
 this respect. We have shown that in Europe the removal of 
 a functionary and his political interdiction are the consequences 
 of the penalty he is to undergo, and that in America they con- 
 stitute the penalty itself. The consequence is that in Europe 
 political tribunals are invested with rights which they are afraid 
 to use, and that the fear of punishing too much hinders them 
 from punishing at all. But in America no one hesitates to inflict 
 a penalty from which humanity does not recoil. To condemn 
 a political opponent to death, in order to deprive him of his 
 power, is to commit what all the world would execrate as a 
 horrible assassination ; but to declare that opponent unworthy 
 to exercise that authority, to deprive him of it, and to leave 
 him uninjured in ''fe and limb, may be judged to be the fair 
 issue of the struggle. But this sentence, which it is so easy 
 to pronounce, is not the less fatally severe to the majority of 
 
 b Chap. I. sect. ii. § 8. 
 
 c See the constitutions of Illinois, 
 Maine, Connecticut, and Georgia. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 109 
 
 those upon whom it is inflicted. Great criminals may undoubt- 
 edly brave its intangible rigor, but ordinary offenders will dread 
 it as a condemnation which destroys their position in the world, 
 casts a blight upon their honor, and condemns them to a shame- 
 ful inactivity worse than death. The influence exercised in the 
 United States upon the progress of society by the jurisdiction 
 of political bodies may not appear to be formidable, but it is 
 only the more immense. It does not directly coerce the subject 
 but it renders the majority more absolute over those in power ; 
 it does not confer an unbounded authority on the legislator 
 which can only be exerted at some momentous crisis, but it 
 establishes a temperate and regular influence, which is at all 
 times available. If the power is decreased, it can, on the other 
 hand, be more conveniently employed and more easily abused. 
 By preventing political tribunals from inflicting judicial pun- 
 ishments the Americans seem to have eluded the worst conse- 
 quences of legislative tyranny, rather than tyranny itself ; and 
 I am not sure that political jurisdiction, as it is constituted in 
 the United States, is not the most formidable weapon which 
 has ever been placed in the rude grasp of a popular majority. 
 When the American republics begin to degenerate it will be 
 easy to verify the truth of this observation, by remarking 
 whether the number of political impeachments augments.^ 
 
 d See Appendix, N. 
 
 [The impeachment of President An- 
 drew Johnson in 1868— which was re- 
 sorted to by his political opponents 
 solely as a means of turning him out 
 of office, for it could not be contended 
 
 that he had been guilty of high crimes 
 and misdemeanors, and he was in fact 
 honorably t cquitted and reinstated in 
 office — is a striking confirmation of the 
 truth of this tetanic.— Translator's Note, 
 1874I 
 
 I 
 
 f 
 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 w 
 
 \\ 
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION 
 
 I HAVE hitherto considered each State as a separate whole, 
 and I have explained the different springs which the peo- 
 ple sets in motion, and the different means of action which 
 it employs. But all the States which I have considered as inde- 
 pendent are forced to submit, in certain oases, to the supreme 
 authority of the Union. The time is now come for me to exam- 
 ine separately the supremacy with which the Union has been in- 
 vested, and to cast a rapid glance over the Federal Constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 History of the Federal Constitution 
 
 Origin of the first Union — Its weakness — Congress appeals to the con- 
 stituent authority — Interval of two years between this appeal and 
 the promulgation of the new Constitution. 
 
 The thirteen colonies which simultaneously threw off the yoke 
 of England towards the end of the last century professed, as I 
 have already observed, the same religion, the same language, 
 the same customs, and almost the same laws ; they were strug- 
 gling against a common enemy ; and these reasons were suffi- 
 ciently strong to unite them one to another, and to consolidate 
 them into one nation. But as each of them had enjoyed a sepa- 
 rate existence and a government within its own control, the 
 peculiar interests and customs which resulted from this system 
 were opposed to a compact and intimate union which would 
 have absorbed the individual importance of each in the general 
 importance of all. Hence arose two opposite tendencies, the 
 one prompting the Anglo-Americans to unite, the other to di- 
 vide their strength. As long as the war with the mother-coun- 
 try lasted the principle of union was kept alive by necessity; 
 and although the laws which constituted it were defective, the 
 common tie subsisted in spite of their imperfections.o But no 
 
 a See tlie articles of tlie first confeder- constitution in " The Federalist " from 
 
 ation formed in 1778. This constitution No. 15 to No. 22, inclusive, and Story's 
 
 was not adopted by all the States until " Commentaries on the Constitution of 
 
 1781, Sec also tlic analysis given of this the United States," pp. 85-115. 
 
 1 10 
 
 1 . 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 III 
 
 sooner was peace concliulcd than the faults of the legislation 
 iKcanic manifest, and the State seemed to be suddenly dis- 
 solved. Each colony became an independent republic, and as- 
 sumed an absolute sovereignty. The federal government, con- 
 demned to impotence by its constitution, and no longer sustained 
 by the presence of a connnon danger, witnessed the outrages 
 ort'ered to its flag by the great nations of Europe, whilst it was 
 scarcely able to maintain its ground against the Indian tribes, 
 and to pay the interest of the debt which had been contracted 
 during the war of independence. It was already on the verge 
 of ilestruction, when it oflficially proclaimed its inability to con- 
 duct the governmer.c, and appealed to the constituent authority 
 of the nation.fr Ji America ever approached (for however brief 
 a time) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the fancy of its in- 
 habitants is wont vo point, it was at the solemn moment at which 
 the power of the nation abdicated, as it were, the empire of the 
 land. All ages have furnished the spectacle of a people strug- 
 gling with energy to win its independence ; and the efforts of 
 the Americans in throwing off the English yoke have been con- 
 siderably exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three 
 thousand miles of ocean, and backed by a powerful ally, the 
 success of the United States may be more justly attributed to 
 their geographical position than to the valor of their armies or 
 the patriotism of their citizens. It would be ridiculous to com- 
 pare the American war to the wars of the French Revolution, or 
 the efforts of the Americans to those of the French when they 
 were attacked by the whole of Europe, without credit and with- 
 out allies, yet capable of opposing a twentieth part of their popu- 
 lation to the world, and of bearing the torch of revolution beyond 
 their frontiers whilst they stifled its devouring flame within the 
 bosom of their country. But it is a novelty in the history of so- 
 ciety to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon 
 itself, when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of gov- 
 ernment are stopped ; to see it carefully examine the extent of 
 the evil, and patiently wait for two whole years until a remedy 
 was discovered, which it voluntarily adopted without having 
 wrung a tear or a drop of blood from mankind. At the time 
 when the inadequacy of the first constitution was discovered 
 America possessed the double advantage of that calm which h?'d 
 succeeded the effervescence of the revolution, and of those great 
 
 b Congress made this declaration on February 2j, 1787. 
 
 J^ 
 
 V 
 
 r 
 
 » 1 
 
 
• 4 
 
 
 lit 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 iiicti who liad led the revolution to a successful issue. The as- 
 sembly which accepted the task of composing the second consti- 
 tution was small ; c but George Washington was its President, 
 and it contained the choicest talents and the noblest hearts which 
 had ever appeared in the New World. This national commis- 
 sion, after long and mature deliberation, offered to the ac- 
 ceptance of the people the body of general laws which still rules 
 the Union. All the States adopted it successively.*' The new 
 Federal Government commenced its functions in 1789, after an 
 interregnum of two years. The Revolution of America termi- 
 nated when that of France began. 
 
 •v\. 
 
 i 
 
 1 :' 
 
 Summary of the Federal Constitution 
 
 Division of authority between the Federal Government and the States 
 — The Government of the States is the rule, the Federal Govern- 
 ment the exception. 
 
 The first question which awaited the Americans was intri- 
 cate, and by no means easy of solution : the object was so to di- 
 vide the authority of the different States which composed the 
 Ur,'On that each of them should continue to govern itself in all 
 that concerned its internal prosperity, whilst the entire nation, 
 represented by the Union, should continue to form a compact 
 body, and co provide for the general exigencies of the people. 
 It was as impossible to determine beforehand, with any degree 
 of accuracy, the share of authority which each of two govern- 
 ments was to enjoy, as to foresee all the incidents in the existence 
 of a nation. 
 
 The obligations and the claims of the Federal Government 
 were simple and easily definable, because the Union had been 
 formed with the express purpose of meeting the general exigen- 
 cies of the people ; but the claims and obligations of the States 
 were, on the other hand, complicated and various, because those 
 Governments had penetrated into all the details of social life. 
 The attributes of the Federal Government were therefore care- 
 fully enumerated and all that was not included amongst them 
 was declared to constitute a part of the privileges of the several 
 Governments of the States. Thus the government of the States 
 
 f Tt consisted of fifty-five members : 
 WasfiinRton, Madison, Hamilton, and 
 the two Morrises were amongst the 
 number. 
 
 dit was not adopted by the legisla- 
 
 tive bodies, but representatives were 
 elected by the people for this sole pur- 
 pose ; and the new constitution was dis- 
 cussed at length in each of these as- 
 semblies. 
 
 IH 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 "3 
 
 remained the rule, and that of tlic Confcdiration became the ex- 
 ception.f 
 
 But as it was foreseen tliat, in practice, questions might arise 
 as to the exact hmits of this exceptiunul authority, and that it 
 would be dangerous to submit these (jucstions to the decision 
 of the ordinary courts of justice, established in the States by the 
 States themselves, a high Federal court was created,^ which 
 was destined, amongst other functions, to maintain the balance 
 of power which had been established by the Constitution be- 
 tween the two rival Govcrnments.ir 
 
 r 
 
 Prerogative of the Federal Government 
 
 Power of declaring war, making peace, and levying general taxes 
 vested in the Federal Government — What part of the mtcrnal policy 
 of the country it may direct — The Government of the Union in 
 some respects more central than the King's Government in the old 
 French monarchy. 
 
 The external relations of a people may be compared to those 
 of private individuals, and they cannot be advantageously 
 maintained without the agency of a single head of a Govern- 
 ment. The exclusive right of ni;' mg peace and war, of con- 
 cluding treaties of commerce, of raising armies, and equipping 
 fleets, was granted to the Union.'* The necessity of a national 
 Government was less imperiously felt in the conduct of the 
 
 f 
 
 « See the Amendment to the Federal 
 Constitution ; " Federalist," No. 32 : 
 Story, p. 711 ; Kent's " Commentaries," 
 vol. i. p. 364. 
 
 It is to be observed that whenever the 
 exclusive right of regulating certain mat- 
 ters is not reserved to Congress by the 
 Constitution, the .States may take up 
 the affair until it is brought before the 
 National Assembly. For instance, Con- 
 
 firess has the right of making a general 
 aw on bankruptcy, which, however, it 
 neglects to do. Each State is then at 
 liberty to make a law for itself. This 
 point has been established by discussion 
 in the law-courts, and may be said to 
 belong more properly to jurisprudence. 
 f The action o! this court is indirect, 
 as we shall hereafter show. 
 
 g It is thus that " The Federalist," No. 
 4S, explains the division of supremacy 
 between the Union and the States : 
 " The powers delegated by the Constitu- 
 tion to the Federal Government are few 
 and defined. Those which are to re- 
 main in the State Governments are nu- 
 merous and indefinite. The former will 
 be exercised principally on external ob- 
 jects, as war, peace, negotiation, and 
 foreign commerce. The powers reserved 
 
 Vol. I.— 8 
 
 to the several States will extend to all 
 the objects which, in the ordinary 
 course of affairs, concern the internal 
 order and prosperity of the State." I 
 shall often have occasion to quote " The 
 Federalist " in this work. When the 
 bill which has since become the Consti- 
 tution of the United States wa \ sub- 
 mitted to the approval of the t eoplc, 
 and the discussions were still p' nding. 
 three men, who had already acijuirod 
 a portion of that celebrity which they 
 have since enjoyed— John Jay, Hamif- 
 ton, and Madison — formed an associa- 
 tion with the intention of explaining to 
 the nation the advantages of the measure 
 which was proposed. With this view 
 they published a series of articles in the 
 shape of a journal, wliich now form a 
 complete treatise. They entitled their 
 journal " The Federalist," a name which 
 has been retained in the work. " The 
 Federalist " is an excellent book, which 
 ought to be familiar to the statesmen of 
 all countries, although it especially con- 
 cerns America. 
 
 h See Constitution, sect. 8 ; " Federal- 
 ist," Nos. 41 and 42 ; Kent's "Commen- 
 taries." vol. i. p. 207 ; Story, pp. 358- 
 382 ; Ibid. pp. 409-426. 
 
 1 
 
 If 
 
 « 
 
 r 
 
114 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 V ;■■■ 
 
 !' 
 
 'U 
 
 internal policy of society; but there are certain general inter- 
 ests which can only be attended to with advantage by a general 
 authority. The Union was invested with the power of con- 
 trolling the monetary system, of directing the post office, and 
 of opening the great roads which were to establish a communi- 
 cation between the different parts of the country.* The inde- 
 pendence of the Government of each State was formally recog- 
 nized in its sphere ; nevertheless, the Federal Government was 
 authorized to interfere in the internal affairs of the States; in a 
 few predetermined cases, in which an indiscreet abuse of their 
 independence might compromise the security of the Union at 
 large. Thus, whilst the power of modifying and changing their 
 legislation at pleasure was preserved in all the republics, they 
 were forbidden to enact ex post facto laws, or to create a class 
 of nobles in their community.* Lastly, as it was necessary 
 that the Federal Government should be able to fulfil its engage- 
 ments, it was endowed with an unlimited power of levying 
 taxes./ 
 
 In examining the balance of power as established by the 
 Federal Constitution ; in remarking on the one hand the por- 
 tion of sovereignty which has been reserved to the several 
 States, and on the other the share of power which the Union 
 has assumed, it is evident that the Federal legislators enter- 
 tained the clearest and most accurate notions on the nature of 
 the centralization of government. The Unite'' States form 
 not only a republic, but a confederation; nev *' less the au- 
 thority of the nation is more central than it was in several of the 
 monarchies of Europe when the American Constitution was 
 formed. Take, for instance, the two following examples. 
 
 Thirteen supreme courts of justice existed in France, which, 
 generally speaking, had the right of interpreting the law with- 
 out appeal ; and those provinces which were styled pays d'etats 
 were authorized to refuse their assent to an impost which had 
 been levied by the sovereign who represented the nation. In 
 the Union there is but one tribunal to interpret, as there is one 
 legislature to make the laws ; and an impost voted by the rep- 
 
 »■ Several other privilefres of the same 
 kind exist, such as tl' t which empowers 
 the Union to legislate on bankruptcy, 
 to grant patents, and other matters in 
 which its intervention is clearly neces- 
 sary. 
 
 ;' Even in these cases its interference 
 is indirect. The Union interferes by 
 
 means of the tribunals, as will be here- 
 after shown. , 
 
 k Federal Constitution, sect. lo, art. i. 
 
 / Constitution, sects. 8, g, and lo : 
 " Federalist," Nos. 30-36, inclusive, and 
 41-44 ; Kent's " Commentaries," vol. i. 
 pp. 307 and 381 ; Story, pp. 329 and 514. 
 
 H 1 1*^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 "5 
 
 resentatives of the nation is binding upon all the citizens. In 
 these two essentia) points, therefore, the Union exercises more 
 central authority than the French monarchy possessed, al- 
 though the Union is only an assemblage of confederate re- 
 publics. 
 
 In Spain certain provinces had the right of establishing a 
 system of custom-house duties peculiar to themselves, although 
 that privilege belongs, by its very nature, to the national sov- 
 ereignty. In America the Congress alone has the right of reg- 
 ulating the commercial relations of the States. The govern- 
 ment of the Confederation is therefore more centralized in this 
 respect than the kingdom of Spain. It is true that the power 
 of the Crown in France or in Spain was always able to obtain 
 by force whatever the Constitution of the country denied, and 
 that the ultimate result was consequently the same ; but I am 
 here discussing the theory of the Constitution. 
 
 il 
 
 Federal Powers 
 
 After having settled the limits within which the Federal 
 Government was to act, the next point was to determine the 
 powers which it was to exert. 
 
 ill be here- 
 
 Legislative Powers »» 
 
 Division of the Legislative Body into two branches — Difference in the 
 manner of forming the two Houses — The principle of the independ- 
 ence of the States predominates in the formation of the Senate — 
 The principle of the sovereignty of the nation in the composition of 
 the House of Representatives — Singular effects of the fact that a 
 Constitution can only be logical in the early stages of a nation. 
 
 The plan which had been laid down beforehand for the Con- 
 stitutions of the several States was followed, in many points, 
 in the organization of the powers of the Union. The Federal 
 legislature of the Union was composed of a Senate and a House 
 of Representatives. A spirit of conciliation prescribed the ob- 
 servance of distinct principles in the formation of these two 
 assemblies. I have already shown that two contrary interests 
 were opposed to each other in the establishment of the Federal 
 Constitution. These two interests had given rise to two opin- 
 ions. It was the wish of one party to convert the Union into 
 
 m [In this chapter the author points 
 out the essence of the conflict between 
 
 the seceding States and the Union which 
 caused the Civil War of 1861.] 
 
 1 
 1} 
 
 /" 
 
 ') 
 
ii6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 :? 
 
 W I'. 
 
 :<] 
 
 f 
 
 a league of independent States, or a sort of congress, at which 
 the representatives of the several peoples would meet to discuss 
 certain points of their common interests. The other party de- 
 sired to unite the inhabitants of the American colonies into one 
 sole nation, and to establish a Government which should act 
 as the sole representative of the nation, as far as the limited 
 sphere of its authority would permit. The practical conse- 
 quences of these two theories were exceedingly different. 
 
 The question was, whether a league was to be established 
 instead of a national Government ; whether the majority of the 
 States, instead of the majority of the inhabitants of the Union, 
 was to give the law : for every State, the small as well as the 
 great, would then remain in the full enjoyment of its independ- 
 ence, and enter the Union upon a footing of perfect equality. 
 If, however, the inhabitants of the United States were to be 
 considered as belonging to one and the same nation, it would 
 be just that the majority of the citizens of the Union should 
 prescribe the law. Of course the lesser States could not sub- 
 scribe to the application of this doctrine without, in fact, abdi- 
 cating their existence in relation to the sovereignty of the Con- 
 federation ; since they would have passed from the condition 
 of a co-equal and co-legislative authority to that of an insig- 
 nificant fraction of a great people. But if the former system 
 would have invested them with an excessive authority, the lat- 
 ter would have annulled their influence altogether. Under 
 these* circumstances the result was, that the strict rules of logic 
 were evaded, as is usually the case when interests are opposed 
 to arguments. A middle course was hit upon by the legis- 
 lators, which brought together by force two systems theoreti- 
 cally irreconcilable. 
 
 The principle of the independence of the States prevailed in 
 the formation of the Senate, and that of the sovereignty of the 
 nation predominated in the composition of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives. It was decided that each State should send two 
 senators to Congress, and a number of representatives pro- 
 portioned to its population.5* It results from this arrangement 
 
 n Every ten years Congress fixes anew 
 the number of representatives which 
 each State is to furnish. The total num- 
 ber was 69 in 1789, and 240 in 1833. (See 
 " American Almanac," 1834, p. 194.) 
 The Constitution decided that there 
 should not be more than one representa- 
 tive for every 30,000 persons ; but no 
 
 minimum was fixed on. The Congress 
 has not thought fit to augment the 
 number of representatives in proportion 
 to the increase of population. Tne first 
 Act which was passed on the subject 
 (April 14, 1792 ; see " Laws of the 
 United States," by Story, vol. i. p. 
 23s) decided that there should be one 
 
 ^ 
 
 !•: 
 
 
 lU ^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 tit 
 
 that the State of New York has at the present day forty repre- 
 sentatives and only two senators; the State of Delaware has 
 two senators and only one representative; the State of Dela- 
 ware is therefore equal to the State of New York in the Senate, 
 whilst the latter has forty times the influence of the former in 
 the House of Representatives. Thus, if the minority of the 
 nation preponderates in the Senate, it may paralyze the de- 
 cisions of the majority represented in the other House, which 
 is contrary to the spirit of constitutional government. 
 
 These facts show how rare and how difficult it is rationally 
 and logically to combine all the several parts of legislation. 
 In the course of time different interests arise, and different prin- 
 ciples are sanctioned by the same people ; and when a general 
 constitution is to be established, these interests and principles 
 are so many natural obstacles to the rigorous application of any 
 political system, with all its consequences. The early stages 
 of national existence are the only periods at which it is pos- 
 sible to maintain the complete logic of legislation ; and when 
 we perceive a nation in the enjoyment of this advantage, before 
 V. " hasten to conclude that it is wise, we should do well to re- 
 f V .er that it is young. When the Federal Constitution was 
 a-ned, the interests of independence for the separate States, 
 and the interest of union for the whole people, were the only 
 two conflicting interests which existed amongst the Anglo- 
 Americans, and a compromise was necessarily made between 
 them. 
 
 It is, however, just to acknowledge that this part of the Con- 
 stitution has not hitherto produced those evils which might 
 have been feared. All the States are young and contiguous ; 
 their custom^s, their ideas, and their exigencies are not dissim- 
 ilar ; and the differences which result from th eir size or inferi- 
 ority do not suffice to set their interests at variance. The small 
 States have consequently never been induced to league them- 
 selves together in the Senate to oppose the designs of the larger 
 ones; and indeed there is so irresistible an authority in the 
 legitimate expression of the will of a people :hat the Senate 
 
 representative for every 33,000 inhabi- 
 tants. The last Act, which was passed 
 in 1832, fixes the proportion at one for 
 48,000. The population represented is 
 composed of all the free men and of 
 three-fifths of the slaves. 
 
 [The last Act of apportionment, 
 passed February 2, 1872, fixes the rep- 
 
 resentation at one to 134,684 inhabitants. 
 There are now (1875) 283 members of 
 the lower House of Congress, and 9 
 for the States at large, making in all 
 292 members. The old States have of 
 course lost the representatives which 
 the new States have gained. — Trans' 
 lalor's Note.} 
 
:^i\: 
 
 lid 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 l^^ 
 
 ! I 
 
 could offer but a feeble opposition to the vote of the majority of 
 the House of Representatives. 
 
 It must not be forgotten, on the other hand, that it was not 
 in the power of the American legislators to reduce to a single 
 nation the people for whom they were making laws. The ob- 
 ject of the Federal Constitution was not to destroy the inde- 
 pendence of the States, but to restrain it. By acknowledging 
 the real authority of these secondary communities (and it was 
 impossible to deprive them of it), they disavowed beforehand 
 the habitual use of constraint in enforcing the decisions of the 
 majority. Upon this principle the introduction of the influ- 
 ence of the States into the mechanism of the Federal Govern- 
 ment was by no means to be wondered at, since it only attested 
 the existence of an acknowledged power, which was to be hu- 
 mored and not forcibly checked. 
 
 A Further Difference Between the Senate and the s 
 House of Representatives , 
 
 The Senate named by the provincial legislators, the Representatives 
 by the people — Double election of the former; single election of the 
 latter — Term of the different offices — Peculiar functions of each 
 House. 
 
 The Senate not only differs from the other House in the 
 principle which it represents, but also in the mode of its elec- 
 tion, in the term for which it is chosen, and in the nature of its 
 functions. The House of Representatives is named by the 
 people, the Senate by the legislators of each State ; the former 
 is directly elected, the latter is elected by an elected body ; the 
 term for which the representatives are chosen is only two years, 
 that of the senators is six. The functions of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives are purely legislative, and the only share it takes 
 in the judicial power is in the impeachment of public officers. 
 The Senate co-operates in the work of legislation, and tries 
 those political offences which the House of Representatives 
 sub" Us to its decision. It also acts as the great executive 
 council of the nation ; the treaties which are concluded by the 
 President must be ratified by the Senate, and the appointments 
 he may make must be definitely approved by the same body.o 
 
 See " The Federalist," Nos. 52-56, inclusive ; Story, pp. 199-314 ; Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, sects, a and 3. 
 
 ti 
 
 :^^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 119 
 
 The Executive Power/' 
 
 Dependence of the President — He is elective and responsible — He is 
 free to act in his own sphere under the inspection, but not under the 
 direction, of the Senate — His salary fixed at his entry into office — 
 Suspensive veto. 
 
 The American legislators undertook a difficult task in at- 
 tempting to create an executive power dependent on the ma- 
 jority of the people, and nevertheless sufficiently strong to act 
 without restraint in its own sphere. It was indispensable to 
 the maintenance of the republican form of government that the 
 representative of the executive power should be subject to the 
 will of the nation. 
 
 The President is an elective magistrate. His honor, his 
 property, his liberty, and his life are the securities which the 
 people has for the temperate use of his power. But in the ex- 
 ercise of his authority he cannot be said to be perfectly inde- 
 pendent; the Senate takes cognizance of his relations with 
 foreign powers, and of the distribution of public appointments, 
 so that he can neither be bribed nor can he employ the means 
 of corruption. The legislators of the Union acknowledged that 
 the executive power would be incompetent to fulfil its task with 
 dignity and utility, unless it enjoyed a greater degree of sta- 
 bility and of strength than had been granted to it in the separate 
 States. 
 
 The President is chosen for four years, and he may be re- 
 elected ; so that the chances of a prolonged administration may 
 inspire him with hopeful undertakings for the public good, 
 and with the means of carrying them into execution. The 
 President was made the sole representative of the executive 
 power of the Union, and care was taken not to render his de- 
 cisions subordinate to the vote of a council — a dangerous meas- 
 ure, which tends at the same time to clog the action of the 
 Government and to diminish i*^3 responsibility. The Senate 
 has the right of annulling certain acts of the President ; but it 
 cannot compel him to take any steps, nor does it participate in 
 the exercise of the executive power. 
 
 The action of the legislature oii the executive power may be 
 direct; and we have just shown that the Americans carefully 
 
 p See "The Federalist." Nos. 67-77 ; 
 Constitution of the United States, art. 
 
 2 ; Story, p. 31s, pp. 615-780 ; Kent's 
 " Commentaries," p. 255. 
 
' A 
 
 i 
 
 a> 
 
 
 W 
 
 h !■ r 
 
 'M\\^k: 
 
 lao 
 
 DE TOCQUEVTLLE 
 
 obviated this influence ; but it may, on the other hand, be indi- 
 rect. Public assemblies which have the power of depriving 
 an officer of state of his salary encroach upon his independence ; 
 and as they are free to make the laws, it is to be feared lest they 
 should gradually appropriate to themselves a portion of that 
 authority which the Constitution had vested in his hands. This 
 dependence of the executive power is one of the defects inher- 
 ent in republican constitutions. The Americans have not been 
 able to counteract the tendency which legislative assemblies 
 have to get possession of the government, but they have ren- 
 dered this propensity less irresistible. The salary of the Presi- 
 vbnt is fixed, at the time of his entering upon office, for the 
 whole period of his magistracy. The President is, moreover, 
 provided with a suspensive veto, which allows him to oppose 
 the passing of such laws as might destroy the portion of inde- 
 pendence which the Constitution awards him. The struggle 
 between the President and the legislature must always be an 
 unequal one, since the latter is certain of bearing down all re- 
 sistance by persevering in its plans; but the suspensive veto 
 forces it at least to reconsider the matter, and, if the motion be 
 persisted in, it must then be backed by a majority of two-thirds 
 of the whole house. The veto is, in fact, a sort of appeal to the 
 people. The executive power, which, without this security, 
 might have been secretly oppressed, adopts this means of plead- 
 ing its cause and stating its motives. But if the legislature is 
 '^ertain of overpowering all resistance by persevering in its 
 plans, I reply, that in the constitutions of all nations, of what- 
 ever kind they may be, a certain point exists at which the legis- 
 lator is obliged to have recourse to the good sense and the 
 virtu*" of his fellow-citizens. This point is more prominent and 
 more Ji coverable in republics, whilst it is more remote and 
 more carefully concealed in monarchies, but it always exists 
 somewhere. There is no country in the world in which every- 
 thing can be provided for by the laws, or in which political 
 institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and pub- 
 lic morality. 
 
 M 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 lai 
 
 > .11 
 
 Differences Between the Position of the President of 
 THE United States and that of a Constitutional King 
 OF France 
 
 Executive power in the Northern States as limited and as partial as the 
 supremacy which it represents — Executive power in France as uni- 
 versal as the supremacy it represents — The King a branch of the 
 legislature — The President the mere executor of the law — Other 
 differences resulting from the duration of the two powers — The 
 President checked in the exercise of the executive authority — The 
 King independent in its exercise — Notwithstanding these discrep- 
 ancies France is more akin to a republic than the Union to a mon- 
 archy — Comparison of the number of public ol .<.) lepending up- 
 on the executive power in the two countries. 
 
 The executive power has so important an influence on the 
 destinies of nations that I am inclined to pause for an instant 
 at this portion of my subject, in order more clearly to explain 
 the part it sustains in America. In order to form an accurate 
 idea of the position of the President of the United States, it may 
 not be irrelevant to compare it to that of one of the constitu- 
 tional kings of Europe. In this comparison I shall pay but 
 little attention to the external signs of power, which are more 
 apt to deceive the eye of the observer than to guide his re- 
 searches. When a monarchy is being gradually transformed 
 into a republic, the executive power retains the titles, the hon- 
 ors, the etiquette, and even the funds of royalty long after its 
 authority has disappeared. The English, after having cut ofl 
 the head of one king and expelled another from his throne, were 
 accustomed to accost the successor of those princes upon their 
 knees. On the other hand, when a republic falls under the 
 sway of a single individual, the demeanor of the sovereign is 
 simple and unpretending, as if his authority was not yet para- 
 mount. When the emperors exercised an unlimited control 
 over the fortunes and the lives of their fellow-citizens, it was 
 customary to call them Caesar in conversation, and they were 
 in the habit of supping without formality at their friends' 
 houses. It is therefore necessary to look below the surface. 
 
 The sovereignty of the United States is shared between the 
 Union and the States, whilst in France it is undivided and 
 compact : hence arises the first and the most notable difference 
 which exists between the President of the United States and 
 the King of France. In the United States the executive power 
 
 ^1 
 
 ] il 
 
 V 
 
fjiif! 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 ^ U 'It 
 
 I I ill 
 
 122 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 is as limited and partial as the sovereignty of the Union in 
 whose name it acts ; in France it is as universal as the authority 
 of the State. The Americans havc , federal and the French a 
 national Government. 
 
 This cause of inferiority results from the nature of things, 
 but it is not the only onr ; the second in importance is as fol- 
 lows: Sovereignty ma} be defined to be the righ*^^ of making 
 laws: in France, the King really e -crcises a portion of the 
 sovereign power, since the laws have no weight till he has given 
 his assent to them ; he is, moreover, the executor of all they 
 ordain. The President is also the executor of the laws, but he 
 does not really co-operate in their formation, since the refusal 
 of his assent does not annul them. He is therefore merely to 
 be considered as the agent of the sovereign power. But not 
 only does the King of France exercise a portion of the sov- 
 ereign power, he also contributes to the nomination of the 
 legislature, which exercises the other portion. He has the 
 privilege of appointing the members of one chamber, and of 
 dissolving the other at his pleasure ; whereas the President of 
 the United States has no share in the formation of the legis- 
 lative body, and cannot dissolve any part of it. The King has 
 the same right of bringing forward measures as the Chambers ; 
 a right which the President does not possess. The King is 
 represented in each assembly by his ministers, who explain his 
 intentions, support his opinions, and maintain the principles 
 of the Government. The President and his ministers are alike 
 excluded from Congress ; so that his influence and his opinions 
 can only penetrate indirectly into that great body. The King 
 of France is therefore on an equal footing with the legislature, 
 which can no more act without him than he can without it. 
 The President exercises an authority inferior to, and depending 
 upon, that of the legislature. 
 
 Even in the exercise of the executive power, properly so 
 called — the point upon which his position seems to be most 
 analogous to that of the King of France — the President labors 
 under several causes of inferiority. The authority of the King, 
 in France, has, in the first place, the advantage of duration over 
 that of the President, and durability is one of the chief elements 
 of strength ; nothing is either loved or feared but what is likely 
 to endure. The President of the United States is a magistrate 
 elected for four years; the King, in France, is an hereditary 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 1*3 
 
 sovereign. In the exercise of the executive power the Presi- 
 dent of the United States is constantly subject to a jealous 
 scrutiny. He may make, but he cannot conclude, a treaty ; he 
 may designate, but he cannot appoint, a public officer.5 The 
 King of France is absolute within the Hmits of his authority. 
 The President of the United States is responsible for his ac- 
 tions ; but the person of the King is declared inviolable by the 
 French Charter.*" 
 
 Nevertheless, the supremacy of public opinion is no less 
 above the head of the one than of the other. This power is 
 less definite, less evident, and less sanctioned by the laws in 
 F'rance than in America, but in fact it exists. In America, it 
 acts by elections and decrees ; in France it proceeds by revolu- 
 tions ; but notwithstanding the different constitutions of these 
 two countries, public opinion is the predominant authority in 
 both of them. The fundamental principle of legislation — a 
 principle essentially republican — is the same in both countries, 
 although its consequences may be different, and its results 
 more or less extensive. Whence I am led to conclude that 
 France with its King is nearer akin to a republic than the 
 Union with its President is to a monarchy. 
 
 In what I have been saying I have only touched upon the 
 main points of distinction ; and if I could have entered into de- 
 tails, the contrast would have been rendered still more strik- 
 ing. 
 
 I have remarked that the authority of the President in the 
 United States is only exercised within the limits of a partial 
 sovereignty, whilst that of the King in France is undivided. 
 I might have gone on to show that the power of the King's 
 government in France exceeds its natural limits, however ex- 
 tensive they may be, and penetrates in a thousand diflferent 
 ways into the administration oi private interests. Amongst the 
 examples of this influence may be quoted that which results 
 from the great number of public functionaries, who all derive 
 their appointments from the Government. This number now 
 
 /If 1 
 
 / 
 
 ' •'!«' 
 
 
 \m^ 
 
 (fl 
 
 I 
 
 q The Constitution had left it doubtful 
 whether the President was obliged to 
 consult the Senate in the removal as well 
 as in the appointment of Federal officers. 
 " The Federalist " (No. 77) seemed to 
 establish the affirmative ; but in 1789 
 Confrress formally decided that, as the 
 President was responsible for his ac- 
 tions, he ought not to be forced to em- 
 
 ploy agents who had forfeited his 
 esteem. See Ken''s "Commentaries," 
 vol. i. jj. 289. 
 
 r [This comparison applied to the 
 Constitutional King of France and to 
 the powers he held under the Charter 
 of 1830. till the overthrow of the mon- 
 archy in 1%.!^.— Translator' s Noie.i 
 
'\ 
 
 
 124 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 exceeds all previous limits; it amounts to 138,000* nomina- 
 tions, each of which may be considered as an element of power. 
 The President of the United States has not the exclusive right 
 of making any public appointments, and their whole number 
 scarcely exceeds 12,000.* 
 
 I ! 
 
 i 
 
 I, 
 
 H 
 
 ■J 
 
 Accidental Causes which may Increase the Influence 
 OF THE Executive Government 
 
 External security of the Union — Army of six thousand men — Few ships 
 — The President has no opportunity of exercising his great pre- 
 rogatives — In the prerogatives he exercises he is weak. 
 
 If the executive government is feebler in America than in 
 France, the cause is more attributable to the circumstances 
 than to the laws of the country. 
 
 It is chiefly in its foreign relations that the executive power 
 of a nation is called upon to exert its skill and its vigor. If the 
 existence of the Union were perpetually threatened, and if its 
 chief interests were in daily connection with those of other 
 powerful nations, the executive government would assume an 
 increased importance in proportion to the measures expected 
 of it, and those which it would carry into effect. The President 
 of the United States is the commander-in-chief of the army, but 
 of an army composed of only six thousand men ; he commands 
 the fleet, but the fleet reckons but few sail; he conducts the 
 foreign relations of the Union, but the United States are a na- 
 tion without neighbors. Separated from the rest of the world 
 by the ocean, and too weak as yet to aim at the dominion of the 
 seas, they have no enemies, and their interests rarely come into 
 contact with those of any other nation of the globe. 
 
 The practical part of a Government must not be judged by 
 the theory of its constitution. The President of the United 
 States is in the possession of almost royal prerogatives, which 
 he has no opportunity of exercising ; and those privileges '"hich 
 he can at present use are very circumscribed. The law .'dlow 
 
 i The sums annually paid by the 
 State to these officers amount to 200,- 
 000,000 fr. ($40,000,000). 
 
 / This number is extracted from the 
 " National Calendar " for 1833. The 
 " National Calendar " is an American 
 almanac which contains the names of 
 all the Federal officers. It results from 
 this comparison that the King of France 
 has eleven times as many places at his 
 
 disposal as the President, although the 
 population of France is not much more 
 than double that of the Union. 
 
 [I ha re not the means of ascertaining 
 the number of appointments now at the 
 disposal of the President of the United 
 States, but his patronage and the abuse 
 of it have largely increased since 1833. 
 — Translator's J^iote, 1875.] 
 
 v \i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 laS 
 
 him to possess a degree of influence which circumstances do 
 not permit him to employ. 
 
 On the other hand, the great strength of the royal prero- 
 gative in France arises from circumstances far more than from 
 the laws. There the executive government is constantly 
 struggling against prodigious obstacles, and exerting all its 
 energies to repress them ; so that it increases by the extent of 
 its achievements, and by the importance of the events it con- 
 trols, without modifying its constitution. If the laws had made 
 it as feeble and as circumscribed as it is in the Union, its influ- 
 ence would very soon become still more preponderant. 
 
 Why the President of the United States does not Re- 
 quire THE Majority of the Two Houses in Order to 
 Carry on the Government 
 
 It is an established axiom in Europe that a constitutional 
 King cannot persevere in a system of government which is op- 
 posed by the two other branches of the legislature. But sev- 
 eral Presidents of the United States have been known to lose 
 the majority in the legislative body without being obliged to 
 abandon the supreme power, and without inflicting a serious 
 evil upon society. I have heard this fact quoted as an instance 
 of the independence and the power of the executive govern- 
 ment in America: a moment's reflection will convince us, on 
 the contrary, that it is a proof of its extreme weakness. 
 
 A King in Europe requires the support of the legislature to 
 enable him to perform the duties imposed upon him by the 
 Constitution, because those duties are enormous. A consti- 
 tutional King in Europe is not merely the executor of the law, 
 but the execution of its provisions devolves so completely upon 
 him that he has the power of paralyzing its influence if it op- 
 poses his designs. He requires the assistance of the legislative 
 assemblies to make the law, but those assemblies stand in need 
 of his aid to execute it: these two authorities cannot subsist 
 without each other, and the mechanism of government is 
 stopped as soon as they are at variance. 
 
 In America the President cannot prevent any law from being 
 passed, nor can lie evade the obligation of enforcing it. His 
 sincere and zealous co-operation is no doubt useful, but it is 
 not indispensable, in the carrying on of public affairs. All his 
 
 |I!M 
 
 i c 1 a 
 
136 
 
 DE TOCQUEVITXE 
 
 I' 
 
 k U I 
 
 I! : 
 
 MjJ 
 
 J ^< 
 
 important acts arc (lirectl> or indirectly submitted to the legis- 
 lature, and of his own fric authority he can do but little. It is 
 therefore his weakness, and not his power, which enables him 
 to remain in opposition to Congress. In Europe, harmony 
 must reign between the Crown and the other branches of the 
 legislature, because a collision between them may prove 
 serious ; in America, this harmony is not indispensable, because 
 such a collision is impossible. 
 
 Election of the President 
 
 Dangers of the elective system increase in proportion to the extent of 
 the prerogative — This system possible in America because no 
 powerful executive authority is required — What circumstances are 
 favorable to the elective system — Why the election of the President 
 does not cause a deviation from the principles of the Government- 
 Influence of the election of the President on secondary function^ 
 aries. 
 
 The dangers of the system of election applied to the head of 
 the executive government of a great people have been suffi- 
 ciently exemplified by experience and by history, and the re- 
 marks I am about to make refer to America alone. These 
 dangers may be more or less formidable in proportion to the 
 place which the executive power occupies, and to the import- 
 ance it possesses in the State ; and they may vary according to 
 the mode of election and the circumstances in which the electors 
 are placed. The most weighty argument against the election 
 of a chief magistrate is, that it ofifers so splendid a lure to pri- 
 vate ambition, and is so apt to inflame men in the pursuit of 
 power, that when legitimate means are wanting force may not 
 unfrequently seize what right denied. 
 
 It is clear that the greater the privileges of the executive 
 authority are, the greater is the temptation ; the more the am- 
 bition of the candidates is excited, the more warmly are their 
 interests espoused by a throng of partisans who hope to share 
 the power when their patron has won the prize. The dangers 
 of the elective system increase, therefore, in the exact ratio of 
 the influence exercised by the executive power in the affairs of 
 State. The revolutions of Poland were not solely attributable 
 to the elective system in general, but to the fact that the elected 
 monarch was the sovereign of a powerful kingdom. Before we 
 can discuss the absolute advantages of the elective system we 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 137 
 
 must make preliminary inquiries as to whether the geographical 
 position, the laws, the habits, the manners, and the opinions of 
 the people amonj(st whom it is to be introduced will admit of 
 the establishment of a weak and dependent executive govern- 
 ment ; for to attempt to render the representative of the State 
 a powerful sovereign, and at the same time elective, is, in my 
 opinion, to entertain two incompatible designs. To reduce 
 hereditary royalty to the condition of an elective authority, the 
 only means that I am acquainted with are to circumscribe its 
 sphere of action beforehand, gradually to diminish its prero- 
 gatives, and to accustom the people to live without its protec- 
 tion. Nothing, however, is further from the designs of the re- 
 publicans of Europe than this course: as many of them owe 
 their hatred of tyranny to the sufferings which they have per- 
 sonally undergone, it is oppression, and not tV:; extent of the 
 executive power, which excites their hostility, and they attack 
 the former without perceiving how nearly it is conne.^ed V/ith 
 ihe latter. 
 
 Hitherto no citizen has shown any disposition to expose his 
 honor and his life in order to become the President of the 
 United States; because the power of that office is temr ^rary, 
 limited, and subordinate. The prize of fortune must h • ?;; eat 
 to encourage adventurers in so desperate a game. Nc candi- 
 date has as yet been able to arouse the dangerous enthusiasm or 
 the passionate sympathies of the people in his favor, for the 
 very simple reason that when he is at the head of the Govern- 
 ment he has but little power, but little wealth, and but little 
 glory to share amongst his friends; and his influence in the 
 State is too small for the success or the ruin of a faction to de- 
 pend upon the elevation of an individual to power. 
 
 The great advantage of hereditary monarchies is, that as 
 the private interest of a family is always intimately connected 
 with the interests of the State, the executive government is 
 never suspended for a single instant ; and i* ":>' :if¥airs of a mon- 
 archy are not better conducted than those of a republic, at least 
 there is always some one to conduct them, well or ill, according 
 to his capacity. In elective States, on ihe contrary, the wheels 
 of government cease to act, as it w^ro, of their own accord at 
 the approach of an election, and even for some time previous to 
 that event. The laws may indeed accelerate the operation of 
 the election, which may be conducted with such simplicity and 
 
 n 
 
 J 
 
 ) ij 
 
 r>]f < 
 
138 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ■I rl. 
 
 < jl% 
 
 K , ti 
 
 * i 
 
 rapidity that the seat of power will never be left vacant ; but, 
 notwithstanding these precautions, a break necessarily occurs 
 in the minds of the people. 
 
 At the approach of an election the head of the executive gov- 
 ernment is wholly occupied by the coming struggle ; his future 
 plans are doubtful ; he can undertake nothing new, and he will 
 only prosecute with indifference those designs which another 
 will perhaps terminate. " I am so near the time of my retire- 
 ment from office," said President Jefferson on the 21st of Janu- 
 ary, 1809 (six weeks before the election), " that I feel no pas- 
 sion, I take no part, I express no sentiment. It appears to me 
 just to leave to my successor the commencement of those 
 measures which he will have to prosecute, and for which he will 
 be responsible." 
 
 On the other hand, the eyes of the nation are centred on a 
 single point ; all are watching the gradual birth of so import- 
 ant an event. The wider the influence of the executive power 
 extends, the greater and the more necessary is its constant ac- 
 tion, the more fatal is the term of suspense ; and a nation which 
 is accustomed to the government, or, still more, one used to the 
 administrative protection of a powerful executive authority 
 would be infallibly convulsed by an election of this kind. In 
 the United States the action of the Government may be 
 slackened with impunity, because it is always weak and circum- 
 scribed." 
 
 One of the principal vices of the elective system is that it al- 
 ways introduces a certain degree of instability into the internal 
 and external policy of the State. But this disadvantage is less 
 sensibly felt if the share of power vested in the elected magis- 
 trate is small. In Rome the principles of the Government 
 underwent no variation, although the Consuls were changed 
 every year, because the Senate, which was an hereditary as- 
 sembly, possessed the directing authority. If the elective sys- 
 tem were adopted in Europe, the condition of most of the mon- 
 archical States would be changed at every new election. In 
 America the President exercises a certain influence on State 
 affairs, but he does not conduct them; the preponderating 
 
 ) 
 
 u (This, however, may be a great 
 danger. The period during which Mr. 
 Buchanan retained office, after the elec- 
 tion of Mr. Lincoln, from November, 
 i860, to March, 1861, was that which en- 
 abled the seceding States of the South 
 
 to complete their preparations for the 
 Civil War, and the Executive Govern- 
 ment was paralyzed. No greater evil 
 could befall a nation. — Translator's 
 Nole.1 
 
 hr 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 129 
 
 power is vested in the representatives of the whole nation. The 
 poHtical maxims of the country depend therefore on the mass 
 of the people, not on the President alone; and consequently 
 in America the elective system has no very prejudicial influence 
 on the fixed principles of the Government. But the want of 
 fixed principles is an evil so inherent in the elective system that 
 it is still extremely perceptible in the narrow sphere to which 
 the authority of the President extends. 
 
 The Americans have admitted that the head of the executive 
 power, who has to bear the whole responsibility of the duties he 
 is called upon to fulfil, ought to be empowered to choose his own 
 agents, and to remove them at pleasure : the legislative bodies 
 watch the conduct of the President more than they direct it. 
 The consequence of this arrangement is, that at every new elec- 
 tion the fate of all the Federal public officers is in suspense. Mr. 
 Quincy Adams, on his entry into office, discharged the major- 
 ity of the individuals who had been appointed by his predeces- 
 sor : and I am not aware that General Jackson allowed a single 
 removable functionary employed in the Federal service to re- 
 tain his place beyond the first year which succeeded his election. 
 It is sometimes made a subject of complaint that in the consti- 
 tutional monarchies of Europe the fate of the humbler servants 
 of an Administration depends upon that of the Ministers. But 
 in elective Governments this evil is far greater. In a consti- 
 tutional monarchy successive ministries are rapidly formed; 
 but as the principal representative of the executive power does 
 not change, the spirit of innovation is kept within bounds ; the 
 changes which take place are in the details rather than in the 
 principles of the administrative system ; but to substitute one 
 system for another, as is done In America every four years, by 
 law, is to cause a sort of revolution. As to the misfortunes 
 which may fall upon individuals in consequence of this state of 
 things, it must be allowed that the uncertain situation of the 
 public officers is less fraught with evil consequences in America 
 than elsewhere. It is so easy to acquire an independent posi- 
 tion in the United States that the public officer who loses his 
 place may be deprived of the comforts of life, but not of the 
 means of subsistence. 
 
 I remarked at the beginning of this chapter that the dangers 
 of the elective system applied to the head of the State are aug- 
 mented or decreased by the peculiar circumstances of the people 
 Vol. I.-9 
 
!^ 
 
 ¥'. 
 
 r si* 
 
 130 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 which adopts it. However the functions of the executive power 
 may be restricted, it must always exercise a great influence upon 
 the foreign policy of the country, for a negotiation cannot be 
 opened or successfully carried on otherwise than by a single 
 agent. The more precarious and the more perilous the posi- 
 tion of a people becomes, the more absolute is the want of a 
 fixed and consistent external policy, and the more dangerous 
 does the elective system of the Chief Magistrate become. The 
 policy of the Americans in relation to the whole world is ex- 
 ceedingly simple; for it may almost be said that no country 
 stands in need of them, nor do they require the co-operation of 
 any other people. Their independence is never threatened. In 
 their present condition, therefore, the functions of the executive 
 power are no less limited by circumstances than by the laws ; 
 and the President may frequently change his line of policy with- 
 out involving the State in difficulty or destruction. 
 
 Whatever the prerogatives of the executive power may be, 
 the period which immediately precedes an election and the mo- 
 ment of its duration must always be considered as a national 
 crisis, which is perilous in proportion to the internal embarrass- 
 ments and the external dangers of the country. Few of the na- 
 tions of Europe could escape the calamities of anarchy or of 
 conquest every time they might have to elect a new sovereign. 
 In America society is so constituted that it can stand without 
 assistance upon its own basis ; nothing is to be feared from the 
 pressure of external dangers, and the election of the President 
 is a cause of agitation, but not of ruin. 
 
 Mode of Election 
 
 Skill of the American legislators shown in the mode of election adopted 
 by them — Creation of a special electoral body — Separate votes of 
 these electors — Case in which the House of Representatives is called 
 upon to choose the President — Results of the twelve elections which 
 have taken place since the Constitution has been established. 
 
 Besides the dangers which are inherent in the system, many 
 other difficulties may arise from the mode of election, which 
 may be obviated by the precaution of the legislator. When a 
 people met in arms on some public spot to choose its head, it 
 was exposed to all the chances of civil war resulting from so 
 martial a mode of proceeding, besides the dangers of the elective 
 system in itself. The Polish laws, which subjected the election 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 131 
 
 of the sovereign to the veto of a single individual, suggested 
 the murder of that individual or prepared the way to anarchy. 
 
 In the exariination of the institutions and the political as 
 well as social coiidition of the United States, we are struck by 
 the admirable harmony of the gifts of fortune and the efforts 
 of man. The nation possessed two of the main causes of in- 
 ternal peace ; it was a new country, but it was inhabited by a 
 people grown old in the exercise of freedom. America had no 
 hostile neighbors to dread ; and the American legislators, prof- 
 iting by these favorable circumstances, created a weak and 
 subordinate executive power which could without danger be 
 made elective. 
 
 It then only remained for them to choose the least dangerous 
 of the various modes of election; and the rules which they 
 laid down upon this point admirably correspond to the secur- 
 ities which the physical and political constitution of the country 
 already afforded. Their object was to find the mode of election 
 which would best express the choice of the people with the 
 least possible excitement and suspense. It was admitted in 
 the first place that the simple majority should be decisive ; but 
 the difficulty was to obtain this majority without an interval 
 of delay which it was most important to avoid. It rarely hap- 
 pens that an individual can at once collect the majority of the 
 suffrages of a great people ; and this difficulty is enhanced in 
 a republic of confederate States, where local influences are apt 
 to preponderate. The means by which it was proposed to ob- 
 viate this second obstacle was to delegate the electoral powers 
 of the nation to a body of representatives. This mode of elec- 
 tion rendered a majority more probable; for the fewer the 
 electors are, the greater is the chance of their coming to a 
 final decision. It also offered an additional probability of a 
 judicious choice. It then remained to be decided whether this 
 right of election was to be entrusted to a legislative body, the 
 habitual representative assembly of the nation, or whether an 
 electoral assembly should be formed for the express purpose of 
 proceeding to the nomination of a President. The Americans 
 chose the latter alternative, from a belief that the individuals 
 who were returned to make the laws were incompetent to rep- 
 resent the wishes of the nation in the election of its chief 
 magistrate ; and that, as they are chosen for more than a year, 
 the constituency they represent might have changed its opinion 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 f; 
 
 f 
 
tja 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 in that time. It was thought that if the legislature was em- 
 powered to elect the head of the executive power, its members 
 would, for some time before the election, be exposed to the 
 manoeuvres of corruption and the tricks of intrigue; whereas 
 the special electors would, like a jury, remain mixed up with 
 the crowd till the day of action, when they would appear for the 
 sole purpose of giving their votes. 
 
 It was therefore established that every State should name 
 a certain number of electors,?' who in their turn should elect 
 the President ; and as it had been observed that the assemblies 
 to which the choice of a chief magistrate had been entrusted in 
 elective countries inevitably became the centres of passion and 
 of cabal ; that they sometimes usurped an authority which did 
 not belong to them ; and that their proceedings, or the uncer- 
 tainty which resulted from them, were sometimes prolonged 
 so much as to endanger the welfare of the State, it was de- 
 termined that the electors should all vote upon the same day, 
 without being convoked to the same place.w This double 
 election rendered a majority probable, though not certain ; for 
 it was possible that as many differences might exist between 
 the electors as between their constituents. In this case it was 
 necessary to have recourse to one of three measures ; either to 
 appoint new electors, or to consult a second time those already 
 appointed, or to defer the election to an^^iher authority. The 
 first two of these alternatives, independently of the uncertainty 
 of their results, were likely to delay the final decision, and to 
 perpetuate an agitation which must always be accompanied 
 with danger. The third expedient was therefore adopted, and 
 it was agreed that the votes should be transmitted sealed to the 
 President of the Senate, and that they should be opened and 
 counted in the presence of the Senate and the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. If none of the candidates has a majority, the House 
 of Representatives then proceeds immediately to elect a Presi- 
 dent, but with the condition that it must fix upon one of the 
 three candidates who have the highest numbers.* 
 
 V As many as it sends members to 
 Congress. The number of electors at 
 the election of 1833 was 288. (See " The 
 National Calendar," 1833.) 
 
 w The electors of the same State as- 
 semble, but they transmit to the central 
 government the list of their individual 
 votes, and not the mere result of the 
 vote of the majority. 
 
 X Tn this case it is the majority of 
 the States, and not the majority of the 
 ^^nembers, which decides the question; 
 
 so that New York has not more influ- 
 ence in the debate than Rhode Island. 
 Thus the citizens of the Union are first 
 consulted as members of one and the 
 same community; and, if they cannot 
 agree, recourse is had to the division of 
 the States, each of which has a separate 
 and independent vote. This is one of 
 the singularities of the Federal Consti- 
 tution which can only be explained by 
 the jar of conflicting interests. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 133 
 
 Thus it is only in case of an event which cannot often hap- 
 pen, and which can never be foreseen, that the election is en- 
 trusted to the ordinary representatives of the nation ; and even 
 then they are obliged to choose a citizen who has already been 
 designated by a powerful minority of the special electors. It 
 is by this happy expedient that the respect which is due to the 
 popular voice is combined with the utmost celerity of execution 
 and those precautions which the peace of the country demands. 
 But the decision of the question by the House of Representa- 
 tives does not necessarily offer an immediate solution of the 
 difficulty, for the majority of that assembly may still be doubt- 
 ful, and in this case the Constitution prescribes no remedy. 
 Nevertheless, by restricting the number of candidates to three, 
 and by referring the matter to the judgment of an enlightened 
 public body, it has smoothed all the obstacles y which are not 
 inherent in the elective system. 
 
 In the forty-four years which have elapsed since the pro- 
 mulgation of the Federal Constitution the United States have 
 twelve times chosen a President. Ten of these elections took 
 place simultaneously by the votes of the special electors in the 
 different States. The House of Representatives has only twice 
 exercised its conditional privilege of deciding in cases of uncer- 
 tainty; the first time was at the election of Mr. Jefferson in 
 1801 ; the second was in 1825, when Mr. Quincy Adams was 
 named.^ 
 
 Crisis of the Election 
 
 The Election may be considered as a national cr'nis — ^Why? — Passions 
 of the people — Anxiety of the President — Calm which succeeds the 
 agitation of the election. 
 
 I have shown what the circumstances are which favored the 
 adoption of the elective system in the United States, and what 
 precautions were taken by the legislators to obviate its dangers. 
 The Americans are habitually accustomed to all kinds of elec- 
 tions, and they know by experience the utmost degree of ex- 
 citement which is compatible with security. The vast extent 
 of the country and the dissemination of the inhabitants render 
 a collision between parties less probable and less dangerous 
 there than elsewhere. The political circumstances under which 
 
 y Jefferson, in 1801, was not elected 
 until the thirty-sixth time of balloting. 
 
 e [General Grant is now (1874) the 
 eighteenth President of the United 
 States.] 
 
134 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 hi' »" 
 
 ,; ' 
 
 I 
 
 the elections have hitherto been carried on have presented no 
 real embarrassments to the nation. 
 
 Nevertheless, the epoch of the election of a President of the 
 United States may be considered as a crisis in the affairs of the 
 nation. The influence which he exercises on public business 
 is no doubt feeble and indirect ; but the choice of the President, 
 which is of small importance to each individual citizen, con- 
 cerns the citizens collectively ; and however trifling an interest 
 may be, it assumes a great degree of importance as soon as it 
 becomes general. The President possesses but few means of 
 rewarding his supporters in comparison to the kings of Europe, 
 but the places which are at his disposal are sufficiently numer- 
 ous to interest, directly or indirectly, several thousand electors 
 in his success. Political parties in the United States are led 
 to rally round an individual, in order to acquire a more tangible 
 shape in the eyes of the crowd, and the name of the candidate 
 for the Presidency is put forward as the symbol and personifi- 
 cation of their theories. For these reasons parties are strongly 
 interested in gaining the election, not so much with a view 
 to the triumph of their principles under the auspices of the 
 President-elect as to show by the majority which returned him, 
 the strength of the supporters of those principles. 
 
 For a long while before the appointed time is at hand the 
 election becomes the most important and the all-engrossing 
 topic of discussion. The ardor of faction is -odoubled; and 
 all the artificial passions which the imagination can create in 
 the bosom of a happy and peaceful land are agitated and 
 brought to light. The President, on the other hand, is ab- 
 sorbed by the cares of self-defence. He no longer governs for 
 the interest of the State, but for that of his re-election ; he does 
 homage to the majority, and instead of checking its passions, 
 as his duty commands him to do, he frequently courts its worst 
 caprices. As the election draws near, the activity of intrigue 
 and the agitation of the populace increase; the citizens are 
 divided into hostile camps, each of which assumes the name of 
 its favorite candidate ; the whole nation glows with feverish 
 excitement ; the election is the daily theme of the public papers, 
 the subject of private conversation, the end of every thought 
 and every action, the sole interest of the present. As soon as 
 the choice is determined, this ardor is dispelled ; and as a 
 calmer season returns, the current of the State, which had 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 »35 
 
 / 
 
 nearly broken its banks, sinks to its usual level :« but who can 
 refrain from astonishment at the causes of the storm. 
 
 Re-Election of the President 
 
 When the head of the executive power is re-eligible, it is the State 
 which is the source of intrigue and corruption — The desire of being 
 re-elected the chief aim of a President of the United States — Disad- 
 vantage of the system peculiar to America — The natural evil of de- 
 mocracy is that it subordinates all authority to the slightest desires 
 of the majority — The re-election of the President encourages this 
 evil. 
 
 It may be asked whether the legislators of the United States 
 did right or wrong in allowing the re-election of the President. 
 It seems at first sight contrary to all reason to prevent the head 
 of the executive power from being elected a second time. The 
 influence which the talents and the character of a single in- 
 dividual may exercise upon the fate of a whole people, in critical 
 circumstances or arduous times, is well known: a law pre- 
 venting the re-election of the chief magistrate would deprive 
 the citizens of the surest pledge of the prosperity and the se- 
 curity of the commonwealth ; and, by a singular inconsistency, 
 a man would be excluded from the government at the very time 
 when he had shown his ability in conducting its aflfairs. 
 
 But if these arguments are strong, perhaps still more power- 
 ful reasons may be advanced against them. Intrigue and cor- 
 ruption are the natural defects of elective government; but 
 when the head of the State can be re-elected these evils rise 
 to a great height, and compromise the very existence of the 
 country. When a simple candidate seeks to rise by intrigue, 
 his manoeuvres must necessarily be limited to a narrow sphere ; 
 but when the chief magistrate enters the lists, he borrows the 
 strength of the government for his own purposes. In the 
 former case the feeble resources of an individual are in action ; 
 in the latter, the State itself, with all its immense influence, is 
 busied in the work of corruption and cabal. The private citizen, 
 who employs the most immoral practices to acquire power, 
 can only act in a manner indirectly prejudicial to the public 
 prosperity. But if the representative of the executive descends 
 into the combat, the cares of government dwindle into second- 
 
 o [Not always. The election of President Lincoln was the signal of civil 
 war. — Translator's Note.} 
 
 ■ 11 
 
 II 
 
1 
 
 
 \"4 
 
 13* 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 rate importance, and the success of his election is his first con- 
 cern. All laws and all the negotiations he undertakes arc to 
 him nothing more than electioneering schemes; places be- 
 come the reward of services rendered, not to the nation, but to 
 its chief; and the influence of the government, if not injurious 
 to the country, is at least no longer beneficial to the community 
 for which it was created. 
 
 It is impossible to consider the ordinary course of aflfairs in 
 the United States without perceiving that the desire of being 
 re-elected is the chief aim of the President; that his whole 
 administration, and even his most indifferent measures, tend to 
 this object; and that, as the crisis approaches, his personal 
 interest takes the place of his interest in the public good. The 
 principle of re-eligibility renders the corrupt influence of elec- 
 tive government still more extensive and pernicious. 
 
 In America it exercises a peculiarly fatal influence on the 
 sources of national existence. Every government seems to be 
 afflicted by some evil which is inherent in its nature, and the 
 genius of the legislator is shown in eluding its attacks. A State 
 may survive the influence of a host of bad laws, and the mischief 
 they cause is frequently exaggerated; but a law which en- 
 courages the growth of the canker within must prove fatal in 
 the end, although its bad consequences may not be immediately 
 perceived. 
 
 The principle of destruction in absolute monarchies lies in 
 the excessive and unreasonable extension of the prerogative of 
 the crown ; and a measure tending to remove the constitutional 
 provisions which counterbalance this influence would be rad- 
 ically bad, even if its immediate consequences were unattended 
 with evil. By a parity of reasoning, in countries governed by 
 a democracy, where the people is perpetually drawing all au- 
 thority to itself, the laws which increase or accelerate its action 
 are the direct assailants of the very principle of the government. 
 
 The greatest proof of the ability of the American legislators 
 is, that they clearly discerned this truth, and that they had the 
 courage to act up to it. They conceived that a certain authority 
 above the body of the people was necessary, which should 
 enjoy a degree of independence, without, however, being en- 
 tirely beyond the popular control ; an authority which would 
 be forced to comply with the permanent determinations of the 
 majority, but which would be able to resist its caprices, and to 
 
 *! 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «37 
 
 refuse its tnost dangerous demands. To this end they centred 
 the whole executive power of the nation in a single arm ; they 
 granted extensive prerogatives to the President, and they 
 armed him with the veto to resist the encroachments of the 
 legislature. 
 
 But by introducing the principle of re-electicn they partly 
 destroyed their work ; and they rendered the President but little 
 inclined to exert the great power they had vested in his hands. 
 If ineligible a second time, the President would be far from 
 independent of the people, for his responsibility would not be 
 lessened ; but the favor of the people would not be so necessary 
 to him as to induce him to court it by humoring its desires. If 
 re-eligible (and this is more especially true at the present day, 
 when political morality is relaxed, and when great men are 
 rare), the President of the United States becomes an easy tool 
 in the hands of the majority. He adopts its likings and its 
 animosities, he hastens to anticipate its wishes, he forestalls its 
 complaints, he yields to its idlest cravings, and instead of guid- 
 ing it, as the legislature intended that he should do, he is ever 
 ready to follow its bidding. Thus, in order not to deprive the 
 State of the talents of an individual, those talents have been 
 rendered almost useless; and to reserve an expedient for ex- 
 traordinary perils, the country has been exposed to daily 
 dangers. 
 
 Federal Courts & 
 
 Political importance of the judiciary in the United States — Difficulty 
 of treating this subject — Utility of judicial powei in confederations 
 — What tribunals could be introduced into the Union — Necessity of 
 establishing federal courts of justice — Organization of the national 
 judiciary — The Supreme Court — In what it differs from all known 
 tribunals. 
 
 I have inquired into the legislative and executive power of 
 the Union, and the judicial power now remains to be examined ; 
 but in this place I cannot conceal my fears from the reader. 
 Their judicial institutions exercise a great influence on the 
 condition of the Anglo-Americans, and they occupy a promi- 
 
 ftSee chap. VT, entitled "Judicial 
 Power in the United States." This 
 chapter explains the general principles 
 of the American theory of judicial insti- 
 tutions. See also the Federal Constitu- 
 tion, Art. 3. See "The Federalist," 
 Nos. 78-83, inclusive: and a work enti- 
 tled " Constitutional Law," being a 
 
 view of tht practice and jurisdiction of 
 the courts of the United States, by 
 Thomas Sergeant. See Story, pp. 134, 
 162, 489, 511, 581, 668; and the organic 
 law of September 24, 1789, in the "^Col- 
 lection of the Laws of the United 
 States," by Story, vol. i. p. 53. 
 
 ( 
 
 i J 
 
I 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
 i ^^ 
 
 I 
 
 . . il !' 
 
 '{ 
 
 \|i^ 
 
 ^1 J 
 
 ''I 
 
 ^ rM 
 
 I 
 
 138 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 nent place amongst what are probably called political institu- 
 tions : in this respect they are peculiarly deserving of our atten- 
 tion. But I am at a loss to explain the political action of the 
 American tribunals without entering into some technical de- 
 tails of their constitution and their forms of proceeding; and 
 I know not how to descend to these minutiae without wearying 
 the curiosity of the reader by the natural aridity of the subject, 
 or without risking to fall into obscurity through a desire to be 
 succinct. I can scarcely hope to escape these various evils; 
 for if I appear too lengthy to a man of the world, a lawyer may 
 on the other hand complain of my brevity. But these are the 
 natural disadvantages of my subject, and more especially of 
 the point which I am about to discuss. 
 
 The great difficulty was, not to devise the Constitution to 
 the Federal Government, but to find out a method of enforcing 
 its laws. Governments have in general but two means of over- 
 coming the opposition of the people they govern, viz., the physi- 
 cal force which is at their own disposal, and the moral force 
 which they derive from the decisions of the courts of justice. 
 
 A government which should have no other means of exacting 
 obedience than open war must be very near its ruin, for one 
 of two alternatives would then probably occur: if its authority 
 was small and its character temperate, it would not resort to 
 violence till the last extremity, and it would connive at a num- 
 ber of partial acts of insubordination, in which case the State 
 would gradually fall into anarchy; if it was enterprising and 
 powerful, it would perpetually have recourse to its physical 
 strength, and would speedily degenerate into a military despot- 
 ism. So that its activity would not be less prejudicial to the 
 community than its inaction. 
 
 The great end of justice is to substitute the notion of right 
 for that of violence, and to place a legal barrier between the 
 power of the government and the use of physical force. The 
 authority which is awarded to the intervention of a court of 
 justice by the general opinion of mankind is so surprisingly 
 great that it clings to the mere formalities of justice, and gives 
 a bodily influence to the shadow of the law. The moral force 
 which courts of justice possess renders the introduction of 
 physical force exceedingly rare, and is very frequently sub- 
 stituted for it ; but if the latter proves to be indispensable, its 
 power is doubled by the association of the idea of law. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «39 
 
 A federal government stands in greater need of the support 
 of judicial institutions than any other, because it is naturally 
 weak and exposed to formidable opposition.f If it were always 
 oHiged to resort to violence in the first instance, it could not 
 fulfil its task. The Union, therefore, required a national ju- 
 diciary to enforce the obedience of the citizens to the laws, 
 and to repeal the attacks which might be directed vigainst them. 
 The question then remained as to what tribunals were to exer- 
 cise these privileges ; were they to be entrusted to the courts 
 of justice which were already organized in every State? or was 
 it necessary to create federal courts? It may easily be proved 
 that the Union could not adapt the judicial po ver of the States 
 to its wants. The separation of the judiciary from the admin- 
 istrative power of the State no doubt aflFects the security of 
 every citizen and the liberty of all. But it is no less important 
 to the existence of the nation that these several powers should 
 have the same origin, should follow the same principles, and 
 act in the same sphere ; in a word, that they should be correla- 
 tive and homogeneous. No one, I presume, ever suggested 
 the advantage of trying offences committed in France by a 
 foreign court of justice, in order to secure the impartiality of the 
 judges. The Americans form one people in relation to their 
 Federal Government; but in the bosom of this people divers 
 political bodies have been allowed to subsist which are de- 
 pendent on the national Government in a few points, and inde- 
 pendent in all the rest ; which have all a distinct origin, maxims 
 peculiar to themselves, and special means of carrying on their 
 affairs. To entrust the execution of the laws of the Union to 
 tribunals instituted by these political bodies would be to allow 
 foreign judges to preside over the nation. Nay, more ; not only 
 is each State foreign to the Union at large, but it is in perpetual 
 opposition to the common interests, since whatever authority 
 the Union loses turns to the advantage of the States. Thus to 
 enforce the laws of the Union by means of the tribunals of the 
 States would be to allow not only foreign but partial judges to 
 preside over the nation. 
 
 But the number, still more than the mere character, of the 
 
 ,1 l-i 
 
 c Federal laws arc those which most 
 reauire courts of justice, and those at 
 the same time which have most_ rarely 
 established them. The reason is that 
 confederations have usually been formed 
 by independent States, which enter- 
 
 tained no real intention of obeying the 
 central Government, and which very 
 readily ceded the right of command 
 to the federal executive, and very pru- 
 dently reserved the right of non-com- 
 pliance to themselves. 
 
140 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 tribunals of the States rendered them unfit for the S( •' ; of 
 the nation. When the Federal Constitution was formca iicre 
 were already thirteen courts of justice in the United States 
 which decided causes without appeal. That number is now 
 increased to twenty-four. To suppose that a State can subsist 
 when its fundamental laws may be subjected to four-and-twenty 
 different interpretations at the same time is to advance a propo- 
 sition alike contrary to reason and to experience. 
 
 The American legislators thereiore agreed to create a federal 
 judiciary power to apply the laws of the Union, and to de- 
 termine certain questions affecting general interests, which 
 were carefully determined beforehand. The entire judicial 
 power of the Union was centred in one tribunal, which was 
 denominated the Supreme Court of the United States. But, 
 to facilitate the expedition of business, inferior courts were ap- 
 pended to it, which were empowered to decide causes of small 
 importance without appeal, and with appeal causes of more 
 magnitude. The members of the Supreme Court are named 
 neither by the people nor the legislature, but by the President of 
 the United States, acting with the advice of the Senate. In 
 order to render them independent of the other authorities, their 
 office was made inalienable ; and it was determined that their 
 salary, when once fixed, should not be altered by the legisla- 
 ture.d It was easy to proclaim the principle of a Federal judi- 
 ciary, but difficulties multiplied when the extent of its jurisdic- 
 tion was to be determined. 
 
 dThe Union was divided into dis- 
 tricts, in each of which a resident Fed- 
 eral judge was appointed, and the court 
 in which he presided was termed a 
 " District Court." Each of the judges 
 of the Supreme Court annually visits 
 a certain portion of the Republic, in 
 order to try the most important causes 
 upon the spot; the court presided over 
 by this magistrate is styled a " Circuit 
 Court." Lastly, all the most serious 
 cases of litigation are brought before 
 the Supreme Court, which holds a sol- 
 emn session once a year, at which all 
 the judges of the Circuit Courts must 
 attend. The jury was introduced into 
 
 the Federal Courts in the same manner, 
 •nd in the same cases, as into the courts 
 of the States. 
 
 It wilt be observed that no analogy 
 exists between the Supreme Court of 
 the United States and tne French Cour 
 de Cassation, since the latter only hears 
 appeals «n questions of law. Xhe Su- 
 preme Court decides upon the evidence 
 of the fact as well as upon the law of 
 the case, whereas the Cour de Cassa- 
 tion does not pronounce a decision of 
 its own, but refers the cause to the ar- 
 bitration of another tribunal. See the 
 law of September 24, 1789, " Laws of the 
 United States," by Story, vol. i. p. 53. 
 
 ^■' 
 
DEMOCUACY IN AMERICA 
 
 141 
 
 MkANS ok DkTERMINING the JUKISDICTION OF THE FeUERAL 
 
 Courts 
 
 Difficulty of determining the jurisdiction of separate courts of justice 
 in confederations — The courts of the Union obtained the right of 
 fixing their own jurisdiction — In what respect this rule attacks the 
 portion of sovereignty reserved to the several States — The sover- 
 eignty of these States restricted by the laws, and the interpretation 
 of the laws — Consequently, the danger of the several States is more 
 apparent than real. 
 
 As the Constitution of the United States recognized two 
 distinct powers in presence of each other, represented in a 
 judicial point of view by two distinct classes of courts of justice, 
 the utmost care which could be taken in defining their separate 
 jurisdictions would have been insufficient to prevent frequent 
 collisions between those tribunals. The question then arose to 
 whom the right of deciding the competency of each court was 
 to be referred. 
 
 In nations which constitute a single body politic, when a 
 question is debated between two courts relating to their mutual 
 jurisdiction, a third tribunal is generally within reach to decide 
 the difference ; and this is effected without difficulty, because 
 in these nations the questions of judicial competency have no 
 connection with the privileges of the national supremacy. But 
 it was impossible to create an arbiter between a superior court 
 of the Union and the superior court of a separate State which 
 would not belong to one of these two classes. It was, therefore, 
 necessary to allow one of these courts to judge its own cause, 
 and to take or to retain cognizance of the point which was con- 
 tested. To grant this privilege to the different courts of the 
 States would have been to destroy the sovereignty of the Union 
 de facto after having established it de jure; for the interpreta- 
 tion of the Constitution would soon have restored that portion 
 of independence to the States of which the terms of that act 
 deprived them. The object of the creation of a Federal tribunal 
 was to prevent the courts of the States from deciding questions 
 affecting the national interests in their own department, and so 
 to form a uniform body of jurisprudene for the interpretation 
 of the laws of the Union. This end would not have been ac- 
 complished if the courts of the several States had been compe- 
 tent to decide upon cases in their separate capacities from which 
 they were obliged to abstain as Federal tribunals. The Supreme 
 
 
 t 
 
 'U' 
 
^'m 
 
 142 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Court of the United States was therefore invested with the 
 right of determining all questions of jurisdiction.^ 
 
 This was a severe blow upon the independence of the States, 
 which was thus restricted not omy by the laws, b'lt by the in- 
 terpretation of them ; by one limit which was known, and by 
 another which was dubious ; by a rule which was certain, and 
 a rule which was arbitrary. It is true the Constitution had laid 
 down the precise limits of the Federal supremacy, but when- 
 ever this supremacy is contested by one of the States, a Federal 
 tribunal decides the question. Nevertheless, the dangers with 
 which the independence of the States was threatened by this 
 mode of proceeding are less serious than they appeared to be. 
 We shall see hereafter that in America the real strength of the 
 country is vested in the provincial far more than in the Federal 
 Government. The Federal judges are conscious of the relative 
 weakness of the power in whose name they act, and they are 
 more inclined to abandon a right of jurisdiction in cases where 
 it is justly their own than to assert a privilege to which they 
 have no legal claim. 
 
 ■ 1} 
 
 Different Cases of Jurisdiction 
 
 The matter and the party are the first conditions of the Federal jurisdic- 
 tion — Suits in which ambassadors are engaged — Suits of the Union 
 — Of a separate State — By whom tried — Causes resulting from the 
 laws of the Union — Why judged by the Federal tribunals — Causes 
 relating to the performance of contracts tried by the Federal 
 courts — Consequence of this arrangement. 
 
 After having appointed the means of fixing the competency 
 of the Federal courts, the legislators of the Union defined the 
 cases which should come within their jurisdiction. It was es- 
 tablished, on the one hand, that certain parties must always be 
 brought before the Federal courts, without any regard to the 
 special nature of the cause; and, on the other, that certain 
 causes must always be brought before the same courts, without 
 any regard to the quality of the parties in the suit. These dis- 
 tinctions were therefore admitted to be the basis of the Federal 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 e In order to diminish the number 
 of these suits, it was decided that in a 
 great many Federal causes the courts 
 of the States should be empowered to 
 decide conjointly with those of the 
 TJnion, the losin^; party having then a 
 right of appeal to the Supreme Court 
 of the United States. The Supreme 
 
 Court of Virginia contested the right 
 of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States to judge an appeal from its decis- 
 ions, but unsucces.-fully. See " Kent's 
 Commentaries," vol. i. p. 300, pp. 370 
 et scq.; Story's " Commentaries," p. 
 646; and "The Organic Law of the 
 United States," vol i. p. 35. 
 
 i: .' 
 
 1^* 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 M3 
 
 Ambassadors are the representatives of nations in a state of 
 amity with the Union, and whatever concerns these personages 
 concerns in some degree the whole Union. When an ambassa- 
 dor is a party in a suit, that suit affects the welfare of the nation, 
 and a Federal tribunal is naturally called upon to decide it. 
 
 The Union itself may be invoked in legal proceedings, and in 
 this case it would be alike contrary to the customs of all na- 
 tions and to common sense to appeal to a tribunal representing 
 any other sovereignty than its own ; the Federal courts, there- 
 fore, take cognizance of these affairs. 
 
 When two parties belonging to two different States are en- 
 gaged in a suit, the case cannot with propriety be brought before 
 a court of either State. The surest expedient is to select a 
 tribunal like that of the Union, which can excite the suspicions 
 of neither party, and which offers the most natural as well as the 
 most certain remedy. 
 
 When the two parties are not private individuals, but States, 
 an important political consideration is added to the same motive 
 of equity. The quality of the parties in this case gives a national 
 importance to all their disputes ; and the most trifling litigation 
 of the States may be said to involve the peace of the whole 
 Union.^ 
 
 The nature of the cause frequently prescribes the rule of 
 competency. Thus all the questions which concern maritime 
 commerce evidently fall under the cognizance of the Federal 
 tribunals.g Almost all these questions are connected with the 
 interpretation of the law of nations, and in this respect they 
 essentially interest the Union in relation to foreign powers. 
 Moreover, as the sea is not included within the limits of any 
 peculiar jurisdiction, the national courts can only hear causes 
 which originate in maritime affairs. 
 
 The Constitution comprises under one head almost all the 
 cases which by their very nature come within the limits of the 
 Federal courts. The rule which it lays down is simple, but 
 
 f The Constitution also says tliat the 
 Federal courts shall decide controver- 
 sies between a State and the citizens of 
 another State." And here a most im- 
 portant question of a constitutional nat- 
 ure arose, which was, whether the jur- 
 isdiction given by the Constitution in 
 cases in which a State is a party extend- 
 ed to suits brought against a State as 
 well as hy it, or was exclusively con- 
 fined to the latter. The question was 
 jnost elaborately considered in the case 
 
 of Chisholm v. Georgia, and was decided 
 by the majority of the Supreme Court 
 in the affirmative. The decision cre- 
 ated general alarm among the States, 
 and an amendment was proposed and 
 ratified by which the power was entirely 
 taken away, so far as it rectirds suits 
 brought against a State. See Story's 
 " Commentaries," p. 624, or in the large 
 edition §1677. 
 g As for instance, all cases of piracy. 
 
I 
 
 i). 
 
 h'\ 
 
 144 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 pregnant with an entire system of ideas, and with a vast multi- 
 tude of facts. It declares that the judicial power of the Supreme 
 Court shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under 
 the laws of the United States. 
 
 Two examples will put the intention of the legislator in the 
 clearest light : 
 
 The Constitution prohibits the States from making laws on 
 the value and circulation of money: If, notwithstanding this 
 prohibition, a State passes a law of this kind, with which the 
 interested parties refuse to comply because it is contrary to the 
 Constitution, the case must come before a Federal court, be- 
 cause it arises under the laws of the United States. Again, if 
 difficulties arise in the levying of import duties which have been 
 voted by Congress, the Federal court must decide the case, be- 
 cause it arises under the interpretation of a law of the United 
 States. 
 
 This rule is in perfect accordance with the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of the Federal Constitution. The Union, as it was es- 
 tablished in 1789, possesses, it is true, a limited supremacy ; but 
 it was intended that within its limits it shoulti lorm one and the 
 same people.^ Within those limits the Union is sovereign. 
 When this point is established and admitted, the inference is 
 easy ; for if it be acknowledged that the United States consti- 
 tute one and the same people within the bounds prescribed by 
 their Constitution, it is impossible to refuse them the rights 
 which belong to other nations. But it has been allowed, from 
 the origin of society, that every nation has the right of deciding 
 by its own courts those questions which concern the execution 
 of its own laws. To this it is answered that the Union is in so 
 singular a position that in relation to some matters it consti- 
 tutes a people, and that in relation to all the rest it is a nonentity. 
 But the inference to be drawn is, that in the laws relating to 
 these matters the Union possesses all the rights of absolute 
 sovereignty. The difficulty is to know what these matters are ; 
 and when once it is resolved (and we have shown how it was 
 resolved, in speaking of the means of determining the jurisdic- 
 tion of the Federal courts) no further doubt can arise; for as 
 soon as it is established that a suit is Federal — that is to say. 
 
 h This principle was in some measure 
 restricted by the introduction of the 
 several States as independent powers 
 into the Senate, and by allowinR them 
 to vote separately in the House of Rep- 
 
 resentatives when the President is elect- 
 ed by that body. But these are excep- 
 tions, and the contrary principle is the 
 rule. 
 
 A 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 »45 
 
 that it belongs to the share of sovereignty reserved by the Con- 
 stitution of the Union- -the natural consequence is that it should 
 come within the jurisdiction of a Federal court. 
 
 Whenever the laws of the United States are attacked, or 
 whenever they are resorted to in self-defence, the Federal courts 
 must be appealed to. Thus the jurisdiction of the tribunals of 
 the Union extends and narrows its limits exactly in the same 
 ratio as the sovereignty of the Union augments or decreases. 
 We have shown that the principal aim of the legislators of 1789 
 was to divide the sovereign authority into two parts. In the one 
 they placed the control of all the general interests of the Union, 
 in the other the control of the special interests of its component 
 States. Their chief solicitude was to arm the Federal Govern- 
 ment with sufficient power to enable it to resist, within its sphere, 
 the encroachments of the several States. As for these com- 
 munities, the principle of independence within certain limits of 
 their own was adopted in their behalf ; and they were concealed 
 from the inspection, and protected from the control, of the cen- 
 tral Government. In speaking of the division of authority, I 
 observed that this latter principle had not always been held 
 sacred, since the States are prevented from passing certain laws 
 which apparently belong to their own particular sphere of in- 
 terest. When a State of the Union passes a law of this kind, 
 the citizens who are injured by its execution can appeal to the 
 Federal courts. 
 
 Thus the jurisdiction of the Federal courts extends not only 
 to all the cases which arise under the laws of the Union, but also 
 to those which arise under laws made by t*i2 .several States in 
 opposition to the Constitution. The States a.>- p'-ohibited from 
 making ex post facto laws in criminal c^se; , nid p.ny person 
 condemned by virtue of a law of this kind csr> apf e'!^ to the 
 judicial power of the Union. The Stf>/^o:s are lik wis^ pro- 
 hibited from making laws which may have a tenden-^y to im- 
 pair the obligations of contracts.* If a citizen thinks that an 
 
 i. It is perfectly clear, says Mr. Story 
 (" Commentaries," p. 503, or in the 
 
 large edition f 1379), that any law which 
 enlarges, abridges, or in any manner 
 changes the intention of the parties, re- 
 sulting from the stipulations in the con- 
 tract, necessarily impairs it. He gives 
 in the same place a very long and care- 
 ful definition of whnt is understood by 
 a contract in Federal jurisprudence. _A 
 grant made by the State to a private in- 
 dividual, and accepted by him, is a 
 Contract, and cannot be revoked by any 
 
 Vol. I— 10 
 
 future Jaw. A ci arter granted by the 
 State to a company is a contract, and 
 equally binding to the State as to the 
 grantee. The clause of the Constitu- 
 tion here referred to insures, therefore, 
 the existence of a great part of acquired 
 rights, but not ol all. Property may 
 legally be held, though it may not have 
 passed into the possessor's hands by 
 means of a contract; and its. r^ossessioh 
 is an acquired right, not guaranteed by 
 the Federal Constitution. 
 
 '^ 1.1 
 
 
I 
 
 ,1 
 
 w 
 
 \ti 
 
 146 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 obligation of this kind is impaired by a law passed in his State, 
 he may refuse to obey it, and may appeal to the Federal courts.;' 
 This provision appears to me to he the most serious attack 
 upon the independence of the States. The rights awarded to the 
 Federal Government for purposes of obvious national im- 
 portance are definite and easily comprehensible ; but those with 
 which this last clause invests it are not either clearly appreciable 
 or accurately defined. For there are vast numbers of political 
 laws which influence the existence of obligations of contracts, 
 which may thus furnish an easy pretext for the aggressions of 
 thf; central authority. 
 
 ^ f 
 
 m. 
 
 if 
 
 Procedure of the Federal Courts 
 
 Natural weakness of the judiciary power in confederations — Legis- 
 lators ought to strive as much as possible to bring private in- 
 dividuals, and not States, before the Federal Courts — How the 
 Americans have succeeded in this — Direct prosecution of private 
 individuals in the Federal Courts — Indirect prosecution of the 
 States which violate the laws of the Union — The decrees of the Su- 
 preme Court enervate but do not destroy the provincial laws. 
 
 I have shown what the privileges of the Federal courts are, 
 and it j no less important to point out the manner in which they 
 are exercised. The irresistible authority of justice in countries 
 in which the sovereignty in undivided is derived frc n the fact 
 that the tribunals of those countries represent the entire nation 
 at issue with the individual against whom their decree is di- 
 rected, and the idea of power is thus introduced to corroborate 
 the idea of right. But this is not always the case in countries in 
 
 ; A remarkable instance of this is 
 given by Mr. Story (p. 508, or in the 
 lar(?e edition §1388) : " Dartmouth Col- 
 lege in New Hampshire had been 
 founded by a charter granted to certain 
 individuals before the American Rev- 
 olution, and its trustees formed a cor- 
 poration under this charter. The legis- 
 lature of New Hampshire had, without 
 the consent of this corporation, passed 
 an act changing the organization of tho 
 original provincial charter ot the col- 
 lege, and transferring all the rights, 
 privileges, and franchises from the old 
 charter trustees to new trustees appoint- 
 ed under the act. The constitutionality 
 of the act was contested, and, after sol- 
 emn arguments, it was deliberately held 
 by the Supreme Court that the t>rovin- 
 cial charter was a contract within the 
 meaning of the Constitution (Art. I. 
 5 10), and that the emendatory act ^yas 
 utterly void, as impairing the obligation 
 
 of that charter. The college was 
 deemed, like other colleges of private 
 foundation, to be a private eleemosy- 
 nary institution, endowed by its charter 
 vl.h a capacity to take property uncon- 
 ric-cted with the Government. Its funds 
 were bestowed upon the faith of the 
 charter, and those funds consisted en- 
 tirely of private donations. It is true 
 that the uses were in some sense public, 
 that is, for the general benefit, and not 
 for the mere benefit of the corporators; 
 but this did not make the corporation 
 a public corporation. It was a private 
 institution for general charity. It was 
 not distinguishable in principle from a 
 private donation, vested in private tri's- 
 tees, for a public charity, or for a par- 
 ticular purpose of beneficence. And 
 the State itself, if it had bestowed funds 
 upon a charity of the same naturei 
 could not resume those funds." 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 147 
 
 \ } 
 
 private 
 
 which the sovereignty is divided ; in them the judicial power is 
 more frequently opposed to a fraction of the nation than to an 
 isolated individual, and its moral authority and physical strength 
 are consequently diminished. In federal States the power of 
 the judge is naturally decreased, and that of the justiciable 
 parties is augmented. The aim of the legislator in confederate 
 States ought therefore to be to render the position of the courts 
 of justice analogous to that which they occupy in countries 
 where the sovereignty is undivided ; in other words, his efforts 
 ought constantly to tend to maintain the judicial power of the 
 confederation as the representative of the nation, and the justici- 
 able party as the representative of an individual interest. 
 
 Every government, whatever may be its constitution, re- 
 quires the means of constraining its subjects to discharge their 
 obligations, and of protecting its privileges from their assaults. 
 As far as the direct action of the Government on the community 
 is concerned, the Constitution of the United States contrived, 
 by a master-stroke of policy, that the federal courts, acting in 
 the name of the laws, should only take cognizance of parties in 
 an individual capacity. For, as it had been declared that the 
 Union consisted of one and the same people within the limits 
 laid down by the Constitution, the in'.erence was that the Gov- 
 ernment created by this Constitution, and acting within these 
 limits, was invested with all the privileges of a national gov- 
 ernment, one of the principal of which is the right of trans- 
 mitting its injunctions directly to the private citizen. When, 
 for instance, the Union votes an impost, it does not apply to the 
 States for the levying of it, but to every American citizen in 
 proportion to his assessment. The Supreme Court, which is 
 empowered to enforce the exfcution of this law of the Union, 
 exerts its influence not upon a refractory State, but upon the 
 private taxpayer; and, like the judicial power of other na- 
 tions, it is opposed to the person of an individual. It is to be 
 observed that the Union chose its own antagonist ; and as that 
 antagonist is feeble, he is naturally worsted. 
 
 But the diificulty increases when the proceedings are not 
 brought forward by but against the Union. The Constitution 
 recognizes the legislative power of the States ; and a law so en- 
 acted may impair the privileges of the Union, in which case a 
 collision is unavoidable between that body and the State which 
 has passed the law: and it only remains to select the least 
 
 • U 
 
 " n 
 
 uuoje- •••««>" 
 
148 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 dangerous remedy, which is very clearly deducible from the 
 general principles I have before established.* 
 
 It may be conceived that, in the case under consideration, the 
 Union might have used the State before a Federal court, which 
 would have annulled the act, and by this means it would have 
 adopted a natural course of proceeding; but the judicial power 
 would have been placed in open hostility to the State, and it was 
 desirable to avoid this predicament as much as possible. The 
 Americans hold that it is nearly impossible that a new law 
 should not impair the interests of some private individual by 
 its provisions : these private interests are assumed by the Ameri- 
 can legislators as the ground of attack against such measures 
 as may be prejudicial to the Union, and it is to these cases that 
 the protection of the Supreme Court is extended. 
 
 Suppose a State vends a certain portion o< its territory to a 
 company, and that a year afterwards it pr -^ses a law by which 
 the territory is otherwise disposed of, and that clause of th ^ Con- 
 stitution which prohibits laws impairing the obligation of con- 
 tracts violated. When the purchaser under the second act ap- 
 pears to take possession, the possessor under the first act brings 
 his action before the tribunals of the Union, and causes the title 
 of the claimant to be pronounced null and void.^ Thus, in point 
 of fac'-- the judicial power of the Union is contesting the claims 
 of the sovereignty of a State; hut it only acts indirectly and 
 upon a special application of detail: it attacks the law in its 
 consequences, not in its principle, and it rather weakens than 
 destroys it. 
 
