Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.

First published 1835-1840. This translation by Henry Reeve was first published in 1848.
This ebook edition was created and published by Global Grey in 2020,
and updated on the 27th February 2024.
The artwork used for the cover is ‘John Hancock’
painted by John Singleton Copley.
This book can be found on the site here:
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Contents
Book One
Introductory Chapter
I. Exterior Form Of North America
II. Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part 1
II. Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part 2
III. Social Conditions Of The Anglo-Americans
IV. The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America
V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part 1
V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part 2
V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part 3
VI. Judicial Power In The United States
VII. Political Jurisdiction In The United States
VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 1
Summary Of The Federal Constitution
VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 2
VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 3
VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 4
VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 5
IX. Why The People May Strictly Be Said To Govern In The United States
X. Parties In The United States
XI. Liberty Of The Press In The United States
XII. Political Associations In The United States
XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—Part 1
XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—Part 2
XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—Part 3
XIV. Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part 1
XIV. Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part 2
XV. Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part 1
XV. Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part 2
XVI. Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part 1
XVI. Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part 2
XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic—Part 1
 XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic—Part 2
XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic—Part 3
XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic Republic—Part 4
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races In The United States—Part 1
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 2
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 3
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 4
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 5
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 6
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 7
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 8
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 9
XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 10
Conclusion
Book Two
De Tocqueville’s Preface To The Second Part
Section I. Influence Of Democracy On The Action Of Intellect In The United States
I. Philosophical Method Among The Americans
II. Of The Principal Source Of Belief Among Democratic Nations
III. Why The Americans Display More Readiness And More Taste For General Ideas
Than Their Forefathers, The English
IV. Why The Americans Have Never Been So Eager As The French For General Ideas
In Political Matters
V. Of The Manner In Which Religion In The United States Avails Itself Of Democratic
Tendencies
VI. Of The Progress Of Roman Catholicism In The United States
VII. Of The Cause Of A Leaning To Pantheism Amongst Democratic Nations
VIII. The Principle Of Equality Suggests To The Americans The Idea Of The Indefinite
Perfectibility Of Man
IX. The Example Of The Americans Does Not Prove That A Democratic People Can
Have No Aptitude And No Taste For Science, Literature, Or Art
X. Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical Than To Theoretical Science
XI. Of The Spirit In Which The Americans Cultivate The Arts
XII. Why The Americans Raise Some Monuments So Insignificant, And Others So
Important
XIII. Literary Characteristics Of Democratic Ages
XIV. The Trade Of Literature
 XV. The Study Of Greek And Latin Literature Peculiarly Useful In Democratic
Communities
XVI. The Effect Of Democracy On Language
XVII. Of Some Of The Sources Of Poetry Amongst Democratic Nations
XVIII. Of The Inflated Style Of American Writers And Orators
XIX. Some Observations On The Drama Amongst Democratic Nations
XX. Characteristics Of Historians In Democratic Ages
XXI. Of Parliamentary Eloquence In The United States
Section II. Influence Of Democracy On The Feelings Of Americans
I. Why Democratic Nations Show A More Ardent And Enduring Love Of Equality
Than Of Liberty
II. Of Individualism In Democratic Countries
III. Individualism Stronger At The Close Of A Democratic Revolution Than At Other
Periods
IV. That The Americans Combat The Effects Of Individualism By Free Institutions
V. Of The Use Which The Americans Make Of Public Associations In Civil Life
VI. Of The Relation Between Public Associations And Newspapers
VII. Connection Of Civil And Political Associations
VIII. The Americans Combat Individualism By The Principle Of Interest Rightly
Understood
IX. That The Americans Apply The Principle Of Interest Rightly Understood To
Religious Matters
X. Of The Taste For Physical Well-Being In America
XI. Peculiar Effects Of The Love Of Physical Gratifications In Democratic Ages
XII. Causes Of Fanatical Enthusiasm In Some Americans
XIII. Causes Of The Restless Spirit Of Americans In The Midst Of Their Prosperity
XIV. Taste For Physical Gratifications United In America To Love Of Freedom And
Attention To Public Affairs
XV. That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns The Thoughts Of The Americans To
Immaterial Pleasures
XVI. That Excessive Care Of Worldly Welfare May Impair That Welfare
XVII. That In Times Marked By Equality Of Conditions And Sceptical Opinions, It Is
Important To Remove To A Distance The Objects Of Human Actions
XVIII. That Amongst The Americans All Honest Callings Are Honorable
XIX. That Almost All The Americans Follow Industrial Callings
XX. That Aristocracy May Be Engendered By Manufactures
Book Three
 I. That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions Become More Equal
II. That Democracy Renders The Habitual Intercourse Of The Americans Simple And Easy
III. Why The Americans Show So Little Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So
Sensitive In Europe
IV. Consequences Of The Three Preceding Chapters
V. How Democracy Affects The Relation Of Masters And Servants
VI. That Democratic Institutions And Manners Tend To Raise Rents And Shorten The
Terms Of Leases
VII. Influence Of Democracy On Wages
VIII. Influence Of Democracy On Kindred
IX. Education Of Young Women In The United States
X. The Young Woman In The Character Of A Wife
XI. That The Equality Of Conditions Contributes To The Maintenance Of Good Morals In
America
XII. How The Americans Understand The Equality Of The Sexes
XIII. That The Principle Of Equality Naturally Divides The Americans Into A Number Of
Small Private Circles
XIV. Some Reflections On American Manners
XV. Of The Gravity Of The Americans, And Why It Does Not Prevent Them From Often
Committing Inconsiderate Actions
XVI. Why The National Vanity Of The Americans Is More Restless And Captious Than
That Of The English
XVII. That The Aspect Of Society In The United States Is At Once Excited And
Monotonous
XVIII. Of Honor In The United States And In Democratic Communities
XIX. Why So Many Ambitious Men And So Little Lofty Ambition Are To Be Found In
The United States
XX. The Trade Of Place-Hunting In Certain Democratic Countries
XXI. Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare
XXII. Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous Of Peace, And Democratic
Armies Of War
XXIII. Which Is The Most Warlike And Most Revolutionary Class In Democratic Armies?
XXIV. Causes Which Render Democratic Armies Weaker Than Other Armies At The
Outset Of A Campaign, And More Formidable In Protracted Warfare
XXV. Of Discipline In Democratic Armies
XXVI. Some Considerations On War In Democratic Communities
Book Four
I. That Equality Naturally Gives Men A Taste For Free Institutions
 II. That The Notions Of Democratic Nations On Government Are Naturally Favorable To
The Concentration Of Power
III. That The Sentiments Of Democratic Nations Accord With Their Opinions In Leading
Them To Concentrate Political Power
IV. Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which Either Lead A People To Complete
Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert Them From It
V. That Amongst The European Nations Of Our Time The Power Of Governments Is
Increasing, Although The Persons Who Govern Are Less Stable
VI. What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To Fear
VII. Continuation Of The Preceding Chapters
VIII. General Survey Of The Subject
Appendix To Part 1
Appendix to Part 2
Constitution Of The United States Of America
Bill Of Rights
 1

Book One
 2

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 conditions. 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 advanced 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 extreme limits which it seems to
have reached in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American
communities 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 history.
Let us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was
divided amongst a small 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 resources by private wars, the lower orders were enriching
themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be perceptible in State affairs.
The transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station
of political influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Gradually the spread of
mental acquirements, and the increasing 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;
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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 happened 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 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 people to rise above themselves. Some
assisted the democracy by their talents, 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 conditions. Henceforward every new
discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire which craved
satisfaction, 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 consider every addition to science, every fresh truth, and every 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 conquests spread, therefore,
with those of civilization and knowledge, 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
Crusades and the wars of the English decimated the nobles and divided their possessions; the
erection of communities introduced 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 resources 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 cottage and to the gate of the
palace; and Protestantism proclaimed 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 happened
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. Whithersoever 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 exertions: those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and
those who have served it unwittingly; those who have fought for it and those who have
declared themselves its opponents, have all been driven along in the same track, have all
 4

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 characteristics of a divine decree: it is universal, it is 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 already 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 produced in the author’s mind by the contemplation of so irresistible
a revolution, which has advanced for centuries in spite of 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 unquestionable 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 occurrences and the actors of the age. A new science of
politics is indispensable to a new world. This, however, is what we think of least; launched in
the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately 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 without their knowledge. The most powerful, the most intelligent,
and the most moral classes of the nation have never attempted to 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
are unacquainted with aught but the vices and wretchedness of society. The existence of a
democracy was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the supreme
power. Everything was then submitted to its caprices; it was worshipped as the idol of
 5

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 government.
The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolution has been effected only in the
material parts of society, without that concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and
manners 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 prominent; 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 without 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 without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable
visitations of the arm of God. Custom, and the manners 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 differently gifted 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 religion of art.
On the other was labor and a rude ignorance; but in the midst of this coarse and ignorant
multitude it was not uncommon 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
intelligence spreads, and the capacities of all classes are equally cultivated; the State becomes
democratic, and the empire of democracy 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 authority of the State would be respected as necessary, though not as divine; and
the loyalty of the subject to its chief magistrate would not be a passion, but a quiet and
rational persuasion. 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 interests, would
allow that in order to profit by the advantages of society it is necessary to satisfy its demands.
 6

In this state of things the voluntary association of the citizens might supply 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 halls 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
sciences 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 uniting 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 prosperity, 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 appropriated 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 afford.
But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of those institutions, those ideas,
and those customs of our forefathers 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 extorts 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
families, corporations, and individuals have been deprived; the weakness of the whole
community has therefore succeeded that 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 ignorance 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 effort 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 afforded, 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.
 7

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,
until 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
cannot recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of sorrow and of pity than the
scenes which are happening under our eyes; it is as if the natural bond which unites the
opinions of man to his tastes and his actions to his principles was now broken; the sympathy
which has always been acknowledged between the feelings and the ideas of mankind appears
to be dissolved, 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 acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law. But, by a
singular concourse of events, religion is entangled in those institutions 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
adversaries, 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 civilization with its benefits, and the idea of evil
is inseparable in their minds from that of novelty.
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 champions 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
subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; 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
 8

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 human 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 surround us: God destines a calmer and a more
certain future to the communities of Europe; I am unacquainted with His designs, 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 democratic 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
Europe, 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.
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 becoming 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 absolute
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
mankind; 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 inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its
passions, in order 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 tendency given to the laws by the
democracy of America, which is abandoned almost without restraint to its instinctive
propensities, and to exhibit the course it prescribes to the Government and the influence it
exercises on affairs. I have sought to discover 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 undertaken to point out the causes which enable it to
govern society. I do not know whether I have succeeded in making known what I saw in
America, but I am certain that such has been my sincere desire, and that I have never,
knowingly, moulded facts to ideas, instead of ideas to facts.
 9

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 authorities
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 important 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 frequently 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 criticise 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 exceedingly 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 general 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
consequences, and often to the verge of what is false or impracticable; 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 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
entertained no designs of serving or attacking any party; I have undertaken not to see
differently, but to look further than parties, and whilst they are busied for the morrow I have
turned my thoughts to the Future.
 10

I. Exterior Form Of North America

Chapter Summary
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 the time of their Discovery—Forests of North
America—Prairies—Wandering Tribes of Natives—Their outward appearance, manners, and
language—Traces of an unknown people.
Exterior Form Of North America
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 valleys. 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
remainder 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 labyrinth 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, 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 mountains 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. 1 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 summits of the
Alleghanies, while the other rises in an uninterrupted 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 Mississippi.

1
Darby’s “View of the United States.”
 11

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, 2 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 length,
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,
sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in its course. 3 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 Mississippi; amongst others, the
Missouri, which traverses a space of 2,500 miles; the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the Red River
1,000 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 proportion 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 Mississippi; 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 surface of the earth is covered with a granite sand and huge irregular
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 valley
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. 4 The valley of the
Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-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. 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 remains here; whilst in the backwoods

2
The Red River.
3
Warden’s “Description of the United States.”
4
See Appendix, A.
 12

the true elements of the great people to whom the future control of the continent belongs 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 discovered to the view of the navigator all that had hitherto been
hidden in the deep abyss. 5 Here and there appeared little islands perfumed with odoriferous
plants, and resembling baskets 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 pleasures 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. 6
Underneath this brilliant exterior death was concealed. But the air of these climates had so
enervating an influence that man, absorbed by present enjoyment, 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 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 Virginian 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 hand 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 bending trunks, found nourishment in their dusty cavities,
and a passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay gave its assistance to life, and their
respective productions were mingled together. The depths of these forests were gloomy and
obscure, 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 torrent 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.

5
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 seemed to float in air, the navigator became giddy as his eye
penetrated through the crystal flood, and beheld submarine gardens, or beds of shells, or gilded fishes gliding
among tufts and thickets of seaweed.
6
See Appendix, B.
 13

These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human inhabitants. Some wandering
tribes had been for ages scattered 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 differed from all other known races of
men: 7 they were neither white like the Europeans, 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 cheekbones 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 bespoke an effort of the understanding of which the Indians of our days
would be incapable. 8
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. Accordingly, 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 relapsed 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.
If, 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
enlightened 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 consciousness 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; the people are more rude in aristocratic countries than
elsewhere, 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
despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human nature.
This unfortunate effect 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 America were ignorant of the value of
riches, and indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to himself by their
means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their demeanor; they practised an habitual
reserve and a kind of aristocratic 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

7
With the progress of discovery some resemblance has been found to exist between the physical conformation,
the language, and the habits of the Indians of North America, and those of the Tongous, Mantchous, Mongols,
Tartars, 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 inhabitants 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, “Conjecture sur l’Origine des Americains”; Adair, “History of the American
Indians.”
8
See Appendix, C.
 14

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 examples of more unshaken courage,
more haughty spirits, or more intractable love of independence than were hidden in former
times among the wild forests of the New World. 9 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. 10 Like all the other members of the great human family, these
savages believed in the existence of a better world, and adored under different names, God,
the creator of the universe. Their notions on the great intellectual truths were in general
simple and philosophical. 11
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 purposes 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 hundred 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 thousands 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
disappeared from the earth that the remembrance of their very names is effaced; their
languages are lost; their glory is vanished 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 passions, their vices, and still more
perhaps their savage virtues, 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

9
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 sacked by the Gauls. Further on, p. 150, he tells us that there is
no example of 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.
10
See “Histoire de la Louisiane,” by Lepage Dupratz; Charlevoix, “Histoire de la Nouvelle France”; “Lettres du
Rev. G. Hecwelder;” “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” v. I; Jefferson’s “Notes on
Virginia,” pp. 135-190. What is said by Jefferson is of especial weight, on account of the personal merit of the
writer, of his peculiar position, and of the matter-of-fact age in which he lived.
11
See Appendix, D.
 15

Providence 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.
 16

II. Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part 1

Chapter Summary
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—Colonization of Virginia—Colonization of New England—Original
character 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—Intimate union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of liberty.
Origin Of The Anglo-Americans, And Its Importance In Relation To Their Future
Condition.
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 fellows. 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 occurrences 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
affect the whole term of their being. If we were able to go back to the elements of states, and
to examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not that we should discover the
primal cause of the prejudices, the habits, the ruling passions, 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 prevailing manners; of such laws as
conflict with established principles; 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 attained 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 contemporaries. America, consequently, exhibits in the broad light of day
 17

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 accurately
acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed 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 convinced 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 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 perhaps
the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind. 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 themselves 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 contemporaries. At
the period of their first emigrations the parish system, 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
inhabitants, 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
established 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 emigrants 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 religious 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 land 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. Land is the basis of an aristocracy,
which clings to the soil that supports it; for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but by
landed property handed down from generation to generation, that an aristocracy is
constituted. A nation may present immense fortunes and extreme wretchedness, but unless
 18

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 freedom 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 branches 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 12 were seekers of gold, adventurers, without
resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant
colony, 13 and rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and agriculturists 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. 14 No lofty conceptions, no
intellectual system, directed the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was
scarcely established when slavery was introduced, 15 and this was the main circumstance
which has exercised 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
idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates
the powers of the mind, and benumbs the activity of man. The influence of slavery, united to
the English 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 allowed 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. 16 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 American world. The

12
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 produce of all gold and silver mines. See Marshall’s “Life of
Washington,” vol. i. pp. 18-66.
13
A large portion of the adventurers, says Stith (“History of Virginia”), were unprincipled young men of family,
whom their parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees; 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 band 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,” by Smith.
“History of Virginia,” by William Stith.
“History of Virginia, from the Earliest Period,” by Beverley.
14
It was not till some time later that a certain number of rich English capitalists came to fix themselves in the
colony.
15
Slavery was introduced about the year 1620 by a Dutch vessel which landed twenty negroes on the banks of
the river James. See Chalmer.
16
The States of New England are those situated to the east of the Hudson; they are now six in number: 1,
Connecticut; 2, Rhode Island; 3, Massachusetts; 4, Vermont; 5, New Hampshire; 6, Maine.
 19

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 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
Australia.
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 phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people,
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 emigrants 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 distinguished 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 Atlantic 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.
Puritanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the
most absolute democratic and republican 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 opposed to the rigor of their own principles, the Puritans
went forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, 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 adventures than all we
can say of them. Nathaniel Morton, 17 the historian of the first years of the settlement, thus
opens his subject:
“Gentle Reader,—I have for some length of time looked upon it as a duty incumbent,
especially on the immediate successors of those that have had so large experience of those
many memorable and signal demonstrations 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
lxxviii. 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 Abraham his servant, and the children of Jacob
his chosen (Psalm cv. 5, 6), may remember his marvellous works in the beginning 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

17
“New England’s Memorial,” p. 13; Boston, 1826. See also “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. ii. p. 440.
 20

he made room for it and caused it to take deep root; and it filled the land (Psalm lxxx. 8, 9).
And not onely so, but also that he hath guided his people by his strength to his holy habitation
and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance in respect 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.
The author thus continues his narrative of the departure of the first pilgrims:—
“So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, 18 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. 16), 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 entertainment 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
spectators 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. 19
“But before we 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 admiration

18
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 respected by the Dutch, for many years: they left it in 1620
for several reasons, the last of which was, that their posterity would in a few generations become 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.
19
This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in
several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all human power and greatness is in the
soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed 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?
 21

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 respect 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 remarked,
was scarcely less a political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants landed on
the barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton than it was their first care to constitute a
society, by passing the following Act:
“In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, 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 and combine ourselves together
into a civil body politick, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends
aforesaid: 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. 20
This happened in 1620, and from that time forwards the emigration 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 majority of the emigrants came. The population of New England increased rapidly; and
whilst the hierarchy of rank despotically classed the inhabitants of the mother-country, the
colony continued to present the novel spectacle of a community homogeneous 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.