 The last hypothesis that remained was that each State formed 
 a corporation enjoying a separate existence and distinct civil 
 rights, an J that it could therefore sue or be sued before a tribu- 
 nal. Thus a State could bring an action against another State. 
 In tMs instance the Union was not called upon to contest a pro- 
 v'.icial law, but to try a suit in which a State was a party. This 
 suit vi'as perfectly similar to any other cause, except that the 
 qur>lity of the parties wac different ; and here the danger pointed 
 out at the Wgininng oi Itiis chapter exists with less chance of 
 being avoiiTed. The inherent di, .^vantage of the very essence 
 of Fetleral cotistit'.iions is that they engender parties in the 
 bosom of the nation which present powerful obstacles to the free 
 course of justice. 
 
 k See Chapter Vt. 
 Power in America." 
 
 on " Judicial t See Kent's " Commentaries," vol. i. 
 
 p. 387- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 149 
 
 \^ 
 
 High Rank of the Supreme Court amongst the Great 
 
 Powers of State 
 
 No nation ever constituted so great a judicial power as the Americans 
 — Extent of its prerogative — Its political influence — The tranquillity 
 and the very existence of the Union depend on the discretion of the 
 seven Federal Judges. 
 
 When we have successively examined in detail the organiza- 
 tion of the Supreme Court, and the entire prerogatives which it 
 exercises, v^e shall readily admit that a more imposing judicial 
 power was never constituted by any people. The Supreme 
 Court is placed at the head of all kncwn tribunals, both by the 
 nature of its rights and the class of justiciable parties which it 
 controls. 
 
 In all the civilized countries of Europe the Government has 
 always shown the greatest repugnance to allow the cases to 
 which it was itself a party to be decided bj the ordinary course 
 of justice. This repugnance naturally attains its utmost height 
 in an absolute Government ; and, on the other hand, the privi- 
 leges of the courts of justice are extended with the increasing 
 liberties of the people : but no European nation has at present 
 held that all judicial controversies, without regard to their 
 origin, can be decided by the judges of common law. 
 
 In America this theory has been actually put in practice, and 
 the Supreme Court of the United States is the sole tribunal of 
 the nation. Its power extends to all the cases arising under 
 laws and treaties made by the executive and legislative authori- 
 ties, to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and in 
 general to all points which affect the law of nations. It may 
 even be affirmed that, although its constitution is essentially 
 judicial, its prerogatives are almost entirely political. Its sole 
 object is to enforce the execution of the laws of the Union ; and 
 the Union only regulates the relations of the Government v^^ith 
 the citizens, and of the nation with Foreign Powers : the rela- 
 tions of citizens amongst themselves are almost exclusively 
 regulated by the sovereignty of the States. 
 
 A second and still greater cause of the preponderance of this 
 court ma}' be adduced. In the nations of Europe the courts of 
 justice are only called upon to try the controversies of private 
 individuals ; but the Supreme Court of the United States sum- 
 mons sovereign powers to its bar. When the clerk of the court 
 
 1^'- 
 

 
 I 
 
 150 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 advances on the steps of the tribunal, and simply says, " The 
 State of New York versus the State of Ohio," it is impossible 
 not to feel that the Court which he addresses is no ordinary 
 body ; and when it is recollected that one of these parties repre- 
 sents one million, and the other two millions of men, one is 
 struck by the responsibility of the seven judges whose decision 
 is about to satisfy or to disappoint so large a number of their 
 fellow-citizens. 
 
 The peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the 
 Union are vested in the hands of the seven judges. Without 
 their active co-operation the Constitution would be a dead let- 
 ter: the Executive appeals to them for assistance against the 
 encroachments of the legislative powers; the Legislature de- 
 mands their protection from the designs of the Executive ; they 
 defend the Union from the disobedience of the States, the States 
 from the exaggerated claims of the Union, the public interest 
 against the interests of private citizens, and the conservative 
 spirit of order against the fleeting innovations of democracy. 
 Their power is enormous, but it is clothed in the authority of 
 public opinion. They are the all-powerful guardians of a people 
 which respects law, but they would be impotent against popular 
 neglect or popular contempt. The force of public opinion is the 
 most intractable of agents, because its exact limits cannot be 
 defined ; and it is not less dangerous to exceed than to remain 
 below the boundary prescribed. 
 
 The Federal judges must not only be good citizens, and men 
 possessed of that information and integrity which are indis- 
 pensable to magistrates, but they must be statesmen — politi- 
 cians, not unread in the signs of the times, not afraid to brave 
 the obstacles which can be subdued, nor slow to turn aside such 
 encroaching elements as may threaten the supremacy of the 
 Union and the obedience which is due to the laws. 
 
 The President, who exercises a limited power, may err with- 
 out causing great mischief in the State. Congress may decide 
 amiss without destroying the Union, because the electoral body 
 in which Congress originates may cause it to retract its decision 
 by changing its members. But if the Supreme Court is ever 
 composed of imprudent men or bad citizens, the Union may be 
 plunged into anarchy or civil war. 
 
 The real cause of this danger, however, does not He in the 
 constitution of the tribunal, but in the very nature of Federal 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 »5« 
 
 Governments. We have ibserved that in confederate peoples it 
 is especially necessary to consolidate the judicial authority, be- 
 cause in no other nations do those independent persons who are 
 able to cope with the social body exist in greater power or in a 
 better condition to resist the physical strength of the Govern- 
 ment. But the more a power requires to be strengthened, the 
 more extensive and independent it must be made; and the 
 dangers which its abuse may create are heightened by its inde- 
 pendence and its strength. The source of the evil is not, there- 
 fore, in the constitution of the power, but in the constitution of 
 those States which render its existence necessary. 
 
 In what Respects the Federal Constitution is Superior 
 to that of the states 
 
 In what respects the Constitution of the Union can be compared to that 
 of the States — Superiority of the Constitution of the Union attribu- 
 table to the wisdom of the Federal legislators — ^Legislature of the 
 Union less dependent on the people than that of the States — Ex- 
 ecutive power more independent in its sphere — ^Judicial power less 
 subjected to the inclinations of the majority — Practical consequence 
 of these facts — The dangers inherent in a democratic government 
 eluded by the Federal legislators, and increased by the legislators 
 of the States. 
 
 The Federal Constitution differs essentially from that of the 
 States in the ends which it is intended to accomplish, but in the 
 means by which these ends are promoted a greater analogy ex- 
 ists between them. The objects of the Governments are differ- 
 ent, but their forms are the same ; and in this special point of 
 view there is some advantage in comparing them together. 
 
 I am of opinion that the Federal Constitution is superior to 
 all the Constitutions of the States, for several reasons. 
 
 The present Constitution of the Union was formed at a later 
 period than those of the majority of the States, and it may have 
 derived some ameliorations from past experience. But we shall 
 be led to acknowledge that this is only a secondary cause of its 
 superiority, when we recollect that eleven new States" have 
 been added to the American Confederation since the promulga- 
 tion of the Federal Constitution, and that these new republics 
 have always rather exaggerated than avoided the defects which 
 existed in the former Constitutions. 
 
 n [The number of States has now risen to 46 (1874), besides the District of 
 Columbia.] 
 
 1 ' 
 
153 
 
 DK TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 s 
 
 I Jifr 
 
 Tlu' chief cause of the superiority of tlie Federal C'otistituiion 
 lay in the character of the legislators who coiiiposetl it. At 
 the time when it was formed the daiij;ers of the Confederation 
 were imminent, and its ruin seemed inevitable. In this ex- 
 tremity the people chose the men who most deservd the es- 
 teem, rather than those who had gained the affections, of the 
 country. I have already observed that distinguished as almost 
 all the legislators of the Union were for their inteiligviKi-, they 
 were .s»'ll more so for their patriotism. They had all been nur- 
 tured at a time when the .spirit of liberty was braced by a con- 
 tinual struggle again.st a powerful and predominant authority. 
 When the contest was terminated, whilst the excited passions 
 of the populace persisted in warring with dangers which had 
 ceased to threaten them, these men stopped short in their career ; 
 they cast a calmer and more penetrating look upon the country 
 which was now their own ; they perceived that the war of inde- 
 pendence was definitely ended, and that the only dangers which 
 America had to fear were those which might result from the 
 abuse of the freedom she had won. They had the courage to 
 say what they believed to be true, because they were animated 
 by a warm and sincere love of liberty ; and they venturctl to pro- 
 pose restrictions, because they were resolutely opposed to de- 
 struction.o 
 
 The greater number of the Constitutions of the States assign 
 one year for the duration of the House of Representatives, and 
 
 o Al this time Aloxntidcr Hamilton, 
 who wr.s one o( the priiiciii.il (uunders 
 of tlic C'onstitution, ventured to express 
 the folIowinR scirtiments in " The FcU- 
 cMlisf," No. 71:— 
 
 " There arc some who wouhl he in- 
 clitu'il to rcRnnl the servile pli.nncy of 
 the Kxccutive vo a prevailinR current, 
 cither in the community or in the Lctris- 
 l.iture, as its best recommendation. Hut 
 such men entertain very crude notions, 
 as well of the purposes for which rov- 
 ernment was instituted as of the true 
 means by which the public happiness 
 may he promoted. The Repunlican 
 principle demands th.it the de'U)trative 
 sense of the community should Rovern 
 the conduct of those to whom ♦.hey en- 
 trust the management of their affairs: 
 hut it d'-es not require an unqualified 
 complaisance to every sudden breeze tif 
 passion, or to every transient impulse 
 which the people may receive from the 
 arts of men who flatter their prejudices 
 to betray their interests. It is a just 
 observation, that the people commonly 
 iti(i-m/ the public good. This often applies 
 to their very errors. Hut their good 
 sense would despise the adulator who 
 
 should |>refcnd that they always reason 
 rieht about the mcims of proniotinK it. 
 They know from experience that lliey 
 .sometiuH's err; and tlif wonder is tlint 
 they so seldom err as they do, beset, as 
 they continually arc, by the wiU-i of par- 
 asites and sycophants; by the snares of 
 the ambitious, the avaricious, the des- 
 perate; by the artifices of men who pos- 
 sess their confidence more than they 
 deserve it, and of those who seek to pos- 
 sess rather than to deserve it. VVhcn 
 occasions present themselves in which 
 the interests of the people are at vari- 
 ance with their inclinations, it is the 
 duty of persons whom they have ap- 
 pointed to be the guardians of those in- 
 terests to withstand the temporary de- 
 Iu.<sion, in order to give them time and 
 opportunity for more cool and sed.ite 
 reflection. Instances might be cited in 
 which a conduct of this kind has saved 
 the people from very fatal consequences 
 of their own mistakes, and has procured 
 lasting monuments of their gratitude to 
 the men who had courage and magnani- 
 mity enough to serve them at the peril 
 of their displeasure." 
 
DliMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 »53 
 
 two years for that of the Senate ; so that members of the legis- 
 lative hufly are constantly and narrowly tied down by the slight- 
 est desires of iheir awistitucnls. The legislators of the Union 
 W'Tc of opinion that this excessive depetidence of the Legisla- 
 ture tended to alter the nature of the main consequences of the 
 representative system, since it vested the source, not only of 
 authority, but of government, in the peojjie. They increased 
 the length of the time for which the repri sentatives were re- 
 turned, in order to give them freer scope for the exercise of their 
 own judgment. 
 
 The Federal Constitution, as well as the Constitutions of the 
 different States, divided the legislative body into two branches. 
 Ikit in the States these two branches were composed of the 
 same elements, afid eki ted in the .^amc maimer. The con.se- 
 quciice was that the passions and incli' is of the populace 
 
 were as rapidly and as energetically rep iled in (jne chaml>er 
 as in the other, and that laws were made with all the charac- 
 teristics of violence and precipitalii-n. l.y the Federal Con.stitu- 
 tion the two houses originate in like manner in the choice of the 
 peo])le; but the conditions of eligibility and the mode of elec- 
 tion were changed, to the end that, if, as is the case in certain 
 nations, one branch of the Legislature represents the same in- 
 terests as the other, it may at least represent a superior degree 
 of intelligence and discretion. A mature age was made one of 
 the conditions of the senatorial dignity, and the Upper House 
 was chosen by an elected assembly of a limited number of mem- 
 bers. 
 
 To concentrate the whole social force in the hands of the 
 legislative body is the natural tendency of democracies ; for as 
 this is the power which emanates the most directly from the 
 people, it is made to participate most fully in the preponderating 
 authority of the multitude, and it is naturally led to monopolize 
 every species of influence. This concentration is at once preju- 
 dicial to a well-conducted administration, and favorable to the 
 despotism of the majority. The legislators of the States fre- 
 quently yielded to these democratic propensities, which were in- 
 variably and courageously resisted by the founders of the Union. 
 
 In the States the executive power is vested in the hands of a 
 magistrate, who is apparently placed upon a level with the Leg- 
 islature, but who is in reality nothing more than the blind agent 
 and the passive instrument of its decisions. He can derive no 
 
e> 
 
 1^-^ -^-^o. 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 // 
 
 
 y^TS' 
 
 ^4^ 
 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 11.25 
 
 1^ IIM 
 ^ 1^ lllllio 
 
 . .,. IIIIIM 
 
 1.8 
 
 U IIIIII.6 
 
 vl 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 ^, 
 
 '/ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716)872-4503 
 

 \ 
 
 €v 
 
 
154 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I J" 
 
 I. t 
 
 influence from the duration of his functions, which terminate 
 with the revolving year, or from the exercise of prerogatives 
 which can scarcely be said to exist. The Legislature can con- 
 demn him to inaction by intrusting the execution of the laws 
 to special committees of its own members, and can annul his 
 temporary dignity by depriving him of his salary. The Federal 
 Constitution vests all the privileges and all the responsibility of 
 the executive power in a single individual. The duration of the 
 Presidency is fixed at four years ; the salary of the individual 
 who fills that office cannot be altered during the term of his 
 functions ; he is protected by a body of official dependents, and 
 armed with a suspensive veto. In short, every effort was made 
 to confer a strong and independent position upon the executive 
 authority within the limits which had been prescribed to it. 
 
 In the Constitutions of all the States the judicial power is 
 that which remains the most independent of the legislative au- 
 thority; nevertheless, in all the States the Legislature has re- 
 served to itself the right of regulating the emoluments of the 
 judges, a practice which necessarily subjects these magistrates 
 to its immediate influence. In some States the judges are only 
 temporarily appointed, which deprives them of a great portion 
 of their power and their freedom. In others the legislative and 
 judicial powers are entirely confounded; thus the Senate of 
 New York, for instance, constitutes in certain cases the Su- 
 perior Court of the State. The Federal Constitution, on the 
 other hand, carefully separates the judicial authority from all 
 external influences ; and it provides for the independence of the 
 judges, by declaring that their salary shall not be altered, and 
 that their functions shall be inalienable. 
 
 The practical consequences of these different systems may 
 easily be perceived. An attentive observer will soon remark 
 that the business of the Union is incomparably better con- 
 ducted than that of any individual State. The conduct of the 
 Federal Government is more fair and more temperate than that 
 of the States, its designs are more fraught with wisdom, its pro- 
 jects are more durable and more skilfully combined, its meas- 
 ures are put into execution with more vigor and consistency. 
 
 I recapitulate the substance of this chapter in a few words : 
 The existence of democracies is threatened by two dangers, 
 viz., the complete subjection of the legislative body to the ca- 
 prices of the electoral body, and the concentration of all the 
 
 V. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 HS 
 
 powers of the Government in the legislative authority. The 
 growth of these evils has been encouraged by the policy of the 
 legislators of the States, but it has been resisted by the legisla- 
 tors of the Union by every means which lay within their con- 
 trol. 
 
 Characteristics which Distinguish the Federal Con- 
 stitution OF the United States of America from all 
 other Federal Constitutions 
 
 American Union appears to resemble all other confederations — Never- 
 theless its effects are different — Reason of this — Distinctions between 
 the Union and all other confederations — ^The American Govern- 
 ment not a federal but an imperfect national Government. 
 
 The United States of America do not afford either the first or 
 the only instance of ccnfederate States, several of which have 
 existed in modern Europe, without adverting to those of an- 
 tiquity. Switzerland, the Germanic Empire, and the Republic 
 of the United Provinces either have been or still are confedera- 
 tions. In studying the constitutions of these different coun- 
 tries, the politician is surprised to observe that the powers with 
 which they invested the Federal Government are nearly iden- 
 tical with the privileges awarded by the American Constitution 
 to the Government of the United States. They confer upon the 
 central power the same rights of making peace and war, of rais- 
 ing money and troops, and of providing for the general exigen- 
 cies and the common interests of the nation. Nevertheless the 
 Federal Government of these diflferent peoples has always been 
 as remarkable for its weakness and inefficiency as that of the 
 Union is for its vigorous and enterprising spirit. Again, the 
 first American Confederation perished through the excessive 
 weakness of its Government ; and this weak Government was, 
 notwithstanding, in possession of rights even more extensive 
 than those of the Federal Government of the present day. But 
 the more recent Constitution of the United States contains cer- 
 tain principles which exercise a most important influence, al- 
 though they do not at once strike the observer. 
 
 This Constitution, which may at first sight be confounded 
 with the federal constitutions which preceded it, rests upon 
 a novel theory, which may be considered as a great invention 
 in modern political science. In all the confederations which 
 had been formed before the American Constitution of 1789 the 
 
 !i i 
 
 V ii 
 
^56 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 allied States agreed to obey the injunctions of a Federal Gov- 
 ernment ; but they reserved to themselves the right of ordain- 
 ing and enforcing the execution oi the laws of the Union. The 
 American States which combined in 1789 agreed that the Fed- 
 eral Government should not only dictate the laws, but that it 
 should execute it own enactments. In both cases the right is 
 the same, but the exercise of the right is different ; and this al- 
 teration produced the most momentous consequences. 
 
 In all the confederations which had been formed before the 
 American Union the Federal Government demanded its sup- 
 plies at the hands of the separate Governments; and if the 
 measure it prescribed was onerous to any one of those bodies 
 means were found to evade its claims : if the State was powerful, 
 it had recourse to arms ; if it was weak, it connived at the re- 
 sistance which the law of the Union, its sovereign, met with, and 
 resorted to inaction under the plea of inability. Under these 
 circumstances one of the two alternatives has invariably oc- 
 curred ; either the most preponderant of the allied peoples has 
 assumed the privileges of the Federal authority and ruled all 
 the States in its name,/' or the Federal Government has been 
 abandoned by its natural supporters, anarchy has arisen be- 
 tween the confederates, and the Union has lost all powers of 
 action.9 
 
 In America the subjects of the Union are not States, but 
 private citizens : the national Government levies a tax, not upon 
 the State of Massachusetts, but upon each inhabitant of Massa- 
 chusetts. All former confederate governments presided over 
 communities, but that of the Union rules individuals ; its force 
 is not borrowed, but self-derived ; and it is served by its own 
 civil and military officers, by its own army, and its own courts 
 of justice. It cannot be doubted that the spirit of the nation, 
 the passions of the multitude, and the provincial prejudices of 
 each State tend singularly to diminish the authority of a Fed- 
 eral authority thus constituted, and to facilitate the means of 
 resistance to its mandates ; but the comparative weakness of a 
 restricted sovereignty is an evil inherent in the Federal sys- 
 tem. In America, each State has fewer opportunities of re- 
 
 p This was the case in Greece, when 
 Philip undertook to execute the decree 
 of the Amphtctyons; in the Low Coun- 
 tries, where the province of Holland al- 
 ways gave the law; and, in our own 
 time, in the Germanic Confederation, 
 in which Austria and Prussia assume a 
 
 great degree of influence over the whole 
 country, in the name of the Diet. 
 
 q Such has always been the situation 
 of the Swiss Confederation, which 
 would have perished ages ago but for 
 the mutual jealousies of its neighbors. 
 
 ■ ■ Xl.J.". J.«-t. l lll 
 
li 1 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 >S7 
 
 sistance and fewer temptations to non-compliance; nor can 
 such a design be put in execution (if indeed it be entertained) 
 without an open violation of the laws of the Union, a direct in- 
 terruption of the ordinary course of justice, and a bold declara- 
 tion of revolt ; in a word, without taking a decisive step which 
 men hesitate to adopt. 
 
 In all former confederations the privileges of the Union fur- 
 nished more elements of discord than of power, since they mul- 
 tiplied the claims of the nation without augmenting the means 
 of enforcing them : and in accordance with this fact it may be 
 remarked that the real weakness of federal governments has 
 almost always been in the exact ratio of their nominal power. 
 Such is not the case in the American Union, in which, as in or- 
 dinary governments, the Federal Government has the means 
 of enforcing all it is empowered to demand. 
 
 The human understanding more easily invents new things 
 than new words, and we are thence constrained to employ a 
 multitude of improper and inadequate expressions. When sev- 
 eral nations form a permanent league and establish a supreme 
 authority, which, although it has not the same influence over 
 the members of the community as a national government, acts 
 upon each of the Confederate States in a body, this Govern- 
 ment, which is so essentially different from all others, is denom- 
 inated a Federal one. Another form of society is afterwards 
 discovered, in which several peoples are fused into one and the 
 same nation with regard to certain common interests, although 
 they remain distinct, or at least only confederate, with regard 
 to all their other concerns. In this case the central power acts 
 directly upon those whom it governs, whom it rules, and whom 
 it judges, in the same manner, as, but in a more limited circle 
 than, a national government. Here the term Federal Govern- 
 ment is clearly no longer applicable to a state of things which 
 must be styled an incomplete national Government : a form of 
 government has been found out which is neither exactly na- 
 tional nor federal ; but no further progress has been made, and 
 the new word which will one day designate this novel invention 
 does not yet exist. 
 
 The absence of this new species of confederation has been the 
 cause which has brought all Unions to Civil War, to subjection, 
 or to a stagnant apathy, and the peoples which formed these 
 leagues have been either too dull to discern, or too pusillanimous 
 
 a 
 
 f If 
 
''l-i 
 
 II s 
 
 158 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 to apply this great remedy. The American Confederation 
 perished by the same defects. 
 
 But the Confederate States of America had been long ac- 
 customed to form a portion of one empire before they had won 
 their independence ; they had not contracted the habit of gov- 
 erning themselves, and their national prejudices had not taken 
 deep root in their minds. Superior to the rest of the world in 
 political knowledge, and sharing 'that knowledge equally 
 amongst themselves, they were little agitated by the passions 
 which generally oppose the extension of federal authority in a 
 nation, and those passions were checked by the wisdom of the 
 chief citizens. The Americans applied the remedy with pru- 
 dent firmness as soon as they were conscious of the evil ; they 
 amended their laws, and they saved their country. 
 
 < I 
 
 Advantages of the Federal System in General, and its 
 Special Utility in America 
 
 Happiness and freedom of small nations — Power of great nations — 
 Great empires favorable to the growth of civilization — Strength 
 often the first element of national prosperity — Aim of the Federal 
 system to unite the twofold advantages resulting from a small and 
 from a large territory — Advantages derived by the United States 
 from this system — The law adapts itself to the exigencies of the 
 population; population does not conform to the exigencies of the 
 law — Activity, amelioration, love and enjoyment of freedom in the 
 American communities — Public spirit of the Union the abstract of 
 provincial patriotism — Principles and things circulate freely over 
 the territory of the United States — The Union is happy and free as 
 a little nation, and respected as a great empire. 
 
 In small nations the scrutiny of society penetrates into every 
 part, and the spirit of improvement enters into the most trifling 
 details ; as the ambition of the people is necessarily checked by 
 its weakness, all the efforts and resources of the citizens are 
 turned to the internal benefit of the community, and are not 
 likely to evaporate in the fleeting breath of glory. The desires 
 of every individual are limited, because extraordinary faculties 
 are rarely to be met with. The gifts of an equal fortune render 
 the various conditions of life uniform, and the manners of the 
 inhabitants are orderly and simple. Thus, if one estimate the 
 gradations of popular morality and enlightenment, we shall 
 generally find that in small nations there are more persons in 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 tS9 
 
 easy circumstances, a more numerous population, and a more 
 tranquil state of society, than in great empires. 
 
 When tyranny is established in the bosom of a small nation, 
 it is more galling than elsewhere, because, as it acts within a 
 narrow circle, every point of that circle is subject to its direct 
 influence. It supplies the place of those great designs which it 
 cannot entertain by a violent or an exasperating interference in 
 a multitude of minute details ; and it leaves the political world, 
 to which it properly belongs, to meddle with the arrangements 
 of domestic life. Tastes as well as actions are to be regulated 
 at its pleasure; and the families of the citizens as well as the 
 affairs of the State are to be governed by its decisions. This in- 
 vasion of rights occurs, however, but seldom, and freedom is in 
 truth the natural state of small communities. The temptations 
 which the Government offers to ambition are too weak, and the 
 resources of private individuals are too slender, for the sovereign 
 power easily to fall within the grasp of a single citizen ; and 
 should such an event have occurred, the subjects of the State 
 can without difficulty overthrow the tyrant and his oppression 
 by a simultaneous effort. 
 
 Small nations have therefore ever been the cradle of political 
 liberty ; and the fact that many of them have lost their immu- 
 nities by extending their dominion shows that the freedom they 
 enjoyed was more a consequence of the inferior size than of the 
 character of the people. 
 
 The history of the world affords no instance of a great nation 
 retaining the form of republican government for a long series 
 of years,** and this has led to the conclusion that such a state 
 of things is impracticable. For my own part, I cannot but cen- 
 sure the imprudence of attempting to limit the possible and to 
 judge the future on the part of a being who is hourly deceived 
 by the most palpable realities of life, and who is constantly taken 
 by surprise in the circumstances with which he is most familiar. 
 But it may be advanced with confidence that the existence of 
 a great republic will always be exposed to far greater perils 
 than that of a small one. 
 
 All the passions which are most fatal to republican institu- 
 tions spread with an increasing territory, whilst the virtues 
 which maintain their dignity do not augment in the same pro- 
 
 r I do not speak o{ a confederation of small republics, but of a great con- 
 solidated Republic. 
 
 ft A 
 
 ii 
 
 iy 
 
 11 
 
 •|! 
 
 
i6o 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 portion. The ambition of the citizens increases with the power 
 of the State ; the strength of parties with the importance of the 
 ends they have in view ; but that devotion to the common weal 
 which is the surest check on destructive passions is not stronger 
 in a large than in a small republic. It might, indeed, be proved 
 without difficulty that it is less powerful and less sincere. The 
 arrogance of wealth and the dejection of wretchedness, capital 
 cities of unwonted extent, a lax morality, a vulgar egotism, and 
 a great confusion of interests, are the dangers which almost in- 
 variably arise from the magnitude of States. But several of 
 these evils are scarcely prejudicial to a monarchy, and some of 
 them contribute to maintain its existence. In monarchical 
 States the strength of the government is its own ; it may use, 
 but it does not depend on, the community, and the authority of 
 the prince is proportioned to the prosperity of the nation; 
 but the only security which a republican government possesses 
 against these evils lies in the support of the majority. This 
 support is not, however, proportionably greater in a large re- 
 public than it is in a small one ; and thus, whilst the means of 
 attack perpetually increase both in number and in influence, the 
 power of resistance remains the same, or it may rather be said 
 to diminish, since the propensities and interests of the people 
 are diversified by the increase of the population, and the diffi- 
 culty of forming a compact majority is constantly augmented. 
 It has been observed, moreover, that the intensity of human 
 passions is heightened, not only by the importance of the end 
 which they propose to attain, but by the multitude of individ- 
 uals who are animated by them at the same time. Every one 
 has had occasion to remark that his emotions in the midst of a 
 sympathizing crowd are far greater than those which he would 
 have felt in solitude. In great republics the impetus of politi- 
 cal passion is irresistible, not only because it aims at gigantic 
 purposes, but because it is felt and shared by millions of men at 
 the same time. 
 
 It may therefore be asserted as a general proposition that 
 nothing is more opposed to the well-being and the freedom of 
 man than vast empires. Nevertheless it is important to ac- 
 knowledge the peculiar advantages of great States. For the 
 very reason which renders the desire of power more intense in 
 these communities than amongst ordinary men, the love of 
 glory is also more prominent in the hearts of a class of citizens. 
 
 '}> 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 i6i 
 
 who regard the applause of a great people as a reward worthy 
 of their exertions, and an elevating encouragement to man. 
 If we would learn why it is that great nations contribute more 
 powerfully to the spread of human improvement than small 
 States, we shall discover an adequate cause in the rapid and 
 energetic circulation of ideas, and in those great cities which are 
 the intellectual centres where all the rays of human genius are 
 reflected and combined. To this it may be added that most 
 important discoveries demand a display of national power 
 which the Government of a small State is unable to make ; in 
 great nations the Government entertains a greater number of 
 general notions, and is more completely disengaged from the 
 routine of precedent and the egotism of local prejudice ; its de- 
 signs are conceived with more talent, and executed with more 
 boldness. 
 
 In time of peace the well-being of small nations is undoubt- 
 edly more general and more complete, but they are apt to suffer 
 more acutely from the calamities of war than those great em- 
 pires whose distant frontiers may for ages avert the presence 
 of the danger from the mass of the people, which is therefore 
 more frequently afflicted than ruined by the evil. 
 
 But in this matter, as in many others, the argument derived 
 from the necessity of the case predominates over all others. 
 If none but small nations existed, I do not doubt that mankind 
 would be more happy and more free ; but the existence of great 
 nations is unavoidable. 
 
 This consideration introduces the element of physical 
 strength as a condition of national prosperity. It profits a peo- 
 ple but little to be affluent and free if it is perpetually exposed to 
 be pillaged or subjugated ; the number of its manufactures and 
 the extent of its commerce are of small advantage if another na- 
 tion has the empire of the seas anJ si- ves the law in all the mar- 
 kets of the globe. Small nations aie often impoverished, not 
 because they are small, but because they are weak ; the great 
 empires prosper less because they are great than because they 
 are strong. Physical strength is therefore one of the first con- 
 ditions of the happiness and even of the existence of nations. 
 Hence it occurs that, unless very peculiar circumstances inter- 
 vene, small nations are always united to large empires in the 
 end, either by force or by their own consent : yet I am unac- 
 
 VOL. I.— II 
 
 ■< ■! 
 
 . 
 
i6a 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 . V 
 
 quaintcd with a more deplorable spectacle than that of a people 
 unable either to defend or to maintain its independence. 
 
 The Federal system was created with the intention of combin- 
 ing the different advantages which result from the greater and 
 the lesser extent of nations; and a single glance over the 
 United States of America suffices to discover the advantages 
 which they have derived from its adoption. 
 
 In great centralized nations the legislator is obliged to im- 
 part a character of uniformity to the laws which does not always 
 suit the diversity of customs and of districts ; as he takes no 
 cognizance of special cases, he can only proceed upon general 
 principles; and the population is obliged to conform to the 
 exigencies of the legislation, since the legislation cannot adapt 
 itself to the exigencies and the customs of the population, which 
 is the cause of endless trouble and misery. This disadvantage 
 does not exist in confederations. Congress regulates the prin- 
 cipal measures of the national Government, and all the details 
 of the administration are reserved to the provincial legislatures. 
 It is impossible to imagine how much this division of sover- 
 eignty contributes to the well-being of each of the States which 
 compose the Union. In these small communities, which are 
 never agitated by the desire of aggrandizement or the cares of 
 self-defence, all public authority and private energy is employed 
 in internal amelioration. The central government of each 
 State, which is in immediate juxtaposition to the citizens, is 
 daily apprised of the wants which arise in society ; and new pro- 
 jects are proposed every year, which are discussed either at 
 town meetings or by the legislature of the State, and which are 
 transmitted by the press to stimulate the zeal and to excite the 
 interest of the citizens. This spirit of amelioration is constantly 
 alive in the American republics, without compromising their 
 tranquillity ; the ambition of power yields to the less refined and 
 less dangerous love of comfort. It is generally believed in 
 America that the existence and the permanence of the republi- 
 can form of government in the New World depend upon the ex- 
 istence and the permanence of the Federal system ; and it is 
 not unusual to attribute a large share of the misfortunes which 
 have befallen the new States of South America to the injudicious 
 erection of great republics, instead of a divided and confederate 
 sovereignty. 
 
 It is incontestably true that the love and the habits of repub- 
 
 ARi 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 163 
 
 Hcan government in the United States were engendered in the 
 townships and in the provincial assemblies. In a small State, 
 like that of Connecticut for instance, where cutting a canal or 
 laying down a road is a momentous political question, where 
 the State has no army to pay and no wars to carry on, and 
 where much wealth and much honor cannot be bestowed upon 
 the chief citizens, no form of government can be more natural 
 or more appropriate than that of a republic. But it is this same 
 republican spirit, it is these manners and customs of a free peo- 
 ple, which are engendered and nurtured in the different States, 
 to be afterwards applied to the country at large. The public 
 spirit of the Union is, so to speak, nothing more than an ab- 
 stract of the patriotic zeal of the provinces. Every citizen of 
 the United States transfuses his attachment to his little republic 
 in the common store of American patriotism. In defending the 
 Union he defends the increasing prosperity of his own district, 
 the right of conducting its affairs, and the hope of causing 
 measures of improvement to be adopted which may be favor- 
 able to his own interest ; and these are motives which are wont 
 to stir men more readily than the general interests of the coun- 
 try and the glory of the nation. 
 
 On the other hand, if the temper and the manners of the in- 
 habitants especially fitted them to promote the welfare of a 
 great republic, the Federal system smoothed the obstacles which 
 they might have encountered. The confederation of all the 
 American States presents none of the ordinary disadvantages 
 resulting from great agglomerations of men. The Union is a 
 great republic in extent, but the paucity of objects for which its 
 Government provides assimilates it to a small State. Its acts 
 are important, but they are rare. As the sovereignty of the 
 Union is limited and incomplete, its exercise is not incompati- 
 ble with liberty ; for it does not excite those insatiable desires 
 of fame and power which have proved so fatal to great repub- 
 lics. As there is no common centre to the country, vast capi- 
 tal cities, colossal wealth, abject poverty, and sudden revolu- 
 tions are alike unknown ; and political passion, instead of 
 spreading over the land like a torrent of desolation, spends its 
 strength against the interests and the individual passions of 
 every State. 
 
 Nevertheless, all commodities and ideas circulate through- 
 out the Union as freely as in a country inhabited by one people. 
 
 I I 
 
 J 
 
164 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 !il 
 
 Nothing checks the spirit of enterprise. Government avails 
 itself of the assistance of all who have talents or knowledge to 
 serve it. Within the frontiers of the Union the profoundest 
 peace prevails, as within the heart of some great empire; 
 abroad, it ranks with the most powerful nations of the earth ; 
 two thousand miles of coast are open to the commerce of the 
 world ; and as it possesses the keys of the globe, its flags is re- 
 spected in the most remote seas. The Union is as happy an i as 
 free as a small people, and as glorious and as strong as a great 
 nation. 
 
 Why the Federal System is Not Adapted to All Peoples, 
 AND How the Anglo-Americans Were Enabled to 
 Adopt It 
 
 Every Federal system contains defects which bafHe the efforts of the 
 legislator — The Federal system is complex — It demands a daily 
 exercise of discretion on the part of the citizens — Practical knowl- 
 edge of government common amongst the Americans — Relative 
 weakness of the Government of the Union, another defect inherent 
 in the Federal system — The Americans have diminished without 
 remedying it — The sovereignty of the separate States apparently 
 weaker, but really stronger, than that of the Union— Why? — Natural 
 causes of union must exist between confederate peoples besides the 
 laws — What these causes are amongst the Anglo-Americans — Maine 
 and Georgia, separated by a distance of a thousand miles, more 
 naturally united than Normandy and Brittany — War, the main peril 
 of confederations — This proved even by the example of the United 
 States — The Union has no great wars to fear — Why? — Dangers to 
 which Europeans would be exposed if they adopted the Federal sys- 
 tem of the Americans. 
 
 When a legislator succeeds, after persevering efforts, in ex- 
 ercising an indirect influence upon the destiny of nations, his 
 genius is lauded by mankind, whilst, in point of fact, the geo- 
 graphical position of the country which he is unable to change, 
 a social condition which arose without his co-operation, man- 
 ners and opinions which he cannot trace to their source, and an 
 origin with which he is unacquainted, exercise so irresistible an 
 influence over the courses of society that he is himself borne 
 away by the current, after an ineffectual resistance. Like the 
 navigator, he may direct the vessel which bears him along, but 
 he can neither change its structure, nor raise the winds, nor lull 
 the waters which swell beneath him. 
 
 I have shown the advantages which the Americans derive 
 
 lis 
 
 miSm 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «65 
 
 from their federal system ; it remains for me to point out the 
 circumstances which rendered that system practicable, as its 
 benefits are not to be enjoyed by all nations. The incidental 
 defects of the Federal system which originate in the laws may 
 be corrected by the skill of the legislator, but there are further 
 evils inherent in the system which cannot be counteracted by 
 the peoples which adopt it. These nations must therefore find 
 the strength necessary to support the natural imperfections of 
 their Government. 
 
 The most prominent evil of all Federal systems is the very 
 complex nature of the means they employ. Two sovereignties 
 are necessarily in presence of each other. The legislator may 
 simplify and equalize the action of these two sovereignties, by 
 limiting each of them to a sphere of authority accurately de- 
 fined ; but he cannot combine them into one, or prevent them 
 from coming into collision at certain points. The Federal sys- 
 tem therefore rests upon a theory which is necessarily com- 
 plicated, and which demands the daily exercise of a considerable 
 share of discretion on the part of those it governs. 
 
 A propositon must be plain to be adopted by the understand- 
 ing of a people. A false notion which is clear and precise will 
 always meet with a greater number of adherents in the world 
 than a true principle which is obscure or involved. Hence it 
 arises that parties, which are like small communities in the 
 heart of the nation, invariably adopt some principle or some 
 name as a symbol, which very inadequately represents the end 
 they have in view and the means which are at their disposal, 
 but without which they could neither act nor subsist. The 
 governments which are founded upon a single principle or a 
 single feeling which is easily defined are perhaps not the best, 
 but they are unquestionably the strongest and the most durable 
 in the world. 
 
 In examining the Constitution of the United States, which 
 is the most perfect federal constitution that ever existed, one is 
 startled, on the other hand, at the variety of information and 
 the excellence of discretion which it presupposes in the people 
 whom it is meant to govern. The government of the Union 
 depends entirely upon legal fictions; the Union is an ideal 
 nation which only exists in the mind, and whose limits and ex- 
 tent can only be discerned by the understanding. 
 
 When once the general theory is comprehended, numberless 
 
 I 
 
 MMM 
 
1 66 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 difficulties remain to be solved in its application ; for the sov- 
 ereignty of the Union is so involved in that of the States that it 
 is impossible to distinguish its boundaries at the first glance. 
 The whole structure of the Government is artificial and con- 
 ventional ; and it would be ill adapted to a people which has 
 not been long accustomed to conduct its own affairs, or to one 
 in which the scl'»nce of politics has not descended to the hum- 
 blest classes of iociety. I have never been more struck by the 
 good sense and the practical judgment of the Americans than 
 in the ingenious devices by which they elude the numberless 
 difficulties resulting from their Federal Constitution. I scarcely 
 ever met with a plain American citizen who could not dis- 
 tinguish, with surprising facility, the obligations created by the 
 laws of Congress from those created by the laws of his own 
 State ; and who, after having discriminated between the mat- 
 ters which come under the cognizance of the Union and those 
 which the local legislature is competent to regulate, could not 
 point out the exact limit of the several jurisdictions of the 
 Federal courts and the tribunals of the State. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States is like those exquisite 
 productions of human industry which ensure wealth and 
 renown to their inventors, but which are profitless in any other 
 hands. This truth is exemplified by the condition of Mexico 
 at the present time. The Mexicans were desirous of establish- 
 ing a federal system, and they took the Federal Constitution of 
 their neighbors, the Anglo-Americans, as their model, and 
 copied it with considerable accuracy ..s But although they had 
 borrowed the letter of the law, they were unable to create or 
 to introduce the spirit and the sense which give it life. They 
 were involved in ceaseless embarrassments between the me- 
 chanism of their double government; the sovereignty of the 
 States and that of the Union perpetually exceeded their respec- 
 tive privileges, and entered into collision ; and to the present 
 day Mexico is alternately the victim of anarchy and the slave of 
 military despotism. 
 
 The second and the most fatal of all the defects I have alluded 
 to, and that which I believe to be inherent in the federal sys- 
 tem, is the relative weakness of the government of the Union. 
 The principle upon which all confederations rest is that of a 
 divided sovereignty. The legislator may render this partition 
 
 <See the Mexican Constitution of 1824. 
 
 ^ if. 
 
 ! 
 
 I 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 167 
 
 less perceptible, he may even conceal it for a time from the 
 public eye, but he cannot prevent it from existing, and a divided 
 sovereignty must always be less powerful than an entire su- 
 premacy. The reader has seen in the remarks I have made on 
 the Constitution of the United States that the Americans have 
 displayed singular ingenuity in combining the restriction of 
 the power of the Union within the narrow limits of a federal 
 government with the semblance and, to a certain extent, with 
 the force of a national government. By this means the legis- 
 lators of the Union have succeeded in diminishing, though not 
 in counteracting the natural danger of confederations. 
 
 It has been remarked that the American Government does 
 not apply itself to the States, but that it immediately transmits 
 its injunctions to the citizens, and compels them as isolated 
 individuals to comply with its demands. But if the Federal law 
 were to clash with the interests and the prejudices of a State, 
 it might be feared that all the citizens of that State would con- 
 ceive themselves to be interested in the cause of a single in- 
 dividual who should refuse to obey. If all the citizens of the 
 State were aggrieved at the same time and in the same manner 
 by the authority of the Union, the Federal Government would 
 vainly attempt to subdue them individually; they would in- 
 stinctively unite in a common defence, and they would derive a 
 ready-prepared organization from the share of sovereignty 
 which the institution of their State allows them to enjoy. Fic- 
 tion would give way to reality, and an organized portion of the 
 territory might then contest the central authority.* The same 
 observation holds good with regard to the Federal jurisdiction. 
 If the courts of the Union violated an important law of a State 
 in a private case, the real, if not the apparent, contest would 
 arise between the aggrieved State represented by a citizen and 
 the Union represented by its courts of justice." 
 
 He would have but a partial knowledge of the world who 
 
 t [This is precisely what occurred in 
 1862, and the following paragraph de- 
 scribes correctly the feelings ar>d no- 
 tions of the South. General Lee i.Md 
 tnat his primary allegiance was due, 
 not to the Union, but to Virginia.] 
 
 u For instance, the Union possesses 
 by the Contstitution the right of selling 
 unoccupied lands for its own profit. 
 Supposing that the State of Ohio 
 should claim the same right in behalf of 
 certain territories lying within its boun- 
 daries, upon the plea that the Constitu- 
 tion refers to those lands alone which 
 
 do not belong to the jurisdiction of any 
 particular State, and consequently 
 should choose to dispose of them itself, 
 the litigation would be carried on in 
 the names of the purchasers from the 
 ."tate of Ohio and the purchasers from 
 tht Union, and not in the names of 
 Oh'o ind the Union. But what would 
 become of this legal fiction if the Fed- 
 eral purchaser was confirmed in his 
 right by the courts of the Union, whilst 
 the other competitor was ordered to re- 
 tain possession by the tribunals of the 
 State of Ohio? 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 I' 
 
 1 1 
 
 i Ut: 
 
i68 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 I \l 
 
 \ \ 
 
 Itv.l ' 
 
 should imagine that it is possible, by the aid of legal fictions, 
 to prevent men from finding out and employing those means of 
 gratifying their passions which have been left open to them; 
 and it may be doubted whether the American legislators, when 
 they rendered a collision between the two sovereigns less prob- 
 able, destroyed the cause of such a misfortune. But it may even 
 be affirmed that they were unable to ensure the preponderance 
 of the Federal element in a case of this kind. The Union is 
 possessed of money and of troops, but the affections and the 
 prejudices of the people are in the bosom of the States. The 
 sovereignty of the Union is an abstract being, which is con- 
 nected with but few external objects; the sovereignty of the 
 States is hourly perceptible, easily understood, constantly 
 active ; and if the former is of recent creation, the latter is coeval 
 with the people itself. The sovereignty of the Union is facti- 
 tious, that of the States is natui al, and derives its existence from 
 its own simple influence, like the authority of a parent. The 
 supreme power of the nation only affects a few of the chief 
 interests of society; it represents an immense but remote 
 country, and claims a feeling of patriotism which is vague and 
 ill defined ; but the authority of the States controls every in- 
 dividual citizen at every hour and in all circumstances ; it pro- 
 tects his property, his freedom, and his life; and when we 
 recollect the traditions, the customs, the prejudices of local and 
 familiar attachment with which it is connected, we cannot doubt 
 of the superiority of a power which is interwoven with every 
 circumstance that renders the love of one's native country in- 
 stinctive in the human heart. 
 
 Since legislators are unable to obviate such dangerous col- 
 lisions as occur between the two sovereignties which coexist 
 in the federal system, their first object must be, not only 
 to dissuade the confederate States from warfare, but to en- 
 courage such institutions as may promote the maintenance of 
 peace. Hence it results that the Federal compact cannot be 
 lasting unless there exists in the communities which are leagued 
 together a certain number of inducements to union which 
 render their common dependence agreeable, and the task of 
 the Government light, and that system canr ♦: succeed without 
 the presence of favorable circumstances added to the influence 
 of good laws. All the peoples which have ever formed a con- 
 federation have been held together by a certain number of 
 
\ 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 169 
 
 common interests, which served as the intellectual ties of asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 But the sentiments and the principles of man must be taken 
 into consideration as well as* his immediate interests. A cer- 
 tain uniformity of civilization is not less necessary to the dura- 
 bility of a confederation than a uniformity of interests in the 
 States which compose it. In Switzerland the difference which 
 exists between the Canton of Uri and the Canton of Vaud is 
 equal to that between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries ; 
 and, properly speaking, Switzerland has never possessed a 
 federal government. The union between these two cantons 
 only subsists upon the map, and their discrepancies would soon 
 be perceived if an attempt were made by a central authority to 
 prescribe the same laws to the whole territory. 
 
 One of the circumstances which most powerfully contribute 
 to support the Federal Government in America is that the 
 States have not only similar interests, a common origin, and a 
 common tongue, but that they are also arrived at the same stage 
 of civilization ; which almost always renders a union feasible. 
 I do not know of any European nation, how small soever it 
 may be, which does not present less uniformity in its different 
 provinces than the American people, which occupies a territory 
 as extensive as one-half of Europe. The distance from the 
 State of Maine to that of Georgia is reckoned at about one 
 thousand miles ; but the difiference between the civilization of 
 Maine and that of Georgia is slighter than the difference be- 
 tween the habits of Normandy and those of Brittany. Maine 
 and Georgia, which are placed at the opposite extremities of a 
 great empire, are consequently in the natural possession of 
 more real inducements to form a confederation than Normandy 
 and Brittany, which are only separated by a bridge. 
 
 The geographical position of the country contributed to 
 increase the facilities which the American legislators derived 
 from the manners and customs of the inhabitants ; and it is to 
 this circumstance that the adoption and the maintenance of the 
 Federal system are mainly attributable. 
 
 The most important occurrence which can mark the annals 
 of a people is the breaking out of a war. In war a people 
 struggles with the energy of a single man against foreign na- 
 tions in the defence of its very existence. The skill of a gov- 
 ernment, the good sense of the community, and the natural 
 
 4 
 
 f! 
 
 ii 
 
 m 
 
 I; 
 
 I "iff ' 
 
 if! 
 
 in 
 
 I 
 
 ii M 
 
 % 
 
 III 
 
fjo 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 p 1 *n 
 
 
 II i f 
 
 fondness which men entertain for their country, may suffice 
 to maintatin peace in the interior of a district, and to favor its 
 internal prosperity ; but a nation can only carry on a great war 
 at the cost of more numerous and more painful sacrifices ; and 
 to suppose that a great number of men will of their own accord 
 comply with these exigencies of the State is to betray an igno- 
 rance of mankind. All the peoples which have been obliged to 
 sustain a long and serious warfare have consequently been led 
 to augment the power of their government. Those which have 
 not succeeded in this attempt have been subjugated. A long 
 war almost always places nations in the wretched alternative 
 of being abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success. 
 War therefore renders the symptoms of the weakness of a 
 government most palpable and most alarming; and I have 
 shown that the inherent defeat of federal governments is that 
 of being weak. 
 
 The Federal system is not only deficient in every kind of 
 centralized administration, but the central government itself is 
 imperfectly organized, which is invariably an influential cause 
 of inferiority when the nation is opposed to other countries 
 which are themselves governed by a single authority. In the 
 Federal Constitution of the United States, by which the central 
 government possesses more real force, this evil is still extremely 
 sensible. An example will illustrate the case to the reader. 
 
 The Constitution confers upon Congress the right of calling 
 forth militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insur- 
 rections, and repel invasions ; and another article declares that 
 the President of the United States is the commander-in-chief 
 of the militia. In the war of 1812 the President ordered the 
 militia of the Northern States to march to the frontiers ; but 
 Connecticut and Massachusetts, whose interests were impaired 
 by the war, refused to obey the command. They argued that 
 the Constitution authorizes the Federal Government to call 
 forth the militia in case of insurrection or invasion, but that in 
 the present instance there was neither invasion nor insurrec- 
 tion. They added, that the same Constitution which conferred 
 upon the Union the right of calling forth the militia reserved 
 to the States that of naming the officers ; and that consequently 
 (as they understood the clause) no officer of the Union had 
 any right to command the militia, even during war, except the 
 President in person; and in this case they were ordered to 
 
 li- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «7« 
 
 join an army commanded by another individual. These absurd 
 and pernicious doctrines received the sanction not only of the 
 governors and the legislative bodies, but also of the courts of 
 justice in both States; and the Federal Government was con- 
 strained to raise elsewhere the troops which it required.^' 
 
 The only safeguard which the American Union, with all the 
 relative perfection of its laws, possesses against the dissolution 
 which would be produced by a great war, lies in its probable 
 exemption from that calamity. Placed in the centre of an im- 
 mense continent, which offers a boundless field for human in- 
 dustry, the Union is almost as much insulated from the world 
 as if its frontiers were girt by the ocean. Canada contains only 
 a million of inhabitants, and its population is divided into two 
 inimical nations. The rigor of the climate limits the extension 
 of its territory, and shuts up its ports during the six months of 
 winter. From Canada to the Gulf of Mexico a few savage tribes 
 are to be met with, which retire, perishing in their retreat, before 
 six thousand soldiers. To the South, the Union has a point of 
 contact with the empire of Mexico ; and it is thence that serious 
 hostilities may one day be expected to arise. But for a long 
 while to come the uncivilized state of the Mexican community, 
 the depravity of its morals, and its extreme poverty, will prevent 
 that country from ranking high amongst nations.^ As for 
 the Powers of Europe, they are too distant to be formidable. 
 
 The great advantage of the United States does not, then, 
 consist in a Federal Constitution which allows them to carry 
 on great wars, but in a geographical position which renders 
 such enterprises extremely improbable. 
 
 No one can be more inclined than I am myself to appreciate 
 the advantages of the federal system, which I hold to be one 
 of the combinations most favorable to the prosperity and free- 
 dom of man. I envy the lot of those nations which have been 
 enabled to adopt it ; but I cannot believe that any confederate 
 
 V Kent's " Commentaries," vol. i. p. 
 244. I have selected an example which 
 relates to a time posterior to the prom- 
 ulgation of the present Constitution. 
 If I had gone back to the dajrs of the 
 Confederation, I might have given still 
 more striking instances. The whole na- 
 tion was at that time in a state of en- 
 thusiastic excitement; the Revolution 
 was represented by a man who was the 
 idol of the people; but at that very per- 
 iod Congress had, to say the truth, no 
 resources at all at its disposal. Troops 
 and supplies were perpetually wanting. 
 
 The best-devised projects failed in the 
 execution, and the Union, which was 
 constantly on the verge of destruction, 
 was saved by the weakness of its ene- 
 mies far more than by its own strength. 
 [All doubt as to the powers of the Fed- 
 eral Executive was, however, removed 
 by its efforts in the Civil War, and those 
 powers were largely extended.] 
 
 w [War broke out between the United 
 States and Mexico in 1846, and ended in 
 the conquest of an immense territory, 
 including California.] 
 
 1 1 
 1 1' 
 
 '1' 
 I' ' 
 
 r 
 
 I': 
 k il 
 
 1 
 
 'h 
 
 m 
 
 
 i J ! 
 
N 
 
 17a 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 1 ) 
 
 peoples could maintain a long or an equal contest with a nation 
 of similar strength in which the government should be cen- 
 tralized. A people which should divide its sovereignty into 
 fractional powers, in the presence of the great military mon- 
 archies of Europe, would, in my opinion, by that very act, 
 abdicate its power, and perhaps its existence and its name. 
 But such is the admirable position of the New World that man 
 has no other enemy than himself; and that, in order to be 
 happy and to be free, it suffices to seek the gifts of prosperity 
 and the knowledge of freedom. 
 
 u 
 
tion 
 cen- 
 into 
 ion- 
 act, 
 ime. 
 man 
 Q be 
 erity 
 
 
 
 
 ti^- - 
 
 ^iirQ b. 
 
 UJ; 
 
 e'#' 
 
 //« 
 
 ' .•.■^®:;i 
 
 IliC **!'■ r»:>*j» »i' t,i i- f, ;*-■*'«. J? {',. ^ 
 
 f 
 
 v^ 
 
 .,^1 
 
 ^*:^*''^ at 
 
 .i-.* 
 
 W' 
 
 
 
 ■■%0' "/^■^ A, 
 
 V'lh -.ti. 
 
 
 
 ■\~ <^7 
 
CHOICE EXAMPLES OF EARLY PRINTING AND ,.<, 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 1 1 
 
 Fac-similes from Rare and Curious Books. 
 
 .- IV,'. ' .:•:•; i"."->'.'; ■ ■ ■ ' . 
 
 .,'..1 ,-;■ ;; ,j.:"-' ^m . ^ 
 
 f ■„,.' 1-.,:.-. ji; li'. -.-i ■ 
 
 ■•'- - r.. :,,. 
 
 PORTIONS Of PAGES I- ROM THE El EST EX(,- 
 I.lSll RRA V/iR-/:OOK. 
 
 111'.- lir.st rr;iycr-Uotik 01 ihc kclornuMl ("hurch of F.ngl.ind w.is issued under 
 royal .uithorliy iii 1540, two ycrir,-, .dtcr the .iccessicn ut" I'.dwrird VI. It w.is 
 printed by kithard (iralton. The blaek-lctier of die general text is similar in style 
 to that of the '■ tireat liilile. 
 
^AN ORDRE^ 
 
 ttdq^dl bmi in ^ qucn (^all btgpnne 
 topt^ « louoe Dopcc t|^ )lo^DC0 
 p;aper,(aU(Ot(|< McrnoM 
 
 use f^t|)et)obftlieaueiii 
 
 Xt)p ttpitgl^ome cottie« siv 
 KDrtl be Done in eattj^ as it ts; 
 m l^eanen. dftne bs n^s naj? 
 DntetuitlpD»aii« 3(ntifoige< 
 ne w onte ttefpaireS) as iDe 
 fotgeuetDeimti^at ttefpalTr' 
 asainfl tis«:ani) leaDe w tiot 
 tmotemptacion* 2iSutocvp» 
 net to from eneli«2[men« 
 
 fl^PVBLIKE BAPTISME^^ 
 
 lOO|iciit<FCtcaccc|^}fittobe9apttr(Dlipoiit|if^onDaP)p} 
 \loVftst^,tliip«DmM Qatt gcaeknotoUDseouec npgl)C oi 
 in tl^e mo?tipng,8fo;ec||clM8<nii(ng of ^attpns to tfiecucate. 
 9nDt^c|ieCfoDeBt||e(0, «oimiotl)(t0,anopeople,totttitbe 
 cbilD^,inttafb(reaopatt<iecfiaMl)eOoo)e,cit^et(mniciHatlp 
 efO2et||eUiftCftnt((leat^attcii0,o?ri0fmtiieOiatlpafo]etOf 
 lallcant(fleatdtcnron0,a0t|ieCiirattbpl)(8Oirctectoiifi)8l 
 «ppopiite.lnoc|)cnftanDfngt^(cr,t||f ptpffte (ball aCketobr: 
 cbcetftf tMtnm bee saptpub O) no • If tl^ep aunftoeie « 0o^ 
 1C|cnf|^alltf)cp;lctter«pffiyttf. 
 
 >ii 
 
 A'i 
 
 \ ■ 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 I I 
 1 \ 
 
 ill 
 
 r-; 
 
 '1 1) 
 
 jf 
 
 i'.t C 
 
 :-ti i 
 
 ill 
 i 
 
 (( 
 
 •■'<! 
 
 
 iD !^ 'i 
 
 ii 
 
 '^i 
 
 m' 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 I HAVE hitherto examined the institutions of the United 
 States; I have passed their legislation in review, and I 
 have depicted the present characteristics of political so- 
 ciety in that country. But a sovereign power exists above these 
 institutions and beyond these characteristic features which may 
 destroy or modify them at its pleasure — I mean that of the 
 people. It remains to be shown in what manner this power, 
 which regulates the laws, acts : its propensities and its passions 
 remain to be pointed out, as well as the secret springs which 
 retard, accelerate, or direct its irresistible course; and the 
 effects of its unbounded authority, with the destiny which is 
 probably reserved for it. 
 
 
 WHY THE PEOPLE MAY STRICTLY BE SAID TO GOVERN 
 IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 In America the people appoints the legislative and the exec- 
 utive power, and furnishes the jurors who punish all offences 
 against the laws. The American institutions are democratic, 
 not only in their principle but in all their consequences ; and 
 the people elects its representatives directly, and for the most 
 part annually, in order to ensure their dependence. The people 
 is therefore the real directing power ; and although the form 
 of government is representative, it is evident that the opinions, 
 the prejudices, the interests, and even the passions of the com- 
 munity are hindered by no durable obstacles from exercising 
 a perpetual influence on society. In the United States the 
 majority governs in the name of the people, as is the case in 
 all the countries in which the people is supreme. The majority 
 is principally composed of peaceful citizens who, either by in- 
 clination or by interest, are sincerely desirous of the welfare of 
 their country. But they are surrounded by the incessant agita- 
 tion of parties, which attempt to gain their co-operation and to 
 avail themselves of their support. 
 
 173 
 
 • W 
 
 !i 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 I t 
 
 PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Great distinction to be made between parties — Parties which are to each 
 other as rival nations — Parties properly so called — Diflference be- 
 tween great and small parties — Epochs which produce them — Their 
 characteristics — America has had great parties — They are extinct — 
 Federalists — Republicans — Defeat of the Federalists — Difficulty of 
 creating parties in the United States — What is done with this in- 
 tention — Aristocratic or democratic character to be met with in all 
 parties — Struggle of General Jackson against the Bank. 
 
 A GREAT distinction must be made between parties. 
 Some countries are so large that the different popula- 
 tions which inhabit them have contradictory interests, 
 although they are the subjects of the same Government, and 
 they may thence be in a perpetual state of opposition. In this 
 case the different fractions of the people may more properly be 
 considered as distinct nations than as mere parties; and if a 
 civil war breaks out, the struggle is carried on by rival peo- 
 ples rather than by factions in the State. 
 
 But when the citizens entertain different opinions upon sub- 
 jects which aflfect the whole country alike, such, for instance, 
 as the principles upon which the government is to be conducted, 
 then distinctions arise which may correctly be styled parties. 
 Parties are a necessary evil in free governments ; but they have 
 not at all times the same character and the same propensities. 
 
 At certain periods a nation may be oppressed by such in- 
 supportable evils as to conceive the design of eflfecting a total 
 change in its political constitution; at other times the mis- 
 chief lies still deeper, and the existence of society itself is en- 
 dangered. Such are the times of great revolutions and of 
 great parties. But between these epochs of misery and of con- 
 fusion there are periods during which human society seems to 
 rest, and mankind to make a pause. This pause is, indeed, 
 only apparent, for time does not stop its course for nations any 
 
 174 
 
 ■I ! 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «7S 
 
 more Mian for men ; they arc all advancing towards a goal with 
 which till. V ure unacquainted ; and wc only imagine them to be 
 Stationary when their progress escapes our observation, as men 
 who are going at a foot-pace seem to be standing still to those 
 who run. 
 
 But however thi may be, there are certain epochs at which 
 the changes that take place in the social and political constitu- 
 tion of nations are so slow and so insensible that men imagine 
 their present condition to be a final state ; and the human mind, 
 believing itself to be firmly based upon certain foundations, 
 does not' extend its researches beyond the horizon which it 
 descries. These are the times of small parties and of intrigue. 
 
 The political parties which I style great are those which 
 cling to principles more than to their consequences ; to gen- 
 eral, and not to especial cases ; to ideas, and not to men. These 
 parties are usually distinguished by a nobler character, by more 
 generous passions, more genuine convictions, and a more bold 
 and open conduct than the others. In them private interest, 
 which always plays the chief part in political passions, is more 
 studiously veiled under the pretext of the public good ; and it 
 may even be sometimes concealed from the eyes of the very 
 persons whom it excites and impels. 
 
 Minor parties are, on the other hand, generally deficient in 
 political faith. As they are not sustained or dignified by a 
 lofty purpose, they ostensibly display the egotism of their char- 
 acter in their actions. They glow with a factitious zeal ; their 
 language is vehement, but their conduct is timid and irresolute. 
 The means they employ are as wretched as the end at which 
 they aim. Hence it arises that when a calm state of things suc- 
 ceeds a violent revolution, the leaders of society seem sud- 
 denly to disappear, and the powers of the human mind to He 
 concealed. Society is convulsed by great parties, by minor 
 ones it is agitated ; it is torn by the former, by the latter it is 
 degraded ; and if these sometimes save it by a salutary pertur- 
 bation, those invariably disturb it to no good end. 
 
 America has already lost the great parties which once di- 
 vided the nation ; and if her happiness is considerably increased, 
 her morality has suffered by their extinction. When the War 
 of Independence was terminated, and the foundations of the 
 new Government were to be laid down, the nation was divided 
 between two opinions — two opinions which are as old as the 
 
 ';;. 
 
 I'll 'J 
 
 '♦•i 
 
 t .• 
 
176 
 
 DE TOCgUEVILLE 
 
 \/n .* 
 
 I V 
 
 world, and which are perpetually to be met with under all the 
 forms and all the names which have ever obtained in free com- 
 munities — the one tending to limit, the other to extend indefi- 
 nitely, the power of the people. The conflict of these two opin- 
 ions never assumed that degree of violence in America which it 
 has frequently displayed elsewhere. Both parties of the Amer- 
 icans were, in fact, agreed upon the most essential points ; and 
 neither of them had to destroy a traditionary constitution, or 
 to overthrow the structure of society, in order to ensure its own 
 triumph. In neither of them, consequently, were a great num- 
 ber of private interests affected by success or by defeat ; but 
 moral principles of a high order, such as the love of equality 
 and of independence, were concerned in the struggle, and they 
 sufficed to kindle violent passions. 
 
 The party which desired to limit the power of the people en- 
 deavored to apply its doctrines more especially to the Consti- 
 tution of the Union, whence it derived its name of Federal. The 
 other party, which affected to be more exclusively attached to 
 the cause of liberty, took that of Republican. America is a land 
 of democracy, and the Federalists were always in a minority ; 
 but they reckoned on their side almost all the great men who 
 had been called forth by the War of Independence, and their 
 moral influence was very considerable. Their cause was, more- 
 over, favored by circumstances. The ruin of the Confedera- 
 tion had impressed the people with a dread of anarchy, and 
 the Federalists did not fail to profit by this transient disposition 
 of the multitude. For ten or twelve years they were at the 
 head of affairs, and they were able to apply some, though not 
 all, of their principles ; for the hostile current was becoming 
 from day to day too violent to be checked or stemmed. In 1801 
 the Republicans got possession of the Government; Thomas 
 Jefferson was named President ; and he increased the influence 
 of their party by the weight of his celebrity, the greatness of his 
 talents, and the immense extent of his popularity. 
 
 The means by which the Federalists had maintained their 
 position were artificial, and their resources were temporary; 
 it was by the virtues or the talents of their leaders that they had 
 risen to power. When the Republicans attained to that lofty 
 station, their opponents were overwhelmed by utter defeat. 
 An immense majority declared itself against the retiring party, 
 and the Federalists found themselves in so small a minority 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 177 
 
 that they at once despaired of their future success. From that 
 moment the RepubHcan or Democratic party a has proceeded 
 from conquest to conquest, until it has acquired absolute su- 
 premacy in the country. The Federalists, perceiving that they 
 were vanquished without resource, and isolated in the midst of 
 the nation, fell into two divisions, of which one joined the vic- 
 torious Republicans, and the other abandoned its rallying-point 
 and its name. Many years have already elapsed since they 
 ceased to exist as a party. 
 
 The accession of the Federalists to power was, in my opinion, 
 one of the most fortunate incidents which accompanied the 
 formation of the great American Union ; they resisted the in- 
 evitable propensities of their age and of the country. But 
 whether their theories were good or bad, they had the effect 
 of being inapplicable, as a system, to the society which they 
 professed to govern, and that which occurred under the auspices 
 of Jefferson must therefore have taken place sooner or later. 
 But their Government gave the new republic time to acquire 
 a certain stability, and afterwards to support the rapid growth 
 of the very doctrines which they had combated. A consider- 
 able number of their principles were in point of fact embodied in 
 the political creed of their opponents ; and the Federal Con- 
 stitution which subsists at the present day is a lasting monu- 
 ment of their patriotism and their wisdom. 
 
 Great political parties are not, then, to be met with in the 
 United States at the present time. Parties, indeed, may be 
 found which threaten the future tranquillity of the Union ; but 
 there are none which seem to contest the present form of Gov- 
 ernment or the present course of society. The parties by which 
 the Union is menaced do not rest upon abstract principles, but 
 upon temporal interests. These interests, disseminated in the 
 provinces of so vast an empire, may be said to constitute rival 
 nations rather than parties. Thus, upon a recent occasion, the 
 North contended for the system of commercial prohibition, and 
 the South took up arms in favor of free trade, simply because 
 the North is a manufacturing and the South an agricultural dis- 
 trict ; and that the restrictive system which was profitable to the 
 one was prejudicial to the other.& 
 
 |! 
 
 'm 
 
 \vn 
 
 U 
 
 a [It is scarcely necessary to remark 
 that in more recent times the significa- 
 tion of these terms has changed. The 
 Republicans are the representatives of 
 
 Vol. I. — 12 
 
 the old Federalists, and the Democrats 
 of the old Republicans.— Troni. Note 
 (1861).] 
 b [The divisions of North and South 
 
lyS 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 In the absence of great parties, the United States abound with 
 lesser controversies ; and public opinion is divided into a thou- 
 sand minute shades of difference upon questions of very little 
 moment. The pains which are taken to create parties are in- 
 conceivable, and at the present day it is no easy task. In the 
 United States there is no religious animosity, because all re- 
 ligion is respected, and no sect is predominant; there is no 
 jealousy of rank, because the people is everything, and none can 
 contest its authority ; lastly, there is no public indigence to sup- 
 ply the means of agitation, because the physical position of the 
 country opens so wide a field to industry that man is able to ac- 
 complish the most surprising undertakings with his own native 
 resources. Nevertheless, ambitious men are interested in the 
 creation of parties, since it is difficult to eject a person from 
 authority upon the mere ground that his place is coveted by 
 others. The skill of the actors in the political world lies there- 
 fore in the art of creating parties. A political aspirant in the 
 United States begins by discriminating his own interest, and by 
 calculating upon those interests which may be collected around 
 and amalgamated with it ; he then contrives to discover some 
 doctrine or some principle which may suit the purposes of this 
 new association, and which he adopts in order to bring forward 
 his party and to secure his popularity ; just as the imprimatur 
 of a King was in former days incorporated with the volume 
 which it authorized, but to which it nowise belonged. When 
 these preliminaries are terminated, the new party is ushered 
 into the political world. 
 
 All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first ap- 
 pear to a stranger to be so incomprehensible and so puerile 
 that he is at a loss whether to pity a people which takes such 
 arrant trifles in good earnest, or to envy the happiness which 
 enables it to discuss them. But when he comes to study the 
 secret propensities which govern the factions of America, he 
 easily perceives that the greater part of them are more or less 
 connetced with one or the other of those two divisions which 
 have always existed in free communities. The deeper we pene- 
 trate into the working of these parties, the more do we perceive 
 that the object of the one is to limit, and that of the other to ex- 
 tend, the popular authority. I do not assert that the ostensible 
 
 have since acquired a far greater degree spirit of opposition to Northern gov- 
 of intensity, and the South, though ernment.— Translator's Noit, 1875.] 
 conquered, still presents a formidable 
 
 \i \ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 179 
 
 fend, or even that the secret aim, of American parties is to pro- 
 mote the rule of aristocracy or democracy in the country ; but 
 I affirm that aristocratic or democratic passions may easily be 
 detected at the bottom of all parties, and that, although they 
 escape a superficial observation, they are the main point and 
 the very soul of every faction in the United States. 
 
 To quote a recent example. When the President attacked 
 the Bank, the country was excited and parties were formed ; 
 the well-informed classes rallied round the Bank, the common 
 people round the President. But it must not be imagined that 
 the people had formed a rational opinion upon a question which 
 offers so many difficulties to the most experienced statesmen. 
 The Bank is a great establishment which enjoys an independent 
 existence, and the people, accustomed to make and unmake 
 whatsoever it pleases, is startled to meet with this obstacle to its 
 authority. In the midst of the perpetual fluctuation of society 
 the community is irritated by so permanent an institution, and 
 is led to attack it in order to see whether it can be shaken and 
 controlled, like all the other institutions of the country. 
 
 h i 
 
 Remains of the Aristocratic Party in the United States 
 
 Secret opposition of wealthy individuals to democracy — ^Their retire- 
 ment — Their taste for exclusive pleasures and for luxury at home— 
 Their simplicity abroad — ^Their affected condescension towards the 
 people. 
 
 It sometimes happens in a people amongst which various 
 opinions prevail that the balance of the several parties is lost, 
 and one of them obtains an irresistible preponderance, over- 
 powers all obstacles, harasses its opponents, and appropriates 
 all the resources of society to its own purposes. The van- 
 quished citizens despa> of success and they conceal their dis- 
 satisfaction in silence and m general apathy. The nation seems 
 to be governed by a single principle, and the prevailing party 
 assumes the credit of having restored peace and unanimity to 
 the country. But this apparent unanimity is merely a cloak to 
 alarming dissensions and perpetual opposition. 
 
 This is precisely what occurred in America ; when the demo- 
 cratic party got the upper hand, it took exclusive possession 
 of the conduct of affairs, and from that time the laws and the 
 customs of society have been adapted to its caprices. At the 
 
 ri; 
 
i8o 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 f ; 
 
 present day the more affluent classes of society are so entirely 
 removed from the direction of political affairs in the United 
 States that wealth, far from conferring a right to the exercise of 
 power, is rather an obstacle than a means of attaining to it. 
 The wealthy members of the community abandon the lists, 
 through unwillingness to contend, and frequently to contend in 
 vain, against the poorest classes of their fellow citizens. They 
 concentrate all their enjoyments in the privacy of their homes, 
 where they occupy a rank which cannot be assumed in public ; 
 and they constitute a private society in the State, which has its 
 own tastes and its own pleasures. They submit to this state of 
 things as an irremediable evil, but they are careful not to show 
 that they are galled by its continuance ; it is even not uncom- 
 mon to hear them laud the delights of a republican government, 
 and the advantages of democratic institutions when they are in 
 public. Next to hatmg their enemies, men are most inclined 
 to flatter them. 
 
 Mark, for instance, that opulent citizen, who is as anxious as 
 a Jew of the Middle Ages to conceal his wealth. His dress is 
 plain, his demeanor unassuming ; but the interior of his dwell- 
 ing glitters with luxury, and none but a few chosen guests whom 
 he haughtily styles his equals are allowed to penetrate into this 
 sanctuary. No European noble is more exclusive in his pleas- 
 ures, or more jealous of the smallest advantages which his priv- 
 ileged station confers upon him. But the very same individual 
 crosses the city to reach a dark counting-house in the centre 
 of trafiic, where every one may accost him who pleases. If he 
 meets his cobbler upon the way, they stop and converse ; the 
 two citizens discuss the affairs of the State in which they have 
 an equal interest, and they shake hands before they part. 
 
 But beneath this artificial enthusiasm, and these obsequious 
 attentions to the preponderating power, it is easy to perceive 
 that the wealthy members of the community entertain a hearty 
 distaste to the democratic institutions of their country. The 
 populace is at once the object of their scorn and of their fears. 
 If the maladministration of the democracy ever brings about a 
 revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become 
 practicable in the United States, the truth of what I advance 
 will become obvious. 
 
 The two chief weapons which parties use in order to ensure 
 success are the public press and the formation of associations. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Difficulty of restraining the liberty of the press — Particular reasons 
 which some nations have to cherish this liberty — The liberty of the 
 press a necessary consequence of the sovereignty of the people as it 
 is understood in America — Violent language of the periodical press 
 in the United States — Propensities of the periodical press — Il- 
 lustrated by the United States — Opinion of the Americans upon the 
 repression of the abuse of the liberty of the press by judicial prosecu- 
 tions — Reasons for which the press is less powerful in America than 
 in France. 
 
 THE influence of the liberty of the press does not aflFect 
 political opinions alone, but it extends to all the opin- 
 ions of men, and it modifies customs as well as laws. In 
 another part of this work I shall attempt to determinate the de- 
 gree of influence which the liberty of the press has exercised 
 upon civil society in the United States, and to point out the di- 
 rection which it has given to the ideas, as well as the tone which 
 it has imparted to the character and the feelings, of the Anglo- 
 Americans, but at present I purpose simply to examine the 
 effects produced by the liberty of the press in the political world. 
 
 I confess that I do not entertain that firm and complete at- 
 tachment to the liberty of the press which things that are su- 
 premely good in their very nature are wont to excite in the 
 mind ; and I approve of it more from a recollection of the evils 
 it prevents than from a consideration of the advantages it en- 
 sures. 
 
 If any one could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable 
 position between the complete independence and the entire sub- 
 jection of the public expression of opinion, I should perhaps be 
 inclined to adopt it ; but the difficulty is to discover this position. 
 If it is your intention to correct the abuses of unlicensed print- 
 ing and to restore the use of orderly language, you may in the 
 first instance try the oflFender by a jury ; but if the jury acquits 
 him, the opinion which was that of a single individual becomes 
 
 i8i 
 
 
 ri ( 
 
 f{( 
 
 •'\ 
 
l82 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ^i ■!' 
 
 t! 
 
 the opinion of the country at large. Too much and too little 
 has therefore hitherto been done. If you proceed, you must 
 bring the delinquent before a court of permanent judges. But 
 even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided; 
 and the very principles which no book would have ventured 
 to avow are blazoned forth in the pleadings, and what was ob- 
 scurely hinted at in a single composition is then repeated in a 
 multitude of other publications. The language in which a 
 thought is embodied is the mere carcass of the thought, and not 
 the idea itself ; tribunals may condemn the form, but the sense 
 and spirit of the work is too subtle for their authority. Too 
 much has still been done to recede, too little to attain your end ; 
 you must therefore proceed. If you establish a censorship of 
 the press, the tongue of the public speaker will still make itself 
 heard, amd you have only increased the mischief. The powers 
 of thought do not rely, like the powers of physical strength, 
 upon the number of their mechanical agents, nor can a host 
 of authors be reckoned like the troops which compose an army ; 
 on the contrary, the authority of a principle is often increased 
 by the smallness of the number of men by whom it is expressed. 
 The words of a strong-minded man, which penetrate amidst 
 the passions of a listening assembly, have more power than the 
 vociferations of a thousand orators ; and if it be allowed to speak 
 freely in any public place, the consequence is the same as if free 
 speaking was allowed in every village. The liberty of discourse 
 must therefore be destroyed as well as the liberty of the press ; 
 this is the necessary term of your eflforts ; but if your object 
 was to repress the abuses of liberty, they have brought you to 
 the feet of a despot. You have been led from the extreme of 
 independence to the extreme of subjection without meeting 
 with a single tenable position for shelter or repose. 
 
 There are certain nations which have peculiar reasons for 
 cherishing the liberty of the press, independently of the general 
 motives which I have just pointed out. For in certain coun- 
 tries which profess to enjoy the privileges of freedom every in- 
 dividual agent of the Government may violate the laws with im- 
 punity, since those whom he oppresses cannot prosecute him 
 before the courts of justice. In this case the liberty of the 
 press is not merely a guarantee, but it is the only guarantee, of 
 their liberty and their security which the citizens possess. If 
 the rulers of these nations propose to abolish the independence 
 
' M 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 1S3 
 
 of the press, the people would be justified in saying : Give us 
 the right of prosecuting your ofifences before the ordinary tri- 
 bunals, and perhaps we may then waive our right of appeal 
 to the tribunal of public opinion. 
 
 But in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty 
 of the people ostensibly prevails, the censorship of the press 
 is not only dangerous, but it is absurd. When the right of 
 every citizen to co-operate in the government of society is ac- 
 knowledged, every citizen must be presumed to possess the 
 power of discriminating between the different opinions of his 
 contemporaries, and of appreciating the different facts from 
 which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of the people 
 and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as 
 correlative institutions ; just as the censorship of the press and 
 universal suffrage are two things which are irreconcilably op- 
 posed, and which cannot long be retained among the institu- 
 tions of the same people. Not a single individual of the twelve 
 millions who inhabit the territory of the United States has as 
 yet dared to propose any restrictions to the liberty of the press. 
 The first newspaper over which I cast my eyes, upon my arrival 
 in America, contained the following article : 
 
 In all this affair the language of Jackson has been that of a heartless 
 despot, solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority. 
 Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too: intrigue is his 
 native element, and intrigue will confound his tricks, and will deprive 
 him of his power: he governs by means of corruption, and his immoral 
 practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the 
 political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He 
 succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he 
 will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, 
 and to end his days in some retirement, where he may curse his mad- 
 ness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is 
 likely to remain forever unacquainted. 
 
 It is not uncommonly imagined in France that the virulence 
 of the press originates in the uncertain social condition, in the 
 political excitement, and the general sense of consequent evil 
 which prevail in that country ; and it is therefore supposed that 
 as soon as society has resumed a certain degree of composure 
 the press will abandon its present vehemence, I am inclined to 
 think that the above causes explain the reason of the extraor- 
 dinary ascendency it has acquired over the nation, but that they 
 do not exercise much influence upon the tone of its language. 
 
 ' 
 
 m 
 
 \]i " 
 
1^4 
 
 DE TOCQUFVILLE 
 
 J • 
 
 The periodical press appears to me to be actuated by passions 
 and propensities independent of the circumstances in which it 
 is placed, and the present position of America corroborates 
 this opinion. 
 
 America is perhaps, at this moment, the country of the whole 
 world which contains the fewest germs of revolution ; but the 
 press is not less destructive in its principles than in France, and 
 it displays the same violence without the same reasons for in- 
 dignation. In America, as in France, it constitutes a singular 
 power, so strangely composed of mingled good and evil that 
 it is at the same time indispensable to the existence of freedom, 
 and nearly incompatible with the maintenance of public order. 
 Its power is certainly much greater in France than in the United 
 States ; though nothing is more rare in the latter country than 
 to hear of a prosecution having been instituted against it. The 
 reason of this is perfectly simple : the Americans, having once 
 admitted the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, apply it 
 with perfect consistency. It was never their intention to found 
 a permanent state of things with elements which undergo daily 
 modifications ; and there is consequently nothing criminal in 
 an attack upon the existing laws, provided it be not attended 
 with a violent infraction of them. They are moreover of opin- 
 ion that courts of justice are unable to check the abuses of the 
 press ; and that as the subtilty of human language perpetually 
 eludes the severity of judicial analysis, offences of this nature 
 are apt to escape the hand which attempts to apprehend them. 
 They hold that to act with efficacy upon the press it would be 
 necessary to find a tribunal, not only devoted to the existing 
 order of things, but capable of surmounting the influence of 
 public opinion ; a tribunal which should conduct its proceedings 
 without publicity, which should pronounce its decrees without 
 assigning its motives, and punish the intentions even more than 
 the language of an author. Whosoever should have the power 
 of creating and maintaining a tribunal of this kind would waste 
 his time in prosecuting the liberty of the press ; for he would 
 be the supreme master of the whole community, and he would 
 be as free to rid himself of the authors as of their writings. In 
 this question, therefore, there is no medium between servitude 
 and extreme license; in order to enjoy the inestimable bene- 
 fits which the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to sub- 
 mit to the inevitable evils which it engenders. To expect to 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 185 
 
 acquire the former and to escape the latter is to cherish one of 
 those illusions which commonly mislead nations in their times 
 of sickness, when, tired with faction and exhausted by effort, 
 they attempt to combine hostile opinions a contrary princi- 
 ples upon the same soil. 
 
 The small influence of the American journals is attributable 
 to several reasons, amongst which are the following : 
 
 The liberty of writing, like all other liberty, is most formid- 
 able when it is a novelty ; for a people which has never been 
 accustomed to co-operate in the conduct of State affairs places 
 implicit confidence in the first tribune who arouses its atten- 
 tion. The Anglo-Americans have enjoyed this liberty ever 
 since the foundation of the settlements; moreover, the press 
 cannot create human passions by its own power, however skil- 
 fully it may kindle them where they exist. In America politics 
 are discussed with animation and a varied activity, but they 
 rarely touch those deep passions which are excited whenever 
 the positive interest of a part of the community is impaired : but 
 in the United States the interests of the community are in a 
 most prosperous condition. A single glance upon a French 
 and an American newspaper is sufficient to show ilic difference 
 which exists between the two nations on thi«i head. In France 
 the space allotted to commercial advertisements is very limited, 
 and the intelligence is not considerable, but the most essential 
 part of the journal is that which contains the discussion of the 
 politics of the day. In America three-quarters of the enormous 
 sheet which is set before the reader are filled with advertise- 
 ments, and the remainder is frequently occupied by political in- 
 telligence or trivial anecdotes: it is only from time to time 
 that one finds a corner devoted to passionate discussions like 
 those with which the journalists of France are wont to indulge 
 their readers. 
 
 It has been demonstrated by observation, and discovered by 
 the innate sagacity of the pettiest as well as the greatest of des- 
 pots, that the influence of a power is increased in proportion as 
 its direction is rendered more central. In France the press 
 combines a twofold centralization ; almost all its power is cen- 
 tred in the same spot, and vested in the same hands, for its 
 organs are far from numerous. The influence of a public press 
 thus constituted, upon a sceptical nation, must be unbounded. 
 
 ( ii 
 
 V'f : 
 
1 86 
 
 DE TOCQUEVlLLt: 
 
 '' h'' 41 
 
 \f> 
 
 It is an enemy with which a Government may sign an occasional 
 truce, but which it is difficult to resist for any length of time. 
 
 Neither of these kinds of centralization exists in America. 
 The United States have no metropolis ; the intelligence as well 
 as the power of the country are dispersed abroad, and instead 
 of radiating from a point, they cross each other in every direc- 
 tion ; the Americans have established no central control over the 
 expression of opinion, any more than over the conduct of busi- 
 ness. These are circumstances which do not depend on human 
 foresight; but it is owing to the laws of the Union that there 
 are no licenses to be granted to printers, no securities demanded 
 from editors as in France, and no stamp duty as in France and 
 formerly in England. T'le consequence of this is that nothing is 
 easier than to set up a newspaper, and a small number of readers 
 suffices to defray the expenses of the editor. 
 
 The number of periodical and occasional publications which 
 appears in the United States actually surpasses belief. The 
 most enlightened Americans attribute the subordinate influence 
 of the press to this excessive disseminalicr'. ; and it is adopted 
 as an axiom of political science in that country that the only way 
 to neutralize the effect of public journals is to multiply them 
 indefinitely. I cannot conceive that a truth which is so self-evi- 
 dent should not already have been more generally admitted in 
 Europe; it is comprehensible that the persons who hope to 
 bring about revolutions by means of the press should be desirous 
 of confining its action to a f^-w powerful organs, but it is per- 
 fectly incredible that the partisans of the existing state of things, 
 and the natural supporters of the law, should attempt to diminish 
 the influence of the press by concentrating its authority. The 
 Governments of Europe seem to treat the press with the courtesy 
 of the knights of old ; they are anxious to furnish it with the 
 same central power which they have found to be so trusty a 
 weapon, in order to enhance the glory of their resistance to its 
 attacks. 
 
 In America there is scarcely a hamlet which has not its own 
 newspaper. It may readily be imagined that neither discipline 
 nor unity of design can be communicated to so multifarious a 
 host, and each one is consequently led to fight under his own 
 standard. All the political journals of the United States are in- 
 deed arrayed on the side of the administration or against it; 
 but they attack and defend in a thousand different ways. They 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 187 
 
 cannot succeed in forming those great currents of upiniui- w ii 
 overwhelm the most solid obstacles. This division of t) m- 
 lluence of the press produces a variety of other conscqu.. ces 
 which are scarcely less remarkable. The facility with v xh 
 journals can be established induces a multitude of individuals ti- 
 take a part in them ; but as the extent of competition precludes 
 the possibility of considerable profit, the most distinguished 
 classes of society are rarely led to engage in these undertakings. 
 But such is the number of the public prints that, even if they 
 were a source of wealth, writers of ability could not be found 
 to direct them all. The journalists of the United States are usu- 
 ally placed in a very humble position, with a scanty education 
 and a vulgar turn of mind. The will of the majority is the most 
 general of laws, and it establishes certain habits which form 
 the characteristics of each peculiar class of society ; thus it dic- 
 tates the etiquette practised at courts and the etiquette of the 
 bar. The characteristics of the French journalist consist in a 
 violent, but frequently an eloquent and lofty, manner of dis- 
 cussing the politics of the day; and the exceptions to this 
 habitual practice are only occasional. The characteristics of the 
 American journalist consist in an open and coarse appeal to 
 the passions of the populace; and he habitually abandons the 
 prmciples of political science to assail the characters of individu- 
 als, to track them into private life, and disclose all their weak- 
 nesses and errors. 
 
 Nothing can be more deplorable than this abuse of the powers 
 of thought ; I shall have occasion to point out hereafter the in- 
 fluence of the newspapers upon the taste and the morality of the 
 American people, but my present subject exclusively concerns 
 the political world. It cannot be deniv J that the effects of this 
 extreme license of the press tend indirectly to the maintenance 
 of public order. The individuals who are already in the pos- 
 session of a high station in the esteem of their fellow-citizens are 
 afraid to write in the newspapers, and they are thus deprived 
 of the most powerful instrument which they can use to excite 
 the passions of the multitude to their own advantage.^ 
 
 The personal opinions of the editors have no kind of weight 
 in the eyes of the public : the only use of a journal is, that it 
 imparts the knowledge of certain facts, and it is only by alter- 
 
 a They only write in the papers when they are called upon to repel calumni- 
 they choose to address the people in ous imputations, and to correct a mis- 
 their own name; as, for instance, when statement of facts. 
 
 ^i a. 
 
 ! ; 
 
1 88 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 V' 
 
 ing or distorting those facts that a journalist can contribute to 
 the support of his own views. 
 
 But although the press is limited to these resources, its in- 
 fluence in America is immense. It is the power which impels 
 the circulation of political life through all the districts of that 
 vast territory. Its eye is constantly open to detect the secret 
 springs of political designs, and to summon the leaders of all 
 parties to the bar of public opinion. It rallies the interests of the 
 community round certain principles, and it draws up the creed 
 which factions adopt ; for it affords a means of intercourse be- 
 tween parties which hear, and which address each other without 
 ever having been in immediate contact. When a great number 
 of the organs of the press adopt the same line of conduct, their 
 influence becomes irresistible; and public opinion, when it is 
 perpetually assailed from the same side, eventually yields to 
 the attack. In the United States each separate journal exercises 
 but little authority, but the power of the periodical press is only; 
 second to that of the people.* 
 
 t » 
 
 The opinions established in the United States under the empire of the 
 liberty of the press are frequently more firmly rooted than those 
 which are formed elsewhere under the sanction of a censor. 
 
 In the United States the democracy perpetually raises fresh 
 individuals to the conduct of public affairs ; and the measures 
 of the administration are consequently seldom regulated by the 
 strict rules of consistency or of order. But the general prin- 
 ciples of the Government are more stable, and the opinions most 
 prevalent in society are generally more durable than in many 
 other countries. When once the Americans have taken up an 
 idea, whether it be well or ill founded, nothing is more difficult 
 than to eradicate it from their minds. The same tenacity of 
 opinion has been observed in England, where, for the last cen- 
 tury, greater freedom of conscience and more invincible pre- 
 judices have existed tb'^n in all the other countries of Europe. 
 I attribute this consequence to a cause which may at first sight 
 appear to have a very opposite tendency, namely, to the liberty 
 of the press. The nations amongst which this liberty exists are 
 as apt to cling to their opinions from pride as from conviction. 
 They cherish them because they hold them to be just, and be- 
 
 b See Appendix, P. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 189 
 
 cause they exercised their own free-will in choosing them ; and 
 they maintain them not only because they are true, but because 
 they arc their own. Several other reasons conduce to the same 
 end. 
 
 It was remarked by a man of genius that " ignorance lies at 
 the two ends of knowledge." Perhaps it would have been more 
 correct to have said, that absolute convictions are to be met with 
 at the two extremities, and that doubt lies in the middle ; for 
 the human intellect may be considered in three distinct states, 
 which frequently succeed one another. A man believes im- 
 plicitly, because he adopts a proposition without inquiry. lie 
 doubts as soon as he is assailed by the objections which his in- 
 quiries may have aroused. But he frequently succeeds in satis- 
 fying these doubts, and then he begins to believe afresh : he no 
 longer lays hold on a truth in its most shadowy and uncertain 
 form, but he sees it clearly before him, and he advances onwards 
 by the light it gives him.c 
 
 When the liberty of the press acts upon men who are in the 
 first of these three states, it does not immediately disturb their 
 habit of believing implicitly without investigation, but it con- 
 stantly modifies the objects of their intuitive convictions. The 
 human mind continues to discern but one point upon the whole 
 intellectual horizon, and that point is in continual motion. Such 
 are the symptoms of sudden revolutions, and of the misfortunes 
 which are sure to befall those generations which abruptly adopt 
 the unconditional freedom of the press. 
 
 The circle of novel ideas is, however, soon terminated; the 
 touch of experience is upon them, and the doubt and mistrust 
 which their uncertainty produces become universal. We may 
 rest assured that the majority of mankind will either believe 
 they know not wherefore, or will not know what to believe. 
 Few are the beings who can ever hope to attain to that state of 
 rational and independent conviction which true knowledge can 
 beget in defiance of the attacks of doubt. 
 
 It has been remarked that in times of great religious fervor 
 men sometimes change their religious opinions; whereas in 
 times of general scepticism everyone clings to his own persua- 
 sion. The same thing takes place in politics under the liberty of 
 the press. In countries where all the theories of social science 
 
 c It may, however, be doubted 
 whether thn rational and self-f^uiding 
 conviction arouses as much fervor or 
 
 enthusiastic devotedness in 
 their first dogmatical belief. 
 
 men as 
 
 H! 
 
 •H 
 
I ; 
 
 V '■ I 
 
 fM\, 
 
 \i I 
 
 190 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 have been contested in their turn, the citizens who have adopted 
 one of them stick to it, not so much because they are assured of 
 its excellence, as because they are not convinced of the superior- 
 ity of any other. In the present age men are not very ready to 
 die in defence of their opinions, but they are rarely inclined to 
 change them; and there are fewer martyrs as well as fewer 
 apostates. 
 
 Another still more valid reason may yet be adduced: when 
 no abstract opinions are looked upon as certain, men cling to 
 the mere propensities and external interests of their position, 
 which are naturally more tangible and more permanent than 
 any opinions in the world. 
 
 It is not a question of easy solution whether aristocracy or 
 democracy is most fit to govern a country. But it is certain that 
 democracy annoys one part of the community, and that aristoc- 
 racy oppresses another part. When the question is reduced to 
 the simple expression of the struggle between poverty and 
 wealth, the tendency of each side of the dispute becomes per- 
 fectly evident without further controversy. 
 
 '1 !, 
 
 ih 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 POLITICAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the right of association 
 — Three kinds of political associations — In what manner the Ameri- 
 cans apply the representative system to associations — Dangers re- 
 sulting to the State — Great Convention of 1831 relative to the Tariff 
 — Legislative character of this Convention — Why the unlimited ex- 
 ercise of the right of association is less dangerous in the United 
 States than elsewhere — Why it may be looked upon as necessary — 
 Utility of associations in a democratic people. 
 
 IN no country in the world has the principle of association 
 been more successfully used, or more unsparingly ap- 
 plied to a multitude of different objects, than in America. 
 Besides the permanent associations which are established by 
 law under the names of townships, cities, and counties, a vast 
 number of others are formed and maintained by the agency of 
 private individuals. 
 
 The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest 
 infancy to rely upon his own exertions in order to resist the 
 evils and the difficulties of life ; he looks upon social authority 
 with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims its as- 
 sistance when he is quite unable to shift without it. This habit 
 may even be traced in the schools of the rising generation, 
 where the children in their games are wont to submit to rules 
 which they have themselves established, and to punish misde- 
 meanors which they have themselves defined. The same spirit 
 pervades every act of social life. If a stoppage occurs in a 
 thoroughfare, and the circulation of the public is hindered, the 
 neighbors immediately constitute a deliberative body ; and this 
 extemporaneous assembly gives rise to an executive power 
 which remedies the inconvenience before anybody has thought 
 of recurring to an authority superior to that of the persons im- 
 mediately concerned. If the public pleasures are concerned, an 
 association is formed to provide for the splendor and the regu- 
 larity of the entertainment. Societies are formed to resist en- 
 
 191 
 
\> I 
 
 ( (i^ 
 
 19a 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 emies which are exclusively of a moral nature, and to diminish 
 the vice of intemperance: in the United States associations are 
 established to promote public order, commerce, industry, moral- 
 ity, and religion; for there is no end which the human will, 
 seconded by the collective exertions of individuals, despairs of 
 attaining. 
 
 I shall hereafter have occasion to show the effects of associa- 
 tion upon the course of society, and I must confine myself for the 
 present to the political world. When once the right of associa- 
 tion is recognized, the citizens may employ it in several different 
 ways. 
 
 An association consists simply in the public assent which a 
 number of individuals give to certain doctrines, and in the en- 
 gagement which they contract to promote the spread of those 
 doctrines by their exertions. The right of association with these 
 views is very analogous to the liberty of unlicensed writing ; but 
 societies thus formed possess more authority than the press. 
 When an opinion is represented by a society, it necessarily as- 
 sumes a more exact and explicit form. It numbers its partisans, 
 and compromises their welfare in its cause : they, on the other 
 hand, become acquainted with each other, and their zeal is in- 
 creased by their number. An association unites the efforts of 
 minds which have a tendency to diverge in one single channel, 
 and urges them vigorously towards one single end which it 
 points out. 
 
 The second degree in the right of association is the power 
 of meeting. When an association is allowed to establish centres 
 of action at certain important points in the country, its activity 
 is increased and its influence extended. Men have the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing each other ; means of execution are more readily 
 combined, and opinions are maintained with a degree of warmth 
 and energy which written language cannot approach. 
 
 Lastly, in the exercise of the right of political association, 
 there is a third degree : the partisans of an opinion may unite 
 in electoral bodies, and choose delegates to represent them in a 
 central assembly. This is, properly speaking, the application of 
 the representative system to a party. 
 
 Thus, in the first instance, a society is formed between indi- 
 viduals professing the same opinion, and the tie which keeps 
 it together is of a purely intellectual nature ; in the second case, 
 small assemblies are formed which only represent a fraction of 
 
 \> 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 193 
 
 the party. Lastly, in the third case, they constitute a separate 
 nation in the midst of the nation, a government within the Gov- 
 ernment. Their delegates, like the real delegates of the ma- 
 jority, represent the entire collective force of their party; and 
 they enjoy a certain degree of that national dignity and great 
 influence which belong to the chosen representatives of the peo- 
 ple. It is true that they have not the right of making the laws, 
 but they have the power of attacking those which are in being, 
 and of drawing up beforehand those which they may afterwards 
 cause to be adopted. 
 
 If, in a people which is imperfectly accustomed to the exer- 
 cise of freedom, or which is exposed to violent political passions, 
 a deliberating minority, which confines itself to the contempla- 
 tion of future laws, be placed in juxtaposition to the legislative 
 majority, I cannot but believe that public tranquillity incurs very 
 great risks in that nation. There is doubtless a very wide differ- 
 ence between proving that one law is in itself better than an- 
 other and proving that the former ought to be substituted for 
 the latter. But the imagination of the populace is very apt to 
 overlook this difference, which is so apparent to the minds of 
 thinking men. It sometimes happens that a nation is divided 
 into two nearly equal parties, each of which affects to represent 
 the majority. If, in immediate contiguity to the directing 
 power, another power be established, which exercises almost as 
 much moral authority as the former, it is not to be believed that 
 it will long be content to speak without acting ; or that it will 
 always be restrained by the abstract consideration of the nature 
 of associations which are meant to direct but not to enforce opin- 
 ions, to suggest but not to make the laws. 
 
 The more we consider the independence of the press in its 
 principal consequences, the more are we convinced that it is the 
 chief and, so to speak, the constitutive element of freedom in 
 the modern world, A nation which is determined to remain free 
 is therefore right in demanding the unrestrained exercise of this 
 independence. But the unrestrained liberty of political associa- 
 tion 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 forfeiting any part of its self-control ; and it may some- 
 times be obliged to do so in order to maintain its own authority. 
 
 In America the liberty of association for political purposes 
 Vol. I.— 13 
 
194 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I, a 
 
 M 
 
 is anbounded. An example will show in the clearest light to 
 what an extent this privilege is tolerated. 
 
 The question of the tariff, or of free trade, produced a great 
 manifestation of party feeling in America; the tariff was not 
 only a subject of debate as a matter of opinion, but it eriercised a 
 favorable or a prejudicial influence upon several ver> powerful 
 interests of the States. The North attributed a great portion of 
 its prosperity, and the South all its sufferings, to this system ; 
 insomuch that for a long time the tariff was the sole source of 
 the political animosities which agitated the Union. 
 
 In 1831, when the dispute was raging with the utmost viru- 
 lence, a private citizen of Massachusetts proposed to all the 
 enemies of the tariff, by means of the public prints, to send dele- 
 gates to Philadelphia in order to consult together upon the means 
 which were most fitted to promote freedom of trade. This pro- 
 posal circulated in a few days from Maine to New Orleans by 
 the power of the printing-press: the opponents of the tariff 
 adopted it with enthusiasm ; meetings were formed on all sides, 
 and delegates were named. The majority of these individuals 
 were well known, and some of them had earned a considerable 
 degree of celebrity. South Carolina alone, which afterwards 
 took up arms in the same cause, sent sixty-three delegates. On 
 October i, 1831, this assembly, which according to the American 
 custom had taken the name of a Convention, met at Philadel- 
 phia ; it consisted of more than two hundred members. Its de- 
 bates were public, and they at once assumed a legislative char- 
 acter ; the extent of the powers of Congress, the theories of free 
 trade, and the different clauses of the tariff, were discussed in 
 turn. At the end of ten days' deliberation the Convention broke 
 up, after having published an address to the American people, 
 in which it declared : 
 
 I. That Congress had not the right of making a tariff, and 
 that the existing tariff was unconstitutional ; 
 
 II. That the prohibition of free trade was prejudicial to the 
 interests of all nations, and to that of the American people in 
 particular. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the unrestrained liberty of po- 
 litical association has not hitherto produced, in the United 
 States, those fatal consequences which might perhaps be ex- 
 pected from it elsewhere. The right of association was im- 
 ported from England, and it has always existed in America; 
 
 l*i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 195 
 
 to 
 
 so that the exercise of this privilege is now amalgamated with 
 the manners and customs of the people. At the present time 
 the liberty of association is become a necessary guarantee 
 against the tyranny of the majority. In the United States, as 
 soon as a party is become preponderant, all public authority 
 passes under its control ; its private supporters occupy all the 
 places, and have all the force of the administration at their dis- 
 posal. As the most distinguished partisans of the other side of 
 the question are unable to surmount the obstacles which exclude 
 them from power, they require some means of establishing them- 
 selves upon their own basis, and of opposing the moral au- 
 thority of the minority to the physical power which domineers 
 over it. Thus a dangerous expedient is used to obviate a still 
 more formidable danger. 
 
 The omnipotence of the majority appears to me to present 
 such extreme perils to the American Republics that the danger- 
 ous measure which is used to repress it seems to be more ad- 
 vantageous than prejudicial. And here I am about to advance a 
 proposition which may remind the reader of what I said before 
 in speaking of municipal freedom : There are no countries in 
 which associations are more needed, to prevent the despotism 
 of faction or the arbitrary power of a prince, than those whiqh 
 are democratically constituted. In aristocratic nations the body 
 of the nobles and the more opulent part of the community are in 
 themselves natural associations, which act as checks upon the 
 abuses of power. In countries in which these associations do 
 not exist, if private individuals are unable to create an artificial 
 and a temporary substitute for them, I can imagine no perma- 
 nent protection against the most galling tyranny ; and a great 
 people may be oppressed by a small faction, or by a single in- 
 dividual, with impunity. 
 
 The meeting of a great political Convention (for there are 
 Conventions of all kinds), which may frequently become a 
 necessary measure, is always a serious occurrence, even in 
 America, and one which is never looked forward to, by ' ■ 
 judicious friends of the country, without alarm. This was very 
 perceptible in the Convention of 1 831, at which the exertions of 
 all the most distinguished members of the Assembly tended to 
 moderate its language, and to restrain the subjects which it 
 treated within certain limits. It is probable, in fact, that the 
 Convention of 1831 exercised a very great influence upon the 
 
 ,«i , 
 
196 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 minds of the malcontents, and prepared them for the open re- 
 volt against the commercial laws of the Union which took place 
 in 1832. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of associa- 
 tion for political purposes is the privilege which a people is 
 longest in learning how to exercise. If it does not throw the 
 nation into anarchy, it perpetually augments the chances of that 
 calamity. On one point, however, this perilous liberty offers a 
 security against dangers of another kind; in countries where 
 associations are free, secret societies are unknown. In America 
 there are numerous factions, but no conspiracies. 
 
 Different ways in which the right of association is understood in Europe 
 and in the United States — Different use which is made of it. 
 
 The most natural privilege of man, next to the right of acting 
 for himself, is that of combining his exertions with those of his 
 fellow-creatures, and of acting in common with them. I am 
 therefore led to conclude that the right of association is almost 
 as inalienable as the right of personal liberty. No legislator can 
 attack it without impairing the very foundations of society. 
 Nevertheless, if the liberty of association is a fruitful source of 
 advantages and prosperity to some nations, it may be perverted 
 or carried to excess by others, and the element of life may be 
 changed into an element of destruction. A comparison of the 
 different methods which associations pursue in those countries 
 in which they are managed with discretion, as well as in those 
 where liberty degenerates into license, may perhaps be thought 
 useful both to governments and to parties. 
 
 The greater part of Europeans look upon an association as a 
 weapon which is to be hastily fashioned, and immediately tried 
 in the conflict. A society is formed for discussion, but the idea 
 of impending action prevails in the minds of those who consti- 
 tute it: it is, in fact, an army; and the time given to parley 
 serves to reckon up the strength and to animate the courage of 
 the host, after which they direct their march against the enemy. 
 Resources which lie within the bounds of the law may suggest 
 themselves to the persons who compose it as means, but never 
 as the only means, of success. 
 
 Such, however, is not the manner in which the right of asso- 
 ciation is understood in the United States. In America the citi- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 197 
 
 zens who form the minority associate, in order, in the first place, 
 to show their numerical strength, and so to diminish the moral 
 authority of the majority ; and, in the second place, to stimulate 
 competition, and to discover those arguments which are most 
 fitted to act upon the majority ; for they always entertain hopes 
 of drawing over their opponents to their own side, and of after- 
 wards disposing of the supreme power in their name. Political 
 associations in the United States are therefore peaceable in their 
 intentions, and strictly legal in the means which they employ ; 
 and they assert with perfect truth that they only aim at success 
 by lawful expedients. 
 
 The difference which exists between the Americans and our- 
 selves depends on several causes. In Europe there are numer- 
 ous parties so diametrically opposed to the majority that they 
 can never hope to acquire its support, and at the same time they 
 think that they are sufficiently strong in themselves to struggle 
 and to defend their cause. When a party of this kind forms an 
 association, its object is, not to conquer, but to fight. In America 
 the individuals who hold opinions very much opposed to those 
 of the majority are no sort of impediment to its power, and all 
 other parties hope to win it over to their own principles in the 
 end. The exercise of the right of association becomes dangerous 
 in proportion to the impossibility which excludes great parties 
 from acquiring the majority. In a country like the United 
 States, in which the differences of opinion are mere differences 
 of hue, the right of association may remain unrestrained with- 
 out evil consequences. The inexperience of many of the Euro- 
 pean nations in the enjoyment of liberty leads them only to 
 look upon the liberty of association as a right of attacking the 
 Government. The first notion which presents itself to a party, 
 as well as to an individual, when it has acquired a consciousness 
 of its own strength, is that of violence : the notion of persuasion 
 arises at a later period and is only derived from experience. 
 The English, who are divided into parties which differ most 
 essentially from each other, rarely abuse the right of association, 
 because they have long been accustomed to exercise it. In 
 France the passion for war is so intense that there is no under- 
 taking so mad, or so injurious to the welfare of the State, that a 
 man does not consider himself honored in defending it, at the 
 risk of his life. 
 
 But perhaps the most powerful of the causes which tend to 
 
 ^. ) 
 
198 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I , 
 
 mitigate the excesses of political association in the United 
 States is Universal Suffrage. In countries in which universal 
 suffrage exists the majority is never doubtful, because neither 
 party can pretend to represent that portion of the community 
 which has not voted. The associations which are formed are 
 aware, as well as the nation at large, that they do not represent 
 the majority : this is, indeed, a condition inseparable from their 
 existence ; for if they did represent the preponderating power, 
 they would change the law instead of soliciting its reform. The 
 consequence of this is that the moral influence of the Govern- 
 ment which they attack is very much increased, and their own 
 power is very much enfeebled. 
 
 In Europe there are few associations which do not affect to 
 represent the majority, or which do not believe that they repre- 
 sent it. This conviction or this pretension tends to augment 
 their force amazingly, and contributes no less to legalize their 
 measures. Violence may seem to be excusable in defence of the 
 cause of oppressed right. Thus it is, in the vast labyrinth of 
 human laws, that extreme liberty sometimes corrects the abuses 
 of license, and that extreme democracy obviates the dangers of 
 democratic government. In Europe, associations consider 
 themselves, in some degree, as the legislative and executive 
 councils of the people, which is unable to speak for itself. In 
 America, where they only represent a minority of the nation, 
 they argue and they petition. 
 
 The means which the associations of Europe employ are in 
 accordance with the end which they propose to obtain. As the 
 principal aim of these bodies is to act, and not to debate, to 
 fight rather than to persuade, they are naturally led to adopt a 
 form of organization which differs from the ordinary customs 
 of civil bodies, and which assumes the habits and the maxims 
 of military life. They centralize the direction of their re- 
 sources as much as possible, and they intrust the power of the 
 whole party to a very small number of leaders. 
 
 The member,'; of these associations respond to a watchword, 
 like soldiers on duty ; they profess the doctrine of passive obedi- 
 ence: say rather, that in uniting together they at once abjure 
 the exercise of their own judgment and free will ; and the tyran- 
 nical control which these societies exercise is often far more in- 
 supportable than the authority possessed over society by the 
 Government which they attack. Their moral force is much 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 199 
 
 diminished by these excesses, and they lose the powerful inter- 
 est which is always excited by a struggle between oppressors 
 and the oppressed. The man who in given cases consents to 
 obey his fellows with servility, and who submits his activity and 
 even his opinions to their control, can have no claim to rank 
 as a free citizen. 
 
 The Americans have also established certain forms of govern- 
 ment which are applied to their associations, but these are invari- 
 ably borrowed from the forms of the civil administration. The 
 independence of each individual is formally recognized; the 
 tendency of the members of the association points, as it does 
 in the body of the community, towards the same end, but they 
 are not obliged to follow the same track. No one abjures the 
 exercise of his reason and his free will ; but every one exerts 
 that reason and that will for the benefit of a common under- 
 taking. 
 
 il 
 
w 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GOVERNMENT OF THE DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 I AM well aware of the difficulties which attend this part of 
 my subject, but although every expression which I am 
 about to make use of may clash, upon some one point, 
 with the feelings of the different parties which divide my coun- 
 try, I shall speak my opinion with the most perfect openness. 
 
 In Europe we are at a loss how to judge the true character 
 and the more permanent propensities of democracy, because in 
 Europe two conflicting principles exist, and we do not know 
 what to attribute to the principles themselves, and what to refer 
 to the passions which they bring into collision. Such, however, 
 is not the case in America ; there the people reigns without any 
 obstacle, and it has no perils to dread and no injuries to avenge. 
 In America, democracy is swayed by its own free propensities ; 
 its course is natural and its activity is unrestrained ; the United 
 States consequently afford the most favorable opportunity of 
 studying its real character. And to no people can this inquiry 
 be more vitally interesting than to the French nation, which is 
 blindly driven onwards by a daily and irresistible impulse to- 
 wards a state of things which may prove either despotic or re- 
 publican, but which will assuredly be democratic. 
 
 l4., ^ 
 
 
 Universal Suffrage 
 
 I have already observed that universal suffrage has been 
 adopted in all the States of the Union ; it consequently occurs 
 amongst different populations which occupy very different 
 positions in the scale of society. I have had opportunities of 
 observing its effects in different localities, and amongst races 
 of men who are nearly strangers to each other by their language, 
 their religion, and their manner of life ; in Louisiana as well as 
 m New England, in Georgia and in Canada. I have remarked 
 that Universal Suffrage is far from producing in America cither 
 
 200 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 201 
 
 all the good or all the evil consequences which are assigned to 
 it in Europe, and that its effects differ very widely from those 
 which are usually attributed to it. • 
 
 Choice of the People, and Instinctive Preferences of 
 THE American Democracy 
 
 In the United States the most able men are rarely placed at the head 
 of affairs — Reason of this peculiarity — The envy which prevails in 
 the lower orders of France against the higher classes is not a French, 
 but a purely democratic sentiment — For what reason the most dis- 
 tinguished men in America frequently seclude themselves from public 
 afT-.Irs. 
 
 Many people in Europe are apt to believe without saying it, 
 or to say without believing it, that one of the great advantages 
 of universal suffrage is, that it entrusts the direction of public 
 tf¥airs to men who are worthy of the public confidence. They 
 admit that the people is unable to govern for itself, but they 
 aver that it is always sincerely disposed to promote the welfare 
 of the State, and that it instinctively designates those persons 
 who are animated by the same good wishes, and who are the 
 most fit to wield the supreme authority. I confess that the 
 observations I made in America by no means coincide with 
 these opinions. On my arrival in the United States I was sur- 
 prised to find so much distinguished talent among the subjects, 
 and so little among the heads of the Government. It is a well- 
 authenticated fact, that at the present day the most able men in 
 the United States are very rarely placed at the head of afxairs ; 
 and it must be acknowledged that such has been the result in 
 proportion as democracy has outstepped all its former limits. 
 The race of American statesmen has evidently dwindled most 
 remarkably in the course of the last fifty years. 
 
 Several causes may be assigned to this phenomenon. It is 
 impossible, notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions, to 
 raise the intelligence of the people above a certain level. What- 
 ever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever 
 may be the profusion of easy methous and of cheap science, the 
 human mind can never be instructed and educated without de- 
 voting a considerable space of time to those objects. 
 
 The greater or the lesser possibility of subsisting without 
 labor is therefore the necessary boundary of intellectual im- 
 provement. This boundary is more remote in some countries 
 
 1 h\ 
 
ao* 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLR 
 
 .v:- 
 
 and more restricted in others ; but it must exist somewhere as 
 long as the i)ooplc is constrained to work in order to procure 
 the means i)f physical subsistence, that is to say, as long as it 
 retains its popular character. It is therefore (juitc as difficult 
 to imagine a State in which all the citizens should be very well 
 informed as a State in which they should all be wealthy ; these 
 two difficulties may be looked upon as correlative. It may 
 very readily be admitted that the mass of the citizens are sin- 
 cerely disposed to promote the welfare of their country ; nay 
 more, it may even be allowed that the lower classes are less apt 
 to be swayed by considerations of personal interest than the 
 higher orders : but it is always more or less impossible for them 
 to discern the best means of attaining the end which they desire 
 with sincerity. Long and patient observation, joined to a mul- 
 titude of different notions, is required to form a just estimate of 
 the character of a single individual ; and can it be supposed that 
 the vulgar have the power of succeeding in an inquiry which 
 misleads the penetration of genius itself? The people has 
 neither the time nor the means which are essential to the pros- 
 ecution of an investigation of this kind: its conclusions are 
 hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more promi- 
 nent features of a question. Hence it often assents to the 
 clamor of a mountebank who knows the secret of stimulating 
 its tastes, while its truest friends frequently fail in their exer- 
 tions. 
 
 Moreover, the democracy is not only deficient in that sound- 
 ness of judgment which is necessary to select men really de- 
 serving of its confidence, but it has neither the desire nor the 
 inclination to find them out. It cannot be denied that demo- 
 cratic institutions have a very strong tendency to promote the 
 feeling of envy in the human heart ; not so much because they 
 afiford to every one the means of rising to the level of any of 
 his fellow-citizens, as because those means perpetually disap- 
 point the persons who employ them. Democratic institutions 
 awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never 
 entirely satisfy. This complete equality eludes the grasp of 
 the people at the very moment at which it thinks to hold it fast, 
 and " flies," as Pascal says, " with eternal flight " ; the people 
 is excited in the pursuit of an advantage, which is more precious 
 because it is not sufficiently remote to be unknown, or suffi- 
 ciently near to be enjoyed. The lower orders are agitated by 
 
 I. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 303 
 
 the chance of success, they are irritated hy its uncertainty ; and 
 they j)ass from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the exhaustion of 
 ill-success, and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment. 
 Whatever transcends their own limits appears to be an obstacle 
 to their desires, and there is no kind of superiority, however 
 legitimate it may be, which is not irksome in their sight. 
 
 It has been supposed that' the secret instinct which leads the 
 lower orders to remove their superiors as much as possible from 
 the direction of public affairs is peculiar to France. This, how- 
 ever, is an error ; the propensity to which I allude is not inher- 
 ent in any particular nation, but in democratic institutions in 
 general ; and although it may have been heightened by peculiar 
 political circumstances, it owes its origin to a higher cause. 
 
 In the United States the people is not disposed to hate the 
 superior classes of society ; but it is not very favorably inclined 
 towards them, and it carefully excludes them from the exercise 
 of authority. It does not entertain any dread of distinguished 
 talents, but it is rarely captivated by them ; and it awards its 
 approbation very sparingly to such as have risen without the 
 popular support. 
 
 Whilst the natural propensities of democracy induce the peo- 
 ple to reject the iv l distinguished citizens as its rulers, these 
 individuals are no less apt to retire from a political career in 
 which it is almost impossible to retain their independence, or 
 to advance without degrading themselves. This opinion has 
 been very candidly set forth by Chancellor Kent, who says, in 
 speaking with great eulogiums of that part of the Constitution 
 which empowers the Executive to nominate the judges : " It is 
 indeed probable that the men who are best fitted to discharge 
 the duties of this high ofifice would have too much reserve in 
 their manners, and too much austerity in their principles, for 
 them to be returned by the majority at an election where uni- 
 versal suffrage is adopted." Such were the opinions which 
 were printed without contradiction in America in the year 1830! 
 
 I hold it to be sufficiently demonstrated that universal suf- 
 frage is by no means a guarantee of the wisdom of the popular 
 choice, and that, whatever its advantages may be, this is not 
 one of them. 
 
 1^ 
 
 I 
 
 I ) 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 I' 
 
 ^,1 I, 
 I 
 
 M'.i 
 
204 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 II' ' 
 
 Causes Which May Partly Correct These Tendencies 
 
 OF THE Democracy 
 
 Contrary effects produced on peoples as well as on individuals by great 
 dangers — Why so many distinguished men stood at the head of af- 
 fairs in America fifty years ago — Influence which the intelligence 
 and the manners of the people exercise upon its choice — Example of 
 New England — States of the Southwest — Influence of certain laws 
 upon the choice of the people — Election by an elected body — Its ef- 
 fects upon the composition of the Senate. 
 
 When a State is threatened by serious dangers, the people 
 frequently succeeds in selecting the citizens who are the most 
 able to save it. It has been observed that man rarely retains 
 his customary level in presence of very critical circumstances ; 
 he rises above or he sinks below his usual condition, and the 
 same thing occurs in nations at large. Extreme perils some- 
 times quench the energy of a people instead of stimulating it ; 
 they excite without directing its passions, and instead of clear- 
 ing they confuse its powers of perception. The Jews deluged 
 the smoking ruins of their temple with the carnage of the rem- 
 nant of their host. Lut it is more common, both in the case of 
 nations and in that of individuals, to find extraordinary virtues 
 arising from the very imminence of the danger. Great char- 
 acters are then thrown into relief, as edifices which are con- 
 cealed by the gloom of night are illuminated by the glare of a 
 conflagration. At those dan ; f as times genius no longer 
 abstains from presenting itself in the arena , and the people, 
 alarmed by the perils of its situation, buries its envious passions 
 in a short oblivion. Great names may then be drawn from the 
 balloting-box. 
 
 I have already observed that the American statesmen of the 
 present day are very inferior to those who stood at the head 
 of affairs fifty years ago. This is as much a consequence of 
 the circumstances as of the laws of the country. When Amer- 
 ica was struggling in the high cause of independence to throw 
 off the yoke of another country, and when it was about to usher 
 a new nation into the world, the spirits of its inhabitants were 
 roused to the height which their great efforts required. In this 
 general excitement the most distinguished men were ready 
 to forestall the wants of the community, and the people clung to 
 them for support, and placed them at its head. But events of 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 205 
 
 of 
 
 this magnitude are rare, and it is from an inspection of the 
 ordinary course of affairs that our judgment must be formed. 
 
 If passing occurrences sometimes act as checks upon the pas- 
 sions of democracy, the intelhgence and the manners of the 
 community exercise an influence which is not less powerful 
 and far more permanent. This is extremely perceptible in the 
 United States. 
 
 In New England the education and the liberties of the com- 
 munities were engendered by the moral and religious principles 
 of their founders. Where society has acquired a sufficient de- 
 gree of stability to enable it to hold certain maxims and to 
 retain fixed habits, the lower orders are accustomed to respect 
 intellectual superiority and to submit to it without complaint, 
 although they set at naugbt all those privileges which wealth 
 and birth have introduced among mankind. The democracy 
 in New England consequently makes a more judicious choice 
 than it does elsewhere. 
 
 But as we descend towards the South, to those States in 
 which the constitution of society is more modern and less 
 strong, where instruction is less general, and where the prin- 
 ciples of morality, of religion, and of liberty are less happily 
 combined, we perceive that the talents and the virtues of those 
 who are in authority become more and more rare. 
 
 Lastly, when we arrive at the new South-western States, 
 in which the constitution of society dates but from yesterday, 
 and presents an agglomeration of adventurers and speculators, 
 we are amazed at the persons who are invested with public 
 authority, and we are led to ask by what force, independent 
 of the legislation and of the men who direct it, the State can 
 be protected, and society be made to flourish. 
 
 There are certain laws of a democratic nature which con- 
 tribute, nevertheless, to correct, in some measure, the dan- 
 gerous tendencies of democracy. On entering the House of 
 Representatives of Washington one is struck by the vulgar 
 demeanor of that great assembly. The eye frequently does 
 not discover a man of celebrity within its walls. Its mem- 
 bers are almost all obscure individuals whose names present 
 no associations to the mind : they are mostly village lawyers, 
 men in trade, or even persons belonging to the lower classes 
 of society. In a country in which education is very general, 
 it is said that the representatives of the people do not always 
 know how to write correctly. 
 
 
 I 
 
 'i 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ( 
 
 
 11^ 
 
 ,.-simt~. 
 
ao6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 i' I 
 
 ■ ii 
 
 ... I • ! 
 
 11 
 
 At a few yards' distance from this spot is the door of the 
 Senate, which contains within a small space a large propor- 
 tion of the celebrated men of America. Scarcely an indi- 
 vidual is to be perceived in it who does not recall the idea of 
 an active and illustrious career: the Senate is composed of 
 eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise magistrates, 
 and statesmen of note, whose language would at all times do 
 honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of 
 Europe. 
 
 What then is the cause of this strange contrast, and why 
 are the most able citizens to be found in one assembly rather 
 than in the other? Why is the former body remarkable for 
 its vulgarity and its poverty of talent, whilst the latter seems 
 to enjoy a monopoly of intelligence and of sound judgment? 
 Both of these assemblies emanate from the people; both of 
 them are chosen by universal suffrage; and no voice has 
 hitherto been heard to assert in America that the Senate 
 is hostile to the interests of the people. From what cause, 
 then, does so startling a difference arise? The only reason 
 which appears to me adequately to account for it is, that 
 the House of Representatives is elected by the populace 
 directly, and that the Senate is elected by elected bodies. 
 The whole body of the citizens names the legislature of each 
 State, and the Federal Constitution converts these legislatures 
 into so many electoral bodies, which return the members of 
 the Senate, The senators are elected by an indirect applica- 
 tion of universal suffrage; for the legislatures which name 
 them are not aristocratic or privileged bodies which exercise 
 the electoral franchise in their own right ; but they are chosen 
 by the totality of the citizens ; they are generally elected every 
 year, and new members may constantly be chosen who will 
 employ their electoral rights in conformity with the wishes of 
 the public. But this transmission of the popular authority 
 through an assembly of chosen men operates an important 
 change in it, by refining its discretion and improving the forms 
 which it adopts. Men who are chosen in this manner ac- 
 curately represent the majority of the nation which governs 
 them; but they represent the elevated thoughts which are 
 current in the community, the propensities which prompt its 
 nobler actions, rather than the petty passions which disturb or 
 the vices which disgrace it. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 207 
 
 The time may be already anticipated at which the American 
 Republics will be obliged to introduce the plan of election by 
 an elected body more frequently into their system of repre- 
 sentation, or they will incur no small risk of perishing miserably 
 amongst the shoals of democracy. 
 
 And here I have no scruple in confessing that I look upon 
 this peculiar system of election as the only means of bring- 
 ing the exercise of political power to the level of all classes 
 of the people. Those thinkers who regard this institution 
 as the exclusive weapon of a party, and those who fear, on 
 the other hand, to make use of it, seem to me to fall into as 
 great an error in the one case as in the other. 
 
 Influence Which the American Democracy Has Ex- 
 ercised ON THE Laws Relating to Elections 
 
 When elections are rare, they expose the State to a violent crisis — 
 When they are frequent, they keep up a degree of feverish excite- 
 ment — The Americans have preferred the second of these two evils 
 — Mutability of the laws — Opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson on 
 this subject. 
 
 When elections recur at long intervals the State is exposed 
 to violent agitation every time they take place. Parties exert 
 themselves to the utmost in order to gain a prize which is so 
 rarely within their reach ; and as the evil is almost irremediable 
 for the candidates who fail, the consequences of their dis- 
 appointed ambition may prove most disastrous; if, on the 
 other hand, the legal struggle can be repeated within a short 
 space of time, the defeated parties take patience. When elec- 
 tions occur frequently, their recurrence keeps society in a per- 
 petual state of feverish excitement, and imparts a continual 
 instability to public aflfairs. 
 
 Thus, on the one hand the State is exposed to the perils of a 
 revolution, on the other to perpetual mutability; the former 
 system threatens the very existence of the Government, the 
 latter is an obstacle to all steady and consistent policy. The 
 Americans have preferred the second of these evils to the first ; 
 but they were led to this conclusion by their instinct much 
 more than by their reason ; for a taste for variety is one of the 
 characteristic passions of democracy. An extraordinary muta- 
 bility has, by this means, been introduced into their legisla- 
 tion. Many of the Americans consider the instability of their 
 
 '■V 
 
 '' 51 
 
 !,'!! 
 
2o8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Uu 
 
 laws as a necessary consequence of a system whose general 
 results are beneficial. But no one in the United States affects 
 to deny the fact of this instability, or to contend that it is not 
 a great evil. 
 
 Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power 
 which might prevent, or which might at least impede, the 
 promulgation of bad laws, adds : " It might perhaps be said that 
 the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing 
 good ones, and may be used to the one purpose as well as to 
 the other. But this objection will have little weight with those 
 who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy 
 and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish 
 in the character and genius of our governments." (Federalist, 
 No. 73.) And again in No. 62 of the same work he observes : 
 " The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases 
 to which our governments are most liable. . . . The mis- 
 chievous effects of the mutability in the public councils aris- 
 ing from a rapid succession of new members would fill a 
 volume : every new election in the States is found to change one- 
 half of the representatives. From this change of men must 
 proceed a change of opinions and of measures, which forfeits 
 the respect and confidence of other nations, poisons the bless- 
 ings of liberty itself, and diminishes the attachment and rever- 
 ence of the people toward a political system which betrays so 
 many marks of infirmity." 
 
 Jefferson himself, the greatest Democrat whom the democ- 
 racy of America has yet produced, pointed out the same evils. 
 " The instability of our laws," said he in a letter to Madison, 
 " is really a very serious inconvenience. I think that we ought 
 to have obviated it by deciding that a whole year should always 
 be allowed to elapse between the bringing in of a bill and the 
 final passing of it. It should afterward be discussed and put 
 to the vote without the possibility of making any alteration in 
 it ; and if the circumstances of the case required a more speedy 
 decision, the question should not be decided by a simple ma- 
 jority, but by a majority of at least two-thirds of both houses." 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 209 
 
 Public Officers Under the Control of the Democracy 
 
 IN America 
 
 Simple exterior of the American public officers — No official costume — 
 All public officers are remunerated — Political consequences of this 
 system — No public career exists in America — Result of this. 
 
 Public officers in the United States are commingled with 
 the crowd of citizens; they have neither palaces, nor guards, 
 nor ceremonial costumes. This simple exterior of the per- 
 sons in authority is connected not only with the peculiarities 
 of the American character, but with the fundamental princi- 
 ples of that society. In the estimation of the democracy a 
 government is not a benefit, but a necessary evil. A certain 
 degree of power mus^ be granted to public officers, for they 
 would be of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance 
 of authority is by no means indispensable to the conduct of 
 affairs, and it is needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of 
 the public. The public officers themselves are well aware 
 that they only enjoy the superiority over their fellow-citizens 
 which they derive from their authority upon condition of put- 
 ting themselves on a level with the whole community by their 
 manners. A public officer in the United States is uniformly 
 civil, accessible to all the world, attentive to all requests, and 
 obliging in his replies. I was pleased by these characteristics 
 of a democratic government ; and I was struck by the manly 
 independence of the citizens, who respect the office more than 
 the officer, and who are less attached to the emblems of au- 
 thority than to the man who bears them. 
 
 I am inclined to believe that the influence which costumes 
 really exercise, in an age like that in which we live, has been 
 a good deal exaggerated. I never perceived that a public officer 
 in America was the less respected whilst he was in the dis- 
 charge of his duties because his own merit was set off by no 
 adventitious signs. On the other hand, it is very doubtful 
 whether a pecul'ar dress contributes to the respect which public 
 characters ought to have for their own position, at least when 
 they are not otherwise inclined to respect it. When a magis- 
 trate (and in France such instances are not rare) indulges his 
 trivial wit at the expense of the prisoner, or derides the pre- 
 dicament in which a culprit is placed, it would be well to de- 
 prive him of his robes of office, to see whether he would recall 
 Vol. I.— 14 
 
 
3ZO 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ;> 
 
 id I 
 It ,' 
 
 some portion of the natural dignity of mankind when he is 
 reduced to the apparel of a private citizen. 
 
 A democracy may, however, allow a certain show of magis- 
 terial pomp, and clothe its officers in silks and gold, without 
 seriously compromising its principles. Privileges of this kind 
 are transitory ; they belong to the place, and are distinct from 
 the individual : but if public officers are not uniformly remu- 
 nerated by the State, the public charges must be entrusted to 
 men of opulence and independence, who constitute the basis 
 of an aristocracy; and if the people still retains its right of 
 election, that election can only be made from a certain class 
 of citizens. When a democratic republic renders offices which 
 had formerly been remunerated gratuitous, it may safely be 
 believed that the State is advancing to monarchical institutions ; 
 and when a monarchy begins to remunerate such officers as had 
 hitherto been unpaid, it is a sure sign that it is approaching 
 toward a despotic or a republican form of government. The 
 substitution of paid for unpaid functionaries is of itself, in my 
 opinion, sufficient to constitute a serious revolution. 
 
 I look upon the ,entire absence of gratuitous functionaries 
 in America as one of the most prominent signs of the absolute 
 dominion which democracy exercises in that country. All 
 public services, of whatsoever nature they may be, are paid; 
 so that every one has not merely the right, but also the means 
 of performing them. Although, in democratic States, all the 
 citizens are qualified to occupy stations in the Government, all 
 are not tempted to try for them. The number and the capaci- 
 ties of the candidates are more apt to restrict the choice of 
 electors than the conditions of the candidateship. 
 
 In nations in which the principle of election extends to every 
 place in the State no political career can, ' properly speaking, 
 be said to exist. Men are promoted as if by chance to the rank 
 which they enjoy, and they are by no means sure of retaining 
 it. The consequence is that in tranquil times public functions 
 oflfer but few lures to ambition. In the United States the per- 
 sons who engage in the perplexities of political life are in- 
 dividuals of very moderate pretensions. The pursuit of wealth 
 generally diverts men of great talents and of great passions 
 from the pursuit of power, and it very frequently happens that 
 a man does not undertake to direct the fortune of the State 
 until he ha* '"-covered his incompetence tp conduct his own 
 
: of 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 211 
 
 affairs. The vast number of very ordinary men who occupy 
 public stations is quite as attributable to these causes as to the 
 bad choice of the democracy. In the United States, I am not 
 sure that the people would return the men of superior abilities 
 who might Solicit its support, but it is certain that men of this 
 description do not come forward. 
 
 Arbitrary Power of Magistrates Under the Rule of the 
 American Democracy 
 
 For what reason the arbitrary power of Magistrates is greater in ab- 
 solute monarchies and in democratic republics than it is it; limited 
 monarchies — Arbitrary powe "■ t Magistrates in New England. 
 
 In two different kinds of government the magistrates a ex- 
 ercise a considerable degree of arbitrary power ; namely, under 
 the absolute government of a single individual, and under 
 that of a democracy. This identical result proceeds from 
 causes which are nearly analogous. 
 
 In despotic States the fortune of no citizen is secure; and 
 public officers are not more safe than private individuals. The 
 sovereign, who has under his control the lives, the property, 
 and sometimes the honor of the men whom he employs, does 
 not scruple to allow them a great latitude of action, because he 
 is convinced that they will not use it to his prejudice, in 
 despotic States the sovereign is so attached to the exercise of 
 his power, that he dislikes the constraint even of his own regu- 
 lations ; and he is well pleased that his agents should follow a 
 somewhat fortuitous line of conduct, provided he be certain 
 that their actions will never counteract his desires. 
 
 In democracies, as the majority has every year the right of 
 depriving the officers whom it has appointed of their power, 
 it has no reason to fear any abuse of their authority. As the 
 people is always able to signify its wishes to those who con- 
 duct the Government, it prefers leaving them to make their 
 own exertions to prescribing an invariable rule of conduct 
 which would at once fetter their activity and the popular au- 
 thority. 
 
 It may even be observed, on attentive consideration, that 
 under the rule of a democracy the arbitrary power of the 
 
 a I here use the word_ magistrates in 
 the widest sense in which it can be 
 taken; I apply it to all the ofiicers to 
 
 whom the execution of the laws is in- 
 trusted, 
 
 II 
 
 1 
 
 
 ' I '.I 
 
 1? I 
 
aia 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I* \' 
 
 Ui 
 
 magistrate must be still greater than in despotic States. In 
 the latter the sovereign has the power of punishing all the 
 faults with whicl. e becomes acquainted, but it would be vain 
 for him to hope to become acquainted with all those which are 
 committed. In the former the sovereign power* is not only 
 supreme, but it is universally present. The American func- 
 tiona ies are, in point of fact, rnuch more independent in the 
 sphere of action v 'lich the law traces out for them than any 
 public officer in Europe. Very frequently the object which 
 they are to accomplish is simply pointed out to them, and the 
 choice of the means is left to their own discretion. 
 
 In New England, for instance, the selectmen of each town- 
 ship are bound to draw up the list of persons who are to serve 
 on the jury ; the only rule which is laid down to guide them in 
 their choice is that they are to select citizens possessing the 
 elective franchise and enjoying a fair reputation.^ In France 
 the lives and liberties of the subjects would be thought to be 
 in danger if a public officer of any kind was entr' i with so 
 formidable a right. In New England the same magistrates are 
 empowered to post the names of habitual drunkards in public- 
 houses, and to prohibit the inhabitants of a town from supply- 
 ing them with liquor.c A censorial power of this excessive kind 
 would be revolting to the population of the most absolute mon- 
 archies ; here, however, it is submitted to without difficulty. 
 
 Nowhere has so much been left by *' .w to the arbitrary 
 determination of the magistrate as in dc cratic republics, be- 
 cause this arbitrary power is unattended by any alarming con- 
 sequences. It may even be asserted that the freedom of the 
 magistrate increases as the elective franchise is extended, and 
 as the duration of the time of office is shortened. Hence arises 
 the great difficulty which attends the conversion of a demo- 
 cratic republic into a monarchy. The magistrate ceases to be 
 elective, but he retains the rights and the habits of an elected 
 officer, which lead directly to despotism. 
 
 It is only in limited monarchies that the law, which pre- 
 scribes the sphere in which public officers are to act, superin- 
 tends all their measures. The cause of this may be easily de- 
 tected. In limited monarchies the power is divided between 
 
 b See the Act of February 27, 1813. c See Act of February 28, 1787. " Gen- 
 
 " General Collection of the Laws of cral Collection of the Laws of Massa- 
 Massachusetts," vol. ii. p. 331. It should chusetts," vol. i. o. 302. 
 be added that the jurors are afterwards 
 drawn from these lists by lot. 
 
 1 
 
 nl i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 213 
 
 the King and the people, both of whom are interested in the 
 stabiHty of the magistrate. • The King does not venture to place 
 the public officers under the control of the people, lest they 
 should be tempted to betray his interests ; on the other hand, 
 the people fears lest the magistrates should serve to oppress 
 the liberties of the country, if they were entirely dependent 
 upon the Crown ; they cannot therefore be said to depend on 
 either one or the other. The same cause which induces the 
 king and the people to render public officers independent sug- 
 gests the necessity of such securities as may prevent their in- 
 dependence from encroaching upon the authority of the for- 
 mer and the liberties of the latter. They consequently agree 
 as to the necessity of restricting the functionary to a line of 
 conduct laid down beforehand, and they are interested in con- 
 fining him by certain regulations which he cannot evade. 
 
 Instability of the Administration in the United States 
 
 In America the public acts of a community frequently leave fewer traces 
 than the occurrences of a family — Newspapers the only historical re- 
 mains — Instability of the administration prejudicial to the art of 
 government. 
 
 The authority which public men possess in America is so 
 brief, and they are so soon commingled with the ever-chang- 
 ing population of the country, that the acts of a community 
 frequently leave fewer traces than the occurrences of a private 
 family. The public administration is, so to speak, oral and 
 traditionary. But little is committed to writing, and that little 
 is wafted away forever, like the leaves of the Sibyl, by the 
 smallest breeze. 
 
 The only historical remains in the United States are the news- 
 papers; but if a number be wanting, the chain of time is 
 broken, and the present is severed from the past. I am con- 
 vinced that in fifty years it will be more difficult to collect au- 
 thentic documents concerning the social condition of the Amer- 
 icans at the present day than it is to find remains of the admin- 
 istration of France during the Middle Ages ; and if the United 
 States were ever invaded by barbarians, it would be necessary 
 to have recourse to the history of other nations in order to learn 
 anything of the people which now inhabits them. 
 
 
 I 1 
 
 
 % 
 
 if 
 
 I 
 
 J) 
 
 1 
 
 ■r*MH*WMMiM£MUi 
 
 /'! 
 
 J 
 
 \n 
 
414 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 *.)" 
 
 The instability of the administration has penetrated into the 
 habits of the people : it even appears to suit the general taste, 
 and no one cares for what occurred before his time. No me- 
 thodical system is pursued; no archives are formed; and no 
 documents are brought together when it would be very easy 
 to do so. Where they exist, little store is set upon them ; and 
 I have amongst my papers several original public documents 
 which were given to me in answer to some of my inquiries. 
 In America society seems to live from hand to mouth, like an 
 army in the field. Nevertheless, the art of administration '.nay 
 undoubtedly be ranked as a science, and no sciences can be 
 improved if the discoveries and observations of successive gen- 
 erations are not connected together in the order in which they 
 occur. One man, in the short space of his life remarks a fact ; 
 another conceives an idea ; the former invents a means of exe- 
 cution, the latter reduces a truth to a fixed proposition; and 
 mankind gathers the fruits of individual experience upon its 
 way and gradually forms the sciences. But the persons who 
 conduct the administration in America can seldom aflford any 
 instruction to each other ; and when they assume the direct'on 
 of society, they simply possess those attainments which are 
 most widely disseminated in the community, and no experience 
 peculiar to themselves. Democracy, carried to its furthest 
 limits, is therefore prejudicial to the art of government; and 
 for this reason it is better adapted to a people already versed 
 in the conduct of an administration than to a nation which i;? 
 uninitiated in public affairs. 
 
 This remark, indeed, is not exclusively applicable to the sci- 
 ence of administration. Although a democratic government 
 is founded upon a very simple and natural principle, it always 
 presupposes the existence of a high degree of culture and en- 
 lightenment in society .rf At the first glance it may be imagined 
 to belong to the earliest ages of the world ; but maturer ob- 
 servation will convince us that it could only come last in the 
 succession of human history. 
 
 d It is needless to observe that I 
 speak here of the democratic form' of 
 
 government as applied to a people, not 
 merely to a tribe. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 "5 
 
 Charges Levied by the State Under the Rule op the 
 American Democracy 
 
 In all communities citizens divisible into three classes — Habits of each 
 of these classes in the direction of public finances — Why public ex- 
 penditure must tend to increase when the people governs — What 
 renders the extravagance of a democracy less to be feared in 
 America — Public expenditure under a democracy. 
 
 Before we can aflfirm whether a democratic form of govern- 
 ment is economical or not, we must establish a suitable standard 
 of comparison. The question would be one of easy solution 
 if we were to attempt to draw a parallel between a democratic 
 republic and an absolute monarchy. The public expenditure 
 would be found to be more considerable under the former than 
 under the latter ; such is the case with all free States compared 
 to those which are not so. It is certain that despotism ruins 
 individuals by preventing them from producing wealth, much 
 more than by depriving them of the wealth they have produced ; 
 it dries up the source of riches, whilst it usually respects ac- 
 quired property. Freedom, on the contrary, engenders far 
 more benefits than it destroys; and the nations which are fa- 
 vored by free institutions invariably find that their resources 
 increase even more rapidly than their taxes. 
 
 My present object is to compare free nations to each other, 
 and to point out the influence of democracy upon the finances 
 of a State. 
 
 Communities, as well as organic bodies, are subject to certain 
 fixed rules in their formation which they cannot evade. They 
 are composed of certain elements which are common to them 
 at all times and ur.der all circumstances. The people may 
 always be mentally divided into three distinct classes. The first 
 of these classes consists of the wealthy; the second, of those 
 who are in easy circumstances ; and the third is composed of 
 those who have little or no property, and who subsist more es- 
 pecially by the work which they perform for the two superior 
 orders. The proportion of the individuals who are included in 
 these three divisions may vary according to the condition of 
 society, but the divisions themselves can never be obliterated. 
 
 It is evident that each of these classes will exercise an influ- 
 ence peculiar to its own propensities upon the administration 
 of the finances of the State. If the first of the three exclusively 
 
 \i, 
 
 'l! 
 
 Vii 
 
 m 
 
 ij. 
 
 I . 
 
 wjaija ui t !•" imkt«(*^ 
 
ai6 
 
 DE TOCgUli ViLLE 
 
 fu 
 
 possesses tlic legislative power, it is probable tliat it will not 
 be sparing of the public fluids, because the taxes which are 
 levied on a large fortune only tend to diminish the sum of super- 
 fluous enjoyment, and are, in point of fact, but little felt. If 
 the second class has the power of making the laws, it will cer- 
 tainly not be lavish of taxes, because nothing is so onerous as 
 a large impost which is levied upon a small income. The gov- 
 ernment of the middle classes appears to me to be the most 
 economical, though perhaps not the most enlightened, and cer- 
 tainly not the most gei orous, of free governments. 
 
 But let us now suppose that the legislative authority is vested 
 in the lowest orders: there are two striking reasons which 
 show that the tendency of the expenditure will be to increase, 
 not to diminish. As the great majority of those who create 
 the laws are possessed of no property upon which taxes can be 
 imposed, all the money which is spent for the community ap- 
 pears to be spent to their advantage, at no cost of their own ; 
 and those who arc possessed of some little property readily 
 find means of regulating the taxes so that they are burdensome 
 to the wealthy and profitable to the poor, although the rich are 
 unable to take the same advantage when they are in possession 
 of the Government. 
 
 In countries in which the poorc should be exclusively in- 
 vested with the power of making the laws no great economy of 
 public expenditure ought to be expected : that expenditure will 
 always be considerable ; either because the taxes do not weigh 
 upon those who levy them, or because they arc levied in such 
 a manner as not to weigh upon those classes. In other words, 
 the government of the democracy is the only one under which 
 the power which lays on taxes escapes the payment of them. 
 
 It may be objected (but the argument has no real weight) 
 that the true interest of the people is indissolubly connected 
 with that of the wealthier portion of the community, since it 
 cannot but suflfer by the severe measures to which it resorts. 
 But is it not the true interest of kings to render their subjects 
 happy, and the true interest of nobles to admit recruits into 
 their order on suitable grounds? If remote advantages had 
 power to prevail over the passions and the exigencies of the 
 
 t The word Poor is used here, and 
 throuRhout the remainder of this chap- 
 ter, in a relative, not in an absolute 
 sense. Poor men in America would 
 
 often appear rich in comparison with 
 the poor of Europe; but they may with 
 propriety by styled poor in comparison 
 with their more affluent countrymen. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 917 
 
 moment, no such thing as a tyrannical sovereign or an exclusive 
 aristocracy couUl cvir exist. 
 
 Again, it may be ohjected that the poor arc never invested 
 with the sole power of making the laws ; but I reply, that wher- 
 ever universal sulTrage has been established the majority of 
 the conmnmity un(|uestional)Iy exercises the legislative author- 
 ity ; and if it be proved that the poor always constitute the 
 majority, it may be added, with perfect truth, that in the coun- 
 tries in which they possess the elective franchise they possess 
 the sole power of making laws-. But it is certain that in all the 
 nations of the world the greater number has always consisted 
 of those persons who hold no property, or of those whose prop- 
 erty is insufticient to exempt them from the r^'cessity of working 
 in order to procure an easy subsistence. UniviTsal sufifrage docs 
 therefore, in point of fact, i.vest the poor With the government 
 of society. 
 
 The disastrous inllucncc which ;'opuiir authority may some- 
 times exercise upon the finaices of .• State vas viry clearly 
 seen in some of the democratic republics of a; '^'quity, in which 
 the public treasure was exhausted in orde; 'i relieve indigent 
 citizens, or to supply the games an:! ♦heatrical amus. nents of 
 the populace. It is true that the rciircsentative .ty.jlem was 
 then very imperfectly known, and t lat, at the present time, the 
 influence of popular passion is less felt in the conduct of publiu 
 affairs; but it may be believed that the delegate will in the 
 end conform to the principles of his constituents, and favor 
 their propensities as much as their interests. 
 
 The extravagance of democracy is, however, less to be 
 dreaded in proportion as the people acquires a share of prop- 
 erty, because on the one hand the contributions of the rich are 
 then less needed, and, on the other, it is more difficult to lay 
 on taxes which do not affect the interests of the lower classes. 
 On this account universal suffrage would be less dangerous in 
 France than in England , I--, cause in the latter country the prop- 
 erty on which taxes may be levied is vested in fewer hands. 
 America, where the great majority of the citizens possess some 
 fortune, is in a vSti'l more favorable position than France. 
 
 There are st'H further causes which may increase the sum 
 of public expenditure in democratic countries. When the aris- 
 tocracy governs, the individuals who conduct the affairs of 
 State are exempted by their own station in society from every 
 
 /.i 
 
2l8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 'K 
 
 kind of privation ; they are contented with their position ; power 
 and renown are the objects for which they strive ; and, as they 
 are placed far above the obscurer throng of citizens, they do 
 not always distinctly perceive how the well-being of the mass 
 of the people ought to redound to their own honor. They are 
 not indeed callous to the sufferings of the poor, but they cannot 
 feel those miseries as acutely as if they were themselves par- 
 takers of them. Provided that the people appear to submit to 
 its lot, the rulers are satisfied, and they demand nothing further 
 from the Government. An aristocracy is more intent upon the 
 means of maintaining its influence than upon the means of im- 
 proving its condition. 
 
 When, on the contrary, the people is invested with the su- 
 preme authority, the perpetual sense of their own miseries 
 impels the rulers of society to seek for perpetual ameliorations. 
 A thousand different objects are subjected to improvement ; the 
 most trivial details are sought out as susceptible of amendment ; 
 and those changes which are accompanied with considerable 
 expense are more especially advocated, since the object is to 
 render the condition of the poor more tolerable, who cannot 
 pay for themselves. 
 
 Moreover, all democratic communities are agitated by an 
 ill-defined excitement and by a kind of feverish impatience, that 
 engender a multitude of innovations, almost all of which are 
 attended with expense. 
 
 In monarchies and aristocracies the natural taste which the 
 rulers have for power and for renown is stimulated by the 
 promptings of ambition, and they are frequently incited by 
 these temptations to very costly undertakings. In democracies, 
 where the rulers labor under privations, they can only be courted 
 by such means as improve their well-being, and these improve- 
 ments cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When 
 a people begins to reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multi- 
 tude of wants to which it had not before been subject, and to 
 satisfy these exigencies recourse must be had to the coffers 
 of the State. Hence it arises that the public charges increase 
 in proportion as civilization spreads, and that imposts are aug- 
 mented as knowledge pervades the community. 
 
 The last cause which frequently renders a democratic gov- 
 ernment dearer than any other is, that a democracy does not 
 always succeed in moderating its expenditure, because it does 
 
 m 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 219 
 
 not understand the art of being economical. As the designs 
 which it entertains are frequently changed, and the agents of 
 those designs are still more frequently removed, its undertak- 
 ings are often ill conducted or left unfinished: in the former 
 case the State spends sums out of all proportion to the end 
 which it proposes to accomplish; in the second, the expense 
 itself is unprofitable.^ 
 
 Tendencies of the American Democracy as Regards the 
 Salaries of Public Officers 
 
 In democracies those who establish high salaries have no chance of 
 profiting by them — Tendency of the American democracy to in- 
 crease the salaries of subordinate officers and to lower those of the 
 more important functionaries — Reason of this — Comparative state- 
 ment of the salaries of public officers in the United States and in 
 France. 
 
 There is a powerful reason which usually induces democra- 
 cies to economize upon the salaries of public officers. As the 
 number of citizens who dispense the remuneration is extremely 
 large in democratic countries, so the number of persons who 
 can hope to be benefited by the receipt of it is comparatively 
 small. In aristocratic countries, on the contrary, the individ- 
 uals who fix high salaries have almost always a vague hope of 
 profiting by them. These appointments may be looked upon 
 as a capital which they create for their own use, or at least as 
 a resource for their children. 
 
 It must, however, be allowed that a democratic State is most 
 parsimonious towards its principal agents. In America the 
 secondary officers are much better paid, and the dignitaries of 
 the administration much worse, than they are elsewhere. 
 
 These opposite effects result from the same cause ; the people 
 fixes the salaries of the public officers in both cases; and the 
 scale of remuneration is determined by the consideration of its 
 own wants. It is held to be fair that the servants of the public 
 should be placed in the same easy circumstances as the public 
 itself ; s but when the question turns upon the salaries of the 
 
 f The gross receipts of the Treasury 
 of the United States in 1832 were about 
 $28,000,000; in T870 they had risen to 
 $411,000,000. The gross expenditure in 
 1832 was $30,000,000; in 1870, $309,000,000. 
 
 g The easy circumstances in which 
 secondary functionaries are placed in 
 the United States result also from an- 
 other cause, which is independent of 
 
 the general tendencies of democracy; 
 every kind of private business is very 
 lucrative, and the State would not be 
 served at all if it did not pay its ser- 
 vants. The country is in the position 
 of a commercial undertaking, which is 
 obliged to sustain an expensive compe- 
 tition, notwithstanding its tastes tor 
 economy. 
 
 1 '■ 
 
 r 1 
 
 ^ii .) 
 
 t 
 
 I l\ 
 
220 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 M 
 
 great officers of St;»te, this rule fails, and chance alone can guide 
 the popular decision. The poor have no adequate conception 
 of the wants which the higher classes of society may feel. The 
 sum which is scanty to the rich appears enormous to the poor 
 man whose wants do not extend beyond the necessaries of life ; 
 and in his estimation the Governor of a State, with his twelve or 
 fifteen hundred dollars a year, is a very fortunate and eaviable 
 being.A If you undertake to convince him that the representative 
 of a great people ought to be able to maintain some show of 
 splendor in the eyes of foreign nations, he will perhaps assent to 
 your meaning ; but when he reflects on his own humble dwelling, 
 and on the hard-earned produce of his wearisome toil, he remem- 
 bers all that he could do with a sa4ary which you say is insuffi- 
 cient, and he is startled or almost frightened at the sight of such 
 uncommon wealth. Besides, the secondary public officer is al- 
 most on a level with the people, whilst the others are raised 
 above it. The former may therefore excite his interest, but the 
 latter begins to arou.«e his envy. 
 
 This is very clearly seen in the United States, where the 
 salaries seem to decrease as the authority of those who receive 
 them augments.* 
 
 Under the rule of an aristocracy it frequently happens, on 
 the contrary, that whilst the high officers are receiving munifi- 
 cent salaries, the inferior ones have not more than enough to 
 procure the necessaries of life. The reason of this fact is easily 
 discoverable from causes very analogous to those to which I 
 
 h 'rf^ 
 
 h The State of Ohio, which contains 
 a million of inhabitants, gives its Gov- 
 ernor a salary of only $1,200 a year. 
 
 • To render this assertion perfectly 
 evident, it will suffice to examine the 
 scale of salaries of the agents of the 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 Treasury Department 
 
 Messenger $700 
 
 Clerk with lowest salary 1,000 
 
 Clerk with highest salary 1,600 
 
 Chief Clerk 2,000 
 
 Secretary of State 6,000 
 
 The President 25,000 
 
 T hpve perhaps done wrong in se- 
 lecting France as my standard of com- 
 parison. In France the democratic 
 tendencies of the nation exercise an 
 ever-increasing influence upon the Gov- 
 ernment, and the Chambers show a 
 disposition to raise the low salaries and 
 to lower the nrincipal ones. Thu«, tlic 
 Minister of Finance, who received 160.- 
 000 fr. under the Empire, receives 80,- 
 
 Federal Government. I have added the 
 salaries attached to the corresponding 
 officers in France under the constitu- 
 tional monarchy to complete the com- 
 parison. 
 
 MinUtire des Finances 
 
 Hussier 1..S00 fr. 
 
 Clerk with lowest salary, 1,000 to 1,800 fr. 
 Clerk with hip;hest salary 3,200 to 8,600 fr. 
 
 Secretaire-general 20,000 fr. 
 
 The Minister 80,000 fr. 
 
 The King 12,000,000 fr. 
 
 000 fr. in 18,35: the Direcfcnrs-penorrMix 
 of Finance, who then received so.ooo fr., 
 now receive only 20,000 fr. [This com- 
 parison is based on the state of things 
 existinii in France and the United 
 States in 1831. It has since materially 
 altered in both countries, but not so 
 much as to impugn the truth of the au- 
 thor's observation.] 
 
 I 
 
'\ , 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 221 
 
 have just alluded. If a democracy is unable to conceive the 
 pleasures of the rich or to witness them without envy, an aris- 
 tocracy is slow to understand, or, to speak more correctly, is 
 unacquainted with, the privations of the poor. The poor man 
 is not (if we use the term aright) the fellow of the rich one; 
 but he is a being of another species. An aristocracy is therefore 
 apt to care but little for the fate of its subordinate agents ; and 
 their salaries are only raised when they refuse to perform their 
 service for too scanty a remuneration. 
 
 It is the parsimonious conduct of democracy towards its prin- 
 cipal officers which has countenanced a supposition of far more 
 economical propensities than any which it really possesses. It 
 is true that it scarcely allows the means of honorable subsistence 
 to the individuals who conduct its affairs ; but enormous sums 
 are lavished to meet the exigencies or to facilitate the enjoy- 
 ments of the people./ The money raised by taxation may be 
 better employed, but it is not saved. In general, democracy 
 gives largely to the community, and very sparingly to those who 
 govern it. The reverse is the case in aristocratic countries, 
 where the money of the State is expended to the profit of the 
 persons who are at the head of affairs. 
 
 Difficulty of Distinguishing the Causes which Con- 
 tribute TO THE Economy of the American Govern- 
 ment 
 
 We are liable to frequent errors in the research of those facts 
 which exercise a serious influence upon the fate of mankind, 
 since nothing is more difficult than to appreciate their real value. 
 One people is naturally inconsistent and enthusiastic ; another 
 is sober and calculating; and these characteristics originate in 
 their physical constitution or in remote causes with which we 
 are unacquainted. 
 
 There are nations which are fond of parade and the bustle 
 of festivity, and which do not regret the costly gaieties of an 
 hour. Others, on the contrary, are attached to more retiring 
 
 y See the American budgets for the 
 cost of indigent citizens and gratuitous 
 instruction. In 1831 $250,000 were spent 
 in the State of New York for the main- 
 tenance of the poor, and at least $i,ooo,- 
 000 were devoted to srratuitous instruc- 
 tion. (William's " New York Annual 
 
 Register," 1832, pp. 205 and 243.) The 
 State of New York contained only i.goo,- 
 000 inhabitants in the year 1830, which is 
 mt more than double the amount of 
 population in the Department du Nord 
 in France. 
 
 1: 
 
 I? ^ 'i 
 
 ■1 ( ; 
 
 I!) 
 
 il 
 
 i< I 
 
 f 4 
 
 1 
 
 11 
 
 ■I' > 
 
 
 I ' 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 t 
 
 ; 
 
 
 \\ 
 
 '1 
 
 L 
 
222 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 pleasures, and seem almost ashamed of appearing to be pleased. 
 In some countries the highest value is set upon the beauty of 
 public edifices ; in others the productions of art are treated with 
 indifference, and everything which is unproductive is looked 
 down upon with contempt. In some renown, in others money, 
 is the ruling passion. 
 
 Independently of the laws, all these causes concur to exer- 
 cise a very powerful influence upon the conduct of the finances 
 of the State. If the Americans never spend the money of the 
 people in galas, it is not only because the imposition of taxes is 
 under the control of the people, but because the people takes 
 no delight in public rejoicings. If they repudiate all ornament 
 from their architecture, and set no store on any but the more 
 practical and homely advantages, it is not only because they live 
 under democratic institutions, but because they are a commer- 
 cial nation. The habits of private life are continued in public ; 
 and we ought carefully to distinguish that economy which de- 
 pends upon their institutions from that which is the natural re- 
 sult of their manners and customs. 
 
 Whether the Expenditure of the United States can 
 be comp;.red to that of france 
 
 Two points to be established in order to estimate the extent of the pub- 
 lic charges, viz., the national wealth and the rate of taxation — The 
 weaUh and the charges of France not accurately known — Why the 
 wealth and charges of the Union cannot be accurately known — Re- 
 searches of the author with a view to discover the amount of taxa- 
 tion of Pennsylvania — General symptoms which may serve to in- 
 dicate the amount of the public charges in a given nation — Result of 
 this investigation for the Union. 
 
 Many attempts have recently been made in France to com- 
 pare the public expenditure of that country with the expendi- 
 ture of the United States; all these attempts have, however, 
 been unattended by success, and a few words will suffice to 
 show that they could not have had a satisfactory result. 
 
 In order to estimate the amount of the public charges of 
 a people two preliminaries are indispensable: it is necessary, 
 in the first place, to know the wealth of that people; and in 
 the second, to learn what portion of that wealth is devoted to 
 the expenditure of the State. To show the amount of taxation 
 without showing the resources which are destined to meet the 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 223 
 
 demand, is to undertake a futile labor; for it is not the ex- 
 penditure, but the relation of the expenditure to the revenue, 
 which it is desirable to know. 
 
 The same rate of taxation which may easily be supported 
 by a wealthy contributor will reduce a poor one to extreme 
 misery. The wealth of nations is composed of several distinct 
 elements, of which population is the first, real property the sec- 
 ond, and personal property the third. The first of these three 
 elements may be discovered without difficulty. Amongst civil- 
 ized nations it is easy to obtain an accurate census of the in- 
 habitants; but the two others cannot be determined with so 
 much facility. It is difficult to take an exact account of all the 
 lands in a country which are under cultivation, with their nat- 
 ural or their acquired value ; and it is still more impossible to 
 estimate the entire personal property which is at the disposal 
 of a nation, and which eludes the strictest analysis by the di- 
 versity and the number of shapes under which it may occur. 
 And, indeed, we find that the most ancient civilized nations of 
 Europe, including even those in which the administration is 
 most central, have not succeeded, as yet, in determining the 
 exact condition of their wealth. 
 
 In America the attempt has never been made ; for how would 
 such an investigation be possible in a country where society has 
 not yet settled into habits of regularity and tranquillity ; where 
 the national Government is not assisted by a multitude of agents 
 whose exertions it can command and direct to one sole end; 
 and where statistics are not studied, because no one is able to 
 collect the necessary documents, or to find time to peruse them ? 
 Thus the primary elements of the calculations which have been 
 made in France cannot be obtained in the Union ; the relative 
 wealth of the two countries is unknown; the property of the 
 former is not accurately determined, and no means exist of 
 computing that of the latter, 
 
 I consent, therefore, for the sake of the discussion, to aban- 
 don this necessary term of the comparison, and I confine myself 
 to a computation of the actual amount of taxation, without in- 
 vestigating the relation which subsists between the taxation and 
 the revenue. But the reader will perceive that my task has not 
 been facilitated by the limits which I here lay down for my re- 
 searches. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the central administration of 
 
 Hi 
 
 ! S\ 
 
 I I 
 
M 
 
 'U 
 
 
 224 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 France, assisted by all the public officers who are at its disposal, 
 might determine with exactitude the amount of the direct and 
 indirect taxes levied upon the citizens. But this investigation, 
 which no private individual can undertake, has not hitherto 
 been completed by the French Government, or, at least, its re- 
 sults have not been made public. We are acquainted with the 
 sum total of the charges of the State ; we know the amount of 
 the departmental expenditure; but the expenses of the com- 
 munal divisions have not been computed, and the amount of 
 the public expenses of France is consequently unknown. 
 
 If we now turn to America, we shall perceive that the diffi- 
 culties are multiplied and enhanced. The Union publishes an 
 exact return of the amount of its expenditure ; the budgets of 
 the four and twenty States furnish similar returns of their 
 revenues ; but the expenses incident to the aflfairs of the coun- 
 ties and the townships are unknown.^ 
 
 The authority of the Federal government cannot oblige the 
 provincial governments to throw any light upon this point ; and 
 even if these governments were inclined to afford their simul- 
 taneous co-operation, it may be doubted whether they possess 
 the means of procuring a satisfactory answer. Independently 
 of the natural difficulties of the task, the political organization 
 of the country would act as a hindrance to the success of their 
 efforts. The county and town magistrates are not appointed 
 by the authorities of the State, and they are not subjected to 
 their control. It is therefore v-ry allowable to suppose that, 
 if the State was desirous of obta. ling the returns which we re- 
 quire, its design would be counteracted by the neglect of those 
 
 k The Americans, as we have seen, 
 have {our separate budgets, the Union, 
 the States, the Counties, and the Town- 
 ships having each severally their own. 
 DurinK my stay in America I made 
 every endeavor to discover 'le amount 
 of the public expenditure iu the town- 
 ships and counties of the principal 
 States of the Union, and I readily ob- 
 tained the budget of the larger town- 
 ships, but I found it quite impossible 
 to procure that of the smaller ones. I 
 possess, however, some documents re- 
 lating to county expenses, which, al- 
 though incomplete, are still curious. I 
 have to thank Mr. Richards, Mayor of 
 Philadelphia, for the budgets of thir- 
 teen of the counties of Pennsylvania, 
 viz., Lebanon, Centre, Franklin, Fay- 
 ette, Montgomery, Luzerne, Dauphin, 
 Tiutler, Alleghany, Columbia, North- 
 ampton, Northumberland, and Philadel- 
 phia, for the year 1830. Their popula- 
 tion at that time consisted of 495,207 
 
 inhabitants. On looking at the map of 
 Pennsylvania, it will be seen that these 
 thirteen counties are scattered in every 
 direction, and so generally aflfected by 
 the causes which usually influence the 
 condition of a country, that they may 
 easily be supposed to furnish a correct 
 average of the financial state of the 
 counties of Pennsylvania in general; 
 and thus, upon reckoning that the ;x- 
 penses of these counties amounted in 
 the year 18.30 to about $.161,650, or nearly 
 75 cents for each inhabitant, and calcu- 
 lating that cnch of them contributed in 
 the same vcar about $2.55 towards the 
 Union, and about 75 cents to the State of 
 Pennsylvania, it appears that they each 
 contributed as their share of all the pub- 
 lic expenses (except those of the town- 
 ships) the sum ot $4.05. This calcula- 
 tion is doubly incomplete, as it applies 
 only to a single year and to one part of 
 the public charges; but it has at least 
 the merit of not being conjectural, 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 22$ 
 
 subordinate officers whom it would be obliged to employ.' It 
 is, in point of fact, useless to inquire what the Americans might 
 do to forward this inquiry, since it is certain that they have 
 hitherto done nothing at all. There does not exist a single indi- 
 vidual at the present day, in America or in Europe, who can 
 inform us what each citizen of the Union annually contributes 
 to the public charges of the nation.w 
 
 Hence we must conclude that it is no less difficult to compare 
 the social expenditure than it is to estimate the relative wealth 
 of France and America. I will even add that it would be 
 dangerous to attempt this comparison ; for when statistics are 
 not based upon computations which are strictly accurate, they 
 
 I Those who have attempted to draw 
 a comparison between the expenses of 
 France and America have at once per- 
 ceived that no such comparison could 
 be drawn between the total expenditure 
 of the two countries; i)ut they have en- 
 deavored to contrast detached portions 
 of this expenditure. It may readily be 
 shown that this second system is not 
 at all less defective than the first. If I 
 attempt to compare the French budget 
 with the budget of the Union, it inunit 
 be remembered that the latter embraces 
 much fewer objects than the central 
 Government of the former country, and 
 that the expenditure must conscciuently 
 be much smaller. If I contrast the bud- 
 gets of the Departments with those 
 of the States which constitute the 
 tJnion, it must be observed that, as the 
 power and control exercised by the 
 States is much greater than that which 
 is exercised by the Departments, their 
 expenditure is also more considerable. 
 As for the budgets of the counties, 
 nothing of the kind occurs in the 
 French system of finances; and it is, 
 again, doubtful whi ther the correspond- 
 ing expenses shouJd be referred to the 
 budget of the State or to those of the 
 municipal divisions. Municipal expenses 
 exist in both countries, but they are 
 not always analogous. In America the 
 townships discharge a variety of offices 
 which are reserved in France to the De- 
 partments or to the State. It may, more- 
 over, he asked what is to be understood 
 bv the municipal expenses of America. 
 TJie organization of the municipal 
 bodies or townships differs in the sev- 
 eral Staxc=. Are we to be guided by 
 what occurs in New Enjfland or in 
 Gcoriiia, in Pennsylvania or in the State 
 of Illinois? A kind of analogy may very 
 readily be perceived between certain 
 budgets in the two countries; but as 
 the elements of which they are com- 
 posed always differ more or less, no fair 
 comparison can he instituted between 
 them. [The same difficulty exists, per- 
 haps to a greater degree at the present 
 time, when the taxation of America has 
 largely increased.— 1874.] 
 
 m Even if we knew the exact pecuniary 
 contributions of every French andAmer- 
 
 VOL. I.— IS 
 
 ican citizen to the coflFers of the State, 
 we should only come at a portion of the 
 truth. Governments do not only demand 
 supplies of money, but they call fur 
 personal services, which may be looked 
 upon as equivalent to a given sum. 
 When a State raises an army, besides 
 the pay of the troops, which is furnished 
 by the entire nation, each soldier must 
 give up his time, the value of which 
 depends on the use he might make of 
 it if he were not in the service. The 
 same remark applies to the militia; the 
 citizen who is in thf militia devotes a 
 certain portion of valuable time to the 
 maintenance of the public peace, and 
 he does in reality surrender to the State 
 those earnings which he is prevented 
 from gaining. Many other instances 
 might be cited in addition to these. The 
 governments of France and of America 
 both levy taxes of this kind, which 
 weigh upon the citizens; but who can 
 estimate with accuracy their relative 
 amount in the two countries? 
 
 This, however, is not the last of the 
 difficulties which prevent us from com- 
 paring the expenditure of the Union 
 with that of France. The French Gov- 
 ernment contracts certain obligations 
 which do not exist in America, and 
 vice versa. The French Government 
 pays the clergy; in America the vol- 
 untary principle prevails. In America 
 there is a legal provision for the poor; 
 in France they are abandoned to the 
 charity of the public. The French pub- 
 lic officers are paid by a fixed salary; 
 in America they are allowed certain per- 
 quisites. In France contributions in 
 kind take place on very few roads; in 
 America upon almost all the thorough- 
 fares: in the former country the roads 
 are free to all travellers; in the latter 
 turnpikes abound. All these differences 
 in the manner in which contributions 
 are levied in the two countries enhance 
 the difficulty of comparing their expen- 
 diture; for there are certain expenses 
 which the citizens would not be subject 
 to, or which would at any rate be much 
 less considerable, if the St.ite did not 
 take upon itself to act in the name of 
 the public. 
 
 ( 
 
226 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 mislead instead of guiding aright. The mind is easily imposed 
 upon by the false affectation of exactness, which prevails even 
 in the misstatements of science, and it adopts with confidence 
 errors which are dressed in the forms of mathematical truth. 
 
 We abandon, therefore, our numerical investigation, with 
 the hope of meeting with data of another kind. In the absence 
 of positive documents, we may form an opinion as to the pro- 
 portion which the taxation of a people bears to its real pros- 
 perity, by observing whether its external appearance is flourish- 
 ing; whether, after having discharged the calls of the State, 
 the poor man retains the means of subsistence, and the rich the 
 means of enjoyment ; and whether both classes are contented i 
 with their position, seeking, however, to ameliorate it by per- 
 petual exertions, so that industry is never in want of capital, 
 nor capital unemployed by industry. The observer who draws 
 his inferences from these signs will, undoubtedly, be led to the 
 conclusion that the American of the United States contributes 
 a much smaller portion of his income to the State than the citi- 
 zen of France. Nor, indeed, can the result be otherwise. 
 
 A portion of the French debt is the consequence of two suc- 
 cessive invasions; and the Union has no similar calamity to 
 fear. A nation placed upon the continent of Europe is obliged 
 to maintain a large standing army ; the isolated position of the 
 Union enables it to have only 6,000 soldiers. The French have 
 a fleet of 300 sail ; the Americans have 52 vessels." How, then, 
 can the inhabitants of the Union be called upon to contribute 
 as largely as the inhabitants of France? No parallel can be 
 drawn between the finances of two countries so differently sit- 
 uated. 
 
 It is by examining what actually takes place in the Union, 
 and not by comparing the Union with France, that we may dis- 
 cover whether the American Government is really economical. 
 On casting my eyes over the different republics which form the 
 confederation, I perceive that their Governments lack perse- 
 verance in their undertakings, and that they exercise no steady 
 control over the men whom they employ. Whence I naturally 
 infer that they must often spend the money of the people to no 
 purpose, or consume more of it than is really necessary to their 
 
 Civil War, amounted to $2,480,672,437; 
 that of France was more than doubled 
 
 n See the details in the Budget of the 
 French Minister of Marine; and for 
 America, the National Calendar of i8m. 
 " — ■ public debt of the 
 
 p. 228. 
 United 
 
 the 
 tates in 
 
 fBut 
 Si 
 
 1870, caused by the 
 
 by the extravagance of the Second Em- 
 pire and by the war of 1870.] 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 2:7 
 
 undertakings. Great efforts are made, in accordance with the 
 democratic origin of society, to satisfy the exigencies of the 
 lower orders, to open the career of power to th-^tr endeavors, 
 and to diffuse knowledge and comfort amongst them. The 
 poor are maintained, immense sums are annually devoted to 
 public instruction, all services whatsoever are remunerated, and 
 the most subordinate agents are liberally paid. If this kind of 
 government appears to me to be useful and rational, I am never- 
 theless constrained to admit that it is expensive. 
 
 Wherever the poor direct public affairs and dispose of the 
 national resources, it appears certain that, as they profit by the 
 expenditure of the State, they are apt to augment that expendi- 
 ture. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, without having recourse to inaccurate 
 computations, and without hazarding a comparison which might 
 prove incorrect, that the democratic government of the Ameri- 
 cans is not a cheap government, as is sometimes asserted ; and 
 I have no hesitation in predicting that, if the people of the 
 United States is ever involved in serious difficulties, its taxation 
 will speedily be increased to the rate of that which prevails in 
 the greater part of the aristocracies and the monarchies of 
 Europe.o 
 
 ■ 
 
 Corruption and Vices of the Rulers in a Democracy, and 
 Consequent Effects upon Public Morality 
 
 In aristocracies rulers sometimes endeavor to corrupt the people — In 
 democracies rulers frequently show themselves to be corrupt — In 
 the former their vices are directly prejudicial to the morality of the 
 people — In the latter their indirect influence is still more pernicious. 
 
 A distinction must be made, when the aristocratic and the 
 democratic principles mutually inveigh against each other, as 
 tending to facilitate corruption. In aristocratic governments 
 the individuals who are placed at the head of affairs are rich 
 men, who are solely desirous of power. In democracies states- 
 men are poor, and they have their fortunes to make. The con- 
 sequence is that in aristocratic States the rulers are rarely ac- 
 cessible to corruption, and have very little craving for money ; 
 whilst the reverse is the case in democratic nations. 
 
 But in aristocracies, as those who are desirous of arriving 
 
 [That is precisely what has since occurred.] 
 
 
 I 
 
 ;',fl 
 

 1% 
 
 328 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 at the head of aflFairs are possessed of considerable wealth, and 
 as the number of persons by whose assistance they may rise is 
 comparatively small, the government is, if I may use the ex- 
 pression, put up to a sort of auction. In democracies, on the 
 contrary, those who are covetous of power are very seldom 
 wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is 
 extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men 
 who might be bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are 
 rarely to be met with; and, besides, it would be necessary to 
 buy so many persons at once that the attempt is rendered nuga- 
 tory. 
 
 Many of the men who have been in the administration in 
 France during the last forty years have been accused of making 
 their fortunes at the expense of the State or of its allies; a 
 reproach which was rai ely addressed to the public characters of 
 the ancient monarchy. But in France the practice of bribing 
 electors is almost unkn)wn, whilst it is notoriously and publicly 
 carried on in England. In the United States I never heard a 
 man accused of spending his wealth in corrupting the populace ; 
 but I have often heard the probity of public officers questioned ; 
 still more frequently have I heard their success attributed to 
 low intrigues and immoral practices. 
 
 If, then, the men who conduct the government of an aris- 
 tocracy sometimes endeavor to corrupt the people, the heads 
 of a democracy are themselves corrupt. In the former case the 
 morality of the people is directly assailed ; in the latter an in- 
 direct influence is exercised upon the people which is still more 
 to be dreaded. 
 
 As the rulers of democratic nations are almost always exposed 
 to the suspicion of dishonorable conduct, they in some measure 
 lend the authority of the Government to the base practices of 
 which they are accused. They thus afford an example which 
 must prove discouraging to the struggles of virtuous indepen- 
 dence, and must foster the secret calculations of a vicious ambi- 
 tion. If it be asserted that evil passions are displayed in all 
 ranks of society, that they ascend the throne by hereditary right, 
 and that despicable characters are to be met with at the head 
 of aristocratic nations as well as in the sphere of a democracy, 
 this objection has but little weight in my estimation. The 
 corruption of men who have casually risen to power has a coarse 
 and vulgar infection in it which renders it contagious to the 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 ••9 
 
 multitude. On the contrary, there is a kind of aristocratic 
 refinement and an air of grandeur in the depravity of the great, 
 which frequently prevent it from spreading abroad. 
 
 The people can never penetrate into the perplexing labyrinth 
 of court intrigue, and it will always have difficulty in detecting 
 the turpitude which lurks under elegant manners, refined tastes, 
 and graceful language. But to pillage the public purse, and 
 to vend the favors of the State, are arts which the meanest 
 villain may comprehend, and hope to practice in his turn. 
 
 In reality it is far less prejudicial to witness the immorality 
 of the great than to witness that immorality which leads to 
 greatness. In a denocracy private citizens see a man of their 
 own rank in life, who rises from that obscure position, and who 
 becomes possessed of riches and of power in a few years ; the 
 spectacle excites their surprise and their envy, and they are led 
 to inquire how the person who was yesterday their equal is 
 to-day their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his 
 virtues is unpleasant ; for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they 
 are themselves less virtuous and less talented than he was. They 
 are therefore led (and not unfrequently their conjecture is a 
 correct one) to impute his success mainly to some one of his 
 defects ; and an odious mixture is thus formed of the ideas of 
 turpitude and power, unworthiness and success, utility and dis- 
 honor. 
 
 Efforts of Which a Democracy is Capable 
 
 The Union has only had one struggle hitherto for its existence — En- 
 thusiasm at the commencement of the war — Indiflference towards its 
 close — Difficulty of establishing military conscription or impress- 
 ment of seamen in America — Why a democratic people is less 
 capable of sustained efTort than another. 
 
 I here warn the reader that I speak of a government which 
 implicitly follows ihe real desires of a people, and not of a gov- 
 ernment which simply commands in its name. Nothing is so 
 irresistible as a tyrannical power commanding in the name of 
 the people, because, whilst it exercises that moral influence 
 which belongs to the decision of the majority, it acts at the 
 same time with the promptitude and the tenacity of a single 
 man. 
 
 It is difficult to say what degree of exertion a democratic 
 government may be capable of making a crisis in the history 
 
 i 
 
 
 
I 
 
 330 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 'Pt* IJ 
 
 5f 
 
 of the nation. But no great dcmoc. .m.v* reiiublic has hitherto 
 existed in the world. To style the oltj, . liy which ruled over 
 France in 1793 by that name would be to offer an insult to the 
 republican form of government. The United States afford the 
 first example of the kind. 
 
 The American Union has now subsisted for half a century, 
 in the course of which time its existence has only once been 
 attacked, namely, during the War of Independence. At the 
 commencement of that long war, various occurrences took place 
 which betokened an extraordinary zeal for the service of the 
 country./* But as the contest was prolonged, symptoms of 
 private egotism began to show themselves. No money was 
 poured into the public treasury; few recruits could be raised 
 to join the army ; the people wished to acquire independence, 
 but was very ill-disposed to undergo the privatio*-" by which 
 alone it could be obtained. " Tax laws," says Hamilton in the 
 "Federalist" (No. 12), "have in vain been multiplied; new 
 methods to enforce the collection have in vain been tried ; the 
 public expectation has been uniformly disappointed and the 
 treasuries of the States have remained empty. The popular 
 system of administration inherent in the nature of popular gov- 
 ernment, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident 
 to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated 
 every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length 
 taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them." 
 
 The United States have not had any serious war to carry 
 on ever since that period. In order, therefore, to appreciate 
 the sacrifices which democratic nations may impose upon 
 themselves, we must wait until the American people is obliged 
 to put half its entire income at the disposal of the Government, 
 as was done by the English ; or until it sends forth a twentieth 
 part of its population to the field of battle, as was done by 
 France.9 
 
 In America the use of conscription is unknown, and men 
 are induced to enlist by bounties. The notions and habits of 
 the people of the United States are so opposed to compulsory 
 
 p One of the most singular of these 
 occurrences was the resolution which 
 the Americans took of temporarily 
 abandoning the use of tea. Those who 
 know that men usually cling more to 
 their habits than to their life will doubt- 
 less admire* this great though obscure 
 sacrifice which was made by a whole 
 people. 
 
 g [The Civil War showed that when 
 the necessity arose the American peo- 
 ple, both in the North and in the South, 
 are capable of makinf? the most enor- 
 mous sacrifices, both in money and in 
 men.] 
 
DKMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «3« 
 
 enlistment that I do not imagine it can ever be sanctioned by 
 the laws. What is termed the conscription in France is as- 
 suredly the heaviest tax upon the population of that country ; 
 yet how could a great continental war be carried on without it ? 
 The Americans have not adopted the British impressment of 
 seamen, and they have nothing which corresponds to the 
 French system of maritime conscription ; the navy, as well as 
 the merchant service, is supplied by voluntary service. But 
 it is not easy to conceive how a people can sustain a great mari- 
 time war without having recourse to one or the other of these 
 two systems. Ituleed, the Union, which has fought with some 
 honor upon the seas, has never possessed a very numerous tlcct, 
 and the equipment of the small number of American vessels 
 has always been excessively expensive. 
 
 I have heard American statesmen confess that the Union 
 will have great difficulty in maintaining its rank on the seas 
 without adopting the system of impressment or of maritime 
 conscription ; but the difficulty is to induce the people, which 
 exercises the supreme authority, to submit to impressment or 
 any compulsory system. 
 
 It is incontestable that in times of danger a free people dis- 
 plays far more energy than one which is not so. But I in.cline 
 to believe that this is more especially the case in those free 
 nations in which the democratic element preponderates. De- 
 mocracy appears to me to be much better adapted for the peace- 
 ful conduct of society, or for an occasional effort of remarkable 
 vigor, than for the hardy and prolonged endurance of the 
 storms which beset the political existence of nations. The rea- 
 son is very evident; it is enthusiasm which prompts men to 
 expose themselves to dangers and privations, but they will not 
 support them long without reflection. There is more calcula- 
 tion, even in the impulses of bravery, than is generally attrib- 
 uted to them ; and although the first efforts are suggested bv 
 passion, perseverance is maintained by a distinct regard of the 
 purpose in view. A portion of what we value is exposed, in 
 order to save the remainder. 
 
 But it is this distinct perception of the future, founded upon 
 a sound judgment and an enlightened experience, which is most 
 frequently wanting in democracies. The populace is more apt 
 to feel than to reason ; and if its present sufferings, ire great, 
 it is to be feared that the still greater sufferings attendant upon 
 defeat will be forgotten. 
 
 (\ 
 
 •i 
 
I, 
 
 v. 
 
 
 232 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Another cause tends to render the efforts of a democratic 
 government less persevering than those of an aristocracy. Not 
 only are the lowei classes less awakened than the higher orders 
 to the good or evil chances of the future, but they are liable 
 to suffer far mere acutely from present privations. The noble 
 exposes his life, indeed, but the chance of glory is equal to the 
 chance of harm. If he sacrifices a large portion of his income 
 to the State, he deprives himself for a time of the pleasures of 
 affluence; but to the poor man death is embeUished by no 
 pomp or renown, and the imposts which are irksome to the rich 
 are fatal to him. 
 
 This relative impotence of democratic republics is, perhaps, 
 the greatest obstacle to the foundation of a republic of this kind 
 in Europe. In order that such a State should subsist in one 
 country of the Old World, it would be necessary that similar 
 institutions should be introduced into all the other nations. 
 
 I am of opinion that a democratic government tends in the 
 end to increase the real strength of society ; but it can never 
 combine, upon a single point and at a given time, so much 
 power as an aristocracy or a monarchy. If a democratic coun- 
 try remained during a whole century subject to a republican 
 government, it would probably at the end of that period be 
 more populous and more prosperous than the neighboring des- 
 potic States. But it would have incurred the risk of being con- 
 quered much oftener than they would in that lapse of years. 
 
 lit, I 
 I 
 I, .: 
 
 Self-Control of the American Democracy 
 
 The Ameiiran people acquiesces slowly, or frequently does not ac- 
 quiesce, in what is beneficial to its interests — The faults of the 
 American democracy are for the most part reparable. 
 
 The difficulty which a democracy has in conquering the pas- 
 sions and in subduing the exigencies of the moment, with a 
 view to the future, is conspicuous in the most trivial occurrences 
 of the United States. The people, which is suriounded by flat- 
 terers, has great diflficulty in surmounting its inclinations, and 
 whenever it is solicited to undergo a privation or any kind of 
 inconvenience, even to attain an end which is sanctioned by 
 its own rational convicUon, it almost always refuses to comply 
 at first. The deference of the Americans to the laws has been 
 very justly applauded ; but it must be added that in America 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «33 
 
 the legislation is made by the people and for the people. Con- 
 sequently, in the United States the law favors those classes 
 which are most interested in evading it elsewhere. It may there- 
 fore be supposed that an offensive law, which should not be 
 acknowledged to be one of immediate utility, would either not 
 be enacted or would not be obeyed. 
 