20
The emigrants who founded the State of Rhode Island in 1638, those who landed at New Haven in 1637, the
first settlers in Connecticut in 1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640, began in like manner by drawing
up a social contract, which was acceded to by all the interested parties. See “Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42 and 47.
 22

II. Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part 2

The English Government was not dissatisfied with an emigration 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
nations; but this principle of liberty was nowhere more extensively applied than in the States
of New England.
It was generally allowed at that 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, who ruled a portion of the New
World in the name and under the immediate orders of the Crown; 21 this is the colonial system
adopted by other countries of Europe. Sometimes grants of certain tracts were made by the
Crown to an individual or to a company, 22 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 inhabitants. 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 colonization, so remarkably favorable to liberty, was only adopted in New
England. 23
In 1628 24 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 25 were founded without the co-operation and
almost 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

21
This was the case in the State of New York.
22
Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were in this situation. See “Pitkin’s History,” vol. i.
pp. 11-31.
23
See the work entitled “Historical Collection of State Papers and other authentic Documents intended as
materials for a History of the United States of America, by Ebenezer Hasard. Philadelphia, 1792,” for a great
number of documents relating to the commencement of the colonies, which are valuable from their contents and
their authenticity: amongst them are the various charters granted by the King of England, 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 “Commentary on the Constitution of the United States.” It results from these
documents that the principles of representative 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, but they existed everywhere.
24
See “Pitkin’s History,” p, 35. See the “History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay,” by Hutchinson, vol. i. p.
9.
25
See “Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42, 47.
 23

constituted 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 its 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 police regulations, and enacted laws as if their allegiance was
due only to God. 26 Nothing can be 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 characteristic, the code of laws
promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in 1650. 27 The legislators of Connecticut 28
begin with the penal laws, and, strange to say, they borrow their provisions 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,
sorcery, adultery, 29 and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a son to his
parents was to be expiated by the same penalty. The legislation of a rude and half-civilized
people was thus applied to an enlightened and moral community. The consequence was that
the punishment of death was never more frequently prescribed by the statute, and never more
rarely enforced towards the guilty.
The chief care of the legislators, in this body of penal laws, was the maintenance of orderly
conduct and good morals in the community: they constantly invaded the domain of
conscience, 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
between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed. The judge was empowered to
inflict a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or marriage 30 on the misdemeanants; and if the
records of the old 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. 31 The Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness
and drunkenness with severity. 32 Innkeepers are forbidden to furnish more than a certain
quantity of liquor to each consumer; and simple lying, whenever it may be injurious, 33 is

26
The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms which are preserved in the criminal and civil
procedure of England; in 1650 the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal style. See Hutchinson,
vol. i. p. 452.
27
Code of 1650, p. 28; Hartford, 1830.
28
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.
29
Adultery was also punished with death by the law of Massachusetts: and Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 441, says that
several persons actually suffered for this crime. He quotes a curious anecdote on this subject, which occurred in
the year 1663. A married woman had had criminal 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 intercourse of this
couple: they were thrown into prison, put upon trial, and very narrowly escaped capital punishment.
30
Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems sometimes to have happened that the judges superadded these punishments to
each other, as is seen in a sentence pronounced in 1643 (p. 114, “New Haven Antiquities”), by which Margaret
Bedford, convicted of loose conduct, was condemned to be whipped, and afterwards to marry Nicholas
Jemmings, her accomplice.
31
“New Haven Antiquities,” p. 104. See also “Hutchinson’s History,” for several causes equally extraordinary.
32
Code of 1650, pp. 50, 57.
33
Ibid., p. 64.
 24

checked by a fine or a flogging. In other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting the great
principles of religious toleration which he had himself upheld in Europe, renders attendance
on divine service compulsory, 34 and goes so far as to visit with severe punishment, 35 and
even with death, the Christians who chose to worship God according to a ritual differing from
his own. 36 Sometimes 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. 37 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 community 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. 38
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 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 positively established without discussion. From these fruitful principles 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 understood, 39 when we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost
perfect equality of fortune, and a still greater uniformity of opinions. 40 In Connecticut, at this
period, all the executive functionaries were elected, including the Governor of the State. 41
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. 42

34
Ibid., p. 44.
35
This was not peculiar to Connecticut. See, for instance, the law which, on September 13, 1644, banished the
Anabaptists from the State of Massachusetts. (“Historical Collection of State Papers,” vol. i. p. 538.) 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 may 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.
36
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.
37
Code of 1650, p. 96.
38
“New England’s Memorial,” p. 316. See Appendix, E.
39
Constitution of 1638, p. 17.
40
In 1641 the General Assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared that the government 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.
41
“Pitkin’s History,” p. 47.
42
Constitution of 1638, p. 12.
 25

In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New England, we find the germ and
gradual development of that township independence which is the life and mainspring of
American 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
communicated to the different members of the social body. In America, on the other hand, it
may be said that the township was organized before the county, the county before the State,
the State before the Union. In New England townships were completely and definitively
constituted as early as 1650. The independence 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 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. 43 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 citizens.
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 government
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: obligations were there imposed which
were elsewhere slighted. In the States of New England, from the first, the condition of the
poor was provided for; 44 strict measures were taken for the maintenance of roads, and
surveyors were appointed to attend to them; 45 registers were established in every parish, in
which the results of public deliberations, and the births, deaths, and marriages of the citizens
were entered; 46 clerks were directed to keep these registers; 47 officers were charged with the
administration of vacant inheritances, and with the arbitration of litigated landmarks; and
many others were created whose chief functions were the maintenance of public order in the
community. 48 The 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. . . .” 49 Here follow clauses establishing
schools in every township, and 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 authorities were 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 society 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

43
Code of 1650, p. 80.
44
Ibid., p. 78.
45
Ibid., p. 49.
46
See “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. i. p. 455.
47
Code of 1650, p. 86.
48
Ibid., p. 40.
49
Ibid., p. 90.
 26

religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the divine laws leads man to civil
freedom.
If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of American 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, absolute 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
there 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 precedent 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. 50
“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 liberty ‘sumus 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 authority, 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 submitted 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 character 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 frequent hostility, but which in
America have been admirably incorporated 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 arose 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 enjoyment, and the comforts as well as liberties of the world, is
scarcely inferior to that with which they devoted themselves to Heaven.

50
Mather’s “Magnalia Christi Americana,” vol. ii. p. 13. This speech was made by Winthrop; he was accused of
having committed arbitrary actions during his magistracy, but after having made the speech of which the above
is a fragment, he was acquitted by acclamation, and from that time forwards he was always re-elected governor
of the State. See Marshal, vol. i. p. 166.
 27

Political principles and all human laws and institutions were moulded and altered at their
pleasure; the barriers of the society 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 no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully
abstaining 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, uncertain, and disputed: in
the one is a passive, though a voluntary, obedience; in the other an independence scornful of
experience 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
exercise to the faculties of man, and that the 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 empire of religion is never more
surely established than when 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
religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom. 51
Reasons Of Certain Anomalies Which The Laws And Customs Of The Anglo-
Americans Present
Remains of aristocratic institutions in the midst of a complete democracy—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 absolute an inference from what has
been said. The social condition, the religion, and the manners of the first emigrants
undoubtedly 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 off the influence of the past, and the settlers,
intentionally or involuntarily, mingled habits and notions derived from their education and
from the traditions of their country with those habits and notions which were exclusively their
own. To form a judgment on the Anglo-Americans 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 English 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

51
See Appendix, F.
 28

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. 52 Nothing can be more aristocratic
than this system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law, and they
usually reserve the greatest social advantages to themselves. The explanation of the
phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws of which I speak are English, 53 and the
Americans have retained 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 legislation. 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 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.

52
Crimes no doubt exist for which bail is inadmissible, but they are few in number.
53
See Blackstone; and Delolme, book I chap. x.
 29

III. Social Conditions Of The Anglo-Americans

Chapter Summary
A Social condition is commonly the result of circumstances, 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. 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 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 and 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 depending on them, and consequently no patronage. Still, the great
proprietors south of the Hudson constituted a superior class, having ideas and tastes of its
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 embraced; 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 authority
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 influence of
individuals gradually ceased to be felt, and custom and law united together to produce the
same result.
 30

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 affairs. 54 It is true that
these laws belong to civil affairs; but they ought nevertheless to be placed at the head of all
political institutions; for, whilst political laws are only the symbol of a nation’s condition,
they exercise an incredible influence upon its social state. 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 difficulties 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 inheritance 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 smaller 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 established by law, property, and especially
landed property, must have a tendency to perpetual diminution. The effects, however, of such
legislation 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 people 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
consequences tend powerfully to the destruction of large fortunes, and especially of large
domains. Among nations whose law of descent is founded upon the right of primogeniture
landed estates often pass from generation to generation without undergoing division, the
consequence of which is that family feeling is to a certain degree incorporated with the estate.
The family represents the estate, the estate the family; whose name, together with its origin,
its glory, its power, and its virtues, is thus perpetuated 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 tendency to diminish, and must in the end be

54
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.
 31

completely dispersed. The sons of the great landed proprietor, if they are few in number, 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 composed
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 floating 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. 55 The calculations 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 into 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, and uncertain, a man thinks of his present convenience; he
provides for the establishment of his succeeding generation, and no more. Either a man gives
up the idea of perpetuating his family, or at any rate he seeks to accomplish it by other means
than that of a landed estate. Thus not only does the law of partible inheritance render it
difficult for families to preserve their ancestral domains entire, but it deprives them of the
inclination to attempt it, and compels them in some measure to 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 persons, it affects things. By these means the law succeeds in striking
at the root of landed property, and dispersing rapidly both families and fortunes. 56
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
influence. It is perpetually conspicuous in our country, overthrowing the walls of our
dwellings and removing the landmarks of our fields. But although it has produced great
effects in France, much still remains for it to do. Our recollections, opinions, and habits
present powerful obstacles to its progress.
In the United States it has nearly completed its work of destruction, and there we can best
study its results. The English laws concerning the transmission of property were abolished in
almost all the States at the time of the Revolution. The law of entail was so modified as not to

55
I do not mean to say that the small proprietor cultivates his land better, but he cultivates it with more ardor
and care; so that he makes up by his labor for his want of skill.
56
Land being the most stable kind of property, we find, from time to time, rich individuals who are disposed to
make great sacrifices in order to obtain it, and who willingly forfeit a considerable part of their income to make
sure of the rest. But these are accidental cases. The preference for landed property is no longer found habitually
in any class but among the poor. The small landowner, who has less information, less imagination, and fewer
passions than the great one, is generally occupied with the desire of increasing his estate: and it often happens
that by inheritance, by marriage, or by the chances of trade, he is gradually furnished with the means. Thus, to
balance the tendency which leads men to divide their estates, there exists another, which incites them to add to
them. This tendency, which is sufficient to prevent estates from being divided ad infinitum, is not strong enough
to create great territorial possessions, certainly not to keep them up in the same family.
 32

interrupt the free circulation of property. 57 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 moment, after a lapse of a little more than sixty years, the aspect of society is
totally altered; the families of the great landed proprietors are almost all commingled with the
general mass. In the State of New York, which formerly contained many of these, there are
but two who still keep their heads above the stream, and they must shortly disappear. The
sons of these opulent citizens are 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 partition has reduced all to one level.
I do not mean that there is any deficiency of wealthy individuals 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 circulates with inconceivable rapidity, and experience shows
that it is rare to find two succeeding generations in the full enjoyment of it.
This picture, which may perhaps be thought to be overcharged, 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 unheard
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 settlements
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 history. 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 respectable 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. 58
It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in America; even their requirements partake
in some degree of the same uniformity. I do not believe 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 individuals. 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 apprenticeship, 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

57
See Appendix, G.
58
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.—-Translator’s Note.
 33

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 government. The gifts of intellect proceed directly from
God, and man cannot prevent their unequal distribution. But in consequence of the state of
things which we have here represented it happens that, although the capacities of men are
widely different, 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 from its birth; and if at the present
day it is not actually destroyed, it is at any rate so completely disabled that we can scarcely
assign to it any degree of influence in the course of affairs. 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 extraordinary 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.
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 unequal upon one single
point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in the end to be equal upon all.
Now I know of only two methods of establishing equality in the political world; every citizen
must be put in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one. For nations which
are arrived at the same stage of social existence as the Anglo-Americans, 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 equality, 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 contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But
liberty is not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their idol: 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 equality, 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
 34

them being strong enough to engage in the struggle with advantage, 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 allowed by their circumstances, their origin, their intelligence, and especially by their
moral feeling, to establish and maintain the sovereignty of the people.
 35

IV. The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People

In America

Chapter Summary
It predominates over the whole of society in America—Application made of this principle by
the Americans even before their Revolution—Development given to it by that Revolution—
Gradual and irresistible extension of the elective qualification.
The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America
Whenever the political laws of the United States are to be discussed, it is with the doctrine of
the sovereignty of the people that we must begin. The principle 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 recognized, 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 submission 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 remote consequences. If there be a
country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly
appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the affairs of society, and where its
dangers and its advantages may be foreseen, that country is assuredly America.
I have already observed that, from their origin, the sovereignty of the people was the
fundamental principle of the greater number of British colonies in America. It was far,
however, 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 ostensibly 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 aristocratic 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 electors. The electoral franchise was
everywhere placed within certain 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 townships 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 influences.
 36

At the very time when this consequence of the laws and of the revolution was apparent to
every eye, victory was irrevocably 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 change the democratic impulse was found to be most irresistible in the very 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 introduce the most
democratic forms into the conduct of its government.
When a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen that sooner or
later that qualification will be entirely 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 appointed rate is
irritated in exact proportion to the great number 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 people has acquired, in the United
States, all the practical development which the imagination can conceive. It is unencumbered
by those fictions which have been thrown over it in other countries, 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 representatives, 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 degree foreign to the social body,
directs it, and forces it to pursue 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 society 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 elsewhere. 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 almost 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. 59

59
See Appendix, H.
 37

V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The

States—Part 1

Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States Before That Of The Union At
Large.
It is proposed to examine in the following chapter what is the form of government established
in America on the principle of the sovereignty of the people; what are its resources, its
hindrances, its advantages, and its dangers. The first difficulty which presents itself arises
from the complex nature of the constitution of the United States, which consists of two
distinct social structures, connected and, as it were, encased one within the other; two
governments, completely separate and almost independent, the one fulfilling the ordinary
duties and responding to the daily and indefinite calls of a community, 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,
whose 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
Federal Government of the United States was the last which was adopted; and it is in fact
nothing more than a modification or a summary of those republican principles which were
current in the whole community before it existed, and independently 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
institutions. Their political or administrative existence is centred in three focuses of action,
which may not inaptly be compared to the different nervous centres which convey motion to
the human body. The township is the lowest in order, then the county, and lastly the State;
and I propose to devote the following 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 nations—Difficulty of establishing and preserving municipal independence—
Its importance—Why the Author has selected the township system of New England as the
main topic of his discussion.
It is not undesignedly that I begin this subject with the Township. The village or township is
the only association which is so perfectly natural that wherever a number of men are
collected it seems 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
republics, 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 respected and easily destroyed. A nation is always able to establish 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,
 38

composed of coarser materials, which are less easily fashioned by the legislator. The
difficulties which attend the consolidation of its independence rather augment than diminish
with the increasing enlightenment of the people. A highly civilized community spurns the
attempts of a local independence, 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 nation
and supported by public opinion. Thus until the independence 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 amalgamated. Municipal freedom 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 action 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 constitute 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
without 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
perceive that the same principles have guided the formation of both of them throughout the
Union. I am inclined to believe that these principles have been carried further in New
England than elsewhere, and consequently that they offer greater facilities to the observations
of a stranger. The institutions 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 influence;
they consequently deserve our attention on every account.
Limits Of The Township
The township of New England is a division which stands between the commune and the
canton of France, and which corresponds in general to the English tithing, or town. Its
average population is from two to three thousand; 60 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 always 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

60
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.
 39

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 obedience 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 arrangement be necessary in general affairs, in the townships, where
the legislative and administrative action of the government 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 ordinary executive business of the State. 61
This state of things is so contrary to our ideas, and so different 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
small number of individuals, called “the Selectmen.” 62 The general laws of the State impose a
certain number of obligations on the selectmen, which they may fulfil without the
authorization 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 executes the decree
of the municipal council. They usually act upon their own responsibility, and merely put in
practice principles 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 instance, 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 selectmen are obliged to
comply, but they have only the right of presiding at the meeting. 63

61
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 exception 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 happens 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 manner.—Williams’ Register.
62
Three selectmen are appointed in the small townships, and nine in the large ones. See “The Town-Officer,” p.
186. See also the principal laws of the State of Massachusetts relative to the selectmen:
Act of February 20, 1786, vol. i. p. 219; February 24, 1796, vol. i. p. 488; March 7, 1801, vol. ii. p. 45; June 16,
1795, vol. i. p. 475; March 12, 1808, vol. ii. p. 186; February 28, 1787, vol. i. p. 302; June 22, 1797, vol. i. p.
539.
63
See Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 150, Act of March 25, 1786.
 40

The selectmen are elected every year in the month of April or of May. The town-meeting
chooses at the same time a number of other municipal magistrates, who are entrusted with
important administrative functions. The assessors rate the township; the collectors receive the
rate. A constable is appointed to keep the peace, to watch the streets, and to forward the
execution of the laws; the town-clerk records all the town votes, 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 instruction; 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 subdivided; and amongst the municipal officers are to be found
parish commissioners, who audit the expenses of public worship; different classes of
inspectors, some of whom are to direct the citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers,
haywards, chimney-viewers, fence-viewers to maintain the bounds of property, timber-
measurers, and sealers of weights and measures. 64
There are nineteen principal officers in a township. Every inhabitant is constrained, on the
pain of being fined, to undertake 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.
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 sovereign in all that concerns itself alone: subject to the State in all other
matters—Bond of the township and the State—In France the Government 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-citizens. He obeys the government, not because he is inferior to
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 regulating force. If he be a
subject in all that concerns the mutual relations 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 admitted 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 government 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 principle of the sovereignty of the

64
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.
 41

people in the United States: all the American republics recognize it more or less; but
circumstances 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 contented to assume the central power
of the State. The townships of New England remained as they were before; and although 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 the 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, augment 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 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 administration 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 obligation. Strict as this obligation is, the government of the State
imposes it in principle only, and in its performance the township 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 receives 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.
Public Spirit Of The Townships Of New England
How the township of New England wins the affections of its inhabitants—Difficulty of
creating local public spirit in Europe—The rights and duties of the American township
favorable to it—Characteristics 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 secure
the attentive interest of mankind, namely, independence and authority. Its sphere is indeed
small and limited, but within that sphere its action is unrestrained; and its independence gives
to it a real importance which its extent and population 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 conquered nation. The New Englander is attached to his
township, not only because he was born in it, but because it constitutes 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 subject of regret to those
who are in power; everyone agrees that there is no surer guarantee of order and tranquility,
and yet nothing is more difficult to create. If the municipal bodies were made powerful and
 42

independent, the authorities of the nation might be disunited and the peace of the country
endangered. Yet, without power and independence, a town may contain good subjects, but it
can have no active citizens. Another important fact is that the township of New England is so
constituted as to excite the warmest of human affections, without arousing the ambitious
passions of the heart of man. The officers of the country 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 inducement sufficient to draw men away from the circle of their
interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The federal government 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 relations of life; and the passions
which commonly embroil society change their character when they find a vent so near the
domestic hearth and the family circle.
In the American States power has been disseminated with admirable skill for the purpose of
interesting the greatest possible 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 officers, who all, in their several spheres, represent the same
powerful 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 among so many citizens, does not
scruple to multiply the functions of the town officers. For in the United States it is believed,
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 mountaineer 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 business is easy. The political education of the people has long been
complete; say rather that it was complete when the people 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 satisfaction of the citizen: England formerly
governed the mass of the colonies, but the people was 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 his township because it is independent and free: his
co-operation in 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
 43

steady progress of liberty; he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, comprehends
the union or the balance of powers, and collects clear practical notions on the nature of his
duties and the extent of his rights.
The Counties Of New England
The division of the countries in America has considerable analogy with that of the
arrondissements of France. The limits of the counties are arbitrarily laid down, and the
various districts 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, 65 a sheriff to execute its decrees, and a prison for
criminals. 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
Massachusetts this authority is vested in the hands of several magistrates, who are appointed
by the Governor of the State, with the advice 66 of his council. 67 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 indirectly represents the county. It has, therefore, properly
speaking, no political existence.
A twofold tendency may be discerned in the American constitutions, which impels the
legislator to centralize the legislative and to disperse the executive power. The township of
New England has in itself an indestructible element of independence; 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.
Administration In New England
Administration not perceived in America—Why?—The Europeans believe 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 perceived, 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 administration—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
townships—Court of Sessions—Its action—Right of inspection and indictment disseminated
like the other administrative functions—Informers 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 Government, or the Administration. Written laws exist in America, and one
sees that they are daily executed; but although everything is in motion, the hand which gives
the impulse to the social machine can nowhere be discovered. Nevertheless, as all peoples are
obliged to have recourse to certain grammatical forms, which are the foundation of human

65
See the Act of February 14, 1821, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 551.
66
See the Act of February 20, 1819, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 494.
67
The council of the Governor is an elective body.
 44

language, in order to express their thoughts; so all communities are obliged to secure their
existence by submitting to a certain dose of authority, 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 stripping 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 entrusted. There may be nations whom this distribution of social powers
might lead to anarchy; but in itself it is not anarchical. The action of authority is indeed thus
rendered less irresistible and less perilous, but 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
language as in America, and in no country is the right of applying it vested in so many hands.
The administrative power in the United 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. 68 Besides the general laws, the State sometimes
passes general police regulations; but more commonly the townships and town officers,
conjointly with 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. 69 Lastly, these municipal
magistrates provide, of their own accord and without any delegated powers, for those
unforeseen emergencies which frequently occur in society. 70

68
See “The Town-Officer,” especially at the words Selectmen, Assessors, Collectors, Schools, Surveyors of
Highways. I take one example in a thousand: the State prohibits travelling on the Sunday; the tything-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. See Act of February 24, 1796: Id., vol. i. p. 488.
69
Thus, for instance, the selectmen authorize 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, 1785: Id., vol. i. p.
193.
70
The selectmen take measures for the security of the public in case of contagious diseases, conjointly with the
justices of the peace. See Act of June 22, 1797, vol. i. p. 539.
 45

It results from what we have said that in the State of Massachusetts the administrative
authority is almost entirely restricted to the township, 71 but that it is distributed among a great
number of individuals. In the French commune there is properly but one official functionary,
namely, the Maire; and in New England we have seen that there are nineteen. These nineteen
functionaries do not in general depend upon one another. 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, 72 but in general the
authorities of the county have no right to interfere with the authorities of the township, 73
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. 74 But the
central government is not represented by an individual whose business it is to publish police
regulations and ordinances 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.

71
I say almost, for there are various circumstances in the annals of a township 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.
72
Thus licenses are only granted to such persons as can produce a certificate of good conduct from the
selectmen. If the selectmen refuse to give the certificate, the party may appeal to the justices assembled in the
Court of Sessions, and they may grant the license. See Act of March 12, 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 23, 1786, vol. i. p. 254.
73
In Massachusetts the county magistrates are frequently called upon to investigate the acts of the town
magistrates; but it will be shown further on that this investigation is a consequence, not of their administrative,
but of their judicial power.
74
The 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 10, 1827, vol. iii. p. 183.
 46

V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The

States—Part 2

What, then, is the uniform plan on which the government is conducted, and how is the
compliance of the counties and their 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 very core of the administration; the law descends to
the most minute details; the same enactment prescribes the principle and the method of its
application, and thus imposes a multitude of strict and rigorously defined obligations on the
secondary functionaries of the State. The 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 discretionary power
may be entrusted to a superior functionary of directing all the others, and of cashiering them
in case of disobedience; 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 functionaries 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 concession, 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.
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
will, sooner or later, either elude all control or be destroyed. The courts of justice are the only
possible medium between the central power and the administrative bodies; they alone can
compel 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 authority. 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 between
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
 47

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-country. The
Governor of Massachusetts 75 appoints a certain number of justices of the peace in every
county, whose functions last seven years. 76 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 personal share in public business; they are sometimes entrusted
with administrative functions in conjunction with elected officers, 77 they sometimes
constitute a tribunal, before which the 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 78 of
public officers. 79 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 administrative division. The Court of Sessions
presides over that small number of affairs which, as they concern several townships, or all the
townships of the county in common, cannot be entrusted to any one of them in particular. 80 In
all that concerns 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, 81 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. 82 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

75
We shall hereafter learn what a Governor is: I shall content myself with remarking in this place that he
represents the executive power of the whole State.
76
See the Constitution of Massachusetts, chap. II. sect. 1. Section 9; chap. III. Section 3.
77
Thus, for example, a stranger arrives in a township from a country 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 administration, and give them a semi-judicial
character.
78
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. But this penalty is pronounced by the Supreme Judicial Court or the Court
of Common Pleas. 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.
79
In their individual capacity the justices of the peace take a part in the business of the counties and townships.
80
These affairs may be brought under the following heads:—1. 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
certain patents. 5. The laying down and repairs of the country roads.
81
Thus, when a road is under consideration, almost all difficulties are disposed of by the aid of the jury.
82
See Act of February 20, 1786, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 217.
 48

of the Government is mysteriously concealed under the forms 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 accurately defined; they consist in a simple fact without any
complication, or in a principle without its application in detail. 83 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; 84 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 Sessions, 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-offences; and as the Court of Sessions does not originate the town
authorities, it cannot remove functionaries whom it does not appoint. Moreover, a perpetual
investigation would be necessary to convict 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
justice 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.
Thus, to recapitulate in a few words what I have been showing: If a public officer in New
England commits a crime in the exercise of his functions, the ordinary courts of justice are
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 affair is important or
urgent, the judge supplies the omission of the functionary. 85 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.

83
There is an indirect method of enforcing 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 surveyor 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 the Court of Sessions, he is sure to employ the extraordinary right which the 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.
84
Laws of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 45.
85
If, for instance, a township persists in refusing to name its assessors, the Court of Sessions nominates them;
and the magistrates thus appointed are invested with the same authority as elected officers. See the Act quoted
above, February 20, 1787.
 49

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, 86 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 children
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
functions of the administration. Grand jurors are bound by the law to apprise the court to
which they belong of all the misdemeanors which may have been committed in their
county. 87 There are certain great offences which are officially prosecuted by the States; 88 but
more frequently the task of punishing delinquents 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 offences as fall under his notice. But a more special appeal
is made by American legislation to the private interest of the citizen; 89 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 administrative 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, 90 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 Government.
General Remarks On The Administration Of The United States Differences of the States of the
Union in their system of administration—Activity and perfection of the local authorities
decrease towards the South—Power of the magistrate increases; that of the elector
diminishes—Administration passes from the township to the county—States of New York,
Ohio, Pennsylvania—Principles of administration applicable to the whole Union—Election

86
I say the Court of Sessions, because in common courts there is a magistrate who exercises some of the
functions of a public prosecutor.
87
The grand-jurors are, for instance, bound to inform the court of the bad state of the roads.—Laws of
Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 308.
88
If, for instance, the treasurer of the county holds back his accounts.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 406.
89
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.
90
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 condemned to a fine of from $200 to $500. 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 may 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 the law of Massachusetts. Not only are
private individuals thus incited to prosecute the public officers, but the public officers are encouraged in the
same manner to bring the disobedience of private individuals to justice. If a citizen refuses 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.
 50

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 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 descend
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. 91 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 Massachusetts.
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 importance 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 Massachusetts the business
of the county is conducted by the Court of Sessions, which is composed of a quorum named
by the Governor and his council; but the county has no representative assembly, and its
expenditure is voted by the national legislature. 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 constitute the assembly of the county. 92 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 differences in the executive details of the
several communities. 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

91
For details see the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, part i. chap. xi. vol. i. pp. 336-364, entitled, “Of
the Powers, Duties, and Privileges of Towns.”
See in the Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania, the words Assessors, Collector, 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 25,
1834, relating to townships, p. 412; besides the peculiar dispositions relating to divers town-officers, such as
Township’s Clerk, Trustees, Overseers of the Poor, Fence Viewers, Appraisers of Property, Township’s
Treasurer, Constables, Supervisors of Highways.
92
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 relating to county commissioners, February 25, 1824, p. 263. See the Digest
of the Laws of Pennsylvania, at the words County-rates and Levies, p. 170. In the State of New York each
township elects a representative, who has a share in the administration of the county as well as in that of the
township.
 51

applied; their consequences are more or less numerous in various localities; but they are
always substantially the same. The laws differ, and their outward features 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 himself 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 appointed
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 the
executive power is disseminated in a multitude of hands. Hence arose the indispensable
necessity of introducing the control 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
justices of the peace everywhere participate in the administration of the townships and the
counties, 93 either as public 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 introduction 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. 94
At other times they constitute a court of appeal for the decision of affairs. 95 In the State of
New York judicial penalties are less used than in other parts as a means of administration,

93
In some of the Southern States the county courts are charged with all the details of the administration. See the
Statutes of the State of Tennessee, arts. Judiciary, Taxes, etc.
94
For instance, the direction of public instruction centres in the hands of the Government. The legislature names
the members of the University, who are denominated 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 colleges and academies, and make their report to the legislature. Their superintendence is not
inefficient, for several reasons: the colleges in order to become 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. See chap. xv. “Instruction,”
Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 455.
The school-commissioners are obliged to send an annual report to the Superintendent of the Republic.—Id. p.
488.
A similar report is annually made to the same person on the number and condition of the poor.—Id. p. 631.
95
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.—Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 487.
 52

and the right of prosecuting the offences of public officers is vested in fewer hands. 96 The
same tendency is faintly observable in some other States; 97 but in general the prominent
feature 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 procured. 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 describe.

Provisions similar to those above cited are to be met with from time to time in the laws of the State of New
York; but in general these attempts at centralization are weak and unproductive. The great authorities of the
State have the right of watching and controlling the subordinate agents, without that of rewarding or punishing
them. The same individual is never empowered to give an order and to punish disobedience; he has therefore the
right of commanding, without the means of exacting compliance. In 1830 the Superintendent of Schools
complained in his Annual Report addressed to the legislature that several school-commissioners had neglected,
notwithstanding his application, to furnish him with the accounts 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.
96
Thus the district-attorney is directed to recover all fines below the sum of fifty dollars, unless such a right has
been specially awarded to another magistrate.—Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 383.
97
Several traces of centralization may be discovered in Massachusetts; for instance, 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.
 53

V. Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The

States—Part 3

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
becomes an executive and judicial one. It takes a part in the government in several ways,
according to the constitution of the different States; 98 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 political offences, and sometimes also in the decision of certain
civil cases. 99 The number of its members is always small. The other branch of the legislature,
which is usually called the House of Representatives, has no share whatever in the
administration, and only takes a part in the judicial power inasmuch 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 several years, and being renewed
seriatim, the law takes care to preserve in the legislative body a nucleus of men already
accustomed to public business, and capable of exercising a salutary 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 bulwark 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 Americans 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
consequences 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 regarded as a demonstrated truth. This theory, which
was nearly unknown to the republics of antiquity—which was introduced into the world
almost by accident, like so many other great truths—and misunderstood by several modern
nations, is at length become an axiom in the political science of the present age.

98
In Massachusetts the Senate is not invested with any administrative functions.
99
As in the State of New York.
 54

[See Benjamin Franklin]

The Executive Power Of The State
Office of Governor in an American State—The place he occupies in relation to the
Legislature—His rights and his duties—His dependence 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 portion of its rights. The supreme magistrate, under the title of
Governor, is the official moderator and counsellor of the legislature. He is armed with a veto
or suspensive power, which allows him to stop, or at least to retard, its movements at
pleasure. 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. 100 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 commander 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 order. Lastly, the Governor takes no share in the administration of townships and
counties, except it be indirectly in the nomination of Justices of the Peace, which nomination
he has not the power to cancel. 101 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 returned him.
Political Effects Of The System Of Local Administration In The United States
Necessary distinction between the general centralization of Government and the
centralization of the local administration—Local administration not centralized in the United
States: great general centralization of the Government—Some bad consequences resulting to
the United States from the local administration—Administrative 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 proportion
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. Nevertheless, there exist two distinct kinds of centralization, which it is
necessary to discriminate with accuracy. Certain interests are common 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, constitutes
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 within the province of each of them, they may easily be
distinguished. It is evident that a central government acquires immense power when united to

100
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.
101
In some of the States the justices of the peace are not elected by the Governor.
 55

administrative centralization. Thus combined, it accustoms men to set their own will
habitually 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 affects 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 government
than that which existed in France under Louis XIV.; when the same individual was the author
and the interpreter of the laws, and the representative of France at home and abroad, he was
justified in asserting that the State was identified with his person. Nevertheless, the
administration was much less centralized under Louis 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 of a man, and by the sole act of its will it puts immense engines in motion,
and wields or collects the efforts of its authority. Indeed, I cannot conceive that a nation can
enjoy a secure or prosperous 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 public 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, because 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 absence 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 administration and no dependent series of
public functionaries exist. 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
legislative 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
privileges, 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
 56

of the action of the Government. The American republics have no standing armies to
intimidate a discontented minority; but as no minority has as yet been reduced to declare
open war, the necessity of an army has not been felt. 102 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 receives 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 collecting taxes is slow as well as
inconvenient, and it would prove a perpetual hindrance to a Government whose pecuniary
demands were large. It is desirable that, in whatever materially affects its existence, the
Government should be served by officers of its own, appointed by itself, removable at
pleasure, and accustomed to rapid methods of proceeding. But it will always be easy for the
central government, organized as it is in America, to introduce new and more efficacious
modes of action, proportioned to its wants.
The 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
governments are not sufficiently centralized, I shall prove hereafter that they are too much so.
The legislative bodies daily encroach upon the authority of the Government, and their
tendency, 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 maxims 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 destruction.
The system of local administration produces several different effects in America. The
Americans seem to me to have outstepped the limits of sound policy in isolating the
administration of the Government; for order, even in second-rate affairs, is a matter of
national importance. 103 As the State has no administrative 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 perceive his mistake till he has gone deeper into the subject. Certain 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 maintain 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

102
The Civil War of 1860-65 cruelly belied 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, with
the cessation of the contest, this army disappeared as rapidly as it had been raised.—Translator’s Note.
103
The authority which represents the State ought not, I think, to waive the right of inspecting the local
administration, 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, which have, as it were, only an incidental cognizance of the offences they are meant to repress.
 57

of the one and the incapacity of the others must become more and more prominent. But I
deny that such is the case when the people is as enlightened, as awake to its interests, and as
accustomed to reflect on them, as the Americans are. I am persuaded, on the contrary, that in
this case the collective strength of the citizens will always conduce more efficaciously to the
public welfare than the authority of the Government. It is difficult to point out with certainty
the means of arousing a sleeping population, 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 persons most interested, I am inclined to
suppose that it is either misled or desirous to mislead. However enlightened and however
skilful a central power may be, it cannot of itself embrace all the details of the existence of a
great nation. Such vigilance 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; represses the smallest
disorder and the most petty misdemeanors; maintains society in a status quo alike secure from
improvement and decline; and perpetuates a drowsy precision in the conduct of affairs, which
is hailed by the heads of the administration as a sign of perfect order and public
tranquillity: 104 in short, it excels more in prevention than in action. Its force deserts it when
society is to be disturbed or accelerated in its course; and if once the co-operation of private
citizens is necessary to the furtherance of its measures, the secret of its impotence 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 cooperated
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 social
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 exactitude are very frequently
abandoned in the end; for in America, as well as in other countries, the people is subject to
sudden 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 himself to the complex mechanism of the administration of the townships. In

104
China appears to me to present the most perfect instance of that species of well-being which a completely
central administration may furnish to the nations among which it exists. Travellers assure us that the Chinese
have peace without happiness, industry without improvement, stability without strength, and public order
without public morality. The condition of society is always tolerable, never excellent. I am convinced 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.
 58

general it may be affirmed that the lesser details 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 authoritative 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 arrangement of
details, 105 and the perfection of an ingenious administration, 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 argument, 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 Americans 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 pleasures 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 my 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.
In certain countries of Europe the natives consider themselves as a kind of settlers, indifferent
to the fate of the spot upon which they live. The greatest changes are effected without 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 parsonage; 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 possessions, and he entertains no notions of
ownership or of improvement. This want of interest in his own affairs goes so far that, if his
own safety or that of his children is endangered, instead 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 natural propensity to obedience; he cowers,

105
A writer of talent, who, in the comparison 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
reproaches the Americans for the sort of confusion which exists in the accounts of the expenditure in the
townships; and after giving the model of a departmental budget in France, he adds:—”We are indebted to
centralization, 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.” Whatever 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 American 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 welfare 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
apparent 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 compensated by so many benefits.
 59

it is true, before the pettiest officer; but he braves the law with the spirit of a conquered foe as
soon as its superior force is removed: his oscillations 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 themselves: 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 defence 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 defended 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 decay, 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 depend 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 extinguished 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 effects 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 Union, 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
analogous 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 obedience
to man, but 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 individual 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, offers to execute it himself,
courts the assistance of other individuals, and struggles manfully against all obstacles.
 60

Undoubtedly 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 citizens 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. 106 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 police 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. Nevertheless in no country does crime more rarely elude
punishment. The reason is, that every one conceives himself to be interested in furnishing
evidence of the act committed, and in stopping 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 conflict; in America he is looked upon as an enemy of
the human race, and the whole of mankind is against him.
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 people from the
excesses of despotism, because it always possesses an organized power ready to resist a
despot. But a democracy 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 administration, 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 people
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 scarcely
refrain from penetrating into the details of the administration, 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 destroyed, were still distinguishable. These provincial institutions were

106
See Appendix, I.
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incoherent, ill compacted, and frequently absurd; in the hands of the aristocracy they had
sometimes been converted 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. 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 despotism when they are defending that central
administration which was one of the great innovations of the Revolution? 107 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 provincial 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 multitude of reasons, but they all placed the advantages of
local institutions 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 unacquainted with the institution are the only persons who pass a censure upon it.

107
See Appendix K.
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VI. Judicial Power In The United States

Chapter Summary
The Anglo-Americans 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 unconstitutional—How they use
this right—Precautions taken by the legislator to prevent its abuse.
Judicial Power In The United States And Its Influence On Political Society.
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 reader’s eyes by a merely
incidental mention of them. Confederations have existed in other countries beside America,
and republics 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 Americans. 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 occurrences 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 privileges of those bodies, and the magistrates seem to him to interfere 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 ordinary characteristics of judicial authority, 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 must 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 legislative
authority.
The second characteristic of judicial power is that it pronounces on special cases, and not
upon general principles. If a judge in deciding a particular point destroys a general principle,
by passing a judgment which tends to reject all the inferences 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 perhaps a more useful, influence than that of the magistrate, but he ceases to be a
representative of the judicial power.
 63

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 devoid 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, or examine into evidence of its
own accord. A judicial functionary who should open proceedings, and usurp the censorship
of the laws, would in some measure do violence to the passive nature of his authority.
The Americans have retained these three distinguishing characteristics of the judicial power;
an American judge can only pronounce a decision when litigation has arisen, he is only
conversant with special cases, and he cannot act until the cause has been duly brought before
the court. His position is therefore perfectly similar to that of the magistrate of other nations;
and he is nevertheless invested with immense political power. If the sphere of his authority
and his means of action are the same as those of other judges, it may be asked whence he
derives a power which they do not possess. The cause of this difference lies in the simple fact
that the Americans have acknowledged the right of the judges to found their decisions on the
constitution rather than on the laws. In other words, they have left them at liberty not to apply
such laws as may appear to them to be unconstitutional.
I am aware that a similar right has been claimed—but claimed in vain—by courts of justice in
other countries; but in America it is recognized by all authorities; and not a party, nor so
much as an individual, is found to contest it. This fact can only be explained by the principles
of the American constitution. In France the constitution is (or at least is supposed to be)
immutable; and the received theory is that no power has the right of changing any part of it.
In England the Parliament has an acknowledged right to modify the constitution; as,
therefore, the constitution may undergo perpetual changes, it does not in reality exist; the
Parliament is at once a legislative and a constituent assembly. The political theories of
America are more simple and more rational. An American constitution is not supposed to be
immutable as in France, nor is it susceptible of modification by the ordinary powers of
society as in England. It constitutes a detached whole, which, as it represents the
determination of the whole people, is no less binding on the legislator than on the private
citizen, but which may be altered by the will of the people in predetermined cases, according
to established rules. In America the constitution may therefore vary, but as long as it exists it
is the origin of all authority, and the sole vehicle of the predominating force. 108
It is easy to perceive in what manner these differences must act upon the position and the
rights of the judicial bodies in the three countries I have cited. If in France the tribunals were
authorized to disobey the laws on the ground of their being opposed to the constitution, the
supreme power would in fact be placed in their hands, since they alone would have the right
of interpreting a constitution, the clauses of which can be modified by no authority. They
would therefore take the place of the nation, and exercise as absolute a sway over society as
the inherent weakness of judicial power would allow them to do. Undoubtedly, as the French
judges are incompetent to declare a law to be unconstitutional, the power of changing the

108
The fifth article of the original Constitution of the United States provides the mode in which amendments of
the Constitution may be made. Amendments must be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and
ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States. Fifteen amendments of the Constitution have
been made at different times since 1789, the most important of which are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth, framed and ratified after the Civil War. The original Constitution of the United States, followed by
these fifteen amendments, is printed at the end of this edition. —Translator’s Note, 1874.
 64

constitution is indirectly given to the legislative body, since no legal barrier would oppose the
alterations which it might prescribe. But it is better to grant the power of changing the
constitution of the people to men who represent (however imperfectly) the will of the people,
than to men who represent no one but themselves.
It would be still more unreasonable to invest the English judges with the right of resisting the
decisions of the legislative body, since 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.
In the United States the constitution governs the legislator as much as the private citizen; as it
is the first of laws it cannot be modified by a law, and it is therefore just that the tribunals
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-motive 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
political and the logical reasons agree, and the people as well as the judges preserve their
privileges.
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 political influence. Few 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 evading its authority, and similar suits are multiplied, until it becomes 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 cogency
is by no means suspended, and its final destruction can only be accomplished by the
reiterated attacks of judicial functionaries. 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 protected from wanton assailants, and from the daily aggressions of party spirit. The errors
 65

of the legislator are exposed whenever their evil consequences are most felt, and it is always
a positive and appreciable fact which serves as the basis of a prosecution.
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 laws 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 belong 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
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 functionaries before the ordinary tribunals, and that all the judges should
have the power of punishing public offences. 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 scrupulous of offending public opinion. I
was struck by the small number of political trials which occur in the United States, but I had
no difficulty in accounting for this circumstance. A lawsuit, of whatever nature it may be, is
always a difficult and expensive 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 complaint 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
principal officers of State as a sufficient guarantee of their independence. But they hold that
the right of minor prosecutions, which are within the reach of the whole community, is a
 66

better pledge of freedom than those great judicial actions which are rarely employed until 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 ministers
can only be prosecuted for offences relating to their several functions by virtue of a decree of
the Conseil d’Etat; in which the case the prosecution takes place before the ordinary
tribunals.” This clause survived the “Constitution de l’An VIII,” 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 jurisdiction 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 punished; 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
proceedings 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
forefathers, since we allow things to pass under the color of justice and the sanction of the
law which violence alone could impose upon them.
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VII. Political Jurisdiction In The United States