 In America there is no law against fraudulent bankruptcies ; 
 not because they are few, but because there are a great number 
 of bankruptcies. The dread of being prosecuted as a bankrupt 
 acts with more intensity upon the mind of the majority of the 
 people than the fear of being involved in losses or ruin by the 
 failure of other parties, and a sort of guilty tolerance is extended 
 by the public conscience to an offence which everyone con- 
 demns in his individual capacity. In the new States of the 
 Southwest the citizens generally take justice into their own 
 hands, and murders are of very frequent occurrence. This arises 
 from the rude manners and the ignorance of the inhabitants 
 of those deserts, who do not perceive the utility of investing 
 the law with adequate force, and who prefer duels to prosecu- 
 tions. 
 
 Someone observed to me one day, in Philadelphia, that al- 
 most all crimes in America are caused by the abuse of intoxi- 
 cating liquors, which the lower classes can procure in great 
 abundance, from their excessive cheapness. " How comes it," 
 said I, " that you do not put a duty upon brandy? " " Our 
 legislators," rejoined my informant, " have frequently thought 
 of this expedient; but the task of putting it in operation is 
 a difficult one ; a revolt might be apprehended, and the mem- 
 bers who should vote for a law of this kind would be sure of 
 losing their seats." " Whence I am to infer," replied I, " that 
 the drinking population constitutes the majority in your coun- 
 try, and that temperance is somewhat unpopular." 
 
 When these things are pointed out to the American states- 
 men, they content themselves with assuring you that time will 
 operate the necessary change, and that the experience of evil 
 will teach the people its true interests. This is frequently true, 
 although a democracy is more liable to error than a monarch 
 or a body of nobles ; the chances of its regaining the right path 
 when once it has acknowledged its mistake, are greater also ; 
 because it is rarely embarrassed by internal interests, which 
 conflict with those of the majority, and resist the authority of 
 
 Ml 
 
 hi 
 
 
 y ! 
 
 '!' 
 
 M 
 
 
 i" 
 
i 
 
 
 n 
 
 ifi 
 
 t i 
 
 ■■ (( i 
 -■ I 
 
 ( 
 
 234 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 reason. But a democracy can only obtain truth as the result 
 of experience, and many nations may forfeit their existence 
 whilst they are awaiting the consequences of their errors. 
 
 The great privilege of the Americans does not simply con- 
 sist in their being more enlightened than other nations, but in 
 their being able to repair the faults they may commit. To 
 which it must be added, that a democracy cannot derive sub- 
 stantial benefit from past experience, unless it be arrived at 
 a certain pitch of knowledge and civilization. There are tribes 
 and peoples whose education has been so vicious, and whos«_ 
 character presents so strange a mixture of passion, of igno- 
 rance, and of erroneous notions upon all subjects, that they 
 are unable to discern the causes of their own wretchedness, and 
 they fall a sacrifice to ills with which they are unacquainted. 
 
 I have crossed vast tracts of country that were formerly in- 
 habited by powerful Indian nations which are now extinct; 
 I have myself passed some time in the midst of mutilated 
 tribes, which witness the daily decline of their numerical 
 strength and of the glory of their independence ; and I have 
 heard these Indians themselv^' anticipate the impending doom 
 of their race. Every European can perceive means which would 
 rescue these unfortunate beings from inevitable destruction. 
 They alone are insensible to the expedient ; they feel the woe 
 which year after year heaps upon their heads, but they will 
 perish to a man without accepting the remedy. It would be 
 necessary to employ force to induce them to submit to the pro- 
 tection and the constraint of civilization. 
 
 The incessant revolutions which have convulsed the South 
 American provinces for the last quarter of a century have fre- 
 quently been adverted to with astonishment, and expectations 
 have been expressed that those nations would speedily return 
 to their natural state. But can it be affirmed that the turmoil 
 of revolution is not actually the most natural state of the South 
 American Spaniards at the present time ? In that country so- 
 ciety is plunged into difficulties from which all its efforts are 
 insufficient to rescue it. The inhabitants of that fair portion 
 of the Western Hemisphere seem obstinately bent on pursuing 
 the work of inward havoc. If they fall into a momentary repose 
 from the effects of exhaustion, that repose prepares them for 
 a fresh state of frenzy. When I consider their condition, which 
 alternates between misery and crime, I should be inclined to 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 235 
 
 believe that despotism itself would be a benefit to them, if it 
 were possible that the words despotism and benefit could ever 
 be united in my mind. 
 
 Conduct of Foreign Affairs by tiili: American Democracy 
 
 Direction given to the foreign policy of the United States by Washing- 
 ton and Jefferson — Almost all the defects inherent in democratic 
 institutions are brought to light in the conduct of foreign affairs — 
 Their advantages are less perceptible. 
 
 We have seen that the Federal Constitution entrusts the per- 
 manent direction of the external interests of the nation to the 
 President and the Senate/ which tends in some degree to de- 
 tach the general foreign policy of the Union from the control 
 of the people. It cannot therefore be asserted with truth that 
 the external affairs of State are conducted by the democracy. 
 
 The policy of America owes its rise to Washington, and after 
 him to Jefferson, who established those principles which it 
 observes at the present day. Washington said in the admirable 
 letter which he addressed to his fellov -citizens, and which may 
 be looked upon as his political bequest to the country : " The 
 grep* rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in 
 extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little 
 political connection as possible. So far as we have already 
 formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good 
 faith. Here let us stop, Europe has a set of primary interests 
 which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she 
 must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of 
 which are essentially foreign to our concc.ns. Hence, there- 
 fore, it must be unwibc U: us to implicate ourselves, by artificial 
 ties, in the ordi'iary ^•ici'--situcc*s of her politics, or the ordinary 
 combinations and cotii iioiis cf li r friendships or enmities. Our 
 detached and dist uic situatic ! invites and enables us to pursue 
 a different courrc. If we remuii) one people, under an efficient 
 government, the peri or.! is not far oft when we may defy mate- 
 rial injury from external annoyance ; when we may take such 
 an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time re- 
 solve upon to be scrupulously respected ; when belligerent 
 
 r " The President," says the Consti- 
 tution, Art. II, sect. 2, § 2, " shall have 
 power, hy and with the advice and con- 
 sent of the Sen.ite, to make treaties, pro- 
 vided two-thirds of the senators present 
 
 concur." The reader is reminded that 
 the senators are returned for a term of 
 six years, and that they are chosen by 
 the legislature of each State. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 I 
 
236 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 m 
 
 nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon 
 us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when 
 we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, 
 shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a 
 situation ? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? 
 Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of 
 Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of Euro- 
 pean ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice? It is 
 our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any 
 portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are. now 
 at liberty to do it ; for let me not be understood as capable of 
 patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the 
 maxim no less applicable to public than to private afifairs, that 
 honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it; therefore, let 
 those engagements be observed in their genuine sense ; but 
 in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend 
 them. Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable es- 
 tablishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely 
 trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." 
 In a previous part of the same letter Washington makes the 
 following admirable and just remark : " The nation which in- 
 dulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fond- 
 ness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity 
 or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray 
 from its duty and its interest." 
 
 The political conduct of Washington was always guided by 
 these maxims. He succeeded in maintaining his country in 
 a state of peace whilst all the other nations of the globe were 
 at war; and he laid it down as a fundamental doctrine, that 
 the true imprest of the Americans consisted in a perfect neu- 
 trality with regard to the internal dissensions of the European 
 Powers. 
 
 Jefferson went still further, and he introduced a maxim into 
 the policy of the Union, which affirms that " the Americans 
 ought never to solicit any privileges from foreign nations, in 
 order not to be obliged to grant similar privileges themselves." 
 
 These two principles, which were so plain and so just as to 
 be adapted to the capacity of the populace, have greatly simpli- 
 fied the foreign policy of the United States. As the Union 
 takes no part in the affairs of Europe, it has, properly speaking, 
 no foreign interests to discuss, since it has at present no power- 
 
 
 iM 
 
 . ' !, 1 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 237 
 
 ful neighbors on the American continent. The country is as 
 much removed from the passions of the Old World by its posi- 
 tion as by the line of policy which it has chosen, and it is neither 
 called upon to repudiate nor to espouse the conflicting interests 
 of Europe ; whilst the dissensions of the New World are still 
 concealed within the bosom of the future. 
 
 The Union is free from all pre-existing obligations, and it 
 is consequently enabled to profit by the experience of the old 
 nations of Europe, without being obliged, as they are, to make 
 the best of the past, and to adapt it to their present circum- 
 stances ; or to accept that immense inheritance which they 
 derive from their forefathers — an inheritance of glory mingled 
 with calamities, and of alliances conflicting with national an- 
 tipathies. The foreign policy of the United States is reduced 
 by its very nature to await the chances of the future history of 
 the nation, and for the present it consists more in abstaining 
 from interference than in exerting its activity. 
 
 It is therefore very difficult to ascertain, at present, what 
 degree of sagacity the American democracy will display in 
 the conduct of the foreign policy of the country; and upon 
 this point its adversaries, as well as its advocates, must suspend 
 their judgment. As for myself I have no hesitation in avowing 
 my convictior , that it is most especially in the conduct of for- 
 eign relations that democratic governments appear to me to be 
 decidedly inferior to governments carried on upon dififerent 
 principles. Experience, instruction, and habit may almost al- 
 ways succeed in creating a species of practical discret.on in 
 democracies, and that science of the daily occurrences of life 
 which is called good sense. Good sense may suffice to direct 
 the ordinary course of society; and amongst a people whose 
 edurrition has been provided for, the advantages of democratic 
 liberty in the internal afifairs of the country may more than 
 compensate for the evils inherent in a democratic government. 
 But such is not always the case in the mutual relations of for- 
 eign nations. 
 
 Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which 
 a democracy possesses ; and they require, on the contrary, the 
 pertect use of almost all those faculties in which it is deficient. 
 Democracy is favorable to the increase of the internal re- 
 sources of the State ; it tends to diffuse a moderate indepen- 
 dence; it promotes the growth of public spirit, and fortifies 
 
 if 
 
 1 
 
 ■»*»*»*<«»i*«MB««W-«w-. 
 
I . 
 
 '\ - 
 
 238 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the respect which is entertained for law in all classes of society ; 
 and these are advantages which only exercise an indirect in- 
 fluence over the relations which one people bears to another. 
 But a democracy is unable to regulate the details of an impor- 
 tant undertaking, to persevere in a design, and to work out 
 its execution in the presence of serious obstacles. It cannot 
 combine its measures with secrecy, and it will not await their 
 consequences with patience. These are qualities which more 
 especially belong to an individual or to an aristocracy; and 
 they are precisely the means by which an individual people at- 
 tains to a predominant position. 
 
 If, on the contrary, we observe the natural defects of aris- 
 tocracy, we shall find that their influence is comparatively in- 
 noxious in the direction of the external affairs of a State. The 
 capital fault of which aristocratic bodies may be accused is that 
 they are more apt to contrive Uieir own advantage than that 
 of the mass of the people. In foreign politics it is rare for the 
 interest of the aristocracy 10 be in any wny distinct from that 
 of the people. 
 
 The propensity which democracies have to obey the impulse 
 of passion rather than the suggestions of prudence, and to 
 abandon a mat. ire design for the gratification of a momentary 
 caprice, was very clearly seen in America on the breaking out 
 of the French Revolution. It was then as evident to the sim- 
 plest capacity as it is at the present time that the interest of 
 the Americans forbade them to take any part in the contest 
 which was about to deluge Europe with blood, but which could 
 by no iTieans injure the welfare of their own country. Never- 
 theless the sympathies of the people declared themselves with 
 so much violence in behalf of France that nothing but the in- 
 flexible character of Washington, and the immense popularity 
 which he enjoyed, could have prevented the Americans from 
 declaring war against England. And even then, the exertions 
 which the austere reason of that great man made to repress the 
 generous but imprudent passions of his fellow-citizens, very 
 nearly deprived him of the sole recompense which he had ever 
 claimed — tl at of his country's love. The majority then repro- 
 batt>d the line of pc'irv which he adopted, and which has since 
 been i;naniniousIy approved by the nation.^ If the Constitu- 
 
 u 
 
 J See the fifth voliim* of M.^rshall's 
 " Life of Washington." In a gov- 
 
 ernment constituted like that of the 
 
 'il 
 
 v"* 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 239 
 
 tion and the favor of the public had not entrusted the direction 
 of the foreign affairs of the country to Washington, it is certain 
 that the American nation would at that time have taken the 
 very measures which it now condemns. 
 
 Almost all the nations which have ever exercised a powerful 
 influence upon the destinies of the world by conceiving, follow- 
 ing up, and executing vast designs — from the Romans to the 
 English — have been governed by aristocratic institutions. Nor 
 will this be a subject of wonder when we recollect that nothing 
 in the world has so absolute a fixity of purpose as an aristoc- 
 racy. The mass of the people may be led astray by ignorance 
 or passion ; the mind of a king may be biased, and his perse- 
 verance in his designs may be shaken — besides which a king 
 is not immortal — but an aristocratic body is too numerous to 
 be led astray by the blandishments of intrigue, and yet not 
 numerous enough to yield reaclily to the intoxicating influence 
 of unreflecting passion: it has the energy of a firm and en- 
 lightened individual, added to the power which it derives from 
 perpetuity. 
 
 siblc for the chief magistrate, however 
 firm he may be, to oppose for any 
 length of time the torrent of popular 
 opinion; and the prevalent opinion of 
 that day seemed to incline to war. In 
 fact, in the session of Congress held at 
 the time, it was frequently seen that 
 Washington had lost the majority in 
 the House of Representatives." The vio- 
 lence of the language used against him 
 in public was extreme, and in a political 
 meeting they did not scruple to com- 
 pare him indirectly to the treacherous 
 
 Arnold. " By the opposition," says 
 Marshall, " the friends of the adminis- 
 tration were declared to be an aristo- 
 cratic and corrupt faction, who, from 
 a desire to introduce monarchy, were 
 hostile to France and under the influ- 
 ence of Britain; that they were a paper 
 nobility, whose extreme sensibility at 
 everv measure which threatened the 
 funds, induced a tame submission to 
 injuries and insults, which the inter- 
 ests and honor of the nation required 
 them to resist." 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 ir.'i 
 
 if' 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 WHAT THE REAL ADVANTAGES ARE WHICH AMERICAN 
 SOCIETY DERIVES FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF THE 
 DEMOCRACY 
 
 BEFORE I enter upon the subject of the present chapter 
 I am induced to remind the reader of what I have more 
 than once adverted to in the course of this book. The 
 political institutions of the United States appear to nie to be 
 one of the forms of government which a democracy may adopt ; 
 but I do not regard the American Constitution as the best, or 
 as the only one, which a democratic people may establish. In 
 showing the advantages which the Americans derive from the 
 government of democracy, I am therefore very far from mean- 
 ing, or from believing, that similar advantages can only be 
 obtained from the same laws. 
 
 1 1 
 
 General Tendency of the Laws under the Rule of the 
 American Democracy, and Habits of Those who Ap- 
 ply THEM 
 
 Defects of a democratic government easy to be discovered — Its ad- 
 vantages only to be discerned by long observation — Democracy in 
 America often inexpert, but the general tendency of the laws ad- 
 vantageous — In the American democracy public officers have no 
 permanent interests distinct from those of the majority — Result of 
 this state of things. 
 
 The defects and the weaknesses of a democratic government 
 may very readily be discovered ; they are demonstrated by 
 the most flagrant instances, whilst its beneficial influence is less 
 perceptibly exercised. A single glance suffices to detect its 
 evil consequences, but its good qualities can only be discerned 
 by long observation. The laws of the American democracy 
 are frequently defective or incomplete ; they sometimes attack 
 vested rights, or give a sanction to others which are dangerous 
 
 240 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 241 
 
 to the community; but even if they were good, the frequent 
 changes which they undergo would be an evil. How comes it, 
 then, that the American republics prosper and maintain their 
 position ? 
 
 In the consideration of laws a distinction must be carefully 
 observed between the end at which they aim and the means by 
 which they are directed to that end, between their absolute 
 and their relative excellence. If it be the intention of the leg- 
 islator to favor the interests of the minority at the expense of 
 the majority, and if the measures he takes are so combined as 
 to accomplish the object he has in view with the least possible 
 expense of time and exertion, the law may be well drawn up, 
 although its purpose be bad; and the more efficacious it is, 
 the greater is the mischief which it causes. 
 
 Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of 
 the greatest possible number ; for they emanate from the ma- 
 jority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who can- 
 not have an interest opposed to their own advantage. The laws 
 of an aristocracy tend, on the contrary, to concentrate wealth 
 and power in the hands of the minority, because an aristocracy, 
 by its very nature, constitutes a minority. It may therefore be 
 asserted, as a general proposition, that the purpose of a dem- 
 ocracy in the conduct of its legislation is useful to a greater 
 number of citizens than that of an aristocracy. This is, how- 
 ever, the sum total of its advantages. 
 
 Aristocracies are infinitely more expert in the science of 
 legislation than democracies ever can be. They are possessed 
 of a self-control which protects them from the errors of tem- 
 porary excitement, and they form lasting designs which they 
 mature with the assistance of favorable opportunities. Aristo- 
 cratic government proceeds with the dexterity of art ; it under- 
 stands how to make the collective force of all its laws converge 
 at the same time to a given point. Such is not the case with 
 democracies, whose laws are almost always ineffective or in- 
 opportune. The means of democracy are therefore more im- 
 perfect than those of aristocracy, and the measures which it un- 
 wittingly adopts are frequently opposed to its own cause ; but 
 the object it has in view is more useful. 
 
 Let us now imagine a community so organized by nature, 
 or by its constitution, that it can support the transitcfry ac- 
 tion of bad laws, and that it can await, without destruction, 
 Vol. I.— 16 
 
 V 
 
 m 
 
 y 
 
 1' M 
 
 I 
 
 In 
 
 
 
(I 
 
 1 
 
 242 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 the general tendency of the legislation : we shall then be able 
 to conceive that a democratic government, notwithstanding 
 its defects, will be most fitted to conduce to the prosperity of 
 this community. This is precisely what has occurred in the 
 United States ; and I repeat, what I have before remarked, 
 that the great advantage of the \inericans consists in their 
 being able to commit faults which tltvy may afterward repair. 
 
 An analogous observation may be made respecting public 
 officers. It is easy to perceive that the American democracy 
 frequently errs in the choice of the individuals to whom it en 
 trusts the power of the administration ; but it is more difficult 
 to say why the State prospers under their rule. In the first 
 place it is to be remarked, that if in a democratic State the 
 governors have less honesty and less capacity than elsewhere, 
 the governed, on the oth(T hand, arc more enlightened and 
 more attentive to their interests. As the people in democracies 
 is more incessantly vigilant in its affairs and more jealous of 
 its rights, it prevents its representatives from abandoning that 
 general line of conduct which its own interest prescribes. In 
 the second place, it must be remembered that if the democratic 
 magistrate is more apt to misuse his power, he possesses it for 
 a shorter period of time. But there is yet another reason 
 which is still more general and conclusive. It is no doubt of 
 importance to the welfare of nations that they should be gov- 
 erned h-/ men of talents and virtue ; but it is perhaps still more 
 important that the interests of those men should not differ 
 from the interests of the community at large ; for, if such were 
 the case, virtues of a high order might become useless, and 
 talents might be turned to a bad account. I say that it is im- 
 portant that the interests of the persons in authority should 
 not conflict with or oppose the interests of the community at 
 large ; but I do not insist upon their having the same interests 
 as the whole population, because I am not aware that such a 
 state of things ever existed in any country. 
 
 No political form has hitherto been discovered which is equal- 
 ly favorable to the prosperity and the development of all the 
 classes into which society is divided. These classes continue to 
 form, as it were, a certain number of distinct nations in the 
 same nation ; and experience has shown that it is no less dan- 
 gerous to place the fate of these classes exclusively in the hands 
 of any one of them than it is to make one people the arbiter of 
 
 U^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 a43 
 
 the destiny of another. When the rich alone govern, the in- 
 terest of the poor is always endangered ; and when the poor 
 make the laws, that of the rich incurs very scrr.ous risks. The 
 advnntagc of democracy docs not consist, therefore, as has 
 sometimes been asserted, in favoring the prosperity of all, but 
 simply in contributing to the well-being of the greatest possible 
 number. 
 
 The men who are entrusted with the direction of public af- 
 fairs in the United States are frequently inferior, both in point 
 of capacity and of morality, to those whom aristocratic institu- 
 tions would raise to power. But their interest is identifie<! and 
 confounded with that of the majority of their fellow-citizens. 
 They may frequently be faithless and frequently mistaken, but 
 they will never systematically adopt a line of conduct opposed 
 to the will of the rity ; and it is impossible that they should 
 
 give a dangeroi an exclusive tendency to the government. 
 
 The mal-administration of a democratic magistrate is a mere 
 isolated fact, which only occurs during the short period for 
 which he is elected. Corruption and incapacity do not act as 
 common interests, which may connect men permanently with 
 one another. A corrupt or an incapable magistrate will not 
 concert his measures with another magistrate, simply because 
 that individual is as corrupt and as incapable as himself ; and 
 these two men will never unite their endeavors to promote the 
 corruption and inaptitude of their remote posterity. The am- 
 bition and the manoeuvres of the one will serve, on the cqn- 
 trary, to unmask the other. The vices of a magistrate, in dem- 
 ocratic states, are usually peculiar to his own person. 
 
 But under aristocratic governments public men are swayed 
 by the interest of their order, which, if it is sometimes con- 
 founded with the interests of the majority, is very frequently 
 distinct from them. This interest is the common and lasting 
 bond which unites them together; it induces them to coa- 
 lesce, and to combine their efforts in order to attain an end 
 which does not always ensure the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number; and it serves not only to connect the per- 
 sons in authority, but to unite them to a considerable portion 
 of the community, since a numerous body of citizens belongs 
 to the aristocracy, without being invested with official func- 
 tions. The aristocratic magistrate is therefore constantly sup- 
 ported by a portion of the community, as well as by the Gov- 
 ernment of which he is a member. 
 
 k 
 
 
 ]i 
 
 I 
 
 yi0^a^"'J tf»ta *w*«« ^ ^* «: ^ ^^«W »i »^ *M r -■* - 
 
■.%. 
 
 ^. 
 
 ^W^W 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 
 
 :/j 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 IM 121 
 
 2.2 
 
 111 
 
 i -- IM 
 
 1.8 
 
 11-25 111 1.4 IIIIII.6 
 
 'n 
 
 /: 
 
 f 
 
 > 
 
 >> ? 
 
 
 y 
 
 7 
 
 /<^ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) 873-4503 
 
344 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 The common purpose which connects the interest of the 
 magistrates in aristocracies with that of a portion of their 
 contemporaries identifies it with that of future generations; 
 their influence belongs to the future as much as to the present. 
 The aristocratic magistrate is urged at the same time toward 
 the same point by the passions of the community, by his own, 
 and I may almost add by those of his posterity. Is it, then, 
 wonderful that he does not resist such repeated impulses? 
 And indeed aristocracies are often carried away by the sp'rit 
 of their order without being corrupted by it; and they un- 
 consciously fashion society to their own ends, and prepare it 
 for their own descendants. 
 
 The English aristocracy is perhaps the most liberal which 
 ever existed, and no body of men has ever, uninterruptedly, 
 furnished so many honorable and enlightened individuals to 
 the government of a country. It cannot, however, escape ob- 
 servation that in the legislation of England the good of the 
 poor has been sacrificed to the advantage of the rich, and the 
 rights of the majority to the privileges of the few. The con- 
 sequence is, that England, at the present day, combines the 
 extremes of fortune in the bosom of her society, and her perils 
 and calamities are almost equal to her power and her renown.o 
 
 In the United States, where the public officers have no in- 
 terests to promote connected with their caste, the general and 
 constant influence of the Government is beneficial, although 
 the individuals who conduct it are frequently unskilful and 
 sometimes contemptible. There is indeed a secret tendency in 
 democratic institutions to render the exertions of the citizens 
 subservient to the prosperity of the community, notwithstand- 
 ing their private vices and mistakes ; whilst in aristocratic in- 
 stitutions there is a secret propensity which, notwithstanding 
 the talents and the virtues of those who conduct the govern- 
 ment, leads them to contribute to the evils which oppress their 
 fellow-creatures. In aristocratic governments public men may 
 frequently do injuries which they do not intend, and in demo- 
 cratic states they produce advantages which they never thought 
 of. 
 
 a [The legislation of England {or the 
 fortv years is certainly not fairly open 
 to this criticism, which was written be- 
 fore the Reform Bill of 1832, and accord- 
 
 ingly Great Britain has thus far escaped 
 and surmounted the perils and calami- 
 ties to which she seemed to be ex- 
 posed.] 
 
 1^ : 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 Public Spirit in the United States 
 
 *45 
 
 / 
 
 Patriotism of instinct— Patriotism of reflection— Their different char- 
 acteristics — Nations ought to strive to acquire the second when the 
 first has disappeared— Efforts of the Americans to acquire it — In- 
 terest of the individual intimately connected with that of the country. 
 
 There is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally 
 arises from that instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable feel- 
 ing which connects the affections of man with his birthplace. 
 This natural fondness is united to a taste for ancient customs, 
 and to a reverence for ancestral traditions of the past ; those 
 who cherish it love their country as they love the mansions of 
 their fathers. They enjoy the tranquillity which it affords 
 them ; they cling to the peaceful habits which they have con- 
 tracted within its bosom; they are attached to the reminis- 
 cences which it awakens, and they are even pleased by the state 
 of obedience in which they are placed. This patriotism is 
 sometimes stimulated by religious enthusiasm, and then it is 
 capable of making the most prodigious efforts. It is in itself 
 a kind of religion ; it does not reason, but it acts from the im- 
 pulse of faith and of sentiment. By some nations the monarch 
 has been regarded as a personification of the country ; and the 
 fervor of patriotism being converted into the fervor of loyalty, 
 they took a sympathetic pride in his conquests, and gloried in 
 his power. At one time, under the ancient monarchy, the 
 French felt a sort of satisfaction in the sense of their dependence 
 upon the arbitrary pleasure of their king, and they were wont 
 to say with pride, " We are the subjects of the most powerful 
 king in the world." 
 
 But, like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism is 
 more apt to prompt transient exertion than to supply the mo- 
 tives of continuous endeavor. It may save the State in critical 
 circumstances, but it will not unfrequently allow the nation to 
 decline in the midst of peace. Whilst the manners of a people 
 are simple and its faith unshaken, whilst society is steadily 
 based upon traditional institutions whose legitimacy has never 
 been contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to endure. 
 
 But there is another species of attachment to a country 
 which is more rational than the one we have been describing. 
 It is perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more 
 fruitful and more lasting ; it is coeval with the spread of knowl- 
 
 t; 
 
4 
 
 •■i' 
 t 
 
 .1 
 
 246 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 edge, it is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of 
 civil rights, and, in the end, it is confounded with the personal 
 interest of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence 
 which the prosperity of his country has upon his own welfare ; 
 he is aware that the laws authorize him to c jntribute his as- 
 sistance to that prosperity, and he labors to promote it as a por- 
 tion of his interest in the first place, and as a portion of his 
 right in the second. 
 
 But epochs sometimes occur, in the course of the existence 
 of a nation, at which the ancient customs of a people are 
 changed, public morality destroyed, religious belief disturbed, 
 and the spell of tradition broken, whilst the diffusion of knowl- 
 edge is yet imperfect, and the civil rights of the community 
 are ill secured, or confined within very narrow limits. The 
 country then assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of 
 the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they 
 inhabit, for that soil is to them a dull inanimate clod ; nor in 
 the usages of their forefathers, which they have been taught to 
 look upon as a debasing yoke ; nor in religion, for of that they 
 doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own 
 authority ; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. 
 The country is lost to their senses, they can neither discover 
 it under its own nor under borrowed features, and they en- 
 trench themselves within the dull precincts of a narrow egot- 
 ism. They are emancipated from prejudice without having ac- 
 knowledged the empire of reason ; they are neither animated 
 by the instinctive patriotism of monarchical subjects nor by 
 the thinking patriotism of republican citizens ; but they have 
 stopped halfway between the two, in the midst of confusion 
 and of distress. 
 
 In this predicament, to retreat is impossible; for a people 
 cannot restore the vivacity of its earlier times, any more than 
 a man can return to the innocence and the bloom of childhood ; 
 such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. 
 The only thing, then, which remains to be done is to proceed, 
 and to accelerate the union of private with public interests, 
 since the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever. 
 
 I am certainly very far from averring that, in order to ob- 
 tain this result, the exercise of political rights should be im- 
 mediately granted to all the members of the community. But 
 I maintain that the most powerful, and perhaps the only, means 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 247 
 
 of interesting men in the welfare of their country which we 
 still possess is to make them partakers in the Government. 
 At the present time civic zeal seems to me to be inseparable 
 from the exercise of political rights ; and I hold that the num- 
 ber of citizens will be found to augment or to decrease in 
 Europe in proportion as those rights are extended. 
 
 In the United States the inhabitants were thrown but as 
 yesterday upon the soil which they now occupy, and they 
 brought neither customs nor traditions with them there ; they 
 meet each other for the first time with no previous acquaint- 
 ance ; in short, the instinctive love of their country can scarcely 
 exist in their minds ; but everyone takes as zealous an interest 
 in the affairs of his township, his county, and of the whole 
 State, as if they were his own, because everyone, in his sphere, 
 takes an active part in the government of society. 
 
 The lower orders in the United States are alive to the per- 
 ception of the influence exercised by the general prosperity 
 upon their own welfare ; and simple as this observation is, it 
 is one which is but too rarely made by the people. But in 
 America the people regards this prosperity as the result of 
 its own exertions; the citizen looks upon the fortune of the 
 public as his private interest, and he co-operates in its success, 
 not so much from a sense of pride or of duty, as from what I 
 shall venture to term cupidity. 
 
 It is unnecessary to study the institutions and the history 
 of the Americans in order to discover the truth of this re- 
 mark, for their manners render it sufficiently evident. As the 
 American participates in all that is done in his country, he 
 thinks himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured ; 
 for it is not only his country which is attacked upon these 
 occasions, but it is himself. The consequence is, that his na- 
 tional pride resorts to a thousand artifices, and to all the petty 
 tricks of individual vanity. 
 
 Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse 
 of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A 
 stranger may be very well inclined to praise many of the in- 
 stitutions of their country, but he begs permission to blame 
 some of the peculiarities which he observes — a permission 
 which is, however, inexorably refused. America is therefore a 
 free country, in which, lest anybody should be hurt by your 
 remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private indi- 
 
 (■ 
 
' I 
 
 248 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 viduals, or of the State, of the citizens or of the authorities, 
 of public or of private undertakings, or, in short, of anything 
 at all, except it be of the climate and the soil ; and even then 
 Americans will be found ready to defend either the one or the 
 other, as if they had been contrived by the inhabitants of the 
 country. 
 
 In our times option must be made between the patriotism 
 of all and the government of a few ; for the force and activity 
 which the first confers are irreconcilable with the guarantees 
 of tranquillity which the second furnishes. 
 
 Notion of Rights in the United States 
 
 No great people without a notion of rights — How the notion of rights 
 can be given to people — Respect of rights in the United States — 
 Whence it arises. 
 
 After the idea of virtue, I know no higher principle than 
 that of right; or, to speak more accurately, these two ideas 
 are commingled in one. The idea of right is simply that of 
 virtue introduced into the political world. It is the idea of 
 right which enabled men to define anarchy and tyranny; and 
 which taught them to remain independent without arrogance, 
 as well as to obey without servility. The man who submits 
 to violence is debased by his compliance ; but when he obeys 
 the mandate of one who possesses that right of atithority which 
 he acknowledges in a fellow-creature, he rises in some measure 
 above the person who delivers the command. There are no 
 great men without virtue, and there are no great nations — 
 it may almost be added that there would be no society — with- 
 out the notion of rights ; for what is the condition of a mass of 
 rational and intelligent beings who are only united together by 
 the bond of force ? 
 
 I am persuaded that the only means which we possess at 
 the present time of inculcating the notion of rights, and of 
 rendering it, as it were, palpable to the senses, is to invest 
 all the members of the community with the peaceful exercise 
 of certain rights: this is very clearly seen in children, who 
 are men without the strength and the experience of manhood. 
 When a child begins to move in the midst of the objects 
 which surround him, he is instinctively led to turn every- 
 thing which he can lay his hands upon to his own purposes ; 
 
 
 I) i '1- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 ■4» 
 
 by 
 
 he has no notion of the property of others ; but as he gradually 
 learns the value of things, and begins to perceive that he 
 may in his turn be deprived of his possessions, he becomes 
 more circumspect, and he observes those rights in others which 
 he wishes to have respected in himself. The principle which 
 the child derives from the possession of his toys is taught to 
 the man by the objects which he may call his own. In America 
 those complaints against property in general which are so 
 frequent in Europe are never heard, because in America there 
 are no paupers ; and as everyone has property of his own to 
 defend, everyone recognizes the princinle upon which he holds 
 it. 
 
 The same thing occurs in the political world. In America 
 the lowest classes have conceived a very high notion of political 
 rights, because they exercise those rights; and they refrain 
 from attacking those of other people, in order to ensure their 
 own from attack. Whilst in Europe the same classes some- 
 times recalcitrate even against the supreme power, the Ameri- 
 can submits without a murmur to the authority of the pettiest 
 magistrate. 
 
 This truth is exemplified by the most trivial details of na- 
 tional peculiarities. In France very few pleasures are ex- 
 clusively reserved for the higher classes; the poor are ad- 
 mitted wherever the rich are received, and they consequently 
 behave with propriety, and respect whatever contributes to 
 the enjoyments in which they themselves participate. In Eng- 
 land, where wealth has a monopoly of amusement as well as of 
 power, complaints are made that whenever the poor happen 
 to steal into the enclosures which are reserved for the pleas- 
 ures of the rich, they commit acts of wanton mischief: can 
 this be wondered at, since care has been taken that they should 
 have nothing to lose ?t> 
 
 The government of democracy brings the notion of political 
 rights to the level of the humblest citizens, just as the dis- 
 semination of wealth brings the notion of property within the 
 reach of all the members of the community ; and I confess that, 
 to my mind, this is one of its greatest advantages. I do not 
 assert that it is easy to teach men to exercise political rights ; 
 
 ;i 
 
 b [This, too, has been .nmended by 
 much larger provisions for the amuse- 
 ments of the people in public parks, 
 gardens, museums, etc.; and the con- 
 
 duct of the people in these places of 
 amusement has improved in the same 
 proportion.] 
 
 ll 
 
 ysiffiimi »!i|i)aiiiii«amn«i 
 
E ij 
 
 w,\^'Vi 
 
 050 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 but I maintain that, when it is possible, the effects which re- 
 sult from it are highly important ; and I add that, if there ever 
 was a time at which such an attempt ought to be made, that 
 time is our own. It is clear that the influence of religious be- 
 hef is shaken, and that the notion of divine rights is declining ; 
 it is evident that public morality is vitiated, and the notion of 
 moral rights is also disappearing : these are general symptoms 
 of the substitution of argument for faith, and of calculation for 
 the impulses of sentiment. If, in the midst of this general dis- 
 ruption, you do not succeed in connecting the notion of rights 
 with that of personal interest, which is the only immutable 
 point in the human heart, what means will you have of gov- 
 erning the world except by fear? When I am told that, since 
 the laws are weak and the populace is wild, since passions are 
 excited and the authority of virtue is paralyzed, no measures 
 must be taken to increase the rights of the democracy, I reply, 
 that it is for these very reasons that some measures of the 
 kind must be taken; and I am persuaded that governments 
 are still more interested in taking them than society at large, 
 because governments are liable to be destroyed and society 
 cannot perish. 
 
 I am not, however, inclined to exaggerate the example 
 which America furnishes. In those States the people are in- 
 vested with political rights at a time when they could scarcely 
 be abused, for the citizens were few in number and simple in 
 their manners. As they have increased, the Americans have 
 not augmented the power of the democracy, but they have, if I 
 may use the expression, extended its dominions. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the moment at which political 
 rights are granted to a people that had before been without 
 them is a very critical, though it be a necessary one. A child 
 may kill before he is aware of the value of life ; and he may 
 deprive another person of his property before he is aware 
 that his own may be taken away from him. The lower orders, 
 when first they are invested with political rights, stand, in re- 
 lation to those rights, in the same position as the child does 
 to the whole of nature, and the celebrated adage may then be 
 applied to them, Homo puer robustus. This truth may even 
 be perceived in America. The States in which the citizens have 
 enjoyed their rights longest are those in which they make the 
 best use of them. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 •51 
 
 It cannot be repeated too often that nothing is more fertile in 
 prodigies than the art of being free ; but there is nothing more 
 arduous than the apprenticeship of liberty. Such is not the 
 case with despotic institutions: despotism often promises to 
 make amends for a thousand previous ills ; it supports the right, 
 it protects the oppressed, and it maintains public order. The 
 nation is lulled by the temporary prosperity which accrues to 
 it, until it is roused to a sense of its own misery. Liberty, on 
 the contrary, is generally established in the midst of agitation, 
 it is perfected by civil discord, and its benefits cannot be ap- 
 preciated until it is already old. 
 
 . (•' 
 
 Respect for the Law in the United States 
 
 Respect of the Americans for the law — Parental affection which they 
 entertain for it — Personal interest of everyone to increase the au- 
 thority of the law. 
 
 It is not always feasible to consult the whole people, either 
 directly or indirectly, in the formation of the law ; but it can- 
 not be denied that, when such a measure is possible the 
 authority of the law is very much augmented. This popular or- 
 igin, which impairs the excellence and the wisdom of legisla- 
 tion, contributes prodigiously to increase its power. There is 
 an amazing strength in the expression of the determination of 
 a whole people, and when it declares itself the imagination of 
 those who are most inclined to contest it is overawed by its 
 authority. The truth of this fact is very well known by par- 
 ties, and they consequently strive to make out a majority when- 
 ever they can. If they have not the greater number of voters 
 on their side, they assert that the true majority abstained from 
 voting; and if they are foiled even there, they have recourse 
 to the body of those persons who had no votes to give. 
 
 In the United States, except slaves, servants, and paupers in 
 the receipt of relief from the townships, there is no class of per- 
 sons who do not exercise the elective franchise, and who do 
 not indirectly contribute to make the laws. Those who design 
 to attack the laws must consequently either modify the opinion 
 of the nation or trample upon its decision. 
 
 A second reason, which is still more weighty, may be further 
 adduced ; in the United States everyone is personally interested 
 in enforcing the obedience of the whole community to the law ; 
 
 
 i\ 
 
 tiA4i0Mtm^tA'je*»i 
 
 *^^'Yiiir iiiimf-ini>iiiirtBi#iB-'iii i ■im m 
 
859 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ! ; 
 
 ii 
 
 I i 
 
 for as the minority may shortly rally the majority to its prin- 
 ciples, it is interested in professing that respect for the decrees 
 of the legislator which it may soon have occasion to claim for 
 its own. However irksome an enactment may be, the citizen 
 of the United States complies with it, not only because it is the 
 work of the majority, but because it originates in his own au- 
 thority, and he regards it as a contract to which he is himself 
 a party. 
 
 In the United States, then, that numerous and turbulent mul- 
 titude does not exist which always looks upon the law as its 
 natural enemy, and accordingly surveys it with fear and with 
 distrust. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to perceive 
 that all classes display the utmost reliance upon the legislation 
 of their country, and that they are attached to it by a kmd of 
 parental affection. 
 
 I am wrong, however, in saying all classes ; for as in America 
 the European scale of authority is inverted, the wealthy are 
 there placed in a position analogous to that of the poor in the 
 Old World, and it is the opulent classes which frequently look 
 upon the law with suspicion. I have already observed that the 
 advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted, 
 that it protects the interests of the whole community, but sim- 
 ply that it protects those of the majority. In the United States, 
 where the poor rule, the rich have always some reason to dread 
 the abuses of their power. This natural anxiety of the rich 
 may produce a sullen dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed 
 by it ; for the same reason which induces the rich to withhold 
 their confidence in the legislative authority makes them obey 
 its mandates ; their wealth, which prevents them from making 
 the law, prevents them from withstanding it. Amongst civil- 
 ized nations revolts are rarely excited, except by such persons 
 as have nothing to lose by them ; and if the laws of a democracy 
 are not always worthy of respect, at least they always obtain it ; 
 for those who usually infringe the laws have no excuse for not 
 complying with the enactments they have themselves made, 
 and by which they are themselves benefited, whilst the citi- 
 zens whose interests might be promoted by the infraction of 
 them are induced, by their character and their stations, to sub- 
 mit to the decisions of the legislature, whatever they may be. 
 Besides which, the people in America obeys the law not only 
 because it emanates from the popular authority, but because 
 
 ^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 353 
 
 that authority may modify it in any points which may prove 
 vexatory ; a law is observed because it is a self-imposed evil in 
 the first place, and an evil of transient duration in the second. 
 
 Activity which Pervades all the Branches op the 
 Body Politic in the United States; Influencic which 
 IT Exercises upon Society 
 
 More difficult to conceive the political activity which pervades the 
 United States than the freedom and equality which reign there — 
 The great activity which perpetually agitates the legislative bodies 
 is only an episode to the general activity — Difficult for an American 
 to confine himself to his own business — Political agitation extends 
 to all social intercourse — Commercial activity of the Americans 
 partly attributable to this cause — Indirect advantages which society 
 derives from a democrati': government. 
 
 On passing from a country in which free institutions are es- 
 tablished to one where they do not exist, the traveller is struck 
 by the change ; in the former all is bustle and activity, in the 
 latter everything is calm and motionless. In the one, amelio- 
 ration and progress are the general topics of inquiry ; in the 
 other, it seems as if the community only aspired to repose in 
 the enjoyment of the advantages which it has acquired. 
 Nevertheless, the country which exerts itself so strenuously to 
 promote its welfare is generally more wealthy and more pros- 
 perous than that which appears to be so contented with its lot ; 
 and when we compare them together, we can scarcely conceive 
 how so many new wants are daily felt in the former, whilst so 
 few seem to occur in the latter. 
 
 If this remark is applicable to those free countries in which 
 monarchical and aristocratic institutions subsist, it is still more 
 striking with regard to democratic republics. In these States 
 it is not only a portion of the people which is busied with the 
 amelioration of its social condition, but the whole community 
 is engaged in the task ; and it is not the exigencies and the con- 
 venience of a single class for which a provision is to be made, 
 but the exigencies and the convenience of all ranks of life. 
 
 It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which 
 the Americans enjoy ; some idea may likewise be formed of the 
 extreme equality which subsists amongst them, but the political 
 activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order 
 to be understood. No sooner do you set foot upon the Amer- 
 
 
 1 >j 
 
 a 
 
 li 
 
"rr- 
 
 I 
 
 '54 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I *r i 
 
 i 
 
 > i 
 
 ican soil than you are stunned by a kind of tumult ; a confused 
 clamor is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous 
 voices demand the immediate satisfaction of their social wants. 
 Everything is in motion around you ; here, the people of one 
 quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a 
 church ; there, the election of a representative is going on ; a 
 little further the delegates of a district arc posting to the town 
 in order to consult upon some local improvements ; or in an- 
 other place the laborers of a village quit their ploughs to delib- 
 erate upon the project of a road or a public school. Meetings 
 are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation 
 of the line of conduct pursued by the Government ; whilst in 
 other assemblies the citizens salute the authorities of the day as 
 the fathers of their country. Societies are formed which regard 
 drunkenness as the principal cause of the evils under which the 
 State labors, and which solemnly bind themselves to give a 
 constant example of temperance.? 
 
 The great political agitation of the American legislative 
 bodies, which is the only kind of excitement that attracts the 
 attention of foreign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of 
 continuation of that universal movement which originates in 
 the lowest classes of the people and extends successively to all 
 the ranks of society. It is impossible to spend more efforts in 
 the pursuit of enjoyment. 
 
 The cares of political life engross a most prominent place in 
 the occupation of a citizen in the United States, and almost the 
 only pleasure of which an American has any idea is to take a 
 part in the Government, and to discuss the part he has taken. 
 This feeling pervades the most trifling habits of life ; even the 
 women frequently attend public meetings and listen to political 
 harangues as a recreation after their household labors. De- 
 bating clubs are to a certain extent a substitute for theatrical 
 entertainments :• an American cannot converse, but he can dis- 
 cuss ; and when he attempts to talk he falls into a dissertation. 
 He speaks to you as if he was addressing a meeting ; and if he 
 should chance to warm in the course of the discussion, he will 
 infallibly say, " Gentlemen," to the person with whom he is 
 conversing. 
 
 c At the time of my stay in the 
 United States the temperance societies 
 already consisted of more than 270,000 
 members, and their eScU had been to 
 
 diminish the consumption of fermented 
 liquors by $00,000 f^allons per annum in 
 the State of Pennsylvania alone. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 255 
 
 In some countries the inhabitants display a certain repug- 
 nance to avail themselves of the political privileges with which 
 the law invests them ; it would seem that they set too high a 
 value upon their time to spend it on the interests of the com- 
 munity ; and they prefer to withdraw within the exact limits 
 of a wholesome egotism, marked out by four sunk fences and 
 a quickset hedge. But if an American were condemned to con- 
 fme his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one- 
 half of his existence ; he would feel an immense void in the life 
 which he is accustomed to lead, and his wretchedness would be 
 unbearable.^ I am persuaded that, if ever a despotic govern- 
 ment is established in America, it will find it more difficult to 
 surmount the habits which free institutions have engendered 
 than to conquer the attachment of the citizens to freedom. 
 
 This ceaseless agitation which democratic government has 
 introduced into the political world influences all social inter- 
 course. I am not sure that upon the whole this is not the great- 
 est advantage of democracy. And I am much less inclined to 
 applaud it for what it does than for what it causes to be done. 
 
 It is incontestable that the people frequently conducts public 
 business very ill ; but it is impossible that the lower orders 
 should take a part in public business without extending the 
 circle of their ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine 
 of their mental acquirements. The humblest individual who 
 is called upon to co-operate in the government of society ac- 
 quires a certain degree of self-respect ; and as he possesses au- 
 thority, he can command the services of minds much more en- 
 lightened than his own. He is canvassed by a multitude of 
 applicants, who seek to deceive him in a thousand different 
 ways, but who instruct him by their deceit. He takes a part 
 in political undertakings which did not originate in his own 
 conception, but which give him a taste for undertakings of the 
 kind. New ameliorations are daily pointed out in the prop- 
 erty which he holds in common with others, and this gives him 
 the desire of improving that property which is more peculiarly 
 his own. He is perhaps neither happier nor better than those 
 who came before him, but he is better informed and more 
 active. I have no doubt that the democratic institutions of the 
 
 I 
 
 a 
 
 rfThe same remark was made at 
 Rome under the first Cxsars. Montes- 
 quieu somewhere alludes to the exces- 
 sive despondency of certain Roman cit- 
 
 izens who, after the excitement of polit- 
 ical life, were all at once flung back into 
 the stagnation of private life. 
 
 /i 
 
 u 
 
fin" 
 
 
 ' ! ( 
 
 I". M 
 
 256 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 United States, joined to the physical constitution of the coun- 
 try, are the cause (not the direct, as is so often asserted, but the 
 indirect cause) of the prodigious commercial activity of the 
 inhabitants. It is not engendered by the laws, but the people 
 learns how to promote it by the experience derived from legis- 
 lation. 
 
 When the opponents of democracy assert that a single indi- 
 vidual performs the duties which he undertakes much better 
 than the government of the community, it appears to me that 
 they are perfectly right. The government of an individual, 
 supposing an equality of instruction on either side, is more con- 
 sistent, more persevering, and more accurate than that of a 
 multitude, and it is much better qualified judiciously to dis- 
 criminate the characters of the men it employs. If any deny 
 what I advance, they have certainly never seen a democratic 
 government, or have formed their opinion upon very partial 
 evidence. It is true that even when local circumstances and the 
 disposition of the people allow democratic institutions to sub- 
 sist, they never display a regular and methodical system of 
 government. Democratic liberty is far from accomplishing all 
 the projects it undertakes, with the skill of an adroit despotism. 
 It frequently abandons them before they have borne their fruits, 
 or risks them when the consequences may prove dangerous; 
 but in the end it produces more than any absolute government, 
 and if it do fewer things well, it does a greater number of things. 
 Under its sway the transactions of the public administration are 
 not nearly so important as what is done by private exertion. 
 Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of govern- 
 ment upon the people, but it produces that which the most 
 skilful governments are frequently unable to awaken, namely, 
 an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, 
 and an energy which is inseparable from it, and which may, un- 
 der favorable circumstances, beget the most amazing benefits. 
 These are the true advantages of democracy. 
 
 In the present age, when the destinies of Christendom seem 
 to be in suspense, some hasten to assail democracy as its foe 
 whilst it is yet in its early growth ; and others are ready with 
 their vows of adoration for this new deity which is springing 
 forth from chaos: but both parties are very imperfectly ac- 
 quainted with the object of their hatred or of their desires ; they 
 strike in the dark, and distribute their blows by mere chance. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 «S7 
 
 We must first understand what the purport of society and the 
 aim of government is held to be. If it be your intention to 
 confer a certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach 
 it to regard the things of this world with generous feelings, to 
 inspire men with a scorn of mere temporal advantage, to give 
 birth to living convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of honor- 
 able devotedness ; if you hold it to be a good thing to refine 
 the habits, to embellish the manners, to cultivate the arts of a 
 nation, and to promote the love of poetry, of beauty, and of 
 renown; if you would constitute a people not unfitted to act 
 with power upon all other nations, nor unprepared for those 
 high enterprises which, whatever be the result of its efforts, will 
 leave a name forever famous in time — if you believe such to be 
 the principal object of society, you must avoid the government 
 of democracy, which would be a very uncertain guide to the 
 end you have in view. 
 
 But if you hold it to be expedient to divert the moral and 
 intellectual activity of man to the production of comfort, and 
 to the acquirement of the necessaries of life ; if a clear under- 
 standing be more profitable to man than genius ; if your object 
 be not to stimulate the virtues of heroism, but to create habits 
 of peace ; if you had rather witness vices than crimes and are 
 content to meet with fewer noble deeds, provided offences be 
 diminished in the same proportion ; if, instead of living in the 
 midst of a brilliant state of society, you are contented to have 
 prosperity around you ; if, in short, you are of opinion that the 
 principal object of a Government is not to confer the greatest 
 possible share of power and of glory upon the body of the na- 
 tion, but to ensure the greatest degree of enjoyment and the 
 least degree of misery to each of the individuals who compose 
 it — if such be your desires, you can have no surer means of 
 satisfying them than by equalizing the conditions of men, and 
 establishing democratic institutions. 
 
 But if the time be passed at which such a choice was possible, 
 and if some superhuman power impel us towards one or the 
 other of these two governments without consulting our wishes, 
 let us at least endeavor to make the best of that which is allotted 
 to us ; and let us so inquire into its good and its evil propen- 
 sities as to be able to foster the former and repress the latter to 
 the utmost. 
 
 Vol. I.— 17 
 
 r; 
 
 •'si 
 

 I 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 i' 
 
 UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY IN THE UNITED 
 STATES, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 
 
 Natural strength of the majority in democracies —Most of the Ameri- 
 can Constitutions have increased this strength by artificial means — 
 How this has been done — Pledged delegates — Moral power of the 
 majority — Opinion as to its infallibility — Respect for its rights, how 
 augmented in the United States. 
 
 THE very essence of democratic government consists in 
 the absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is 
 nothing in democratic States which is capable of re- 
 sisting it. Most of the American Constitutions have sought 
 to increase this natural strength of the majority by artificial 
 means.o 
 
 The legislature is, of all political institutions, the one which 
 is most easily swayed by the wishes of the majority. The 
 Americans determined that the members of the legislature 
 should be elected by the people immediately, and for a very 
 brief term, in order to subject them, not only to the general 
 convictions, but even to the daily passions, of their constitu- 
 ents. The members of both houses are taken from the same 
 class in society, and are nominated in the same manner ; so that 
 the modifications of the legislative bodies are almost as rapid 
 and quite as irresistible as those of a single assembly. It is to 
 a legislature thus constituted that almost all the authority of 
 the government has been entrusted. 
 
 But whilst the law increased the strength of those authorities 
 which of themselves were strong, it enfeebled more and more 
 those which were naturally weak. It deprived the represent- 
 atives of the executive of all stability and independence, and 
 
 a We observed, in examining the 
 Federal Constitution, that the eflForts 
 r ' the legislators of the Union had been 
 ' metrically opposed to the present 
 t .dency. The consequence has been 
 that the Federal Government is more 
 independent in its sphere than that of 
 
 the States. But the Federal Govern- 
 ment scarcely ever interferes in any 
 but external affairs; and the govern- 
 ments of the States are in reality the 
 authorities which direct society in 
 America. 
 
 258 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 259 
 
 Govern- 
 in any 
 govern- 
 iafity the 
 iciety in 
 
 by subjecting them completely to the caprices of the legislature, 
 it robbed them of the slender influence which the nature of a 
 democratic government might have allowed them to retain. 
 In several States the judicial power was also submitted to the 
 elective discretion of the majority, and in all of them its exist- 
 ence was made to depend on the pleasure of the legislative 
 authority, since the representatives were empowered annually 
 to regulate the stipend of the judges. 
 
 Custom, however, has done even more than law. A proceed- 
 ing which will in the end set all the guarantees of representative 
 government at naught is becoming more and more general in 
 the United States ; it frequently happens that the electors, who 
 choose a delegate, point out a certain line of conduct to him, 
 and impose upon him a certain number of positive obligations 
 which he is pledged to fulfil. With the exception of the tu- 
 mult, this comes to the same thing as if the majority of the 
 populace held its deliberations in the market-place. 
 
 Several other circumstances concur in rendering the power 
 of the majority in America not only preponderant, but irre- 
 sistible. The moral authority of the majority is partly based 
 upon the notion that there is more intelligence and more wis- 
 dom in a great number of men collected together than in a 
 single individual, and that the quantity of legislators is more 
 important than their quality. The theory of equality is in fact 
 applied to the intellect of man : and human pride is thus assailed 
 in its last retreat by a doctrine which the minority hesitate to 
 admit, and in which they very slowly concur. Like all other 
 powers, and perhaps more than all other powers, the authority 
 of the many requires the sanction of time ; at first it enforces 
 obedience by constraint, but its laws are not respected until they 
 have long been maintained. 
 
 The right of governing society, which the majority supposes 
 itself to derive from its superior intelligence, was introduced 
 into the United States by the first settlers, and this idea, which 
 would be sufficient of itself to create a free nation, has now 
 been amalgamated with the manners of the people and the 
 minor incidents of social intercourse. 
 
 The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim 
 (which is still a fundamental principle of the English Consti- 
 tution) that the King could do no wrong; and if he did do 
 wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. This notion 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
.1 r 
 
 ! i 
 
 !■■■ / 
 
 il. i 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 260 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 was highly favorable to habits of obedience, and it enabled the 
 subject to complain of the law without ceasing to love and 
 honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opin- 
 ion with respect to the majority. 
 
 The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet an- 
 other principle, which is, that the interests of the many are to 
 be preferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived 
 that the respect here professed for the rights of the majority 
 must naturally increase or diminish according to the state of 
 parties. When a nation is divided into several irreconcilable 
 factions, the privilege of the majority is often overlooked, be- 
 cause it is intolerable to comply with its demands. 
 
 If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the leg- 
 islating majority sought to deprive of exclusive privileges 
 which they had possessed for ages, and to bring down from 
 an elevated station to the level of the ranks of the multitude, 
 it is probable that the minority would be less ready to comply 
 with its laws. But as the United States were colonized by 
 men holding equal rank amongst themselves, there is as yet 
 no natural or permanent source of dissension between the in- 
 terests of its different inhabitants. ; 
 
 There are certain communities in which the persons who 
 constitute the minority can never hope to draw over the ma- 
 jority to their side, because they must then give up the very 
 point which is at issue between them. Thus, an aristocracy 
 can never become a majority whilst it retains its exclusive 
 privileges, and it cannot cede its privileges without ceasing to 
 be an aristocracy. 
 
 In the United States political questions cannot be taken up 
 in so general and absolute a manner, and all parties are willing 
 to recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope 
 to turn those rights to their own advantage at some future 
 time. The majority therefore in that country exercises a pro- 
 digious actual authority, and a moral influence which is scarce- 
 ly less preponderant ; no obstacles exist which can impede or 
 so much as retard its progress, or which can induce it to heed 
 the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. This 
 state of things is fatal in itself and dangerous for the future. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 a6i 
 
 How THE UwyMITED PoWER OF THE MAJORITY INCREASES 
 
 IN America the Instability op Legislation and Ad- 
 ministration Inherent in Democracy 
 
 The Americans increase the mutability of the laws which is inherent in 
 democracy by changing the legislature every year, and by investing 
 it with unbounded authority — The same effect is produced upon the 
 administration — In America social amelioration is conducted more 
 energetically but less perseveringly than in Europe. 
 
 I have already spoken of the natural defects of democratic 
 institutions, and they all of them increase at the exact ratio of 
 the power of the majority. To begin with the most evident 
 of them all; the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in 
 democratic government, because it is natural to democracies 
 to raise men to power in very rapid succession. But this evil 
 is more or less sensible in proportion to the authority and the 
 means of action which the legislature possesses. 
 
 In America the authority exercised by the legislative bodies 
 is supreme ; nothing prevents them from accomplishing their 
 wishes with celerity, and with irrtsistible power, whilst they 
 are supplied by new representatives every year. That is to say, 
 the circumstances which contribute most powerfully to demo- 
 cratic instability, and which admit of the free application of 
 caprice to every object in the State, are here in full operation. 
 In conformity with this principle, America is, at the present 
 day, the country in the world where laws last the shortest time. 
 Almost all the American constitutions have been amended with- 
 in the course of thirty years: there is therefore not a single 
 American State which has not modified the principles of its 
 legislation in that lapse of time. As for the laws themselves, 
 a single glance upon the archives of the different States of the 
 Union suffices to convince one that in America the activity of 
 the legislator never slackens. Not that the American de- 
 mocracy is naturally less stable than any other, but that it is 
 allowed to follow its capricious propensities in the formation 
 of the laws.** 
 
 if 
 
 
 b The legislative acts promulgated by 
 the State of Massachusetts alone, from 
 the year 1780 to the present time, al- 
 ready fill three stout volumes; and it 
 must not be forgotten that the collection 
 to which I allude was published in 1R23, 
 when many old laws which had fallen 
 
 into disuse were omitted. The State 
 of Massachusetts, which is not more 
 populous than a department of France, 
 may be considered as the most stable, 
 the most consistent, and the most sa- 
 gacious in its undertakings of the whole 
 Union. 
 
/I 
 
 '1^: 
 
 263 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 The omnipotence of the majority, and the rapid as well as 
 absolute manner in which its decisions are executed in the 
 United States, has not only the effect of rendering the law un- 
 stable, but it exercises the same influence upon the execution 
 of the law and the conduct of the public administration. As 
 the majority is the only power which it is important to court, 
 all its projects are taken up with the greatest ardor, but no 
 sooner is its attention distracted than all this ardor ceases; 
 whilst in the free States of Europe the administration is at once 
 independent and secure, so that the projects of the legislature 
 are put into execution, although its immediate attention may 
 be directed to other objects. 
 
 In America certain ameliorations are undertaken with much 
 more zeal and activity than elsewhere; in Europe the same 
 ends are promoted by much less social effort, more continuous- 
 ly applied. 
 
 Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to 
 ameliorate the condition of the prisons. The public was ex- 
 cited by the statements which they put forward, and the re- 
 generation of criminals became a very popular undertaking. 
 New prisons were built, and for the first time the idea of re- 
 forming as well as of punishing the delinquent formed a part 
 of prison discipline. But this happy alteration, in which the 
 public had taken so hearty an interest, and which the exertions 
 of the citizens had irresistibly accelerated, could not be com- 
 pleted in a moment. Whilst the new penitentiaries were being 
 erected (and it was the pleasure of the majority that they should 
 be terminated with all possible celerity), the old prisons existed, 
 which still contained a great number of offenders. These jails 
 became more unwholesome and more corrupt in proportion as 
 the new establishments were beautified and improved, forming 
 a contrast which may readily be understood. The majority 
 was so eagerly employed in founding the new prisons that those 
 which already existed were forgotten ; and as the general at- 
 tention was diverted to a novel object, the care which had 
 hitherto been bestowed upon the others ceased. The salutary 
 regulations of discipline were first relaxed, and afterwards 
 broken; so that in the immediate neighborhood of a prison 
 which bore witness to the mild and enlightened spirit of our 
 time, dungeons might be met with which reminded the visitor 
 of the barbarity of the Middle Ages. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 263 
 
 Tyranny of the Majority 
 
 How the principle of the sovereignty of the people is to be understood 
 — Impossibility of conceiving a mixed government — The sovereign 
 power must centre somewhere — Precautions to be taken to control 
 its action — These precautions have not been taken in the United 
 States — Consequences. 
 
 I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, po- 
 litically speaking, a people has a right to do whatsoever it 
 pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in 
 the will of the majority. Am I then, in contradiction with 
 myself? 
 
 A general law — which bears the name of Justice — has been 
 made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that 
 people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every 
 people are consequently confined within the limits of what is 
 just. A nation may be considered in the light of a jury which 
 is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply the 
 great and general law of justice. Ought such a jury, which 
 represents society, to have more power than the society in 
 which the laws it applies originate ? 
 
 When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the 
 right which the majority has of commanding, but I simply 
 appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereigntj* 
 of mankind. It has been asserted that a people can never en- 
 tirely outstep the boundaries of justice and of reason in those 
 affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that consequently 
 full power may fearlessly be given to the majority by which it 
 is represented. But this language is that of a slave. 
 
 A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being 
 whose opinions, and most frequently whose interests, are op- 
 posed to those of another being, which is styled a minority. 
 If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may 
 misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a 
 majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not 
 apt to change their characters by agglomeration ; nor does their 
 patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the con- 
 sciousness of their strength.^ And for these reasons I can 
 
 e No one will assert that a people can- 
 not forcibly wrong another people; but 
 parties may be looked upon as lesser 
 nations within a greater one, and they 
 are aliens to each other: if, therefore, it 
 
 be admitted that a nation can act tyran- 
 nically towards another nation, it can- 
 not be denied that a party may do the 
 same towards another party. 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 . 
 
I I' 
 
 ! < 
 
 \f.. ( 
 
 ^•! 
 
 ! i 
 
 m 
 
 !.," 
 
 iH) 
 
 964 
 
 D^ TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 never willingly invest any number of my fellow-creatures with 
 that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of 
 them. 
 
 I do not think that it is possible to combine several prin- 
 ciples in the same government, so as at the same time to main- 
 tain freedom, and really to oppose them to one another. The 
 form of government which is usually termed mixed has always 
 appeared to me to be a mere chimera. Accurately speaking 
 there is no such thing as a mixed government (with the mean- 
 ing usually given to that word), because in all communities 
 some one principle of action may be discovered which pre- 
 ponderates over the others. England in the last century, which 
 has been more especially cited as an example of this form of 
 Government, was in point of fact an essentially aristocratic 
 State, although it comprised very powerful elements of democ- 
 racy ; for the laws and customs of the country were such that 
 the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the end, and sub- 
 ject the direction of public affairs to its own will. The error 
 arose from too much attention being paid to the actual strug- 
 gle which was going on between the nobles and the people, 
 without considering the probable issue of the contest, which 
 was in reality the important point. When a community really 
 has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is equally di- 
 vided between two adverse principles, it must either pass 
 through a revolution or fall into complete dissolution. 
 
 I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must 
 always be made to predommate over the others ; but I think 
 that liberty is endangered when this power is checked by no ob- 
 stacles which may retard its course, and force it to moderate 
 its own vehemence. 
 
 Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; 
 human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion, 
 and God alone can be omnipotent, because His wisdom and 
 His justice are always equal to His power. But no power upon 
 earth is so worthy of honor for itself, or of reverential obedience 
 to the rights which it represents, that I would consent to admit 
 its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see 
 that the right and the means of absolute command are con- 
 ferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a de- 
 mocracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of 
 tyranny, and I journey onward to a land of more hopeful in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 m 
 
 ire Con- 
 or a de- 
 ferm of 
 eful in- 
 
 In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic insti- 
 tutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted 
 in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering 
 strength ; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive lib- 
 erty which reigns in that country as at the very inadequate 
 securities which exist against tyranny. 
 
 When an individual or a party is wronged in the United 
 States, to whom can he apply for redress ? If to public opinion, 
 public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, 
 it represents the majority, and implicitly obeys its injunctions ; 
 if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority, and 
 remains a passive tool in its hands ; the public troops consist 
 of the majority under arms ; the jury is the majority invested 
 with the right of hearing judicial cases ; and in certain States 
 even the judges are elected by the majority. However in- 
 iquitous or absurd the evil of which you complain may be, you 
 must submit to it as well as you can.d 
 
 If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so consti- 
 tuted as to represent the majority without necessarily being 
 the slave of its passions ; an executive, so as to retain a certain 
 degree of uncontrolled authority ; and a judiciary, so as to re- 
 main independent of the two other powers; a government 
 would be formed which would still be democratic without in- 
 curring any risk oT tyrannical abuse. 
 
 d A strikingr instance of the excesses 
 which may be occasioned by the despo- 
 tism of the majority occurred at Balti- 
 more in the year 1812. At that time the 
 war was very popular in Baltimore. A 
 journal which nad taken the other side 
 of the question excited the indignation 
 of the inhabitants by its opposition. 
 The populace assembled, broke the 
 printing-presses, and attacked the 
 houses of the newspaper editors. The 
 militia was called out, but no one 
 obeyed the call; and the only means of 
 saving the poor wretcVcs who were 
 threatened by the (.enzy of the mob 
 was to throw then" into prison as com- 
 mon malefactors. But even this precau- 
 tion was ineficctval; the mob collected 
 again during the night, the magistrates 
 again made a vain attempt to call out 
 the militia, the prison was forred. one 
 of the newspaper editors was killed 
 upon the soot, and the others were left 
 for dead; the guilty parties were acquit- 
 ted by the jury when they were brought 
 to trial. 
 
 I said one day to an inhabitant of 
 Pennsylvania, " Be so good as to ex- 
 plain to me how it happens that in a 
 State founded by Quakers, and cele- 
 brated for its toleration, freed blacks 
 are not allowed to exercise civil rights. 
 
 They pay the taxes; is it not fair that 
 they should have a vote? " 
 
 " You insult us," replied my inform- 
 ant, " if you imagine that our legisla- 
 tors could have committed so gross an 
 act of injustice and intolerance?' 
 
 " Whatl then the blacks possess the 
 right of voting in this country?" 
 
 " Without the smallest doubt." 
 
 " How comes it, then, that at the 
 polling-booth this morning I did not 
 perceive a single negro in the whole 
 meeting?" 
 
 " This is not the fault of the law: the 
 neg[roes have an undisputed right of 
 voting, but they voluntarily abstain 
 from making their appearance." 
 
 " A very pretty piece of modesty on 
 their parts! rejoined I. 
 
 /'Why, the truth is, that they are not 
 disinclined to vote, but they are afraid 
 of being maltreated; in this country the 
 law is sometimes unable to maintain its 
 authority without the support of the 
 majority. But in this case the majority 
 entertains very strong prejudices 
 against the blacks, and the magistrates 
 are unable to protect them in the exer- 
 cise of their legal privilecres." 
 
 " What! then the majority claims the 
 right not only of makinpr the laws, but 
 of breaking the laws it has made?" 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 Hi 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 (iir 
 
 --*c^.A-, -ar-.^'n'^r 
 
266 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in Amer- 
 ica at the present day, but I maintain that no sure barrier is 
 established against them, and that the causes which mitigate 
 the government are to be found in the circumstances and the 
 manners of the country more than in its laws. 
 
 I ' 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 ■ ; 
 
 Effects of the Unlimited Power of the Majority Upon 
 THE Arbitrary Authority of the American Public 
 Officers 
 
 Liberty left by the American laws to public officers within a certain 
 
 sphere — Their power. 
 
 A distinction must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary 
 power. Tyranny may be exercised by means of the law, and 
 in that case it is not arbitrary ; arbitrary power may be exer- 
 cised for the good of the community at large, in which case 
 it is not tyrannical. Tyranny usually employs arbitrary means, 
 but, if necessary, it can rule without them. 
 
 In the United States the unbounded power of the majority, 
 which is favorable to the legal despotism of the legislature, is 
 likewise favorable to the arbitrary authority of the magistrate. 
 The majority has an entire control over the law when it is made 
 and when it is executed ; and as it possesses an equal authority 
 over those who are in power and the community at large, it 
 considers public officers as its passive agents, and readily con- 
 fides the task of serving its designs to their vigilance. The de- 
 tails of their office and the privileges which they are to enjoy 
 are rarely defined beforehand ; but the majority treats them as 
 a master does his servants when they are always at work in his 
 sight, and he has the power of directing or reprimanding them 
 at every instant. 
 
 In general the American functionaries are far more inde- 
 pendent than the French civil officers within the sphere which 
 is prescribed to them. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by 
 the popular authority to exceed those bounds ; and as they are 
 protected by the opinion, and backed by the co-operation, of 
 the majority, they venture upon such manifestations of their 
 power as astonish a European. By this means habits are formed 
 in the heart of a free country which may some day prove fatal 
 to its liberties. 
 
 m 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 267 
 
 Power Exercised by the Majority in America Upon 
 
 Opinion 
 
 In America, when the majority has once irrevocably decided a question, 
 all discussion ceases — Reason of this — Moral power exercised by 
 the majority upon opinion — Democratic republics have deprived 
 despotism of its physical instruments— Their despotism sways the 
 minds of men. 
 
 It is in the examination of the display of public opinion in 
 the United States that we clearly perceive how far the power of 
 the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are ac- 
 quainted in Europe. Intellectual principles exercise an influ- 
 ence which is so invisible, and often so inappreciable, that they 
 baffle the toils of oppression. At the present time the most 
 absolute monarchs in Europe are unable to prevent certain no- 
 tions, which are opposed to their authority, from circulating 
 in secret throughout their dominions, and even in their courts. 
 Such is not the case in America ; as long as the majority is still 
 undecided, discussion is carried on ; but as soon as its decision 
 is irrevocably pronounced, a submissive silence is observed, 
 and the friends, as well as the opponents, of the measure unite 
 in assenting to its propriety. The reason of this is perfectly 
 clear : no monarch is so absolute as to combine all the powers 
 of society in his own hands, and to conquer all opposition with 
 the energy of a majority which is invested with the right of 
 making and of executing the laws. 
 
 The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls 
 the actions of the subject without subduing his private will; 
 but the majority possesses a power which is physical and moral 
 at the same time ; it acts upon the will as well as upon the ac- 
 tions of men, and it represses not only all contest, but all con- 
 troversy, 
 
 I know no country in which there is so little true independ- 
 ence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America. In any 
 constitutional state in Europe every sort of religious and po- 
 litical theory may be advocated and propagated abroad; for 
 there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single au- 
 thority as not to contain citizens who are ready to protect the 
 man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the con- 
 sequences of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to 
 live under an absolute government, the people is upon his side ; 
 
 1; 
 
 ^«i 
 
 
 ri 
 
 Vi 
 
 ,\n\ 
 
 w 
 
M 
 
 II.. 
 
 * :l 
 
 \.^ 
 
 •tt 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 if he inhabits a free country, he may find a shelter behind the 
 authority of the throne, if he require one. T'le aristocratic 
 part of society supports him in some countrio)«, and the de- 
 mocracy in others. But in a nation where domocratit institu- 
 tions exist, organized like those of the United Stale s, there is 
 but one sole authority, one single element uf strength a/id of 
 success, with nothing beyond it. 
 
 In America the majority raises very formidable harriers to 
 the liberty of opinion : within these barriers an author may 
 write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step 
 , beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto- 
 da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of 
 daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since 
 he has oflended the only authority which is able to promote his 
 success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, 
 is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he im- 
 agined that he held them in common with many others ; but no 
 sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured 
 by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without 
 having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. 
 He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been 
 making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by 
 remorse for having spoken the truth. 
 
 Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which 
 tyranny formerly employed; but the civilization of our age 
 has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, however, to 
 have been sufficiently perfected before. The excesses of mon- 
 archical power had devised a variety of physical means of op- 
 pression: the democratic republics of the present day have 
 rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as that will which 
 it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an indi- 
 vidual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the 
 soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed 
 against it and rose superior to the attempt ; but such is not 
 the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics ; there 
 the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign 
 can no longer say, " You shall think as I do on pain of death ; " 
 but he says, " You are free to think differently from me, and 
 to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess ; but 
 if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien 
 among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 269 
 
 will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your 
 fcUow-citizcns if you solicit their suffrages, and they will affect 
 to scorn you if you solicit their esteem. You will remain 
 among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. 
 Your fcUow-creaturcs will shun you like an impure being, and 
 those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon 
 you too, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in 
 peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence in- 
 comparably worse than death." 
 
 Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon des- 
 potism ; let us beware lest democratic republics should restore 
 oppression, and should render it less odious and less degrad- 
 ing in the eyes of the many, by making it still more onerous 
 to the few. 
 
 Works have been published in the proudest nations of the 
 Old WoHd expressly intended to censure the vices and deride 
 the follies of the times: Labruy6re inhabited the palace of 
 Louis XIV when he composed his chapter upon the Great, 
 and Moliere criticised the courtiers in the very pieces which 
 were acted before the Court. But the ruling power in the 
 United States is not to be made game of ; the smallest reproach 
 irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke which has any 
 foundation in truth renders it indignant ; from the style of its 
 language to the more solid virtues of its character, everything 
 must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever 
 be his eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to 
 his fellow-citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual prac- 
 tice of self-applause, and there are certain truths which the 
 Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience. 
 
 If great writers have not at present existed in America, the 
 reason is very simply given in these facts; there can be no lit- 
 erary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opin- 
 ion does not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been 
 able to prevent a vast number of anti-religious books from 
 circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority succeeds 
 much better in the United States, since it actually removes the 
 wish of publishing them. Unbelievers are to be met with in 
 America, but, to say the truth, there is no public organ of in- 
 fidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to 
 protect the morality of nations by prohibiting licentious books. 
 In the United States no one is punished for this sort of works, 
 
 / 
 
 •f 
 
 
 till 
 '] 
 
 t 
 
 If! 
 
 . ' m 
 
 I ( 
 i til 
 
jj 
 
 s 
 
 \ 
 
 I V 
 
 
 ■ ' -* 
 
 270 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 but no one is induced to write them ; not because all the citizens 
 are immaculate in their manners, but because the majority of 
 the community is decent and orderly. 
 
 In these cases the advantages derived from the exercise of 
 this power are unquestionable, and I am simply discussing the 
 nature of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a con- 
 stant fact, and its judicious exercise is an accidental ocur- 
 rence. 
 
 Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority Upon the Na- 
 tional Character of the Americans 
 
 Effects of the tyranny of the majority more sensibly felt hitherto in 
 the manners than in the conduct of society — They check the develop- 
 ment of leading characters — Democratic republics organized like 
 the United States bring the practice of courting favor within the 
 reach of the many — Proofs of this spirit in the United States — Why 
 there is more patriotism in the people than in those who govern in 
 its name. 
 
 The tendencies which I have just alluded to are as yet very 
 slightly perceptible in political society, but they already begin 
 to exercise an unfavorable influence upon the national character 
 of the Americans. I am inclined to attribute the singular pauc- 
 ity of distinguished political characters to the ever-increasing 
 activity of the despotism of the majority in the United States. 
 When the American Revolution broke out they arose in great 
 numbers, for public opinion then served, not to tyrannize over, 
 but to direct the exertions of individuals. Those celebrated 
 men took a full part in the general agitation of mind common 
 at that period, and they attained a high degree of personal 
 fame, which was reflected back upon the nation, but which was 
 by no means borrowed from it. 
 
 In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to 
 the throne flatter the passions of the sovereign, and voluntarily 
 truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not 
 degrade itself by servitude: it often submits from weakness, 
 from habit, or from ignorance, and sometimes from loyalty. 
 Some nations have been known to sacrifice their own desires to 
 those of the sovereign with pleasure and with pride, thus ex- 
 hibiting a sort of independence in the very act of submission. 
 These peoples are miserable, but they are not degraded. There 
 is a great difference between doing what one does not approve 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 971 
 
 and feigning to approve what one does ; the one is the necessary 
 case of a weak person, the other befits the temper of a lackey. 
 
 In free countries, where everyone is more or less called upon 
 to give his opinion in the affairs of state; in democratic re- 
 publics, where public Hfe is incessantly commingled with do- 
 mestic affairs, where the sovereign authority is accessible on 
 every side, and where its attention can almost always be at- 
 tracted by vociferation, more persons are to be met with who 
 speculate upon its foibles and live at the cost of its passions 
 than in absolute monarchies. Not because men are naturally 
 worse in these States than elsewhere, but the temptation is 
 stronger, and of easier access at the same time. The result is a 
 far more extensive debasement of the characters of citizens. 
 
 Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor 
 with the many, and they introduce it into a greater number of 
 classes at once : this is one of the most serious reproaches that 
 can be addressed to them. In democratic States organized on 
 the principles of the American republics, this is more especially 
 the case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute and 
 so irresistible that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, 
 and almost abjure his quality as a human being, if he intends 
 to stray from the track which it lays down. 
 
 In that immense crowd which throngs the avenues to power 
 in the United States I found very few men who displayed any 
 of that manly candor and that masculine independence of opin- 
 ion which frequently distinguished the Americans in former 
 times, and which constitutes the leading feature in distinguished 
 characters, wheresoever they may be found. It seems, at first 
 sight, as if all the minds of the Americans were formed upon 
 one model, so accurately do they correspond in their manner of 
 \ judging. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes meet with Ameri- 
 cans who dissent from these rigorous formularies; with men 
 who deplore the defects of the laws, the mutability and the 
 ignorance of democracy ; who even go so far as to observe the 
 evil tendencies which impair the national character, and to point 
 out such remedies as it might be possible to apply ; but no one 
 is there to hear these things besides yourself, and you, to whom 
 these secret reflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird 
 of passage. They are very ready to communicate truths which 
 are useless to you, but they continue to hold a different language 
 in public. 
 
 I? 
 
 iL 
 
 i|V 
 
 ii 
 % 
 
 ( I l'\ 
 
 .; I 
 
 I 
 

 V\ 
 
 f 
 
 ! 
 
 ii ' 
 
 1 
 
 '1 
 
 
 i'^ 
 
 
 
 i '!■ 
 
 372 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 If ever these lines are read in America, I am well assured of 
 two things: in the first place, that all who peruse them will 
 raise their voices to condemn me ; and in the second place, that 
 very many of them will acquit me at the bottom of their con- 
 science. 
 
 I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a 
 virtue which may be found among the people, but never among 
 the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy ; 
 despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor : 
 in absolute monarchies the king has often great virtues, but 
 the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that the American 
 courtiers do not say " Sire," or " Your Majesty " — a distinc- 
 tion without a difference. They are forever talking of the nat- 
 ural intelligence of the populace they serve ; they do not debate 
 the question as to which of the virtues of their master is pre- 
 eminently worthy of admiration, for they assure him that he 
 possesses all the virtues under heaven without having acquired 
 them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give 
 him their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure 
 to the rank of his concubines, but, by sacrificing their opinions, 
 they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in 
 America are not obliged to conceal their opinions under the veil 
 of allegory ; but, before they venture upon a harsh truth, they 
 say, " We are aware that the people which we are addressing 
 is too superior to all the weaknesses of human nature to lose 
 the command of its temper for an instant ; and we should not 
 hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their 
 virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom 
 than all the rest of the world." It would have been impossible 
 for the sycophants of Louis XIV to flatter more dexterously. 
 For my part, I am persuaded that in all governments, whatever 
 their nature may be, servility will cower to force, and adulation 
 will cling to power. The only means of preventing men from 
 degrading themselves is to invest no one with tliat unlimited 
 authority which is the surest method of debasing them. 
 
 ,1 : ' f I* 
 
/ 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 373 
 
 The Greatest Dangers of the American Republics Pro- 
 ceed FROM THE Unlimited Power of the Majority 
 
 Democratic republics liable to perish from a misuse of their power, and 
 not by impotence — The Governments of the American republics are 
 more centralized and more energetic than those of the monarchies 
 of Europe — Dangers resulting from this — Opinions of Hamilton and 
 Jefferson upon this point. 
 
 Governments usually fall a sacrifice to impotence or to tyr- 
 anny. In the former case their power escapes from them; 
 it is wrested from their grasp in the latter. Many observers, / 
 who have witnessed the anarchy of democratic States, have 
 imagined that the government of those States was naturally 
 weak and impotent. The truth is, that when once hostilities 
 are begun between parties, the government loses its control over 
 society. But I do not think that a democratic power is nat- 
 urally without force or without resources : say, rather, that it is 
 almost always by the abuse of its force and the misemployment 
 of its resources that a democratic government fails. Anarchy 
 is almost always produced by its tyranny or its mistakes, but 
 not by its want of strength. 
 
 It is important not to confound stability with force, or the 
 greatness of a thing with its duration. In democratic republics, 
 the power which directs^ society is not stable; for it often 
 changes hands and assumes a new direction. But whichever 
 way it turns, its force is almost irresistible. The Governments 
 of the American republics appear to me to be as much central- 
 ized as those of the absolute monarchies of Europe, and more 
 energetic than they are. I do not, therefore, imagine that they 
 will perish from weakness./^ 
 
 If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that 
 event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the ma- 
 jority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to 
 desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. 
 Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought 
 about by despotism. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton expresses the same opinion in the " Fed- 
 
 e This power may be centred in an as- 
 sembly, m which case it will be strong 
 without being stable; or it may be cen- 
 tred in an individual, in which case it 
 will be less strong, but more stable. 
 
 / I presume that it is scarcely neces- 
 
 VOL. I.— 18 
 
 sary to remind the reader here, as well 
 as throughout the remainder of this 
 chapter, tnat I am speaking, not of the 
 Federal Government, but of the several 
 governments of each State, which the 
 majority controls at its pleasure. 
 
 
 l( 
 
 M 
 
 t',V' 
 
 M\ 
 
 ■'li 
 
 
 :i;"M 
 
II • 
 
 f : 
 
 I I 
 
 274 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 eralist," No. 51. " It is of great importance in a republic not 
 only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but 
 to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the 
 other part. Justice is the end of government. It is the end of 
 civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it 
 be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, 
 under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite 
 and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign 
 as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not se- 
 cured against the violence of the stronger : and as in the latter 
 state even the stronger individuals are prompted by the uncer- 
 tainty of their condition to submit to a government which may 
 protect the weak as well as themselves, so in the former state 
 will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by a like 
 motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, 
 the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little 
 doubted that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated from 
 the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right under 
 the popular form of government within such narrow limits 
 would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of the fac- 
 tious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the 
 people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions 
 whose misrule had proved the necessity of it." 
 
 Jefferson has also thus expressed himself in a letter to Madi- 
 son :« "The executive power in our Government is not the 
 only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. 
 The tyranny of the Legislature is really the danger most to be 
 feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The 
 tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a 
 . more distant period." I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson 
 upon this subject rather than that of another, because I con- 
 sider him to be the most powe'-ful advocate democracy has ever 
 sent forth. 
 
 g March is, 1789. 
 
 ■t; 1 
 
.3Himj,!3^ ^S^S/.j:- 10 ^HJS/<AX3 HDIOHJ 
 
 
 m 
 titj 
 
 -S* 
 
 % 
 
 1 1 
 
 4'li 
 
I , \ 
 
 >. i 
 
 I i 
 
 ! if II; 
 
 !J 
 
 CHOICE EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC SCULPTURE. 
 
 i \A ihc "lie V'l i ■'•'■ ' 
 
 liuSi'.t .sC'.-.vsy '.t, <.v'<'r h:!>\ !;ri.'ii, :v>:',\ ."»f v 
 ':v ' : aniil libri'I) Ik; i-:..>i in fr 
 
 .;'.:. .. : , lits v;( vvhuii the '.si' h;;' • 
 ^thi !.,i|'*prf.' -'.•;. (lit. wfTiivi.T. an,'i.rt.;;; ri'V <■ 
 u.. in a statu ui; ua: iiv,, where the n'ft. 
 v'urt'Vl ;ii;i<'i>si thv ri*-!'.:!!!-*.' ;.■! *■ ■ ^d^m; 
 sta.v/'vi:'i :h': ,.ir,,>jii.;i.n !i;\iivii.iu.ii-. .\:< 
 
 prokvt ;.Ii': svoak as \' cl! u^ •h'n'N''! /i 
 
 ■- . .ilk. 
 t.'c eui,{_("'t 
 
 H'i MMtilit \ 
 
 ' i :^' Cii f \, 
 
 .. .' ! !. - 
 
 ■■■"'';. 
 
 luol:v.r. Sit w 
 
 "\' 
 
 t'v.- 
 
 •'■ f ,1 
 
 DIANA:' 
 
 
 Pboto-engravmg from the original marble staltu in the Louvre at Paris. i 
 
 The most cclchratPtl 4f the existing stafiiep of Dinna is the Diana of Versailles, 
 from Hadrian's viUft at Tibiir. It has been in France since the time of Henry IV. 
 l-'ormcrly it was at Vorsaillcs, but it is now one of tlie tn-asures of tlie Luuvro. It 
 lilainly belongs to ihe school nf the Apollo Ik-lvi'drre, auil there is no reason why it 
 might not have formed a part of the group in which the Apollo stood. Plana is 
 represented as a slender huntress, leading her hind and hastening forward, as if in 
 pursuit of game. She looks toward the right, as, with raised arm, she is about to 
 draw an arrow from the quiver. 
 
 ill' :f, tU-t.jt<: ' ' ■ >■ 
 
 
 a i ■■■■ 'i'", 
 
 M>.l> 
 
 ilMl^^C 
 
 ■v:p! 
 
 
 ■ il..- 
 
 . r r 
 
RE. vx 
 
 vi liu' 
 • etui ot 
 huitillt \ 
 
 1;: iUtl-: 
 . t r ,., 
 
 Pans. 
 
 f \'cr<nil!es, 
 f Henry IV. 
 Luuvri'. It 
 ;ason why it 
 I. Diana is 
 ard, as if in 
 ; is about to 
 
 If ;i^ 
 
 
 p. 
 
 iV 
 
 I Hi 
 
 !i ■ 
 
 i 'I 
 
 ■W! 
 
 I, 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CAUSES WHICH MITIGATE THE TYRANNY OF THE MA- 
 JORITY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Absence of Central Administration 
 
 /. 
 
 The national majority does not pretend to conduct all business — Is 
 obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its 
 supreme decisions. 
 
 I HAVE already pointed out the distinction which is to be 
 made between a centralized government and a centralized 
 administration. The former exists in America, but the 
 latter is nearly unknown there. If the directing power of the 
 American communities had both these instruments of govern- 
 ment at its disposal, and united the habit of executing its own 
 commands to the right of commanding; if, after having estab- 
 lished the general principles of government, it descended to 
 the details of public business; and if, having regulated the 
 great interests of the country, it could penetrate into the privacy 
 of individual interests, freedom would soon be banished from 
 the New World. 
 
 But in the United States the majority, which so frequently 
 displays the tastes and the propensities of a despot, is still des- 
 titute of the more perfect instruments of tyranny. In the 
 American republics the activity of the central Government has 
 never as yet been extended beyond a limited number of objects 
 sufficiently prominent to call forth its attention. The secondary 
 aflfairs of society have never been regulated by its authority, 
 and nothing has hitherto betrayed its desire of interfering in 
 them. The majority is become more and more absolute, but 
 it has not increased the prerogatives of the central government ; 
 those great prerogatives have been confined to a certain sphere ; 
 and although the despotism of the majority may be galling upon 
 
 275 
 
 il 
 
/t 
 
 !! 
 
 376 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 one point, it cannot be said to extend to all. However the pre- 
 dominant party in the nation may be carried away by its pas- 
 sions, however ardent it may be in the pursuit of its projects, 
 it cannot obUge all the citizens to comply with its desires in the 
 same manner and at the same time throughout the country. 
 When the central Government which represents that majority 
 has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to 
 agents, over whom it frequently has no control, and whom it 
 cannot perpetually direct. The townships, municipal bodies, 
 and counties may therefore be looked upon as concealed break- 
 waters, which check or part the tide of popular excitement. If 
 an oppressive law were passed, the liberties of the people would 
 still be protected by the means by which that law would be put 
 in execution: the majority cannot descend to the details and 
 (as I will venture to style them) the puerilities of administra- 
 tive tyranny. Nor does the people entertain that full conscious- 
 ness of its authority which would prompt it to interfere in these 
 matters ; it knows the extent of its natural powers, but it is un- 
 acquainted with the increased resources which the art of gov- 
 ernment might furnish. 
 
 This point deserves attention, for if a democratic republic 
 similar to that of the United States were ever founded in a 
 country where the power of a single individual had previously 
 subsisted, and the eflfects of a centralized administration had 
 sunk deep into the habits and the laws of the people, I do not 
 hesitate to assert, that in that country a more insufferable des- 
 potism would prevail than any which now exists in the monar- 
 chical States of Europe, or indeed than any which could be 
 found on this side of the confines of Asia. 
 
 !i ry 
 
 (f- 
 
PEMOCS^bCV IN AMERICA 
 
 277 
 
 The rKOKi. OF THr Law in the United States Serves 
 
 >d CouNTi /'OisK THE Democracy 
 
 Utility of discr*4*iiniMing thr natural propensities of the members of the 
 legal profession- i licsi mi-n called upon to act a prominent part in 
 future society — In what manner the peculiar pursuits of lawyers give 
 an aristocratic turn to their ideas — Accidental causes which may 
 check this tendency — Ease with which the aristocracy coalesces with 
 legal men — Use of lawyers to a despot — The proiession of lie law 
 constitutes the only aristocratic element with which the natiirnl ele- 
 ments of democracy will combine — Peculiar causes which tend to 
 give an aristocratic turn of mind to the English and American 
 lawyers — The aristocracy of America is on the bench and at the bar 
 — Influence of lawyers upon American society — Their peculiar mag- 
 isterial habits affect the legislature, the administration, and even the 
 people. 
 
 In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we per- 
 ceive that the authority they have entrusted to members of the 
 legal profession, and the influence which these individuals ex- 
 ercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing security 
 against the excesses of democracy. This effect seems to me to 
 result from a general cause which it is useful to investigate, 
 since it may produce analogous consequences elsewhere. 
 
 The members of the legal profession have taken an important 
 part in all the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during 
 the last five hundred years. At one time they have been the in- 
 struments of those who were invested with political authority, 
 and at another they have succeeded in converting political au- 
 thorities into their instrument. In the Middle Ages they af- 
 forded a powerful support to the Crown, and since that period 
 they have exerted themselves to the utmost to limit the royal 
 prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance 
 with the aristocracy; in France they have proved to be the 
 most dangerous enemies of that class. It is my object to in- 
 quire whether, under all these circumstances, the members of 
 the legal profession have been swayed by sudden and momen- 
 tary impulses ; or whether they have been impelled by princi- 
 ples which are inherent in their pursuits, and which will always 
 recur in history. I am incited to this investigation by reflecting 
 that this particular class of men will most likely play a promi- 
 nent part in that order of things to which the events of our time 
 are giving birth. 
 
 Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal 
 
 ;i 
 
 M 
 
 li\ 
 
 1 >1 
 
 ' R 
 
 ■)!■ 
 
 • I 
 
 ■V 
 
 II 1 
 
 ffl 
 
 ( 
 
■78 
 
 DE TOCQUKVIIXE 
 
 t 
 
 I- ''I 
 
 n ' !. 
 
 HM 
 
 pursuits derive from those occupations certain habits of order, a 
 taste for formalities, and a kind of instinctive regard for the 
 rcpular connection of ideas, which naturally render them very 
 hostile to the revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions 
 of the multitude. 
 
 The special information which lawyers derive from their 
 studies ensures them a separate- 'Station in society, and they 
 constitute a sort of privileged boil in the scale of intelligence. 
 This notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in 
 the practice of their profession : they are the masters of a sci- 
 ence which is necessary, but which is not very generally known ; 
 they serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of 
 directing the blind passions of parties in litigation to their pur- 
 pose inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment 
 of the multitude. To this it may be added that they naturally 
 constitute a body, not by any previous understanding, or by an 
 agreement which directs them to a common end ; but the an- 
 alogy of their studies and the uniformity of their proceedings 
 connect their minds together, as much as a common interest 
 could combine their endeavors. 
 
 A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy 
 may consequently be discovered in the characters of men in 
 the profession of the law. They participate in the same in- 
 stinctive love of order and of formalities; and they entertain 
 the same repugnance to the actions of the multitude, and the 
 same secret contempt of the government of the people. I do 
 not mean to say that the natural propensities of lawyers arc 
 sufficiently strong to sway them irresistibly ; for they, like most 
 other men, are governed by their private interests and the ad- 
 vantages of the moment. 
 
 In a state of society in which the members of the legal pro- 
 fession are prevented from holding that rank in the political 
 world which they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured 
 that they will be the foremost agents of revolution. But it 
 must then be inquired whether the cause which induces them 
 to innovate and to destroy is accidental, or whether it belongs 
 to some lasting purpose which t'v'y entertain. It is true that 
 lawyers mainly contributed to tl.'j overthrow of the French 
 monarchy in 1789; but it remains to be seen whether they acted 
 thus because they had studied the laws, or because they were 
 prohibited from co-operating in the work of legislation. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 379 
 
 Five hundred years apo the English nobles headed the peo- 
 ple, and spoke in its name ; at tiic present time the aristocracy 
 supports the throne, and defends the royal prerogative. But 
 aristocracy has, notwithstanding tiiis, its peculiar instincts and 
 propensities. We must be careful not to confound isolated 
 members of a body with the body itself. In all free govern- 
 ments, of whatsoever form they may be, members of the legal 
 profession will be found at the head of all parties. The same 
 remark is also applicable to the aristocracy ; for almost all the 
 democratic convulsions which have agitated the world have 
 been directed by nobles. 
 
 A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its 
 members ; it has always more talents and more passions to con- 
 tent and to employ than it can find places ; so that a consider- 
 able number of individuals are usually to be met with who are 
 inclined to attack those very privileges which they find it im- 
 possible to turn to their own account. 
 
 I do not, then, assert that all the members of the legal pro- 
 fession are at all times the friends of order and the opponents 
 of innovation, but merely that most of them usually are so. 
 In a community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, with- 
 out opposition, that high station which naturally belongs to 
 them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and 
 anti-democratic. When an aristocracy excludes the leaders 
 of that profession from its ranks, it excites enemies which are 
 the more formidable to its security as they are independent of 
 the nobility by their industrious pursuits ; and they feel them- 
 selves to be its equal in point of intelligence, although they en- 
 joy less opul'^nce and less power. But whenever an aristoc- 
 racy consents to impart some of its privileges to these same 
 individuals, the two classes coalesce very readily, and assume, 
 as it were, the consistency of a single order of family interests. 
 
 I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will 
 always be able to convert legal practitioners into the most ser- 
 viceable instruments of his authority. There is a far greater 
 affinity between this class of individuals and the executive 
 power than there is between them and the people ; just as there 
 is a greater natural affinity between the nobles and the mon- 
 arch than between the nobles and the people, although the 
 higher orders of society have occasionally resisted the preroga- 
 tive of the Crown in concert with the lower classes. 
 
 /: 
 
 ) 
 
 h 
 
 
 '•X: 
 
 '111 
 
 << 
 
 " 
 
 I 
 
 !/ 
 
 (. 
 
 J 
 
'tl 
 
 tdo 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other 
 consideration, and the best security of public order is authority. 
 It must not be forgotten that, if they prize the free institutions 
 of their country much, they nevertheless value the legality of 
 those institutions far more : they are less afraid of tyranny than 
 of arbitrary power ; and provided that the legislature take upon 
 itself to deprive men of their independence, they are not dis- 
 satisfied. 
 
 I am therefore convinced that the prince who, in presence of 
 an encroaching democ.acy, should endeavor to impair the ju- 
 dicial authority in his dominions, and to diminish the political 
 influence of lawyers, would commit a great mistake. He would 
 let slip the substance of authority to grasp at the shadow. He 
 would act more wisely in introducing men connected with the 
 law into the government; and if he entrusted them with the 
 conduct of a despotic power, bearing some marks of violence, 
 that power would most likely assume the external features of 
 justice and of legality in their hands. 
 
 The government of democracy is favorable to the political 
 power of lawyers; for when the wealthy, the noble, and the 
 prince are excluded from the government, they are sure to oc- 
 cupy the highest stations, in their own right, as it were, since 
 they are the only men of information and sagacity, beyond the 
 sphere of the people, who can be the object of the popular 
 choice. If, then, they are led by their tastes to combine with 
 the aristocracy and to support the Crown, they are naturally 
 brought into contact with the people by their interests. They 
 like the government of democracy, without participating in 
 its propensities and without imitating its weaknesses ; whence 
 they derive a twofold authority, from it and over it. The peo- 
 ple in democratic states does not mistrust the members of the 
 legal profession, because it is well known that they are inter- 
 ested in serving the popular cause ; and it listens to them with- 
 out irritation, because it does not attribute to them any sinister 
 designs. The object of lawyers is not, indeed, to overthrow 
 the institutions of democracy, but they constantly endeavor to 
 give it an impulse which diverts it from its real tendency, by 
 means which are foreign to its nature. Lawyers belong to the 
 people by birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by 
 taste, and they may be looked upon as the natural bond and 
 connecting link of the two great classes of society. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 281 
 
 The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element 
 which can be amalgamated without violence with the natural 
 elements of democracy, and which can be advantageously and 
 permanently combined with them. I am not unacquainted 
 with the defects which are inherent in the character of that body 
 of men ; but without this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety 
 with the democratic principle, I question whether democratic 
 institutions could long be maintained, and I cannot believe that 
 a republic could subsist at the present time if the influence of 
 lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the 
 power of the people. 
 
 This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to 
 the legal profession, is much more distinctly marked in the 
 United States and in England than in any other country. This 
 proceeds not only from the legal studies of the English and 
 American lawyers, but from the nature of the legislation, and 
 the position which those persons occupy in the two countries. 
 The English and the Americans have retained the law of pre- 
 cedents ; that is to say, they continue to found their legal opin- 
 ions and the decisions of their courts upon the opinions and the 
 decisions of their forefathers. In the mind of an English or 
 American lawyer a taste and a reverence for what is old is al- 
 most always united to a love of regular and lawful proceedings. 
 
 This predisposition has another effect upon the character of 
 the legal profession and upon the general course of society. 
 The English and American lawyers investigate what has been 
 done; the French advocate inquires what should have been 
 done ; the former produce precedents, the latter reasons. A 
 French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an 
 American lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little 
 he alludes to his own ; whilst the reverse occurs in France. 
 There the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the 
 introduction of an entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel 
 employed ; and the fundamental principles of law are discussed 
 in order to obtain a perch of land by the decision of the court. 
 This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference 
 to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the Eng- 
 lish and American lawyer, this subjection of thought which he 
 is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits 
 and more sluggish inclinations in England and America than in 
 France. 
 
 i,f >» 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
mWn 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 i] • 
 
 i' '^ 
 
 ■fT 
 
 
 •i' '. ;i' 
 
 ri 
 
 282 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but 
 they can be read by every one ; nothing, on the other hand, can 
 be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation 
 founded upon precedents. The indispensable want of legal 
 assistance which is felt in England and in the United States, and 
 the high opinion which is generally entertained of the ability of 
 the legal profession, tend to separate it more and more from the 
 people, and to place it in a distinct class. The French lawyer 
 is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his 
 country ; but the English or American lawyer resembles the 
 hierophants of Egypt, for, like them, he is the sole interpreter of 
 an occult science. 
 
 The station which lawyers occupy in England and America 
 exercises no less an influence upon their habits and their opin- 
 ions. The English aristocracy, which has taken care to attract 
 to its sphere whatever is at all analogous to itself, has conferred 
 a high degree of importance and of authority upon the members 
 of the legal profession. In English society lawyers do not oc- 
 cupy the first rank, but they are contented with the station as- 
 signed to them ; they constitute, as it were, the younger branch 
 of the English aristocracy, and they are attached to their elder 
 brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges. The 
 English lawyers consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of 
 the aristocratic circles in which they move with the aristocratic 
 interests of their profession. 
 
 And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavor- 
 ing to depict is most distinctly to be met with in England : there 
 laws are esteemed not so much because they are good as because 
 they are old ; and if it be necessary to modify them in any re- 
 spect, or to adapt them to the changes which time operates in 
 society, recourse is had to the most inconceivable contrivances 
 in order to uphold the traditionary fabric, and to maintain that 
 nothing has been done which does not square with the inten- 
 tions and complete the labors of former generations. The very 
 individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of 
 innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedients 
 than plead guilty to so great a crime. This spirit appertains 
 more especially to the English lawyers ; they seem indiflferent 
 to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their 
 attention to the letter, seeming inclined to infringe the rules of 
 common sense and of humanity rather than to swerve one tittle 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 283 
 
 from the law. The English legislation may be compared to the 
 stock of an old tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted the 
 most various shoots, with the hope that, although their fruits 
 may diflfer, their foliage at least will be confounded with the 
 venerable trunk which supports them all. 
 
 In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the peo- 
 ple is apt to mistrust the wealthy ; lawyers consequently form 
 the highest political class, and the most cultivated circle of so- 
 ciety. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, 
 which adds a conservative interest to their natural taste for pub- 
 lic order. If I were asked where I place the American aristoc- 
 racy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed 
 of the rich, who are united together by no common tie, but that 
 it occupies the judicial bench and the bar. 
 
 The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States 
 the more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers as a body form 
 the most powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the demo» 
 cratic element. In that country we perceive how eminently 
 the legal profession is qualified by its powers, and even by its 
 defects, to neutralize the vices which are inherent in popular 
 government. When the American people is intoxicated by 
 passion, or carried away by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is 
 checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of its 
 legal counsellors, who secretly oppose their aristocratic propen- 
 sities to its democratic instincts, their superstitious attachment 
 to what is antique to its love of novelty, their narrow views to its 
 immense designs, and their habitual procrastination to its ar- 
 dent impatience. 
 
 The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the 
 legal profession is enabled to control the democracy. The 
 judge is a lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regular- 
 ity and order which he has contracted in the study of legislation, 
 derives an additional love of stability from his own inalienable 
 functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to a 
 distinguished rank amongst his fellow-citizens; his political 
 power completes the distinction of his station, and gives him 
 the inclinations natural to privileged classes. 
 
 Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconsti- 
 tutional.a the American magistrate perpetually interferes in po- 
 litical afifairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at 
 
 a 3ee chapter VI. on the " Judicial Power in the United States," 
 
 l» 
 
 
 li^ 
 
 'ill 
 
 Pa ' 
 I 
 
 J. 
 
 i 
 
^■'■', i. 
 
 284 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 least he can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments ; or to 
 act inconsistently with its own principles. I am aware that a 
 secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the 
 United States, and by most of the constitutions of the several 
 States the Government can, upon the demand of the two houses 
 of the legislature, remove the judges from their station. By 
 some other constitutions the members of the tribunals are 
 elected, and they are even subjected to frequent re-elections. I 
 venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or later 
 be attended with fatal consequences, and that it will be found out 
 at some future period that the attack which is made upon the 
 judicial power has affected the democratic republic itself. 
 
 It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of 
 which I have been speaking has been confined, in the United 
 States, to the courts of justice ; it extends far beyond them. 
 As the lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the 
 people does not mistrust, they are naturally called upon to oc- 
 cupy most of the public stations. They fill the legislative as- 
 semblies, and they conduct the administration ; they conse- 
 quently exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of the 
 law, and upon its execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged 
 to yield to the current of public opinion, which is too strong 
 for them to resist it, but it is easy to find indications of what 
 their conduct would be if they were free to act as they chose. 
 The Americans, who have made such copious innovations in 
 their political legislation, have introduced very sparing altera- 
 tions in their civil laws, and that with great difficulty, although 
 those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition. 
 The reason of this is, that in matters of civil law the majority is 
 obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession, and 
 that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when 
 they are left to their own choice. 
 
 It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different 
 state of things, to hear the perpetual complaints which are made 
 in the United States against the stationary propensities of legal 
 men, and their prejudices in favor of existing institutions. 
 
 The influence of the legal habits which are common in Amer- 
 ica extends beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely 
 any question arises in the United States which does not become, 
 sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate ; hence all parties 
 are obliged to borrow the ideas, and even the language, usual 
 
 I" 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 285 
 
 in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most 
 public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce 
 the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs 
 of the country. The jury extends this habitude to all classes. 
 The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a 
 vulgar tongue ; the spirit of the law, which is produced in the 
 schools and courts of justice, gradually penetrates beyond their 
 walls into the bosom of society, where it descends to the lowest 
 classes, so that the whole people contracts the habits and the 
 tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the United States form 
 a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived, which 
 has no badge peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great 
 flexibility to the exigencies of the time, and accommodates it- 
 self to all the movements of the social body ; but this party ex- 
 tends over the whole community, and it penetrates into all 
 classes of society ; it acts upon the country imperceptibly, but 
 it finally fashions it to suit its purposes. 
 
 Hi 
 
 'i-\ 
 
 Trial by Jury in the United States Considered as a 
 Political Institution 
 
 Trial by jury, which is one of the instruments of the sovereignty of the 
 people, deserves to be compared with the other laws which establish 
 that sovereignty — Composition of the jury in the United States — 
 Effect of trial by jury upon the national character — It educates the 
 people — It tends to establish the authority of the magistrates and 
 to extend a knowledge of law among the people. 
 
 Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the adminis- 
 tration of justice in the United States, I will not pass over this 
 point without adverting to the institution of the jury. Trial 
 by jury may be considered in two separate points of view, as 
 a judicial and as a political institution. If it entered into my 
 present purpose to inquire how far trial by jury (more espe- 
 cially in civil cases) contributes to insure the best administration 
 of justice, I adm that its utility might be contested. As the 
 jury was first introduced at a time when society was in an un- 
 civilized state, and when courts of justice were merely called 
 upon to decide on the evidence of facts, it is not an easy task 
 to adapt it to the wants of a highly civilized community when 
 the mutual relations of men are multiplied to a surprising ex- 
 
ii! 
 
 R. ti 
 
 1 I 
 
 i 
 
 . ■ Pi 
 
 286 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 tent, and have assumed the enlightened and intellectual char- 
 acter of the age.fr 
 
 My present object is to consider t'^e jury as a political insti- 
 tution, and any other course would di crt ine from my subject. 
 Of trial by jury, considered as a judicial institution, I shall here 
 say but very few words. When the English adopted trial by 
 jury they were a semi-barbarous people ; they are become, in 
 course of time, one of the most enlightened nations of the earth ; 
 and their attachment to this institution seems to have increased 
 with their increasing cultivation. They soon spread beyond 
 their insular boundai ies to every corner of the habitable globe ; 
 some have formed colonies, others independent states; the 
 mother-country has maintained its monarchical constitution ; 
 many of its offspring have founded powerful republics ; but 
 wherever the English have been they have boasted of the priv- 
 ilege of trial by jury.c They have established it, or hastened 
 to re-establish it, in all their settlements. A judicial institution 
 which obtains the suffrages of a great people for so long a series 
 of ages, which is zealously renewed at every epoch of civiliza- 
 tion, in all the climates of the earth and under every form of 
 human government, cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice.^ 
 
 
 b The investigation of trial by jury 
 as a judicial institution, and the appre- 
 ciation of its effects in the United 
 States, together with the advantages the 
 Americans have derived from it, would 
 suffice to form a book, and a book upon 
 a very "tseful and curious subject. The 
 State ol Louisiana would in particular 
 afford the curious nhenomenon of a 
 French and English legislation, as well 
 as a French and English population, 
 which are gradually combining with 
 each other. See the " Digestc des Lois 
 de la I.ouisianc," in two volumes ; and 
 the " Traite sur Ies Regies des Actions 
 civiles," printed in French and English 
 at New Orleans in 1830. 
 
 c All the English and American jur- 
 ists are unanimous upon this head. Mr. 
 Story, judge of the Supreme Court of 
 the Onited States, speaks, in his " Trea- 
 tise on the Federal Constitution," of the 
 advantages of trial by jury in civil 
 cases:— The inestimable privilege of 
 a trial by jury in civil cases— a privilege 
 scarcely inferior to that in criminal 
 cases, which is counted by all persons 
 to be essential to political and civil lib- 
 erty. . . ." (Story, book iii., chap, 
 xxxviii.) 
 
 d If it were our province to point out 
 the utility of the jury as a judicial insti- 
 tution in this place, much might be 
 said, and the following arguments might 
 be brought forward amongst others:— 
 
 By introducing the jury into the busi- 
 
 ness of the courts you are enabled to 
 diminish the nimiber of judges, which 
 is a very great advantage. When judges 
 are very numenms, death is perpetually 
 thinning the ranks of the judicial func- 
 tionaries, and laying places vacant for 
 newcomers. The ambition of the mag- 
 istrates is therefore continually excited, 
 and they are naturally made dependent 
 upon the will of the majority, or the 
 individual who fills up the vacant ap- 
 pointments; the officers of the court 
 then rise like the officers of an army. 
 This state of things is entirely contrary 
 to the sound administration of justice, 
 and to the intentions of the legislator. 
 The office of a judge is made in.Tlienable 
 in order that he may remain independ- 
 ent: but of what advantage is it that his 
 independence should be protected if he 
 be tempted to sacrifice it of his own ac- 
 cord? When judges are very numerous 
 many of them must necessarily be in- 
 capable of performing their important 
 duties, for a great magistrate is a man 
 of no common powers; and I am in- 
 clined to believe that a half-enlightened 
 tribunal is the worst of all instruments 
 for attaining those objects which it is 
 the puroose of courts of justice to ac- 
 Cvimplish. For my own part, I had 
 rather submit the decision of a case to 
 ignorant jurors directed by a skilful 
 judge than to judges a majority of 
 whom are imperfectly acquainted with 
 jurisprudence and with the laws. 
 
I 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 287 
 
 I turn, however, from this part of the subject. To look upon 
 the jury as a mere judicial institution is to confine our attention 
 to a very narrow view of it ; for however great its influence may 
 be upon the decisions of the lavvr courts, that influence is very 
 subordinate to the powerful effects which it produces on the 
 destinies of the community at large. The jury is above all a 
 political institution, and it must be regarded in this light in order 
 to be duly appreciated. 
 
 By the jury I mean a certain number of citizens chosen in- 
 discriminately, and invested .with a temporary right of judging. 
 Trial by jury, as applied to the repression of crime, appears to 
 me to introduce an eminently republican element into the gov- 
 ernment upon the following grounds : — 
 
 The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic, 
 according to the class of society from which the jurors are se- 
 lected; but it always preserves its republican character, inas- 
 much as it places the real direction of society in the hands of 
 the governed, or Of a portion of the governed, instead of leav- 
 ing it under the authority of the Government. Force is never 
 more than a transient element of success ; and after force comes 
 the notion of right. A government which should only be able 
 to crush its enemies upon a field of battle would very soon be 
 destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in 
 penal legislation, and if that sanction be wanting the law will 
 sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes infractions 
 of the law is therefore the real master of society. Now the in- 
 stitution of the jury raises the people itself, or at least a class 
 of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority. The institution 
 of the jury consequently invests the people, or that class of 
 citizens, with the direction of society.^ 
 
 In England the jury is returned from the artistocratic portion 
 of the nation ;f the aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, 
 and punishes all infractions of the laws ; everything is estab- 
 lished upon a consistent footing, and England may with truth 
 
 'If i' 
 
 I 
 
 i*1 % 
 
 '■' I -> 
 
 
 
 m 
 til 
 
 I'i 
 
 e An important remark must, how- 
 ever, be made. Trial by jury does un- 
 questionably invest the people with a 
 general control over the actions of cit- 
 izens, but it does not furnish means of 
 exercisinf? this control in all cases, or 
 with an absolute authority. When an 
 absolute monarch has the right of try- 
 ing offences by his representatives, the 
 fate of the prisoner is, as it were, de- 
 cided beforehand. But even if the peo- 
 
 ple were predisposed to convict, the 
 composition and the non-responsibility 
 of the jury would still afford some 
 chances favorable to the protection of 
 innocence. 
 
 f [This_ may be true to some extent of 
 special juries, but not of common 
 juries. The author seems not to have 
 been aware that the qualifications of 
 jurors in England vary exceedingly.] 
 
'1 
 
 
 288 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 be said to constitute an aristocratic republic. In the United 
 States the same system is appHed to the whole people. Every 
 American citizen is qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is 
 eligible to office.g The system of the jury, as it is understood 
 in America, appears to me to be as direct and as extreme a 
 consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suf- 
 frage. These institutions are two instruments of equal power, 
 which contribute to the supremacy of the majority. All the 
 sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own authority, 
 and to direct society instead of obeying its directions, have de- 
 stroyed or enfeebled the institution of the jury. The monarchs 
 of the House of Tudor sent to prison jurors who refused to con- 
 vict, and Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents. 
 
 However clear most of these truths may seem to be, they 
 do not command universal assent, and in France, at least, the in- 
 stitution of trial by jury is still very imperfectly understood. 
 If the question arises as to the proper qualification of jurors, it 
 is confined to a discussion of the intelligence and knowledge of 
 the citizens who may be returned, as if the jury was merely a 
 judicial institution. This appears to me to be the least part of 
 the subject. The jury is pre-eminently a political institution ; 
 it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the peo- 
 ple ; when that sovereignty is repudiated, it must be rejected, 
 or it must be adapted to the laws by which that sovereignty is 
 established. The jury is that portion of the nation to which the 
 execution of the laws is entrusted, as the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment constitute that part of the nation which makes the laws ; 
 and in order that society may be governed with consistency 
 and uniformity, the list of citizens qualified to serve on juries 
 must increase and diminish with the list of electors. This I hold 
 to be the point of view most worthy of the attention of the legis- 
 lator, and all that remains is merely accessory. 
 
 I am so entirely convinced that the jury is pre-eminently a 
 political institution that I still consider it in this light when it is 
 applied in civil causes. Laws are always unstable unless they 
 are founded upon the manners of a nation ; manners are the 
 only durable and resisting power in a people. When the jury 
 is reserved for criminal offences, the people only witnesses its 
 occasional action in certain particular cases; the ordinary 
 course of life goes on without its interference, and it is consid- 
 
 gSee Appendix, Q. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 989 
 
 ered as an instrument, but not as the only instrument, of ob- 
 taining justice. This is true d fortiori when the jury is only ap- 
 plied to certain criminal causes. 
 
 When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended 
 to civil causes, its application is constantly palpable ; it affects 
 all the interests of the community ; everyone co-operates in its 
 work : it thus penetrates into all the usages of life, it fashions the 
 human mind to its peculiar forms, and is gradually associated 
 with the idea of justice itself. 
 
 The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is 
 always in danger, but when once it is introduced into civil pro- 
 ceedings it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it had 
 been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the 
 laws of England, it would have perished under Henry VIII, 
 and Elizabeth, and the civil jury did in reality, at that period, 
 save the liberties of the country. In whatever manner the jury 
 be applied, it cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence upon 
 the national character; but this influence is prodigiously in- 
 creased when it is introduced into civil causes. The jury, and 
 more especially the jury in civil cases, serves to communicate 
 the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens ; and this 
 spirit, with the habits which attend it, is the soundest prepara- 
 tion for free institutions. It imbues all classes with a respect 
 for the thing judged, and with the notion of right. If these 
 two elements be removed, the love of independence is reduced 
 to a mere destructive passion. It teaches men to practice equity, 
 every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself be 
 judged ; and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes, 
 for, whilst the number of persons who have reason to apprehend 
 a criminal prosecution is small, every one is liable to have a 
 I civil action brought against him. The jury teaches every man 
 not to recoil before the responsibility of his own actions, and im- 
 presses him with that manly confidence without which political 
 virtue cannot exist. It invests each citizen with a kind of mag- 
 istracy, it makes them all feel the duties which they are bound 
 to discharge towards society, and the part which they take in 
 the Government. By obliging men to turn their attention to 
 affairs which are not exclusively their own, it rubs off that in- 
 dividual egotism which is the rust of society. 
 
 The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgment 
 and to increase the natural intelligence of a people, and this is. 
 Vou I. — 19 
 
 f I 
 
 If 
 ill '' ' I 
 
 
 I 'fl 
 
 I* 
 
 
 111 
 
390 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ii/^f-M 
 
 in my opinion, its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as 
 a gratuitous public school ever open, in which every juror learns 
 to exercise his rights, enters into daily communication with the 
 most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes, 
 and becomes practically acquainted with the laws of his coun- 
 try, which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the 
 efforts of the bar, the advice of tht judge, and even by the 
 passions of the parties. I think that the practical intelligence 
 and political good sense of the Americans are mainly attribut- 
 able to the long use which they have made of the jury in civil 
 causes. I do not know whether the jury is useful to those who 
 are in litigation ; but I am certain it is highly beneficial to those 
 who decide the litigation ; and I look upon it as one of the most 
 efficacious means for the education of the people which society 
 can employ. 
 
 What I have hitherto said applies to all nations, but the re- 
 mark I am now about to make is peculiai to the Americans and 
 to democratic peoples. I have already observed that in de- 
 mocracies the members of the legal profession and the magis- 
 trates constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the 
 irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested with 
 no physical power, but it exercises its conservative influence 
 upon the minds of men, an1 the most abundant source of its au- 
 thority is the institution oi the civil jury. In criminal causes, 
 when society is armed against a single individual, the jury is 
 apt to look upon the judge as the passive instrument of social 
 power, and to mistrust his advice. Moreover, criminal causes 
 are entirely founded upon the evidence of facts which common 
 sense can readily appreciate ; upon this ground the judge and 
 the jury are equal. Such, however, is not the case in civil 
 causes ; then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter be- 
 tween the conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look 
 up to him with confidence and listen to him with respect, for 
 in this instance their intelligence is completely under the con- 
 trol of his learning. It is the judge who sums up the various 
 arguments with which their memory has been wearied out, and 
 who guides them through the devious course of the proceed- 
 ings; he points their attention to the exact question of fact 
 which they are called upon to solve, and he puts the answer to 
 the question of law into their mouths. His influence upon 
 their verdict is almost unlimited. 
 
 I ! 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 t9f 
 
 If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by 
 the arguments derived from the ignorance of jurors in civil 
 causes, I reply, that in those proceedings, whenever the question 
 to be solved is not a mere question of fact, the jury has only the 
 semblance of a judicial body. The jury sanctions the decision 
 of the judge, they by the authority of society which they repre- 
 sent, and he by that of reason and of law./* 
 
 In England and in America the judges exercise an influence 
 upon criminal trials which the French judges have never pos- 
 sessed. The reason of this difference may easily be discovered ; 
 the English and American magistrates establish their authority 
 in civil causes, and only transfer it afterwards to tribunals of an- 
 other kind, where that authority was not acquired. In some 
 cases (and they are frequently the most important ones) the 
 American judges have the right of deciding causes alone.* 
 Upon these occasions they are accidentally placed in the posi- 
 tion which the French judges habitually occupy, but they are 
 invested with far more power than the latter; they arc still 
 surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their judgment 
 has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at 
 large, represented by that institution. Their influence extends 
 beyond the limits of the courts ; in the recreations of private life 
 as well as in the turmoil of public business, abroad and in the 
 legislative assemblies, the American judge is constantly sur- 
 rounded by men who are accustomed to regard his intelligence 
 as superior to their own, and after having exercised his power in 
 the decision of causes, he continues to influence the habits of 
 thought and the characters of the individuals who took a part 
 in his judgment. 
 
 The jury, then, which seems to restrict the rights of magis- 
 tracy, does in reality consolidate its power, and in no country 
 are the judges so powerful as there, where the people partakes 
 their privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury in 
 civil causes that the American magistrates imbue all classes of 
 society with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury, which 
 is the most energetic means of making the people rule, is also 
 the most efficacious means of teachini; ^^ to rule well. 
 
 h See Appendix, R. 
 
 i The Federal judges decide upon 
 
 their own authority almost all the ques- 
 tions most important to the country. 
 
 I 
 
 n 
 
 
 M 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 
 PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH TEND TO MAINTAIN THE 
 DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 A DEMOCRATIC republic subsists in the United States, 
 and the principal object of this book has been to account 
 for the fact of its existence. Several of the causes which 
 contribute to maintain the institutions of America have been 
 involuntarily passed by or only hinted at as I was borne along 
 by my subject. Others I have been unable to discuss, and those 
 on which I have dwelt most are, as it were, buried in the details 
 of the former parts of this work. I think, therefore, that before 
 I proceed to speak of the future, I cannot do better than collect 
 within a small compass the reasons which best explain the pres- 
 ent. In this retrospective chapter I shall be succinct, for I shall 
 take care to remind the reader very summarily of what he al- 
 ready knows ; and I shall only select the most prominent of 
 those facts which I have not yet pointed out. 
 
 All the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the 
 democratic republic in the United States are reducible to three 
 heads : — 
 
 I. The peculiar and accidental situation in which Provi- 
 dence has placed the Americans. 
 
 II. The laws. 
 
 III. The manners and customs of the people. 
 
 Accidental or Providential Causes Which Contribute 
 TO the Maintenance of the Democratic Republic in 
 THE United States 
 
 The Union has no neighbors — No metropolis — The Americans have 
 had the chances of birth in their favor — America an empty country 
 — How this circumstance contributes powerfully to the maintenance 
 of the democratic republic in America — How the American wilds 
 are peopled — Avidity of the Anglo-Americans in taking possession 
 of the solitudes of the New World — Influence of physical prosperity 
 upon the political opinions of the Americans. 
 A thousand circumstances, independent of the will of man, 
 
 concur to facilitate the maintenance of a democratic republic 
 
 292 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 '93 
 
 in the United States. Some of these peculiarities arc known, 
 the others may easily be pointed out ; but I shall confine my- 
 self to the most prominent amongst them. 
 
 The Americans have no neighbors, and consequently they 
 have no great wars, or financial crises, or inroads, or conquest 
 to dread; they require neither great taxes, nor great armies, 
 nor great generals ; and they have nothing to fear from a 
 scourge which is more formidable to republics than all these 
 evils combined, namely, military glory. It is impossible to 
 deny the inconceivable influence which military glory exercises 
 upon the spirit of a nation. General Jackson, whom the Amer- 
 icans have twice elected to the head of their Government, is 
 a man of a violent temper and mediocre talents ; no one cir- 
 cumstance in the whole course of his career ever proved that 
 he is qualified to govern a free people, and indeed the majority 
 of the enlightened classes of the Union has always been op- 
 posed to him. But he was raised to the Presidency, and has 
 been maintained in that lofty station, solely by the recollection 
 of a victory which he gained twenty years ago under the walls 
 of New Orleans, a victory which was, however, a very ordinary 
 achievement, and which could only be remembered in a country 
 where battles are rare. Now the people which is thus carried 
 away by the illusions of glory is unquestionably the most cold 
 and calculating, the most unmilitary (if I may use the expres- 
 sion), and the most prosaic of all the peoples of the earth. 
 
 America has no great capital a city, whose influence is di- 
 
 oThe United States have no metrop- 
 olis, but they already contain several 
 very large cities. Philadelphia reckoned 
 161,000 inhabitants and New York aoa,- 
 000 in the year 1830. The lower orders 
 which inhaoit these cities constitute a 
 rabble even more formidable than the 
 populace of European towns. They 
 consist of freed blacks in the first place, 
 who are condemned by the laws and by 
 public opinion to a hereditary state of 
 misery and depradation. They also con- 
 tain a multitude of Europeans who have 
 been driven to the shores of the New 
 World by their misfortunes or their 
 misconduct; and these men inoculate 
 the United States with all our vices, 
 without bringing with them any of those 
 interests which counteract their baneful 
 influence. As inhabitants of a country 
 where they have no civil rights, they 
 are ready to turn all the passions which 
 agitate the community to their own ad- 
 vantage; thus, within the last few 
 months serious riots have broken out in 
 Philadelphia and in New York. Dis- 
 turbances of this kind are unknown in 
 the rest of the country, which is nowise 
 alarmed by them, because the popula- 
 
 tion of the cities has hitherto exercised 
 neither power nor influence over the 
 rural districts. Nevertheless, I look 
 upon the size of certain American cities, 
 and especially on the nature of their 
 population, as a real danger which 
 threatens the future security of the dem- 
 ocratic republics of the New World; 
 and I venture to predict that they will 
 nerish from this circumstance unless 
 the government succeeds in creating an 
 armed force, which, whilst it remains 
 under the control of the majority of the 
 nation, will be independent of the town 
 population, and able to repress its ex- 
 cesses. 
 
 [The population of the city of New 
 York had risen, in 1870, to 942,392, and 
 that of Philadelphia to 674,022. Brook- 
 lyn, which may be said to form part 
 of New York city, has a population of 
 396,099, in addition to that of New York. 
 The frequent disturbances in the great 
 cities of America, and the excessive cor- 
 ruption of their local governments — 
 over which there is no effectual control 
 —are amongst the greatest evils and 
 dangers of the country.] 
 
 M i[ 
 
 ) 
 
a94 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 t.' 
 
 ^ 
 
 "' t i'i 
 
 rectly or indirectly felt over the whole extent of the country, 
 which I hold to be one of the first causes of the maintenance 
 of republican institutions in the United States. In cities men 
 cannot be prevented from concerting together, and from 
 awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and 
 passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large 
 assemblies, of which all the inhabitants are members ; their pop- 
 ulace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates., 
 and frequently executes its own wishes without their interven- 
 tion. 
 
 To subject the provinces to the metropolis is therefore not 
 only to place the destiny of the empire in the hands of a portion 
 of the community, which may be reprobated as unjust, but 
 to place it in the hands of a populace acting under its own 
 impulses, which must be avoided as dangerous. The pre- 
 ponderance of capital cities is therefore a serious blow upon 
 the representative system, and it exposes modern republics to 
 the same defect as the republics of antiquity, which all perished 
 from not having been acquainted with that form of government. 
 
 It would be easy for me to adduce a great number of sec- 
 ondary causes which have contributed to establish, and which 
 concur to maintain, the democratic republic of the United 
 States. But I discern two principal circumstances amongst 
 these favorable elements, which I hasten to point out. I have 
 already observed that the origin of the American settlements 
 may be looked upon as the first and most efficacious cause 
 to which the present prosperity of the United States may be 
 attributed. The Americans had the chances of birth in their 
 favor, and their forefathers imported that equality of condi- 
 tions into the country whence the democratic republic has very 
 naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did ; for besides 
 this republican condition of society, the early settlers be- 
 queathed to their descendants those customs, manners, and 
 opinions which contribute most to the success of a republican 
 form of government. When I reflect upon the consequences 
 of this primary circumstance, methinks I see the destiny of 
 America embodied in the first Puritan who landed on those 
 shores, just as the human race was represented by the first man. 
 
 The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment 
 and the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United 
 States is the nature of the territory which the Americans in- 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 29s 
 
 
 habit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equaUty and 
 of freedom, but God himself gave them the means of remain- 
 ing equal and free, by placing them upon a boundless con- 
 tinent, which is open to their exertions. General prosperity 
 is favorble to the stability of all governments, but more par- 
 ticularly of a democratic constitution, which depends upon the 
 dispositions of the majority, and more particularly of that por- 
 tion of the community which is most exposed to feel the pres- 
 sure of want. When the people rules, it must be rendered 
 happy, or it will overturn the State, and misery is apt to stimu- 
 late it to those excesses to which ambition rouses kings. The 
 physical causes, independent of the laws, which contribute to 
 promote general prosperity, are more numerous in America 
 than they have ever been in any other country in the world, at 
 any other period of history. In the United States not only is 
 legislation democratic, but nature herself favors the cause of 
 the people. 
 
 In what part of human tradition can be found anything at 
 all similar to that which is occurring under our eyes in North 
 America? The celebrated communities of antiquity were all 
 founded in the midst of hostile nations, which they were obliged 
 to subjugate before they could flourish in their place. Even the 
 moderns have found, in some parts of South America, vast 
 regions inhabited by a people of inferior civilization, but which 
 occupied and cultivated the soil. To found their new states 
 it was necessary to extirpate or to subdue a numerous popula- 
 tion, until civilization has been made to blush for their success. 
 But North America was only inhabited by wandering tribes, 
 who took no thought of the natural riches of the soil, and that 
 vast country was still, properly speaking, an empty continent, 
 a desert land awaiting its inhabitants. 
 
 Everything is extraordinary in America, the social condition 
 of the inhabitants, as well as the laws ; but the soil upon which 
 these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all 
 the rest. When man was first placed upon the earth by the 
 Creator, the earth was inexhaustible in its youth, but man 
 was weak and ignorant ; and when he had learned to explore 
 the treasures which it contained, hosts of his fellow creatures 
 covered its surface, and he was obliged to earn an asylum 
 for repose and for freedom by the sword. At that same period 
 North America was discovered, as if it had been kept in reserve 
 
 r. 
 
 / \ hi 
 
 ■. i 
 
 Mf 
 
 II 
 
 
296 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I I 
 
 • 
 
 by the Deity, and had just risen from beneath the waters of the 
 deluge. 
 
 That continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time, 
 rivers which rise from never-failing sources, green and moist 
 solitudes, and fields which the ploughshare of the husband- 
 man has never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in 
 the barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to 
 a being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets 
 of the natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and 
 instructed by the experience of fifty centuries. At this very 
 time thirteen millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably 
 spreading over those fertile plains, with whose resources and 
 whose extent they are not yet themselves accurately acquainted. 
 Three or four thousand soldiers drive the wandering races of 
 the aborigines before them ; these are followed by the pioneers, 
 who pierce the woods, scare off the beasts of prey, explore the 
 courses of the inland streams, and make ready the triumphal 
 procession of civilization across the waste. 
 
 The favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of Amer- 
 ica upon the institutions of that country has been so often 
 described by others, nd adverted to by myself, that I shall 
 not enlarge upon it ' r ,1 the addition of a few facts. An 
 erroneous notion is e*, • ,lly entertained that the deserts of 
 America are peopled by European emigrants, who annually 
 disembark upon the coasts of the New World, whilst the 
 American population increases and multiplies upon the soil 
 which its forefathers tilled. The European settler, however, 
 usually arrives in the United States without friends, and some- 
 times without resources; in order to subsist he is obliged 
 to work for hire, and he rarely proceeds beyond that belt of 
 industrious population which adjoins the ocean. The desert 
 cannot be explored without capital or credit; and the body 
 must be accustomed to the rigors of a new climate before it 
 can be exposed to the chances of forest life. It is the Ameri- 
 cans themselves who daily quit the spots which gave them 
 birth to acquire extensive domains in a remote country. Thus 
 the European leaves his cottage for the trans-Atlantic shores ; 
 and the American, who is born on that very coast, plunges in 
 his turn into the wilds of Central America. This double 
 emigration is incessant; it becfins in the remotest parts of 
 Europe, it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and it advances over 
 
 l' ' ' I: 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 297 
 
 the solitudes of the New World. Millions of men are marching 
 at once towards the same horizon; their language, their re- 
 ligion, their manners differ, their object is the same. The gifts 
 of fortune are promised in the West, and to the West they 
 bend their course.*' 
 
 No event can be compared with this continuous removal 
 of the human race, except perhaps those irruptions which pre- 
 ceded the fall of the Roman Em-^ire. Then, as well as now, 
 generations of men were impellea lorwards in the same direc- 
 tion to meet and struggle on the same spot; but the designs 
 of Providence were not the same ; then, every newcomer was 
 the harbinger of destruction and of death ; now, every adven- 
 turer brings with him the elements of prosperity and of life. 
 The future still conceals from us the ulterior consequences of 
 this emigration of the Americans towards the West; but we 
 can readily apprehend its more immediate results. As a por- 
 tion of the inhabitants annually leave the States in which they 
 were born, the population of these States increases very slowly, 
 although they have long been established : thus in Connecticut, 
 which only contains fifty-nine inhabitants to the square mile, 
 the population has not increased by more than one-quarter 
 in forty years, whilst that of England has been augmented by 
 one-third in the lapse of the same period. The European 
 emigrant always lands, therefore, in a country which is but 
 half full, and where hands are in request : he becomes a work- 
 man in easy circumstances ; his son goes to seek his fortune in 
 unpeopled regions, and he becomes a rich landowner. The 
 former amasses the capital which the latter invests, and the 
 stranger as well as the native is unacquainted with want. 
 
 The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to 
 the division of property ; but a cause which is more powerful 
 than the laws prevents property from being divided to excess.c 
 This is very perceptible in the States which are beginning to be 
 thickly peopled ; Massachusetts is the most populous part of 
 the Union, but it contains only eighty inhabitants to the square 
 mile, which is muse less than in France, where 162 are reckoned 
 to the same extent of country. But in Massachusetts estates 
 
 b [The number of foreign immiKrants 
 into the United States in the last fifty 
 years (from 1820 to 1871) is stated to be 
 9,556,007. Of these, 4.104.553 spoke Enjr- 
 lish— that is, they came from Great Bri- 
 tain, Ireland, or the British colonies; 
 
 2,643,069 came from Germany or north- 
 ern Europe; and about half a million 
 from the south of Europe.] 
 
 c In New England the estates are 
 exceedingly small, but they are rarely 
 subjected to further division. 
 
 5.1 
 
 4) 
 
 II" 
 
 
 Si 
 
 I 
 
 !■!' 
 
 ' it: 
 
298 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 '::;i 
 
 
 k\ 
 
 are very rarely divided ; the eldest son takes the land, and the 
 others go to seek their fortune in the desert. The law has 
 abolished the rights of primogeniture, but circumstances have 
 concurred to re-establish it under a form of which none can 
 complain, and by which no just rights are impaired. 
 
 A single fact will suffice to show the prodigious number 
 of individuals who leave New England, in this manner, to 
 settle themselves in the wilds. We were assured in 1830 that 
 thirty-six of the members of Congress were born in the little 
 State of Connecticut. The population of Connecticut, which 
 constitutes only one forty-third part of that of the United 
 States, thus furnished one-eighth of the whole body of repre- 
 sentatives. The States of Connecticut, however, only sends 
 five delegates to Congress; and the thirty-one others sit ftr 
 the new Western States. If these thirty-one individuals had 
 remained in Connecticut, it is probable that instead of becom- 
 ing rich landowners they would have remained humble la- 
 borers, that they would have lived in obscurity without being 
 able to rise into public life, and that, far from becoming useful 
 members of the legislature, they might have been unruly citi- 
 zens. 
 
 These reflections do not escape the observation of the Amer- 
 icans any more than of ourselves. " It cannot be doubted," 
 says Chancellor Kent in his " Treatise on American Law," 
 " that the division of landed estates must produce great evils 
 when it is carried to such excess as that each parcel of land is 
 insufficient to support a family; but these disadvantages have 
 never been felt in the United States, and many generations 
 must elapse before they can be felt. The extent of our inhabited 
 territory, the abundance of adjacent land, and the continual 
 stream of emigration flowing from the shores of the Atlantic 
 towards the interior of the country, suffice as yet, and will long 
 suffice, to prevent the parcelling out of estates." 
 
 It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the Ameri- 
 can rushes forward to secure the immense booty wh'ch for- 
 tune proffers to him. In the pursuit he fearlessly braves the 
 arrow of the Indian and the distempers of the forest; he is 
 unimpressed by the silence of the woods; the approach of 
 beasts of prey does not disturb him ; for he is goaded onwards 
 by a passion more intense than the love of life. Before him 
 lies a boundless continent, and he urges onwards as if time 
 
 I s- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 299 
 
 pressed, and he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions. 
 I have spoken of the emigration from the older States, but 
 how shall I describe that which takes place fro*n the more 
 recent ones? Fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of 
 Ohio was founded; the greater part of its inhabitants were 
 not born within its confines; its capital has only been built 
 thirty years, and its territory is still covered by an immense 
 extent of uncultivated fields; nevertheless the population of 
 Ohio is already proceeding westward, and most of the settlers 
 who descend to the fertile savannahs of Illinois are citizens of 
 Ohio. These men left their first country to improve their con- 
 dition ; they quit their resting-place to ameliorate it still more ; 
 fortune awaits them everywhere, but happiness they cannot 
 attain. The desire of prosperity is become an ardent and rest- 
 less passion in their minds which grows by what it gains. They 
 early broke the ties which bound them to their natal earth, 
 and they have contracted no fresh ones on their way. Emigra- 
 tion was at first necessary to them as a means of subsistence ; 
 and it soon becomes a sort of game of chance, which they 
 pursue for the emotions it excites as much as for the gain it 
 procures. 
 
 Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert 
 reappears behind him. The woods stoop to give him a pas- 
 sage, and spring up again when he has passed. It is not un- 
 common in crossing the new States of the West to meet with 
 deserted dwellings in the midst of the wilds ; the traveller fre- 
 quently discovers the vestiges of a log house in the most soli- 
 tary retreats, which bear witness to the power, and no less to the 
 inconstancy of man. In these abandoned fields, and over these 
 ruins of a day, the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh vegeta- 
 tion, the beasts resume the haunts which were once their own, 
 and Nature covers the traces of man's path with branches and 
 with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track. 
 
 I remember that, in crossing one of the woodland districts 
 which still cover the State of New York, I reached the shores 
 of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world. A 
 small island, covered with woods whose thick foliage con- 
 cealed its banks, rose from the centre of the waters. Upon 
 the shores of the lake no object attested the presence of man 
 except a column of smoke which might be seen on the horizon 
 rising from the tops of the trees to the clouds, and seeming to 
 
 i'<idi 
 
 n 1 1 
 
 fi 
 
 .11 
 
300 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 1 
 
 If! 
 
 hang from heaven rather than to be mounting to the sky. An 
 Indian shallop was hauled up on the sand, which tempted me 
 to visit the islet that had first attracted my attention, and in a 
 few minutes I set foot upon its banks. The whole island formed 
 one of those delicious solitudes of the New World which almost 
 lead civilized man to regret the haunts of the savage. A lux- 
 uriant vegetation bore witness to the incomparable fruitfulness 
 of the soil. The deep silence which is common to the wilds of 
 North America was only broken by the hoarse cooing of the 
 wood-pigeon, and the tapping of the woodpecker upon the 
 bark of trees. I was far from supposing that this spot had ever 
 been inhabited, so completely did Nature seem to be left to 
 her own caprices ; but when I reached the centre of the isle 
 I thought that I discovered some traces of man. I then pro- 
 ceeded to examine the surrounding objects with care, and I 
 soon perceived that a European had undoubtedly been led to 
 sjck a refuge in this retreat. Yet what changes had taken 
 place in the scene of his labors ! The logs which he had hastily 
 hewn to build himself a shed had sprouted afresh ; the very 
 props were intertwined with living verdure, and his cabin was 
 transformed into a bower. In the midst of these shrubs a few 
 stones were to be seen, blackened with fire and sprinkled with 
 thin ashes ; here the hearth had no doubt been, and the chim- 
 ney in falling had covered it with rubbish. I stood for some 
 time in silent admiration of the exuberance of Nature and the 
 littleness of man: and when I was obliged to leave that en- 
 chanting solitude, I exclaimed with melancholy, " Are ruins, 
 then, already here ? " 
 
 In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, 
 an unbounded desire of riches, and an excessive love of inde- 
 pendence, as propensities very formidable to society. Yet these 
 are the very elements which ensure a long and peaceful dura- 
 tion to the republics of America. Without these unquiet pas- 
 sions the population would collect in certain spots, and would 
 soon be subject to wants like those of the Old World, which 
 it is difficult to satisfy ; for such is the present good fortune of 
 the New World, that the vices of its inhabitants are scarcely 
 less favorable to society than their virtues. These circumstances 
 exercise a great influence on the estimation in which human 
 actions are held in the two hemispheres. The Americans fre- 
 quently term what we should call cupidity a laudable industry ; 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 301 
 
 and they blame as faint-heartedness what we consider to be the 
 virtue of moderate desires. 
 
 In France, simple tastes, orderly manners, domestic affec- 
 tions, and the attachments which men feel to the place of their 
 birth, are looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquillity 
 and happiness of the State. But in America nothing seems 
 to be more prejudicial to society than these virtues. The 
 French Canadians, who have faithfully preserved the traditions 
 of their pristine manners, are already embarrassed for room 
 upon their small territory; and this little community, which 
 has so recently begun to exist, will shortly be a prey to the 
 calamities incident to old nations. In Canada, the most en- 
 lightened, patriotic, and humane inhabitants make extraordi- 
 nary efforts to render the people dissatisfied with those simple 
 enjoyments which still content it. There, the seductions of 
 wealth are vaunted with as much zeal as the charms of an 
 honest but limited income in the Old World, and more exer- 
 tions are made to excite the passions of the citizens there than 
 to calm them elsewhere. If we listen to their eulogies, we shall 
 hear that nothing is more praiseworthy than to exchange the 
 pure and homely pleasures which even the poor man tastes in 
 his own country for the dull delights of prosperity under a 
 foreign sky; to leave the patrimonial hearth and the turf be- 
 neath whic'" his forefathers sleep; in short, to abandon the 
 living and the dead in quest of fortune. 
 
 At the present time America presents a field for human 
 effort far more extensive than any sum of labor which can 
 be applied to wor.< i*. In America too much knowledge can- 
 not be diffused; for all knowledge, whilst it may serve him 
 who possesses it, tu/ns also to the advantage of those who are 
 without it. New wants are not to be feared, since they can be 
 satisfied without difficulty ; the growth of human passions 
 need not be dreaded, since all passions may find an easy and a 
 legitimate object; nor can men be put in possession of too 
 much freedom, since they are scarcely ever tempted to misuse 
 their liberties. 
 
 The American republics of the present day are like com- 
 panies of adventurers formed to explore in common the waste 
 lands of the New World, and busied in a flourishing trade. 
 The passions which agitate the Americans most deeply are 
 not their political but their commercial passions ; or, to speak 
 
! ' 
 ■-• ( ;. 
 
 1:. ■; 
 
 ■ ; 1 
 
 |i* 
 
 f 1,. 
 
 ■ ' I 
 
 
 'ill, 
 
 302 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 more correctly, they introduce the habits they contract in busi- 
 ness into their poHtical Hfe. They love order, without which 
 affairs do not prosper ; and they set an especial value upon a 
 regular conduct, which is the foundation of a solid business; 
 they prefer the good sense which amasses large fortunes to 
 that enterprising spirit which frequently dissipates them ; gen- 
 eral ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to positive 
 calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than theory. 
 
 It is in America that one learns to understand the influence 
 which physical prosperity exercises over political actions, and 
 even over opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway but 
 that of reason; and it is more especially amongst strangers 
 that this truth is perceptible. Most of the European emigrants 
 to the New World carry with them that wild love of inde- 
 pendence and of change which our calamities are so apt to 
 engender. I sometimes met with Europeans in the United 
 States who had been obliged to leave their own country on 
 accou jf their political opinions. They all astonished me 
 by the language they held, but one of them surprised me more 
 than all the rest. As I was crossing one of the most remote 
 districts of Pennsylvania I was benighted, and obliged to beg 
 for hospitality at the gate of a wealthy planter, who was a 
 Frenchman by birth. lie bade me sit down beside his fire, and 
 we began to talk with that freedom which befits persons who 
 meet in the backwoods, two thousand leagues from their native 
 country. I was aware that my host had been a great leveller 
 and an ardent demagogue forty years ago, and that his name 
 was not unknown to fame. I was, therefore, not a little sur- 
 prised to hear him discuss the rights of property as an econo- 
 mist or a landowner might have done : he spoke of the neces- 
 sary gradations which fortune establishes among men, of 
 obedience to established laws, of the influence of good morals in 
 commonwealths, and of the support which religious opinions 
 give to order and to freedom ; he even went to far as to quote 
 an evangelical authority in corroboration of one of his political 
 tenets. 
 
 I listened, and marvelled at the feebleness of human reason. 
 A proposition is true or false, but no art can prove it to be one 
 or the other, in the midst of the uncertainties of science and 
 the conflicting lessons of experience, until a new incident dis- 
 perses the clouds of doubt ; I was poor, I become rich, and I 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 303 
 
 am not to expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct, and 
 leave my judgment free ; my opinions change with my fortune, 
 and the happy circumstances which I turn to my advantage 
 furnish me with that decisive argument which was before 
 wanting. 
 
 The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the 
 American than upon strangers. The American has always 
 seen the connection of public order and public prosperity, in- 
 timately united as they are, go on before his eyes ; he does not 
 conceive that one can subsist without the other ; he has there- 
 fore nothing to forget ; nor has he, like so many Europeans, to 
 unlearn the lessons of his early education. 
 
 Influence of the Laws Upon the Maintenance of the 
 Democratic Republic in the United States 
 
 Three principal causes of the maintenance of the democratic republic 
 — Federal Constitutions — Municipal institutions — ^Judicial power. 
 
 The principal aim of this book has been to make known the 
 laws of the United States; if this purpose has been accom- 
 plished, the reader is already enabled to judge for himself which 
 are the laws that really tend to maintain the democratic repub- 
 lic, and which endanger its existence. If I have not succeeded 
 in explaining this in the whole course of my work, I cannot hope 
 to do so within the limits of a single chapter. It is not my in- 
 tention to retrice the path I have already pursued, and a very 
 few lines will suffice to recapitulate what I have previously ex- 
 plained. 
 
 Three circumstances seem to me to contribute most power- 
 fully to the maintenance of the democratic republic in the 
 United States. 
 
 The first is that Federal form of Government which the 
 Americans have adopted, and which enables the Union to com- 
 bine the power of a great empire with the security of a small 
 State. 
 
 The second consists in those municipal institutions which 
 limit the despotism of the majority, and at the same time im- 
 part a taste for freedom and a knowledge of the art of being 
 free to the people. 
 
 The third is to be met with in the constitution of the judicial 
 
 'il 
 
 k 
 
 I 
 
304 
 
 Dli TOCQUKVILLE 
 
 power. I have shown in what manner the courts of justice serve 
 to repress the excesses of detnocracy, and how they check and 
 direct the impulses of the majority without stopping its activity. 
 
 
 Influence of Manners Upon the Maintenance of the 
 Democratic Rei'Uhlic in the United States 
 
 I have previously remarked that the manners of the people 
 may he considered as one of the general causes to which the 
 ' maintenance of a democratic repuhlic in the United States is 
 attrihutable. I here used the word manners with the meaning 
 which the ancients attached to the word mores, for I ai)ply it not 
 only to manners in their proper sense of what constitutes the 
 character of social intercourse, but I extend it to the various 
 notions and opinions current among men, and to the mass of 
 those ideas which constitute their character of mind. I com- 
 prise, therefore, under this term the whole moral and intellect- 
 ual condition of a people. My intention is not to draw a 
 picture of American manners, but simply to point out suclr 
 features of them as are favorable to the maintenance of political 
 institutions. 
 
 Religion Considered as a Political Institution, Which 
 Powerfully Contributes to the Maintenance of the 
 Democratic Republic Amongst the Americans 
 
 North America peopled by men who professed a democratic and re- 
 publican Christianity — Arrival of the Catholics — For what reason 
 the Catholics form the most democratic and the most republican 
 class at the present time. 
 
 Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political 
 opinion which is connected with it by affinity. If the human 
 mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the teinporal 
 and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle ; 
 and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to harmon- 
 ize the state in which he lives upon earth with the state which he 
 believes to await him in heaven. The greatest part of British 
 America was peopled by men who, after having shaken of? the 
 authority of the Pope, acknowledged no other religious su- 
 premacy ; they brought with them into the New World a form 
 
 •.'. i 
 
DEMOCRArv IN AMERICA 
 
 30s 
 
 of Christianity which I cannot better clcscribc than by styhnpf 
 it a democratic and republican rehjjion. This sect contributed 
 powerfully to the establishment of a democracy and d republic, 
 and from the earliest settlement of the emigrants politics and 
 rclijjion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved. 
 
 About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Catholic popu- 
 lation into the United States ; on the other hand, the Catholics 
 of America made proselytes, and at the present moment more 
 than a million of Christians professing the truths of the Church 
 of Rome arc to be met with in the Union.*/ The Catholics are 
 faithful to the observances of their religion ; they are fervent and 
 zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines. Neverthe- 
 less they constitute the most republican and the most demo- 
 cratic class of citizens which exists in the United States ; and 
 although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes 
 by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon reflec- 
 tion. 
 
 I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked 
 upon as the natural enemy of democracy. Amongst the vari- 
 ous sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the 
 contrary, to be one of those which are most favorable to the 
 equality of conditions. In the Catholic Church, the religious 
 community is composed of only two elements, the priest and 
 the people. The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, 
 and all below him are equal. 
 
 On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human ca- 
 pacities upon the same level ; it subjects the wise and ignorant, 
 the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the 
 same creed ; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and 
 needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the 
 weak, it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but, re- 
 ducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds 
 all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even 
 as they are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism 
 predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not pre- 
 pare them for inequality ; but the contrary may be said of 
 
 d [It is difficult to ascertain with ac- 
 curacy the amount of the Roman Cath- 
 olic population of the United States, but 
 in 1868 an able writer in the " Edin- 
 burpth Review " (vol. cxxvii. _ p. 521) 
 affirmed that the whole Catholic popu- 
 lation of the United States was then 
 
 Vol. I.— 20 
 
 about 4,000,000, divided into 43 dioceses, 
 with 3,795 churches, under the care 01 
 45. bishops and 2,317 clercymen. Ttut 
 this rapid increase is mainly supported 
 by immigration from the Catholic coun- 
 tries of Europe.] 
 
 ! 1'^ 
 
 t 
 
 ■y 
 
 i"i 
 
 r* 
 
3o6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ii 
 
 I . t 
 
 tin El i " 
 
 Protestantism, which generally tends to make men indepen- 
 dent, more tiian to render tlicni ecjual. 
 
 Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy ; if the sovcreiRn 
 be removed, all the other classes of society arc more equal than 
 they are in republics. It has not unfrcquently occurred that the 
 Catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the 
 governing powers of society, and to take his place amongst the 
 civil gradations of men. This religious influence has some- 
 times been used to secure the interests of that political state of 
 things to which he belonged. At other times Catholics have 
 taken the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion. 
 
 But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the 
 government, as is the case in the United States, than is found 
 that no class of men are more naturally disposed than the 
 Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions 
 into the political world. If, then, the Catholic citizens of the 
 United States arc not forcibly led by the nature of their tenets 
 to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are 
 not necessarily opposed to them ; and their social position, as 
 well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these opin- 
 ions. Most of the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance 
 of taking a part in the government unless it be open to all the 
 citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights must be re- 
 spected in order to insure to them the free exercise of their own 
 privileges. These two causes induce them, unconsciously, to 
 adopt political doctrines, which they would perhaps support 
 with less zeal if they were rich and preponderant. 
 
 The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted 
 to oppose this political tendency, but it seeks rather to justify 
 its results. The priests in America have divided the intellect- 
 ual world into two parts : in the one they place the doctrines of 
 revealed religion, which command their assent ; in the other 
 they leave those truths which they believe to have been freely 
 left open to the researches of political inquiry. Thus the 
 Catholics of the United States are at the same time the most 
 faithful believers and the most zealous citizens. 
 
 It may be asserted that in the United States no religious di-c- 
 trine displays the slightest hostility to democratic and r^p ubli- 
 can institutions. The clergy of all the different sects hold the 
 same language, their opinions are consonant to the laws, and 
 the human intellect flows onwards in one sole current. 
 
 t 
 
 ' 1 
 
 , I' 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 307 
 
 I happened to be staying in one of the larjjcst towns in the 
 Union, when I was invited to attend a public meeting whicli 
 had been called for the purpose of assisting the Poles, and of 
 sending theiu supplies of artns and money. I found two or 
 three thousand persons collected in a vast hall which had been 
 prepared to receive them. In a short time a priest in his ec- 
 clesiastical robes advanced to the front of the hustings: the 
 spectators rose, and stood uncovered, whilst he spoke in the 
 following terms : — 
 
 " Almighty God ! the God of Armies ! Thou who didst 
 strengthen the hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when 
 they were fighting for the sacred rights of national indepen- 
 dence ; Thou who didst make them triumph over a hateful op- 
 piession, and hast granted to our people the benefits of liberty 
 ard peace; Turn, O Lord, a favorable eye upon the other 
 hemisphere ; pitifully look down upon that heroic nation which 
 is even now struggling as we did in the former time, and for 
 the same riHits which wc defended with our blood. Thou, who 
 didt creat; Man in the likeness of the same image, let not 
 tyir ; y mar Thy work, and establish inequality upon the earth. 
 A 'mighty God! do Thou watch over the destiny of the Poles, 
 and render <em worthy to be free. May Thy wisdom direct 
 their councils, and may Thy strength sustain their arms ! Shed 
 forth Thy terror ov< r 'heir enemies, scatter the powers which 
 take counsel against Jicm; and vouchsafe that the injustice 
 which the world has witnessed for fifty years, be not consum- 
 mated in our time. O Lord, who boldest alike the hearts of 
 nations and of men in Thy powerful hand ; raise up allies to the 
 sacred cause of right ; arouse the French nation from the 
 apathy in which its rulers retain it, that it go forth again to fight 
 for the liberties of the world. 
 
 " Lord, turn not Thou Thy face from us, and grant that we 
 may always be the most religious as well as the freest people 
 of the earth. Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. 
 Save the Poles, we beseech Thee, in the name of Thy well-be- 
 loved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cros^ for 
 the salvation of men. Amen." 
 
 The whole meeting responded " Amen !" with devotion. 
 
 II 
 
 I ,' 
 
 1' 
 
 '■''1 I 
 
 S !. 
 
 i 
 
^ 
 
 J' i 
 
 I ii 
 
 rrrii 
 
 I \ !'' 
 
 ■I :!'l 
 
 308 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Indirect Influence of Religious Opinions Upon Politi- 
 cal Society in the United States 
 
 Christian morality common to all sects — Influence of religion upon the 
 manners of the Americans — Respect for the marriage tie — In what 
 manner religion confines the imagination of the Americans within 
 certain limits, and checks the passion of innovation — Opinion of 
 the Americans on the political utility of religion — Their exertions 
 to extend and secure its predominance. 
 
 I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon 
 politics is in the United States, but its indirect influence appears 
 to me to be still more considerable, and it never instructs the 
 Americans more fully in the art of being free than when it says 
 nothing of freedom. 
 
 The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. 
 They all differ in respect to the worship which is due from man 
 to his Creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties which 
 are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its 
 own peculiar manner, but all the sects preach the same moral 
 law in the name of God. If it be of the highest importance to 
 man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case 
 of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope 
 for or to fear ; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the 
 peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to 
 its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the United 
 States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and 
 Christian morality is everywhere the same. 
 
 It may be believed without unfairness that a certain number 
 of Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit 
 more than from conviction. In the United States the sovereign 
 authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be com- 
 mon ; but there is no country in the whole world in which the 
 Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of 
 men than in America ; and there can be no greater proof of its 
 utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its in- 
 fluence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and 
 free nation of the earth. 
 
 I have remarked that the members of the American clergy 
 in general, without even excepting those who do not admit re- 
 ligious liberty, are all in favor of civil freedom ; but they do not 
 support any particular political system. They keep aloof from 
 
 L/lr 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 309 
 
 parties and from public affairs. In the United States religion 
 exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details 
 of public opinion, but it directs the manners of the community, 
 and by regulating domestic life it regulates the State. 
 
 I do not question that the great austerity of manners which 
 is observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance, 
 from religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man 
 from the numberless temptations of fortune ; nor can it check 
 that passion for gain which every incident of his life contributes 
 to arouse, but its influence over the mind of woman is supreme, 
 and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no 
 country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much re- 
 spected as in America, or where conjugal happiness is more 
 highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe almost all the dis- 
 turbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic 
 life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of 
 home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, 
 and the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous 
 passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the European 
 is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the 
 State exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil 
 of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image 
 of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple and nat- 
 ural, his joys are innocent and calm ; and as he finds that an 
 orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he accustoms him- 
 self without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as his 
 tastes. Whilst the European endeavors to forget his domestic 
 troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his 
 own home that love of order which he afterwards carries with 
 him into public aflfairs. 
 
 In the United States the influence of religion is not confined 
 to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people. 
 Amongst the Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess 
 the doctrines of Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and 
 others who do the same because they are afraid to be suspected 
 of unbelief. Christianity, therefore, reigns without any ob- 
 stacle, by universal consent ; the consequence is. as I have be- 
 fore observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed 
 and determinate, although the political world is abandoned to 
 the debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human 
 mind is never left to wander across a boundless field; and. 
 
3IO 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 . 
 
 ^llu\ 
 
 I.I 
 
 1: 
 
 ■ ( 
 
 \\ 
 
 whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from time to 
 time by barriers which it cannot surmount. Before it can per- 
 petrate innovation, certain primal snd immutable principles 
 are laid down, and the boldest concoptu ns of human device are 
 subjected to certain forms which retard and stop their com- 
 pletion. 
 
 The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights, 
 is circumspect and undecided ; its impulses are checked, and its 
 works unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political 
 society, and are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity 
 of the people and to the durability of the institutions it has 
 established. Nature and circumstances concurred to make the 
 inhabitants of the United States bold men, as is sufficiently 
 attested by the enterprising spirit with which they seek for 
 fortune. If the mind of the Americans were free from all tram- 
 mels, they would very shortly become the most daring innova- 
 tors and the most implacable disputants in the world. But the 
 revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible 
 respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not easily 
 permit them to violate the laws that oppose their designs ; nor 
 would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their parti- 
 sans, even if they were able to get over their own. Hitherto 
 no one in the United States has dared to advance the maxim, 
 that everything is permissible with a view to the interests of so- 
 ciety; an impious adage which seems to have been invented 
 in an age of freedom to shelter all the tyrants of future ages. 
 Thus whilst the law permits the Americans to do what they 
 please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids 
 them to commit, what is rash or unjust. 
 
 Religion in America takes no direct part in the government 
 of society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost 
 of the political institutions of that country ; for if it does not 
 impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institu- 
 tions. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhab- 
 itants of the United States themselves look upon religious be- 
 lief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere 
 faith in their religion, for who can search the human heart? but 
 I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the main- 
 tenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar 
 to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole 
 nation, and to every rank of society. 
 
 ■:^ • 1. ■ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3»i 
 
 In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, 
 this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect from 
 supporting him ; but if he attacks all the sects together, every- 
 one abandons him, and he remains alone. 
 
 Whilst I was in America, a witness, who happened to be 
 called at the assizes of the county of Chester (State of New 
 York), declared that he did not believe in the existence of God, 
 or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit 
 his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed be- 
 forehand al! the confidence of the Court in what he was about 
 to say.^ The newspapers related the fact without any further 
 comment. 
 
 The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of 
 liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make 
 them conceive the one without the other ; and with them this 
 conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith 
 which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live. 
 
 I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send 
 out ministers of the Gospel into the new Western States to 
 found schools and churches there, lest religion should be suf- 
 fered to die away in those remote settlements, and the rising 
 States be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people 
 from which they emanated. I met with wealthy New Eng- 
 landers who abandoned the country in which they were born in 
 order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of freedom on 
 the banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies of Illinois. Thus 
 religious zeal is perpetually stimulated in the United States by 
 the duties of patriotism. These men do not act from an ex- 
 clusive consideration of the promises of a future life ; eternity 
 is only one motive of their devotion to the cause ; and if you 
 converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you 
 will be surprised to find how much value they set upon the 
 goods of this world, and that you meet with a politician where 
 you expected to find a priest. They will tell you that " all the 
 American republics are collectively involved with each other ; 
 if the republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to 
 
 eThe New York "Spectator" of 
 August :3. 1831, relates the fact in the 
 following terms:— "The Court of Com- 
 mon Pleas of Chester county (New 
 York) a few days since rejected a wit- 
 ness who declared his disbelief in the 
 existence of God. The presiding judge 
 remarked that he had not before been 
 
 aware that there was a man living who 
 did not believe in the existence of God; 
 that this belief constituted the sanction 
 of all testimony in a court of justice, 
 and that he knew of no cause in a 
 Christian country where a witness had 
 been permitted to testify without such 
 belief.*' 
 
 fj 
 
 "I 
 
 r'' 
 
^ \h 
 
 312 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 '1^ 
 
 W 
 
 be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now 
 flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in 
 great peril. It is, therefore, our interest that the new States 
 should be religious, in order to maintain our liberties." 
 
 Such are the opinions of the Americans, and if any hold 
 that the religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most 
 amiss in America, and that the only element wanting to the 
 freedom and happiness of the human race is to believe in some 
 blind cosmogony, or to assert with Cabanis the secretion of 
 thought by the brain, I can only reply that those who hold 
 this language have never been in America, and that they have 
 never seen a religious or a free nation. When they return from 
 their expedition, we shall hear what they have to say. 
 
 There are persons in France who look upon republican in- 
 stitutions as a temporary means of power, of wealth, and dis- 
 tinction ; men who are the condottieri of liberty, and who fight 
 for their own advantage, whatever be the colors they wear: 
 it is not to these that I address myself. But there are others 
 who look forward to the republican form of government as a 
 tranquil and lasting state, towards which modern society is 
 daily impelled by the ideas and manners of the time, and who 
 sincerely desire to prepare men to be free. When these men 
 attack religious opinions, they obey the dictates of their pas- 
 sions to the prejudice of their interests. Despotism may govern 
 without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more nec- 
 essary in the republic which they set forth in glowing colors 
 than in the monarchy which they attack ; and it is more needed 
 in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible 
 that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not 
 strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed ? and 
 what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be 
 not submissive to the Divinity? 
 
 . ^<M«.^-^ J-- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 313 
 
 Principal Causes Which Render Religion Powerful in 
 
 America 
 
 Care taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the State 
 — The laws, public opinion, and even the exertions of the clergy 
 concur to promote this end — Influence of religion upon the mind 
 in the United States attributable to this cause — Reason of this — 
 What is the natural state of men with regard to religion at the 
 present time — What are the peculiar and incidental causes which 
 prevent men, in certain countries, from arriving at this state. 
 
 The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the 
 gradual decay of religious faith in a very simple manner. Re- 
 ligious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally 
 liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, 
 facts are by no means in accordance with their theory. There 
 are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only 
 equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst in 
 America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the 
 world fulfils all the outward duties of religious fervor. 
 
 Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect 
 of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; 
 and the longer I stayed there the more did I perceive the great 
 political consequences resulting from this state of things, to 
 which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost always 
 seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing 
 courses diametrically opposed to each other ; but in America 
 I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned 
 in common over the same country. My desire to discover the 
 causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In 
 order to satisfy it I questioned the members of all the different 
 sects ; and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, 
 who are the depositaries of the different persuasions, and who 
 are more especially interested in their duration. As a member 
 of the Roman Catholic Church I was more particularly brought 
 into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became 
 intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my 
 astonishment and I explained my doubts; I found that they 
 differed upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly 
 attributed the peaceful < miinion of religion in their country 
 to the separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to 
 affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet with a 
 
 ^i» 
 
 
 
 ( i 
 
 '1 i 
 
 V ,1 
 
 H- ,. 
 
 II 
 
^ .m 
 
 m 
 
 r 
 
 I't 1 
 
 3<4 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of 
 the same opinion upon this point. 
 
 This led me to examine more attentively than I-had hitherto 
 done, the station which the American clergy occupy in political 
 society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public ap- 
 pointments ; f not one of them is to be met with in the adminis- 
 tration, and they are not even represented in the legislative 
 assemblies. In several States g the law excludes them from po- 
 litical life, public opinion in all. And when I came to inquire 
 into th'' prevailing spirit of the clergy I found that most of its 
 members seemed to retire of their own accord from the exercise 
 of power, and that they made it the pride of their profession to 
 abstain from politics. 
 
 I heard them inveigh against ambition and deceit, under 
 whatever political opinions these vices might chance to lurk ; 
 but I learned from their discourses that men are not guilty in 
 the eye of God for any opinions concerning political govern- 
 ment which they may profess with sincerity, any more than 
 they are for their mistakes in building a house or in driving a 
 furrow. I perceived that these ministers of the gospel 
 eschewed all parties with the anxiety attendant upon personal 
 interest. These facts convinced me that what I had been told 
 was true; and it then became my object to investigate their 
 causes, and to inquire how it happened that the real authority 
 of religion was increased by a state of things which diminished 
 its apparent force: these causes did not long escape my re- 
 searches. 
 
 The short space of threescore years can never content the 
 imagination of man ; nor can the imperfect joys of this world 
 satisfy his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a 
 natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to 
 exist; he scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These dif- 
 ferent feelings incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation 
 of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Re- 
 
 / Unless this term be applied to the 
 functions which many of them fill in the 
 schools. Almost all education is en- 
 trusted to the clergy. 
 
 g See the Constitution of New York, 
 art. 7. 5 4:— 
 
 " And whereas the mmisters of the 
 gospel are, by their profession, dedicated 
 to the service of God and the care of 
 souls, and ought not to be diverted from 
 the great duties of their functions: 
 therefore no minirier of the gospel, or 
 
 priest of any denomination whatsoever, 
 shall at any time hereafter, under any 
 pretence or description whatever, be 
 eligible to, or capable of holding, .iny 
 civil or military office or place within 
 this State." 
 
 See also the constitutions of North 
 Tarolina, art. 31; Virg-'nia; South Caro- 
 lina, art. I, § 23; Kentucky, art. 2, S 26; 
 Tennessee, art. 8, § i; Louisiana, art. 2, 
 
 i 22. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 315 
 
 ligion, then, is simply another form of hope ; and it is no less 
 natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot 
 abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of 
 intellect, and a sort of violent distortion of their true natures ; 
 but they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments ; 
 for unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state 
 of mankind. If we only consider religious institutions in a 
 purely human point of view, they may ue said to derive an 
 inexhaustible element of strength from man himself, since they 
 belong to one of the constituent principles of human nature, 
 
 I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen 
 this influence, which originates in itself, by the artificial power 
 of the laws, and by the support of those temporal institutions 
 which direct society. Religions, intimately united to the gov- 
 ernments of the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign 
 authority derived from the twofold source of terror and of 
 faith ; but when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, 
 I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error as a 
 man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare ; and 
 in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that 
 authority which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds 
 its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every 
 human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion ; but when it 
 connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt 
 maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, 
 in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments 
 its authority over a few, and forfeits the hope of reigning over 
 all. 
 
 As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which 
 are the consolation of all afifliction, it may attract the affections 
 of mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of 
 the world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its in- 
 terests, and not the principle of love, have given to it ; or to 
 repel as antagonists men who are still attached to its own 
 spirit, however opposed they may be to the powers to which it 
 is allied. The Church cannot share the temporal power of the 
 State without being the object of a portion of that animosity 
 which the latter excites. 
 
 The political powers which seem to be most firmly estab- 
 lished have frequently no better guarantee for their duration 
 than the opinions of a generation, the interests of the time, 
 
 f? tl 
 
 ^;i 
 
 II i « 
 
 f 
 
 u 
 
 ,1 
 
3i6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 • ii 
 
 I 
 
 IVJ 
 
 or the life of an individual. A law may modify the social 
 condition which seems to be most fixed and determinate ; and 
 with the social condition everything else must change. The 
 powers of society arc more or less fugitive, like the years 
 which we spend upon the earth ; they succeed each other with 
 rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life ; and no government has 
 ever yet been founded upon an invariable disposition of the 
 human heart, or upon an imperishable interest. 
 
 As long as a religion is sustained by those feelings, pro- 
 pensities, and passions which are found to occur under the 
 same forms, at all the different periods of history, it may defy 
 the efforts of time; or at least it can only be destroyed by 
 another religion. But when religion clings to the interests of 
 the world, it becomes almost as fragile a thing as the powers 
 of earth. It is the only one of them all which can hope for 
 immortality ; but if it be connected with their ephemeral au- 
 thority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with those tran- 
 sient passions which supported them for a day. The alliance 
 which religion contracts with political powers must needs be 
 onerous to itself; since it does not require their assistance to 
 live, and by giving them its assistance it may be exposed to 
 decay. 
 
 The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, 
 but it is not always equally visible. In some ages governments 
 seem to be imperishable ; in others, the existence of society ap- 
 pears to be more precarious than the life of man. Some constitu- 
 tions plunge the citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others 
 rouse them to feverish excitement. When governments appear 
 to be so strc . and laws so stable, men do not perceive the 
 dangers which may accrue from a union of Church and State. 
 When governments display so much weakness, and laws so 
 much inconstancy, the danger is self-evident, but it is no 
 longer possible to ? roid it ; to be effectual, measures must be 
 taken to discover its approach. 
 
 In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition 
 of society, and as communities display democratic propensi- 
 ties, it becomes more and more dangerous to connect religion 
 with political institutions; for the time is coming when au- 
 thority will be bandied from hand to hand, when political 
 theories will succeed each other, and when men, laws, and 
 constitutions will disappear, or be modified from day to day, 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 317 
 
 and this, not for a season only, but unceasingly. Agitation 
 and mutability are inherent in the nature of democratic re- 
 publics, just as stagnation and inertness are the law of absolute 
 monar liies. 
 
 If the Americans, who change the head of the Government 
 once in four years, who elect new legislators every two years, 
 and renew the provincial officers every twelvemonth ; if the 
 Americans, who have abandoned the political world to the 
 attempts of innovators, had not placed religion beyond their 
 rep.ch, where could it abide in the ebb and flow of human 
 opinions ? where would that respect which belongs to it be paid, 
 amidst the struggles of faction ? and what would become of its 
 immortality, in the midst of perpetual decay ? The American 
 clergy were the first to perceive this truth, and to act in con- 
 formity with it. They saw that they must renounce their re- 
 ligious influence, if they were to strive for political power ; and 
 they chose to give up the support of the State, rather than to 
 share its vicissitudes. 
 
 In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has 
 been at certain periods in the history of certain peoples ; but 
 its influence is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own re- 
 sources, but of those none can deprive it : its circle is limited 
 to certain principles, but those principles are entirely its own, 
 and under its undisputed control. 
 
 On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of 
 the absence of religious faith, and inquiring the means of re- 
 storing to religion some remnant of its pristine authority. It 
 seems to me that we must first attentively consider what ought 
 to be the natural state of men with regard to religion at the 
 present time ; and when we know what we have to hope and 
 to fear, we may discern the end to which our efforts ought to 
 be directed. 
 
 The two great dangers which threaten the existence of re- 
 ligions are schism and indifference. In ages of fervent devo- 
 tion, men sometimes abandon their religion, but they only 
 shake it off in order to adopt another. Their faith changes 
 the objects to which it is directed, but it suffers no decline. The 
 old religion then excites enthusiastic attachment or bitter 
 enmity in either party ; some leave it with anger, others cling 
 to it with increased devotedness, and although persuasions dif- 
 fer, irreligion is unknown. Such, however, is not the case 
 
 1 1 
 
 1i 
 
 ' I 
 
 
3«8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I i 
 
 when a religious belief is secretly undermined by doctrines 
 which may be termed negative, since they deny the truth of 
 one religion without affinuing that of any other. Progidious 
 revolutions then take place in the human mind, without the 
 apparent co-operation of the passions of man, and almost with- 
 out his knowledge. Men lose the objects of their fondest hopes, 
 as if through forgetfulness. They are carried away by an im- 
 perceptible current which they have not the courage to stem, 
 but which they follow with regret, since it bears them from a 
 faith they love, to a scepticism that plunges them into despair. 
 
 In ages which answer to this description, men desert their 
 religious opinions from lukewarmness rather than from dis- 
 like; they do not reject them, but the sentiments by which 
 they were once fostered disappear. But if the unbeliever does 
 not admit religion to be true, he still considers it useful. Re- 
 garding religious institutions in a human point of view, he 
 acknowledges their intluence upon manners and legislation. 
 He admits that they may serve to make men live in peace with 
 one another, and to prepare them gently for the hour of death. 
 He regrets the faith which he has lost ; and as he is deprived of 
 a treasure which he has learned to estimate at its full value, 
 he scruples to take it from those who still possess it. 
 
 On the other hand, those who continue to believe are not 
 afraid openly to avow their faith. They look upon those who 
 do not share their persuasion as more worthy of pity than of 
 opposition ; and they are aware that to acquire the esteem of 
 the unbelieving, they are not obliged to follow their example. 
 They are hostile to no one in the world ; and as they do not 
 consider the society in which they live as an arena in which 
 religion is bound to face its thousand deadly foes, they love their 
 contemporaries, whilst they condemn their weaknesses and 
 lament their errors. 
 
 As those who do not believe, conceal their incredulity ; and 
 as those who believe, display their faith, public opinion pro- 
 nounces itself in favor of religion: love, support, and honor 
 are bestowed upon it, and it is only 1)y searching the human 
 soul that we can detect the wounds which it has received. The 
 mass of mankind, who are never without the feeling of religion, 
 do not perceive anything at variance with the established faith. 
 The instinctive desire of a future life brings the crowd about 
 the altar, and opens the hearts of men to the precepts and con- 
 solations of religion. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 319 
 
 But this picture is not applicable to us: for there are men 
 amonRst us who have ceased to believe in Christianity, without 
 adopting any other religion ; others who are in the perplexities 
 of doubt, and who already aifect not to believe ; and others, 
 again, who are afraid to avow that Christian faith which they 
 still cherish in secret. 
 
 Amidst these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists a 
 small number of believers exist, who are ready to brave all 
 obstacles and to scorn all dangers in defence of their faith. 
 They have done violence to human weakness, in order to rise 
 superior to pubHc opinion. Excited by the effort they have 
 made, they scarcely knew where to stop ; and as they know that 
 the first use which the French made of independence was to 
 attack religion, they look upon their contemporaries with 
 dread, and they recoil in alarm from the liberty which their 
 fellow-citizens are seeking to obtain. As unbelief appears to 
 them to be a novelty, they comprise all that is new in one 
 indiscriminate animosity. They are at war with their age and 
 country, and they look upon every opinion which is put forth 
 there as the necessary enemy of the faith. 
 
 Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion 
 at the present day ; and some extraordinary or incidental cause 
 must be at work in France to prevent the human mind from 
 following its original propensities and to drive it beyond the 
 limits at which it ought naturally to stop. I am intimately 
 convinced that this extraordinary and incidental cause is the 
 close connection of politics and religion. The unbelievers of 
 Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents, rather 
 than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian 
 religion as the opinion of a party, much more than as an error 
 of beHef ; and they reject the clergy less because they are the 
 representatives of the Divinity than because they are the 
 allies of authority. 
 
 In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the 
 powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it 
 is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of 
 religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of super- 
 annuated polity : cut but the bonds which restrain it, and that 
 which is alive will rise once more. I know not what could re- 
 store the Christian Church of Europe to the energy of its 
 earlier days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may 
 
 
 I § 
 
 tt 
 
 I 'll !' 
 
 i'fl 
 
i 
 
 1. 
 
 'I ;"; 
 
 "■'"^.l 
 
 ri^ 
 
 3ao 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 be the effect of human policy to leave the faith in the full 
 :x<'rci.sc of the strength which it still retains. 
 
 How THE Instruction, the Habits, and the Practical 
 Experience of the Americans Promote the Success 
 OF Their Democratic Institutions 
 
 What is to be understood by the instruction of the American people— 
 The human mind more superficially instructed in the United States 
 than in Europe — No one completely uninstructcd — Reason of this— 
 Rapidity with which opinions are diffused even in the uncultivatid 
 States of the West — Practical experience more serviceable to the 
 Americans than book-learning. 
 
 I have but little to add to what I have already said con- 
 cerning the influence which the instruction and the habits of the 
 Ame 'cans exercise upon the maintenance of their political in- 
 stitutions. 
 
 America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinc- 
 tion ; it possesses no great historians, and not a single eminent 
 poet. The inhabitants of that country look upon what are 
 properly styled literary pursuits with a kind of disapprobation ; 
 and there are towns of very second-rate importance in Europe 
 in which more literary works are annually published than in 
 the twenty-four States of the Union put together. The spirit of 
 the Americans is averse to general ideas ; and it does not seek 
 theoretical discoveries. Neither politics nor manufactures di- 
 rect them to these occupations ; and although new laws are 
 perpetually enacted in the United States, no great writers have 
 hitherto inquired into the general principles of their legislation. 
 The Americans have lawyers and commentators, but no jur- 
 ists ;/» and they furnish examples rather than lessons to the 
 world. The same observation applies to the mechanical arts. 
 In America, the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagac- 
 ity ; they are perfected, and adapted with admirable skill to the 
 wants of the country. Manufactures exist, but the science of 
 manufacture is not cultivated ; and they have good workmen, 
 but very few inventors. Fulton was obliged to proffer his ser- 
 vices to foreign nations for a lon^ time before he was able to 
 devote them to his own country. 
 
 The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the 
 
 h [This cannot be said with truth of the country of Kent, Story, and VVhea- 
 ton.] 
 
 r 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3»i 
 
 state of instruction amongst the Anglo-Americans must con- 
 sider the same object from two dififcrcnt points of view. If he 
 only singles out the learned, he will be astonished to find how 
 rare they are; but if he counts the ignorant, the American 
 people will appear to be the most enlightened community in 
 the world. The whole population, as I observed in another 
 place, is situated belween those two extremes. In New Eng- 
 land, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human 
 knowledge ; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the evi- 
 dences of his religion, the history of his country, and the leading 
 features of its Constitution. In the States of Connecticut and 
 Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly 
 acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly ignorant 
 of them is a sort of phenomenon. 
 
 When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these 
 American States ; the manuscript libraries of the former, and 
 their rude population, with the innumerable journals and the 
 enlightened people of the latter ; when I remember all the at- 
 tempts which are made to judge the modern republics by the 
 assistance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen 
 in our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I 
 am tempted to burn my books, in order to apply none but novel 
 ideas to so novel a condition of society. 
 
 What I have said of New England must not, however, be ap- 
 plied indistinctly to the whole Union ; as we advance towards 
 the West or the South, the instruction of the people diminishes. 
 In the States which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a cer- 
 tain number of individuals may be found, as in our own coun- 
 tries, who are devoid of the rudiments of instruction. But there 
 is not a single district in the United States sunk in complete ig- 
 norance ; and for a very simple reason : the peoples of Europe 
 started from the darkness of a barbarous condition, to advance 
 toward the light of civilization ; their progress has been un- 
 equal ; some of them have improved apace, whilst others have 
 loitered in their course, and some have stopped, and are still 
 sleeping upon the way.*' 
 
 Such has not been the case in the United States. The Anglo- 
 
 »' [In the Northern States the num- 
 ber of persons destitute of instruction is 
 inconsiderable, the largest number be- 
 ing 341,152 in the State of New York 
 (according to Spaulding's " Handbook 
 
 Vol. I.— 21 
 
 of American Statistics " for 1874) ; but 
 in the South no less than 1,516,339 
 whites and 2,671,396 colored persons are 
 returned as "illiterate."] 
 
u 
 
 I I '. 
 
 f 'y 
 
 322 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Americans settled in a state of civilization, upon that territory 
 which their descendants occupy ; they had not to begin to learn, 
 and it was sufficient for them not to forget. Now the children 
 of these same Americans are the persons who, year by year, 
 transport their dwellings into the wilds ; and with their dwell- 
 ings their acquired information and their esteem for knowledge. 
 Education has taught them the utility of instruction, and has 
 enabled them to transmit that instruction to their posterity. In 
 the United States society has no infancy, but it is born in man's 
 estate. 
 
 The Americans never use the word " peasant," because they 
 have no idea of the peculiar class which that term denotes ; the 
 ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and 
 the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved amongst 
 them ; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the 
 vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage 
 of civilization. At the extreme borders of the Confederate 
 States, upon the confines of society and of the wilderness, a 
 population of bold adventurers have taken up their abode, who 
 pierce the solitudes of the American woods, and seek a coun- 
 try there, in order to escape that poverty which awaited them 
 in their native provinces. As soon as the pioneer arrives upon 
 the spot which is to serve him for a retreat, he fells a few trees 
 and builds a loghouse. Nothing can ofTer a more miserable 
 aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveller who ap- 
 proaches one of them towards nightfall, sees the flicker of the 
 hearth-flame through the chinks in the walls ; and at night, if 
 the wind rises, he hears the roof of boughs shake to and fro in 
 the midst of the great forest trees. Who would not suppose 
 that this poor hut is the asylum of rudeness and ignorance? 
 Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer 
 and the dwelling which shelters him. Everything about him 
 is primitive and unformed, but he is himself the result of the 
 labor and the experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the 
 dress, and he speaks the language of cities ; he is acquainted 
 with the past, curious of the future, and ready for argument 
 upon the present ; he is, in short, a highly civilized being, who 
 consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who pene- 
 trates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, 
 and a file of newspapers. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which 
 
 : \ > 
 
 i'ih 
 
'U 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 323 
 
 public opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts.;" I do 
 not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the 
 most enlightened and populous districts of France.^ It cannot 
 be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the peo- 
 ple powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic re- 
 public ; and such must always be the case, I believe, where in- 
 struction which awakens the understanding is not separated 
 from moral education which amends the heart. But I by no 
 means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still further from think- 
 ing, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be 
 instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and 
 write. True information is mainly derived from experience; 
 and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed to 
 govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them 
 much at the present day. 
 