Chapter Summary
Definition of political jurisdiction—What is understood by political jurisdiction in France, in
England, and in the United States—In America the political judge can only pass sentence on
public officers—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.
Political Jurisdiction In The United States
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 introduction 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 109
constitute the highest criminal court of their respective nations, and although they do not
habitually try all political offences, they are competent to try them all. Another political body
enjoys the right of impeachment 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
Senate awards his sentence. But the Senate can only try such persons as are brought before it
by the House of Representatives, and those persons must belong to the class of public
functionaries. 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 Deputies. 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

109
As it existed under the constitutional monarchy down to 1848.
 68

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 Representatives 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, whatever 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 legislator is then transformed into the
magistrate; 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
impeached before an English or a French political tribunal, and is found guilty, the sentence
deprives him ipso facto of his functions, and it may pronounce him to be incapable of
resuming 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 administrative 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 object of the proceeding is purely administrative. If it had been the intention
of the American legislator to invest a political 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 possession of no functions at all; and this is especially true
in republics, where party influence is the first of authorities, and where the strength of many a
reader 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 administrative 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 penalties.
Every link of the system may easily be traced from this point; we at once perceive why the
American constitutions subject all the civil functionaries to the jurisdiction of the Senate,
whilst the military, whose crimes are nevertheless more formidable, are exempted from that
tribunal. In the civil service none of the American functionaries can be said to be removable;
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 functionary, and the decision which condemns him is a blow upon them all.
 69

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
conservative 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 ordinary 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
apparent 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 influences, 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 cannot inflict such heavy
penalties as those of Europe, there is the less chance of their acquitting a prisoner; and the
conviction, if it is less formidable, is more certain. The principal object of the political
tribunals of Europe is to punish the offender; 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
definitions of criminal law. Nothing can be more alarming than the excessive latitude with
which political offences are described in the laws of America. Article II., Section 4, of the
Constitution 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, 110 “shall be impeached for misconduct or maladministration;” the
Constitution of Virginia declares that all the civil officers who shall have offended against the
State, by maladministration, corruption, or other high crimes, may be impeached by the
House of Delegates; in some constitutions no offences are specified, in order to subject the
public functionaries to an unlimited responsibility.111 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 constitute 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 life 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
those upon whom it is inflicted. Great criminals may undoubtedly brave its intangible rigor,

110
Chap. I. sect. ii. Section 8.
111
See the constitutions of Illinois, Maine, Connecticut, and Georgia.
 70

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 shameful 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 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 punishments the Americans seem to have eluded the worst consequences 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. 112

112
See Appendix, N.
[The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868—which was resorted 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 acquitted and reinstated in office—is a striking
confirmation of the truth of this remark.—Translator’s Note, 1874.]
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VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 1

I have hitherto considered each State as a separate whole, and I have explained the different
springs which the people sets in motion, and the different means of action which it employs.
But all the States which I have considered as independent are forced to submit, in certain
cases, to the supreme authority of the Union. The time is now come for me to examine
separately the supremacy with which the Union has been invested, and to cast a rapid glance
over the Federal Constitution.
Chapter Summary
Origin of the first Union—Its weakness—Congress appeals to the constituent authority—
Interval of two years between this appeal and the promulgation of the new Constitution.
History Of The Federal 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 struggling against a common enemy;
and these reasons were sufficiently strong to unite them one to another, and to consolidate
them into one nation. But as each of them had enjoyed a separate 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 divide their strength. As long as the
war with the mother-country 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. 113 But no sooner was peace concluded than the faults of the legislation
became manifest, and the State seemed to be suddenly dissolved. Each colony became an
independent republic, and assumed an absolute sovereignty. The federal government,
condemned to impotence by its constitution, and no longer sustained by the presence of a
common danger, witnessed the outrages offered 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 destruction, when it officially proclaimed its inability to conduct the
government, and appealed to the constituent authority of the nation. 114 If America ever
approached (for however brief a time) that lofty pinnacle of glory to which the fancy of its
inhabitants is wont to 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
struggling with energy to win its independence; and the efforts of the Americans in throwing
off the English yoke have been considerably 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 compare the American was
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 without allies, yet

113
See the articles of the first confederation formed in 1778. This constitution was not adopted by all the States
until 1781. See also the analysis given of this constitution in “The Federalist” from No. 15 to No. 22, inclusive,
and Story’s “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States,” pp. 85-115.
114
Congress made this declaration on February 21, 1787.
 72

capable of opposing a twentieth part of their population 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 society to see a great people turn a calm
and scrutinizing eye upon itself, when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of
government 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 had succeeded the effervescence of the revolution, and of those great men who had led
the revolution to a successful issue. The assembly which accepted the task of composing the
second constitution was small; 115 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 commission, after long and mature deliberation, offered to the acceptance of the
people the body of general laws which still rules the Union. All the States adopted it
successively. 116 The new Federal Government commenced its functions in 1789, after an
interregnum of two years. The Revolution of America terminated when that of France began.

115
It consisted of fifty-five members; Washington, Madison, Hamilton, and the two Morrises were amongst the
number.
116
It was not adopted by the legislative bodies, but representatives were elected by the people for this sole
purpose; and the new constitution was discussed at length in each of these assemblies.
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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 Government the exception.
The first question which awaited the Americans was intricate, and by no means easy of
solution: the object was so to divide the authority of the different States which composed the
Union 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 to 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
governments 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
exigencies 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 carefully 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 remained the rule,
and that of the Confederation became the exception. 117
But as it was foreseen that, in practice, questions might arise as to the exact limits of this
exceptional authority, and that it would be dangerous to submit these questions to the
decision of the ordinary courts of justice, established in the States by the States themselves, a
high Federal court was created, 118 which was destined, amongst other functions, to maintain
the balance of power which had been established by the Constitution between the two rival
Governments. 119
Prerogative Of The Federal Government

117
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 matters 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,
Congress has the right of making a general law 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.
118
The action of this court is indirect, as we shall hereafter show.
119
It is thus that “The Federalist,” No. 45, explains the division of supremacy between the Union and the States:
“The powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to
remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on
external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved 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 Constitution of the United States was submitted to the approval of the people, and the discussions
were still pending, three men, who had already acquired a portion of that celebrity which they have since
enjoyed—John Jay, Hamilton, and Madison—formed an association 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, which 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 concerns America.
 74

Power of declaring war, making peace, and levying general taxes vested in the Federal
Government—What part of the internal 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 Government.
The exclusive right of making peace and war, of concluding treaties of commerce, of raising
armies, and equipping fleets, was granted to the Union. 120 The necessity of a national
Government was less imperiously felt in the conduct of the internal policy of society; but
there are certain general interests which can only be attended to with advantage by a general
authority. The Union was invested with the power of controlling the monetary system, of
directing the post office, and of opening the great roads which were to establish a
communication between the different parts of the country. 121 The independence of the
Government of each State was formally recognized in its sphere; nevertheless, the Federal
Government was authorized to interfere in the internal affairs of the States 122 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. 123 Lastly, as it was necessary
that the Federal Government should be able to fulfil its engagements, it was endowed with an
unlimited power of levying taxes. 124
In examining the balance of power as established by the Federal Constitution; in remarking
on the one hand the portion 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 entertained the clearest and most accurate notions on the nature of the
centralization of government. The United States form not only a republic, but a
confederation; nevertheless the authority 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 without 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 representatives of the nation is
binding upon all the citizens. In these two essential points, therefore, the Union exercises
more central authority than the French monarchy possessed, although the Union is only an
assemblage of confederate republics.
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

120
See Constitution, sect. 8; “Federalist,” Nos. 41 and 42; Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol. i. p. 207; Story, pp. 358-
382; Ibid. pp. 409-426.
121
Several other privileges of the same kind exist, such as that which empowers the Union to legislate on
bankruptcy, to grant patents, and other matters in which its intervention is clearly necessary.
122
Even in these cases its interference is indirect. The Union interferes by means of the tribunals, as will be
hereafter shown.
123
Federal Constitution, sect. 10, art. I.
124
Constitution, sects. 8, 9, and 10; “Federalist,” Nos. 30-36, inclusive, and 41-44; Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol.
i. pp. 207 and 381; Story, pp. 329 and 514.
 75

sovereignty. In America the Congress alone has the right of regulating the commercial
relations of the States. The government 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.
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.
Legislative Powers 125
Division of the Legislative Body into two branches—Difference in the manner of forming the
two Houses—The principle of the independence 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 Constitutions 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 observance 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
opinions. It was the wish of one party to convert the Union into 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 desired 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 consequences 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 State, 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 independence, 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 subscribe to the application of this
doctrine without, in fact, abdicating their existence in relation to the sovereignty of the
Confederation; since they would have passed from the condition of a co-equal and co-
legislative authority to that of an insignificant fraction of a great people. But if the former
system would have invested them with an excessive authority, the latter 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 legislators, which brought together by force two systems
theoretically irreconcilable.

125
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.
 76

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
Representatives. It was decided that each State should send two senators to Congress, and a
number of representatives proportioned to its population. 126 It results from this arrangement
that the State of New York has at the present day forty representatives and only two senators;
the State of Delaware has two senators and only one representative; the State of Delaware 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 decisions 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
principles 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 possible to maintain the complete logic of
legislation; and when we perceive a nation in the enjoyment of this advantage, before we
hasten to conclude that it is wise, we should do well to remember that it is young. When the
Federal Constitution was formed, 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 Constitution has not hitherto produced
those evils which might have been feared. All the States are young and contiguous; their
customs, their ideas, and their exigencies are not dissimilar; and the differences which result
from their size or inferiority do not suffice to set their interests at variance. The small States
have consequently never been induced to league themselves 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 that the Senate 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
object of the Federal Constitution was not to destroy the independence 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 g the decisions of the majority. Upon this principle the introduction of the influence
of the States into the mechanism of the Federal Government was by no means to be wondered

126
Every ten years Congress fixes anew the number of representatives which each State is to furnish. The total
number 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 representative 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. The first Act which was passed on the subject (April 14, 1792: see “Laws of the United States,” by
Story, vol. i. p. 235) decided that there should be one representative for every 33,000 inhabitants. 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 representation 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.—
Translator’s Note.]
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at, since it only attested the existence of an acknowledged power, which was to be humored
and not forcibly checked.
A Further Difference Between The Senate And The 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 election, 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 Representatives 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
submits 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. 127
The Executive Power 128
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 attempting to create an executive
power dependent on the majority 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 exercise of his
authority he cannot be said to be perfectly independent; 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 stability and of strength than had been
granted to it in the separate States.
The President is chosen for four years, and he may be reelected; 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
decisions subordinate to the vote of a council—a dangerous measure, which tends at the same
time to clog the action of the Government and to diminish its responsibility. The Senate has

127
See “The Federalist,” Nos. 52-56, inclusive; Story, pp. 199-314; Constitution of the United States, sects. 2
and 3.
128
See “The Federalist,” Nos. 67-77; Constitution of the United States, art. 2; Story, p. 315, pp. 615-780; Kent’s
“Commentaries,” p. 255.
 78

the right of annulling g 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 on the executive power may be direct; and we have just shown
that the Americans carefully obviated this influence; but it may, on the other hand, be
indirect. 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 inherent 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 rendered this propensity less irresistible. The salary of the President 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 independence 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 resistance 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 pleading its cause and stating its motives. But if the
legislature is certain of overpowering all resistance by persevering in its plans, I reply, that in
the constitutions of all nations, of whatever kind they may be, a certain point exists at which
the legislator is obliged to have recourse to the good sense and the virtue of his fellow-
citizens. This point is more prominent and more discoverable 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 everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which
political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.
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 universal 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 discrepancies France is more akin to a republic than the Union to a monarchy—
Comparison of the number of public officers depending upon 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
constitutional 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 researches. When a monarchy is being gradually transformed into a republic, the
executive power retains the titles, the honors, the etiquette, and even the funds of royalty long
after its authority has disappeared. The English, after having cut off 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
 79

individual, the demeanor of the sovereign is simple and unpretending, as if his authority was
not yet paramount. 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 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 have a
federal and the French a national Government.
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VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 2

This cause of inferiority results from the nature of things, but it is not the only one; the
second in importance is as follows: Sovereignty may be defined to be the right of making
laws: in France, the King really exercises 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 sovereign 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 legislative 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 sovereign. In the exercise of the executive power the President 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. 129 The King of France is absolute
within the limits of his authority. The President of the United States is responsible for his
actions; but the person of the King is declared inviolable by the French Charter. 130
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 France than
in America, but in fact it exists. In America, it acts by elections and decrees; in France it
proceeds by revolutions; 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

129
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 Congress formally decided that, as the President was responsible for his actions, he ought not to be
forced to employ agents who had forfeited his esteem. See Kent’s “Commentaries”, vol. i. p. 289.
130
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 monarchy in 1848.—Translator’s Note.]
 81

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 details, the contrast would have been rendered still more striking. 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 extensive they may be, and penetrates in a thousand different ways into the
administration of 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 exceeds all previous limits; it amounts
to 138,000 131 nominations, 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. 132
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 prerogatives—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 nation 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 which he can at present use are very
circumscribed. The laws allow 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 prerogative 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

131
The sums annually paid by the State to these officers amount to 200,000,000 fr. ($40,000,000).
132
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 have 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 Note,
1875.]
 82

increases by the extent of its achievements, and by the importance of the events it controls,
without modifying its constitution. If the laws had made it as feeble and as circumscribed as
it is in the Union, its influence would very soon become still more preponderant.
Why The President Of The United States Does Not Require 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 opposed by the two
other branches of the legislature. But several 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 government 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 constitutional
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
opposes 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 he 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 important acts are directly or
indirectly submitted to the legislature, and of his own free 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 functionaries.
The dangers of the system of election applied to the head of the executive government of a
great people have been sufficiently exemplified by experience and by history, and the
remarks 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
importance 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 offers so splendid a lure to private 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 ambition 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
 83

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 must make preliminary inquiries as to whether the
geographical position, the laws, the habits, the manners, and the opinions of the people
amongst whom it is to be introduced will admit of the establishment of a weak and dependent
executive government; 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 prerogatives, and to accustom the people to live without its protection. Nothing,
however, is further from the designs of the republicans of Europe than this course: as many of
them owe their hatred of tyranny to the sufferings which they have personally undergone, it is
oppression, and not the extent of the executive power, which excites their hostility, and they
attack the former without perceiving how nearly it is connected with the 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 temporary,
limited, and subordinate. The prize of fortune must be great to encourage adventurers in so
desperate a game. No candidate 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 Government 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 depend 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 if the affairs of a monarchy 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 the contrary, the wheels of government cease to act, as it
were, 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 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 government is wholly occupied by
the coming struggle; his future plans are doubtful; he can undertake nothing new, and the he
will only prosecute with indifference those designs which another will perhaps terminate. “I
am so near the time of my retirement from office,” said President Jefferson on the 21st of
January, 1809 (six weeks before the election), “that I feel no passion, 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 important an event. The wider the influence of the executive power
extends, the greater and the more necessary is its constant action, 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
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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 circumscribed. 133
One of the principal vices of the elective system is that it always 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 magistrate 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 assembly, possessed the directing
authority. If the elective system were adopted in Europe, the condition of most of the
monarchical 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 power is vested in the representatives of the whole nation. The political
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 election the fate of all the Federal public officers is in suspense. Mr. Quincy Adams, on
his entry into office, discharged the majority of the individuals who had been appointed by
his predecessor: and I am not aware that General Jackson allowed a single removable
functionary employed in the Federal service to retain his place beyond the first year which
succeeded his election. It is sometimes made a subject of complaint that in the constitutional
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 constitutional
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 position 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 augmented or decreased by the peculiar circumstances of the people
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 position 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

133
This, however, may be a great danger. The period during which Mr. Buchanan retained office, after the
election of Mr. Lincoln, from November, 1860, to March, 1861, was that which enabled the seceding States of
the South to complete their preparations for the Civil War, and the Executive Government was paralyzed. No
greater evil could befall a nation.—Translator’s Note.]
 85

world is exceedingly 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 without 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 moment of its duration must always be considered as a national
crisis, which is perilous in proportion to the internal embarrassments and the external dangers
of the country. Few of the nations 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 of the sovereign to the
veto of a single individual, suggested the murder of that individual or prepared the way to
anarchy.
In the examination of the institutions and the political as well as social condition 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 internal 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, profiting 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 securities
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 happens 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 obviate this second obstacle was to delegate the electoral powers of the
nation to a body of representatives. This mode of election 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
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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 represent 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 in that time. It was thought that if the legislature was empowered 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, 134 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 uncertainty which resulted from
them, were sometimes prolonged so much as to endanger the welfare of the State, it was
determined that the electors should all vote upon the same day, without being convoked to the
same place. 135 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 another 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 Representatives. If none of the candidates has a majority, the House of
Representatives then proceeds immediately to elect a President, but with the condition that it
must fix upon one of the three candidates who have the highest numbers. 136
Thus it is only in case of an event which cannot often happen, and which can never be
foreseen, that the election is entrusted 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
Representatives does not necessarily offer an immediate solution of the difficulty, for the
majority of that assembly may still be doubtful, 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 137
which are not inherent in the elective system.

134
As many as it sends members to Congress. The number of electors at the election of 1833 was 288. (See
“The National Calendar,” 1833.)
135
The electors of the same State assemble, but they transmit to the central government the list of their
individual votes, and not the mere result of the vote of the majority.
136
In this case it is the majority of the States, and not the majority of the members, which decides the question;
so that New York has not more influence 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 Constitution which can only be explained by the jar of conflicting interests.
137
Jefferson, in 1801, was not elected until the thirty-sixth time of balloting.
 87

In the forty-four years which have elapsed since the promulgation 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
uncertainty; the first time was at the election of Mr. Jefferson in 1801; the second was in
1825, when Mr. Quincy Adams was named. 138
Crises Of The Election
The Election may be considered as a national crisis—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 elections, and they know by
experience the utmost degree of excitement 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 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, concerns 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 numerous 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
personification 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 redoubled; 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 absorbed 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

138
General Grant is now (1874) the eighteenth President of the United States.
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season returns, the current of the State, which had nearly broken its banks, sinks to its usual
level: 139 but who can refrain from astonishment at the causes of the storm.

139
Not always. The election of President Lincoln was the signal of civil war.—Translator’s Note.
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VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 3

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—Disadvantage of the system peculiar to America—The natural evil of
democracy 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 individual may exercise upon the fate of a whole people, in critical
circumstances or arduous times, is well known: a law preventing the re-election of the chief
magistrate would deprive the citizens of the surest pledge of the prosperity and the security 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 affairs.
But if these arguments are strong, perhaps still more powerful reasons may be advanced
against them. Intrigue and corruption 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-rate importance, and the success of
his election is his first concern. All laws and all the negotiations he undertakes are to him
nothing more than electioneering schemes; places become 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 affairs 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 elective 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 encourages
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
 90

provisions which counterbalance this influence would be radically 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 authority 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 entirely 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 refuse its most 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-election 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 guiding 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 extraordinary perils, the country has been exposed to
daily dangers.
Federal Courts 140
Political importance of the judiciary in the United States—Difficulty of treating this subject—
Utility of judicial power 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 prominent place amongst what are probably called political institutions: in
this respect they are peculiarly deserving of our attention. But I am at a loss to explain the
political action of the American tribunals without entering into some technical details 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

140
See chap. VI, entitled “Judicial Power in the United States.” This chapter explains the general principles of
the American theory of judicial institutions. See also the Federal Constitution, Art. 3. See “The Federalists,”
Nos. 78-83, inclusive; and a work entitled “Constitutional Law,” being a view of the 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 “Collection of the Laws of the United States,” by Story, vol. i. p. 53.
 91

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
overcoming the opposition of the people they govern, viz., the physical 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 number 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
despotism. 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 substituted
for it; but if the latter proves to be indispensable, its power is doubled by the association of
the idea of law.
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. 141 If it were always
obliged to resort to violence in the first instance, it could not fulfil its task. The Union,
therefore, required a national judiciary to enforce the obedience of the citizens to the laws,
and to repeal the attacks which might be directed against them. The question then remained
as to what tribunals were to exercise 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 power of the States
to its wants. The separation of the judiciary from the administrative power of the State no
doubt affects 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
correlative 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
dependent on the national Government in a few points, and independent 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

141
Federal laws are those which most require 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 entertained no real intention of obeying the central Government, and which very readily ceded the right
of command to the federal executive, and very prudently reserved the right of non-compliance to themselves.
 92

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 tribunals of the States rendered
them unfit for the service of the nation. When the Federal Constitution was formed there 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 proposition alike contrary to reason and to experience.
The American legislators therefore agreed to create a federal judiciary power to apply the
laws of the Union, and to determine 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 appended 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
legislature. 142 It was easy to proclaim the principle of a Federal judiciary, but difficulties
multiplied when the extent of its jurisdiction was to be determined.
Means Of Determining The Jurisdiction Of The Federal 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 sovereignty 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

142
The Union was divided into districts, in each of which a resident Federal 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 solemn 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, and in the same cases, as into the
courts of the States.
It will be observed that no analogy exists between the Supreme Court of the United States and the French Cour
de Cassation, since the latter only hears appeals on questions of law. The Supreme Court decides upon the
evidence of the fact as well as upon the law of the case, whereas the Cour de Cassation does not pronounce a
decision of its own, but refers the cause to the arbitration of another tribunal. See the law of September 24,
1789, “Laws of the United States,” by Story, vol. i. p. 53.
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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 contested. 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 interpretation 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 jurisprudence for the interpretation of the laws of the Union. This end
would not have been accomplished if the courts of the several States had been competent to
decide upon cases in their separate capacities from which they were obliged to abstain as
Federal tribunals. The Supreme Court of the United States was therefore invested with the
right of determining all questions of jurisdiction. 143
This was a severe blow upon the independence of the States, which was thus restricted not
only by the laws, but by the interpretation 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 whenever
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.
Different Cases Of Jurisdiction
The matter and the party are the first conditions of the Federal jurisdiction—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
established, 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 distinctions were therefore admitted to be the basis of the
Federal jurisdiction.
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

143
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 Union, the losing 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 decisions, but unsuccessfully. See “Kent’s
Commentaries,” vol. i. p. 300, pp. 370 et seq.; Story’s “Commentaries,” p. 646; and “The Organic Law of the
United States,” vol. i. p. 35.
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ambassador 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 nations and to common sense to appeal to a tribunal
representing any other sovereignty than its own; the Federal courts, therefore, take
cognizance of these affairs.
When two parties belonging to two different States are engaged 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. 144
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. 145 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
pregnant with an entire system of ideas, and with a vast multitude 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, because 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, because it arises under the interpretation of a law of the
United States.
This rule is in perfect accordance with the fundamental principles of the Federal Constitution.
The Union, as it was established in 1789, possesses, it is true, a limited supremacy; but it was

144
The Constitution also says that the Federal courts shall decide “controversies between a State and the citizens
of another State.” And here a most important question of a constitutional nature arose, which was, whether the
jurisdiction given by the Constitution in cases in which a State is a party extended to suits brought against a
State as well as by it, or was exclusively confined to the latter. The question was most elaborately considered in
the case of Chisholm v. Georgia, and was decided by the majority of the Supreme Court in the affirmative. The
decision created general alarm among the States, and an amendment was proposed and ratified by which the
power was entirely taken away, so far as it regards suits brought against a State. See Story’s “Commentaries,” p.
624, or in the large edition Section 1677.
145
As for instance, all cases of piracy.
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intended that within its limits it should form one and the same people. 146 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 constitute 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 constitutes 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 jurisdiction 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, that it belongs to the share of sovereignty
reserved by the Constitution 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 Government with sufficient power to
enable it to resist, within its sphere, the encroachments of the several States. As for these
communities, 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 central 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 interest. 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 the several States in
opposition to the Constitution. The States are prohibited from making ex post facto laws in
criminal cases, and any person condemned by virtue of a law of this kind can appeal to the
judicial power of the Union. The States are likewise prohibited from making laws which may
have a tendency to impair the obligations of contracts. 147 If a citizen thinks that an obligation

146
This principle was in some measure restricted by the introduction of the several States as independent powers
into the Senate, and by allowing them to vote separately in the House of Representatives when the President is
elected by that body. But these are exceptions, and the contrary principle is the rule.
147
It is perfectly clear, says Mr. Story (“Commentaries,” p. 503, or in the large edition Section 1379), that any
law which enlarges, abridges, or in any manner changes the intention of the parties, resulting from the
stipulations in the contract, necessarily impairs it. He gives in the same place a very long and careful definition
of what is understood by a contract in Federal jurisprudence. A grant made by the State to a private individual,
and accepted by him, is a contract, and cannot be revoked by any future law. A charter granted by the State to a
company is a contract, and equally binding to the State as to the grantee. The clause of the Constitution here
referred to insures, therefore, the existence of a great part of acquired rights, but not of all. Property may legally
be held, though it may not have passed into the possessor’s hands by means of a contract; and its possession is
an acquired right, not guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.
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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. 148
This provision appears to me to be the most serious attack upon the independence of the
States. The rights awarded to the Federal Government for purposes of obvious national
importance 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 the central authority.

148
A remarkable instance of this is given by Mr. Story (p. 508, or in the large edition Section 1388): “Dartmouth
College in New Hampshire had been founded by a charter granted to certain individuals before the American
Revolution, and its trustees formed a corporation under this charter. The legislature of New Hampshire had,
without the consent of this corporation, passed an act changing the organization of the original provincial charter
of the college, and transferring all the rights, privileges, and franchises from the old charter trustees to new
trustees appointed under the act. The constitutionality of the act was contested, and, after solemn arguments, it
was deliberately held by the Supreme Court that the provincial charter was a contract within the meaning of the
Constitution (Art. I. Section 10), and that the emendatory act was utterly void, as impairing the obligation of that
charter. The college was deemed, like other colleges of private foundation, to be a private eleemosynary
institution, endowed by its charter with a capacity to take property unconnected with the Government. Its funds
were bestowed upon the faith of the charter, and those funds consisted entirely 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 trustees, for a public
charity, or for a particular purpose of beneficence. And the State itself, if it had bestowed funds upon a charity
of the same nature, could not resume those funds.”
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VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 4

Procedure Of The Federal Courts

Natural weakness of the judiciary power in confederations—Legislators ought to strive as
much as possible to bring private individuals, 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 Supreme Court enervate but do not destroy the provincial laws.
I have shown what the privileges of the Federal courts are, and it is 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 from the fact that the tribunals of those
countries represent the entire nation at issue with the individual against whom their decree is
directed, and the idea of power is thus introduced to corroborate the idea of right. But this is
not always the case in countries in 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 justiciable party as the
representative of an individual interest.
Every government, whatever may be its constitution, requires 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 inference was that the Government created by this
Constitution, and acting within these limits, was invested with all the privileges of a national
government, one of the principal of which is the right of transmitting 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 execution 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 nations, 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 difficulty 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 enacted
may impair the privileges of the Union, in which case a collision in unavoidable between that
body and the State which has passed the law: and it only remains to select the least dangerous
remedy, which is very clearly deducible from the general principles I have before
established. 149

149
See Chapter VI. on “Judicial Power in America.”
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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 American 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 of its territory to a company, and that a year
afterwards it passes a law by which the territory is otherwise disposed of, and that clause of
the Constitution which prohibits laws impairing the obligation of contracts violated. When
the purchaser under the second act appears 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. 150 Thus, in point of fact, the judicial power of the Union is
contesting the claims of the sovereignty of a State; but 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, and that it could therefore sue or be sued before a
tribunal. Thus a State could bring an action against another State. In this instance the Union
was not called upon to contest a provincial law, but to try a suit in which a State was a party.
This suit was perfectly similar to any other cause, except that the quality of the parties was
different; and here the danger pointed out at the beginning of this chapter exists with less
chance of being avoided. The inherent disadvantage of the very essence of Federal
constitutions is that they engender parties in the bosom of the nation which present powerful
obstacles to the free course of justice.
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 organization of the Supreme Court, and
the entire prerogatives which it exercises, we 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 known 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 by the ordinary
course of justice. This repugnance naturally attains its utmost height in an absolute
Government; and, on the other hand, the privileges 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 authorities, to all cases of admiralty and

150
See Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol. i. p. 387.
 99

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 with the citizens, and of the nation with
Foreign Powers: the relations 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 may 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 summons sovereign powers to its bar.
When the clerk of the court 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 represents
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 letter: the
Executive appeals to them for assistance against the encroachments of the legislative powers;
the Legislature demands 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 indispensable to magistrates, but they must be statesmen—politicians,
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 without 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 lie in the constitution of the tribunal, but in
the very nature of Federal Governments. We have observed that in confederate peoples it is
especially necessary to consolidate the judicial authority, because 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 Government. 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 independence and its strength. The
source of the evil is not, therefore, 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
 100

In what respects the Constitution of the Union can be compared to that of the States—
Superiority of the Constitution of the Union attributable to the wisdom of the Federal
legislators—Legislature of the Union less dependent on the people than that of the States—
Executive 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
exists between them. The objects of the Governments are different, 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 151 have been added to the American Confederation since the
promulgation of the Federal Constitution, and that these new republics have always rather
exaggerated than avoided the defects which existed in the former Constitutions.
The chief cause of the superiority of the Federal Constitution lay in the character of the
legislators who composed it. At the time when it was formed the dangers of the
Confederation were imminent, and its ruin seemed inevitable. In this extremity the people
chose the men who most deserved the esteem, 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 intelligence, they were still more so for their
patriotism. They had all been nurtured at a time when the spirit of liberty was braced by a
continual struggle against 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 independence 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 ventured to propose restrictions, because they were resolutely
opposed to destruction. 152

151
The number of States has now risen to 46 (1874), besides the District of Columbia.
152
At this time Alexander Hamilton, who was one of the principal founders of the Constitution, ventured to
express the following sentiments in “The Federalist,” No. 71:—
“There are some who would be inclined to regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current,
either in the community or in the Legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude
notions, as well of the purposes for which government was instituted as of the true means by which the public
happiness may be promoted. The Republican principle demands that the deliberative sense of the community
should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require
an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of 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 intend the public good. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would
despise the adulator who should pretend that they always reason right about the means of promoting it. They
know from experience that they sometimes err; and the wonder is that they so seldom err as they do, beset, as
they continually are, by the wiles of parasites and sycophants; by the snares of the ambitious, the avaricious, the
 101

The greater number of the Constitutions of the States assign one year for the duration of the
House of Representatives, and two years for that of the Senate; so that members of the
legislative body are constantly and narrowly tied down by the slightest desires of their
constituents. The legislators of the Union were of opinion that this excessive dependence of
the Legislature 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 people.
They increased the length of the time for which the representatives were returned, 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. But in the States these two branches were composed of
the same elements, and elected in the same manner. The consequence was that the passions
and inclinations of the populace were as rapidly and as energetically represented in one
chamber as in the other, and that laws were made with all the characteristics of violence and
precipitation. By the Federal Constitution the two houses originate in like manner in the
choice of the people; but the conditions of eligibility and the mode of election were changed,
to the end that, if, as is the case in certain nations, one branch of the Legislature represents
the same interests 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 members.
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
prejudicial to a well-conducted administration, and favorable to the despotism of the
majority. The legislators of the States frequently yielded to these democratic propensities,
which were invariably 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 Legislature, but who is in reality nothing more than the blind
agent and the passive instrument of its decisions. He can derive no 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 condemn 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 authority; nevertheless, in all the States the Legislature has

desperate; by the artifices of men who possess their confidence more than they deserve it, and of those who seek
to possess rather than to deserve it. When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are
at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of
those interests to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool
and sedate 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 magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure.”
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reserved 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 Superior 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 conducted
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 projects
are more durable and more skilfully combined, its measures 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
caprices of the electoral body, and the concentration of all the 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 legislators of the Union by every
means which lay within their control.
Characteristics Which Distinguish The Federal Constitution Of The United States Of
America From All Other Federal Constitutions American Union appears to resemble all
other confederations—Nevertheless its effects are different—Reason of this—Distinctions
between the Union and all other confederations—The American Government not a federal
but an imperfect national Government.
The United States of America do not afford either the first or the only instance of confederate
States, several of which have existed in modern Europe, without adverting to those of
antiquity. Switzerland, the Germanic Empire, and the Republic of the United Provinces either
have been or still are confederations. In studying the constitutions of these different countries,
the politician is surprised to observe that the powers with which they invested the Federal
Government are nearly identical 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 raising money and troops, and of providing for the general
exigencies and the common interests of the nation. Nevertheless the Federal Government of
these different 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 certain principles which exercise a most important influence, although 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 allied States agreed to obey the injunctions of a Federal
Government; but they reserved to themselves the right of ordaining and enforcing the
execution of the laws of the Union. The American States which combined in 1789 agreed that
the Federal Government should not only dictate the laws, but that it should execute it own
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enactments. In both cases the right is the same, but the exercise of the right is different; and
this alteration produced the most momentous consequences.
In all the confederations which had been formed before the American Union the Federal
Government demanded its supplies 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
resistance 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
occurred; either the most preponderant of the allied peoples has assumed the privileges of the
Federal authority and ruled all the States in its name, 153 or the Federal Government has been
abandoned by its natural supporters, anarchy has arisen between the confederates, and the
Union has lost all powers of action. 154
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
Massachusetts. 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 Federal 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 system. In America,
each State has fewer opportunities of resistance 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 interruption of the ordinary course of justice, and a
bold declaration of revolt; in a word, without taking a decisive step which men hesitate to
adopt.
In all former confederations the privileges of the Union furnished more elements of discord
than of power, since they multiplied 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 ordinary 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 several
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 Government, which is so essentially different
from all others, is denominated 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

153
This was the case in Greece, when Philip undertook to execute the decree of the Amphictyons; in the Low
Countries, where the province of Holland always 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.
154
Such has always been the situation of the Swiss Confederation, which would have perished ages ago but for
the mutual jealousies of its neighbors.
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limited circle than, a national government. Here the term Federal Government 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 national 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 to apply this great
remedy. The American Confederation perished by the same defects.
But the Confederate States of America had been long accustomed to form a portion of one
empire before they had won their independence; they had not contracted the habit of
governing 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 prudent firmness as soon as they
were conscious of the evil; they amended their laws, and they saved their country.
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VIII. The Federal Constitution—Part 5

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 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 invasion 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 immunities 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, 155 and this has led to the conclusion that such a state of
things is impracticable. For my own part, I cannot but censure 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

155
I do not speak of a confederation of small republics, but of a great consolidated Republic.
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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 institutions spread with an increasing
territory, whilst the virtues which maintain their dignity do not augment in the same
proportion. 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 invariably 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 republic 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 difficulty 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 individuals 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 political
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 acknowledge
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, 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 designs are conceived with more talent, and executed with more boldness.
In time of peace the well-being of small nations is undoubtedly more general and more
complete, but they are apt to suffer more acutely from the calamities of war than those great
empires 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.
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This consideration introduces the element of physical strength as a condition of national

prosperity. It profits a people 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 nation has the empire of the seas and gives the law in all the
markets of the globe. Small nations are 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 conditions of the happiness and
even of the existence of nations. Hence it occurs that, unless very peculiar circumstances
intervene, small nations are always united to large empires in the end, either by force or by
their own consent: yet I am unacquainted 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 combining 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 impart 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 principal 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 sovereignty 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 projects 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 republican form of government in the New World depend upon the
existence 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 republican 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 people, 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 abstract 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
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the hope of causing measures of improvement to be adopted which may be favorable to his
own interest; and these are motives which are wont to stir men more readily than the general
interests of the country and the glory of the nation.
On the other hand, if the temper and the manners of the inhabitants 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 incompatible with liberty; for it does not excite
those insatiable desires of fame and power which have proved so fatal to great republics. As
there is no common centre to the country, vast capital cities, colossal wealth, abject poverty,
and sudden revolutions 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 throughout the Union as freely as in a
country inhabited by one people. 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 respected in the
most remote seas. The Union is as happy and 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 baffle the efforts of the legislator—The Federal
system is complex—It demands a daily exercise of discretion on the part of the citizens—
Practical knowledge 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 system of
the Americans.
When a legislator succeeds, after persevering efforts, in exercising an indirect influence upon
the destiny of nations, his genius is lauded by mankind, whilst, in point of fact, the
geographical position of the country which he is unable to change, a social condition which
arose without his co-operation, manners 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 from their federal system; it
remains for me to point out the circumstances which rendered that system practicable, as its
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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 defined; but he cannot combine them into one, or prevent them
from coming into collision at certain points. The Federal system therefore rests upon a theory
which is necessarily complicated, and which demands the daily exercise of a considerable
share of discretion on the part of those it governs.
A proposition must be plain to be adopted by the understanding 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 extent can only be discerned
by the understanding.
When once the general theory is comprehended, numberless difficulties remain to be solved
in its application; for the sovereignty 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 conventional; 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 science of politics
has not descended to the humblest classes of society. 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 distinguish, 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 matters 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 establishing a federal system, and they took the Federal
Constitution of their neighbors, the Anglo-Americans, as their model, and copied it with
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considerable accuracy. 156 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 mechanism of their double government; the
sovereignty of the States and that of the Union perpetually exceeded their respective
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 system, 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 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 supremacy. 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 legislators 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
conceive themselves to be interested in the cause of a single individual 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 instinctively 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. Fiction would give way to reality, and an organized portion of the
territory might then contest the central authority. 157The 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. 158
He would have but a partial knowledge of the world who 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
probable, 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

156
See the Mexican Constitution of 1824.
157
This is precisely what occurred in 1862, and the following paragraph describes correctly the feelings and
notions of the South. General Lee held that his primary allegiance was due, not to the Union, but to Virginia.
158
For instance, the Union possesses by the Constitution 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
boundaries, upon the plea that the Constitution 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 State of Ohio and the purchasers from the Union,
and not in the names of Ohio and the Union. But what would become of this legal fiction if the Federal
purchaser was confirmed in his right by the courts of the Union, whilst the other competitor was ordered to
retain possession by the tribunals of the State of Ohio?
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people are in the bosom of the States. The sovereignty of the Union is an abstract being,
which is connected 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 factitious, that of the
States is natural, 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 individual citizen at every
hour and in all circumstances; it protects 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 instinctive in the human
heart.
Since legislators are unable to obviate such dangerous collisions 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 encourage 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 cannot succeed without the presence of favorable
circumstances added to the influence of good laws. All the peoples which have ever formed a
confederation have been held together by a certain number of common interests, which
served as the intellectual ties of association.
But the sentiments and the principles of man must be taken into consideration as well as his
immediate interests. A certain uniformity of civilization is not less necessary to the durability
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
difference between the civilization of Maine and that of Georgia is slighter than the
difference between 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.
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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 nations in the
defence of its very existence. The skill of a government, the good sense of the community,
and the natural fondness which men entertain for their country, may suffice to maintain 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 ignorance 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 insurrections, 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 insurrection. 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 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 constrained to raise
elsewhere the troops which it required. 159
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 immense continent, which offers a
boundless field for human industry, 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

159
Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol. i. p. 244. I have selected an example which relates to a time posterior to the
promulgation of the present Constitution. If I had gone back to the days of the Confederation, I might have
given still more striking instances. The whole nation was at that time in a state of enthusiastic excitement; the
Revolution was represented by a man who was the idol of the people; but at that very period 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 enemies far more than by its own strength. [All doubt as to the powers of the Federal
Executive was, however, removed by its efforts in the Civil War, and those powers were largely extended.]
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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. 160 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
freedom of man. I envy the lot of those nations which have been enabled to adopt it; but I
cannot believe that any confederate peoples could maintain a long or an equal contest with a
nation of similar strength in which the government should be centralized. A people which
should divide its sovereignty into fractional powers, in the presence of the great military
monarchies 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.