 I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States, 
 and I cannot express how much I admire their experience and 
 their good sense. An American should never be allowed to 
 speak of Europe ; for he will then probably display a vast deal of 
 presumption and very foolish pride. He will take up with those 
 crude and vague notions which are so useful to the ignorant all 
 over the world. But if you question him respecting his own 
 country, the cloud which dimmed his intelligence will immedi- 
 ately disperse ; his language will become as clear and as pre- 
 cise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are, 
 and by what means he exercises them ; he will be able to point 
 out the customs which obtain in the political world. You will 
 
 ; 
 
 I >l 
 
 |i/ 
 
 ,1 ' 
 
 ;■ I travelled along a portion of the 
 frontier of the United States in a sort 
 of cart which was termed the mail. We 
 passed, day and night, with great rapid- 
 ity along the roads which were scarcely 
 marked out, through immense forests; 
 when the gloom of the woods hecame 
 impenetrable the coachman lighted 
 branches of fir, and we journeyed along 
 by the light they cast. From time to 
 time we came to a hut in the midst of 
 the forest, which was a post-office. The 
 mail dropped an cmirmous bundle of 
 letters at the door of this isolated dwell- 
 ing, and we pursued our way at full gal- 
 lop, leaving the inhabitants of the 
 neij'iboring log houses to send for their 
 share of the treasure. 
 
 [When the author visited America 
 the locomotive and the railroad were 
 scarcely invented, and not yet intro- 
 duced in the United States. It is super- 
 fluous to point out the immense effect 
 of those inventions in extending civili- 
 zation and developing the resources of 
 
 that vast continent. In 1831 there were 
 51 miles of railway in the United States; 
 m i!<72 there were 60,000 miles of rail- 
 way.] 
 
 k In 1832 each inhabitant of Michigan 
 paid a sum equivalent to i fr. ;2 cent. 
 (French money) to the post-officp rev- 
 enue, and each inhabitant of the Flori- 
 das paid i fr. 5 cent. (See " Natioria! 
 Calendar," 1833, )>. 244.) In the same 
 year each inhabitant of the Dcpartement 
 du Nord paid i fr. 4 cent, to the rev- 
 enue of the French post-office. (See 
 the " Comptc rendu dc I'administratinn 
 dcs Finances," 1833, p. 623.) Now the 
 State of Michigan only contained at 
 that time 7 inhabitants per square leaeue 
 and Florida only 5 : the public instruc- 
 tion and the commercial activity of these 
 districts is inferior to thic of most o' 
 the States in the Union, whilst the Dc- 
 partement du Nord, which contains 
 3,400 inhabitants per square league, is 
 one of the most enlightened and manu- 
 facturing parts of France. 
 
 i ^ 
 
 i P 
 
 ..,.-. r«^'- 
 
324 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administra- 
 tion, and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the laws. 
 The citizen of the United States does not acquire his practical 
 science and his positive notions from books; the instruction 
 he has acquired may have prepared him for receiving those 
 ideas, but it did not furnish them. The American learns to 
 know the laws by participating in the act of legislation ; and 
 he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing. 
 The great work of society is ev-r going on beneath his eyes, 
 and, as it were, under his hands. 
 
 In the United States politics are the end and aim of education ; 
 in Europe its principal object is to fit men for private life. The 
 interference of the citizens in public afifairs is too rare an occur- 
 rence for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a 
 glance over society in the two hemispheres, these differences 
 are indicated even by its external aspect. 
 
 In Europe we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits 
 of private life into public afifairs ; and as we pass at once from 
 the domestic circle to the government of the State, we may 
 frequently be heard to discuss the great interests of society in 
 the same manner in which we converse with our friends. The 
 Americans, on the other hand, transfuse the habits of pablic 
 life into their manners in private ; and in theii country the jury 
 is introduced into the games of schoolboys, and parliamentary 
 forms are observed in the order of a feast. 
 
 The Laws Contribute More to the Maintenance of the 
 Democratic Republic in the United States Than the 
 Physical Circumstances of the Country, and the 
 Manners More Than the Laws 
 
 All the nations of America have a democratic state of society — Yet der- 
 ocratic institutions only subsist amongst the Anglo-Americans — flie 
 Spaniards of South America, equally favored by physical c.iuses 
 as the Anglo-Americans, unable to maintain a democratic icfiiblii: 
 — Mexico, which has adopted the Constitution of the United States, 
 in the same predicament — The Anglo-Americans of the West less 
 able to maintain it than those of the East — Reason of these different 
 results. 
 
 I have remarked that the maintenance of democratic insti- 
 tutions in the United States is attributable to the circumstances. 
 
 ■5 ! 
 i 
 
 N^ 
 
 m ' 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 325 
 
 the laws, and the manners of that country./ Most Europeans 
 are only acquainted with the first of these three causes, and they 
 are apt to give it a preponderating importance which it does not 
 really possess. 
 
 It is true that the Anglo-Saxons settled in the New World in 
 a state of social equality ; the low-born and the noble were not 
 to be found amongst them ; and professional prejudices were 
 always as entirely unknown as the prejudices of birth. Thus, 
 as the condition of society was democratic, the empire of de- 
 mocracy was established without difficulty. But this circum- 
 stance is by no means peculiar to the United States ; almost all 
 the trans- Atlantic colonies were founded by men equal amongst 
 themselves, or who became so by inhabiting them. In no one 
 part of the New World have Europeans been able to create ^n 
 aristocracy. Nevertheless, democratic institutions prosper no- 
 where but in the United States. 
 
 The American Union has no enemies to contend with ; it 
 stands in the wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Span- 
 iards of South America were no less isolated by nature ; yet 
 their position has not relieved them from the charge of stand- 
 ing armies. They make war upon each other when they have 
 no foreign enemies to oppose; and the Anglo-American de- 
 mocracy is the only one which has hitherto been able to main- 
 tain itself in peace.wt 
 
 The territory of the Union presents a boundless field to hu- 
 man activity, and inexhaustible materials for industry and labor. 
 The passion of wealth takes the place of ambition, and the 
 warmth of faction is mitigated by a sense of prosperity. But 
 in what portion of the globe shall we meet with more fertile 
 plains, with mightier rivers, or with more unexplored and in- 
 exhaustible riches than in South America? 
 
 Nevertheless, South America has been unable to maintain 
 democratic institutions. If the welfare of nations depended on 
 their being placed in a remote position, with an unbounded 
 space of habitable territory before them, the Spaniards of South 
 America would have no reason to complain of their fate. And 
 although they might enjoy less prosperity than the inhabitants 
 of the United States, their lot might still be such as to excite 
 
 / 1 remind the reader of the general 
 siRnification which I Rive to the word 
 " manners," namely, the moral and in- 
 tellectual characteristics of social man 
 taken collectively. 
 
 Ml [A remark which, since the great 
 Civil War of 1861-65, ceases to be ap- 
 plicable.] 
 
 « '1 
 
 fi 
 
 i y 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
 i ^f ! 
 
326 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 the envy of some nations in Europe. There are, however, no 
 nations upon the face of the earth more miserable than those of 
 South America. 
 
 Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce re- 
 sults analogous to those which occur in North America, but 
 they are unable to raise the population of South America above 
 the level of European States, where they act in a contrary direc- 
 tion. Physical causes do not, therefore, afifect the destiny of 
 nations so much as has been supposed. 
 
 I have met with men in New England who were on the point 
 of leaving a country, where they might have remained in easy 
 circumstances, to go to seek their fortune in the wilds. Not 
 far from that district I found a French population in Canada, 
 which was closely crowded on a narrow territory, although the 
 same wilds were at hand ; and whilst the emigrant from the 
 United States purchased an extensive estate with the earnings 
 of a short term of labor, the Canadian paid as much for land as 
 he would have done in France. Nature ofifers the solitudes of 
 the New World to Europeans ; but they are not always ac- 
 quainted with the means of turning her gifts to account. Other 
 peoples of America have the same physical conditions of pros- 
 perity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their lawi= and 
 their manners; and these peoples are wretched. The laws 
 and manners of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that effi- 
 cient cause of their greatness which is the object of my inquiry. 
 
 I am far from supposing that the American laws are pre- 
 eminently good in themselves ; I do not hold them to be ap- 
 plicable to all democratic peoples ; and several of them seem 
 to be dangerous, even in the United States. Nevertheless, 
 it cannot be denied that the American legislation, taken 
 collectively, is extremely well adapted to the genius of the 
 people and the nature of the country which it is intended to 
 govern. The American laws are therefore good, and to them 
 must be attributed a large portion of the success which attends 
 the government of democracy in America: but I do not be- 
 lieve them to be the principal cause of that success ; and if 
 they seem to me to have more influence upon the social happi- 
 ness of the Americans than the nature of the country, on the 
 other hand there is reason to believe that their effect is still 
 inferior to that produced by the manners of the people. 
 
 The Federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3*7 
 
 part of the legislation of the United States. Mexico, which is 
 not less fortunately situated than the Anglo-American Union, 
 has adopted the same laws, hut is unable to accustom itself to 
 the government of democracy. Some other cause is therefore 
 at work, independently of those physical circumstances and 
 peculiar laws which enable the democracy to rule in the United 
 Slates. 
 
 Another still more striking proof may be adduced. Almost 
 all the inhabitants of the territory of the Union are the de- 
 scendants of a common stock ; they speak the same language, 
 they worship God in the same manner, they are affected by the 
 same physical causes, and they obey the same laws. Whence, 
 then, do their characteristic differences arise? Why, in the 
 Eastern States of the Union, does the republican government 
 display vigor and regularity, and proceed with mature delibera- 
 tion? Whence does it derive the wisdom and the durability 
 which mark its acts, whilst in the Western States, on the con- 
 trary, society seems to be ruled by the powers of chance? 
 There, public business is conducted with an irregularity and a 
 passionate and feverish excitement, which does not announce 
 a long or sure duration. 
 
 I am no longer comparing the A '"^glo- American States to 
 foreign nations; but I am contrasting them with each other, 
 and endeavoring to discover why they are so unlike. The 
 arguments which are derived from the nature of the country 
 and the difference of legislation are here all set aside. Re- 
 course must be had to some other cause ; and what other cause 
 can there be except the manners of the people? 
 
 It is in the Eastern States that the Anglo-Americans have 
 been longest accustomed to the government of democracy, 
 and tliat they have adopted the habits and conceived the notions 
 most favorable to its maintenance. Democracy has gradually 
 penetrated into their customs, their opinions, and the forms 
 of social intercourse ; it is to be found in all the details of daily 
 life equally as in the laws. In the Eastern States the instruc- 
 tion and practical education of the people have been most per- 
 fected, and religion has been most thoroughly amalgamated 
 with liberty. Now these habits, opinions, customs, and con- 
 victions are precisely the constituent elements of that which I 
 have denominated manners. 
 
 In the Western States, on the contrary, a portion of the same 
 
 s Jfl 
 
 i It I 
 
 l! ■» 
 
 f l 
 
328 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 i ♦ 
 
 advantages is still wanting. Many of the Americans of the 
 West were born in the woods, and they mix the ideas and the 
 customs of savage life with the civilization of their parents. 
 Their passions are more intense; their religious morality less 
 authoritative; and their convictions loss secure. The inhabi- 
 tants exercise no sort of control over their fellow-citizens, for 
 they are scarcely acquainted with each other. The nations of 
 the West display, to a certain extent, the inexperience and the 
 rude habits of a people in its infancy; for although they are 
 composed of old elements, their assemblage is of recent date. 
 
 The manners of the Americans of the United States are, 
 then, the real cause which renders that people the only one of 
 the American nations that is able to support a democratic gov- 
 ernment; and it is the influence of manners which produces 
 the different degrees of order and of prosperity that may be 
 distinguished in the several Anglo-American democracies. 
 Thus the effect which the geographical position of a country 
 may have upon the duration of democratic institutions is ex- 
 aggerated in Europe. Too much importance is attributed to 
 legislation, too little to manners. These three great causes 
 serve, no doubt, to regulate and direct the American democ- 
 racy; but if they were to be classed in their proper order, I 
 should say that the physical circumstances are less efficient 
 than the laws, and the laws very subordinate to the manners of 
 the people. I am convinced that the most advantageous situa- 
 tion and the best possible laws cannot maintain a constitution 
 in spite of the manners of a country; whilst the latter may 
 turn the most unfavorable positions and the worst laws to some 
 advantage. The importance of manners is a common truth 
 to which study and experience incessantly direct our attention. 
 It may be regarded as a central point in the range of human ob- 
 servation, and the common termination of all inquiry. So 
 seriously do I insist upon this head, that if T have hitherto 
 failed in making the reader feel the important influence which 
 I attribute to the practical experience, the habits, the opinions, 
 in short, to the manners of the Americans, upon the main- 
 tenance of their institutions, I have failed in the principal ob- 
 ject of my work. 
 
 \-C 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3*9 
 
 Whether Laws and Manners Are Sufficient to Main- 
 tain Democratic Institutions in Other Countries 
 Besides America 
 
 The Anglo-Americans, if transported into Europe, would be obliged to 
 modify their laws — Distinction to be made between democratic in- 
 stitutions and American institutions — Democratic laws may be con- 
 ceived better than, or at least different from, those which the 
 American democracy has adopted — The example of America only 
 proves that it is possible to regulate democracy by the assistance 
 of manners and legislation. 
 
 I have iisserted that the success of democratic institutions 
 in the United States is more intimately connected with the laws 
 themselves, and the manners of the people, than with the nature 
 of the country. But docs it follow that the same causes would 
 of themselves produce the same results, if they were put into 
 operation elsewhere; and if the country is no adequate sub- 
 stitute for laws and manners, can laws and manners in their 
 turn prove a substitute for the country? It will readily be 
 understood that the necessary elements of a reply to this (jncs- 
 tion are wanting: other peoples are to be found in the New 
 World besides the Anglo-Americans, and as these people are 
 affected by the same physical circumstances as the latter, they 
 may fairly be compared together. But there are no nations 
 out of America which have adopted the same laws and man- 
 ners, being destitute of the physical advantages peculiar to the 
 Anglo-Americans. No standard of comparison therefore ex- 
 ists, and we can only hazard an opinion upon this subject. 
 
 It appears to me, in the first place, that a careful distinction 
 must be made between the institutions of the United States and 
 democratic institutions in general. When I reflect upon the 
 state of Europe, its mighty nations, its populous cities, its 
 formidable armies, and the complex nature of its politics, I can- 
 not suppose that even the Anglo-Americans, if they were trans- 
 ported to our hemisphere, with their ideas, their religion, and 
 their manners, could exist without considerably altering their 
 laws. But a democratic nation may be imagined, organized 
 diflferently from the American people. It is not impossible to 
 conceive a government really established upon the will of the 
 majority; but in which the majority, repressing its natural 
 propensity to equality, should consent, with a view to the order 
 and the stability of the State, to invest a family or an indi- 
 
 ii n 
 
 i 
 
 if i*" 
 
 
 I -3 
 
 II ill 
 
 '1 
 
 V ! 
 
33° 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 u 
 
 ;l 
 
 i ( 
 
 vidnal with all the prerogatives of the executive. A democratic 
 society might exist, in which the forces of tlie nation would be 
 more centralized than they are in the United States; the peo- 
 ple would exercise a less direct and less irresistible influence 
 upon public affairs, and yet every citizen invested with certain 
 rights would participate, within his sphere, in the conduct of 
 the government. The observations I made amongst the Anglo- 
 Americans induce me to believe that democratic institutions of 
 this kind, prudently introduced into society, so as gradually 
 to mix with the habits and to be interfused with the opinions of 
 the people, might subsist in other countries besides America. 
 If the laws of the United States were the only imaginable 
 democratic laws, or the most perfect which it is possible to con- 
 ceive, I should admit that the success of those institutions af- 
 fords no proof of the success of democratic institutions in 
 general, in a country less favored by natural circumstances. 
 But as the laws of America appear to me to be defective in 
 several respects, and as I can readily imagine others of the 
 same general nature, the peculiar advantages of that country do 
 not prove that democratic institutions cannot succeed in a na- 
 tion less favored by circumstances, if ruled by better laws. 
 
 If human nature were different in America from what it is 
 elsewhere; or if the social condition of the Americans engen- 
 dered habits and opinions amongst them different from those 
 which originate in the same social condition in the Old World, 
 the American democracies would afford no means of predict- 
 ing what may occur in other democracies. If the Americans 
 displayed the same propensities as all other democratic na- 
 tions, and if their legislators had relied upon the nature of the 
 country and the favor of circumstances to restrain those pro- 
 pensities within due limits, the prosperity of the United States 
 would be exclusively attributable to physical causes, and it 
 would afford no encouragement to a people inclined to imitate 
 their example, without sharing their natural advantages. But 
 neither of these suppositions is borne out by facts. 
 
 In America the same passions are to be met with as in 
 Europe ; some originating in human nature, others in the 
 democratic condition of society. Thus in the United States I 
 found that restlessness of heart which is natural to men, when 
 all ranks are nearly equal and the chances of elevation are the 
 same to all. I found the democratic feeling of envy expressed 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 33< 
 
 under a thousand different foims. I remarked that the people 
 frequently displayed, in the conduct of affairs, a consummate 
 mixture of ignorance and presumption; and I inferred that in 
 America, men are liable to the same failings and the same ab- 
 surdities as amongst ourselves. But upon examining the state 
 of society more attentively, I speedily discovered that the 
 Americans had made great and successful efforts to counteract 
 these imperfections of human nature, and to correct the natural 
 defects of democracy. Their divers municipal laws appeared 
 to me to be a means of restraining the ambition of the citizens 
 vi'ithin a narrow sphere, and of turning those same passions 
 which might have worked havoc in the State, to the good of 
 the township or the parish. The American legislators have 
 succeeded to a certain extent in opposing the notion of rights 
 to the feelings of envy ; the permanence of the religious world 
 to the continual shifting of politics ; the experience of the peo- 
 ple to its theoretical ignorance ; and its practical knowledge of 
 business to the impatience of its desires. 
 
 The Americans, then, have not relied upon the nature of their 
 country to counterpoise those dangers which originate in their 
 Constitution and in their political laws. To evils which are 
 common to all democratic peoples they have applied remedies 
 which none but themselves had ever thought of before ; and al- 
 though they were the first to make the experiment, they have 
 succeeded in it. 
 
 The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only 
 ones which may suit a democratic people ; but the Americans 
 have shown that it would be wrong to despair of regulating 
 democracy by the aid of manners and of laws. If other na- 
 tions should borrow this general and pregnant idea from the 
 Americans, without however intending to imitate them in the 
 peculiar application which they have made of it ; if they should 
 attempt to fit themselves for that social condition, which it 
 seems to be the will of Providence to impose upon the genera- 
 tions of this age, and so to escape from the despotism or the 
 anarchy which threatens them ; what reason is there to suppose 
 that their efforts would not be crowned with success? The 
 organization and the establishment of democracy in Christen- 
 dom is the great political problem of the time. The Americans, 
 unquestionably, have not resolved this problem, but they fur- 
 nish useful data to those who undertake the task. 
 
 )\ 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
 I l! 
 
 t' 
 
 n 
 
 ■ 
 
 < h 
 
 I 
 
 
 e\ 
 
 H 
 
332 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I ^^'- 
 
 Imtortance of What J 'recedes with Respect to the 
 
 State ok Europe 
 
 It may readily be rliscovercd with what intention I under- 
 took the foregoing inquiries. The question here discussed is 
 interesting not only to the L .lited States, but to the whole 
 world; k cuikltps, not a nation, but all mankind. If those 
 nations whose social condition is democratic could only remain 
 free as long as thoy are inhabitants of the wilds, we could not 
 but despair of llu future destiny of the human race; for de- 
 mocracy is rapidly acquiring a more extended sway, and the 
 wilds are gradually peopled with men. If it were true that 
 laws and manners are insufficient to maintain democratic in- 
 stitutions, what refuge would remain open to the nations, ex- 
 cept the despotism of a single individual? I am aware tli 
 there are many worthy persons at the present time who 
 not alarmed at this lattc- alternative, and who are so tired of 
 liberty as to be glad of repose, far from those storms by which 
 it is attended. But these individuals arc ill acquainted with the 
 haven towards which they are bound. They are so deluded 
 by their recollections, as to judge the tendency of absolute 
 power by what it was formerly, and not by what it might be- 
 come at the present time. 
 
 If absolute power were re-established amongst the demo- 
 cratic nations of Europe, I am persuaded that it would assume 
 a new form, and appear under features unknown to our fore- 
 fathers. There was a time in Europe when the laws and the 
 consent of the people had invested princes with almost unlim- 
 ited authority ; but they scarcely ever availed themselves of it. 
 I do not speak of the prerogatives of the nobility, of the au- 
 thority of supreme courts of justice, of corporations and their 
 chartered rights, or of provincial privileges, which served to 
 break the blows of the sovereign authority, and to maintain a 
 spirit of resistance in the nation. Independently of these po- 
 litical institutions — which, however opposed they might be to 
 personal liberty, served to keep alive the love of freedom in 
 the mind of the public, and which may be esteemed to have 
 been useful in this respect — the manners and opinions of the 
 nation confined the royal authority within barriers which were 
 not less powerful, although they were less conspicuous. Re- 
 ligion, the aflfections of the people, the benevolence of the 
 
 • t 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 333 
 
 THE 
 
 der- 
 d is 
 hole 
 lose 
 nain 
 not 
 de- 
 the 
 that 
 in- 
 ex- 
 th 
 
 prince, the sense of honor, family pride, provincial prejudices, 
 custotn, and public opinion limited the power of kinf" and re- 
 straine('. their authority within an invisible circle. ', <u consti- 
 tution of nations was despotic at that time, bf' ''icir rr..inners 
 were free. Princes had the right, but they 1 .d neither the 
 means nor the desire, of doing wliatever they pleased. 
 
 But what now remains of those barriers which formerly ar- 
 rested the aggressions of tyranny? Since religion has lost its 
 empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary 
 which divided good from evil is overthrown ; the very elements 
 of the moral world are indeterminate ; the princes and the peo- 
 ples of the earth are n^i'ied by chance, and none can define the 
 natural limits of despMiisni and the bounds of license. Long 
 revolutions have forever destroyed the respect which sur- 
 rounded the rulers of tht* State ; and since they have been re- 
 lieved from the burden of public esteem, princes may hence- 
 forward surrender themselves without fear to the seductions of 
 arbitrary power. 
 
 When kings find that the hearts of their subjects arc turned 
 towards them, they are clement, because they are conscious of 
 their strength, and they are chary of the affection of their 
 people, because the affection of their people is the bulwark of 
 the throne. A mutual interchange of good-will then takes 
 place between the prince and the people, which resembles the 
 gracious intercourse of domestic society. The subjects may 
 murmur at the sovereign's decree, but they are grieved to dis- 
 please him; and the sovereign chastises his jubjec*:, with the 
 light hand of parental affection. 
 
 But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult 
 of revolution; when successive monarchs have crossed the 
 throne, so as alternately to display to the people the weakness 
 of their right and t)ie harshness of their power, the sovereign 
 is no longer regarded by any as the Father of the State, and 
 he is feared by all as its master. If he be weak, he is despised ; 
 if he be strong, he is detested. He himself is full of animosity 
 and alarm ; he finds that he is as a stranger in his own country, 
 and he treats his subjects like conqtiered enemies. 
 
 When the provinces and the towns formed so many different 
 nations in the midst of their common country, each of them had 
 a will of its own, which was opposed to the general spirit of 
 subjection ; but now that all the parts of the same empire, after 
 
 ( I 
 
 h 
 
 i| 
 
 k 
 
 t mil 
 
 'i 
 II .1 
 
 I 1 1 
 
 Ml 
 
i^. 
 
 
 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 /. 
 
 ^/ 
 
 ^ ^^'4^ 
 
 ^y*^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 %' 
 
 
 %r 
 
 & 
 ^ 
 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 »fii£ IIIIIM 
 
 I 1^ 12.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 L25 |_u IIIIII.6 
 
 <p 
 
 /] 
 
 
 /^ 
 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTEIt.N.Y. US80 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
m 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Is ^ 
 
 If t 
 
 
 having lost their immunities, their customs, their prejudices, 
 their traditions, and their names, are subjected and accustomed 
 to the same laws, it is not more difficult to oppress them col- 
 lectively than it was formerly to oppress them singly. 
 
 Whilst the nobles enjoyed their power, and indeed long after 
 that power was lost, the honor of aristocracy conferred an ex- 
 traordinary degree of force upon their personal opposition. 
 They afford instances of men who, notwithstanding their 
 weakness, still entertained a high opinion of their personal 
 value, and dared to cope single-handed with the efforts of the 
 public authority. But at the present day, when all ranks are 
 more and more confounded, when the individual disappears in 
 the throng, and is easily lost in the midst of a common ob- 
 scurity, when the honor of monarchy has almost lost its em- 
 pire without being succeeded by public virtue, and when noth- 
 ing can enable man to rise above himself, who shall say at what 
 point the exigencies of power and the servility of weakness will 
 stop? 
 
 As long as family feeling was kept alive, the antagonist of 
 oppression was never alone; he looked about him, and found 
 his clients, his hereditary friends, and his kinsfolk. If this 
 support was wanting, he was sustained by his ancestors and 
 animated by his posterity. But when patrimonial estates are 
 divided, and when a few years suffice to confound the dis- 
 tinctions of a race, where can family feeling be found ? What 
 force can there be in the customs of a country which has 
 changed and is still perpetually changing, its aspect ; in which 
 every act of tyranny has a precedent, and every crime an ex- 
 ample ; in which there is nothing so old that its antiquity can 
 save it from destruction, and nothing so unparalleled that its 
 novelty can prevent it from being done? What resistance can 
 be offered by manners of so pliant a make that they have al- 
 ready often yielded? What strength can even public opinion 
 have retained, when no twenty persons are connected by a com- 
 mon tie ; when not a man, nor a family, nor chartered corpora- 
 tion, nor class, nor free institution, has the power of represent- 
 ing or exerting that opinion; and when every citizen — being 
 equally weak, equally poor, and equally dependent — has only 
 his personal impotence to oppose to the organized force of the 
 government? 
 
 The annals of France furnish nothing analogous to the con- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 335 
 
 dition in which that country might then be thrown. But it 
 may more aptly be assimilated to the times of old, and to those 
 hideous eras of Roman oppression, when the manners of the 
 people were corrupted, their traditions obliterated, their habits 
 destroyed, their opinions shaken, and freedom, expelled from 
 the laws, could find no refuge in the land ; when nothing pro- 
 tected the citizens, and the citizens no longer protected them- 
 selves ; when human nature was the sport of man, and princes 
 wearied out the clemency of Heaven before they exhausted the 
 patience of their suojects. Those who hope to revive the mon- 
 archy of Henry IV or of Louis XIV, appear to me to be af- 
 flicted with mental blindness ; and when I consider the present 
 condition of several European nations — a condition to which 
 all the others tend — I am led to believe that they will soon be 
 left with no other alternative than democratic liberty, or the 
 tyranny of the Coesars.M 
 
 And indeed it is deserving of consideration, whether men 
 are to be entirely emancipated or entirely enslaved; whether 
 their rights are to be made equal, or wholly taken away from 
 them. If the rulers of society were reduced either gradually 
 to raise the crowd to their own level, or to sink the citizens 
 below that of humanity, would not the doubts of many be re- 
 solved, the consciences of many be healed, and the community 
 prepared to make great sacrifices with little difficulty? In that 
 case, the gradual growth of democratic manners and institu- 
 tions should be regarded, not as the best, but as the only means 
 of preserving freedom; and without liking the government 
 of democracy, it might be adopted as the most applicable and 
 the fairest remedy for the present ills of society. 
 
 It is difficult to associate a people in the work of govern- 
 ment ; but it is still more difficult to supply it with experience, 
 and to inspire it with the feelings which it requires in order to 
 govern well. I grant that the caprices of democracy are per- 
 petual; its instruments are rude; its laws imperfect. But if 
 it were true that soon no just medium would exist between the 
 empire of democracy and the dominion of a single arm, should 
 we not rather incline towards the former than submit volun- 
 tarily to the latter ? And if complete equality be our fate, is it 
 
 l\ 
 
 n [This prediction of the return of 
 France to imperial despotism, and of 
 the true character of that despotic 
 
 power, was written in 1833, and realized 
 to the Jetter in 1852.] 
 
 ;» 
 
 
 I 
 
 i ) 
 
 
 il 
 
 
 w 
 
 ^> 
 
 1 
 
 ■' 
 
 1 
 
 
 \'i 
 
 s" 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 l\ 
 
 '■ \ 
 
 % 
 
 i! 
 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 ■1 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 • '•I 
 
DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 li 
 
 not better to b- levelled by free institutions than by despotic 
 power ? 
 
 Those who, after having read this book, should imagine that 
 my intention in writing it has been to propose the laws and 
 manners of the Anglo-Americans for the imitation of all demo- 
 cratic peoples, would commit a very great mistake ; they must 
 have paid more attention to the form than to the substance of 
 my ideas. My aim has been to show, by the example of Ameri- 
 ca, that laws, and especially manners, may exist which will 
 allow a democratic people to remain free. But I am very far 
 from thinking that we ought to follow the example of the 
 American democracy, and copy the means which it has em- 
 ployed to attain its ends ; for I am well aware of the influence 
 which the nature of a country and its political precedents exer- 
 cise upon a constitution ; and I should regard it as a great mis- 
 fortune for mankind if liberty were to exist all over the world 
 under the same forms. 
 
 But I am of opinion that if we do not succeed in gradually 
 introducing democratic institutions into France, and if we 
 despair of imparting to the citizens those ideas and sentiments 
 which first prepare them for freedom, and afterwards allow 
 them to enjoy it, there will be no independence at all, either 
 for the middling classes or the nobility, for the poor or for the 
 rich, but an equal tyranny over all; and I foresee that if the 
 peaceable empire of the majority be not founded amongst us 
 in time, we shall sooner or later arrive at the unlimited author- 
 ity of a single despot, i 
 

 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE PRESENT AND PROBABLE FUTURE CONDITION OE 
 THE THREE RACES WHICH INHABIT THE TERRITORY 
 OF THE UNITED STATES . 
 
 THE principal part of the task which I had imposed upon 
 myself is now performed. I have shown, as far as I 
 was able, the laws and the manners of the American 
 democracy. Here I might stop ; but the reader would perhaps 
 feel that I had not satisfied his expectations. 
 
 The absolute supremacy of democracy is not all that we meet 
 with in America; the inhabitants of the New World may be 
 considered from more than one point of view. In the course 
 of this work my subject has often led me to speak of the 
 Indians and the Negroes; but I have never been able to stop 
 in order to show what place these two races occupy in the midst 
 of the democratic people whom I was engaged in describing. 
 I have mentioned in what spirit, and according to what laws, 
 the Anglo-American Union was formed; but I could only 
 glance at the dangers which menace that confederation, whilst 
 it was equally impossible for me to give a detailed account of its 
 chances of duration, independently of its laws and manners. 
 When speaking of the united republican States, I hazarded no 
 conjectures upon the permanence of republican forms in the 
 New World, and when making frequent allusion to the com- 
 mercial activity which reigns in the Union, I was unable to in- 
 quire into the future condition of the Americans as a com- 
 mercial people. 
 
 These topics are collaterally connected with my subject 
 without forming a part of it; they are American without 
 being democratic; and to portray democracy has been my 
 principal aim. It was therefore necessary to postpone these 
 questions, which I now take up as the proper termination of 
 my work. • 
 
 Vol. 1.-22 337 
 
 1 J 
 
 'i 
 
 X 
 
 Vi\, 
 
 
 !t -lA ^ 
 
 
 (i 
 
338 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Vi 
 
 The territory now occupied or claimed by the American 
 Union spreads from the shores of the Atlantic to those of the 
 Pacific Ocean. On the east and west its limits are those of 
 the continent itself. On the south it advances nearly to the 
 tropic, and it extends upwards to the icy regions of the North. 
 The human beings who are scattered over this space do not 
 form, as in Europe, so many branches of the same stock. Three 
 races, naturally distinct, and, I might almost say, hostile to 
 each other, are discoverable amongst them at the first glance. 
 Almost insurmountable barriers had been raised between them 
 by education and by law, as well as by their origin and out- 
 ward characteristics; but fortune has brought them together 
 on the same soil, where, although they are mixed, they do not 
 amalgamate, and each race fulfils its destiny apart. 
 
 Amongst these widely differing families of men, the first 
 which attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power 
 and in enjoyment, is the white or European, the man pre-emi- 
 nent; and in subordinate grades, the negro and the Indian. 
 These two unhappy races have nothing in common; neither 
 birth, nor features, nor language, nor habits. Their only re- 
 semblance lies in their misfortunes. Both of them occupy an 
 inferior rank in the country they inhabit; both suffer from 
 tyranny; and if their wrongs are not the same, they origi- 
 nate, at any rate, with the same authors. 
 
 If we reasoned from what passes in the world, we should 
 almost say that the European is to the other races of man- 
 kind, what man is to the lower animals ; — he makes them sub- 
 servient to his use; and when he cannot subdue, he destroys 
 them. Oppression has, at one stroke, deprived the descendants 
 of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The 
 negro of the United States has lost all remembrance of his 
 country; the language which his forefathers spoke is never 
 heard around him ; he abjured their religion and forgot their 
 customs when he ceased to belong to Africa, without acquiring 
 any claim to European privileges. But he remains half way 
 between the two communities; sold by the one, repulsed by 
 the other ; finding not a spot in the universe to call by the name 
 of country, except the faint image of a home which the shelter 
 of his master's roof affords. 
 
 The negro has no family ; woman is merely the temporary 
 companion of his pleasures, and his children are upon an equal- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 339 
 
 ity with himself from the moment of their birth. Am I to call 
 it a proof of God's mercy or a visitation of his wrath, that man 
 in certain states appears to be insensible to his extreme 
 wretchedness, and almost affects, with a depraved taste, the 
 cause of his misfortunes? The negro, who is plunged in this 
 abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own calamitous situation. Vio- 
 lence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him 
 the thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants 
 more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the 
 servile imitation of those who oppress him : his understanding 
 is degraded to the level of his soul. 
 
 The negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born : nay, 
 he may have been purchased in the womb, and have begun his 
 slavery before he began his existence. Equally devoid of wants 
 and of enjoyment, and useless to himself, he learns, with his 
 first notions of existence, that he is the property of another, 
 who has an interest in preserving his life, and that the care of it 
 does not devolve upon himself ; even the power of thought ap- 
 pears to him a useless gift of Providence, and he quietly en- 
 joys the privileges of his debasement. If he becomes free, in- 
 dependence is often felt by him to be a heavier burden than 
 slavery; for having learned, in the course of his life, to sub- 
 mit to everything except reason, he is too much unacquainted 
 with her dictates to obey them. A thousand new desires beset 
 him, and he is destitute of the knowledge and energy necessary 
 to resist them: these are masters which it is necessary to 
 contend with, and he has learnt only to submit and obey. 
 In short, he sinks to such a depth of wretchedness, that while 
 servitude brutalizes, liberty destroys him. 
 
 Oppression has been no less fatal to the Indian than to the 
 negro race, but its effects are different. Before the arrival of 
 white men in the New World, the inhabitants of North 
 America lived quietly in their woods, enduring the vicissitudes 
 and practising the virtues and vices common to savage nations. 
 The Europeans, having dispersed the Indian tribes and driven 
 them into the deserts, condemned them to a wandering life full 
 of inexpressible sufferings. 
 
 Savage nations are only controlled by opinion and by cus- 
 tom. When the North American Indians had lost the senti- 
 ment of attachment to their country ; when their families were 
 dispersed, their traditions obscured, and the chain of their 
 
 II 1 
 
t40 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I 
 
 Ji'i 
 
 recollections broken; when all their habits were changed, and 
 their wants increased beyond measure, European tyranny ren- 
 dered them more disorderly and less civilized than they were 
 before. The moral and physical condition of these tribes con- 
 tinually grew worse, and they became more barbarous as they 
 became more wretched. Nevertheless, the Europeans have 
 not been able to metamorphose the character of the Indians; 
 and though they have had power to destroy them, they have 
 never been able to make them submit to the rules of civilized 
 society. 
 
 The lot of the negro is placed on the extreme limit of servi- 
 tude, while that of the Indian lies on the uttermost verge of 
 liberty; and slavery does not produce more fatal effects upon 
 the first, than independence upon the second. The negro has 
 lost all property in his own person, and he cannot dispose of his 
 existence without committing a sort of fraud : but the savage 
 is his own master as soon as he is able to act ; parental author- 
 ity is scarcely known to him ; he has never bent his will to that 
 of any of his kind, nor learned the difference between voluntary 
 obedience and a shameful subjection; and the very name of 
 law is unknown to him. To be free, with him, signifies to es- 
 cape from all the shackles of society. As he delights in this 
 barbarous independence, and would rather perish than spcrifice 
 the least part of it, civilization has little power over him. 
 
 The negro makes a thousand fruitless efforts to insinuate 
 himself amongst men who repulse him; he conforms to the 
 tastes of his oppressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by 
 imitating them to form a part of their community. Having 
 been told from infancy that his race is naturally inferior to 
 that of the whites, he assents to the proposition and is ashamed 
 of his own nature. In each of his features he discovers a trace 
 of slavery, and, if it were in his power, he would willingly rid 
 himself of everything that makes him what he is. 
 
 The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated 
 with the pretended nobility of his origin, and lives and dies in 
 the midst of these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to con- 
 form his habits to ours, he loves his savage life as the distin- 
 guishing mark of his race, and he repels every advance to 
 civilization, less perhaps from the hatred which he entertains 
 for it, than from a dread of resembling the Europeans.o While 
 
 a The native of North America retains 
 bis opinions and the most insignificant 
 
 of his habits with a deirree of tenacity 
 which has no parallel in history. For 
 
 KS««%mM 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 341 
 
 nd 
 en- 
 tire 
 on- 
 
 he has nothing to oppose to our perfection in the arts but the 
 resources of the desert, to our tactics nothing but undisci- 
 pUned courage ; whilst our well-digested plans are met by the 
 spontaneous instincts of savage life, who can wonder if he fails 
 in this unequal contest ? 
 
 The negro, who earnestly desires to mingle his race with 
 that of the European, cannot effect it; while the Indian, who 
 might succeed to a certain extent, disdains to make the attempt. 
 The servility of the one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the 
 other to death. 
 
 I remember that while I was travelling through the forests 
 which still cover the State of Alabama, I arrived one day at the 
 log house of a pioneer. I did not wish to penetrate into the 
 dwelling of the American, but retired to rest myself for a while 
 on the margin of a spring, which was not far off, in the woods. 
 While I was in this place (which was in the neighborhood of 
 the Creek territory), an Indian woman appeared, followed by 
 a negress, and holding by the hand a little white girl of five or 
 six years old, whom 1 took to be the daughter of the pioneer. 
 A sort of barbarous luxury set off the costume of the Indian ; 
 rings of metal were hanging from her nostrils and ears; her 
 hair, which was adorned with glass beads, fell loosely upon her 
 shoulders; and I saw that she was not married, for she still 
 wore that necklace of shells which the bride always deposits on 
 the nuptial couch. The negress was clad in squalid European 
 garments. They all three came and seated themselves upon 
 the banks of the fountain ; and the young Indian, taking the 
 child in her arms, lavished upon her such fond caresses as 
 
 Li 
 
 more than two hundred years the wan- 
 dering tribes of North America have 
 had daily intercourse with the whites, 
 and they have never derived from them 
 either a custom or an idea. Yet the 
 Europeans have exercised a powerful in- 
 fluence over the savages : they have 
 made them more licentious, but not 
 more European. In the summer of 1831 
 I happened to be beyond Lake Michi- 
 gan, at a place called Green Bay, which 
 serves as the extreme frontier between 
 the United States and the Indians on 
 the north-western side. Here I became 
 acquainted with an American officer. 
 Major H., who, after talking to me at 
 length on the inflexibility of the Indian 
 character, related the following fact: — 
 " I formerly knew a young Indian," 
 said he, " who had been educated at a 
 college in New England, where he had 
 greatly distinguished himself, and had 
 acquired the external appearance of a 
 
 member of civilized society. When the 
 war broke out between ourselves and 
 the English in 1810, I saw this young 
 nt-in again ; he was serving in our army, 
 !"t the head of the warriors of his tribe, 
 (' • the Indians were admitted amongst 
 'it -anks of the Americans, upon condi- 
 tio; > that they would abstain from their 
 hor;-ibIe custom of scalping their vic- 
 tims. On the evening of the battle of 
 . . ., C. came and sat himself down 
 by the fire of our bivouac. J asked 
 htm what had been his fortune that day : 
 he related his exploits; and growing 
 warm and animated by the recollection 
 of them, he concluded by suddenly open- 
 ing the breast of his coat, saying, ' You 
 must not betray me— see here ! ' And I 
 actually beheld," said the Major, " be- 
 tween his body and his shirt, the skin 
 and hair of an English head, still drip- 
 ping with gore." 
 
342 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 mothers give; while the negress endeavored by various little 
 artifices to attract the attention of the young Creole. 
 
 The child displayed in her slightest gestures a consciousness 
 of superiority which formed a strange contrast with her in- 
 fantine weakness ; as if she received the attentions of her com- 
 panions with a sort of condescension. The negress was seated 
 on the ground before her mistress, watching her smallest de- 
 sires, and apparently divided between strong affection for the 
 child and servile fear ; whilst the savage displayed, in the midst 
 of her tenderness, an air of freedom and of pride which was 
 almost ferocious. I had approached the group, and I con- 
 templated them in silence ; but my curiosity was probaoly dis- 
 pleasing to the Indian woman, for she suddenly rose, pushed 
 the child roughly from her, and giving me an angry look 
 plunged into the thicket. I had often chanced to see individu- 
 als met together in the same place, who belonged to the three 
 races of men which people North America. I had perceived 
 from many different results the preponderance of the whites. 
 But in the picture which I have just been describing there was 
 something peculiarly touching ; a bond of affection here united 
 the oppressors with the oppressed, and the effort of nature to 
 bring them together rendered still more striking the immense 
 distance placed between them by prejudice and by law. 
 
 The Present and Probable Future Condition of the 
 Indian Tribes Which Inhabit the Territory Pos- 
 sessed BY the Union 
 
 Gradual disappearance of the native tribes — Manner in which it takes 
 place — Miseries accompanying the forced migrations of the Indians 
 — The ravages of North America had only two ways of escaping 
 destruction; war or civilization — They are no longer able to make 
 war — Reasons why they refused to become civilized when it was in 
 their power, and why they cannot become so now that they desire it 
 — Instance of the Creeks and Cherokees — Policy of the particular 
 States towards these Indians — Policy of the Federal Government. 
 
 None of the Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the ter- 
 ritory of New England — the Naragansetts, the Mohicans, the 
 Pecots — have any existence but in the recollection of man. 
 The Lenapes, who received William Penn, a hundred and fifty 
 years ago, upon the banks of the Delaware, have disappeared ; 
 and I myself met with the last of the Iroquois, who were beg- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 343 
 
 ging alms. The nations I have mentioned formerly covered 
 the cotmtry to the sea-coast ; but a traveller at the present day 
 must penetrate more than a hundred leagues into the interior 
 of the continent to find an Indian. Not only have these wild 
 tribes receded, but they are destroyed ; b and as they give way 
 or perish, an immense and increasing people fills their place. 
 There is no instance upon record of so prodigious a growth, 
 or so rapid a destruction: the manner in which the latter 
 change takes place is not difficult to describe. 
 
 When the Indians were the sole inhabitants of the wilds 
 from whence they have since been expelled, their wants were 
 few. Their arms were of their own manufacture, their only 
 drink was the water of the brook, and their clothes consisted 
 of the skins of animals, whose flesh furnished them with food. 
 
 The Europeans introduced amongst the savages of North 
 America fire-arms, ardent spirits, and iron: they taught them 
 to exchange for manufactured stuffs, the rough garments 
 which had previously satisfied their untutored simplicity. 
 Having acquired new tastes, without the arts by which they 
 could be gratified, the Indians were obliged to have recourse 
 to the workmanship of the whites; but in return for their 
 productions the savage had nothing to offer except the rich 
 furs which still abounded in his woods. Hence the chase be- 
 came necessary, not merely to provide for his subsistence, but 
 in order to procure the only objects of barter which he could 
 furnish to Europe.^ Whilst the wants of the natives were 
 thus increasing, their resources continued to diminish. 
 
 b In the thirteen original States there 
 are only ^1273 Indians remaining. (See 
 Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, 
 No. 117, p. go.) (The decrease in now 
 far greater, and is verging on extinc- 
 tion. See page 360 of this volume.] 
 
 c Messrs. Clarice and Cass, in their 
 Report to Congress on February 4, 
 18^, p. 33, expressed themselves thus: — 
 
 , " The time wnen the Indians generally 
 could supply themselves with food and 
 
 [clothing, without any of the articles of 
 civilized life, has long since passed away. 
 
 [The more remote tribes, beyond the 
 Mississippi, who live where immense 
 herds of bulTalo are yet to be found and 
 who follow those animals in their peri- 
 odical migrations, could more easily 
 than any others recur to the habits of 
 their ancestors, and live without the 
 white man or any of his manufactures. 
 But the buffalo is constantly receding. 
 The smaller animals, the bear, the deer, 
 the beaver, the otter, the muskrat, etc.. 
 principally minister to the comfort and 
 
 support of the Indians ; and these can- 
 not be taken without guns, ammunition, 
 and traps. Among the Northwestern 
 Indians particularly, the labor of sup- 
 
 E lying a family with food is excessive. 
 >ay after day is spent by_ the hunter 
 without success, and during this in- 
 terval his family must subsist upon bark 
 or roots, or perish. Want and misery 
 are around them and among them. 
 Many die every winter from actual 
 starvation." 
 
 The Indians will not live as Europeans 
 live, and yet they can neither subsist 
 without them, nor exactly after the 
 fashion of their fathers. This is demon- 
 strated by a fact which I likewise give 
 upon official authority. Some Indians 
 of a tribe on the banks of Lake Superior 
 had killed a European ; the American 
 government interdicted all traffic with 
 the tribe to which the guilty parties be- 
 lonfied, until they were delivered up to 
 justice. This measure had the desired 
 effect. 
 
 I 
 
 4V 
 
344 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 From the moment when a European settlement is formed 
 in the neighborhood of the territory occupied by the Indians, 
 the beasts of chase take the alarm.rf Thousands of savages, 
 wandering in the forests and destitute of any fixed dwelling, 
 did not disturb them ; but as soon as the continuous sounds of 
 European labor are heard in their neighborhood, they begin 
 to flee away, and retire to the West, where their instinct teaches 
 them that they will find deserts of immeasurable extent. " The 
 buffalo is constantly receding," say Messrs. Clarke and Cass 
 in their Report of the year 1829; " a few years since they ap- 
 proached the base of the Alleghany ; and a few years hence they 
 may even be rare upon the immense plains which extend to the 
 base of the Rocky Mountains." I have been assured that this 
 effect of the approach of the whites is often felt at two hun- 
 dred leagues' distance from their frontier. Their influence is 
 thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them ; and 
 who suffer the evils of usurpation long before they are ac- 
 quainted with the authors of their distress.^ 
 
 Bold adventurers soon penetrate into the country the Indians 
 have deserted, and when they have advanced about fifteen or 
 twenty leagues from the extreme frontiers of the whites, they 
 begin to build habitations for civilized beings in the midst of 
 the wilderness. This is done without difficulty, as the terri- 
 tory of a hunting-nation is ill-defined ; it is the common prop- 
 erty of the tribe, and belongs to no one in particular, so that 
 individual interests are not concerned in the protection of any 
 part of it. 
 
 A few European families, settled in different situations at 
 a considerable distance from each other, soon drive away the 
 wild animals which remain between their places of abode. 
 The Indians, who had previously lived in a sort of abundance, 
 then find it difficult to subsist, and still more difficult to pro- 
 cure the articles of barter which they stand in need of. 
 
 To drive away their game is to deprive them of the means 
 
 d "Five years ago," (says Vplney in 
 
 d " Five years ago," (says voiney in 
 his "Tableau des Etats-Unis," p. 370) 
 " in going from Vincennes to Kastcas- 
 Icia, a territory which now forms part 
 of the State of Illinois, but which at the 
 time I mention was completely wild 
 (1797). you could not cross a prairie 
 without seeinij herds of from four to five 
 hundred buffaloes. There are now none 
 remaining ; they swam across the Mis- 
 sissippi to escape from the hunters, ond 
 more particularly from the bells of the 
 American cows. 
 
 «The truth of what I here advance 
 may be easily proved by consulting the 
 tabular statement of Indian tribes in- 
 habiting; the United States and their 
 territories. (Legislative Documents, 
 30th Congress. No. 117, pp. oo-ioc.) It 
 is there shown ^ that the tribes in the 
 centre of America are rapidly decreas- 
 ing, although the Europeans are still at 
 • considerable distance from them. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 345 
 
 of existence, as effectually as if the fields of our agriculturists 
 were stricken with barrenness ; and they are reduced, like fam- 
 ished wolves, to prowl through the forsaken woods in quest of 
 prey. Their instinctive love of their country attaches them to 
 the soil which gave them birth,' even after it has ceased to 
 yield anything but misery and death. At length they are com- 
 pelled to acquiesce, and to depart : they follow the traces of the 
 elk, the buffalo, and the beaver, and are guided by these wild 
 animals in the choice of their future country. Properly speak- 
 ing, therefore, it is not the Europeans who drive away the na- 
 tive inhabitants of America; it is famine which compels them 
 to recede; a happy distinction which had escaped the casuists 
 of former times, and for which we are indebted to modern dis- 
 covery I 
 
 It is impossible to conceive the extent of the sufferings which 
 attend these forced emigrations. They are undertaken by a 
 people already exhausted and reduced; and the countries to 
 which the newcomers betake themselves are inhabited by 
 other tribes which receive them with jealous hostility. Hun- 
 ger is in the rear ; war awaits them, and misery besets them on 
 all sides. In the hope of escaping from sucli a host of enemies, 
 they separate, and each individual endeavors to procure the 
 means of supporting his existence in solitude and secrecy, liv- 
 ing in the immensity of the desert like an outcast in civilized 
 society. The social tie, which distress had long since weak- 
 ened, is then dissolved; they have lost their country, and their 
 people soon desert them: their very families are obliterated; 
 the names they bore in common are forgotten, their language 
 perishes, and all traces of their origin disappear. Their nation 
 has ceased to exist, except in the recollection of the antiquaries 
 of America and a few of the learned of Europe. 
 
 I should be sorry to have my reader suppose that I am color- 
 ing the picture too highly ; I saw with my own eyes several of 
 the cases of misery which I have been describing ; and I was 
 the witness of sufferings which I have not the power to por- 
 tray. 
 
 f "The Indians," say Messrs. Clarke 
 and Cass in their Report to ConRress, 
 p. IS, " are attached to their country by 
 the same feelings which bind us to 
 ours ; and, besides, there are certain 
 Buperstitious notions connected with 
 the alienation of what the Great Spirit 
 gave to their ancestors, which operate 
 
 strongly upon the tribes who have made 
 few or no cessions, but which are grad- 
 ually weakened as our intercourse with 
 them is extended. ' We will not sell 
 the spot which contains the bones of 
 our fathers,' is almost always the first 
 answer to a proposition for a sale." 
 
 .1 
 
 I 
 
l; 
 
 346 
 
 DE TOCOUEVILLE 
 
 -- / 
 
 J 
 
 n 
 
 H 
 
 ^1 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 ll 
 
 1 
 
 'V' 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 f. 
 
 v-m 
 
 
 h 
 
 
 i 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 1^1 
 
 i < 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 I' 
 
 
 At the end of the year 1831, whilst I was on the left bank of 
 the Mississippi at a place named by Europeans, Memphis, there 
 arrived a numerous band of Choctaws (or Chactas, as they are 
 called by the French in Louisiana). These savages had left 
 their country, and were endeavoring to gain the right bank of 
 the Mississippi, where they hoped to find an asylum which had 
 been promised them by the American government. It was 
 then the middle of winter, and the cold was unusually severe ; 
 the snow had frozen l:ard upon the ground, and the river was 
 drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their families 
 with them; and they brought in their train the wounded and 
 sick, with children newly born, and old men upon the verge of 
 death. They possessed neither tents nor wagons, but only 
 their arms and some provisions. I saw them embark to pass 
 the mighty river, and never will that solemn spectacle fade 
 from my remembrance. No cry, no sob was heard amongst 
 the assembled crowd; all were silent. Their calamities were 
 of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable. The 
 Indians had all stepped into the bark which was to carry them 
 across, but their dogs remained upon the bank. As soon as 
 these animals perceived that their masters were finally leaving 
 the shore, they set up a dismal howl, and, plunging all together 
 into the icy waters of the Mississippi, they swam after the boat. 
 
 The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place at the 
 present day, in a regular, and, as it were, a legal manner. When 
 the European population begins to approach the limit of the 
 desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the 
 United States usually dispatches envoys to them, who assemble 
 the Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk 
 with them, accost them in the following manner : " What have 
 you to do in the land of your fathers ? Before long, you must 
 dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the coun- 
 try you inhabit better than another? Are there no woods, 
 marshes, or prairies, except where you dwell? And can you 
 live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those moun- 
 tains which you see at the horizon, beyond the lake which 
 bounds your territory on the west, there lie vast countries 
 where beasts of chase are found in great abundance ; sell your 
 lands to us, and go to live happily in those solitudes." After 
 holding this language, they spread before the eyes of the Ind- 
 ians firearms, woollen garments, kegs of brandy, glass neck- 
 
 nnm m 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 347 
 
 laces, bracelets of tinsel, earrings, and looking-glasses.^ If, 
 when they have beheld all these riches, they still hesitate, it is 
 insinuated that they have not the means of refusing their re- 
 quired consent, and that the government itself will not long 
 have the power of protecting them in their rights. What are 
 they to do? Half convinced, and half compelled, they go to 
 inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not let 
 them remain ten years in tranquillity. In this manner do the 
 Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces, which 
 the richest sovereigns of Europe could not purchase.* 
 
 These are great evils ; and it must be added that they appear 
 to me to be irremediable. I believe that the Indian nations of 
 North America are doomed to perish; and that whenever the 
 Europeans shall be established on the shores of the Pacific 
 Ocean, that race of men will be no more.» The Indians had 
 only the two alternatives of war or civilization ; in other words, 
 they must either have destroyed the Europeans or become their 
 equals. 
 
 g See, in the Legislative Documents 
 of Congress (Doc. 117), the narrative of 
 what takes place on these occasions. 
 This curious passage is from the above- 
 mentioned report, made to Congress by 
 Messrs. Clarke and Cass in February, 
 1829. Mr. Cass is now the Secretary of 
 War. 
 
 " The Indians," says the report, 
 " reach the treaty-ground poor and al- 
 most naked. Large quantities of goods 
 are taken there by the traders, and are 
 seen and examined by the Indians. The 
 women and children become importu- 
 nate to have their wants supplied, and 
 their influence is soon exerted to induce 
 a sale. Their improvidence is habitual 
 and unconquerable. The gratification 
 of his immediate wants and desires is 
 the ruling passion of an Indian. The 
 expectation of future advantages seldom 
 produces much effect. The experience 
 of the past is lost, and the prospects 
 of the future disregarded. It would be 
 utterly hopeless to demand a cession 
 of land, unless the means were at hand 
 of gratifying their immediate wants; 
 and when their condition and circum- 
 stances are fairly considered, it ought 
 not_ to surprise us that they are so 
 anxious to relieve themselves." 
 
 h On May jg, 1830, Mr. Edward Ev- 
 erett affirmed before the House of 
 Representatives, that the Americans 
 haa already acquired by treaty, to the 
 east and west of the Mississippi, 230,- 
 000,000 of acres. In 1808 the Osages 
 gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual 
 payment of $1,000. In i8i8 the Quapaws 
 yielded up 29,000,000 acres for $4,000. 
 They reserved for themselves a terri- 
 tory of 1,000,000 acres for a hunting- 
 pround. A solemn oath was taken that 
 It should be respected : but before long 
 it was invaded like the rest. 
 
 Mr. Bell, in his Report of the Com- 
 mittee on Indian Affairs, February 24, 
 1830, has these words : — " To pay an 
 Indian tribe what their ancient hunting- 
 grounds are worth to them, after the 
 game is fled or destroyed, as a mode of 
 appropriating wild lands claimed by 
 Indians, has been found more conven- 
 ient, and certainly it is more agreeabi: 
 to the forms of justice, as well as more 
 merciful, than to assert the possession 
 of them by the sword. Thus the prac- 
 tice of buying Indian titles is but the 
 substitute which humanity and ex- 
 pediency have imposed, in place of the 
 sword, in arriving at the actual en- 
 joyment of property claimed by the 
 right of discoverjr, and sanctioned by 
 the natural superiority allowed to the 
 claims of civilized communities over 
 those of savage tribes. Up to the pres- 
 ent time so invariable has been the oper- 
 ation of certain causes, first in dimin- 
 ishing the value of forest lands to the 
 Indians, and secondly in disposing 
 them to sell readily, that the plan of 
 buying their right of occupancy has 
 never threatened to retard, in any per- 
 ceptible degree, the prosperity of any 
 of the States." (Legislative Docu- 
 ments, 2ist Congress, J^o. 227, p. 6.) 
 
 « This seems, indeed, to be the opinion 
 nf almost all American statesmen. 
 " Judging of the future by the past." 
 says Mr. Cass, " we cannot err m an- 
 ticipating a progressive diminution of 
 their numbers, and their eventual ex- 
 tinction, unless our border should be- 
 come stationary, and they be removed 
 beyond it, or unless some radical change 
 should take place in the principles of 
 our intercourse with them, which it is 
 easier to hope for than to expect." 
 
 i * 
 
 v\ 
 
348 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 :i 
 
 At the first settlement of the colonies they might have found 
 it possible, by uniting their forces, to deliver themselves from 
 the small bodies of strangers who landed on their continent.;' 
 They several times attempted to do it, and were on the point of 
 succeeding; but the disproportion of their resources, at the 
 present day, when compared with those of the whites, is too 
 great to allow such an enterprise to be thought of. Neverthe- 
 less, there do arise from time to time among the Indians men 
 of penetration, who foresee the final destiny which awaits the 
 native population, and who exert themselves to unite all the 
 tribes in common hostility to the Europeans ; but their eflorts 
 are unavailing. Those tribes which are in the neighborhood 
 of the whites, are too much weakened to offer an effectual re- 
 sistance; whilst the others, giving way to that childish care- 
 lessness of the morrow which characterizes savage life, wait for 
 the near approach of danger before they prepare to meet it; 
 some are unable, the others are unwilling, to exert themselves. 
 
 It is easy to foresee that the Indians will never conform to 
 civilization ; or that it will be too late, whenever they may be 
 inclined to make the experiment. 
 
 Civilization is the result of a long social process which takes 
 place in the same spot, and is handed down from one genera- 
 tion to another, each one profiting by the experience of the 
 last. Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most 
 difficulty which habitually live by the chase. Pastoral tribes, 
 indeed, often change their place of abode ; ' but they follow a 
 regular order in their migrations, and often return again to 
 their oM stations, whilst the dwelling of the hunter varies with 
 that of the animals he pursues. 
 
 Several attempts have been made to diffuse knowledge 
 amongst the Indians, without controlling their wandering pro- 
 pensities; by the Jesuits in Canada, and by the Puritans in 
 New England ; k but none of these endeavors were crowned 
 by any lasting success. Civilization began in the cabin, but it 
 soon retired to expire in the woods. The great error of these 
 legislators of the Indians was their not understanding that, in 
 order to succeed in civilizing a people, it is first necessary to 
 
 i Amongrst other warlike enterprises, 
 there was one of the Wampanaogs, and 
 other confederate tribes, under Metacom 
 in 1675, against the colonists of New 
 England ; the English were also en- 
 gaged in war in Virginia in 162a. 
 
 * See the "Histoire de la Nouvelle 
 France," by Charlev k, and the work 
 entitled " Lettres <di ntes." 
 
/ 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 349 
 
 fix it ; which cannot be done without inducing it to cultivate the 
 soil; the Indians ought in the first place to have been accus- 
 tomed to agriculture. But not only are they destitute of this 
 indispensable preliminary to civilization, they would even have 
 great difficulty in acquiring it. Men who have once abandoned 
 themselves to the restless and adventurous life of the hunter, 
 feel an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular 
 labor which tillage requires. We see this proved in the bosom 
 of our own society; but it is far more visible among peoples 
 whose partiality for the chase is a part of their national char- 
 acter. 
 
 Independently of this general difficulty, there is another, 
 which applies peculiarly to the Indians; they consider labor 
 not merely as an evil, but as a disgrace ; so that their pride pre- 
 vents them from becoming civilized, as much as their indolence.' 
 
 There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain under his hut 
 of bark a lofty idea of his personal worth; he considers the 
 cares of industry and labor as degrading occupations ; he com- 
 pares the husbandman to the ox which traces the furrow ; and 
 even in our most ingenious handicraft, he can see nothing but 
 the labor of slaves. Not that he is devoid of admiration for 
 the power and intellectual greatness of the whites; but al- 
 though the result of our efforts surprises him, he contemns the 
 means by which we obtain it ; and while he acknowledges our 
 ascendancy, he still believes in his superiority. War and hunt- 
 ing are the only pursuits which appear to him worthy to be the 
 occupations of a man.*" The Indian, in the dreary solitude of 
 his woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same opinions as the 
 noble of the Middle Ages in his castle, and he only requires to 
 become a conqueror to complete the resemblance; thus, how- 
 
 ; " In all the tribes," says Volney, in 
 his " Tableau des Etats-Unis," p. 423, 
 " there still exists a generation of old 
 warriors, who cannot forbear, when 
 they see their countrymen using the 
 hoe, from exclaiming against the de- 
 gradation of ancient manners, and as- 
 serting that the savages owe their de- 
 cline to these innovations ; adding, that 
 they have only to return to their primi- 
 tive habits in order to recover their 
 power and their glory." 
 
 wi The following description occurs in 
 an official document: " Until a young 
 man has been engaged with an enemy, 
 and has performed some acts of valor, 
 he gains no consideration, but is regard- 
 ed nearly as a woman. In their great 
 war-dances all the warriors in succes- 
 
 sion strike the post, as it is called, and 
 recount their exploits. On these oc- 
 casions their auditory consists of the 
 kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the 
 narrator. The profound impression 
 which his discourse produces on them 
 is manifested by the silent attention it 
 receives, and by the loud shouts which 
 hail its termination. The young man 
 who finds himself at such a meeting 
 without anything to recount is very un- 
 happy ; and instances have sometimes 
 occurred of younR warriors, whose ;)as- 
 sions had been thus inflamed, q^uittine 
 the war-dance suddenly, and gomg oft 
 alone to seek for trophies which they 
 might exhibit, and adventures whicn 
 they might be allowed to relate." 
 
 h\ 
 
■<! 
 
 (•! 
 
 iii 
 
 Hi 
 
 350 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ever strange it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World, 
 and not amongst the Europeans who people its coasts, that the 
 ancient prejudices of Europe are still in existence. 
 
 More than once, in the course of this work, I have endeavored 
 to explain the prodigious influence which the social condition 
 appears to exercise upon the laws and the manners of men; 
 and I beg to add a few words on the same subject. 
 
 When I perceive the resemblance which exists between the 
 political institutions of our ancestors, the Germans, and of the 
 wandering tribes of North America ; between the customs de- 
 scribed by Tacitus, and those of which I have sometimes been a 
 witness, I cannot help thinking that the same cause has brought 
 about the same results in both hemispheres; and that in the 
 midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain 
 number of primary facts may Ee discovered, from which all the 
 others are derived. In what we usually call the German insti- 
 tutions, then, I am inclined only to perceive barbarian habits; 
 and the opinions of savages in what we style feudal principles. 
 
 However strongly the vices and prejudices of the North 
 American Indians may be opposed to their becoming agricul- 
 tural and civilized, necessity sometimes obliges them to it. Sev- 
 eral of the Southern nations, and amongst others the Cherokees 
 and the Creeks," were surrounded by Europeans, who had 
 landed on the shores of the Atlantic ; and who, either descend- 
 ing the Ohio or proceeding up the Mississippi, arrived simul- 
 taneously upon their borders. These tribes have not been 
 driven from place to place, like their Northern brethren ; but 
 they have been gradually enclosed within narrow limits, like 
 the game within the thicket, before the huntsmen plunge into 
 the interior. The Indians who were thus placed between civili- 
 zation and death, found themselves obliged to live by ignomin- 
 ious labor like the whites. They took to agriculture, and with- 
 out entirely forsaking their old habits or manners, sacrificed 
 only as much as was necessary to their existence. 
 
 n These nations are now swallowed up 
 in the States of Georgia, Tennessee, 
 Alabama, and Mississippi. There were 
 formerly in the South tour great nations 
 (remnants of which still exist), the 
 Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, 
 and the Cherokees. The remnants of 
 these four nations amounted, in 1830, to 
 about 75,000 individuals. It is computed 
 that there are now remaininc in the 
 territory occupied or claimed by the 
 Aniflo-American Union about 300.000 
 Indians. (See Proceedings of the Ind- 
 
 ian Board in the City of New York.) 
 The official documents supplied to Con- 
 gress make the number amount to 313,- 
 130. The reader who is curious to know 
 the names and numerical strength of all 
 the tribes which inhabit the Anglo- 
 American territory should consult the 
 documents I refer to. (Legislative 
 Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, pp. 
 90-ios.) [In the Census of 1870 it is 
 stated that the Indian population of the 
 United States is only 25,731, of whom 
 7,241 are in California.] 
 
 i ) 
 
 (I 
 ' i 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 351 
 
 / 
 
 I 
 
 The Cherokees went further; they created a written lan- 
 guage; established a permanent form of government; and as 
 everything proceeds rapidly in the New World, before they had 
 all of them clothes, they set up a newspaper." 
 
 The growth of European habits has been remarkably accel- 
 erated among these Indians by the mixed race which has sprung 
 up.P Deriving intelligence from their father's side, without en- 
 tirely losing the savage customs of the mother, the half-blood 
 forms the natural link between civilization and barbarism. 
 Wherever this race has multiplied the savage state has become 
 modified, and a great change has taken place in the manners of 
 the people.9 
 
 The success of the Cherokees proves that the Indians are 
 capable of civilization, but it does not prove that they will suc- 
 ceed in it. This difficulty which the Indians fin3 in submitting 
 to civilization proceeds from the influence of a general cause, 
 which it is almost impossible for them to escape. An attentive 
 survey of history demonstrates that, in general, barbarous na- 
 tions have raised themselves to civilization by degrees, and by 
 their own efforts. Whenever they derive knowledge from a 
 foreign people, they stood towards it in the relation of con- 
 querors, and not of a conquered nation. When the conquered 
 nation is enlightened, and the conquerors are half savage, as in 
 the case of the invasion of Rome by the Northern nations or 
 that of China by the Mongols, the power which victory bestows 
 
 1 brought back with me to France 
 one or two copies of this singular publi- 
 cation. 
 
 p See in the Report of the Committee 
 on Indian Affairs, 21st Congress, No. 
 227, P- 23, the reasons for the multiplica- 
 tion of Indians of mixed blood among 
 the Cherokees. The principal cause 
 dates from the War of Independence. 
 Many Anglo-Americans of Georgia, hav- 
 ing taken the side of England, were 
 obliged to retreat among the Indians, 
 where they married. 
 
 q Unhappily the mixed race has been 
 less numerous and less influential in 
 North America than in any other coun- 
 try. The American continent was peo- 
 pled by two great nations of Europe, 
 the French and the English. The former 
 were not slow in connecting themselves 
 with the daughters of the natives, but 
 there was an unfortunate affinity be- 
 tween the Indian character and their 
 own : instead of giving the tastes and 
 habits of civilizea life to the savages, 
 the French too often grew passionately 
 fond of the state of wild freedom they 
 found them in. They became the most 
 dangerous of the inhabitants of the 
 
 desert, and won the friendship of the 
 Indian by exaggerating his vices and his 
 virtues. M. de Senonville, the gover- 
 nor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis 
 XIV in 1685: " It has long been believed 
 that in order to civilize the savages we 
 ought to draw them nearer to us. But 
 there is every reason to suppose we 
 have been mistaken. Those which have 
 been brought into contact with us have 
 not become French, and the French who 
 have lived among them are changed into 
 savages, affecting to dress and live like 
 them." {" History of New France," by 
 Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The Eng- 
 lishman, on the contrary, continuing 
 obstinately attached to the customs and 
 the most insignificant habits of his fore- 
 fathers, has remained in the midst of 
 the American solitudes just what he was 
 in the bosom of European cities ; he 
 would not allow of any communication 
 with savap^es whom he despised, and 
 avoided with care the union of his race 
 with theirs. Thus while the French ex- 
 ercised no salutary influence over the 
 Indians, the English have always re- 
 mained alien from them. 
 
',??. 
 
 5S« 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ^l 
 
 i| 
 
 
 upon the barbarian is sufficient to keep up his importance among 
 civilized men, and permit him to rank as their equal, until he 
 becomes their rival : the one has might on his side, the other 
 has intelligence; the former admires the knowledge and the 
 arts of the conquered, the latter envies the power of the con- 
 querors. The barbarians at length admit civilized man into 
 their palaces, and he in turn opens his schools to the barbarians. 
 But when the side on which the physical force lies, also pos- 
 sesses an intellectual preponderance, the conquered party sel- 
 dom become civilized; it retreats, or is destroyed. It may 
 therefore be said, in a general way, that savages go forth in 
 arms to seek knowledge, but that they do not receive it when it 
 comes to them. 
 
 If the Indian tribes which now inhabit the heart of the con- 
 tinent could summon up energy enough to attempt to civilize 
 themselves, they might possibly succeed. Superior already to 
 the barbarous nations which surround them, they would gradu- 
 ally gain strength and experience, and when the Europeans 
 should appear upon their borders, they would be in a state, if 
 not to maintain their independence, at least to assert their right 
 to the soil, and to incorporate themselves with the conquerors. 
 But it is the misfortune of Indians to be brought into contact 
 with a civilized people, which is also (it must be owned) the 
 most avaricious nation on the globe, whilst they are still semi- 
 barbarian: to find despots in their instructors, and lo receive 
 knowledge from the hand of oppression. Living in the free- 
 dom of the woods, the North American Indian was destitute, 
 but he had no feeling of inferiority towards anyone ; as soon, 
 however, as he desires to penetrate into the social scale of the 
 whites, he takes the lowest rank in society, for he enters, ig- 
 norant and poor, within the pale of science and wealth. After 
 having led a life of agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but 
 at the same time filled with proud emotions,*' he is obliged to 
 
 r There is in the adventurous life of 
 the hunter a certain irresistible charm, 
 which seizes the heart of man and car- 
 ries him away in spite of reason and ex- 
 perience. This is plainly shown by the 
 memoirs of Tanner. Tanner is a Euro- 
 pean who was carried away at the age 
 of six by the Indians, and has remained 
 thirty years with them in the woods. 
 Nothing can be conceived more ap- 
 palling that the miseries which he de- 
 scribes. He tells us of tribes without a 
 chief, families without a nation to call 
 their own, men in a state of isolation, 
 
 wrecks of powerful tribes wandering at 
 random amid the ice and snow and 
 desolate solitudes of Canada. Hunger 
 and cold pursue them ; every day their 
 life is in jeopardy. Amongst these men, 
 manners have lost their empire, tradi- 
 tions are without power. They become 
 more and more savage. Tanner shared 
 in all these miseries ; he was aware of 
 his European origin ; he was not kept 
 away from the whites by force ; on the 
 contrary, he came every year to trade 
 with them, entered their dwellings, and 
 witnessed their enjoyments ; he knew 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 353 
 
 submit to a wearisome, obscure, and degraded state; and to 
 gain the bread which nourishes him by hard and ignoble labor ; 
 such are in his eyes the only results of which civilization can 
 boast : and even this much he is not sur^ to obtain. 
 
 When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neigh- 
 bors, and to till the earth like the settlers, they are immediately 
 exposed to a very formidable competition. The white man is 
 skilled in the craft of agriculture ; the Indian is a rough begin- 
 ner in an art with which he is unacquainted. The former reaps 
 abundant crops without difficulty, the latter meets with a thou- 
 sand obstacles in raising the fruits of the earth. 
 
 The European is placed amongst a population whose wants 
 he knows and partakes. The savage is isolated in the midst of 
 a hostile people, with whose manners, language, and laws he is 
 imperfectly acquainted, but without whose assistance he can- 
 not live. He can only procure the materials of comfort by bar- 
 tering his commodities against the goods of the European, for 
 the assistance of his countrymen is wholly insufficient to supply 
 his wants. When the Indian wishes to sell the produce of his 
 labor, he cannot always meet with a purchaser, whilst the Euro- 
 pean readily finds a market ; and the former can only produce 
 at a considerable cost that which the latter vends at a very low 
 rate. Thus the Indian has no sooner escaped those evils to 
 which barbarous nations are exposed, than he is subjected to 
 the still greater miseries of civilized communities; and he 
 finds is scarcely less difficult to live in the midst of our abun- 
 dance, than in the depth of his own wilderness. 
 
 He has not yet lost the habits of his erratic life ; the tradi- 
 tions of his fathers and his passion for the chase are still alive 
 within him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated 
 him in the woods, painfully excite his troubled imagination; 
 and his former privations appear to be less keen, his former 
 perils less appalling. He contrasts the independence which he 
 possessed amongst his equals with the servile position which he 
 
 / 
 
 that whenever he chose to return to 
 civilized life he was perfectly able to do 
 so — and he remained thirty years in the 
 deserts. When he came into civilized 
 society he declared that the rude ex- 
 istence which he described, had a secret 
 charm for him which he was unable to 
 define : he returned to it again and 
 again : at length he abandoned it with 
 poignant regret ; and when he was at 
 length fixed among the whites, several 
 
 Vol. I.— 23 
 
 of Kis children refused to share his tran- 
 quil and easy situation. I saw Tanner 
 myself at the lower end of Lake Su- 
 perior ; he seemed to me to be more like 
 a savage than a civilized being. His 
 book is written without either taste or 
 order; but he gives, even unconscious- 
 ly, a lively picture of the prejudices, the 
 passions, the vices, and, above all, of 
 the destitution in which he lived. 
 
^/ 
 
 354 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 \A 
 
 'I 
 
 occupies in civilized society. On the other hand, the solitudes 
 which were so long his free home are still at hand; a few 
 hours' march will bring him back to them once more. The 
 whites offer him a sum, which seems to him to be considerable, 
 for the ground which he has begun to clear. This money of 
 the Europeans may possibly furnish him with the means of a 
 happy and peaceful subsistence in remoter regions; and he 
 quits the plough, resumes his native arms, and returns to the 
 wilderness forever.* The condition of the Creeks and Chero- 
 kees, to which I have already alluded, sufficiently corroborates 
 the truth of this deplorable picture. 
 
 The Indians, in the little which they have done, have un- 
 questionably displayed as much natural genius as the peoples 
 of Europe in their most important designs ; but nations as well 
 as men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelli- 
 gence and their zeal. Whilst the savages were engaged in the 
 work of civilization, the Europeans continued to surround them 
 on every side, and to confine them within narrower limits ; the 
 two races gradually met, and they are now in immediate juxta- 
 position to each other. The Indian is already superior to his 
 barbarous parent, but he is still very far below his white neigh- 
 bor. With their resources and acquired knowledge, the Euro- 
 peans soon appropriated to themselves most of the advantages 
 which the natives might have derived from the possession of 
 the soil ; they have settled in the country, they have purchased 
 
 i The dcstructice influence of highly 
 civilized nations upon others which are 
 less so, has been exemplified by the 
 Europeans themselves. About a century 
 ago tne French founded the town of Vin- 
 cennes up on the Wabash, jn the middle 
 of the desert ; and they lived there in 
 great plenty until the arrival of the Am- 
 erican settlers, who first ruined the pre- 
 vious inhabitants by their competition, 
 and afterwards purchased their lands at 
 a very low rate. At the time when M. 
 de Volney, from whom I borrow these 
 details, passed through Vincennes, the 
 number of the French was reduced to a 
 hundred individuals, most of whom were 
 about to pass over to Louisiana or to 
 Canada. These French settlers were 
 worthy people, but idle and unin- 
 structed: they had contracted many of 
 the habits of savages. The Americans, 
 who were perhaps their inferiors, in a 
 moral point of view, were immeasurably 
 superior to them in intelligence : they 
 were industrious, well informed, rich, 
 and accustomed to govern their own 
 community. 
 
 I myself saw in Canada, where the in- 
 tellectual difference between the two 
 races is less striking, that the English 
 
 are the masters of commerce and manu- 
 facture in the Canadian country, that 
 they spread on all sides, and confine the 
 French within limits which scarcely suf- 
 fice to contain them. In like manner, in 
 Louisiana, almost all activity in com- 
 merce and manuf.-icture centres in the 
 hands of the Anglo-Americans. 
 
 But the case of Texas is still more 
 striking : the State of Texas is a part of 
 Mexico, and lies upon the frontier be- 
 tween that country and the United 
 States. In the course of the last few 
 years the Anplo-Americans have pene- 
 trated into this province, which is still 
 thinly peopled; they purchase land, 
 they produce the commodities of the 
 country, and supplant the original popu- 
 lation. It may easily be foreseen that if 
 Mexico takes no steps to check this 
 change, the province of Texas will very 
 shortly cease to belong to that govern- 
 ment. 
 
 If the different decrees— comparatively 
 so slight — which exist in European civil- 
 ization produce results of such magni- 
 tude, the consequences which must 
 ensue from the collision of the most 
 perfect European civilization with Ind- 
 ian savages may readily be conceived. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 355 
 
 / 
 
 land at a very low rate or have occupied it by force, and the 
 Indians have been ruined by a competition which they had not 
 the means of resisting. They were isolated in their own coun- 
 try, and their race only constituted a colony of troublesome 
 aliens in the midst of a numerous and domineering people.' 
 
 Washington said in one of his messages to Congress, " We 
 are more enlightened and more powerful than the Indian na- 
 tions, we are therefore bound in honor to treat them with 
 kindness and even with generosity." But this virtuous and high- 
 minded policy has not been followed. The rapacity of the set- 
 tlers is usually backed by the tyranny of the government. Al- 
 though the Cherokecs anc. the Creeks are established upon the 
 territory which they inhabited before the settlement of the 
 Europeans, and although the Americans have frequently treated 
 with them as with foreign nations, the surrounding States have 
 not consented to acknowledge them as independent peoples, and 
 attempts have been made to subject these children of the woods 
 to Anglo-American magistrates, laws, and customs." Destitu- 
 tion had driven these unfortunate Indians to civilization, and 
 oppression now drives them back to their former condition: 
 many of them abandon the soil which they had begun to clear, 
 and return to their savage course of life. 
 
 If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been 
 adopted by the legislatures of the Southern States, the conduct 
 of their Governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, 
 we shall be convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians 
 is the final result to which the efforts of their policy are directed. 
 
 / 
 
 ( See in the Legislative Documents 
 (21st Congress, No. 89) instances of ex- 
 cesses of every kind committed by the 
 whites upon the territory of the Ind- 
 ians, either in taking possession of a 
 part of their lands, until compelled to 
 retire by the troops of Congress, or car- 
 rying off their cattle, burning their 
 houses, cutting down their corn, and do- 
 ing violence to their persons. It ap- 
 pears, nevertheless, from all these docu- 
 ments that the claims of the natives arc 
 constantly protected by the government 
 from the abuse of force. The Union 
 has a representative agent continually 
 employed to reside among the Indians ; 
 and the report of the Cherokee agent, 
 which is among the documents I have 
 referred to, is almost always favorable 
 to the Indians. " The intrusion of 
 whites," he says, " upon the lands of 
 the Cherokees would cause ruin to the 
 poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabi- 
 tants." And he further remarks upon 
 the attempt of the State of Georgia to 
 
 establish a division line for the purpose 
 of limiting the boundaries of the Chero- 
 kees, that the line drawn having bsen 
 made by the whites, and entirely upon 
 ex parte evidence of their several rights, 
 was of no validity whatever. 
 
 M In 1829 the State of Alabama divided 
 the Creek territory into counties, and 
 subjected the Indian population to the 
 power of European magistrates. 
 
 In 1830 the State of Mississippi assim- 
 ilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws to 
 the white population, and declared that 
 any of them that should take the title of 
 chief would be punished by a fine of 
 $1,000 and a year's imprisonment. When 
 these laws were enforced upon the 
 Choctaws, who inhabited that district, 
 the tribe assembled, their chief commu- 
 nicated to them the intentions of the 
 whites, and read to them some of the 
 laws to which it was intended that they 
 should submit ; and they unanimously 
 declared that it was better at once to 
 retreat again into the wilds. 
 
356 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ,»;■ 
 
 1 .11 
 
 The Americans of that part of the Union look with jealousy 
 upon the aborigines.^ they are aware that these tribes have not 
 yet lost the traditions of savage life, and before civilization has 
 permanently fixed them to the soil, it is intended to force them 
 to recede by reducing them to despair. The Creeks and Chero- 
 kees, oppressed by the several States, have appealed to the cen- 
 tral government, which is by no means insensible to their mis- 
 fortunes, and is sincerely desirous of saving the remnant of 
 the natives, and of maintaining them in the free possession of 
 that territory, which the Union is pledged to respect.w But 
 the several States oppose so formidable a resistance to the exe- 
 cution of this design, that the government is obliged to consent 
 to the extirpation of a few barbarous tribes in order not to en- 
 danger the safety of the American Union. 
 
 But the federal government, which is not able to protect 
 the Indians, would fain mitigate the hardships of their lot ; and, 
 with this intention, proposals have been made to transport them 
 into more remote regions at the public cost. 
 
 Between the thirty-third and thirty-seventh degrees of north 
 latitude, a vast tract of country lies, which has taken the name 
 of Arkansas, from the principal river that waters its extent. It 
 is bounded on the one side by the confines of Mexico, on the 
 other by the Mississippi. Numberless streams cross it in every 
 direction ; the climate is mild, and the soil productive, but it is 
 only inhabited by a few wandering hordes of savages. The 
 government of the Union wishes to transport the broken rem- 
 nants of the indigenous population of the South to the portion 
 of this country which is nearest to Mexico, and at a great dis- 
 tance from the American settlements. 
 
 We were assured, towards the end of the year 1831, that 10,- 
 000 Indians had already gone down to the shores of the Ar- 
 kansas ; and fresh detachments were constantly following them ; 
 but Congress has been unable to excite a unanimous deter- 
 mination in those whom it is disposed to protect. Some, in- 
 deed, are willing to quit the seat of oppression, but the most 
 
 vThe Georgians, who are so much 
 annoyed hy the proximity of the Ind- 
 ians, inhabit a territory which does 
 not at present contain more than seven 
 inhabitants to the square mile. In 
 France there are one hundred and sixty- 
 two inhabitants to the same extent of 
 country. 
 
 win 1818 Congress appointed com- 
 
 missioners to visit the Arkansas Terri- 
 tory, accompanied by a deputation of 
 Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. 
 This exoedition was commanded by 
 Messrs. Kennerlv, M'Coy, Wash Hood, 
 and John Bell. See the different reports 
 of the commissioners, and their journal, 
 in the Documents of Congress, No. 87, 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 I 1 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3S7 
 
 enlightened members of the community refuse to abandon their 
 recent dwellings and their springing crops ; they are of opinion 
 that the work of civilization, once interrupted, will never be 
 resumed ; they fear that those domestic habits which have been 
 80 recently contracted, may be irrevocably lost in the midst of a 
 country which is still barbarous, and where nothing is pre- 
 pared for the subsistence of an agricultural people ; they know 
 that their entrance into those wilds will be opposed by inimical 
 hordes, and that they have lost the energy of barbarians, with- 
 out acquiring the resources of civilization to resist their 
 attacks. Moreover, the Indians readily discover that the set- 
 tlement which is proposed to them is merely a temporary expedi- 
 ent. Who can assure them that they will at length be allowed 
 to dwell in peace in their new retreat? The United States 
 pledge themselves to the observance of the obligation ; but the 
 territory which they at present occupy was formerly secured to 
 them by the most solemn oaths of Anglo-American faith.* 
 The American government does not indeed rob them of their 
 lands, but it allows perpetual incursions to be made on them. 
 In a few years the same white population which now flocks 
 around them, will track them to the solitudes of the Arkansas ; 
 they will then be exposed to the same evils without the same 
 remedies, and as the limits of the earth will at last fail them, 
 their only refuge is the grave. 
 
 The Union treats the Indians with less cupidity and rigor 
 than the policy of the several States, but the two governments 
 are alike destitute of good faith. The States extend what they 
 are pleased to term the benefits of their laws to the Indians, 
 with a belief that the tribes will recede rather than submit; 
 and the central government, which promises a permanent 
 refuge to these unhappy beings is well aware of its inability to 
 secure it to them.y 
 
 X The fifth article of the treaty made 
 with the Creeks in August, i7go, is in 
 the following words:— "The United 
 States solemnly guarantee to the Creek 
 nation al! their land within the limits 
 of the United States." 
 
 The seventh article of the treaty con- 
 cluded in 1791 with the Cherokees says: 
 — " The United States solemnly guar- 
 antee to the Cherokes nation all their 
 lands not hereby ceded." The following 
 article declared that if any citizen of 
 the United States or other settler not of 
 the Indian race should establish him- 
 self upon the territory of the Cherokees, 
 the United States would withdVaw their 
 
 ^' protection from that individual, and give 
 him up to be punished as the Cheroicee 
 nation should think fit. 
 
 y This does not prevent them from 
 promising in the most solemn manner 
 to do so. See the letter of the President 
 addressed to the Creek Indians, March 
 23, i82() (Proceedings of the Indian 
 Board, in the city of New York, p. $): 
 " Beyond the great river Mississippi, 
 where a part of your nation has gone, 
 your father has provided a country 
 large enough for all of jrou, and he ad- 
 vises you to remove to it. There your 
 white brothers will not trouble you : 
 they will have no claim to the land, and 
 
358 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 13 
 
 h'l 
 
 m 
 
 Thus the tyranny of the States obliges the savages to retire, 
 the Union, by its promises and resources, facilitates their re- 
 treat; and these measures tend to precisely the same end.' 
 " By the will of our Father in Heaven, the Governor of the 
 whole world," said the Cherokees in their petition to Congress," 
 " the red man of America has become small, and the white man 
 great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these 
 United States first came to the shores of America they found 
 the red man strong: though he was ignorant and savage, yet 
 he received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their 
 weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in token of 
 friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the 
 Indian, the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian was 
 the lord, and the white man the suppliant. But now the scene 
 has changed. The strength of the red man has become weak- 
 ness. As his neighbors increased in numbers his power be- 
 came less and less, and now, of the many and powerful tribes 
 who once covered these United States, only a few are to be seen 
 — a few whom a sweeping pestilence has left. The northern 
 tribes, who were once so numerous and powerful, are now 
 nearly extinct. Thus it has happened to the red man of Ameri- 
 ca. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same fate? 
 
 " The land on which we stand we have received as an in- 
 heritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time imme- 
 morial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. They 
 bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept 
 it, as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right 
 of inheritance we have never ceded nor ever forfeited. Permit 
 us to ask what better right can the people have to a country 
 than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable posses- 
 sion ? We know it is said of late by the State of Georgia and 
 by the Executive of the United States, that we have forfeited 
 
 you can live upon it, you and all your 
 children, as lonft as the grass ftrows, or 
 the water runs, in peace and plenty. It 
 will be yours forever." 
 
 The Secretary of War, in a letter writ- 
 ten to the Cherokees, April i8, 1829, (see 
 the same work, p. 6), declares to them 
 that they cannot expect to retain pos- 
 session of the lands at that time oc- 
 cupied by them, but gives them the 
 most positive assurance of uninterrupted 
 peace if they would remove beyond the 
 Mississippi : as if the power which could 
 not grant them protection then, would 
 be able to afford it them hereafter ! 
 
 a To obtain a correct idea of the policy 
 pursued by the several States and the 
 Union with respect to the Indians, it 
 is necessary to consult, ist, " The Laws 
 of the Colonial and State Governments 
 relating to the Indian Inhabitants." 
 (See the Legislative Documents, 21st 
 Congress, No. 319.) 2d, The Laws of 
 the Union on the same subject, and 
 especially that of March 30, 1802. (See 
 Story's ^' Laws of the United States.") 
 3d, The Report of Mr. Cass, Secretary 
 of War, relative to Indian Affairs, No- 
 vember 2Q, 1823. 
 
 a December 18, 1829. 
 
 ^ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 S89 
 
 *^ 
 
 this right; but we think this is said gratuitously. At what 
 time li. ve we made the forfeit? What great crime have we 
 committed, whereby we must forever be divested of our coun- 
 try and rights? Was it when we were hostile to the United 
 States, and took pari with the King of Great Britain, during 
 the "itrugglc (or independence? If so, why was not this for- 
 feiture 'iclared in tlic first treaty of peace between the United 
 States and our beloved men? Why was not such an article as 
 the following inserted in the treaty : — ' The United States 
 give peace to the Cherokees, but, for the part they took in the 
 late war, declare them to be but tenants at will, to be removed 
 when the convenience of the States, within whose chartered 
 limits they live, shall require it ' ? That was the proper time 
 to assume such a possession. But it was not thought of, nor 
 would our forefathers have agreed to any treaty whose ten- 
 dency was to deprive them of their rights and their country." 
 
 Such is the language of the Indians: their assertions arc 
 true, their forebodings inevitable. From whichever side wc 
 consider the destinies of the aborigines of North America, their 
 calamities appear to be irremediable: if they continue barbar- 
 ous, they are forced to retire ; if they attempt to civilize their 
 manners, the contact of a more civilized community subjects 
 them to oppression and destitution. They perish if they con- 
 tinue to wander from waste to waste, and if they attempt to 
 settle they still must perish ; the assistance of Europeans is 
 necessary to instruct them, but the approach of Europeans cor- 
 rupts and repels them into savage life ; they refuse to change 
 their habits as long as their solitudes are their own, and it is 
 too late to change them when they are constrained to submit. 
 
 The Spaniards pursued the Indians with bloodhounds, like 
 wild beasts ; they sacked the New World with no more temper 
 or compassion than a city taken by storm; but destruction 
 must cease, and frenzy be stayed ; the remnant of the Indian 
 population which had escaped the massacre mixed with its con- 
 querors, and adopted in the end their religion and their man- 
 ners.fr The conduct of the Americans of the 'United States 
 towards the aborigines is characterized, on the other hand, by a 
 singular attachment to the formalities of law. Provided that 
 
 b The honor of this result is, however, 
 hy no means due to the Spaniards. If 
 the Indian tribes had not been tillers of 
 the ground at the time of the arrival of 
 
 the Europeans, they would unquestion- 
 ably have been destroyed in south as 
 well as in North America. 
 
 
 i 
 
 i\ 
 
r/; ^ 
 
 360 
 
 DE TOCQtJEVILLE 
 
 \! 
 
 the Indians retain their barbarous condition, the Americans 
 take no part in their affairs; they treat them as independent 
 nations, and do not possess themselves of their hunting grounds 
 without a treaty of purchase; and if an Indian nation hap- 
 pens to be so encroached upon as to be unable to subsist upon its 
 territory, they afford it brotherly assistance in transporting it 
 to a grave sufficiently remote from the land of its fathers. 
 
 The Spaniards were unable to exterminate the Indian race 
 by those unparalleled atrocities which brand them with in- 
 delible shame, nor did they even succeed in wholly depriving it 
 of its rights ; but the Americans of the United States have ac- 
 complished this twofold purpose with singular felicity ; tran- 
 quilly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, and 
 without violating a single great principle of morality in the 
 eyes of the world.c It is impossible to destroy men with more 
 respect for the laws of humanity. 
 
 [I leave this chapter wholly unchanged, for it has always appeared to 
 me to be one of the most eloquent and touching parts of this book. But 
 it has ceased to be prophetic; the destruction of the Indian race in the 
 United States is already consummated. In 1870 there remained but 
 25,731 Indians in the whole territory of the Union, and of these by far 
 the largest part exist in California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Dakota, and 
 New Mexico and Nevada. In New England, Pennsylvania, and New 
 York the race is extinct ; and the predictions of M. de Tocqueville arc 
 fulfilled. — Translator's Note.] 
 
 'i 
 
 c See, amongst other documents, the 
 report made by Mr. Bell in the name of 
 the Committee on Indian Affairs, Feb- 
 ruary 24, 1830, in which is most logically 
 established and most learnedly proved, 
 that " the fundamental principle that the 
 Indians had no right by virtue of their 
 ancient possession either of will or 
 sovereignty, has never ,been abandoned 
 either expressly or by implication." In 
 perusing this report, which is evidently 
 drawn up by an experienced hand, one 
 
 is astonished at the facility with which 
 the author gets rid of all arguments 
 founded upon reason and natural right, 
 which he designates as abstract and the- 
 oretical principles. The more I contem- 
 plate the difference between civilized 
 and uncivilized man with regard to the 
 principles of justice, the more I ob- 
 serve that the former contests the jus- 
 tice of those rights which the latter 
 simply violates. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 361 
 
 Situation of the Black Population in the United 
 States, and Dangers with Which Its Presence 
 Threatens the Whites 
 
 Why it is more difficult to abolish slavery, and to efface all vestiges of 
 it amongst the moderns than it was amongst the ancients — In the 
 United States the prejudices of the Whites against the Blacks seem 
 to increase in proportion as slavery is abolished— Situation of the 
 Negroes in the Northern and Southern States — Why the Americans 
 abolish slavery — Servitude, which debases the slave, impoverishes 
 the master— Contrast between the left and the right bank of the 
 Ohio — To what attributable — The Black race, as well as slavery, re- 
 cedes towards the South— Explanation of this fact— Difficulties at- 
 tendant upon the abolition of slavery in the South — Dangers to come 
 —General anxiety— Foundation of a Black colony in Africa— Why 
 the Americans of the South increase the hardships of slavery, whilst 
 they are distressed at its continuance. 
 
 The Indians will perish in the same isolated condition in 
 which they have lived ; but the destiny of the negroes is in some 
 measure interwoven with that of the Europeans. These two 
 races are attached to each other without intermingling, and 
 they are alike unable entirely to separate or to combine. The 
 most formidable of all the ills which threaten the future exist- 
 ence of the Union arises from the presence of a black popula- 
 tion upon its territory ; and in contemplating the cause of the 
 present embarrassments or of the future dangers of the United 
 States, the observer is invariably led to consider this as a 
 primary fact. 
 
 The permanent evils to which mankind is subjected are usu- 
 ally produced by the vehement or the increasing efforts of men ; 
 but there is one calamity which penetrated furtively into the 
 world, and which was at first scarcely distinguishable amidst 
 the ordinary abuses of power ; it originated with an individual 
 whose name history has not preserved ; it was wafted like some 
 accursed germ upon a portion of the soil, but it afterwards 
 nurtured itself, grew without eflfort, and spreads naturally 
 with the society to which it belongs. I need scarcely add that 
 this calamity is slavery. Christianity suppressed slavery, but 
 the Christians of the sixteenth century re-established it — as an 
 exception, indeed, to their social system, and restricted to one of 
 the races of mankind; but the wound thus inflicted upon hu- 
 manity, though less extensive, was at the same time rendered 
 far more difficult of cure. 
 
 I . 
 
 M^^Pii^. 
 
362 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 It is important to make an accurate distinction between sla- 
 very itself and its consequences. The immediate evils which 
 are produced by slavery were very nearly the same in an- 
 tiquity as they are amongst the moderns ; but the consequences 
 of these evils were different. The slave, amongst the ancients, 
 belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the 
 superior of the two in education d and instruction. Freedom 
 was the only distinction between them ; and when freedom was 
 conferred they were easily confounded together. The ancients, 
 then, had a very simple means of avoiding slavery and its evil 
 consequences, which was that of affranchisement; and they 
 succeeded as soon as they adopted this measure generally. Not 
 but, in ancient States, the vestiges of servitude subsisted for 
 some time after servitude itself was abolished. There is a 
 natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever 
 has been their inferior long after he is become their equal ; and 
 the real inequality which is produced by fortune or by law is 
 always succeeded by an imaginary inequality which is im- 
 planted in the manners of the people. Nevertheless, this sec- 
 ondary consequence of slavery was limited to a certain term 
 amongst the ancients, for the freedman bore so entire a re- 
 semblance to those born free, that it soon became impossible to 
 distinguish him from amongst them. 
 
 The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the 
 law ; amongst the moderns it is that of altering the manners ; 
 and, as far as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where 
 those of the ancients left off. This arises from the circum- 
 stance that, amongst the moderns, the abstract and transient 
 fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent 
 fact of color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and 
 the peculiarity of the race perpetuates the tradition of slavery. 
 No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the 
 New World; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks 
 who are now to be found in that hemisphere are either slaves or 
 freedmen. Thus the negro transmits the eternal mark of his 
 ignominy to all his descendants; and although the law may 
 abolish slavery, God alone can obliterate the traces of its ex- 
 istence. 
 
 I 
 
 d It is well known that several of the 
 most distinRuished authors of antiquity, 
 and amonpst them ^sop and Terence, 
 were, or had been slaves. Slaves were 
 
 not always taken from barbarous na- 
 tions, and the chances of war reduced 
 highly civilized men to servitUvI.- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 363 
 
 The modem slave differs from his master not only in his con- 
 dition, but in his origin. You may set the negro free, but you 
 cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European. 
 Nor is this all ; we scarcely acknowledge the common features 
 of mankind in this child of debasement whom slavery has 
 brought amongst us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous, 
 his understanding weak, his tastes low ; and we are almost in- 
 clined to look upon him as a being intermediate between man 
 and the brutes.e The moderns, then, after they have abolished 
 slavery, have three prejudices to contend against, which are less 
 easy to attack and far less easy to conquer than the mere fact 
 of servitude: the prejudice of the master, the prejudice of the 
 race, and the prejudice of color. 
 
 It is difficult for us, who have had the good fortune to be bom 
 amongst men like ourselves by nature, and equal to ourselves 
 by law, to conceive the irreconcilable diflferences which separate 
 the negro from the European in America. But we may derive 
 some faint notion of them from analogy. France was formerly 
 a country in which numerous distinctions of rank existed, that 
 had been created by the legislation. Nothing can be more fic- 
 titious than a purely legal inferiority ; nothing more contrary 
 to the instinct of mankind than these permanent divisions which 
 had been established between beings evidently similar. Never- 
 theless these divisions subsisted for ages ; they still subsist in 
 many places ; and on all sides they have left imaginary vestiges, 
 which time alone can eflface. If it be so difficult to root out an 
 inequality which solely originates in the law, how are those 
 distinctions to be destroyed which seem to be based upon the 
 immutable laws of Nature herself ? When I remember the ex- 
 treme difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, of whatever 
 nature they may be, are commingled with the mass of the peo- 
 ple ; and the exceed:"^ v:are which they take to preserve the 
 ideal boundaries of their caste inviolate, I despair of seeing an 
 aristocracy disappear which is founded upon visible and in- 
 delible signs. Those who hope that the Europeans will ever 
 mix with the negroes, appear to me to delude themselves ; and 
 I am not led to any such conclusion by my own reason, or by 
 the evidence of facts. 
 
 Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, 
 
 1 
 
 1 y. VJ 
 
 i)i 
 
 e To induce the whites to abandon the 
 opinion they have conceived of the 
 moral and intellectual inferiority of their 
 
 former slaves, the negroes must change ; 
 but as long as this opinion subsists, to 
 change is impossible. 
 
 ^s^aan 
 
 >;<ft*i,"^!SJutf-:^.»»M 
 
364 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 if 1! 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 
 % 
 
 I! 
 
 they have maintained the blacks in a subordinate or a servile 
 position ; wherever the negroes have been strongest they have 
 destroyed the whites ; such has been the only retribution which 
 has ever taken place between the two races. 
 
 I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United 
 States at the present day, the legal barrier which separated the 
 two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in 
 the manners of the country ; slavery recedes, but the prejudice 
 to which it has given birth remains stationary. Whosoever has 
 inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those 
 parts of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, 
 they have in no wise drawn nearer to the whites. On the con- 
 trary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the 
 States which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still 
 exists ; and nowhere is it so intolerant as in those States where 
 servitude has never been known. 
 
 It is true, that in the North of the Union, marriages may be 
 legally contracted between negroes and whites; but public 
 opinion would stigmatize a man who should connect himself 
 with a negress as infamous, and it would be difficult to meet 
 with a single instance of such a union. The electoral franchise 
 has been conferred upon the negroes in almost all the States 
 in which slavery has been abolished ; but if they come forward 
 to vote, their lives are in danger. If oppressed, they may bring 
 an action at law, but they will find none but whites amongst 
 their judges ; rnd although they may legally serve as jurors, 
 prejudice repulses them from that office. The same schools do 
 not receive the child of the black and of the European. In the 
 theatres, gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside 
 their former masters ; in the hospitals they lie apart ; and al- 
 though they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as the 
 whites, it must be at a diflferent altar, and in their own churches, 
 with their own clergy. The gates of Heaven are not closed 
 against these unhappy beings; but their inferiority is con- 
 tinued to the very confines of the other world ; when the negro 
 is defunct, his bones are cast aside, and the distinction of condi- 
 tion prevails even in the equality of death. The negro is free, 
 but he can share neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the 
 labor, nor the afflictions, nor the tomb of him whose equal he 
 has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him upon fair 
 terms in life or in death. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 3^5 
 
 In the South, where slavery still exists, the negroes are less 
 carefully kept apart ; they sometimes share the labor and the 
 recreations of the whites ; the whites consent to intermix with 
 them to a certain extent, and although the legislation treats 
 them more harshly, the habits of the people are more tolerant 
 and compassionate. In the South the master is not afraid to 
 raise his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he 
 can in a moment reduce him to the dust at pleasure. In the 
 North the white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier which 
 separates him from the degraded race, and he shuns the negro 
 with the more pertinacity, since he fears lest they should some 
 day be confounded together. 
 
 Amongst the Americans of the South, nature sometimes reas- 
 serts her rights, and restores a transient equality between the 
 blacks and the whites; but in the North pride restrains the 
 most imperious of human passions. The American of the 
 Northern States would perhaps allow the negress to share his 
 licentious pleasures, if the laws of his country did not declare 
 that she may aspire to be the legitimate partner of his bed; 
 but he recoils with horror from her who might become his wife. 
 
 Thus it is, in the United States, that the prejudice which re- 
 pels the negroes seems to increase in proportion as they are 
 emancipated, and inequality is sanctioned by the manners 
 whilst it is effaced from the laws of the country. But if the 
 • elative position of the two races which inhabit the United 
 States is such as I have described, it may be asked why the 
 Americans have abolished slavery in the North of the Union, 
 why they maintain it in the South, and why they aggravate its 
 hardships there ? The answer is easily given. It is net for the 
 good of the negroes, but for that of the whites, that measures 
 are taken to abolish slavery in the United States. 
 
 The first negroes were imported into Virginia about the 
 year 1621.^ In America, therefore, as well as in the rest of the 
 globe, slavery originated in the South. Thence it spread from 
 one settlement to another; but the number of slaves dimin- 
 ished towards the Northern States, and the negro population 
 was always very limited in New England.? 
 
 
 r f\ 
 
 \m 
 
 
 ! ^ 
 
 i 
 
 HI 
 
 
 / See Beverley's " History of Vir- 
 ginia." See also in Jefferson's " Me- 
 moirs " some curious<details concerning 
 the introduction of negroes into Vir- 
 ginia, and the first Act which prohibited 
 the importation of them in 1778. 
 
 fThe number of slaves was less con- 
 erable in the North, but the advan- 
 tages resulting from slavery were not 
 more contested there than in the South. 
 In 1740, the Legislature of the State of 
 New York declared that the direct im- 
 
366 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Mi! 
 
 H 
 
 ■ I 
 
 A century had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the 
 colonies, when the attention of the planters was struck by the 
 extraordinary fact, that the provinces which were compara- 
 tively destitute of slaves, increased in population, in wealth, and 
 in prosperity more rapidly than those which contained the 
 greatest number of negroes. In the former, however, the in- 
 habitants were obliged to cultivate the soil themselves, or by 
 hired laborers ; in the latter they were furnished with hands for 
 which they paid no wages; yet although labor and expenses 
 were on the one side, and ease with economy on the other, the 
 former were in possession of the most advantageous system. 
 This consequence seemed to be the more difficult to explain, 
 since the settlers, who all belonged to the same European race, 
 had the same habits, the same civilization, the same laws, and 
 their shades of difference were extremely slight. 
 
 Time, however, continued to advance, and the Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans, spreading beyond the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, pene- 
 trated farther and farther into the solitudes of the West ; they 
 met with a new soil and an unwonted climate ; the obstacles 
 which opposed them were of the most various character ; their 
 races intermingled, the inhabitants of the South went up 
 towards the North, those of the North descended to the South ; 
 but in the midst of all these causes, the same result occurred at 
 every step, and in general, the colonies in which there were no 
 slaves became more populous and more rich than those in 
 which slavery flourished. The more progress was made, the 
 more was it shown that slavery, which is so cruel to the slave, 
 is prejudicial to the master. 
 
 But this truth was most satisfactorily demonstrated when 
 civilization reached the banks of the Ohio. The stream which 
 the Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or Beautiful 
 River, waters one of the most magnificent valleys that has 
 ever been made the abode of man. Undulating lands extend 
 upon both shores of the Ohio, whose soil afifords inexhaustible 
 treasures to the laborer ; on either bank the air is wholesome 
 and the climate mild, and each of them forms the extreme fron- 
 
 portation of slaves oufirtit to be encour- 
 aged as much as possible, and smuff- 
 BlinpT severely punished in order not to 
 discourfige the fair trader. (Kent's 
 " Commentaries," vol. ii. p. 206.) Curi- 
 ous researches, by Belknap, upon slavery 
 in New England, are to be found in the 
 " Historical Collection of Massachu- 
 
 setts," vol. iv. p. i()3. It appears that 
 negroes were introduced there in 1630, 
 but that the legislation and manners of 
 the people were opposed to slavery from 
 the first; see also, in the same work, 
 the manner in which public opinion, and 
 afterwards the laws, finally put an end 
 to slavery 
 
 ri lit \ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 367 
 
 tier of a vast State : That which follows the numerous windings 
 of the Ohio upon the left is called Kentucky, that upon the right 
 bears the name of the river. These two States only differ in a 
 single respect ; Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the State of 
 Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders.* 
 
 Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio 
 to the spot where that river falls into the Mississippi, may be 
 said to sail between liberty and servitude ; and a transient in- 
 spection of the surrounding objects will convince him as to 
 which of the two is most favorable to mankind. Upon the left 
 bank of the stream the population is rare ; from time to time 
 one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields ; 
 the primaeval forest recurs at every turn ; society seems to be 
 asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone oflFers a scene of activity 
 and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused 
 hum is heard which proclaims the presence of industry ; the 
 fields are covered with abundant harvests, the elegance of the 
 dwellings announces the taste and activity of the laborer, and 
 man appears to be in the enjoyment of that wealth and content- 
 ment which is the reward of labor.* 
 
 The State of Kentucky was founded in 1775, the State of 
 Ohio only twelve years later; but twelve years are more in 
 America than half a century in Europe, and, at the present day, 
 the population of Ohio exceeds that of Kentucky by two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand souls./ These opposite consequences 
 of slavery and freedom may readily be understood, and they 
 suffice to explain many of the differences which we remark be- 
 tween the civilization of antiquity and that of our own time. 
 
 Upon the left bank of the Ohio labor is confounded with the 
 idea of slavery, upon the right bank it is identified with that of 
 prosperity and improvement; on the one side it is degraded, 
 on the other it is honored ; on the former territory no white 
 laborers can be found, for they would be afraid of assimilating 
 themselves to the negroes ; on the latter no one is idle, for the 
 white population extends its activity and its intelligence to every 
 
 h Not only is slavery prohibited in 
 Ohio, but no free negroes are allowed 
 to enter the territory of that State, or 
 to hold property in it. See the Statutes 
 of Ohio. 
 
 » The activity of Ohio is not confined 
 to individuals, but the undertakings of 
 the State are surprisingly great ; a canal 
 has been established between Lake Erie 
 and the Ohio, by means of which the 
 valley of the Mississippi communicates 
 
 with the river of the North, and the 
 European commodities which arrive at 
 New York may be forwarded by water 
 to New Orleans across five hundred 
 leagues of continent. 
 
 y The exact numbers given by the 
 census of 1830 were : Kentucky, 688,- 
 844; Ohio, 937,679. [In 1890 the popu- 
 lation of Ohio was 3,672,316, that of Ken- 
 tucky, 1,858,635.1 
 
 
 i 
 
 ,J 
 
 i } 
 
 ( 
 
 M 
 
368 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 V 
 
 .!•■ 
 
 -1 
 
 il ( 
 
 \ I 
 
 > I 
 
 kind of employment. Thus the men whose task it is to cultivate 
 the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm ; whilst 
 those who are active and enlightened either do nothing or pass 
 over into the State of Ohio, where they may work without dis- 
 honor. 
 
 It is true that in Kentucky the planters are not obliged to pay 
 wages to the slaves whom they employ ; but they derive small 
 profits from their labor, whilst the wages paid to free workmen 
 would be returned with interest in the value of their services. 
 The free workman is paid, but he does his work quicker than the 
 slave, and rapidity of execution is one of the great elements of 
 economy. The white sells his services, but they are only pur- 
 chased at the times at which they may be useful ; the black can 
 claim no remuneration for his toil, but the expense of his main- 
 tenance is perpetual ; he must be supported in his old age as 
 well as in the prime of manhood, in his profitless infancy as 
 well as in the productive years of youth. Payment must equally 
 be made in order to obtain the services of either class of men : 
 the free workman receives his wages in money, the slave in ed- 
 ucation, in food, in care, and in clothing. The money which a 
 master spends in the maintenance of his slaves goes gradually 
 and in detail, so that it is scarcely perceived ; the salary of the 
 free workman is paid in a round sum, which appears only to 
 enrich the individual who receives it, but in the end the slave 
 has cost more than the free servant, and his labor is less pro- 
 ductive.* 
 
 The influence of slavery extends still further ; it aflfects the 
 character of the master, and imparts a peculiar tendency to his 
 ideas and his tastes. Upon both banks of the Ohio, the char- 
 acter of the inhabitants is enterprising and energetic ; but this 
 vigor is very differently exercised in the two States. The white 
 inhabitant of Ohio, who is obliged to subsist by his own exer- 
 tions, regards temporal prosperity as the principal aim of his 
 
 * Independently of these causes, which, 
 wherever free workmen abound, render 
 their labor more productive and more 
 economical than that of slaves, another 
 cause may be pointed out which is 
 peculiar to the United States : the 
 suRar-cane has hitherto been cultivated 
 with success only upon the banks of the 
 Mississippi, near the mouth of that river 
 in the Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana 
 the cultivation of the sugar-cane is ex- 
 ceedingly lucrative, and nowhere does 
 a laborer earn so much by his work, 
 and, as there is always a certain rela- 
 
 tion between the cost of production .nnd 
 the value of the produce, the price of 
 slaves is very high in Louisiana. But 
 Louisiana is one of the confederated 
 States, and slaves may be carried thither 
 from all parts of the Union ; the price 
 given for slaves in New Orleans conie- 
 duently raises the value of slaves in nil 
 the other markets. The consequence of 
 this is, that in the countries where the 
 land is less productive, the cost of sl.Tve 
 labor is still very considerable, which 
 gives an additional advantage to the 
 competition of free labor. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 369 
 
 existence ; and as the country which he occupies presents inex- 
 haustible resources to his industry and ever-varying lures to his 
 activity, his acquisitive ardor surpasses f' . ordinary limits of 
 human cupidity : he is tormented by the jire of wealth, and 
 he boldly enters upon every path which fortune opens to him ; 
 he becomes a sailor, a pioneer, an artisan, or a laborer with the 
 same indifference, and he supports, with equal constancy, the 
 fatigues and tlic dangers incidental to these various professions ; 
 the resources of his intelligence arc astonishing, and his avidity 
 in the pursuit of gain amounts to a species of heroism. 
 
 But the Kentuckian scorns not only labor, but all the under- 
 takings which labor promotes ; as he lives in an idle independ- 
 ence, his tastes arc those of an idle man ; money loses a portion 
 of its value in his eyes ; he covets wealth much less than pleasure 
 and excitement ; and the energy which his neighbor devotes to 
 gain, turns with him to a passionate love of field sports and 
 military exercises; he delights in violent bodily exertion, he is 
 familiar with the use of arms, and is accustomed from a very 
 early age to expose his life in single combat. Thus slavery not 
 only prevents the whites from becoming opulent, but even from 
 desiring to become so. 
 
 As the same causes have been continually producing opposite 
 effects for the last two centuries in the British colonies of North 
 America, they have established a very striking difference be- 
 tween the commercial capacity of the inhabitants of the South 
 and those of the North. At the present day it is only the North- 
 ern States which are in possession of shipping, manufactures, 
 railroads, and canals. This difference is perceptible not only 
 in comparing the North with the South, but in comparing the 
 several Southern States. Almost all the individuals who carry 
 on commercial operations, or who endeavor to turn slave labor 
 to account in the most Southern districts of the Union, have 
 emigrated from the North. The natives of the Northern States 
 are constantly spreading over that portion of the American ter- 
 ritory where they have less to fear from competition ; they 
 discover resources there which escaped the notice of the inhabi- 
 tants ; and, as they comply with a system which they do not ap- 
 prove, they succeed in turning it to better advantage than those 
 who first founded and who still maintain it. 
 
 Were I inclined to continue this parallel, I could easily prove 
 that almost all the differences which may be remarked between 
 Vol. I. — 24 
 
 hi 
 Ik 
 
 {^ 
 
 •)| 
 
 ii 
 
370 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 E 
 
 !i ; fi 
 
 1,1 
 
 I 1 
 
 T i 
 
 the characters of the Americans in tlie Southern and in the 
 Northern States have originated in slavery ; but this would di- 
 vert me from my subject, and my present intention is not to 
 point out all the consequences of servitude, but those effects 
 which it has produced upon the prosperity of the countries 
 which have admitted it. 
 
 The influence of slavery upon the production of wealth must 
 have been very imperfectly known in antiquity, as slavery then 
 obtained throughout the civilized world ; and the nations which 
 were unacquainted with it were barbarous. And indeed Chris- 
 tianity only abolished slavery by advocating the claims of the 
 slave ; at the present time it may be attacked in the name of 
 the master, and, upon thi." point, interest is reconciled with mor- 
 ality. 
 
 As these truths became apparent in the United States, slavery 
 receded before the progress of experience. Servitude had begun 
 in the South, and had thence spread towards the North ; but 
 it now retires again. Freedom, which sta«-ted from the North, 
 now descends uninterruptedly towards t!ie South. Amongst 
 the great States, Pennsylvania now constitutes the extreme 
 limit of slavery to the North : but even within those Hmits the 
 slave system is shaken : Maryland, which is immediately below 
 Pennsylvania, is preparing for its abolition; and Virginia, 
 which comes next to Maryland, is already discussing its utility 
 and its dangers./ 
 
 No great change takes phce in human institutions without 
 involving amongst its causes ine law of inheritance. When the 
 law of primogeniture obtained in the South, each family was 
 represented by a wealthy individual, who was neither compelled 
 nor induced to labor ; and he was surrounded, as by parasitic 
 plants, by the other members of his family who were then ex- 
 cluded by law from sharing the common inheritance, and who 
 led the same kind of life as himself. The very same thing then 
 occurred in all the families of the South as still happens in the 
 wealthy families of some countries in Europe, namely, that the 
 younger sons remain in the same state of idleness as their elder 
 
 / A peculiar reason contributes to de- 
 tach tne two last-mentioned States from 
 the cause of slavery. The former wealth 
 of this part of the Union was principally 
 derived from the cultivation of tobacco. 
 This cultivation is specially carried on 
 by slaves ; but within the last few ye.irs 
 the market-price of tobacco has dimin- 
 ished, whilst the value of the slaves re- 
 
 mains the same. Thus the ratio be- 
 tween the cost of production and the 
 value of the produce is changed. Tlu- 
 natives of Maryland and Virginia are 
 therefore more disposed than they were 
 thirty years aRO, to pive up slave labor 
 in the cultivation of tob.icco, or to pive 
 up slavery and tobacco at the same time. 
 
 !•«. 1. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN A. i.RlCA 
 
 371 
 
 ■ole 
 bv 
 
 vva 
 
 brother, without being as rich as he is. This itkntlca* ' l» 
 seems to be produced in Europe and in America by v 
 analogous causes. In the South of the United States the . 
 race of whites formed an aristocratic body, which was hea<i 
 a certain number of privileged individuals, whose wealth 
 permanent, and whose leisure was hereditary. These leaders of 
 the American nobility kept alive the traditional prejudices of 
 the white race in the body of which they were the representa- 
 tives, and maintained the honor of inactive life. This aristoc- 
 racy contained many who were poor, but none who would 
 work ; its members preferred want to labor, consequently no 
 competition was set on foot against negro laborers and slaves, 
 and, whatever opinion might be entertained as to the utility of 
 their efforts, it was indispensable to employ them, since there 
 was no one else to work. 
 
 No sooner was the law of primogeniture abolished than 
 fortunes began to diminish, and all the families of the country 
 were simultaneously reduced to a state in which labor became 
 necessary to procure the means of subsistence : several of them 
 have since entirely disappeared, and all of them learned to look 
 forward to the time at which it would be necessary for everyone 
 to provide for his own wants. Wealthy individuals are still to 
 be met with, but they no longer constitute a compact and he- 
 reditary body, nor have they been able to adopt a line of conduct 
 in which they could persevere, and which they could infuse into 
 all ranks of society. The prejudice which stigmatized labor 
 was in the first place abandoned by common consent ; the num- 
 ber of needy men was increased, and the needy were allowed 
 to gain a laborious subsistence without blushing for their ex- 
 ertions. Thus one of the most immediate consequences of the 
 partible quality of estates has been to create a class of free 
 laborers. As soon as a competition was set on foot between 
 the free laborer and the slave, the inferiority of the latter became 
 manifest, and slavery was attacked in its fundamental principle, 
 which is the interest of the master. 
 
 As slavery recedes, the black population follows its retro- 
 grade course, and returns with it towards those tropical regions 
 from which it originally came. However singular this fact may 
 at first appear to be, it may readily be explained. Although the 
 Americans abolish the principle of slavery, they do not set their 
 slaves free. To illustrate this remark, I will quote the example 
 
 !U 
 
 i 
 
4 
 
 
 I.' 
 
 . ! 
 
 
 37» 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 of the State of New York. In 1788, the State of New York pro- 
 hibited the sale of slaves within its limits, which was an indirect 
 method of prohibiting the importation of blacks. Thencefor- 
 ward the number of negroes could only increase according to 
 the ratio of the natural increase of population. But eight years 
 later a more decisive measure was taken, and it was enacted that 
 all children born of slave parents after July 4, 1799, should 
 be free. No increase could then take place, and although slaves 
 still existed, slavery might be said to be abolished. 
 
 From the time at which a Northern State prohibited the im- 
 portation of slaves, no slaves were brought from the South to 
 be sold in its markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves 
 was forbidden in that State, an owner was no longer able to get 
 rid of his slave (who thus became a burdensome possession) 
 otherwise than by transporting him to the South. But when a 
 Northern State declared that the son of the slave should be born 
 free, the slave lost a large portion of his market value, since his 
 posterity was no longer included in the bargain, and the owner 
 had then a strong interest in transporting him to the South. 
 Thus the same law prevents the slaves of the South from coming 
 to the Northern States, and drives those of the North to the 
 South. 
 
 The want of free hands is felt in a State in proportion as the 
 number of slaves decreases. But in proportion as labor is per- 
 formed by free hands, slave labor becomes less productive ; and 
 the slave is then a useless or onerous possession, whom it is im- 
 portant to export to those Southern States where the same com- 
 petition is not to be feared. Thus the abolition of slavery does 
 not set the slave free, but it merely transfers him from one mas- 
 ter to another, and from the North to the South. 
 
 The emancipated negroes, and those born after the abolition 
 of slavery, do not, indeed, migrate from the North to the South ; 
 but their situation with regard to the Europeans is not unlike 
 that of the aborigines of America ; they remain half civilized, 
 and deprived of their rights in the midst of a population which 
 is far superior to them in wealth and in knowledge ; where they 
 are exposed to the tyranny of the laws »t and the intolerance of 
 the people. On some accounts they are still more to be pitied 
 
 m The States in which slavery is abol- 
 ished usually do what they can to render 
 their territory disaRreeable to the ne- 
 groes as a place of residence ; and as a 
 
 kind of emulation exists between the 
 different States in this respect, the un- 
 happy blacks can only choose the least 
 of the evils which beset them. 
 
 w 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 $1$ 
 
 than the Indians, since they are haunted by the reminiscence of 
 slavery, and they cannot claim possession of a single portion of 
 the soil : many of them perish miserably ,« and the rest congre- 
 gate in the great towns, where they perform the meanest offices, 
 and lead a wretched and precarious existence. 
 
 But even if the number of negroes continued to increase as 
 rapidly as when they were still in a state of slavery, as the num- 
 ber of whites augments with twofold rapidity since the abolition 
 of slavery, the blacks would soon be, as it were, lost in the midst 
 of a strange population. 
 
 A district which is cultivated by slaves is in general more 
 scantily peopled than a district cultivated by free labor : more- 
 over, America is still a new country, and a State is therefore 
 not half peopled at the time when it abolishes slavery. No 
 sooner is an end put to slavery than the want of free labor is 
 felt, and a crowd of enterprising adventurers immediately arrive 
 from all parts of the country, who hasten to profit by the fresh 
 resources which are then opened to industry. The soil is soon 
 divided amongst them, and a family of white settlers takes pos- 
 session of each tract of country. Besides which, F.uropcan emi- 
 gration is exclusively directed to the free States; for what 
 would be the fate of a poor emigrant who crosses the Atlantic 
 in search of ease and happiness if he were to land in a country 
 where labor is stigmatized as degrading? 
 
 Thus the white population grows by its natural increase, and 
 at the same time by the immense influx of emigrants ; whilst the 
 black population receives no emigrants, and is upon its decline. 
 The proportion which existed between the two races is soon in- 
 verted. The negroes constitute a scanty remnant, a poor *ribe 
 of vagrants, which is lost in the midst of an immense people in 
 full possession of the land ; and the presence of the blacks is 
 only marked by the injustice and the hardships of which they 
 are the unhappy victims. 
 
 In several of the Western States the negro race never made 
 its appearance, and in all the Northern States it is rapidly de- 
 clining. Thus the great question of its future condition is con- 
 fined within a narrow circle, where it becomes less formidable, 
 though not more easy of solution. 
 
 n There is a verj' great difference be- 
 tween the mortality of the blacks and of 
 the whites in the States in which slavery 
 is abolished; from 1820 to 1831 only one 
 out of forty-two individuals of the white 
 population diet ir Philadelphia ; but 
 
 one negro out of twenty-one individuals 
 of the black population died in the same 
 space of time. The mortality is by no 
 means so frreat amonest the negroes 
 who are still slaves. (See Emmerson's 
 " Medical Statistics," p. iS.) 
 
 !/l 
 
 I) 
 
 ') 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
374 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 <i 1 
 
 The more we descend towards the South, the more difficult 
 does it become to aboHsh slavery with advantage: and this 
 arises from several physical causes which it is important to 
 point out. 
 
 The first of these causes is the climate ; it is well known that 
 in proportion as Europeans approach the tropics they suffer 
 more from labor. Many of the Americans even assert that with- 
 in a certain latitude the exertions which a negro can make with- 
 out danger are fatal to them ; o but I do not think that this opin- 
 ion, which is so favorable to the indolence of the inhabitants o£ 
 southern regions, is confirmed by experience. The southern 
 parts of the Union are not hotter than the South of Italy and of 
 Spain ; p and it may be asked why the European cannot work 
 as well there as in the two latter countries. If slavery has been 
 abolished in Italy and in Spain without causing the destruction 
 of the masters, why should not the same thing take place in the 
 Union ? I cannot believe that nature has prohibited the Euro- 
 peans in Georgia and the Floridas, under pain of death, from 
 raising the means of subsistence from the soil, but their labor 
 would unquestionably be more irksome and less productive 
 to them than to the inhabitants of New England. As the free 
 workman thus loses a portion of his superiority over the slave 
 in the Southern States, there are fewer inducements to abolish 
 slavery. 
 
 All the plants of Europe grow in the northern parts of the 
 Union ; the South has special productions of its own. It has 
 been observed that slave labor is a very expensive method of 
 cultivating corn. The farmer of corn land in a country where 
 slavery is unknown habitually retains a small number of labor- 
 ers in his service, and at seed-time and harvest he hires several 
 additional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period. 
 But the agriculturist in a slave State is obliged to keep a large 
 number of slaves the whole year round, in order to sow his 
 fields and to gather in his crops, although their services are only 
 
 I 
 
 _ This is true of the spots in which 
 rice is cultivated ; rice-ground^,, which 
 are unwholesome in all countries, are 
 particularly dangerous in those regions 
 which are exposed to the beams of a 
 tropical sun. Europeans would not find 
 it easy to cultivate the soil in that part 
 of the New World if it must be neces- 
 sarily be made to produce rice ; but 
 may they not subsist without rice- 
 grounds ? 
 p These States are nearer to the equa- 
 
 tor than Italy and Spain, but the tem- 
 perature of the continent of America is 
 very much lower than that of Europe. 
 
 The Spanish Government formerly 
 caused a certain number of peasants 
 from the Acores to be transported into 
 a district of Louisiana called Attakapas, 
 \>y way of experiment. These settlers 
 still cultivate the soil without the as- 
 sistance of slaves, but their induslrv is 
 so languid as scarcely to supply their 
 most necessary wants. 
 
 f Kl ' . 
 
 I ^< 
 
 T ■< 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 375 
 
 required for a few weeks ; but slaves are unable to wait till they 
 are hired, and to subsist by their own labor in the mean time 
 like free laborers ; in order to have their services they must be 
 bought. Slavery, independently of its general disadvantages, 
 is therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is 
 cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind. 
 The cultivation of tobacco, of cotton, and especially of the 
 sugar-cane, demands, on the other hand, unremitting attention : 
 and women and children are employed in it, whose services are 
 of but little use in the cultivation of wheat. Thus slavery is 
 naturally more fitted to the countries from which these produc- 
 tions are derived. Tobacco, cotton, and the sugar-cane are ex- 
 clusively grown in the South, and they form one of the prin- 
 cipal sources of the wealth of those States. If slavery were 
 abolished, the inhabitants of the South would be constrained to 
 adopt one of two alternatives : they must either change their 
 system of cultivation, and then they would come into competi- 
 tion with the more active and more experienced inhabitants of 
 the North ; or, if they continued to cultivate the same produce 
 without slave labor, they would have to support the competition 
 of the other States of the South, which might still retain their 
 slaves. Thus, peculiar reasons for maintaining slavery exist in 
 the South which do not operate in the North. 
 
 But there is yet another motive which is more cogent than 
 all the others: the South might indeed, rigorously speaking, 
 abolish slavery ; but how should it rid its territory of the black 
 population ? Slaves and slavery are driven from the North by 
 the same law, but this twofold result cannot be hoped for in the 
 South. 
 
 The arguments which I have adduced to show that slavery 
 is more natural and more advantageous in the South than in the 
 North, sufficiently prove that the number of slaves must be far 
 greater in the former districts. It was to the southern settle- 
 ments that the first Africans were brought, and it is there that 
 the greatest number of them have always been imported. As 
 we advance towards the South, the prejudice which sanctions 
 idleness increases in power. In the States nearest to the tropics 
 there is not a single white laborer; the negroes are conse- 
 quently much more numerous in the South than in the North. 
 And, as I have already observed, this disproportion increases 
 daily, since the negroes are transferred to one part of the Union 
 
 ,1 
 
 
 i 
 
 « 
 
 ii 
 
 
376 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ,' tij) 
 
 *ii 1 
 
 as soon as slavery is abolished in the other. Thus the black 
 population augments in the South, not only by its natural fe- 
 cundity, but by the compulsory emigration of the negroes from 
 the North ; and the African race has causes of increase in the 
 South very analogous to those which so powerfully accelerate 
 the growth of the European race in the North. 
 
 In the State of Maine there is one negro in 300 inhabitants ; 
 in Massachusetts, one in 100; in New York, two in 100; in 
 Pennsylvania, three in the same number ; in Maryland, thirty- 
 four; in Virginia, forty-two; and lastly, in South Carolina 9 
 fifty-five per cent. Such was the proportion of the black popu- 
 lation to the whites in the year 1830. But this proportion is 
 perpetually changing, as it constantly decreases in the North 
 and augments in the South. 
 
 It is evident that the most Southern States of the Union can- 
 not abolish slavery without incurring very great dangers, which 
 the North had no reason to apprehend when it emancipated its 
 black population. We have already shown the system by which 
 the Northern States secure the transition from slavery to free- 
 dom, by keeping the present generation in chains, and setting 
 their descendants free ; by this means the negroes are gradually 
 introduced into society ; and whilst the men who might abuse 
 their freedom are kept in a state of servitude, those who are 
 emancipated may learn the art of being free before they be- 
 come their own masters. But it would be difficult to apply this 
 method in the South. To declare that all the negroes born after 
 a certain period shall be free, is to introduce the principle and 
 the notion of liberty into the heart of slavery ; the blacks whom 
 the law thus maintains in a state of slavery from which their 
 children are delivered, are astonished at so unequal a fate, and 
 their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and 
 irritation. Thenceforward slavery loses, in their eyes, that kind 
 of moral power which it derived from time and habit ; it is re- 
 duced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The Northern States 
 
 ill; / ' 
 
 (/We find it asserted in an American 
 work, entitled " Letters on the Coloniza- 
 tion Society," by Mr. Carey, 1833, 
 " That for the last forty years the black 
 race has increased more rapidly than 
 the white race in the State of South 
 Carolina ; and that if we take the aver- 
 age population of the five States of the 
 South mto which slaves were first intro- 
 duced, viz., Maryland, Virginia. South 
 Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, 
 we shall find that from 1790 to 1830 the 
 
 whites have augmented in the propor- 
 tion of 80 to 100, and the blacks in that 
 of 112 to 100." 
 
 In the United States, in 1830, the 
 population of the two races stood as fol- 
 lows: — 
 
 States where slavery is abolished, 6,- 
 S^5<434 whites ; 120,520 blacks. Slave 
 States, 3,960,814 whites ; 2,208,102 blacks. 
 [In 1890 the United States contained a 
 population of 54,983,890 whites, and 
 7,638,360 negroes.] , 
 
 Hi! 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 377 
 
 Jiad nothing to fear from the contrast, because in them the 
 blacks were few in number, and the white population was very 
 considerable. But if this faint dawn of freedom were to show 
 two millions of men their true position, the oppressors would 
 have reason to tremble. After having aflfranchised the children 
 of their slaves the Europeans of the Southern States would very 
 shortly be obliged to extend the same benefit to the whole black 
 population. 
 
 In the North, as I have already remarked, a twofold migra- 
 tion ensues upon the abolition of slavery, or even precedes that 
 event when circumstances have rendered it probable ; the slaves 
 quit the country to be transported southwards ; and the whites 
 of the Northern States, as well as the emigrants from Europe, 
 hasten to fill up their place. But these two causes cannot 
 operate in the same manner in the Southern States. On the 
 one hand, the mass of slaves is too great for any expectation of 
 their ever being removed from the country to be entertained ; 
 and on the other hand, the Europeans and Anglo-Americans 
 of the North are afraid to come to inhabit a country in which 
 labor has not yet been reinstated in its rightful honors. Be- 
 sides, they very justly look upon the States in which the pro- 
 portion of the negroes equals or exceeds that of the whites, as 
 exposed to very great dangers ; and they refrain from turning 
 their activity in that direction. 
 
 Thus the inhabitants of the South would not be able, like 
 their Northern countrymen, to initiate the slaves gradually into 
 u. state of freedom by abolishing slavery ; they have no means 
 of perceptibly diminishing the black population, and they would 
 remain unsupported to repress its excesses. So that in the 
 course of a few years, a great people of free negroes would exist 
 in the heart of a white nation of equal size. 
 
 The same abuses of power which still maintain slavery, 
 would then become the source of the most alarming perils 
 which the white population of the South might have to ap- 
 prehend. At the present time the descendants of the Eu- 
 ropeans are the sole owners of the land ; the absolute masters 
 of all labor ; and the only persons who are possessed of wealth, 
 knowledge, and arms. The black is destitute of all these ad- 
 vantages, but he subsists without them because he is a slave. 
 If he were free, and obliged to provide for his own subsistence, 
 would it be possible for him to remain without these things 
 
 f 
 
 ml 
 
 I'll 
 
 / \i 1 
 
 i 
 
 'in 
 
 I .■ .1 
 

 'I 
 
 w 
 
 'I- 
 
 hi 
 
 »M ! 
 
 378 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 and to support life? Or would not the very instruments of 
 the present superiority of the white, whilst slavery exists, ex- 
 pose him to a thousand dangers if it were abolished ? 
 
 As long as the negro remains a slave, he may be kept in a 
 condition not very far removed from that of the brutes; but, 
 with his liberty, he cannot but acquire a degree of instruction 
 which will enable him to appreciate his misfortunes, and to 
 discern a remedy for them. Moreover, there exists a singular 
 principle of relative justice which is very firmly implanted in 
 the human heart. Men are much more forcibly struck by 
 those inequalities which exist within the circle of the same 
 class, than with those which may be remarked between dif- 
 ferent classes. It is more easy for them to admit slavery, 
 than to allow several millions of citizens to exist under a load 
 of eternal infamy and hereditary wretchedness. In the North 
 the population of freed negroes feels these hardships and re- 
 sents these indignities; but its numbers and its powers are 
 small, whilst in the South it would be numerous and strong. 
 
 As soon as it is admitted that the whites and the eman- 
 cipated blacks are placed upon the same territory in the situa- 
 tion of two alien communities, it will readily be understood 
 that there are but two alternatives for the future ; the negroes 
 and the whites must either wholly part or wholly mingle. I 
 have already expressed the conviction which I entertain as to 
 the latter event.*" I do not imagine that the white and black 
 races will ever live in any country upon an equal footing. 
 But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United 
 States than elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount 
 the prejudices of religion, of his country, or of his race, and 
 if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes 
 in society; but a whole people cannot rise, as it were, above 
 itself. A despot who should subject the Americans and their 
 former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in 
 commingling their races ; but as long as the American democ- 
 racy remains at the head of affairs, no one will undertake so 
 difficult a task ; and it may be foreseen that the freer the white 
 
 rThis opinion is sanctioned by au- 
 thorities infinitely weightier than any- 
 thing that I can say : thus, for instance, 
 it is stated in the " Memoirs of Jeffer- 
 son " (as collected by M. Conseil), 
 " Nothing is more clearly written in the 
 book of destiny than the emancipation 
 
 of the blacks ; and it is equally certain 
 that the two races will never live in a 
 state of equal freedom under the same 
 government, so insurmountable are the 
 barriers which nature, habit, and opin- 
 ions have established between them." 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 379 
 
 population of the United States becomes, the more isolated 
 will it remain..^ 
 
 I have previously observed that the mixed race is the true 
 bond of union between the Europeans and the Indians; just 
 so the mulattoes are the true means of transition between the 
 white and the negro; so that wherever mulattoes abound, the 
 intermixture of the two races is not impossible. In some parts 
 of America, the European and the negro races are so crossed 
 by one another, that it is rare to meet with a man who is 
 entirely black, or entirely white : when they are arrived at this 
 point, the two races may really be said to be combined; or 
 rather to have been absorbed in a third race, which is con- 
 nected with both without being identical with either. 
 
 Of all the Europeans the English are those who have mixed 
 least with the negroes. More mulattoes are to be seen in the 
 South of the Union than in the North, but still they are in- 
 finitely more scarce than in any other European colony : mulat- 
 toes are by no means numerous in the United States; they 
 have no force peculiar to themselves, and when quarrels origi- 
 nating in differences of color take place, they generally side 
 with the whites; just as the lackeys of the great, in Europe, 
 assume the contemptuous airs of nobility to the lower orders. 
 
 The pride of origin, which is natural to the English, is 
 singularly augmented by the personal pride which democratic 
 liberty fosters amongst the Americans: the white citizen of 
 the United States is proud of his race, and proud of himself. 
 But if the whites and the negroes do not intermingle in the 
 North of the Union, how should they mix in the South ? Can 
 it be supposed for an instant, that an American of the Southern 
 States, placed, as he must forever be, between the white man 
 with all his physical and moral superiority and the negro, will 
 ever think of preferring the latter? The Americans of the 
 Southern States have two powerful passions which will always 
 keep them aloof; the first is the fear of being assimilated to 
 the negroes, their former slaves ; and the second the dread 
 sinking below the whites, their neighbors. 
 
 If I were called upon to predict what will probably occur at 
 some future time, I should say, that the abolition of slavery in 
 the South will, in the common course of things, increase the 
 
 i; 
 
 nil 
 
 ■^^(f 
 
 sit the British West India planters 
 had Koverned themselves, they would 
 assuredly not have passed the Slave 
 
 Emancipation Bill which the mother- 
 country has recently imposed upon 
 them. 
 
38o 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 m 
 
 I i' 
 
 I' 
 
 repugnance of the white population for the men of color. I 
 found this opinion upon the analogous observation which I 
 already had occasion to make in the North. I there remarked 
 that the white inhabitants of the North avoid the negroes with 
 increasing care, in proportion as the legal barriers of separation 
 are removed by the legislature; and why should not the same 
 result take place in the South? In the North, the whites are 
 deterred from intermingling with the blacks by the fear of an 
 imaginary danger; in the South, where the danger would be 
 real, I cannot imagine that the fear would be less general. 
 
 If, on the one hand, it be admitted (and the fact is un- 
 questionable) that the colored population perpetually accu- 
 mulates in the extreme South, and that it increases more rapidly 
 than that of the whites ; and if, on the other hand, it be allowed 
 that it is impossible to foresee a time at which the whites and 
 the blacks will be so intermingled as to derive the same benefits 
 from society; must it not be inferred that the blacks and the 
 whites will, sooner or later, come to open strife in the Southern 
 States of the Union? But if it be asked what the issue of the 
 struggle is likely to be, it will readily be understood that we 
 are here left to form a very vague surmise of the truth. The 
 human mind may succeed in tracing a wide circle, as it were, 
 which includes the course of future events; but within that 
 circle a thousand various chances and circumstances may direct 
 it in as many different ways ; and in every picture of the future 
 there is a dim spot, which the eye of the understanding cannot 
 penetrate. It appears, however, to be extremely probable that 
 in the West Indian Islands the white race is destined to be 
 subdued, and the black population to share the same fate upon 
 the continent. 
 
 In the West India Islands the white planters are surrounded 
 by an immense black population ; on the continent, the blacks 
 are placed between the ocean and an innumerable people, which 
 already extends over them in a dense mass, from the icy con- 
 fines of Canada to the frontiers of Virginia, and from the 
 banks of the Missouri to the shores of the Atlantic. If the 
 white citizens of North America remain united, it cannot be 
 supposed that the negroes will escape the destruction with 
 which they are menaced ; they must be subdued by want or by 
 the sword. But the black population which is accumulated 
 along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, has a chance of success 
 
 ( j" 
 
 rt!^ 
 
M 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 381 
 
 if the American Union is dissolved when the struggle between 
 the two races begins. If the federal tie were broken, the 
 citizens of the South would be wrong to rely upon any lasting 
 succor from their Northern countrymen. The latter are well 
 aware that the danger can never reach them ; and unless they 
 are constrained to march to the assistance of the South by a 
 positive obligation, it may be foreseen that the sympathy of 
 color will be insufficient to stimulate their exertions. 
 
 Yet, at whatever period the strife may break out, the whites 
 of the South, even if they are abandoned to their own resources, 
 will enter the lists with an immense superiority of knowledge 
 and of the means of warfare ; but the blacks will have numeri- 
 cal strength and the energy of despair upon their side, and 
 these are powerful resources to men who have taken up arms. 
 The fate of the white population of the Southern States will, 
 perhaps, be similar to that of the Moors in Spain. After hav- 
 ing occupied the land for centuries, it will perhaps be forced 
 to retire to the country whence its ancestors came, and to 
 abandon to the negroes the possession of a territory, which 
 Providence seems to have more peculiarly destined for them, 
 since they can subsist and labor in it more easily that the 
 whites. 
 
 The danger of a conflict between the white and the black 
 inhabitants of the Southern States of the Union — a danger 
 which, however remote it may be, is inevitable — perpetually 
 haunts the imagination of the Americans. The inhabitants of 
 the North make it a common topic of conversation, although 
 they have no direct injury to fear from the struggle ; but they 
 vainly endeavor to devise some means of obviating the mis- 
 fortunes which they foresee. In the Southern States the sub- 
 ject is not discussed : the planter does not allude to the future 
 in conversing with strangers; the citizen does not communi- 
 cate his apprehensions to his friends ; he seeks to conceal them 
 from himself; but there is something more alarming in the 
 tacit forebodings of the South, than in the clamorous fears 
 of the Northern States. 
 
 This all-pervading disquietude has given birth to an under- 
 taking which is but little known, but which may have the 
 effect of changing the fate of a portion of the human race. 
 From apprehension of the dangers which I have just been 
 describing, a certain number of American citizens have formed 
 
 '14 
 
 ;f 
 
 m 
 
 V 
 
 -•I'' 
 
 I i. 
 
 HI 
 
I'i 
 
 382 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 i 
 
 'Kl 
 
 ■■ M 
 
 a society for the purpose of exporting to the coast of Guinea, 
 at their own expense, such free negroes as may be willing 
 to escape from the oppression to which they are subject.' In 
 1820, the society to which I allude formed a settlement in 
 Africa, upon the seventh degree of north latitude, which bears 
 the name of Liberia. The most recent intelligence informs 
 us that 2,500 negroes a're collected there ; they have introduced 
 the democratic institutions of America into the country of 
 their forefathers; and Liberia has a representative system of 
 government, negro jurymen, negro magistrates, and negro 
 priests ; churches have been built, newspapers established, and, 
 by a singular change in the vicissitudes of the world, white 
 men are prohibited from sojourning within the settlement." 
 
 This is indeed a strange caprice of fortune. Two hundred 
 years have now elapsed since the inhabitants of Europe un- 
 dertook to tear the negro from his family and his home, in 
 order to transport him to the shores of North America ; at the 
 present day, the European settlers are engaged in sending 
 back the descendants of those very negroes to the Continent 
 from which they were originally taken; and the barbarous 
 Africans have been brought into contact with civilization in 
 the midst of bondage, and have become acquainted with free 
 political institutions in slavery. Up to the present time Africa 
 has been closed against the arts and sciences of the whites ; but 
 the inventions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those 
 regions, now that they are introduced by Africans themselves. 
 The settlement of Liberia is founded upon a lofty and a most 
 fruitful idea; but whatever may be its results with regard to 
 the Continent of Africa, it can afiford no remedy to the New 
 World. 
 
 In twelve years the Colonization Society has transported 
 2,500 negroes to Africa ; in the same space of time about 700,- 
 000 blacks were born in the United States. If the colony of 
 Liberia were so situated as to be able to receive thousands of 
 new inhabitants every year, and if the negroes were in a state to 
 
 (This society assumed the name of 
 " The Society for the Colonization of 
 the Blacks." See its annual reports ; 
 and more particularly the fifteenth. See 
 also ♦' e pamphlet, to which allusion has 
 alrt ly Tbeen made, entitled " Letters 
 on the Colonization Society, and on its 
 probable Results," by Mr. Carey, Phila- 
 delphia, 1833. 
 
 h-\ ' 
 
 u This last regulation was laid down 
 by the founders of the settlement ; they 
 apprehended that a state of thinRS 
 might arise in Africa similar to that 
 which exists on the frontiers of the 
 United States, and that if the negroes, 
 like the Indians, were brought into col- 
 lision with a people more enlightened 
 than themselves, they would be de- 
 stroyed before they could be civilized. 
 
 fl 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 383 
 
 be sent thither with advantage; if the Union were to supply 
 the society with annual subsidies,^' and to transport the negroes 
 to Africa in the vessels of the State, it would still be unable to 
 counterpoise the natural increase of population amongst the 
 blacks ; and as it could not remove as many men in a year as 
 are born upon its territory within the same space of time, it 
 would fail in suspending the growth of the evil which is daily 
 increasing in the States.^ The negro race will never leave 
 those shores of the American continent, to which it was brought 
 by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will not 
 disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist. 
 The inhabitants of the United States may retard the calamities 
 which they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their effi- 
 cient cause. 
 
 I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition 
 of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two 
 races in the United States. The negroes may long remain 
 slaves without complaining ; but if they are once raised to the 
 level of free men, they will soon revolt at being deprived of 
 all their civil rights ; and as they cannot become the equals of 
 the whites, they will speedily declare themselves as enemies. 
 In the North everything contributed to facilitate the emanci- 
 pation of the slaves ; and slavery was abolished, without placing 
 the free negroes in a position which could become formidable, 
 since their number was too small for them ever to claim the 
 exercise of their rights. But such is not the case in the South. 
 The question of slavery was a question of commerce and man- 
 ufacture for the slave-owners in the North; for those of the 
 South, it is a question of life and death. God forbid that I 
 should seek to justify the principle of negro slavery, as has been 
 done by some American writers I But I only observe that all 
 the countries which formerly adopted that execrable principle 
 are not equally able to abandon it at the present time. 
 
 When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can only 
 
 
 
 /If. 
 
 til 
 
 J 
 
 II 
 
 ' ■ ,1 
 
 V Nor would these he the only diffi- 
 culties attendant upon the undertaking ; 
 if the Union undertook to buy up the 
 negroes now in America, in order to 
 transport them to Africa, the price of 
 slaves, increasing with their scarcity, 
 would soon become enormous ; and the 
 States of the North would never con- 
 sent to expend such great sums for a 
 purpose which would procure such small 
 advantages to themselves. If the Union 
 
 took possession of the slaves in the 
 Southern States by force, or at a rate 
 determined by law, an insurmountable 
 resistance would arise in that part of 
 the country. Both alternatives are 
 equally impossible. 
 
 w In 1830 there were in the United 
 States 2,010,327 slaves and 319,439 free 
 blacks, in all 2,320.766 negroes : which 
 formed about one-fifth of the total popu- 
 lation of the United States at that tipie. 
 
384 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ' ; M>, 
 
 I'i 
 
 discover two alternatives which may be adopted by the white 
 inhabitants of those States; viz., either to emancipate the ne- 
 groes, and to intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated 
 from them, to keep them in a state of slavery as long as pos- 
 sible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely to termi- 
 nate, and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars, and 
 perhaps in the extirpation of one or other of the two races. 
 Such is the view which the Americans of the South take of the 
 question, and they act consistently with it. As they are de- 
 termined not to mingle with the negroes, they refuse to eman- 
 cipate them. 
 
 Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as nec- 
 essary to the wealth of the planter, for on this point many of 
 them agree with their Northern countrymen in freely admitting 
 that slavery is prejudicial to their interest; but they are con- 
 vinced that, however prejudicial it may be, they hold their 
 lives upon no other tenure. The instruction which is now dif- 
 fused in the South has convinced the inhabitants that slavery 
 is injurious to the slave-owner, but it has also shown them, more 
 clearly than before, that no means exist of getting rid of its 
 bad consequences. Hence arises a singular contrast ; the more 
 the utility of slavery is contested, the more firmly is it estab- 
 lished in the laws ; and whilst the principle of servitude is grad- 
 ually abolished in the North, that self-same principle gives rise 
 to more and more rigorous consequences in the South. 
 
 The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves, 
 presents at the present day such unparalleled atrocities as suf- 
 fice to show how radically the laws of humanity have been per- 
 verted, and to betray the desperate position of the community 
 in which that legislation has been promulgated. The Ameri- 
 cans of this portion of the Union have not, indeed, augmented 
 the hardships of slavery ; they have, on the contrary, bettered 
 the physical condition of the slaves. The only means by which 
 the ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the 
 Americans of the South of the Union have discovered more in- 
 tellectual securities for the duration of their power. They 
 have employed their despotism and their violence against the 
 human mind. In antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent 
 the slave from breaking his chains ; at the present day measures 
 are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom. The 
 ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they 
 
 fi, ^ '/ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 585 
 
 placed no restraint upon the mind and no check upon educa- 
 tion ; and they acted consistently with their established princi- 
 ple, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and 
 one day or other the slave might be set free, and become the 
 equal of his master. But the Americans of the South, who 
 do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled with 
 themselves, have forbidden them to be taught to read or to 
 write, under severe penalties ; and as they will not raise them 
 to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that 
 of the brutes. 
 
 The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave to 
 cheer the hardships of his condition. But the Americans of 
 the South are well aware that emancipation cannot but be dan- 
 gerous, when the freed man can never be assimilated to his 
 former master. To give a man his freedom, and t6 leave him 
 ni wretchedness and ignominy, is nothing less than to prepare 
 a future chief for a revolt of the slaves. Moreover, it has long 
 been remarked that the presence of a free negro vaguely agi- 
 tates the minds of his less fortunate brethren, and conveys to 
 them a dim notion of their rights. The Americans of the South 
 have consequently taken measures to prevent slave-owners from 
 emancipating their slaves in most cases ; not indeed by a posi- 
 tive prohibition, but by subjecting that step to various forms 
 which it is difficult to comply with. 
 
 I happened to meet with an old man, in the South of the 
 Union, who had lived in illicit intercourse with one of lis 
 negresses, and had had several children by her, who were born 
 the slaves of their father. He had indeed frequently thought 
 of bequeathing to them at least their liberty; but years had 
 elapsed without his being able to surmount the legal obstacles 
 to their emancipation, and in the mean while his old age was 
 come, and he was about to die. He pictured to himself his 
 sons dragged from market to market, and passing from the 
 authority of a parent to the rod of the stranger, until these 
 horrid anticipations worked his expiring imagination into 
 frenzy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the anguish of 
 despair, and he made me feel how awful is the retribution of 
 nature upon those who have broken her laws. 
 
 These evils are unquestionably great ; but they are the nec- 
 essary and foreseen consequence of the very principle of mod- 
 ern slavery. When the Europeans chose their slaves from a 
 Vol. I.— 25 
 
 I 
 
 « 
 
 'r'i 
 
386 
 
 DE TOCQURVILLE 
 
 • I 1 
 
 race differing from their own, which many of them considered 
 as inferior to the other races of mankind, and whicli they all 
 repelled with horror from any notion of intimate connection, 
 they must have believed that slavery would last forever; since 
 there is no intermediate state which can be durable between 
 the excessive inequality produced by servitude and the com- 
 plete equality which originates in independence. The Euro- 
 peans did imperfectly feel this truth, but without acknowledg- 
 ing it even to themselves. Whenever they have had to do 
 with negroes, their conduct has either been dictated by their 
 interest and their pride, or by their compassion. They first 
 violated every right of humanity by their treatment of the 
 negro and they afterwards informed him that those rights 
 were precious and inviolable. They affected to open their 
 ranks to the slaves, but the negroes who attempted to pene- 
 trate into the community were driven back with scorn; and 
 they have incautiously and involuntarily been led to admit of 
 freedom instead of slavery, without having the courage to be 
 wholly iniquitous, or wholly just. 
 
 If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Ameri- 
 cans of the South will mingle their blood with that of the 
 negroes, can they allow their slaves to become free without 
 compromising their own security? And if they are obliged 
 to keep that race in bondage in order to save their own families, 
 may they not be excused for availing themselves of the means 
 best adapted to that end? The events which are taking place 
 in the Southern States of the Union appear to me to be at once 
 the most horrible and the most natural results of slavery. 
 When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear 
 the cry of humanity in its vain struggle against the laws, my 
 indignation does not light upon the men of our own lime who 
 are the instruments of these outrages ; but I reserve my execra- 
 tion for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought 
 back slavery into the world once more. 
 
 Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South 
 to maintain slavery, they will not always succeed. Slavery, 
 which is now confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, 
 which is attacked by Christianity as unjust, and by political 
 economy as prejudicial; and which is now contrasted with 
 democratic liberties and the information of our age, cannot 
 survive. By the choice of the master, or by the will of the 
 
 1 
 
UKMOCKACY IN AMKKICA 
 
 3«7 
 
 slave, it will cease ; ami in cither case great calamities may be 
 expected to ensue. If liberty be refused to the negroes of the 
 South, they will in the end seize it for themselves by force ; if 
 it be given, they will abuse it ere long.* 
 
 What Auk thk Chances tn Favoh ok thk Duration ok 
 THii Amkkican Union, and What Danokk.s THuiiATiiN 
 
 Reason for which the preponderating force lies in the States rather tlian 
 in the Union— The Union will only last as long as all the States 
 choose to belong to it— Causes which tend to keep them united — 
 Utility of the Union to resist foreign enemies, and to prevent the 
 existence of foreigners in America— No natural barriers between the 
 several States — No conllictiag interests to divide them— Reciprocal 
 interests of the Northern, Southern, and Western States— Intel- 
 lectual tics of union — Uniformity of opinions — Dangers of the Union 
 resulting from the different characters and the passions of its citizens 
 — Character of the citizens in the South and in the North— The rapid 
 growth of the Union one of its greatest dangers — Progress of the 
 population to the Northwest — Power gravitates in the same direc- 
 tion — Passions originating from sudden turns of fortune — Whether 
 the existing Government of the Union tends to gain strength, or to 
 lose it — Various signs of its decrease — Internal improvements — 
 Waste lands— Infl' ns— The Bank— The Tariff— General Jackson. 
 
 The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several 
 States depends in some measure upon the maintenance of the 
 Union itself. It is therefore important in the first instance to 
 inquire into the probable fate of the Union. One point may 
 indeed be assumed at once : if the present confederation were 
 dissolved, it appears to me to be incontestable that the States 
 of which it is now composed would not return to their original 
 isolated condition, but that several unions would then be formed 
 
 X [This chapter is no longer applica- 
 ble to the condition of the negro race 
 in the United States, since the abolition 
 of slavery was the result, though not 
 the object, of the great Civil War, and 
 the negroes have been raised to the 
 condition not only of freedtnen, but of 
 citizens ; and in some States they ex- 
 ercise a preponderating political power 
 by reason of their numerical majority. 
 Tlius, in South Carolina there were in 
 1870, 389,667 whites and 4iS<8i4 blacks. 
 But the emancipation of the slaves has 
 not solved the problem, how two races 
 BO different and so hostile are to live 
 together in peace in one country on 
 equal terms. That problem is as diffi- 
 cult, perhaps more difficult than ever ; 
 and to this difficulty the author's re- 
 marks are still perfectly applicable.] 
 
 y [This chapter is one of the most 
 curious and interesting portions of the 
 work, because it embraces almost all the 
 constitutional and social questions which 
 were raised by the great secession of 
 the Jouth and decided by the results of 
 the Civil War. But it must be confessed 
 that the sagacity of the author is some- 
 times at fault in these speculations, and 
 did not save him from considerable er- 
 rors, which the course of events has 
 since made apparent. He held that " the 
 legislators of the Constitution of 1789 
 were not appointed to constitute the 
 government of a single people, but to 
 regulate the association of several 
 States ; that the Union was formed by 
 the voluntary agreement of the States, 
 and in uniting together they have not 
 forfeited their nationality, nor have 
 
 y' 
 
 \\ 
 
388 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ! i 
 
 i !' 
 
 in the place of one. It is not my intention to inquire into the 
 principles upon which these new unions would probably be 
 established, but merely to show what the causes are which may 
 effect the dismemberment of the existing confederation. 
 
 With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the 
 steps which I have already taken, and to revert to topics which 
 I have before discussed. I am aware that the reader may ac- 
 cuse me of repetition, but the importance of the matter which 
 still remains to be treated is my excuse ; I had rather say too 
 much, than say too little to be thoroughly understood, and I 
 prefer injuring the author to slighting the subject. 
 
 The legislators who formed the Constitution of 1789 en- 
 deavored to confer a distinct and preponderating authority 
 upon the federal power. But they were confined by the con- 
 ditions of the task which they had undertaken to perform. They 
 were not appointed to constitute the government of a single 
 people, but to regulate the association of several States ; and, 
 whatever their inclinations might be, they could not but divide 
 the exercise of sovereignty in the end. 
 
 In order to understand the consequences of this division, it 
 
 they been reduced to the condition of 
 one and the same people." Whence he 
 inferred that " if one of the States chose 
 to withdraw its name from the contract. 
 It would be difficult to disprove its right 
 of doing so ; and that the Federal Gov- 
 ernment would have no means of main- 
 taining its claims directly, either by 
 force or by right." This is the Southern 
 theory of the Constitution, and the 
 whole case of the South in favor of se- 
 cession. To many Europeans, and t. 
 some American (Northern) jurists, this 
 view appeared to be sound ; but it was 
 vigorously resisted by the North, and 
 crushed by force of arms. 
 
 The author of this book was mistaken 
 in supposing that the " Union was a 
 vast body which presents no definite 
 object to patriotic feeling." When the 
 day of trial came, millions of men were 
 ready to lay down their lives for it. Hr 
 was also mistaken in supposing that the 
 Federal Executive is so weak that it 
 requires the free consent of the governed 
 to enable it to subsist, and that it would 
 be defeated in a struggle to maintain the 
 Union against one or more separate 
 States. In 1861 nine States, with a pop- 
 ulation of 8,753,000, seceded, and main- 
 tained for four years a resolute but un- 
 equal contest for independence, but they 
 were defeated. 
 
 Lastly, the author was mistaken in 
 •tipposing that a community of interests 
 would always prevail between North and 
 South sufficiently powerful to bind them 
 tofictlicr. lie ovi'rlnnkcd the influence 
 which the question of slavery must have 
 
 on the Union the moment that the ma- 
 jority of the people of the North de- 
 clared against it. In 1831, when the 
 author visited America, the anti-slavery 
 agitation had scarcely begun ; and the 
 fact of Southern slavery was accepted 
 by men of all parties, even in the States 
 where there were no slaves : and that 
 was unquestionably the view taken by 
 rll the States and by all American states- 
 .. fn at the time of the adoption of the 
 ' institution, in 1789. But in the course 
 01 thirty years a great change took place, 
 and the North refused to perpetuate 
 what had become the " peculiar insti- 
 tution " of the South, especially as it 
 gave the South a species of aristocratic 
 preponderance. The result was the rati- 
 fication, in December, 1865, of the cele- 
 brated 13th article or amendment of 
 the Constitution, which declared that 
 " neither slavery nor involuntary servi- 
 tude — except as a punishment for crime 
 — shall exist within the United States." 
 To which was soon afterwards added 
 the isth article, " The right of citizens 
 to vote shall not be denied or abridged 
 by the United States, or by any State, 
 on account of race, color, or previous 
 servitude." The emancipation of sev- 
 eral millions of negro slaves without 
 compensation, and the transfer to them 
 of political preponderance in the States 
 in which they outnumber the white 
 population, were acts of the North 
 totally opposed to the interests of the 
 South, and which could only have been 
 carried into effect by conquest.— TraMi- 
 lator's Note.} 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 389 
 
 is necessary to make a short distinction between the affairs of 
 the Government. There are some objects which are national 
 by their very nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a 
 body, and can only be intrusted to the man or tJic assembly of 
 men who most completely represent the entire nation. 
 Amongst these may be reckoned war and diplomacy. There 
 are other objects which are provincial by their very nature, 
 that is to say, which only affect certain localities, and which can 
 only be properly treated in that locality. Such, for instance, is 
 the budget of a municipalit}'. Lastly, there are certain objects 
 of a mixed nature, which are national inasmuch as they affect 
 all the citizens who compose the nation, and which are provin- 
 cial inasmuch as it is not necessary that the nation itself should 
 provide for them all. Such are the rights which regulate the 
 civil and political condition of the citizens. No society can 
 exist without civil and political rights. These rights therefore 
 interest all the citizens alike ; but it is not always necessary to 
 the existence and the prosperity of the nation that these rights 
 should be uniform, nor, consequently, that they should be regu- 
 lated by the central authority. 
 
 There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are 
 submitted to the direction of the sovereign power; and these 
 categories occur in all well-constituted communities, whatever 
 the basis of the political constitution may otherwise be. Be- 
 tween these two extremes the objects which I have termed 
 mixed may be considered to lie. As these objects are neither 
 exclusively national nor entirely provincial, they may be ob- 
 tained by a national or by a provincial government, according 
 to the agreement of the contracting parties, without in any way 
 impairing the contract of association. 
 
 The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of sepa- 
 rate individuals, who compose a people ; and individual powers 
 or collective forces, each representing a very small portion of 
 the sovereign authority, are the sole elements which are sub- 
 jected to the general Government of their choice. In this case 
 the general Government is more naturally called upon to regu- 
 late, not only those affairs which are of essential national im- 
 portance, but those which are of a more local interest ; and the 
 local governments are reduced to that small share of sovereign 
 authority which is indispensable to their prosperity. 
 
 But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of pre- 
 
 '«* 
 
 Jui 
 
 .1 
 
 f 
 
39° 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 i ! k 
 
 n 
 
 P ili! 
 
 t , 
 
 organized political bodies, by virtue of circumstances anterior 
 to their union ; and in this case the provincial governments as- 
 sume the control, not only of those affairs which more peculiarly 
 belong to their province, but of all, or of a part of the mixed af- 
 fairs to which allusion has been made. For the confederate 
 nations which were independent sovereign States before their 
 union, and which still represent a very considerable share of 
 the sovei cign power, have only consented to cede to the general 
 Government the exercise of those rights which are indispensa- 
 ble to the Union. 
 
 When the national Government, independently of the pre- 
 rogatives inherent in its nature, is invested with the right of 
 regulating the affairs which relate partly to the general and 
 partly to the local interests, it possesses a preponderating influ- 
 ence. Not only are its own rights extensive, but all the rights 
 which it does not possess exist by its sufferance, and it may be 
 apprehended that the provincial governments may be deprived 
 of their natural and necessary prerogatives by its influence. 
 
 When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are 
 invested with the power of regulating those same affairs of 
 mixed interest, an opposite tendency prevails in society. The 
 preponderating force resides in the province, not in the nation ; 
 and it may be apprehended that the national Government may 
 in the end be stripped of the privileges which are necessary to 
 its existence. 
 
 Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to 
 centralization, and confederations to dismemberment. 
 
 It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to 
 the American Union. The several States were necessarily 
 possessed of the right of regulating all exclusively provincial 
 affairs. Moreover these same States retained the rights of de- 
 termining the civil and political competency of the citizens, or 
 regulating the reciprocal relations of the members of the com- 
 munity, and of dispensing justice ; rights which are of a general 
 nature, but which do not necessarily appertain to the national 
 Government. We have shown that the Government of the 
 Union is invested with the power of acting in the name of the 
 whole nation in those cases in which the nation has to appear as 
 a single and undivided power ; as, for instance, in foreign rela- 
 tions, and in offering a common resistance to a common enemy ; 
 in short, in conducting those affairs which I have styled exclu- 
 sively national. 
 
 1. ' 
 
 '& 
 
 ilT!; 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 m 
 
 in this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the 
 Union seems at first sight to be more considerable than that of 
 the States ; but a more attentive investigation shows it to be 
 less so. The undertakings of the Government of the Union 
 are more vast, but their influence is more rarely felt. Those of 
 the provincial governments are comparatively small, but they 
 are incessant, and they serve to keep alive the authority which 
 they represent. The Government of the Union watches the 
 general interests of the country ; but the general interests of a 
 people have a very questionable influence upon individual hap- 
 piness, whilst provincial interests produce a most immediate 
 effect upon the welfare of the inhabitants. The Union secures 
 the independence and the greatness of the nation, which do not 
 immediately affect private citizens ; but the several States main- 
 tain the liberty, regulate the rights, protect the fortune, and 
 secure the life and the whole future prosperity of every citizen. 
 
 The Federal Government is very far removed from its sub- 
 jects, whilst the provincial governments are within the reach of 
 them all, and are ready to attend to the smallest appeal. The 
 central Government has upon its side the passions of a few 
 superior men who aspire to conduct it; but upon the 
 side of the provincial governments are the interests of all 
 those second-rate individuals who can only hope to obtain 
 power w.thin their own State, and who nevertheless exercise 
 the largest share of authority over the people because they are 
 placed nearest to its level. The Americans have therefore 
 much more to hope and to fear from the States than from the 
 Union; and, in conformity with the natural tendency of the 
 human mind, they are more likely to attach themselves to the 
 former than to the latter. In this respect their habits and feel- 
 ings harmonize with their interests. 
 
 When a compact natirn divides its sovereignty, and adopts 
 a confederate form of government, the traditions, the customs, 
 and the manners of the people are for a long time at variance 
 with their legislation ; and the former tend to give a degree of 
 influence to the central government which the latter forbius. 
 When a number of confederate states unite to form a single 
 nation, the same causes operate in an opposite direction. I 
 have no doubt that if France were to become a confederate re- 
 public like that of the United States, the government would at 
 first display more energy than that of the Union ; and if the 
 
 ■.*'? 
 
 <!!' :■■ 
 
 1 
 
 tl 
 
 i 
 
392 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 \H 
 
 m 
 
 n 
 
 1 
 
 Union were to alter its constitution to a monarchy like that of 
 France, I think that the American Government would be a 
 long time in acquiring the force which now rules the latter 
 nation. When the national existence of the Anglo-Americans 
 began, their provincial existence was already of long standing ; 
 necessary relations were established between the townships and 
 the individual citizens of the same States ; and they were accus- 
 tomed to consider some objects as common to them all, and to 
 conduct other affairs as exclusively relating to their own special 
 interests. 
 
 The Union is a vast body which presents no definite object 
 to patriotic feeling. The forms and limits of the State are dis- 
 tinct and circumscribed ; since it represents a certain number of 
 objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all. 
 It is identified with the very soil, with the right of property and 
 the domestic affections, with the recollections of the past, the 
 labors of the present, and the hopes of the future. Patriotism, 
 then, which is frequently a mere extension of individual ego- 
 tism, is still directed to the State, and is not excited by the 
 Union. Thus the tendency of the interests, the habits, and the 
 feelings of the people is to centre political acti *rity in the States, 
 in preference to the Union. 
 
 It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two govern- 
 ments, by remarking the manner in which they fulfil their re- 
 spective functions. Whenever the government of a State has 
 occasion to address an individual or an assembly of individuals, 
 its language is clear and imperative ; and such is also the tone 
 of the Federal Government in its intercourse with individuals, 
 but no sooner has it anything to do with a State than it begins 
 to parley, to explain its motives and to justify its conduct, to 
 argue, to advise, and, in short, anything but to command. If 
 doubts are raised as to the limits of the constitutional powers of 
 each government, the provincial government prefers its claim 
 with boldness, and takes prompt and energetic steps to support 
 it. In the mean while the Government of the Union reasons ; 
 it appeals to the interests, to the good sense, to the glory of the 
 nation ; it temporizes, it negotiates, and does not consent to act 
 until it is reduced to the last extremity. At first sight it might 
 readily be imagined that it is the provincial government which 
 is armed with the authority of the nation, and that Congress rep- 
 resents a single State. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 393 
 
 The Federal Government is, therefore, notwithstanding the 
 precautions of those who founded it, naturally so weak that it 
 more peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to 
 enable it to subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is to 
 enable the States to realize with facility their determination of 
 remaining united; and, as long as this preliminary condition 
 exists, its authority is great, temperate, and effective. The Con- 
 stitution fits the Government to control individuals, and easily 
 to surmount such obstacles as they may be inclined to offer ; but 
 it was by no means established with a view to the possible sep- 
 aration of one or more of the States from the Union. 
 
 If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle 
 with that of the Stotes at the present day, its defeat may be confi- 
 dently predicted; and it is not probable that such a struggle 
 would be seriously undertaken. As often as a steady resistance 
 is offered to the Federal Government it will be found to yield. 
 Experience has hitherto shown that whenever a State has de- 
 manded anything with perseverance and resolution, it has in- 
 variably succeeded ; and that if a separate government has dis- 
 tinctly refused to act, it was left to do as it thought fit.^ 
 
 But even if the Government of the Union had any strength 
 inherent in itself, the physical situation of the country would 
 render the exercise of that strength very difficult.o The United 
 States cover an immense territory ; they are separated from each 
 other by great distances; and the population is disseminated 
 over the surface of a country which is still half a wilderness. 
 If the Union were to undertake to enforce the allegiance of the 
 confederate States by military means, it would be in a position 
 very analogous to that of England at the time of the War of 
 Independence. 
 
 However strong a government may be, it cannot easily escape 
 from the consequences of a principle which it has once admit- 
 ted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was 
 formed by the voluntary agreement of the States ; and, in unit- 
 ing together, they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have 
 
 
 I ■ 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 V 
 
 f 
 
 s See the conduct of the Northern 
 States in the war of 1812. " During that 
 war," says Jefferson in a letter to Gen- 
 eral Lafayette, " four of the Eastern 
 States were only att-,-'.ied to the Union, 
 like so many inanimate bodies to living 
 men." 
 
 a The profound peace of the Union af- 
 fords no pretext for a standing army ; 
 
 and without a standinn; army a govern- 
 ment is not prepared to profit by a 
 favorable opportunity to conquer re- 
 sistance, and take the sovereign power 
 by surprise. [This note, and the para- 
 graph in the text which precedes, have 
 been shown by the results of the Civil 
 War to be a misconception of the 
 writer.] 
 
 4 
 
394 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 fi'.'i 
 
 :• i 
 
 \ I; 
 
 : ■, Yi 
 
 ' I 
 
 il 
 
 I ' 
 
 '! ,' 
 
 they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. 
 If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the con- 
 tract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so ; and 
 the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining 
 its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to en- 
 able the Federal Government easily to conquer the resistance 
 which may be offered to it by any one of its subjects, it would 
 be necessary that one or more of them should be specially inter- 
 ested in the existence of the Union, as has frequently been the 
 case in the history of confederations. 
 
 If it be supposed that amongst the States which are united 
 by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the 
 principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on 
 the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will 
 always be ready to support the central Government in enforcing 
 the obedience of the others. But the Government would then 
 be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle 
 contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to 
 derive equal advantages from their union ; and in the case just 
 alluded to, the Federal Government would derive its power from 
 the unequal distribution of those benefits amongst the States. 
 
 If one of the confederate States have acquired a preponder- 
 ance sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession 
 of the central authority, it will consider the other States as sub- 
 ject provinces, and it will cause its own supremacy to be re- 
 spected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the 
 Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the 
 Federal Government, but in reality that Government will have 
 ceased to exist.fr In both these cases, the power which acts in 
 the name of the confederation becomes stronger the more it 
 abandons the natural state and the acknowledged principles of 
 confederations. 
 
 In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the 
 States, but it is not indispensable to any one of them. Several 
 of them might break the federal tie without compromising the 
 welfare of the others, although their own prosperity would be 
 lessened. As the existence and the happiness of none of the 
 States are wholly dependent on the present Constitution, they 
 
 b Thus the province of Holland in the 
 republic of the Low Countries, and 
 the Emperor -n the Germanic Confed- 
 eration, hav times put themselves 
 
 in the place of the union, and have em- 
 ployed the federal authority to their own 
 advantage. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 395 
 
 would none of them be disposed to make great personal sacri- 
 fices to maintain it. On the other hand, there is no State which 
 seems hitherto to have its ambition much interested in the main- 
 tenance of the existing Union. They certainly do not all exer- 
 cise the same influence in the federal councils, but no one of 
 them can hope to domineer over the rest, or to treat them as its 
 inferiors or as its subjects. 
 
 It appears to me unquestionable that if any portion of the 
 Union seriously desired to separate itself from the other States, 
 they would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to pre- 
 vent it ; and that the present Union will onl); last as long as the 
 States which compose it •--".'-e to continue membeis of the 
 confederation. If this poin. o admitted, the question becomes 
 less difficult; and our object is, not to inquire whether the 
 States of the existing Union are capable of separating, but 
 whether they will choose to remain united. 
 
 Amongst the various reasons which tend to render the exist- 
 ing Union useful to the Americans, two principal causes are 
 peculiarly evident to the observer. Although the Americans 
 are, as it were, alone upon their continent, their commerce 
 makes them the neighbors of all the nations with which they 
 trade. Notwithstanding their apparent isolation, the Ameri- 
 cans require a certain degree of strength, which they cannot 
 retain otherwise than by remaining united to each othe;. If 
 the States were to split, they would not only diminish the 
 strength which they are now able to display towards foreign 
 nations, but they would soon create foreign powers upon their 
 own territory. A system of inland custom-houses would then 
 be established ; the valleys would be divided by imaginary boun- 
 dary lines ; the courses of the rivers would be confined by terri- 
 torial distinctions; and a multitude of hindrances would pre- 
 vent the Americans from exploring the whole of that vast conti- 
 nent which Providence has allotted to them for a dominion. At 
 present they have no invasion to fear, and consequently no 
 standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy. If the Union 
 were dissolved, all these burdensome measures might ere long 
 be required. The Americans are then very powerfully inter- 
 ested in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand, 
 it is almost impossible to discover any sort of material interest 
 which might at present tempt a portion of the Union to separate 
 from the other States. 
 
 When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, 
 
 ' ^1 
 
 ''ft 
 
 ' li 
 
 ' m 
 
 '.y 
 
 ( 
 
 I 
 
396 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 iV^k 
 
 ( I 
 
 ■ k 
 
 \ 
 
 (i. I ii 
 
 « 1 
 
 I ' if 
 
 I I 
 
 .*' 
 
 we perceive the chain of the Alleghany Mountains, running 
 from the northeast to the southwest, and crossing nearly one 
 thousand miles of country ; and we are led to imagine that the 
 design of ProviOcnce was to raise between the valley of the Mis- 
 sissippi and the coast of the Atlantic Ocean one of those natural 
 barriers which break the mutual intercourse of men, and form 
 the necessary limits of different States. But the average height 
 of t.ie Alleghanies does not c-^ceed 2,500 feet; their greatest 
 elevation is not f ^ve 4,000 feet ; their rounded summits, and 
 the spacious valleys which they conceal within their passes, are 
 of easy access from several sides. Besides which, the principal 
 livers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean — the Hudson, the Sus- 
 quehanna, and the Potomac — take their rise beyond the Alle- 
 ghanies, in an open district, which borders upon the valley of 
 the Mississippi. These streams qait this tract of country, make 
 their way through the barrier which would seem to turn them 
 westward, and as they wind through the mountains they open 
 an easy and natural passage to man. No natural ^ .ier exists 
 in the regions which are now inhabited by the jlo- Ameri- 
 cans ; the Alleghanies are so far from serving as a boundary to 
 separate nations, that they do not even serve as a frontier to 
 the States. New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia comprise 
 them within their borders, and they extend as much to the west 
 as to the east of the line. The territory now occupied by the 
 twenty-four States of the Union, and the three great districts 
 which have not yet acquired the rank of States, although they 
 already contain inhabitants, covers a surface of 1,002,600 
 square miles,c which is about equal to five times the extent of 
 France. Within these limits the qualities of the soil, the tem- 
 perature, and the produce of the country, are extremely various. 
 The vast extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American 
 republics has given rise to doubts as to the maintenance of their 
 Union. Here a distinction must be made; contrary interests 
 sometimes arise in the different provinces of avast empire, which 
 often terminate in open dissensions ; and the extent of the coun- 
 try is then most prejudicial to the power of the State. But if the 
 inhabitants of these vast regions are not divided by contrary in- 
 
 e See " Darby's View of the United 
 States," p. 435. [In 1890 the number of 
 States and Territories had increased to 
 51, the population to 62,831,900, and the 
 area of the States, 3,602,990 square miles. 
 This does not include the Philippine 
 Islands, Hawaii, or Porto Rico. A con- 
 servative estimate of the population of 
 
 the Philippine Islands is 8,000,000; that 
 of Hawaii, by the census of 1897, was 
 given at 109,020; and the present esti- 
 mated population of Porto Kico is 900,- 
 000. The area of the Philippine Islands 
 is about 120,000 square miles, that of Ha- 
 waii is 6.7<io square miles, and the area 
 of Porto Rico is about 3,600 square miles.] 
 
 ' I'.J 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 397 
 
 terests, the extent of the territory may be favorable to their 
 prosperity ; for the unity of the government promotes the inter- 
 change of the different productions of the soil, and increases 
 their value by facilitating their consumption. 
 
 It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the diflfer- 
 ent parts of the Union, but I am unacquainted with any which 
 are hostile to each other. The Southern States are almost ex- 
 clusively agricultural. The Northern States are more pecu- 
 liarly commercial and manufacturing. The States of the West 
 are at the same time agricultural and manufacturing. In the 
 South the crops consist of tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of 
 sugar ; in the North and the West, of wheat and maize. These 
 are different sources of wealth ; but union is the means by which 
 these sources are opened to all, and rendered equally advan- 
 tageous to the several districts. 
 
 The North, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans 
 to all parts of the world, and brings back the produce of the 
 globe to the Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the 
 confederation in its present condition, in order that the number 
 of American producers and consumers may remain as large as 
 possible. The North is the most natural agent of communica- 
 tion between the South and the West of the Union on the one 
 hand, and the rest of the world upon the other; the North is 
 therefore interested in the union and prosperity of the South 
 and the West, in order that they may continue to furnish raw 
 materials for its manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping. 
 
 The South and the West, on their side, are still more directly 
 interested in the preservation of the Union, and the prosperity 
 of the North. The produce of the South is, for the most part, 
 exported beyond seas ; the South and the West consequently 
 stand in need of the commercial resources of the North. They 
 are likewise interested in the maintenance of a powerful fleet 
 by the Union, to protect them efficaciously. The South and 
 the West have no vessels, but they cannot refuse a willing sub- 
 sidy to defray the expenses of the navy; for if the fleets of 
 Europe were to blockade the ports of the South and the delta 
 of the Mississippi, what would become of the rice of the Caro- 
 linas, the tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which 
 grow in the valley of the Mississippi? Every portion of the 
 federal budget does therefore contribute to the maintenance of 
 material interests which are common to all the confederate 
 States. 
 
 f I 
 
 
 i 
 
 : 
 
 ' : 
 
398 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I ), 
 
 :t 
 
 ■; !'-.-v 
 
 if 7. 
 
 (r 
 it •' . ' ' 
 
 U!- 
 
 Independently ol this commercial utility, the South and the 
 West of the Union derive great political advantages from their 
 connection with the North. The South contains an enormous 
 slave population ; a population which is already alarming, and 
 still more formidable for the future. The States of the West 
 lie in the remotest parts of a single valley ; and all the rivers 
 which intersect their territory rise in the Rocky Mountains or 
 in the Alleghanies, and fall into the Mississippi, which bears 
 them onwards to the Gulf of Mexico. The Western States are 
 consequently entirely cut off, by their position, from the tradi- 
 tions of Europe and the civilization of the Old World. The 
 inhabitants of the South, then, are induced to support the Union 
 in order to avail themselves of its protection against the blacks ; 
 and the inhabitants of the West in order not to be excluded 
 from a free communication with the rest of the globe, and shut 
 up in the wilds of central America. The North cannot but de- 
 sire the maintenance of the Union, in order to remain, as it now 
 is, the connecting link between that vast body and the other 
 parts of the world. 
 
 The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union 
 are, then, intimately connected ; and the same assertion holds 
 true respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be 
 termed the immaterial interests of men. 
 
 The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their 
 attachment to their country ; but I confess that I do not rely 
 upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon in«:er- 
 est, and which a change in the interests at stake may obliterate. 
 Nor do I attach much importance to the language of the Ameri- 
 cans, when they manifest, in their daily conversations, the in- 
 tention of maintaining the federal system adopted by their fore- 
 fathers. A government retains its sway over a great number 
 of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational consent of the 
 multitude, than by that instinctive, and to a certain extent in- 
 voluntary agreement, which results from similarity of feelings 
 and resemblances of opinion. I ^w^\^ *">ever admit that men con- 
 stitute a social body, simply becau. they obey the same head 
 and the same laws. Society can only exist when a great num- 
 ber of men consider a great number of things in the same point 
 of view ; when they hold the same opinions upon many subjects, 
 and when the same occurrences suggest the same thoughts and 
 impressions to their minds. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 399 
 
 The observer who examines the present condition of the 
 United States upon tiiis principle, will readily discover, that 
 although the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sov- 
 ereignties, they nevertheless constitute a single people ; and he 
 may perhaps be led to think that the state of the Anglo-Ameri- 
 can Union is more truly a state of society than that of certain 
 nations of Europe which live under the same legislation and 
 the same prince. 
 
 Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, 
 they all regard religion in the same manner. They arc not 
 always agreed upon the measures which are most conducive to 
 good government, and they vary upon some of the forms of 
 government which it is expedient to adopt ; but they are unani- 
 mous upon the general principles which ought to rule human 
 society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from the Missouri 
 to the Atlantic Ocean, the people is held to be the legitimate 
 source of all power. The same notions are entertained respect- 
 ing liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right of 
 association, the jury, and the responsibility of the agents of 
 Government. 
 
 If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the 
 moral and philosophical principles which regulate the daily 
 actions of life and govern their conduct, we shall still find the 
 same uniformity. The Anglo-Americans d acknowledge the 
 absolute moral authority of the reason of the community, as 
 they acknowledge the political authority of the mass of citizens ; 
 and they hold that public opinion is the surest arbiter of what 
 is lawful or forbidden, true or false. The majority of them be- 
 lieve that a man will be led to do what is just and good by fol- 
 lowing his own interest rightly understood. They hold that 
 every man is born in possession of the right of self-government, 
 and that no one has the right of constraining his fellow- 
 creatures to be happy. They have all a lively faith in the per- 
 fectibility of man ; they are of opinion that the effects of the 
 diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and 
 the consequences of ignorance fatal ; they all consider society 
 as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing 
 scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent ; and they 
 
 
 olt is scarcely necessary for me to 
 observe that by the expression Anglo- 
 Americans. I only mean to desi);nate the 
 great majority of the nation ; for a cer- 
 
 tain number of isolated individuals are 
 of course to be met with holding very 
 different opinions. 
 