160
War broke out between the United States and Mexico in 1846, and ended in the conquest of an immense
territory, including California.
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IX. Why The People May Strictly Be Said To

Govern In The United States

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 society 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.
In America the people appoints the legislative and the executive 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 community 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 inclination or by interest, are sincerely desirous
of the welfare of their country. But they are surrounded by the incessant agitation of parties,
which attempt to gain their co-operation and to avail themselves of their support.
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X. Parties In The United States

Chapter Summary
Great distinction to be made between parties—Parties which are to each other as rival
nations—Parties properly so called—Difference between 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 intention—Aristocratic or democratic character
to be met with in all parties—Struggle of General Jackson against the Bank.
Parties In The United States
A great distinction must be made between parties. Some countries are so large that the
different populations 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
peoples rather than by factions in the State.
But when the citizens entertain different opinions upon subjects which affect 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 insupportable evils as to conceive the
design of effecting a total change in its political constitution; at other times the mischief lies
still deeper, and the existence of society itself is endangered. Such are the times of great
revolutions and of great parties. But between these epochs of misery and of confusion 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 more than for
men; they are all advancing towards a goal with which they are unacquainted; and we 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 this may be, there are certain epochs at which the changes that take place in the
social and political constitution 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 general, 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
character in their actions. They glow with a factitious zeal; their language is vehement, but
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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 succeeds a violent revolution,
the leaders of society seem suddenly to disappear, and the powers of the human mind to lie
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 perturbation,
those invariably disturb it to no good end.
America has already lost the great parties which once divided 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
world, and which are perpetually to be met with under all the forms and all the names which
have ever obtained in free communities—the one tending to limit, the other to extend
indefinitely, the power of the people. The conflict of these two opinions never assumed that
degree of violence in America which it has frequently displayed elsewhere. Both parties of
the Americans 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 number 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 endeavored to apply its doctrines
more especially to the Constitution 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, moreover, favored by circumstances. The ruin of the Confederation 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 that they at once despaired of
their future success. From that moment the Republican or Democratic party 161 has proceeded
from conquest to conquest, until it has acquired absolute supremacy 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 victorious Republicans, and the

It is scarcely necessary to remark that in more recent times the signification of these terms has changed. The
161

Republicans are the representatives of the old Federalists, and the Democrats of the old Republicans.—Trans.
Note (1861).
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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
inevitable 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 considerable number of their principles were in point of fact embodied in
the political creed of their opponents; and the Federal Constitution which subsists at the
present day is a lasting monument 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 Government 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
district; and that the restrictive system which was profitable to the one was prejudicial to the
other. 162
In the absence of great parties, the United States abound with lesser controversies; and public
opinion is divided into a thousand minute shades of difference upon questions of very little
moment. The pains which are taken to create parties are inconceivable, and at the present day
it is no easy task. In the United States there is no religious animosity, because all religion 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 supply
the means of agitation, because the physical position of the country opens so wide a field to
industry that man is able to accomplish 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 therefore 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 appear 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 connected with one or the other

162
The divisions of North and South have since acquired a far greater degree of intensity, and the South, though
conquered, still presents a formidable spirit of opposition to Northern government.—Translator’s Note, 1875.
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of those two divisions which have always existed in free communities. The deeper we
penetrate 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 extend, the popular authority. I do not assert that the
ostensible end, or even that the secret aim, of American parties is to promote 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.
Remains Of The Aristocratic Party In The United States
Secret opposition of wealthy individuals to democracy—Their retirement—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, overpowers
all obstacles, harasses its opponents, and appropriates all the resources of society to its own
purposes. The vanquished citizens despair of success and they conceal their dissatisfaction in
silence and in 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 democratic 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 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 uncommon to hear them laud the delights of a
republican government, and the advantages of democratic institutions when they are in
public. Next to hating 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
dwelling 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 pleasures, or more jealous of the smallest advantages which his privileged station confers
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upon him. But the very same individual crosses the city to reach a dark counting-house in the
centre of traffic, 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.
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XI. Liberty Of The Press In The United States

Chapter Summary
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—Illustrated by the United States—
Opinion of the Americans upon the repression of the abuse of the liberty of the press by
judicial prosecutions—Reasons for which the press is less powerful in America than in
France.
Liberty Of The Press In The United States
The influence of the liberty of the press does not affect political opinions alone, but it extends
to all the opinions of men, and it modifies customs as well as laws. In another part of this
work I shall attempt to determinate the degree of influence which the liberty of the press has
exercised upon civil society in the United States, and to point out the direction 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 attachment to the liberty of the press
which things that are supremely 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 ensures.
If any one could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position between the complete
independence and the entire subjection 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 printing and to restore the use of orderly language, you may
in the first instance try the offender by a jury; but if the jury acquits him, the opinion which
was that of a single individual becomes 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 obscurely 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, and 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 efforts; but if your object was to repress the abuses of liberty, they
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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 countries
which profess to enjoy the privileges of freedom every individual agent of the Government
may violate the laws with impunity, 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 of the press, the people would be
justified in saying: Give us the right of prosecuting your offences before the ordinary
tribunals, 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 acknowledged, 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 opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the
institutions 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 madness 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 extraordinary ascendency it
has acquired over the nation, but that they do not exercise much influence upon the tone of its
language. 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 indignation. 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
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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 opinion 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 benefits
which the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils which it
engenders. To expect to 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 and contrary principles
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 formidable 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 attention. 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 skillfully 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 the difference which exists between the two nations on this 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 advertisements, and the remainder is frequently occupied by
political intelligence 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 despots, 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 centred 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
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nation, must be unbounded. 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 direction; the Americans have
established no central control over the expression of opinion, any more than over the conduct
of business. 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. The 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 dissemination; 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-evident 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
few powerful organs, but it is perfectly 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 indeed arrayed on the side of the administration or against it;
but they attack and defend in a thousand different ways. They cannot succeed in forming
those great currents of opinion which overwhelm the most solid obstacles. This division of
the influence of the press produces a variety of other consequences which are scarcely less
remarkable. The facility with which journals can be established induces a multitude of
individuals to 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 usually 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 dictates 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 discussing 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 principles of political science to assail the characters of
individuals, to track them into private life, and disclose all their weaknesses and errors.
Nothing can be more deplorable than this abuse of the powers of thought; I shall have
occasion to point out hereafter the influence of the newspapers upon the taste and the
morality of the American people, but my present subject exclusively concerns the political
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world. It cannot be denied 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 possession 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. 163
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 altering 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 influence 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 between 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. 164
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 principles 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 century, greater freedom of
conscience and more invincible prejudices have existed than 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 because they exercised their own free-will in choosing
them; and they maintain them not only because they are true, but because they are 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
implicitly, because he adopts a proposition without inquiry. He doubts as soon as he is
assailed by the objections which his inquiries may have aroused. But he frequently succeeds
in satisfying these doubts, and then he begins to believe afresh: he no longer lays hold on a

163
They only write in the papers when they choose to address the people in their own name; as, for instance,
when they are called upon to repel calumnious imputations, and to correct a misstatement of facts.
164
See Appendix, P.
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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.165
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
constantly 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
persuasion. The same thing takes place in politics under the liberty of the press. In countries
where all the theories of social science 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 superiority 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
aristocracy 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
perfectly evident without further controversy.

165
It may, however, be doubted whether this rational and self-guiding conviction arouses as much fervor or
enthusiastic devotedness in men as their first dogmatical belief.
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XII. Political Associations In The United States

Chapter Summary
Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the right of association—Three kinds of
political associations—In what manner the Americans apply the representative system to
associations—Dangers resulting to the State—Great Convention of 1831 relative to the
Tariff—Legislative character of this Convention—Why the unlimited exercise 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.
Political Associations In The United States
In no country in the world has the principle of association been more successfully used, or
more unsparingly applied 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 assistance 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 misdemeanors 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 immediately concerned. If the public pleasures are concerned, an association is
formed to provide for the splendor and the regularity of the entertainment. Societies are
formed to resist enemies 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, morality, 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 association upon the course of society,
and I must confine myself for the present to the political world. When once the right of
association 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 engagement 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 assumes 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 increased 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
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increased and its influence extended. Men have the opportunity 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 individuals 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 the party. Lastly, in the
third case, they constitute a separate nation in the midst of the nation, a government within
the Government. Their delegates, like the real delegates of the majority, 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 people. 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 exercise of freedom, or which is
exposed to violent political passions, a deliberating minority, which confines itself to the
contemplation 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 difference between proving that one law is in itself better than another 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 opinions, 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 association cannot be entirely assimilated to the liberty of the press. The one is at the
same time less necessary and more dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within
certain limits without forfeiting any part of its self-control; and it may sometimes be obliged
to do so in order to maintain its own authority.
In America the liberty of association for political purposes is unbounded. 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 exercised a
favorable or a prejudicial influence upon several very 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 virulence, a private citizen of
Massachusetts proposed to all the enemies of the tariff, by means of the public prints, to send
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delegates to Philadelphia in order to consult together upon the means which were most fitted
to promote freedom of trade. This proposal 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 1, 1831, this assembly, which according to the American custom
had taken the name of a Convention, met at Philadelphia; it consisted of more than two
hundred members. Its debates were public, and they at once assumed a legislative character;
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 political association has not hitherto
produced, in the United States, those fatal consequences which might perhaps be expected
from it elsewhere. The right of association was imported from England, and it has always
existed in America; 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 disposal.
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
themselves upon their own basis, and of opposing the moral authority 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 dangerous measure which is used to repress it seems to be more
advantageous 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 which 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 permanent protection against the most galling
tyranny; and a great people may be oppressed by a small faction, or by a single individual,
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 the judicious friends of the country,
without alarm. This was very perceptible in the Convention of 1831, 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 minds of the malcontents, and
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prepared them for the open revolt against the commercial laws of the Union which took place
in 1832.
It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association 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 constitute 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 association is understood in the United
States. In America the citizens 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 afterwards 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 ourselves depends on several causes.
In Europe there are numerous 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 without evil consequences. The inexperience of many of the European nations in
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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 undertaking 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 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 Government 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 represent 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 resources as much as possible,
and they intrust the power of the whole party to a very small number of leaders.
The members of these associations respond to a watchword, like soldiers on duty; they
profess the doctrine of passive obedience; say rather, that in uniting together they at once
abjure the exercise of their own judgment and free will; and the tyrannical control which
these societies exercise is often far more insupportable than the authority possessed over
society by the Government which they attack. Their moral force is much diminished by these
excesses, and they lose the powerful interest 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 government which are applied to their
associations, but these are invariably 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
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his free will; but every one exerts that reason and that will for the benefit of a common
undertaking.
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XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—

Part 1

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 country, 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
towards a state of things which may prove either despotic or republican, but which will
assuredly be democratic.
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 in New England, in Georgia
and in Canada. I have remarked that Universal Suffrage is far from producing in America
either 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
distinguished men in America frequently seclude themselves from public affairs.
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
affairs 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 surprised 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 affairs; 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.
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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.
Whatever may be the facilities of acquiring information, whatever may be the profusion of
easy methods and of cheap science, the human mind can never be instructed and educated
without devoting 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 improvement. This boundary is more remote in some countries and
more restricted in others; but it must exist somewhere as long as the people is constrained to
work in order to procure the means of physical subsistence, that is to say, as long as it retains
its popular character. It is therefore quite 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 sincerely 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 multitude 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 prosecution of an investigation of
this kind: its conclusions are hastily formed from a superficial inspection of the more
prominent 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
exertions.
Moreover, the democracy is not only deficient in that soundness of judgment which is
necessary to select men really deserving of its confidence, but it has neither the desire nor the
inclination to find them out. It cannot be denied that democratic institutions have a very
strong tendency to promote the feeling of envy in the human heart; not so much because they
afford to every one the means of rising to the level of any of his fellow-citizens, as because
those means perpetually disappoint 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
sufficiently near to be enjoyed. The lower orders are agitated by the chance of success, they
are irritated by its uncertainty; and they pass 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,
however, is an error; the propensity to which I allude is not inherent 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
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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 people to reject the most
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 office 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
universal 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 suffrage 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.
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 affairs 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 effects 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 sometimes
quench the energy of a people instead of stimulating it; they excite without directing its
passions, and instead of clearing they confuse its powers of perception. The Jews deluged the
smoking ruins of their temple with the carnage of the remnant of their host. But 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 characters are then thrown into relief,
as edifices which are concealed by the gloom of night are illuminated by the glare of a
conflagration. At those dangerous 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 America 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 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 passions of democracy, the
intelligence 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.
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In New England the education and the liberties of the communities were engendered by the
moral and religious principles of their founders. Where society has acquired a sufficient
degree 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 naught 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 principles 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 contribute, nevertheless, to correct, in
some measure, the dangerous 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 members 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.
At a few yards’ distance from this spot is the door of the Senate, which contains within a
small space a large proportion of the celebrated men of America. Scarcely an individual 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 application 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 accurately represent the majority of the nation which
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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.
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
representation, 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 bringing 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 Exercised 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 excitement—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 disappointed 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 elections occur frequently, their recurrence keeps society in a perpetual state
of feverish excitement, and imparts a continual instability to public affairs.
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 mutability has, by this means, been introduced into their
legislation. Many of the Americans consider the instability of their 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 mischievous
effects of the mutability in the public councils arising 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 blessings of
liberty itself, and diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a political
system which betrays so many marks of infirmity.”
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Jefferson himself, the greatest Democrat whom the democracy 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 majority, but by a majority of at
least two-thirds of both houses.”
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 persons in
authority is connected not only with the peculiarities of the American character, but with the
fundamental principles of that society. In the estimation of the democracy a government is
not a benefit, but a necessary evil. A certain degree of power must 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 putting 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 authority 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 discharge of his duties because his own
merit was set off by no adventitious signs. On the other hand, it is very doubtful whether a
peculiar 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 magistrate (and in
France such instances are not rare) indulges his trivial wit at the expense of the prisoner, or
derides the predicament in which a culprit is placed, it would be well to deprive him of his
robes of office, to see whether he would recall 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 magisterial 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 remunerated 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.
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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 capacities of the candidates are more apt to restrict the choice of
electors than the connections 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 offer but few lures to ambition. In the United States the
persons who engage in the perplexities of political life are individuals 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 has discovered his incompetence to conduct his own
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 absolute monarchies and in
democratic republics than it is in limited monarchies—Arbitrary power of the Magistrates in
New England.
In two different kinds of government the magistrates 166 exercise 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 regulations; 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 conduct 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 authority.
It may even be observed, on attentive consideration, that under the rule of a democracy the
arbitrary power of the magistrate must be still greater than in despotic States. In the latter the
sovereign has the power of punishing all the faults with which he 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

166
I here use the word magistrates in the widest sense in which it can be taken; I apply it to all the officers to
whom the execution of the laws is intrusted.
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American functionaries are, in point of fact, much more independent in the sphere of action
which 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 township 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. 167 In France the lives and liberties of the subjects would be thought to be in
danger if a public officer of any kind was entrusted 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 supplying them with liquor. 168
A censorial power of this excessive kind would be revolting to the population of the most
absolute monarchies; here, however, it is submitted to without difficulty.
Nowhere has so much been left by the law to the arbitrary determination of the magistrate as
in democratic republics, because this arbitrary power is unattended by any alarming
consequences. 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 democratic 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 prescribes the sphere in which public
officers are to act, superintends all their measures. The cause of this may be easily detected.
In limited monarchies the power is divided between the King and the people, both of whom
are interested in the stability 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 suggests the necessity of such securities as may prevent
their independence from encroaching upon the authority of the former 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 confining him by certain regulations
which he cannot evade.

167
See the Act of February 27, 1813. “General Collection of the Laws of Massachusetts,” vol. ii. p. 331. It
should be added that the jurors are afterwards drawn from these lists by lot.
168
See Act of February 28, 1787. “General Collection of the Laws of Massachusetts,” vol. i. p. 302.
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XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—

Part 2

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 remains—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-changing 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 newspapers; but if a number be
wanting, the chain of time is broken, and the present is severed from the past. I am convinced
that in fifty years it will be more difficult to collect authentic documents concerning the
social condition of the Americans at the present day than it is to find remains of the
administration 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.
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
methodical 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 may undoubtedly be ranked as a
science, and no sciences can be improved if the discoveries and observations of successive
generations 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
execution, 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 afford any instruction to each other; and
when they assume the direction 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 is uninitiated in public affairs.
This remark, indeed, is not exclusively applicable to the science 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 enlightenment in society. 169 At the
first glance it may be imagined to belong to the earliest ages of the world; but maturer
observation will convince us that it could only come last in the succession of human history.

169
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.
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Charges Levied By The State Under The Rule Of 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 expenditure 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 affirm whether a democratic form of government 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 acquired property. Freedom, on the contrary, engenders far
more benefits than it destroys; and the nations which are favored 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 under 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 especially 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 influence peculiar to its own
propensities upon the administration of the finances of the State. If the first of the three
exclusively possesses the legislative power, it is probable that it will not be sparing of the
public funds, because the taxes which are levied on a large fortune only tend to diminish the
sum of superfluous enjoyment, and are, in point of fact, but little felt. If the second class has
the power of making the laws, it will certainly not be lavish of taxes, because nothing is so
onerous as a large impost which is levied upon a small income. The government of the
middle classes appears to me to be the most economical, though perhaps not the most
enlightened, and certainly not the most generous, 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 appears to
be spent to their advantage, at no cost of their own; and those who are 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.
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In countries in which the poor 170 should be exclusively invested 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 are 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 suffer 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 moment, no such thing as a tyrannical sovereign or an exclusive aristocracy
could ever exist.
Again, it may be objected that the poor are never invested with the sole power of making the
laws; but I reply, that wherever universal suffrage has been established the majority of the
community unquestionably exercises the legislative authority; and if it be proved that the
poor always constitute the majority, it may be added, with perfect truth, that in the countries
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 property is insufficient to exempt
them from the necessity of working in order to procure an easy subsistence. Universal
suffrage does therefore, in point of fact, invest the poor with the government of society.
The disastrous influence which popular authority may sometimes exercise upon the finances
of a State was very clearly seen in some of the democratic republics of antiquity, in which the
public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent citizens, or to supply the games and
theatrical amusements of the populace. It is true that the representative system was then very
imperfectly known, and that, at the present time, the influence of popular passion is less felt
in the conduct of public 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 property, 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, because in the latter country the property 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 still more favorable position than France.
There are still further causes which may increase the sum of public expenditure in democratic
countries. When the aristocracy governs, the individuals who conduct the affairs of State are
exempted by their own station in society from every 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

170
The word poor is used here, and throughout the remainder of this chapter, 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.
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if they were themselves partakers 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
improving its condition.
When, on the contrary, the people is invested with the supreme 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
improvements cannot take place without a sacrifice of money. When a people begins to
reflect upon its situation, it discovers a multitude 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 augmented as knowledge pervades the community.
The last cause which frequently renders a democratic government dearer than any other is,
that a democracy does not always succeed in moderating its expenditure, because it does 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 undertakings
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. 171
Tendencies Of The American Democracy As Regards The Salaries Of Public Officers
In the democracies those who establish high salaries have no chance of profiting by them—
Tendency of the American democracy to increase the salaries of subordinate officers and to
lower those of the more important functionaries—Reason of this—Comparative statement of
the salaries of public officers in the United States and in France.
There is a powerful reason which usually induces democracies 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 individuals 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.

171
The gross receipts of the Treasury of the United States in 1832 were about $28,000,000; in 1870 they had
risen to $411,000,000. The gross expenditure in 1832 was $30,000,000; in 1870, $309,000,000.
 144

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; 172 but when the question turns upon the salaries of the
great officers of State, 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 enviable being. 173 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 remembers all that he could do with a salary which you say is
insufficient, and he is startled or almost frightened at the sight of such uncommon wealth.
Besides, the secondary public officer is almost 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
arouse 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. 174

172
The easy circumstances in which secondary functionaries are placed in the United States result also from
another 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 servants. The country is in the position
of a commercial undertaking, which is obliged to sustain an expensive competition, notwithstanding its tastes
for economy.
173
The State of Ohio, which contains a million of inhabitants, gives its Governor a salary of only $1,200 a year.
174
To render this assertion perfectly evident, it will suffice to examine the scale of salaries of the agents of the
Federal Government. I have added the salaries attached to the corresponding officers in France under the
constitutional monarchy to complete the comparison.
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

France
Ministere des Finances
Hussier ........................... 1,500 fr.
Clerk with lowest salary, 1,000 to 1,800 fr.
Clerk with highest salary 3,200 to 8,600 fr.
Secretaire-general ................20,000 fr.
The Minister ......................80,000 fr.
The King ......................12,000,000 fr.
I have perhaps done wrong in selecting France as my standard of comparison. In France the democratic
tendencies of the nation exercise an ever-increasing influence upon the Government, and the Chambers show a
disposition to raise the low salaries and to lower the principal ones. Thus, the Minister of Finance, who received
160,000 fr. under the Empire, receives 80,000 fr. in 1835: the Directeurs-generaux of Finance, who then
received 50,000 fr. now receive only 20,000 fr. [This comparison is based on the state of things existing in
 145

Under the rule of an aristocracy it frequently happens, on the contrary, that whilst the high
officers are receiving munificent 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 have just alluded. If a democracy is unable to conceive the
pleasures of the rich or to witness them without envy, an aristocracy 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 principal 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 enjoyments of the people. 175 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 Contribute To The Economy Of The
American Government
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.
These 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
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 exercise 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 commercial nation. The habits of private life are continued in public; and we ought
carefully to distinguish that economy which depends upon their institutions from that which
is the natural result of their manners and customs.

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 author’s observation.
175
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 maintenance of the poor, and at least $1,000,000 were devoted to
gratuitous instruction. (William’s “New York Annual Register,” 1832, pp. 205 and 243.) The State of New York
contained only 1,900,000 inhabitants in the year 1830, which is not more than double the amount of population
in the Department du Nord in France.
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Whether The Expenditure Of The United States Can Be Compared To That Of France
Two points to be established in order to estimate the extent of the public charges, viz., the
national wealth and the rate of taxation—The wealth and the charges of France not
accurately known—Why the wealth and charges of the Union cannot be accurately known—
Researches of the author with a view to discover the amount of taxation of Pennsylvania—
General symptoms which may serve to indicate 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 compare the public expenditure of that
country with the expenditure 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
demand, is to undertake a futile labor; for it is not the expenditure, 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 second, and personal property the third. The
first of these three elements may be discovered without difficulty. Amongst civilized nations
it is easy to obtain an accurate census of the inhabitants; 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 natural 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 diversity 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 multiple 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 abandon this necessary term of the
comparison, and I confine myself to a computation of the actual amount of taxation, without
investigating 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
researches.
It cannot be doubted that the central administration of 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 results
have not been made public. We are acquainted with the sum total of the charges of the State;
 147

we know the amount of the departmental expenditure; but the expenses of the communal
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 difficulties 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 affairs of the counties and the townships are unknown. 176
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
simultaneous 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 very allowable to suppose that, if the State was
desirous of obtaining the returns which we require, its design would be counteracted by the
neglect of those subordinate officers whom it would be obliged to employ. 177 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 individual at the

176
The Americans, as we have seen, have four separate budgets, the Union, the States, the Counties, and the
Townships having each severally their own. During my stay in America I made every endeavor to discover the
amount of the public expenditure in the townships and counties of the principal States of the Union, and I
readily obtained the budget of the larger townships, but I found it quite impossible to procure that of the smaller
ones. I possess, however, some documents relating to county expenses, which, although incomplete, are still
curious. I have to thank Mr. Richards, Mayor of Philadelphia, for the budgets of thirteen of the counties of
Pennsylvania, viz., Lebanon, Centre, Franklin, Fayette, Montgomery, Luzerne, Dauphin, Butler, Alleghany,
Columbia, Northampton, Northumberland, and Philadelphia, for the year 1830. Their population 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 affected 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 expenses of these counties amounted in
the year 1830 to about $361,650, or nearly 75 cents for each inhabitant, and calculating that each of them
contributed in the same year 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 public expenses (except those of the townships) the
sum of $4.05. This calculation 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.
177
Those who have attempted to draw a comparison between the expenses of France and America have at once
perceived that no such comparison could be drawn between the total expenditure of the two countries; but they
have endeavored 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 must be remembered that the latter embraces much fewer objects than then central Government of the
former country, and that the expenditure must consequently be much smaller. If I contrast the budgets of the
Departments with those of the States which constitute the Union, 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 whether the corresponding expenses should 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 Departments or to the State. It may, moreover, be asked what is to be understood by the municipal
expenses of America. The organization of the municipal bodies or townships differs in the several States. Are
we to be guided by what occurs in New England or in Georgia, 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 composed always differ more or less, no fair comparison can be instituted between them. [The
same difficulty exists, perhaps to a greater degree at the present time, when the taxation of America has largely
increased.—1874.
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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. 178
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 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
proportion which the taxation of a people bears to its real prosperity, by observing whether its
external appearance is flourishing; 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 with their position, seeking, however, to ameliorate it by perpetual
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 citizen of France. Nor, indeed, can the result be otherwise.
A portion of the French debt is the consequence of two successive 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. 179 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 situated.

178
Even if we knew the exact pecuniary contributions of every French and American citizen to the coffers of the
State, we should only come at a portion of the truth. Governments do not only demand supplies of money, but
they call for 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 the 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 comparing the expenditure of the Union
with that of France. The French Government contracts certain obligations which do not exist in America, and
vice versa. The French Government pays the clergy; in America the voluntary 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
public officers are paid by a fixed salary; in America they are allowed certain perquisites. In France
contributions in kind take place on very few roads; in America upon almost all the thoroughfares: 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 expenditure; 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 State did not take upon itself to act in the name of the public.
179
See the details in the Budget of the French Minister of Marine; and for America, the National Calendar of
1833, p. 228. [But the public debt of the United States in 1870, caused by the Civil War, amounted to
$2,480,672,427; that of France was more than doubled by the extravagance of the Second Empire and by the
war of 1870.]
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It is by examining what actually takes place in the Union, and not by comparing the Union
with France, that we may discover 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 perseverance 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
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 their 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 nevertheless 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
expenditure.
I conclude, therefore, without having recourse to inaccurate computations, and without
hazarding a comparison which might prove incorrect, that the democratic government of the
Americans 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. 180

180
That is precisely what has since occurred.
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XIII. Government Of The Democracy In America—

Part 3

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 statesmen are poor, and they have their fortunes to make. The
consequence is that in aristocratic States the rulers are rarely accessible 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 at the head of affairs 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 expression, 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 nugatory.
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 rarely addressed to the public characters of the ancient monarchy. But in
France the practice of bribing electors is almost unknown, 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 aristocracy 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 indirect 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 independence, and must foster the secret
calculations of a vicious ambition. 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
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.
 151

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 democracy 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 dishonor.
Efforts Of Which A Democracy Is Capable
The Union has only had one struggle hitherto for its existence—Enthusiasm at the
commencement of the war—Indifference towards its close—Difficulty of establishing military
conscription or impressment of seamen in America—Why a democratic people is less capable
of sustained effort than another.
I here warn the reader that I speak of a government which implicitly follows the real desires
of a people, and not of a government 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 of the nation. But no great democratic republic has hitherto
existed in the world. To style the oligarchy 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. 181 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 privations 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 government,
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.”

181
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
doubtless admire this great though obscure sacrifice which was made by a whole people.
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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. 182
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
enlistment that I do not imagine it can ever be sanctioned by the laws. What is termed the
conscription in France is assuredly 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 maritime
war without having recourse to one or the other of these two systems. Indeed, the Union,
which has fought with some honor upon the seas, has never possessed a very numerous fleet,
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 displays far more energy than one
which is not so. But I incline to believe that this is more especially the case in those free
nations in which the democratic element preponderates. Democracy appears to me to be
much better adapted for the peaceful 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 reason 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 calculation, even in the impulses of bravery, than is generally
attributed to them; and although the first efforts are suggested by 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 are great, it is to be feared that the
still greater sufferings attendant upon defeat will be forgotten.
Another cause tends to render the efforts of a democratic government less persevering than
those of an aristocracy. Not only are the lower classes less awakened than the higher orders to
the good or evil chances of the future, but they are liable to suffer far more 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 embellished by no pomp
or renown, and the imposts which are irksome to the rich are fatal to him.

182
The Civil War showed that when the necessity arose the American people, both in the North and in the
South, are capable of making the most enormous sacrifices, both in money and in men.]
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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 country 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 despotic States. But it would have
incurred the risk of being conquered much oftener than they would in that lapse of years.
Self-Control Of The American Democracy
The American people acquiesces slowly, or frequently does not acquiesce, 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 passions 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 surrounded by flatterers, has great
difficulty 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
conviction, 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 the legislation is
made by the people and for the people. Consequently, in the United States the law favors
those classes which are most interested in evading it elsewhere. It may therefore 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 condemns 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 prosecutions.
Someone observed to me one day, in Philadelphia, that almost all crimes in America are
caused by the abuse of intoxicating 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 members 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 country, and that temperance is somewhat unpopular.”
When these things are pointed out to the American statesmen, 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
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internal interests, which conflict with those of the majority, and resist the authority of 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 consist 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 substantial 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 whose character presents so strange a
mixture of passion, of ignorance, 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 inhabited 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 themselves 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 protection
and the constraint of civilization.
The incessant revolutions which have convulsed the South American provinces for the last
quarter of a century have frequently 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 society 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 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 The American Democracy
Direction given to the foreign policy of the United States by Washington 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 permanent direction of the external
interests of the nation to the President and the Senate, 183 which tends in some degree to
detach 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

183
“The President,” says the Constitution, Art. II, sect. 2, Section 2, “shall have power, by and with the advice
and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided 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.
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admirable letter which he addressed to his fellow-citizens, and which may be looked upon as
his political bequest to the country: “The great 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 concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be
unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. Our
detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we
remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy
material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the
neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent
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 European 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 affairs, 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 establishments, 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 indulges towards another
an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness 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 interest of the Americans
consisted in a perfect neutrality 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 simplified 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 powerful neighbors on the American continent. The country is as much
removed from the passions of the Old World by its position 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
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best of the past, and to adapt it to their present circumstances; 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 antipathies. 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 conviction, that it is most especially in the conduct of
foreign relations that democratic governments appear to me to be decidedly inferior to
governments carried on upon different principles. Experience, instruction, and habit may
almost always succeed in creating a species of practical discretion 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 education has been
provided for, the advantages of democratic liberty in the internal affairs 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 foreign nations.
Foreign politics demand scarcely any of those qualities which a democracy possesses; and
they require, on the contrary, the perfect use of almost all those faculties in which it is
deficient. Democracy is favorable to the increase of the internal resources of the State; it
tends to diffuse a moderate independence; it promotes the growth of public spirit, and
fortifies the respect which is entertained for law in all classes of society; and these are
advantages which only exercise an indirect influence over the relations which one people
bears to another. But a democracy is unable to regulate the details of an important
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 attains to a predominant position.
If, on the contrary, we observe the natural defects of aristocracy, we shall find that their
influence is comparatively innoxious 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
their own advantage than that of the mass of the people. In foreign politics it is rare for the
interest of the aristocracy to be in any way 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 mature 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 simplest 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 means injure the welfare of their own country.
Nevertheless the sympathies of the people declared themselves with so much violence in
behalf of France that nothing but the inflexible 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—that of his country’s love. The majority
then reprobated the line of policy which he adopted, and which has since been unanimously
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approved by the nation. 184 If the Constitution 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, following 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
aristocracy. The mass of the people may be led astray by ignorance or passion; the mind of a
king may be biased, and his perseverance 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 readily to the intoxicating
influence of unreflecting passion: it has the energy of a firm and enlightened individual,
added to the power which it derives from perpetuity.

184
See the fifth volume of Marshall’s “Life of Washington.” In a government constituted like that of the United
States, he says, “it is impossible 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 violence of the language used against him in public was extreme, and in a political
meeting they did not scruple to compare him indirectly to the treacherous Arnold. “By the opposition,” says
Marshall, “the friends of the administration were declared to be an aristocratic and corrupt faction, who, from a
desire to introduce monarchy, were hostile to France and under the influence of Britain; that they were a paper
nobility, whose extreme sensibility at every measure which threatened the funds, induced a tame submission to
injuries and insults, which the interests and honor of the nation required them to resist.”
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XIV. Advantages American Society Derive From

Democracy—Part 1

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 me 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 meaning, or from believing,
that similar advantages can only be obtained from the same laws.
General Tendency Of The Laws Under The Rule Of The American Democracy, And
Habits Of Those Who Apply Them
Defects of a democratic government easy to be discovered—Its advantages only to be
discerned by long observation—Democracy in America often inexpert, but the general
tendency of the laws advantageous—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 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 legislator 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 majority of the citizens, who are subject to error, but who cannot 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 democracy in the conduct of its legislation is useful to a greater number of
citizens than that of an aristocracy. This is, however, 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 temporary
excitement, and they form lasting designs which they mature with the assistance of favorable
opportunities. Aristocratic government proceeds with the dexterity of art; it understands how
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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 inopportune. The
means of democracy are therefore more imperfect than those of aristocracy, and the measures
which it unwittingly 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 transitory action of bad laws, and that it can await, without destruction, 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 Americans consists in their being able
to commit faults which they 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 entrusts
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 other hand, are 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 governed by 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 important 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 equally 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 dangerous 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 the destiny of another. When the
rich alone govern, the interest of the poor is always endangered; and when the poor make the
laws, that of the rich incurs very serious risks. The advantage of democracy does 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 affairs in the United States are
frequently inferior, both in point of capacity and of morality, to those whom aristocratic
institutions would raise to power. But their interest is identified 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
majority; and it is impossible that they should give a dangerous or 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
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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
ambition and the manoeuvres of the one will serve, on the contrary, to unmask the other. The
vices of a magistrate, in democratic 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 confounded 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 coalesce, 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 persons 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 functions. The aristocratic magistrate is therefore constantly supported
by a portion of the community, as well as by the Government of which he is a member.
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 spirit of their order
without being corrupted by it; and they unconsciously 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 observation 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 consequence 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. 185
In the United States, where the public officers have no interests 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, notwithstanding their private vices and
mistakes; whilst in aristocratic institutions there is a secret propensity which, notwithstanding
the talents and the virtues of those who conduct the government, 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 democratic states they produce
advantages which they never thought of.
Public Spirit In The United States

185
The legislation of England for the forty years is certainly not fairly open to this criticism, which was written
before the Reform Bill of 1832, and accordingly Great Britain has thus far escaped and surmounted the perils
and calamities to which she seemed to be exposed.
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Patriotism of instinct—Patriotism of reflection—Their different characteristics—Nations

ought to strive to acquire the second when the first has disappeared—Efforts of the
Americans to it—Interest 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 feeling 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 contracted within its bosom; they are attached to the
reminiscences 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 impulse 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 motives 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 knowledge, 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 contribute his assistance to that
prosperity, and he labors to promote it as a portion 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 knowledge 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 entrench themselves
within the dull precincts of a narrow egotism. They are emancipated from prejudice without
having acknowledged 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.
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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 obtain this result, the exercise of
political rights should be immediately granted to all the members of the community. But I
maintain that the most powerful, and perhaps the only, means 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 number 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 acquaintance; 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 perception 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 remark, 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 national 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 institutions 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 individuals, 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.
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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 authority 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—without 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 everything which he can lay his hands upon to his own purposes; 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 principle 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 sometimes recalcitrate even against the supreme power, the American submits
without a murmur to the authority of the pettiest magistrate.
This truth is exemplified by the most trivial details of national peculiarities. In France very
few pleasures are exclusively reserved for the higher classes; the poor are admitted wherever
the rich are received, and they consequently behave with propriety, and respect whatever
contributes to the enjoyments in which they themselves participate. In England, 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 pleasures 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? 186
The government of democracy brings the notion of political rights to the level of the
humblest citizens, just as the dissemination 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; but
I maintain that, when it is possible, the effects which result 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

186
This, too, has been amended by much larger provisions for the amusements of the people in public parks,
gardens, museums, etc.; and the conduct of the people in these places of amusement has improved in the same
proportion.
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own. It is clear that the influence of religious belief 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 disruption, 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 governing 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 invested 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 relation 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.
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 appreciated until it is already old.
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XIV. Advantages American Society Derive From

Democracy—Part 2

Respect For The Law In The United States

Respect of the Americans for the law—Parental affection which they entertain for it—
Personal interest of everyone to increase the authority of the law.
It is not always feasible to consult the whole people, either directly or indirectly, in the
formation of the law; but it cannot be denied that, when such a measure is possible the
authority of the law is very much augmented. This popular origin, which impairs the
excellence and the wisdom of legislation, contributes prodigiously to increase its power.
There is an amazing strength in the expression of the determination of a whole people, and
when it declares itself the imagination of those who are most inclined to contest it is
overawed by its authority. The truth of this fact is very well known by parties, and they
consequently strive to make out a majority whenever they can. If they have not the greater
number of voters on their side, they assert that the true majority abstained from voting; and if
they are foiled even there, they have recourse to the body of those persons who had no votes
to give.
In the United States, except slaves, servants, and paupers in the receipt of relief from the
townships, there is no class of persons who do not exercise the elective franchise, and who do
not indirectly contribute to make the laws. Those who design to attack the laws must
consequently either modify the opinion of the nation or trample upon its decision.
A second reason, which is still more weighty, may be further adduced; in the United States
everyone is personally interested in enforcing the obedience of the whole community to the
law; for as the minority may shortly rally the majority to its principles, it is interested in
professing that respect for the decrees of the legislator which it may soon have occasion to
claim for its own. However irksome an enactment may be, the citizen of the United States
complies with it, not only because it is the work of the majority, but because it originates in
his own authority, and he regards it as a contract to which he is himself a party.
In the United States, then, that numerous and turbulent multitude does not exist which always
looks upon the law as its natural enemy, and accordingly surveys it with fear and with fear
and with distrust. It is impossible, on the other hand, not to perceive that all classes display
the utmost reliance upon the legislation of their country, and that they are attached to it by a
kind of parental affection.
I am wrong, however, in saying all classes; for as in America the European scale of authority
is inverted, the wealthy are there placed in a position analogous to that of the poor in the Old
World, and it is the opulent classes which frequently look upon the law with suspicion. I have
already observed that the advantage of democracy is not, as has been sometimes asserted, that
it protects the interests of the whole community, but simply that it protects those of the
majority. In the United States, where the poor rule, the rich have always some reason to dread
the abuses of their power. This natural anxiety of the rich may produce a sullen
dissatisfaction, but society is not disturbed by it; for the same reason which induces the rich
to withhold their confidence in the legislative authority makes them obey its mandates; their
wealth, which prevents them from making the law, prevents them from withstanding it.
Amongst civilized nations revolts are rarely excited, except by such persons as have nothing
to lose by them; and if the laws of a democracy are not always worthy of respect, at least they
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always obtain it; for those who usually infringe the laws have no excuse for not complying
with the enactments they have themselves made, and by which they are themselves benefited,
whilst the citizens whose interests might be promoted by the infraction of them are induced,
by their character and their stations, to submit to the decisions of the legislature, whatever
they may be. Besides which, the people in America obeys the law not only because it
emanates from the popular authority, but because that authority may modify it in any points
which may prove vexatory; a law is observed because it is a self-imposed evil in the first
place, and an evil of transient duration in the second.
Activity Which Pervades All The Branches Of The Body Politic In The United States;
Influence Which It Exercises Upon Society
More difficult to conceive the political activity which pervades the United States than the
freedom and equality which reign there—The great activity which perpetually agitates the
legislative bodies is only an episode to the general activity—Difficult for an American to
confine himself to his own business—Political agitation extends to all social intercourse—
Commercial activity of the Americans partly attributable to this cause—Indirect advantages
which society derives from a democratic government.
On passing from a country in which free institutions are established to one where they do not
exist, the traveller is struck by the change; in the former all is bustle and activity, in the latter
everything is calm and motionless. In the one, amelioration and progress are the general
topics of inquiry; in the other, it seems as if the community only aspired to repose in the
enjoyment of the advantages which it has acquired. Nevertheless, the country which exerts
itself so strenuously to promote its welfare is generally more wealthy and more prosperous
than that which appears to be so contented with its lot; and when we compare them together,
we can scarcely conceive how so many new wants are daily felt in the former, whilst so few
seem to occur in the latter.
If this remark is applicable to those free countries in which monarchical and aristocratic
institutions subsist, it is still more striking with regard to democratic republics. In these States
it is not only a portion of the people which is busied with the amelioration of its social
condition, but the whole community is engaged in the task; and it is not the exigencies and
the convenience of a single class for which a provision is to be made, but the exigencies and
the convenience of all ranks of life.
It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the Americans enjoy; some idea
may likewise be formed of the extreme equality which subsists amongst them, but the
political activity which pervades the United States must be seen in order to be understood. No
sooner do you set foot upon the American soil than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a
confused clamor is heard on every side; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand the
immediate satisfaction of their social wants. Everything is in motion around you; here, the
people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon the building of a church; there, the
election of a representative is going on; a little further the delegates of a district are posting to
the town in order to consult upon some local improvements; or in another place the laborers
of a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a public school.
Meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disapprobation of the line of
conduct pursued by the Government; whilst in other assemblies the citizens salute the
authorities of the day as the fathers of their country. Societies are formed which regard
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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. 187
The great political agitation of the American legislative bodies, which is the only kind of
excitement that attracts the attention of foreign countries, is a mere episode or a sort of
continuation of that universal movement which originates in the lowest classes of the people
and extends successively to all the ranks of society. It is impossible to spend more efforts in
the pursuit of enjoyment.
The cares of political life engross a most prominent place in the occupation of a citizen in the
United States, and almost the only pleasure of which an American has any idea is to take a
part in the Government, and to discuss the part he has taken. This feeling pervades the most
trifling habits of life; even the women frequently attend public meetings and listen to political
harangues as a recreation after their household labors. Debating clubs are to a certain extent a
substitute for theatrical entertainments: an American cannot converse, but he can discuss; and
when he attempts to talk he falls into a dissertation. He speaks to you as if he was addressing
a meeting; and if he should chance to warm in the course of the discussion, he will infallibly
say, “Gentlemen,” to the person with whom he is conversing.
In some countries the inhabitants display a certain repugnance to avail themselves of the
political privileges with which the law invests them; it would seem that they set too high a
value upon their time to spend it on the interests of the community; and they prefer to
withdraw within the exact limits of a wholesome egotism, marked out by four sunk fences
and a quickset hedge. But if an American were condemned to confine his activity to his own
affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence; he would feel an immense void in the
life which he is accustomed to lead, and his wretchedness would be unbearable. 188 I am
persuaded that, if ever a despotic government is established in America, it will find it more
difficult to surmount the habits which free institutions have engendered than to conquer the
attachment of the citizens to freedom.
This ceaseless agitation which democratic government has introduced into the political world
influences all social intercourse. I am not sure that upon the whole this is not the greatest
advantage of democracy. And I am much less inclined to applaud it for what it does than for
what it causes to be done. It is incontestable that the people frequently conducts public
business very ill; but it is impossible that the lower orders should take a part in public
business without extending the circle of their ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine
of their mental acquirements. The humblest individual who is called upon to co-operate in the
government of society acquires a certain degree of self-respect; and as he possesses authority,
he can command the services of minds much more enlightened than his own. He is canvassed
by a multitude of applicants, who seek to deceive him in a thousand different ways, but who
instruct him by their deceit. He takes a part in political undertakings which did not originate
in his own conception, but which give him a taste for undertakings of the kind. New
ameliorations are daily pointed out in the property which he holds in common with others,
and this gives him the desire of improving that property which is more peculiarly his own. He
is perhaps neither happier nor better than those who came before him, but he is better
informed and more active. I have no doubt that the democratic institutions of the United