400 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 I 
 
 \ I 
 
 \ ., ';! 
 
 'J I 
 
 I -' 
 
 admit that what appears to them to he pood to-day may be 
 superseded by something better to-morrow. 1 do not give all 
 these opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of the 
 Americans. 
 
 The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by these 
 common opinions, but they are separated from all other na- 
 tions by a common feeling of pride. For the last fifty years no 
 pains have been spared to convince the inhabitants of the United 
 States that they constitute the only religious, enlightened, and 
 free people. They perct've that, for the present, their own 
 democratic institutions succeed, whilst those of other countries 
 fail ; hence they conceive an overweening opinion of their su- 
 periority, and they are not very remote from believing them- 
 selves to belong to a distinct race of mankind. 
 
 The dangers which threaten the American Union do not 
 originate in the diversity of interests or of opinions, but in the 
 various characters and passions of the Americans. The men 
 who inhabit the vast territory of the United States are almost 
 all the issue of a common stock ; but the effects of the climate, 
 and more especially of slavery, have gradually introduced very 
 striking differences between the British settler of the Southern 
 States and the British settler of the North. In Europe it is gen- 
 erally believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one 
 part of the Union contrary to those of another part ; but I by 
 no means remarked this to be the case : slavery has not created 
 interests in the South contrary to those of the North, but it has 
 modified the character and changed the habits of the natives of 
 the South. 
 
 I have already explained the influence which slavery has 
 exercised upon the commercial ability of the Americans in the 
 South ; and this same influence equally extends to their man- 
 ners. The slave is a servant who never remonstrates, and who 
 submits to everything without complaint. He may sometimes 
 assassinate, but he never withstands, his master. In the South 
 there are no families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen 
 of the Southern States of the Union is invested with a sort of 
 domestic dictatorship, from his earliest years ; the first notion 
 he acquires in life is that he is born to command, and the first 
 habit which he contracts is that of being obeyed without resist- 
 ance. His cdncntion tends, then, to srive him the character of a 
 supercilious and a hasty man ; irascible, violent, and ardent in 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 4*1 
 
 his desires, inipatic*iit of obstacles, but easily discouraged if he 
 cannot succeed upon his first attempt. 
 
 The American of the Northern States is surrounded by no 
 slaves in his childhood ; he is even unattended by free servants, 
 and 16 usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner 
 does he enter the world than the idea of necessity assails hini on 
 every side: he soon learns to know exactly the natural limit 
 of his authority ; he never expects to subdue those who with- 
 stand him, by force ; and he knows that the surest means of 
 obtaining the support of his fellow-creatures, is to win their 
 favor. He therefore becomes patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow 
 to act, and persevering in his designs. 
 
 In the Southern States the more immediate wants of life are 
 always supplied ; the inhabitants of those parti are not busied 
 in the material cares of life, wMch are always provided for by 
 others ; and their imagination s diverted to more captivating 
 and less definite objects. The American cf the South is fond of 
 grandeur, luxury, and renown, of ga) c ly, o; pleasure, and above 
 all of idleness; nothing obliges him to ' .<ert hitr elf in order 
 to subsist; and as he has no necessary occupati 7S, he gives 
 way to indolence, and does not even attempt '/ )at would be 
 useful. 
 
 But the equality of fortunes, and tl e absence of slrv-y in 
 the North, plunge the inhabitants in t lOse same cares of daily 
 life which are disdained by the white population of the South. 
 They are taught from infancy to combat want, and to place 
 comfort above all the pleasures of the intellect or the heart. 
 The imagination is extinguished by the trivial details of life, and 
 the ideas become less numerous and less general, but far more 
 practical and more precise. As prosperity is the sole aim of ex- 
 ertion, it is excellently well attained ; nature and mankind are 
 turned to the best pecuniary advantage, and society is dexter- 
 ously made to contribute to the welfare of each of its members, 
 whilst individual egotism '" the source of general happiness. 
 
 The citizen of the Nor.' ^- j not only experience, but knowl- 
 edge : nevertheless he sets but little value upon the pleasures of 
 knowledge ; he esteems it as the means of attaining a certain 
 end, and he is only a ixious to seize its more lucrative applica- 
 tions. The citi/er. of the South is more given to act upon im- 
 pulse; he is more clever, more frank, more generous, more 
 intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a greater de- 
 VOL. I.— 26 
 
 1! 
 
 I 
 
 J'l 
 
 '.i' 
 
 c, 
 
403 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 
 ill 
 
 gree of activity, of common-sense, of information, and of gen- 
 eral aptitude, has the characteristic good and evil quahties of 
 the middle classes. The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the 
 weaknesses, and the magnanimity of all aristocracies. If two 
 men are united in society, who have the same interests, and to a 
 certain extent the same opinions, but dififerent characters, dif- 
 ferent acquirements, and a dififerent style of civilization, it is 
 probable that these men will not agree. The same remark is 
 applicable to a society of nations. Slavery, then, does not 
 attack the American Union directly in its interests, but indi- 
 rectly in its manners. 
 
 The States which gave their assent to the federal contract in 
 1790 were thirteen in number; the Union now consists of 
 thirty-four members. The population, which amounted to 
 nearly 4,000,000 in 1790, had more than tripled in the space 
 of forty years; and in 1830 it amounted to nearly 13,000,000.^ 
 Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some 
 danger. 
 
 A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, de- 
 rives its principal chances of duration from the wisdom of its 
 members, their individual weakness, and their limited number. 
 The Americans who quit the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean to 
 plunge into the western wilderness, are adventurers impatient 
 of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men expelled from 
 the States in which they were born. When they arrive in the 
 deserts they are unknown to each other, and they have neither 
 traditions, family feeling, nor the force of example to check 
 their excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble amongst them ; 
 that of morality is still more powerless. The settlers who are 
 constantly peopling the valley of the Mississippi are, then, in 
 every respect very inferior to the Americans who inhabit the 
 older parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise 
 a great influence in its councils ; and they arrive at the govern- 
 ment of the commonwealth before they have learnt to govern 
 themselves.^ 
 
 The greater the individual weakness of each of the contract- 
 ing parties, the greater are the chances of the duration of the 
 contract ; for their safety is then dependent upon their union. 
 
 * Census of 1790, 3,939,328 ; 1830, 12,- 
 856,165; i860, 31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,983; 
 1890, 62.831,000. 
 
 / This indeed is only a temporary dan- 
 ger. I have no doubt that in time so- 
 
 ciety will assume as much stability and 
 reffularity in the West as it has already 
 done upon the coast of the Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 403 
 
 When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics 
 did not contain 500,000 inhabitants,? each of them felt its own 
 insignificance as an independent people, and this feeling ren- 
 dered compliance with the federal authority more easy. But 
 when one of the confederate States reckons, like the State of 
 New York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and covers an extent of 
 territory equal in surface to a quarter of France,'* it feels its own 
 strength ; and although it may continue to support the Union 
 as advantageous to its prosperity, it no longer regards that body 
 as necessary to its existence ; and as it continues to belong to 
 the federal compact, it soon aims at preponderance in the 
 federal assemblies. The probable unanimity of the States is 
 diminished as their number increases. At present the interests 
 of the different parts of the Union are not at variance ; but who 
 is able to foresee the multifarious changes of the future, in a 
 country in which towns are founded from day to day, and States 
 almost from year to year ? 
 
 Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number 
 of inhabitants has about doubled every twenty-two years. I 
 perceive no causes which are likely to check this progressive 
 increase of the Anglo-American population for the next hun- 
 dred years ; and before that space of time has elapsed, I believe 
 that the territories and dependencies of the United States will 
 be covered by more than 100,000,000 of inhabitants, and di- 
 vided into forty States.* I admit that these 100,000,000 of men 
 have no hostile interests. I suppose, on the contrary, that they 
 are all equally interested in the maintenance of the Union ; but 
 I am still of opinion that where there are 100,000,000 of men, 
 and forty distinct nations, unequally strong, the continuance 
 of the Federal Government can only be a fortunate accident. 
 
 •/ 
 
 I'i 
 
 (P Pennsylvania contained 43i>373 ">• 
 habitants in 1790 [and 5,258,014 in 1890I. 
 
 h The area of the State of New York 
 is 49,170 square miles. [Sec U. S. cen- 
 sus report of 1890.] 
 
 t If fhe population continues to double 
 every twenty-two years, as it has done 
 for the last two hundred years, the num- 
 ber of inbahitants in the United, States 
 in 1852 will be twenty millions ; in 1874, 
 forty-eiRht millions ; and in 1896, ninety- 
 six millions. This may still be the case 
 even if the lands on the western slope of 
 the Rocky Mountains should be found 
 to be unfit for cultivation. The territory 
 ■which is alreadv occupied can easily 
 contain this number of inhabitants. One 
 hundred millions of men disseminated 
 over the surface of the twenty-four 
 
 States, and the three dependencies, 
 which constitute the Union, would only 
 give 762 inhabitants to the square 
 league ; this would be far below the 
 mean population of France, which is 
 1,063 to the square league ; or of Eng' 
 
 id. 
 
 land, which is 1,457 ! and it would even 
 be below the population of Switzerland, 
 for that country, notwithstanding its 
 lakes and mountains, contains 783 in- 
 habitants to the square league. See 
 " Malte Brun," vol. vi. p. 92. 
 
 [The actual result has fallen somewhat 
 short of these calculations, in spite of 
 the vast territorial acquisitions of the 
 United States: but in 1899 the popula- 
 tion is probably about eiRhty-seven mil- 
 lions, including the popul.ntion of the 
 Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.] 
 
404 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ^ k'( 
 
 Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until 
 human nature is altered, and men wholly transformed, I shall 
 refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called 
 upon to hold together forty different peoples, disseminated 
 over a territory equal to one-half of Europe in extent ; to avoid 
 all rivalry, ambition, and struggles between them, and to direct 
 their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same 
 designs. 
 
 But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its 
 increase arises from the continual changes which take place in 
 the position of its internal stiength. The distance from Lake 
 Superior to the Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 
 30th degree of latitude, a distance of more than 1,200 miles as 
 the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds along the 
 whole of this immense line, sometimes falling within its limits, 
 but more frequently extending far beyond it, into the waste. It 
 has been calculated that the whites advance every year a mean 
 distance of seventeen miles along the whole of his vast boun- 
 dary.; Obstacles, such as an unproductive district, a lake or an 
 Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are sometimes met 
 with. The advancing column then halts for a while ; its two 
 extremities fall b?,ck upon themselves, and as soon as they are 
 reunited they prc/ceed onwards. This gradual and continuous 
 progress of the Ei:r'^p''?.n race towards the Rocky Mountains 
 has the solemnity of a providential event ; it is like a deluge of 
 men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onwards by the hand of 
 God. 
 
 Within this first line of conquering settlers towns are built, 
 and vast States founded. In 1790 there were only a few thou- 
 sand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi ; 
 and at the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants 
 as were to be found in the whole Union in 1790. Their popu- 
 lation amounts to nearly 4,000,000.* The city of Washington 
 was founded in 1800, in the very centre of the Union ; but such 
 are the changes which have taken place, that it now stands at 
 one of the extremities ; and the delegates of the most remote 
 Western States are already obliged to perform a journey as long 
 as that from Vienna to Paris.^ 
 
 y See Legislative Documents, aoth 
 CotiRress, No. 117, p. 105. 
 A; 3,672,3:7— Census of 1830. 
 /The distance from Jefferson, the 
 
 capital of the State of Missouri, to 
 Washington is 1,019 miles. (" American 
 Almanac," 1831, p. 48.) 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 405 
 
 //( 
 
 are 
 
 All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the path 
 of fortune, but of course they do not all increase and prosper 
 Iri the same proportion. To the North of the Union the de- 
 tached branches of the Alleghany chain, which extend as far as 
 the Atlantic Ocean, form spacious roads and ports, which are 
 constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest burden. But 
 from the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi the coast is 
 sandy and flat. In this part of the Union the mouths of almost 
 all the rivers are obstructed ; and the few harbors which exist 
 amongst these lagoons aflford much shallower water to ves- 
 sels, and much fewer commercial advantages than those of the 
 North. 
 
 This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another 
 cause proceeding from the laws. We have already seen that 
 slavery, which is abolished in the North, still exists in the 
 South ; and I have pointed out its fatal consequences upon the 
 prosperity of the planter himself. 
 
 The North is therefore superior to the South both in com- 
 merce *n and manufacture ; the natural consequence of which is 
 the more rapid increase of population and of wealth within its 
 borders. The States situate upon the shores of the Atlantic 
 Ocean are already half-peopled. Most of the land is held by 
 an owner ; and these districts cannot therefore receive so many 
 emigrants as the Western States, where a boundless field is still 
 open to their exertions. The valley of the Mississippi is far 
 more fertile than the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. This rea- 
 son, added to all the others, contributes to drive the Europeans 
 westward — a fact which may be rigorously demonstrated by 
 
 
 
 m The followinf? statements will suffice 
 to show the difference which exists be- 
 tween the commerce of the South and 
 that of the North:— 
 
 In 1829 the tonnage of all the mer- 
 chant vessels belonging to Virginia, the 
 two Carolinas, ancf Georgia (the four 
 great Southern States), amounted to 
 only 5,243 tons. In the same year the 
 tonnage of the vessels of the State of 
 Massachusetts alone amounted to 17,322 
 tons. (See Legislative Documents, 21st 
 Congress, 2d session. No. 140, p. 244.) 
 Thus the State of Massachusetts had 
 three times as much shipping as the 
 four above-mentioned States. Neverthe- 
 less the area of the State of Massachu- 
 setts is only 7,33s square miles, and its 
 population amounts to 610,014 inhabi- 
 tants [2,238,943 in 1890]; whilst the area 
 of the four other States I have quoted is 
 210,000 square miles, and their popula- 
 tion 3,047,767. Thus the area of the 
 
 State of Massachusetts forms only one- 
 thirtieth part of the area of the four 
 States; and its population is five times 
 smaller than theirs. (See " Darby's 
 View of the United States.'") Slavery 
 is prejudicial to the commercial pros- 
 perity of the South in several different 
 ways; by diminishing the spirit of enter- 
 prise amongst the whites, and by pre- 
 venting them from meeting with as 
 numerous a class of sailors as they re- 
 quire. Sailors are usually taken from 
 the lowest ranks of the population. Hut 
 in the Southern States these lowest 
 ranks are composed of slaves, and it is 
 very difficult to employ them at sea. 
 They are unable to serve as well as a 
 white crew, and apprehensions would 
 always be entertained of their mutiny- 
 ing tn the middle of the ocean, or of 
 their escaping in the foreign countries 
 at which they might touch. 
 

 X: 
 
 406 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 figures. It is found that the sum total of the population of all 
 the United States has about tripled in the course of forty years. 
 But in the recent States adjacent to the Mississippi, the popula- 
 tion has increased thirty-one-fold, within the same space of 
 time.w 
 
 The relative position of the central federal power is continu- 
 ally displaced. Forty years ago the majority of the citizens of 
 the Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in 
 the environs of the spot upon which Washington now stands ; 
 but the great body of the people is now advancing inland and 
 to the north, so that in twenty years the majority will unques- 
 tionably be on the western side of the Alleghanies. If the 
 Union goes on to subsist, the basin of the Mississippi is evi- 
 dently marked out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future 
 centre of the Federal Government. In thirty or forty years, 
 that tract of country will have assumed the rank which naturally 
 belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its population, com- 
 pared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round num- 
 bers, as 40 to II. In a few years the States which founded the 
 Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the population of 
 the valley of the Mississippi will preponderate in the federal 
 assemblies. 
 
 This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence 
 towards the northwest is shown every ten years, when a general 
 census of the population is made, and the number of delegates 
 which each State sends to Congress is settled afresh.o In 1790 
 Virginia had nineteen representatives in Congress. This num- 
 ber continued to increase until the year 1813, when it reached to 
 twenty-three ; from that time it began to decrease, and in 1833 
 Virginia elected only twenty-one representatives./* During the 
 
 M " Darby's View of the United 
 States," p. d44. 
 
 It may be seen that in the course 
 of the last ten years (1820-1830) the pop- 
 ulation of one district, as, for instance, 
 the State of Delaware, has increased in 
 the proportion of five per cent. ; whilst 
 that of another, as the territory of 
 Michigan, has increased 250 per cent. 
 Thus the population of Virginia had 
 augmented thirteen per cent., and that 
 of the border State of Ohio sixty-one 
 per cent., in the same space of time. 
 The general table of these changes, 
 which is given in the " National Calen- 
 dar," displays a striking picture of the 
 unequal fortunes of the different States. 
 
 p It has iust been said that in the 
 course of the last term the population 
 of Virginia has increased thirteen per 
 
 cent. ; and it is necessary to explain how 
 the number of representatives for a State 
 may decrease, when the population of 
 that State, far from diminishing, is act- 
 ually upon the increase. I take the 
 State of Virginia, to which I have al- 
 ready alluded, as my term of compari- 
 son. The number of representatives of 
 Virginia in 1823 was proportionate to 
 the total number of the representatives 
 of the Union, and to the relation which 
 the population bore to that of the 
 whole Union: in 1833 the number of 
 renresentatives of Virginia was likewise 
 proportionate to the total number of 
 the representatives of the Union, and to 
 the relation which its population, aug- 
 mented in the course of ten years, bore 
 to the augmented population of the 
 Union in the same space of time. The 
 
 4 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 407 
 
 1 Of all 
 
 years. 
 
 opula- 
 
 ■>ace of 
 
 same period the State of New York progressed in the contrary 
 direction: in 1790 it had ten representatives in Congress; in 
 1813, twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. 
 The State of Ohio had only one representative in 1803, and in 
 i(833 it had already nineteen. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is 
 rich and strong with one which is poor and weak, even if it 
 were proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not 
 the causes of the weakness and poverty of the other. But union 
 is still more difficult to maintain at a time at which one party is 
 losing strength, and the other is gaining it. This rapid and dis- 
 proportionate increase of certain States threatens the inde- 
 pendence of the others. New York might perhaps succeed, 
 with its 2,000,000 of inhabitants and its forty representatives, 
 in dictating to the other States in Congress. But even if the 
 more powerful States make no attempt to bear down the lesser 
 ones, the danger still exists ; for there is almost as much in the 
 possibility of the act as in the act itself. The weak generally 
 mistrust the justice and the reason of the strong. The States 
 which increase less rapidly than the others look upon those 
 which are more favored by fortune with envy and suspicion. 
 Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness and ill-defined agita- 
 tion which are observable in the South, and which form so strik- 
 ing a contrast to the confidence and prosperity which are com- 
 mon to other parts of the Union. I am inclined to think that the 
 hostile measures taken by the Southern provinces upon a re- 
 cent occasion are attributable to no other cause. The inhab- 
 itants of the Southern States are, of all the Americans, those 
 who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union ; they 
 would assuredly suffer most from jjeing left to themselves ; and 
 yet they are the only citizens who threaten to break the tie of 
 confederation. But it is easy to perceive that the South, which 
 has given four Presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, 
 and Monroe, to the Union, which perceives that it is losing its 
 
 new number ol Virginian representa- 
 tives will then be to the old number, on 
 the one hand, as the new number of all 
 the representatives is to the old num- 
 ber; and, on the other hand, as the aug- 
 mentation of the population of Virsinia 
 is to that of the whole population of the 
 country. Thus, if the increase of the 
 population of the lesser country be to 
 that of the Rreater in an exact inverse 
 ratio of the proportion between the new 
 and the old numbers of all the repre- 
 
 sentatives, the number of the represen- 
 tatives of Virginia will remain station- 
 ary ; and if the increase of the Virginian 
 population be to that of the whole 
 Union in a feebler ratio than the new 
 number of the representatives of the 
 Union to the old number, the number 
 nf the representatives of Virginia must 
 decrease. [Thus, to the s6th Congress 
 in 1899, Virginia and West Virginia send 
 only fourteen representatives.] 
 
 w 
 
 n 
 
 I, 
 
m 
 
 4od 
 
 t)E TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 federal influence, and that the number of its representatives in 
 Congress is diminishing from year to year, whilst those of the 
 Northern and Western States are increasing ; the South, which 
 is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming more 
 and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their 
 present position and remember their past influence, with the 
 melancholy uneasiness of men who suspect oppression : if they 
 discover a law of the Union which is not unequivocally favor- 
 able to their interests, they protest against it as an abuse of 
 force; and if their ardent remonstrances are not listened to, 
 they threaten to quit an association which loads them with bur- 
 dens whilst it deprives them of their due profits. " The tariff," 
 said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832, " enriches the North, 
 and ruins the South ; for if this were not the case, to what can 
 we attribute the continually increasing power and wealth of the 
 North, with its inclement skies and arid soil ; whilst the South, 
 which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declin- 
 ing? "g 
 
 If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that 
 each generation at least might have time to disappear with the 
 order of things under which it had lived, the danger would be 
 less ; but the progress of society in America is precipitate, and 
 almost revolutionary. The same citizen may have lived to see 
 his State take the lead in the Union, and afterwards become 
 powerless in the federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American 
 republic has been known to grow as rapidly as a man passing 
 from birth and infancy to maturii in the course of thirty years. 
 It must not be imagined, however, that the States which lose 
 their preponderance, also lose their population or their riches : 
 no stop is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to in- 
 crease more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe.*" But they 
 believe themselves to be impoverished because their wealth 
 does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors ; any 
 they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly com-j 
 
 g See the report of its committee to 
 the Convention which ijroclaimed the 
 nullification of the tariff in South Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 r The population of a country assur- 
 edly constitutes the first element of its 
 wealth. In the ten years (1820-1850) 
 durini; which Virpinia lost two of its 
 representatives in Congress, its popula- 
 tion increased in the proportion of 13.7 
 per cent.; that of Carolina in the pro- 
 
 portion of fifteen per cent. ; and that of 
 Georgia, 15.5 per cent. (See the " Amer- 
 ican Almanac," 1832, p. 162.) But the 
 population of Russia, which increases 
 more rapidly than that of any other 
 European country, only augments in 
 ten years at the rate of 9.5 per cent.; in 
 France, at the rate of seven per cent. ; 
 and in Europe in general, at the rate of 
 4.7 per cent. (See " Malte Brun," vol. 
 vi. p. 9S.) 
 
■fv 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 409 
 
 : .' 
 
 into collision with a power greater than their own : s thus they 
 are more hurt in their feelings and their passions than in their 
 interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the main- 
 tenance of the Union. If kings and peoples had only had their 
 true interests in view ever since the beginning of the world, 
 the name of war would scarcely be known among mankind. 
 
 Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the 
 most serious dangers that threaten them, since it tends to create 
 in some of the confederate States that over-excitement which 
 accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in 
 others those feelings of envy, mistrust, and regret which usually 
 attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this ex- 
 traordinary and hasty progress with exultation ; but they would 
 be wiser to consider it with sorrow and alarm. The Americans 
 of the United States must inevitably become one of the greatest 
 nations in the world ; their ofifset will cover almost the whole 
 of North America; the continent which they inhabit is their 
 dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them to 
 take possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown 
 cannot fail to be theirs at some future time, but they rush upon 
 their fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make 
 it their own. 
 
 I think that I have demonstrated that the existence of the 
 present confederation depends entirely on the continued assent 
 of all the confederates; and, starting from this principle, I 
 have inquired into the causes which may induce the several 
 States to separate from the others. The Union may, however, 
 perish in two different ways: one of the confederate States 
 may choose to retire from the compact, and so forcibly to sever 
 the federal tie ; and it is to this supposition that most of the 
 remarks that I have made apply : or the authority of the Fed- 
 eral Government may be progressively entrenched on by the 
 simultaneous tendency of the united republics to resume their 
 independence. The central power, successively stripped of all 
 its prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, 
 would become incompetent to fulfil its purpose ; and the second 
 Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude. 
 The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead 
 
 // i 
 
 \i % 
 
 '■I ! 
 
 . / 
 
 S It must be admitted, however, ttiat 
 the depreciation which has taken place 
 in the value of tobacco, durinis: the last 
 fifty years, has notably diminished the 
 
 opulence of the Southern planters: but 
 this circumstance is as independent of 
 the will of their Northern brethren as 
 it is of their own. 
 
 * !■ 
 
 : H 
 
4IO 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 ill :«i 
 
 Sii 
 
 to the dissolution of the Union, is a distinct circumstance, that 
 may produce a variety of minor consequences before it operates 
 so violent a change. The confederation might still subsist, al- 
 though its Government were reduced to such a degree of inani- 
 tion as to paralyze the nation, to cause internal anarchy, and to 
 check the general prosperity of the country. 
 
 After having investigated the causes which may induce the 
 Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is important to inquire whether, 
 if the Union continues to subsist, their Government will extend 
 or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become 
 more energetic or more weak. 
 
 The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their 
 future condition with alarm. They perceive that in most of the 
 nations of the world the exercise of the rights of sovereignty 
 tends to fall under the control of a few individuals, and they 
 are dismayed by the idea that such will also be the case in their 
 own country. Even the statesmen feel, or affect to feel, these 
 fears ; for, in America, centralization is by no means popular, 
 and there is no surer means of courting the majority than by 
 inveighing against the encroachments of the central power. 
 The Americans do not perceive that the countries in which this 
 alarming tendency to centralization exists are inhabited by a 
 single people ; whilst the fact of the Union being composed of 
 different confederate communities is sufficient to baffie all the 
 inferences which might be drawn from analogous circum- 
 stances. I confess that I am inclined to consider the fears of a 
 great number of Americans as purely imaginary ; and far from 
 participating in their dread of the consolidation of power in the 
 hands of the Union, I think that the Federal Governmei is 
 visibly losing strength. 
 
 To prove this assertion I shall not have recourse to any re- 
 mote occurrences, but to circumstances which I have myself 
 witnessed, and which belong to our own time. 
 
 An attentive examination of what is going on in the United 
 States will easily convince us that two opposite tendencies ex- 
 ist in that country, like two distinct currents flowing in contrary 
 directions in the same channel. The Union has now existed for 
 forty-five years, and in the course of that time a vast number 
 of provincial prejudices, which were at first hostile to its power, 
 have died away. The patriotic feeling which attached each of 
 the Americans to his own native State is become less exclusive ; 
 
 t I 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 4*1 
 
 and the different parts of the Union have become more inti- 
 mately connected the better they have become acquainted with 
 each other. The post,* that great instrument of intellectual in- 
 tercourse, now reaches into the backwoods; and steat.iboats 
 have established daily means of communication between the 
 different points of the coast. An inland navigation of unex- 
 ampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down the rivers 
 of the country." And to these facilities of nature and art may be 
 added those restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and love 
 of pelf, which are constantly urging the American i-ito active 
 life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He 
 crosses the country in every direction ; he visits all the various 
 populations of the land ; and there is not a province in France 
 in which the natives are so well known to each other as the 
 13,000,000 of men who cover the territory of the United States. 
 
 But whilst the Americans intermingle, they grow in resem- 
 blance of each other ; the differences resulting from their cli- 
 mate, their origin, and their institutions, diminish; and they 
 all draw nearer and nearer to the common type. Every year, 
 thousands of men leave the North to settle in different parts of 
 the Union : they bring with them their faith, their opinions, and 
 their manners ; and as they are more enlightened than the men 
 amongst whom they are about to dwell, they soon rise to the 
 head of affairs, and they adapt society to their own advantage. 
 This continual emigration of the North to the South is pecu- 
 liarly favorable to the fusion of all the different provincial char- 
 acters into one national character. The civilization of the 
 North appears to be the common standard, to which the whole 
 nation will one day be assimilated. 
 
 The commercial ties which unite the confederate States are 
 strengthened by the increasing manufactures of the Americans ; 
 and the union which began to exist in their opinions, gradually 
 forms a part of their habits : the course of time has swept away 
 the bugbear thoughts which haunted the imaginations of the 
 citizens in 1789. The federal power is not become oppressive; 
 
 t In 1832, the district of Michigan, 
 which only contains 31,639 inhabitants, 
 and is still an almost unexplored wilder- 
 ness, possessed 940 miles of mail-roads. 
 The territory of Arkansas, which is still 
 more uncultivated, was already inter- 
 sected by 1,938 miles of mail-roads. (See 
 the report of the General Post Office, 
 November 30, 1833.) 1'he postage of 
 
 newspapers alone in the whole Union 
 amounted to $254,796. 
 
 M In the course of ten years, from 
 1821 to 1831, 271 steamboats have been 
 launched upon the rivers which water 
 the valley of the Mississippi alone. In 
 1829 259 steamboats existed in the 
 United States. (See Legislative Docu- 
 ments, No. 140, p. 374.) 
 
 I ! 
 
 
 1/1 j: 
 
 j 
 
 u 
 i 
 
 ;. il 
 
 u: 
 
 (' 
 
 '; Si 
 
4ia 
 
 DE TOCQUr.VILLE 
 
 i^ 
 
 4 
 i; 
 
 it has not destroyed the independence of the States ; it has not 
 subjected the confederates to monarchical institutions ; and the 
 Union has not rendered the lesser States dependent upon the 
 larger ones ; but the confederation has continued to increase in 
 population, in wealth, and in power. I am therefore convinced 
 that the natural obstacles to the continuance of the American 
 Union are not so powerful at the present time as they were in 
 1789; and that the enemies of the Union are not so numerous. 
 
 Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the 
 United States for the last forty-five years will readily convince 
 us that the federal power is declining ; nor is it difficult to ex- 
 plain the causes of this phenomenon.^' When the Constitution 
 of 1789 was promulgated, the nation was a prey to anarchy; 
 the Union, which succeeded this confusion, excited much dread 
 and much animosity; but it was warmly supported because it 
 satisfied an imperious want. Thus, although it was more at- 
 tacked than it is now, the federal power soon reached the maxi- 
 mum of its authority, as is usually the case with a government 
 which triumphs after having braced its strength by the strug- 
 gle. At that time the interpretation of the Constitution seemed 
 to extend, rather than to repress, the federal sovereignty ; and 
 the Union offered, in several respects, the appearance of a 
 single and undivided people, directed in its foreign and internal 
 policy by a single Government. But to attain this point the 
 people had risen, to a certain extent, above itself. 
 
 The Constitution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty 
 of the States; and all communities, of whatever nature they 
 may be, are impelled by a secret propensity to assert their in- 
 dependence. This propensity is still more decided in a country 
 like America, in which every village forms a sort of republic 
 accustomed to conduct its own affairs. It therefore cost the 
 States an effort to submit to the federal supremacy; and all 
 efforts, however successful they may be, necessarily subside 
 with the causes in which they originated. 
 
 As the Federal Government consolidated its authority, Amer- 
 ica resumed its rank amongst the nations, peace returned to 
 its frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was 
 succeeded by a fixed state of things, which was favorable to 
 the full and free exercise of industrious enterprise. It was 
 
 V [Since 1861 the movement is cer- 
 tainly in the opposite direction, and the 
 
 federal power has largely increased, and 
 tends to further increase.] 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 413 
 
 this very prosperity which made the Americans forget the 
 cause to which it was attrihutaljle ; and when once the danger 
 was passed, the energy and the patriotism which had enabled 
 them to brave it (Hsappeared from amongst them. No sooner 
 were they deUvered from the cares which oppressed them, 
 than they easily returned to their ordinary habits, and gave 
 themselves up witiiout resistance to their natural inclinations. 
 When a powerful Government nt» longer appeared to be neces- 
 sary, they once more began to think it irksome. The Union 
 encouraged a general prosperity, and the States were not in- 
 clined to abantlon the Union; but they desired to render the 
 action of the power which represented that body as light as 
 possible. The general princ.,)le of Union was adopted, but in 
 every minor detail there was an actual tendency to independ- 
 ence. The principle of confederation was every day more 
 easily admitted, and more rarely applied ; so that the Federal 
 Government brought about its own decline, whilst it was 
 creating order and peace. 
 
 As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be 
 manifested externally, the leaders of parties, who live by the 
 passions of the people, began to work it to their own advantage. 
 The position of the Federal Government then became exceed- 
 ingly critical. Its enemies were in possession of the popular 
 favor ; and they obtained the right of conducting its policy by 
 pledging themselves to lessen its influence. From that time 
 forwards the Government of the Union has invariably been 
 obliged to recede, as often as it has attempted to enter the lists 
 with the governments of the States. And whenever an inter- 
 pretation of the terms of the Federal Constitution has been 
 called for, that interpretation has most frequently been op- 
 posed to the Union, and favorable to the States. 
 
 The Constitution invested the Federal Government with the 
 right of providing for the interests of the nation; and it had 
 been held that no other authority was so fit to superintend the 
 " internal improvements " which affected the prosperity of the 
 whole Union ; such, for instance, as the cutting of canals. But 
 the States were alarmed at a power, distinct from their own, 
 which could thus dispose of a portion of their territory; and 
 they were afraid that the central Government would, by this 
 means, acquire a formidable extent of patronage within their 
 own confines, and exercise a degree of influence which they in- 
 
 ! ', 
 
^m 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 li 
 
 » ;:' 
 
 !i;.i. 
 
 •♦ 
 
 tended to reserve exclusively to thtii <;<hu njjcnts. The Demo- 
 cratic party, which has constantly beer i);v'/jif':! to the increase 
 of the federal authority, then accused tli- Congress of usurpa- 
 tion, and the Chief Magistrate of ambition. The central Gov- 
 ernment was intimidated by the opposition ; and it soon acknowl- 
 edged its error, promising exactly to confine its influence for 
 the future within the circle which was prescribed to it. 
 
 The Constitution confers upon the Union the right of treat- 
 ing with foreign nations, 'llie Indian tribes, which border 
 upon the frontiers of the United States, had usually been re- 
 garded in this light. As long as these savages consented to 
 retire before the civilized settlers, the federal right was not 
 contested : but as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its 
 dwelling upon a given spot, the adjacent States claimed pos- 
 session of the lands and the rights of sovereignty over the 
 natives. The central Government soon recognized ooth these 
 claims ; and after it had concluded treaties with the Indians as 
 independent nations, it gave them up as subjects to the legisla- 
 tive tyranny of the States.w 
 
 Some of the States which had been founded upon the coast 
 of the Atlantic, extended indefinitely to the West, into wild 
 regions where no European had ever penetrated. The States 
 whose confines were irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous 
 eye upon the unbounded regions which the future would en- 
 able their neighbors to explore. The latter then agreed, with 
 a view to conciliate the others, and to facilitate the act of union, 
 to lay down their own boundaries, and to abandon all the 
 territory which lay beyond those limits to the confederation at 
 large.J^ Thenceforward the Federal Government became the 
 owner of all the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the 
 borders of the thirteen States first confederated. It was in- 
 vested with the right of parcelling and selling them, and the 
 sums derived from this source were exclusively reserved to 
 the public treasure of the Union, in order to furnish supplies 
 for purchasing tracts of country from the Indians, for opening 
 roads to the remote settlements, and for accelerating the in- 
 
 V) See in the Legislative Documents, 
 already quoted in speaking of the Ind- 
 ians, the letter of the President of the 
 United States to the Cherokees, his cor- 
 respondence on this subject with his 
 agents, and bis messages to Congress. 
 
 ,r The first act of session was made 
 
 by_ the State of New York in 1780; Vir- 
 
 fi n i a, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
 outh and North Carolina, followed this 
 example at different times, and lastly, 
 the act of cession of Georgia was made 
 as recently as 1802. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 4»S 
 
 crease of civilization as much as possible. New States have, 
 however, been formed in the course of time, in the midst of 
 those wilds which were formerly ceded by the inhabitants of 
 the shores of the Atlantic. Congress has gone on to sell, for 
 the profit of the nation at large, the uncultivated lands which 
 those new States contained. But the latter at length asserted 
 that, as they were now fully constituted, they ought to enjoy 
 the exclusive right of converting the produce of these sales 
 to their own use. As their remonstrances became more and 
 more threatening, Congress thought fit to deprive the Union 
 of a portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; 
 and at the end of 1832 it passed a law by which the greatest 
 part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands was made 
 over to the new western republics, although the lands them-* 
 selves were not ceded to them.y 
 
 The slightest observation in the United States enables one 
 to appreciate the advantages which the country derives from 
 the bank. These advantages are of several kinds, but one of 
 them is peculiarly striking to the stranger. The banknotes 
 of the United States are taken upon the borders of the desert 
 for the same value as at Philadelphia, where the bank conducts 
 its operations.* 
 
 The Bank of the United States is nevertheless the object of 
 great animosity. Its directors have proclaimed their hostility 
 to the President : and they are accused, not without some show 
 of probability, of having abused their influence to thwart his 
 election. The President therefore attacks the establishment 
 which they represent with all the warmth of personal enmity; 
 and he is encouraged in the pursuit of his revenge by the con- 
 viction that he is supported by the secret propensities of the 
 majority. The bank may be regarded as the great monetary 
 tie of the Union, just as Congress is the great legislative tie; 
 and the same passions which tend to render the States inde- 
 pendent of the central power, contribute to the overthrow of 
 the bank. 
 
 The Bank of the United States always holds a great num- 
 
 \ I 
 
 
 V It is true that the President refused 
 his assent to this law; but he completely 
 adopted it in principle. (See Message 
 of December 8, 1833.) ,, . . 
 
 s The present Bank of the United 
 States was established in 1816, with a 
 capital of $35,000,000; its charter expires 
 in 1836. Last year Congress passed a 
 
 law to renew it, but the President put 
 his veto upon the bill. The struggle is 
 still going on with great violence on 
 either side, and the speedy fall of the 
 bank may easily be foreseen. [It was 
 soon afterwards extinguished by Gen- 
 eral Jackson.] 
 
4i6 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 M • 
 
 ■ ii 
 
 ber of the notes issued by the provincial banks, which it can 
 at any time oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself 
 nothing to fear from a similar demand, as the extent of its re- 
 sources enabl':s it to meet all claims. But the existence of the 
 provincial banks is thus threatened, and their operations are 
 restricted, since they are only able to issue a quantity of notes 
 duly proportioned to their capital. They submit with im- 
 patience to this salutary control. The newspapers which they 
 have bought over, and the President, whose interest renders 
 him their instrument, attack the bank with the greatest ve^ 
 hemence. They rouse the local passions and the blind demo- 
 cratic instinct of the country to aid their cause; and they as- 
 sert that the bank directors form a permanent aristocratic 
 body, whose influence must ultimately be felt in the Govern- 
 ment, and must affect those principles of equality upon which 
 society rests in America. 
 
 The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an 
 incident in the great struggle which is going on in America 
 between the provinces and the central power; between the 
 spirit of democratic independence and the spirit of gradation 
 and subordination. I do not mean that the enemies of the 
 bank are identically the same individuals who, on other points, 
 attack the Federal Government; but I assert that the attacks 
 directed against the bank of the United States originate in the 
 same propensities which militate against the Federal Govern- 
 ment; and that the very numerous opponents of the former 
 afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing support of the 
 latter. 
 
 The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the 
 celebrated question of the tariff.o The wars of the French Rev- 
 olution and of 1812 had created manufacturing establishments 
 in the North of the Union, by cutting off all free communi- 
 cation between America and Europe. When peace was con- 
 cluded, and the channel of intercourse reopened by which the 
 produce of Europe was transmitted to the New World, the 
 Americans thought fit to establish a system of import duties, 
 for the twofold purpose of protecting their incipient manu- 
 factures and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted 
 during the war. The Southern States, which have no manu- 
 
 a See principally for the details of this aflfair, the Legislative Documents, 
 22A Congress, 2d Session, No. 30. 
 
ich it can 
 has itself 
 of its re- 
 nce of the 
 ations are 
 y of notes 
 with im- 
 ifhich they 
 st renders 
 eatest ve* 
 ind demo- 
 d they as- 
 ristocratic 
 e Govern- 
 pon which 
 
 is only an 
 1 America 
 tween the 
 gradation 
 lies of the 
 her points, 
 :he attacks 
 nate in the 
 al Govern- 
 :he former 
 3ort of the 
 
 s as in the 
 rench Rev- 
 blishments 
 
 communi- 
 ; was con- 
 
 which the 
 A^orld, the 
 fort duties, 
 ent manu- 
 contracted 
 
 no manu- 
 
 e Documents, 
 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 417 
 
 factures to encourage, and which are exclusively agricultural, 
 soon complained of this measure. Such were the simple facts, 
 and I do not pretend to examine in this place whether their 
 complaints were well founded or unjust. 
 
 As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a 
 petition to Congress, that the tariff was " unconstitutional, op- 
 pressive, and unjust." And the States of Georgia, Virginia, 
 North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi subsequently re- 
 monstrated against it with more or less vigor. But Congress, 
 far from lending an ear to these complaints, raised the scale 
 of tariff duties in the years 1824 and 1828, and recognized 
 anew the principle on which it was founded. A doctrine was 
 then proclaimed, or rather revived, in the South, which took 
 the name of Nullification. 
 
 I have shown in the proper place that the object of the Federal 
 Constitution was not to form a league, but to create a national 
 government. The Americans of the United States form a 
 sole and undivided people, in all the cases which are specified 
 by that Constitution; and upon these points the will of the 
 nation is expressed, as it is in all constitutional nations, by the 
 voice of the majority. When the majority has pronounced its 
 decision, it is the duty of the minority to submit. Such is the 
 sound legal doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the 
 text of the Constitution, and the known intention of those who 
 framed it. 
 
 The partisans of Nullification in the South maintain, on the 
 contrary, that the intention of the Americans in uniting was 
 not to reduce themselves to the condition of one and the same 
 people ; that they meant to constitute a league of independent 
 States; and that each State, consequently retains its entire 
 sovereignty, if not de facto, at least de jure; and has the right 
 of putting its own construction upon the laws of Congress, and 
 of suspending their execution within the limits of its own ter- 
 ritory, if they are held 10 be unconstitutional and unjust. 
 
 The entire doctrine of Nullification is comprised in a sen- 
 tence uttered by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that 
 party in the South, before the Senate of the United States, in 
 the year 1833 : " The Constitution is a compact to which the 
 States were parties in their sovereign capacity ; now, whenever 
 a compact is entered into by parties which acknowledge no 
 tribunal above their authority to decide in the last resort, each 
 Vol. I.— 37 
 
 > A 
 
 '» 
 
 1^ 
 
 <■ ml\ 
 
 \i i- 
 
 I 
 
 J 11; 
 
4i8 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 of them has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, 
 extent, and obligations of the instrument." It is evident that 
 a similar doctrine destroys the very basis of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, and brings back all the evils of the old confederation, 
 fr(»n which the Americans were supposed to have had a safe 
 deliverance. 
 
 When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf 
 ear to its remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine 
 of nullification to the federal tariff bill. Congress persist'"d 
 in its former system; and at length the storm broke out. In 
 the course of 1832 the citizens of South Carolina.^ named a 
 national Convention, to consult upon the extraordinary meas- 
 ures which they were called upon to take; and on November 
 24th of the same year this Convention promulgated a law, un- 
 der the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of 
 the tariff, forbade the levy of the imposts which that law com- 
 mands, and refused to recognize the appeal which might be 
 made to the federal courts of law.c This decree was only to be 
 put in execution in the ensuing month of February, and it was 
 intimated, that if Congress riodified the tariff before that 
 period. South Carolina might De induced to proceed no further 
 with her menaces; and a vague desire was afterwards ex- 
 pressed of submitting the question to an extraordinary as- 
 sembly of all the confederate States. 
 
 In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and pre- 
 pared for war. But Congress, which had slighted its sup- 
 pliant subjects, listened to their complaints as soon as they were 
 found to have taken up arms.d A law was passed, by which 
 
 (That is to say, the majority of the 
 people; for the opposite party, called 
 the Union party, always formed a very 
 strong and active mmority. Carolina 
 may contain about ^7,000 electors: 30,000 
 were in favor of nulliiication, and 17,000 
 opposed to it. 
 
 c Thia decree was preceded by a re- 
 port of the committee by which it was 
 framed, containing the explanation of 
 the motives and object of the law. The 
 following passage occurs in it, p. 3^:— 
 " When the rights reserved by the Con- 
 stitution to the different States are de- 
 liberately violated, it is the duty and the 
 right of those States to interfere, in 
 order to check the progress of the evil; 
 to resist usurpation, and to maintain, 
 within their respective limits, those 
 powers and privileges which belong to 
 them as independent sovereign States. 
 If they were destitute of this right, they 
 would not be sovereign. South Caro- 
 
 lina declares that she acknowledges no 
 tribunal upon earth above her authority. 
 She has indeed entered into a solemn 
 compact of union with the other States; 
 but she demands, and will exercise, the 
 right of putting her own construction 
 upon it; and when this compact is vio> 
 lated by her sister States, and by the 
 Government which they have created, 
 she is determined to avail herself of the 
 unquestionable right of judging what 
 is the extent of the infraction, and what 
 are the measures best fitted to obtain 
 justice." 
 
 d Congress was finally decided to take 
 this step by the conduct of the powerful 
 State of Virginra, whose legislature 
 offered to serve as mediator oetween 
 the Union and South Carolina. Hither- 
 to the latter State had appeared to be 
 entirely abandoned, even by the States 
 which had joined in her remonstrances. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 419 
 
 ex- 
 
 the tariff duties were to be progressively reduced for ten years, 
 until they were brought so low as not to exceed the amount 
 of supplies necessary to the Government.*? Thus Congress 
 completely abandoned the principle of the tariff; and substi- 
 tuted a mere fiscal impost to a system of protective duties/ 
 The Government of the Union, in order to conceal its defeat, 
 had recourse to an expedient which is very much in vogue with 
 feeble governments. It yielded the point de facto, but it re- 
 mained inflexible upon the principles in question; and whilst 
 Congress was altering the tariff law, it passed another bill, by 
 which the President was invested with extraordinary powers, 
 enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was 
 then no longer to be apprehended. 
 
 But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in 
 the enjoyment of these scanty trophies of success: the same 
 national Convention which had annulled the tariff bill, met 
 again, and accepted the proffered concession ; but at the same 
 time it declared its unabated perseverance in the doctrine of 
 Nullification: and to prove what it said, it annulled the law 
 investing the President with extraordinary powers, although 
 it was very certain tha'; the clauses of that law would never be 
 carried inti.. effect. 
 
 Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking 
 have taken place under the Presidency of General Jackson; 
 and it cannot be denied that in the question of the tariff he 
 has supported the claims of the Union with vigor and with skill. 
 I am, however, of opinion that the conduct of the individual 
 who now represents the Fe'lei n,l Government may be reckoned 
 as one of the dangers which ihreaten its continuance. 
 
 Some persons in Europe h"-, e fon\ipd an opinion of the pos- 
 sible influence of General Javksori upoii the affairs of his coun- 
 try, which appears highly extravaga 1 •. > those who have seen 
 more of the subject. V/(. have been ^old that General Jackson 
 has won sundry battles, tiia* he is an jiiergetic man, prone by 
 nature and by habit to the \xtc 'i force, covetous of power, and 
 a despot by taste. All this may perhaps be true; but the in- 
 ferences which have been drawn from these truths are exceed- 
 ingly erroneous. It has been imagined that General Jackson 
 ■': bent on establishing a dictatorship in America, on introduc- 
 
 e This i.-"v was passed on March 2, 
 1833. 
 / This bill was brought in by Mr. 
 
 y, an'j it passed in four days through 
 :h Houses of Congress by an im- 
 
 Cla; 
 bot 
 mense maj.'^'ity. 
 
 I Ul 
 
 si 
 
 n 
 
420 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 M^ 
 
 ing a military spirit, and on giving a degree of influence to the 
 central authority which cannot but be dangerous to provincial 
 liberties. But in America the time for similar undertakings, 
 and the age for men of this kind, is not yet come: if General 
 Jackson had entertained a hope of exercising his authority in 
 this manner, he would infallibly have forfeited his political sta- 
 tion, and compromised his life; accordingly he has not been 
 so imprudent as to make any such attempt. 
 
 Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the Presi- 
 dent belongs to the party which is desirous of limitinjr that 
 power to the bare and precise letter of the Constitution, and 
 which never puts a construction upon that act favorable to the 
 Government of the Union; far from standing forth as the 
 champion of centralization. General Jackson is the agent of all 
 the jealousies of the States; and he was placed in the lofty 
 station he occupies by the passions of the people which are most 
 opposed to the central Government. It is by perpetually flat- 
 tering these passions that he maintains his station and his 
 popularity. General Jackson is the slave of the majority: he 
 yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands; say 
 rather, that he anticipates and forestalls them. 
 
 Whenever the governments of the States come into collision 
 with that of the Union, the President is generally the first to 
 question his own rights : he almost always outstrips the legis- 
 lature; and when the extent of the federal power is contro- 
 verted, he takes part, as it were, against himself; he conceals 
 his official interests, and extinguishes his own natural inclina- 
 tions. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile to the 
 Union ; for when the majority decided against the claims of the 
 partisans oi nullification, he put himself at its head, asserted the 
 doctrines which the nation held distinctly and energetically, 
 and was the first to recommend forcible measures ; but General 
 Jackson appears to me, if I may use the American expressions, 
 to be a Federalist by taste, and a Republican by calculation. 
 
 General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority, 
 but when he feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows 
 all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the commu- 
 nity approves, or of those which it does not look upon with a 
 jealous eye. He is supported by a power with which his pre- 
 decessors were unacquainted ; and he tramples on his per- 
 sonal enemies whenever they cross his path with a facility 
 
i 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 491 
 
 f' >- 
 
 which no former President ever enjoyed ; he takes upon himself 
 the responsibility of measures which no one before him would 
 have ventured to attempt: he even treats the national repre- 
 sentatives with disdain approaching to insult ; he puts his veto 
 upon the laws of Congress, and frequently neglects to reply 
 to that powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats 
 his master roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetual- 
 ly increases ; but that of the President declines ; in his hands the 
 Federal Government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into 
 the hands of his successor. 
 
 I am strangely mistaken if the Federal Government of the 
 United States be not constantly losing strength, retiring grad- 
 ually from public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action 
 more and more. It is naturally feeble, but it now abandons 
 even its pretensions to strength. On the other hand, I thought 
 that I remarked a more lively sense of independence, and a 
 more decided attachment to provincial government in the 
 States. The Union is to subsist, but to subsist as a shadow ; 
 it is to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all others; in 
 time of warfare, it is to be able to concentrate all the forces of 
 the nation and all the resources of the country in its hands ; and 
 in time of i)eace its existence is to be scarcely perceptible: a» 
 if this alternate debili'iy and vigor were natural or possible. 
 
 I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able 
 to check this general impulse of public opinion ; the causes in 
 which it originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. 
 The change will therefore go on, and it may be predicted 
 that, unless some extraordinary event occurs, the Government 
 of the Union will grow weaker and weaker every day. 
 
 I think, however, that the period is still remote at which the 
 federal power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to 
 protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union 
 is sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people ; its re- 
 sults are palpable, its benefits visible. When it is perceived 
 that the weakness of the Federal Government compromises the 
 existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take 
 place with a vievv to increase its strength. 
 
 The Government of the United States is, of all the federal 
 governments which have hitherto been established, the one 
 which is most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only 
 indirectly assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as 
 
 I' 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 i! 
 
 .; 
 

 / 
 
 422 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 long as its substance is not seriously altered, a change of opin 
 ion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor which 
 it requires. The point which I have been most anxious to put in 
 a clear light is simply this : Many people, especially in France, 
 imagine that a change in opinion is going on in the United 
 States, which is favorable to a centralization of power in the 
 hands of the President and the Congress. I hold that a con- 
 trary tendency may distinctly be observed. So far is the Fed- 
 eral Government from acquiring strength, and from threaten- 
 ing the sovereignty of the States, as it grows older, that I main- 
 tain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the sov- 
 ereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts 
 which the present time discloses. The future conceals the final 
 result of this tendency, and the events which may check, retard, 
 or accelerate the changes I have described ; but I do not affect 
 to be able to remove the veil 'v iiich hides them from our sight. 
 
 M 
 
 Of the Republican Institutions of the United States, 
 AND What Their Chances of Duration Are 
 
 The Union is accidental — The Republican institutions have more pros- 
 pect of pern: neiice — A republic for the present the natural state of 
 the Anglo-Americans — Reason of this — In order to destroy it, all 
 the laws niust be cha.iged at the same time, and a great alteration 
 take place m manners — Difficulties experienced by the Americans in 
 creating an aristocracy. 
 
 The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of 
 war into the heart of those States which are now confederate, 
 with standing armies, a dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, 
 might, eventually, compromise the fate of the republican in- 
 stitutions. But we ought not to confound the future prospects 
 of the republic with those of the Union. The Union is an ac- 
 cident, which will only last as long as circumstances are favor- 
 able to its existence; but a republican form of government 
 seems to me to be the natural state of the Americans ; which 
 nothing but the continued action of hostile causes, always act- 
 injT in the same direction, could change into a monarchy. The 
 Unio 1 exiles principally in the law which formed it; one revo- 
 lut;Oii, one change •"••• mblic opinion, might destroy it forever; 
 bur the republic has a much deeper foundation to rest upon. 
 
 What is understood by a republican government in the 
 United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself. 
 
 lii^^?:. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 423 
 
 It is a regular state of things really founded upon the enlight- 
 ened will of the people. It is a conciliatory government under 
 which resolutions are allowed time to ripen ; and in which they 
 are deliberately discussed, and executed with mature judgment. 
 The republicans in the United States set a high value upon 
 morality, respect religious belief, and acknowledge the exist- 
 ence of rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be 
 moral, religious, and temperate, in proportion as it is free. 
 What is called the republic in the United States, is the tranquil 
 rule of the majority, which, after having had time to examine 
 itself, and to give proof of its existence, is the common sou« ce 
 of all the powers of the State. But the power of the majority 
 is not of itself unlimiied. In the moral world humanity, jus- 
 tice, and reason enjoy an undisputed supremacy ; in the politi- 
 cal world vested rights are treated with no less deference. The 
 majority recognizes these two barriers ; and if it now and then 
 overstep them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, 
 and, like them, it is prone to do what is wrong, whilst it discerns 
 what is right. 
 
 But the demagogues of Europe have made strange dis- 
 coveries. A republic is not, according to them, the rule of 
 the majority, as has hitherto been thought, but the rule of 
 those who are strenuous partisans of the majority. It is not 
 the people who preponderates in this kind of government, 
 but those who are best versed in the good qualities of the 
 people. A happy distinction, which allows men to act in 
 the name of nations without consulting them, and to claim 
 their gratitude whilst their rights are spurned. A republican 
 government, moreover, is the only one which claims the 
 right of doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men 
 have hitherto respected, from the highest moral obligations to 
 the vulgar rules of common-sense. It had been supposed, until 
 our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form it 
 appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are 
 such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice, provided 
 they are exercised in the name of the people. 
 
 The ideas which the AmenVans have adopted respecting the 
 republican form of government, render it easy for them to live 
 under it, and insure its duration. If, in their country, this form 
 be often practically bad, at least it is theoretically good ; and, in 
 the end, the people always acts in conformity to it. 
 
 M|i 
 
 I 
 
 
 'i 
 
 ■ hi 
 
 I 
 
 
424 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 f ' ' L 
 
 ■l fl « 
 
 It was impossible at the foundation of the States, and it 
 would still be difficult, to establish a central administration in 
 America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too great a space, 
 and separated by too many natural obstacles, for one man to 
 undertake to direct the details of their existence. America is 
 therefore pre-eminently the country of provincial and municipal 
 government. To this cause, which was plainly felt by all the 
 Europeans of the New World, the Anglo-Americans added 
 several others peculiar to themselves. 
 
 At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies, 
 municipal liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well 
 as the manners of the English ; and the emigrants adopted it, 
 not only as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew 
 how to appreciate. We have already seen the manner in which 
 the colonies were founded: every province, and almost every 
 district, was peopled separately by men who were strangers to 
 each other, or who associated with very different purposes. 
 The English settlers in the United States, therefore, early per- 
 ceived that they were divided into a great number of small and 
 distinct communities which belonged to no common centre; 
 and that it was needful for each of these little communities to 
 take care of its own affairs, since there did not appear to be any 
 central authority which was naturally bound and easily enabled 
 to provide for them. Thus, the nature of the country, the man- 
 ner in which the British colonies were founded, the habits of 
 the first emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in 
 an extraordinary degree, municipal and provincial liberties. 
 
 In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions 
 of the country is essentially republican ; and in order perma- 
 nently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic, 
 it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once. At the 
 present day it would be even more difficult for a party to succeed 
 in founding a monarchy in the United States than for a set of 
 men to proclaim that France should henceforward be a republic. 
 Royalty would not find a system of legislation prepared for it be- 
 forehand ; and a monarchy would then exist, really surrounded 
 by republican institutions. The monarchical principle would 
 likewise have great difficulty in penetrating into the manners of 
 the Americans. 
 
 In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an 
 isolated doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners 
 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 425 
 
 and ideas of the people : it may, on the contrary, be regarded 
 as the iast link of a chain of opinions which binds the whole 
 Anglo-American world. That Providence has given to every 
 human being the degree of reason necessary to direct himself 
 in the affairs which interest him exclusively — such is the grand 
 maxim upon which civil and political society rests in the United 
 States. The father of a family applies it to his children ; the 
 master to his servants ; the township to its officers ; the province 
 to its townships ; the State to the provinces ; the Union to the 
 States ; and when extended to the nation, it becomes the doc- 
 trine of the sovereignty of the people. 
 
 Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the 
 republic is the same which governs the greater part of human 
 actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all the 
 ideas, opinions, and habits of the Americans, whilst they are 
 formerly recognized by the legislation : and before this legisla- 
 tion can be altered the whole community must undergo very 
 serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of 
 most of the citizens is republican, since it submits the truths of 
 the other v/orld to private judgment : as in politics the care of its 
 temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people. 
 Thus every man is allowed freely to take that road which he 
 thinks will lead him to heaven ; just as the law permits every 
 citizen to have the right of choosing his government. 
 
 It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all hav- 
 ing the same tendency, can substitute for this combination of 
 laws, opinions, and manners, a mass of opposite opinions, man- 
 ners, and laws. 
 
 If republican principles are to perish in America, they can 
 only yield after a laborious social process, often interrupted, 
 and as often resumed ; they will have many apparent revivals, 
 and will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people 
 shall have succeeded to that which now exists. Now, it must 
 be admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the approach 
 of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a per- 
 son newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultu- 
 ous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are 
 incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that 
 a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within 
 a short space of time, a completely new form of government. 
 Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability 
 
 :i I I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 1'^ 
 
 ?! 
 
426 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 )»;;, 
 
 which affects poHtical institutions is of two kinds, which ought 
 not to be confounded : the first, which modifies secondary laws, 
 is not incompatible with a very settled state of society ; the other 
 shakes the very foundations of the Constitution, and attacks 
 the fundamental principles of legislation ; this species of insta- 
 bility is always followed by trouble, and revolutions, and the 
 nation which suffers under it is in a sfat^ of violent transition. 
 
 Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative insta- 
 bility have no necessary connection ; for they have been found 
 united or separate, according to times and circumstances. The 
 first is common in the United States, but not the second : the 
 Americans often change their laws, but the foundation of the 
 Constitution is respected. 
 
 In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the 
 monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The 
 French of that period were not only friends of the monarchy, 
 but they thought it impossible to put anything in its place ; they 
 received it as we receive the rays of the sun and the return of 
 the seasons. Amongst them the royal power had neither ad- 
 vocates nor opponents. In like manner does the republican 
 government exist in A.merica, without contention or opposition ; 
 without proofs and arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort of 
 consensus universalis. It is, however, my opinion that by 
 changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the 
 inhabitant 5 of the United States compromise the future stability 
 of their government. 
 
 It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in 
 their designs by the mutability of the legislation, will learn to 
 look upon republican institutions as an inconvenient form of 
 society ; the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary 
 enactments might then raise a doubt as to the nature of the 
 fundamental principles of the Constitution, and indirectly bring 
 about a revolution ; but this epoch is still very remote. 
 
 It may, however, be foreseen even now, that when the Ameri- 
 cans lose their republican institutions they will speedily arrive 
 at a despotic government, without a long interval of limited 
 monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more ab- 
 solute than the authority of a prince who immediately succeeds 
 a republic, since the powers which had fearlessly been intrusted 
 to an elected magistrate are then transferred to a hereditary 
 sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more peculiarly 
 
 ■ \ 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 487 
 
 ds, which ought 
 secondary laws, 
 iciety ; the other 
 on, and attacks 
 jpccies of insta- 
 utiotis, and the 
 mt transition, 
 jgislative insta- 
 ave been found 
 nstances. The 
 :he second: the 
 jndation of the 
 
 \nierica, as the 
 4is XIV. The 
 the monarchy, 
 I its place ; they 
 d the return of 
 lad neither ad- 
 the republican 
 1 or opposition ; 
 ment, a sort of 
 linion that by 
 s they do, the 
 future stability 
 
 ly thwarted in 
 1, will learn to 
 anient form of 
 the secondary 
 nature of the 
 idirectly bring 
 lote. 
 
 len the Ameri- 
 ipeedily arrive 
 val of limited 
 g is more ab- 
 ately succeeds 
 been intrusted 
 ) a hereditary 
 ore peculiarly 
 
 applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the 
 magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens, but 
 by the majority of the nation ; they are the immediate repre- 
 sentatives if the passions of the multitude; and as they are 
 wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred 
 nor fear: hence, as 1 have already shown, very little care has 
 been taken to limit thei." influence, and they are left in posses- 
 sion of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of things has 
 engendered habits which would outlive itself; the American 
 magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to be 
 responsible for the exercise of it ; and it is impossible to say 
 what bounds could then be set to tyranny. 
 
 Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy 
 arise in America, and tbev already predict the exact period at 
 which it will be able to a? • the reins of government. I have 
 previously observed, am 'peat my assertion, that the present 
 tendency of American society appears to me to become more 
 and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that the 
 Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of 
 political rights in their country, or confiscate those rights to 
 the advantage of a single individual ; but I cannot imagine that 
 they will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a 
 privileged class of citizens, or, in other words, that they will 
 ever found an aristocracy. 
 
 An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citi- 
 zens who, without being very far removed from the mass of the 
 people, are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a 
 body which it is easy to touch and difficult to strike ; with which 
 the people are in daily contact, but with which they can never 
 combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to nature 
 and to the secret propensities of the human heart than a sub- 
 jection of this kind ; and men who are left to follow their own 
 bent will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the regu- 
 lar administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions 
 cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a 
 fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation, 
 affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects 
 that of society ; but these are things so repugnant to natural 
 equity that they can only be extorted from men by constraint. 
 
 T do not think a single people can be quoted, since human 
 society began to exist, which has, by its own free will and by 
 
 ii 
 
 i 
 
 jI 
 
 ' ■*-^*aw»???»«.'»ft^*e!Piw**rli 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 // 
 
 iL 
 
 4 
 
 
 V 
 
 i/.J 
 
 % 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 
 2.5 
 2.2 
 
 1.8 
 
 11.25 ill 1.4 i 1.6 
 
 ^^ 
 
 <^ 
 
 /2 
 
 
 7 
 
 "r> 
 ■> 
 
 '^ 
 
 7 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 873-4503 
 
428 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom. 
 AH the aristocracies of the Middle Ages were founded by mili- 
 tary conquest ; the conqueror was the noble, the vanquished be- 
 came the serf. Inequality was then imposed by force ; and after 
 it had been introduced into the maners of the country it main- 
 tained its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation. 
 Communities have existed which were aristocratic from their 
 earliest origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event, 
 and which became more democratic in each succeeding age. 
 Such was the destiny of the Romans, and of the barbarians after 
 them. But a people, having taken its rise in civilization and 
 democracy, which should gradually establish an inequality of 
 conditions, until it arrived at inviolable privileges and exclusive 
 castes, would be a novelty in the world ; and nothing intimates 
 that America is likely to furnish so singular an example. 
 
 ft 
 
 
 II) 
 
 Reflection on the Causes of the Commercial Prosperity 
 OF THE United States 
 
 The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime people — 
 Extent of their coasts — Depth of their ports — Size of their rivers — 
 The commercial superiority of the Anglo-Americans less attributable, 
 however, to physical circumstances than to moral and intellectual 
 causes — Reason of this opinion — Future destiny of the Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans as a commercial nation — The dissolution of the Union would 
 not check the maritime vigor of the States — Reason of this — Anglo- 
 Americans will naturally supply the wants of the inhabitants of 
 South America — They will become, like the English, the factors of 
 a great portion of the world. 
 
 The coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the 
 Sabine River in the Gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand 
 miles in extent. These shores form an unbroken line, and they 
 are all subject to the same government. No nation in the world 
 possesses vaster, deeper, or more secure ports for shipping 
 than the Americans. 
 
 The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civil- 
 ized people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an unculti- 
 vated country at a distance of three thousand miles from the 
 central point of civilization. America consequently stands in 
 daily need of European trade. The Americans will, no doubt, 
 ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home 
 most of the articles which they require ; but the two continents 
 
I (I 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 429 
 
 can never be independent of each other, so numerous are the 
 natural ties which exist between their wants, their ideas, their 
 habits, and their manners. 
 
 The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now 
 become necessary to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can 
 only be raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. 
 The Americans only consume a small portion of this produce, 
 and they are willing to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore the 
 market of America, as America is the market of Europe ; and 
 maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhab- 
 itants of the United States to transport their raw materials to 
 the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with 
 our manufactured produce. The United States were therefore 
 necessarily reduced to the alternative of increasing the business 
 of other maritime nations to a great extent, if they had them- 
 selves declined to enter into commerce, as the Spaniards of 
 Mexico have hitherto done ; or, in the second place, of becom- 
 ing one of the first trading powers of the globe. 
 
 The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided 
 taste for the sea. The Declaration of Independence broke the 
 commercial restrictions which united them to England, and 
 gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. 
 Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union has increased 
 in almost the same rapid proportion as the number of its in 
 habitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their 
 own shores nine-tenths of the European produce which they 
 consume.? And they also bring three-quarters of the exports 
 of the New World to the European consumer.* The ships of 
 the United States fill the docks of Havre and of Liverpool; 
 whilst the number of English and French vessels which are to 
 be seen at New York is comparatively small.* 
 
 I:. 
 
 gThe total value of goods imported 
 during the year which ended on Septem- 
 ber 30, 1832, was $101,129,366. The value 
 of the cargoes of foreign vessels did not 
 amount to $10,731,039, or about one- 
 tenth of the entire sum. . 
 
 h The value of goods exported dunng 
 the same year amounted to $87,176,943; 
 the value of goods exported by foreign 
 vessels amounted to $21,036,183, or about 
 one quarter of the whole sum. (Will- 
 iams's " Register," 1833. p. 39?.) . . , 
 
 «The tonnage of the vessels which 
 entered all the ports of the Union in the 
 years 1829, 1830. and 1831, amounted to 
 
 ? 1.307,719 tons, of which S44.S7« tons were 
 oreign vessels; they stood, therefore, to 
 the American vessels in a ratio of about 
 16 to 100. (" National Calendar," 1833. 
 
 p. 304.) The tonnage of the English 
 vessels which entered the ports of Lon- 
 don, Liverpool, and Hull, in the ycnrs 
 i8ao, 1826, and 1831, amounted to 443.800 
 tons. The foreign vessels which entered 
 the same ports during the same years 
 amounted to 159.431 tons. The ratio be- 
 tween them was, therefore, about 36 to 
 100. (" Companion to the Almanac^," 
 1834, p. 160.) In the year 1833 the ratio 
 between the foreign and British ships 
 which entered the ports of Great Britam 
 was 29 to 100. [These statements relate 
 to a condition of affa'rs which has 
 ceased to exist; the Civil War and the 
 heavy taxation of th^ United States en- 
 tirely altered the trade and navigation 
 of tlie country.] 
 
 ' ■'*^«**«wn«f **a^D'aaii-,:-._-i. 
 
i 
 
 430 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 t ( 
 
 Thus, not only does the American merchant face the compe- 
 tition of his own countrymen, but he even supports that of for- 
 eign nations in their own ports with success. This is readily 
 explained by the fact that the vessels of the United Stater can 
 cross the seas at a cheaper rate than any other vessels in the 
 world. As long as the mercantile shipping of the United 
 States preserves this superiority, it will not only retain what it 
 has acquired, but it will constantly increase in prosperity. 
 
 It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade 
 at a lower rate than other nations ; and one is at first led to 
 attribute this circumstance to the physical or natural advan- 
 tages which are within their reach ; but this supposition is er- 
 roneous. The American vessels cost almost as much to build 
 as our own ; / they are not better built, and they generally last 
 for a shorter time. The pay of the American sailor is more con- 
 siderable than the pay on board European ships; which is 
 proved by the great number of Europeans who are to be met 
 with in the merchant vessels of the United States. But I am 
 of opinion that the true cause of their superiority must not be 
 sought for in physical advantages, but that it is wholly attribut- 
 able to their moral and intellectual qualities. 
 
 The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. Dur- , 
 ing the campaigns of the Revolution the French introduced a 
 new system of tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the 
 oldest generals, and very nearly destroyed the most ancient 
 monarchies in Europe. They undertook (what had never before 
 been attempted) to make shift without a number of things which 
 had always been held to be indispensable in warfare ; they re- 
 quired novel exertions on the part of their troops which no civ- 
 ilized nations had ever thought of ; they achieved great actions 
 in an incredibly short space of time ; and they risked human life 
 without hesitation to obtain the object in view. The French 
 had less money and fewer men than their enemies; their re- 
 sources were infinitely inferior; nevertheless they were con- 
 stantly victorious, until their adversaries chose to imitate their 
 example. 
 
 The Americans have introduced a similar system into their 
 commercial speculations ; and they do for cheapness what the 
 French did for conquest. The European sailor navigates with 
 
 ? 
 
 /Materials are, generally speaking, 
 less expensive in America than in Eu* 
 
 rope, but the price of labor is much 
 higher. 
 
« t 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 431 
 
 prudence ; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable ; if an 
 unforeseen accident befalls him, he puts into port ; at night he 
 furls a portion of his canvas ; and when the whitening billows 
 intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and takes an 
 observation of the sun. But the American neglects these pre- 
 cautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the 
 midst of tempestuous gales ; by night and by day he spreads his 
 sheets to the wind ; he repairs as he goes along such damage as 
 his vessel may have sustained from the storm ; and when he at 
 last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the 
 shore as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often 
 shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And 
 as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can 
 perform it at a cheaper rate. 
 
 The European touches several times at different ports in the 
 course of a long voyage ; he loses a good deal of precious time 
 in making the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to 
 leave it ; and he pays daily dues to be allowed to remain there. 
 The American starts from Boston to go to purchase tea in 
 China ; he arrives at Canton, stays there a few days, and then 
 returns. In less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire 
 circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It 
 is true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk 
 brackish water and lived upon salt meat ; that he has been in a 
 continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with a tedious 
 existence ; but upon his return he can sell a pound of his tea for 
 a half-penny less than the English merchant, and his purpose is 
 accomplished. 
 
 I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the 
 Americans affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. 
 But the European merchant will always find it very difficult to 
 imitate his American competitor, who, in adopting the system 
 which I have just described, follows not only a calculation of his 
 gain, but an impulse of his nature. 
 
 The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all the 
 wants and all the desires which result from an advanced stage 
 of civilization ; but as they are not surrounded by a community 
 admirably adapted, like that of Europe, to satisfy their wants, 
 they are often obliged to procure for themselves the various 
 articles which education and habit have rendered necessaries. 
 In America it sometimes happens that the same individual tills 
 
 
 1! 
 
 : 
 
DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 his field, builds his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his 
 shoes, and weaves the coarse stuff of which his dress is com- 
 posed. This circumstance is prejudicial to the excellence of the 
 work ; but it powerfully contributes to awaken the intelligence 
 of the workman. Nothing tends to materalize man, and to de- 
 prive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme 
 division of labor. In a country like America, where men de- 
 voted to special occupations are rare, a long apprenticeship 
 cannot be required from anyone who embraces a profession. 
 The Americans, therefore, change their means of gaining a 
 livelihood very readily ; and they suit their occupations to the 
 exigencies of the moment, in the manner most profitable to 
 themselves. Men are to be met with who have successively 
 been barristers, farmers, merchants, ministers of the gospel, 
 and physicians. If the American be less perfect in each craft 
 than the European, at least there is scarcely any trade with 
 which he is utterly unacquainted. His capacity is more general, 
 and the circle of his intelligence is enlarged. 
 
 The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by 
 the axioms of their profession ; they escape from all the pre- 
 judices of their present station ; they are not more attached to 
 one line of operation than to another ; they are not more prone 
 to employ an old method than a new one ; they have no rooted 
 habits, and they easily shake off the influence which the habits 
 of other nations might exercise upon their minds from a con- 
 viction that their country is unlike any other, and that its situa- 
 tion is without a precedent in the world. America is a land of 
 wonders, in which everything is in constant motion, and every 
 movement seems an improvement. The idea of novelty is there 
 indissolubly connected with the idea of amelioration. No nat- 
 ural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man ; and what 
 is not yet done is only what he has not yet attempted to do. 
 
 This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, 
 these frequent vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such un- 
 foreseen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve to 
 keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish 
 agitation, which admirably invigorates their exertions, and 
 keeps them in a state of excitement above the ordinary level of 
 mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game 
 of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. As the same 
 causes are continually in operation throughout the country, 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 433 
 
 they ultimately impart an irresistible impulse to the national 
 character. The American, taken as a chance specimen of his 
 countrymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in his de- 
 sires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and, above all, of innova- 
 tion. The same bent is manifest in all that he does ; he intro- 
 duces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his 
 theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations ; he 
 bears it with him in the depths of the backwoods, as well as in 
 the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to mari- 
 time commerce, which makes him the cheapest and the quickest 
 trader in the world. 
 
 As long as the sailors of the United States retain these in- 
 spiriting advantages, and the practical superiority which they 
 derive from them, they will not only continue to supply the 
 wants of the producers and consumers of their own country, 
 but they will tend more and more to become, like the English, 
 the factors of all other peoples.* This prediction has already 
 begun to be realized ; we perceive that the American traders 
 are introducing themselves as intermediate agents in the com- 
 merce of several European nations ; I and America will offer a 
 still wider field to their enterprise. 
 
 The great colonies which were founded in South America by 
 the Spaniards and the Portuguese have since become empires. 
 Civil war and oppression now lay waste those extensive regions. 
 Population does not increase, and the thinly scattered inhab- 
 itants are too much absorbed in the cares of self-defense even 
 to attempt any amelioration of their condition. Such, however, 
 will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own 
 efforts in piercing the gloom of the Middle Ages ; South Amer- 
 ica has the same Christian laws and Christian manners as we 
 have; she contains all the germs of civilization which have 
 grown amidst the nations of Europe or their offsets, added to 
 the advantages to be derived from our example: why then 
 should she always remain uncivilized ? It is clear that the ques- 
 tion is simply one of time ; at some future period, which may 
 
 k It must not be supposed that En?- 
 lish vessels are exclusively employed in 
 transportinR foreign produce into Eng- 
 land, or British produce to foreign 
 countries; at the present day the mer- 
 chant shipping of England may be re- 
 garded in the light of a vast system of 
 public conveyances, ready to serve all 
 
 Vol. I.— 28 
 
 the producers of the world, and to open 
 communications between all peoples. 
 The maritime genius of the Americans 
 prompts them to enter into competition 
 with the English. 
 
 / Part of the commerce of the Medi- 
 terranean is already carried on by 
 American vessels. 
 
434 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 be more or less remote, the inhabitants of South America will 
 constitute flourishing and enlightened nations. 
 
 But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America 
 begin to feel the wants common to all civilized nations, they 
 will still be unable to satisfy those wants for themselves; as 
 the youngest children of civilization, they must perforce admit 
 the superiority of their elder brethren. They will be agricul- 
 turists long before they succeed in manufactures or commerce, 
 and they will require the mediation of strangers to exchange 
 their produce beyond seas for those articles for which a de- 
 mand will begin to be felt. 
 
 It is unquestionable that the Americans of the North will one 
 day supply the wants of the Americans of the South. Nature 
 has placed them in contiguity, and has furnished the former 
 with every means of knowing and appreciating those demands, 
 of establishing a permanent connection with those States, and 
 of gradually filling their markets. The merchants of the United 
 States could only forfeit these natural advantages if he were 
 very inferior to the merchant of Europe ; to whom he is, on the 
 contrary, superior in several respects. The Americans of the 
 United States already exercise a very considerable moral in- 
 fluence upon all the peoples of the New World. They are the 
 source of intelligence, and all the nations which inhabit the 
 same continent are already accustomed to consider them as the 
 most enlightened, the most powerful, and the most wealthy 
 members of the great American family. All eyes are therefore 
 turned towards the Union ; and the States of which that body is 
 composed are the models which the other communities try to 
 imitate to the best of their power ; it is from the United States 
 that they borrow their political principles and their laws. 
 
 The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the 
 same position with regard to the peoples of South America as 
 their fathers, the English, occupy with regard to the Italians, 
 the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and all those nations of Europe 
 which receive their articles of daily consumption from England, 
 because they are less advanced in civilization and trade. Eng- 
 land is at this time the natural emporium of almost all the 
 nations which are within its reach; the American Union 
 will perform the same part in the other hemisphere ; and every 
 community which is founded, or which prospers in the New 
 World, is founded and prospers to the advantage of the Anglo- 
 Americans. 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 435 
 
 If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the States 
 which now compose it would undoubtedly be checked for a 
 time; but this consequence would be less perceptible than is 
 generally supposed. It is evident that, whatever may happen, 
 the commercial States will remain united. They are all con- 
 tiguous to each other ; they have identically the same opinions, 
 interests, and manners ; and they are alone competent to form a 
 very great maritime power. Even if the South of the Union 
 were to become independent of the North, it would still require 
 the services of those States. I have already observed that the 
 South is not a commercial country, and nothing intimates that 
 it is likely to become so. The Americans of the South of the 
 United States will therefore be obliged, for a long time to come, 
 to have recourse to strangers to export their produce, and to 
 supply them with the commodities which are requisite to satisfy 
 their wants. But the Northern States are undoubtedly able to 
 act as their intermediate agents cheaper than any other mer- 
 chants. They will therefore retain that employment, for cheap- 
 ness is the sovereign law of commerce. National claims and 
 national prejudices cannot resist the influence of cheapness. 
 Nothing can be more virulent than the hatred which exists be- 
 tween the Americans of the United States and the English. But 
 notwithstanding these inimical feelings, the Americans derive 
 the greater part of their manufactured commodities from Eng- 
 land, because England supplies them at a cheaper rate than 
 any other nation. Thus the increasing prosperity of America 
 turns, notwithstanding the grudges of the Americans, to the ad- 
 vantage of British manufactures. 
 
 Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial 
 prosperity can be durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, 
 to naval force. This truth is as well understood in the United 
 States ix> ';'. can be anywhere else : the Americans are already 
 able to make their flag respected ; in a few years they will be 
 able to make it feared. I am convinced that the dismemberment 
 of the Union would not have the eflfect of diminishing the naval 
 power of the Americans, but that it would powerfully con- 
 tribute to increase it. At the present time the commercial 
 States are connected with others which have not the same inter- 
 ests, and which frequently yield an unwiHing consent to the in- 
 crease of a maritime power by which they are only indirectly 
 benefited. If, on the contrary, the commercial States of the 
 
43^ 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 Union formed one independent nation, commerce would be- 
 come the foremost of their national interests ; they would con- 
 sequently be willing to make very great sacrifices to protect 
 their shipping, and nothing would prevent them from pursuing 
 their designs upon this point. 
 
 Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most 
 prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. 
 When I contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Ameri- 
 cans prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which be- 
 friend them, and the success of their undertakings, I cannot re- 
 frain from believing that they will one day become the first 
 maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, 
 as the Romans were to conquer the world. 
 
 • . "■ 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry ; hitherto, 
 in speaking of the future destiny of the United States, I have 
 endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order 
 to study each of them with more attention. My present object 
 is to embrace the whole from one single point ; the remarks I 
 shall make will be less detailed, but they v/ill be more sure. I 
 shall perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the 
 principal facts with more certainty. A traveller who has just 
 left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill ; 
 as he goes farther oft he loses sight of the men whom he has so 
 recently quitted ; their dwellings are confused in a dense mass ; 
 he can no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can 
 scarcely trace out the great thoroughfares ; but his eye has less 
 difHculty in following the boundaries of the city, and for the 
 first time he sees the shape of the vast whole. Such is the future 
 destiny of the British race in North America to my eye ; the de- 
 tails of the stupendous picture are overhung with shade, but I 
 conceive a clear idea of the entire subject. 
 
 The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States 
 of America forms about one-twentieth part of the habitable 
 earth. But extensive as these confines are, it must not be sup- 
 posed that the Anglo-American race will always remain with- 
 in them ; indeed, it has already far overstepped them. 
 
 There was once a time at which we also might have created 
 a great French nation in the American wilds, to counterbal- 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 437 
 
 ance the influence of the English upon the destinies of the New 
 World, France formerly possessed a territory in North Amer- 
 ica, scarcely less extensive than the whole of Europe. The three 
 greatest rivers of that continent then flowed within her do- 
 minions. The Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of 
 the St. Lawrence and the delta of the Mississippi were unac- 
 customed to any other tongue but ours ; and all the European 
 settlements scattered over that immense region recalled the 
 traditions of our country. Louisbourg, Montmorency, Du- 
 quesne, St. Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans (for such were the 
 names they bore) are words dear to France and familiar to our 
 ears. 
 
 But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious 
 to enumerate,*" have deprived us of this magnificent inheritance. 
 Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and par- 
 tially established, they have disappeared : those who remain are 
 collected on a small extent of country, and are now subject to 
 other laws. The 400,000 French inhabitants of Lower Canada 
 constitute, at the present time, the remnant of an old nation 
 lost in the midst of a new people. A foreign population is in- 
 creasing around them unceasingly and on all sides, which al- 
 ready penetrates amongst the ancient masters of the country, 
 predominates in their cities and corrupts their language. This 
 population is identical with that of the United States; it is 
 therefore with truth that I asserted that the British race is not 
 confined within the frontiers of the Union, since it already ex- 
 tends to the northeast. 
 
 To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few in- 
 significant Russian settlements ; but to the southwest, Mexico 
 presents a barrier to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Span- 
 iards and the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only 
 two races which divide the possession of the New World. The 
 limits of separation between them have been settled by a treaty ; 
 but although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly fav- 
 orable to the Anglo-Americans, I do not doubt that they will 
 shortly infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending 
 beyond the frontiers of the Union towards Mexico, are still 
 destitute of inhabitants. The natives of the United States will 
 
 wThe foremost of these circum- 
 stances is, that nations which are accus- 
 tomed to free institutions and municipal 
 government are better able than any 
 others to found prosperous colonies. The 
 
 habit of thinking and Koverning for one- 
 self is indispensable in a new country, 
 where success necessarily depends, in a 
 frreat measure, upon the individual ex- 
 ertions of the settlers. 
 
438 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 forestall the rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They 
 will take possession of the soil, and establish social institutions, 
 so that when the legal owner arrives at length, he will find the 
 wilderness under cultivation, and strangers quietly settled in the 
 midst of his inheritance." 
 
 The lands of the New World belong to the first occupant and 
 they are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even the 
 countries which are already peopled will have some difliculty 
 in securing themselves from this invasion. I have already al- 
 luded to what is taking place in the province of Texas. The 
 inhabitants of the United States are perpetually migrating to 
 Texas, where they purchase land ; and although they conform 
 to the laws of the country, they are gradually founding the em- 
 pire of their own language and their own manners. The prov- 
 ince of Texas is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will 
 soon contain no Mexicans ; the same thing has occurred when- 
 ever the Anglo-Americans have come into contact with popula- 
 tions of a different origin. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an 
 amazing preponderance over all the other European races in 
 the New World ; and that it is very superior to them in civiliza- 
 tion, in industry, and in power. As long as it is only surrounded 
 by desert or thinly peopled countries, as long as it encounters no 
 dense populations upon its route, through which it cannot work 
 its way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked 
 out by treaties will not stop it ; but it will everywhere transgress 
 these imaginary barriers. 
 
 The geographical position of the British race in the New 
 World is peculiarly favorable to its rapid increase. Above its 
 northern frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend ; and a few 
 degrees below its southern confines lies the burning climate of 
 the Equator. The Anglo-Americans are, therefore, placed in 
 the most temperate and habitable zone of the continent. 
 
 It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of popu- 
 lation in the United States is posterior to their Declaration of 
 Independence. But this is an error : the population increased 
 as rapidly under the colonial system as it does at the present 
 day ; that is to say, it doubled in about twenty-two years. But 
 this proportion, which is now applied to millions, was then 
 
 n [This was speedily accomplished, Russian settlements were acquired by 
 and ere long both Texas and California purchase.] 
 formed part of the United States. The 
 
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 439 
 
 applied to thousands uf inhabitants ; and the same (act which 
 was scarcely noticeable a century ago, is now evident to every 
 observer. 
 
 The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king, 
 augment and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers of 
 the United States, who live under a republican government. 
 During the war of independence, which lasted eight years, the 
 population continued to increase without intermission in the 
 same ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied with the 
 English existed at that time upon the western frontiers, the 
 emigration westward was never checked. Whilst the enemy 
 laid waste the shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western 
 parts of Pennsylvania, and the States of Vermont and of Maine 
 were filling with inhabitants. Nor did the unsettled state of 
 the Constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase 
 of the population, or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, 
 the difference of laws, the various conditions of peace and war, 
 of order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible influ- 
 ence upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. 
 This may be readily understood ; for the fact is, that no causes 
 are sufficiently general to exercise a simultaneous influence 
 over the whole of so extensive a territory. One portion of the 
 country always offers a sure retreat from the calamities which 
 afflict another part ; and however great may be the evil, the 
 remedy which is at hand is greater still. 
 
 It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British 
 race in the New World can be arrested. The dismemberment o' 
 the Union, and the hostilities which might ensue, the abolition 
 of republican institutions, and the tyrannical government which , 
 might succeed it, may retard this impulse, but they cannot pre- 
 vent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies to which that race 
 is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the emigrants 
 that fertile wilderness which oflfers resources to all industry, 
 and a refuge from all want. Future events, of whatever nature 
 they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their climate or 
 of their inland seas, of their great rivers or of their exuberant 
 soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and anarchy be able to 
 obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise 
 which seem to be the distinctive characteristics of their race, or 
 to extinguish that knowledge which guides them on their way. 
 
 Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 440 
 
 DE TQCQUEVILLE 
 
 w 
 
 ' 1 
 
 I I 
 
 is sure. At a period which may be said to be near (for we are 
 speaking of the Hfe of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone 
 cover the immense space contained between the polar regions 
 and the tropics, extending from the coasts of the Atlantic to the 
 shores of the Pacific Ocean. The territory which will probably 
 be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at some future time, may 
 be computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in extent." The 
 climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to that of 
 Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it is 
 therefore evident that its population will at some future time be 
 proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so 
 many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant 
 wars and the barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has not- 
 withstanding attained a population of 410 inhabitants to the 
 square league./* What cause can prevent the United States 
 from having as numerous a population in time ? 
 
 Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the Brit- 
 ish race in America cease to present the same homogeneous 
 characteristics: and the time cannot be foreseen at which a 
 permanent inequality of conditions will be established in the 
 New World. Whatever differences may arise, from peace or 
 from war, from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or want, 
 between the destinies of the different descendants of the great 
 Anglo-American family; they will at least preserve an analogous 
 social condition, and they will hold in common the customs and 
 the opinions to which that social condition has given birth. 
 
 In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently power- 
 ful to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the 
 same civilization. The British of the New World have a thou- 
 sand other reciprocal ties ; and they live at a time when the 
 tendency to equality is general amongst mankind. The Middle 
 Ages were a period when everything was broken up; when 
 each people, each province, each city, and each family, had a 
 strong tendency to maintain its distinct individuality. At the 
 present time an opposite tendency seems to prevail, and the 
 nations seem to be advancing to unity. Our means of intel- 
 
 o The United States already extend 
 over a territory equal to one-half of 
 Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 
 square leagues, and its nonulntion 205.- 
 000,000 of inhabitants. (" Make Brun," 
 liv. 114. vol. vi. p. 4.) 
 
 TThis computation is given in French 
 leagues, which were in use when the au- 
 
 thor wrote. Twenty years later, in 1850, 
 the superficial area of the United States 
 had been extended to 3,306,865 square 
 miles of territory, which is about the 
 area of Europe.]" 
 
 p See •' Malte Brun," liv. u6, vol. vi. 
 p. 92. 
 
./ 
 
 DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA 
 
 441 
 
 lectual intercourse unite the most remote parts of the earth; 
 and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to each other, 
 or to be ignorant of the events which are taking place in any 
 corner of the globe. The consequence is that there is less dif- 
 ference, at the present day, between the Europeans and their 
 descendants in the New World, than there was between certain 
 towns in the thirteenth century which were only separated by a 
 river. If this tendency to assimilation brings foreign nations 
 closer to each other, it must d fortiori prevent the descendants 
 of the same people from becoming aliens to each other. 
 
 The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty 
 millions of men will be living in North America,^ equal in con- 
 dition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same 
 cause, and preserving the same civilization, the same language, 
 the same religion, the same habits, the same manners, and im- 
 bued with the same opinions, propagated under the same forms. 
 The rest is uncertain, but this is certain ; and it is a fact new to 
 the world — a fact fraught with such portentous consequences 
 as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination. 
 
 There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world 
 which seem to tend towards the same end, although they started 
 from diflferent points : I allude to the Russians and the Ameri- 
 cans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed ; and whilst the 
 attention of mankind was directed elsewhere, they have sud- 
 denly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations ; 
 and the world learned their existence and their greatness at al- 
 most the same time. 
 
 All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural 
 limits, and only to be charged with the maintenance of their 
 power ; but these are still in the act of growth ; r all the others 
 are stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; 
 these are proceeding with ease and with celerity along a path 
 to which the human eye can assign no term. The American 
 struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him ; the 
 adversaries of the Russian are men ; the former combats the 
 wilderness and savage life ; the latter, civilization with all its 
 weapons and its arts : the conquests of the one are therefore 
 gained by the ploughshare ; those of the other by the sword. 
 
 1/ <". 
 
 
 9 This would be a population propor- 
 tionate to that of Europe, taken at a 
 mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the 
 square league. 
 
 r Russia is the country in the Old 
 World in which population increases 
 most rapidly in proportion. 
 
 y 
 
1 
 •■(1 
 
 442 
 
 DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 The Anglo- American relies upon personal interest to accom-, 
 plish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions 
 and common-sense of the citizens ; the Russian centres all the 
 authority of society in a single arm : the principal instrument 
 of the former is freedom ; of the latter servitude. Their start- 
 ing-point is different, and their courses are not the same ; yet 
 each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven 
 to sway the destinies of half the globe. 
 
 / 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
) accom-, 
 exertions 
 es all the 
 strument 
 eir start- 
 ,me; yet 
 Heaven 
 
 W 
 
 s-1 
 
 i 
 
 ■y^.