187
At the time of my stay in the United States the temperance societies already consisted of more than 270,000
members, and their effect had been to diminish the consumption of fermented liquors by 500,000 gallons per
annum in the State of Pennsylvania alone.
188
The same remark was made at Rome under the first Caesars. Montesquieu somewhere alludes to the
excessive despondency of certain Roman citizens who, after the excitement of political life, were all at once
flung back into the stagnation of private life.
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States, joined to the physical constitution of the country, are the cause (not the direct, as is so
often asserted, but the indirect cause) of the prodigious commercial activity of the
inhabitants. It is not engendered by the laws, but the people learns how to promote it by the
experience derived from legislation.
When the opponents of democracy assert that a single individual performs the duties which
he undertakes much better than the government of the community, it appears to me that they
are perfectly right. The government of an individual, supposing an equality of instruction on
either side, is more consistent, more persevering, and more accurate than that of a multitude,
and it is much better qualified judiciously to discriminate the characters of the men it
employs. If any deny what I advance, they have certainly never seen a democratic
government, or have formed their opinion upon very partial evidence. It is true that even
when local circumstances and the disposition of the people allow democratic institutions to
subsist, they never display a regular and methodical system of government. Democratic
liberty is far from accomplishing all the projects it undertakes, with the skill of an adroit
despotism. It frequently abandons them before they have borne their fruits, or risks them
when the consequences may prove dangerous; but in the end it produces more than any
absolute government, and if it do fewer things well, it does a greater number of things. Under
its sway the transactions of the public administration are not nearly so important as what is
done by private exertion. Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind of government
upon the people, but it produces that which the most skilful governments are frequently
unable to awaken, namely, an all-pervading and restless activity, a superabundant force, and
an energy which is inseparable from it, and which may, under favorable circumstances, beget
the most amazing benefits. These are the true advantages of democracy.
In the present age, when the destinies of Christendom seem to be in suspense, some hasten to
assail democracy as its foe whilst it is yet in its early growth; and others are ready with their
vows of adoration for this new deity which is springing forth from chaos: but both parties are
very imperfectly acquainted with the object of their hatred or of their desires; they strike in
the dark, and distribute their blows by mere chance.
We must first understand what the purport of society and the aim of government is held to be.
If it be your intention to confer a certain elevation upon the human mind, and to teach it to
regard the things of this world with generous feelings, to inspire men with a scorn of mere
temporal advantage, to give birth to living convictions, and to keep alive the spirit of
honorable devotedness; if you hold it to be a good thing to refine the habits, to embellish the
manners, to cultivate the arts of a nation, and to promote the love of poetry, of beauty, and of
renown; if you would constitute a people not unfitted to act with power upon all other
nations, nor unprepared for those high enterprises which, whatever be the result of its efforts,
will leave a name forever famous in time—if you believe such to be the principal object of
society, you must avoid the government of democracy, which would be a very uncertain
guide to the end you have in view.
But if you hold it to be expedient to divert the moral and intellectual activity of man to the
production of comfort, and to the acquirement of the necessaries of life; if a clear
understanding be more profitable to man than genius; if your object be not to stimulate the
virtues of heroism, but to create habits of peace; if you had rather witness vices than crimes
and are content to meet with fewer noble deeds, provided offences be diminished in the same
proportion; if, instead of living in the midst of a brilliant state of society, you are contented to
have prosperity around you; if, in short, you are of opinion that the principal object of a
Government is not to confer the greatest possible share of power and of glory upon the body
of the nation, but to ensure the greatest degree of enjoyment and the least degree of misery to
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each of the individuals who compose it—if such be your desires, you can have no surer
means of satisfying them than by equalizing the conditions of men, and establishing
democratic institutions.
But if the time be passed at which such a choice was possible, and if some superhuman power
impel us towards one or the other of these two governments without consulting our wishes,
let us at least endeavor to make the best of that which is allotted to us; and let us so inquire
into its good and its evil propensities as to be able to foster the former and repress the latter to
the utmost.
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XV. Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its

Consequences—Part 1

Chapter Summary
Natural strength of the majority in democracies—Most of the American Constitutions have
increased this strength by artificial means—How this has been done—Pledged delegates—
Moral power of the majority—Opinion as to its infallibility—Respect for its rights, how
augmented in the United States.
Unlimited Power Of The Majority In The United States, And Its Consequences
The very essence of democratic government consists in the absolute sovereignty of the
majority; for there is nothing in democratic States which is capable of resisting it. Most of the
American Constitutions have sought to increase this natural strength of the majority by
artificial means. 189
The legislature is, of all political institutions, the one which is most easily swayed by the
wishes of the majority. The Americans determined that the members of the legislature should
be elected by the people immediately, and for a very brief term, in order to subject them, not
only to the general convictions, but even to the daily passion, of their constituents. The
members of both houses are taken from the same class in society, and are nominated in the
same manner; so that the modifications of the legislative bodies are almost as rapid and quite
as irresistible as those of a single assembly. It is to a legislature thus constituted that almost
all the authority of the government has been entrusted.
But whilst the law increased the strength of those authorities which of themselves were
strong, it enfeebled more and more those which were naturally weak. It deprived the
representatives of the executive of all stability and independence, and by subjecting them
completely to the caprices of the legislature, it robbed them of the slender influence which the
nature of a democratic government might have allowed them to retain. In several States the
judicial power was also submitted to the elective discretion of the majority, and in all of them
its existence was made to depend on the pleasure of the legislative authority, since the
representatives were empowered annually to regulate the stipend of the judges.
Custom, however, has done even more than law. A proceeding which will in the end set all
the guarantees of representative government at naught is becoming more and more general in
the United States; it frequently happens that the electors, who choose a delegate, point out a
certain line of conduct to him, and impose upon him a certain number of positive obligations
which he is pledged to fulfil. With the exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing
as if the majority of the populace held its deliberations in the market-place.
Several other circumstances concur in rendering the power of the majority in America not
only preponderant, but irresistible. The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon
the notion that there is more intelligence and more wisdom in a great number of men
collected together than in a single individual, and that the quantity of legislators is more

189
We observed, in examining the Federal Constitution, that the efforts of the legislators of the Union had been
diametrically opposed to the present tendency. The consequence has been that the Federal Government is more
independent in its sphere than that of the States. But the Federal Government scarcely ever interferes in any but
external affairs; and the governments of the State are in the governments of the States are in reality the
authorities which direct society in America.
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important than their quality. The theory of equality is in fact applied to the intellect of man:
and human pride is thus assailed in its last retreat by a doctrine which the minority hesitate to
admit, and in which they very slowly concur. Like all other powers, and perhaps more than
all other powers, the authority of the many requires the sanction of time; at first it enforces
obedience by constraint, but its laws are not respected until they have long been maintained.
The right of governing society, which the majority supposes itself to derive from its superior
intelligence, was introduced into the United States by the first settlers, and this idea, which
would be sufficient of itself to create a free nation, has now been amalgamated with the
manners of the people and the minor incidents of social intercourse.
The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is still a fundamental
principle of the English Constitution) that the King could do no wrong; and if he did do
wrong, the blame was imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly favorable to habits of
obedience, and it enabled the subject to complain of the law without ceasing to love and
honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.
The moral power of the majority is founded upon yet another principle, which is, that the
interests of the many are to be preferred to those of the few. It will readily be perceived that
the respect here professed for the rights of the majority must naturally increase or diminish
according to the state of parties. When a nation is divided into several irreconcilable factions,
the privilege of the majority is often overlooked, because it is intolerable to comply with its
demands.
If there existed in America a class of citizens whom the legislating majority sought to deprive
of exclusive privileges which they had possessed for ages, and to bring down from an
elevated station to the level of the ranks of the multitude, it is probable that the minority
would be less ready to comply with its laws. But as the United States were colonized by men
holding equal rank amongst themselves, there is as yet no natural or permanent source of
dissension between the interests of its different inhabitants.
There are certain communities in which the persons who constitute the minority can never
hope to draw over the majority to their side, because they must then give up the very point
which is at issue between them. Thus, an aristocracy can never become a majority whilst it
retains its exclusive privileges, and it cannot cede its privileges without ceasing to be an
aristocracy.
In the United States political questions cannot be taken up in so general and absolute a
manner, and all parties are willing to recognize the right of the majority, because they all
hope to turn those rights to their own advantage at some future time. The majority therefore
in that country exercises a prodigious actual authority, and a moral influence which is
scarcely less preponderant; no obstacles exist which can impede or so much as retard its
progress, or which can induce it to heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its
path. This state of things is fatal in itself and dangerous for the future.
How The Unlimited Power Of The Majority Increases In America The Instability Of
Legislation And Administration Inherent In Democracy The Americans increase the
mutability of the laws which is inherent in democracy by changing the legislature every year,
and by investing it with unbounded authority—The same effect is produced upon the
administration—In America social amelioration is conducted more energetically but less
perseveringly than in Europe.
I have already spoken of the natural defects of democratic institutions, and they all of them
increase at the exact ratio of the power of the majority. To begin with the most evident of
them all; the mutability of the laws is an evil inherent in democratic government, because it is
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natural to democracies to raise men to power in very rapid succession. But this evil is more or
less sensible in proportion to the authority and the means of action which the legislature
possesses.
In America the authority exercised by the legislative bodies is supreme; nothing prevents
them from accomplishing their wishes with celerity, and with irresistible power, whilst they
are supplied by new representatives every year. That is to say, the circumstances which
contribute most powerfully to democratic instability, and which admit of the free application
of caprice to every object in the State, are here in full operation. In conformity with this
principle, America is, at the present day, the country in the world where laws last the shortest
time. Almost all the American constitutions have been amended within the course of thirty
years: there is therefore not a single American State which has not modified the principles of
its legislation in that lapse of time. As for the laws themselves, a single glance upon the
archives of the different States of the Union suffices to convince one that in America the
activity of the legislator never slackens. Not that the American democracy is naturally less
stable than any other, but that it is allowed to follow its capricious propensities in the
formation of the laws. 190
The omnipotence of the majority, and the rapid as well as absolute manner in which its
decisions are executed in the United States, has not only the effect of rendering the law
unstable, but it exercises the same influence upon the execution of the law and the conduct of
the public administration. As the majority is the only power which it is important to court, all
its projects are taken up with the greatest ardor, but no sooner is its attention distracted than
all this ardor ceases; whilst in the free States of Europe the administration is at once
independent and secure, so that the projects of the legislature are put into execution, although
its immediate attention may be directed to other objects.
In America certain ameliorations are undertaken with much more zeal and activity than
elsewhere; in Europe the same ends are promoted by much less social effort, more
continuously applied.
Some years ago several pious individuals undertook to ameliorate the condition of the
prisons. The public was excited by the statements which they put forward, and the
regeneration of criminals became a very popular undertaking. New prisons were built, and for
the first time the idea of reforming as well as of punishing the delinquent formed a part of
prison discipline. But this happy alteration, in which the public had taken so hearty an
interest, and which the exertions of the citizens had irresistibly accelerated, could not be
completed in a moment. Whilst the new penitentiaries were being erected (and it was the
pleasure of the majority that they should be terminated with all possible celerity), the old
prisons existed, which still contained a great number of offenders. These jails became more
unwholesome and more corrupt in proportion as the new establishments were beautified and
improved, forming a contrast which may readily be understood. The majority was so eagerly
employed in founding the new prisons that those which already existed were forgotten; and as
the general attention was diverted to a novel object, the care which had hitherto been
bestowed upon the others ceased. The salutary regulations of discipline were first relaxed,
and afterwards broken; so that in the immediate neighborhood of a prison which bore witness

190
The legislative acts promulgated by the State of Massachusetts alone, from the year 1780 to the present time,
already fill three stout volumes; and it must not be forgotten that the collection to which I allude was published
in 1823, when many old laws which had fallen into disuse were omitted. The State of Massachusetts, which is
not more populous than a department of France, may be considered as the most stable, the most consistent, and
the most sagacious in its undertakings of the whole Union.
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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.
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XV. Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its

Consequences—Part 2

Tyranny Of The Majority

How the principle of the sovereignty of the people is to be understood—Impossibility of
conceiving a mixed government—The sovereign power must centre somewhere—Precautions
to be taken to control its action—These precautions have not been taken in the United
States—Consequences.
I hold it to be an impious and an execrable maxim that, politically speaking, a people has a
right to do whatsoever it pleases, and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the
will of the majority. Am I then, in contradiction with myself?
A general law—which bears the name of Justice—has been made and sanctioned, not only by
a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are
consequently confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered in the
light of a jury which is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply the great and
general law of justice. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than
the society in which the laws it applies originate?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which the majority has of
commanding, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of
mankind. It has been asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of
justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that
consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to the majority by which it is represented.
But this language is that of a slave.
A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose opinions, and most
frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another being, which is styled a minority.
If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging
his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to
change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles
increase with the consciousness of their strength. 191 And for these reasons I can never
willingly invest any number of my fellow-creatures with that unlimited authority which I
should refuse to any one of them.
I do not think that it is possible to combine several principles in the same government, so as
at the same time to maintain freedom, and really to oppose them to one another. The form of
government which is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me to be a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking there is no such thing as a mixed government (with the meaning usually
given to that word), because in all communities some one principle of action may be
discovered which preponderates over the others. England in the last century, which has been
more especially cited as an example of this form of Government, was in point of fact an
essentially aristocratic State, although it comprised very powerful elements of democracy; for
the laws and customs of the country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate
in the end, and subject the direction of public affairs to its own will. The error arose from too

191
No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong another people; but parties may be looked upon as
lesser nations within a greater one, and they are aliens to each other: if, therefore, it be admitted that a nation can
act tyrannically towards another nation, it cannot be denied that a party may do the same towards another party.
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much attention being paid to the actual struggle which was going on between the nobles and
the people, without considering the probable issue of the contest, which was in reality the
important point. When a community really has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is
equally divided between two adverse principles, it must either pass through a revolution or
fall into complete dissolution.
I am therefore of opinion that some one social power must always be made to predominate
over the others; but I think that liberty is endangered when this power is checked by no
obstacles which may retard its course, and force it to moderate its own vehemence.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing; human beings are not competent to
exercise it with discretion, and God alone can be omnipotent, because His wisdom and His
justice are always equal to His power. But no power upon earth is so worthy of honor for
itself, or of reverential obedience to the rights which it represents, that I would consent to
admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means
of absolute command are conferred on a people or upon a king, upon an aristocracy or a
democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I recognize the germ of tyranny, and I journey onward
to a land of more hopeful institutions.
In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does
not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their overpowering
strength; and I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country
as at the very inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.
When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for
redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it
represents the majority, and implicitly obeys its injunctions; if to the executive power, it is
appointed by the majority, and remains a passive tool in its hands; the public troops consist of
the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial
cases; and in certain States even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or
absurd the evil of which you complain may be, you must submit to it as well as you can. 192

192
A striking instance of the excesses which may be occasioned by the despotism of the majority occurred at
Baltimore in the year 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A journal which had taken the
other side of the question excited the indignation of the inhabitants by its opposition. The populace assembled,
broke the printing-presses, and attacked the houses of the newspaper editors. The militia was called out, but no
one obeyed the call; and the only means of saving the poor wretches who were threatened by the frenzy of the
mob was to throw them into prison as common malefactors. But even this precaution was ineffectual; the mob
collected again during the night, the magistrates again made a vain attempt to call out the militia, the prison was
forced, one of the newspaper editors was killed upon the spot, and the others were left for dead; the guilty
parties were acquitted by the jury when they were brought to trial.
I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, “Be so good as to explain to me how it happens that in a State
founded by Quakers, and celebrated for its toleration, freed blacks are not allowed to exercise civil rights. They
pay the taxes; is it not fair that they should have a vote?”
“You insult us,” replied my informant, “if you imagine that our legislators could have committed so gross an act
of injustice and intolerance.”
“What! then the blacks possess the right of voting in this county?”
“Without the smallest doubt.”
“How comes it, then, that at the polling-booth this morning I did not perceive a single negro in the whole
meeting?”
“This is not the fault of the law: the negroes have an undisputed right of voting, but they voluntarily abstain
from making their appearance.”
“A very pretty piece of modesty on their parts!” rejoined I.
“Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they are afraid of being maltreated; in this country
the law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support of the majority. But in this case the
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If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority
without necessarily being the slave of its passions; an executive, so as to retain a certain
degree of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two
other powers; a government would be formed which would still be democratic without
incurring any risk of tyrannical abuse.
I do not say that tyrannical abuses frequently occur in America at the present day, but I
maintain that no sure barrier is established against them, and that the causes which mitigate
the government are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country more
than in its laws.
Effects Of The Unlimited Power Of The Majority Upon The Arbitrary Authority Of
The American Public Officers
Liberty left by the American laws to public officers within a certain sphere—Their power.
A distinction must be drawn between tyranny and arbitrary power. Tyranny may be exercised
by means of the law, and in that case it is not arbitrary; arbitrary power may be exercised for
the good of the community at large, in which case it is not tyrannical. Tyranny usually
employs arbitrary means, but, if necessary, it can rule without them.
In the United States the unbounded power of the majority, which is favorable to the legal
despotism of the legislature, is likewise favorable to the arbitrary authority of the magistrate.
The majority has an entire control over the law when it is made and when it is executed; and
as it possesses an equal authority over those who are in power and the community at large, it
considers public officers as its passive agents, and readily confides the task of serving its
designs to their vigilance. The details of their office and the privileges which they are to
enjoy are rarely defined beforehand; but the majority treats them as a master does his servants
when they are always at work in his sight, and he has the power of directing or reprimanding
them at every instant.
In general the American functionaries are far more independent than the French civil officers
within the sphere which is prescribed to them. Sometimes, even, they are allowed by the
popular authority to exceed those bounds; and as they are protected by the opinion, and
backed by the co-operation, of the majority, they venture upon such manifestations of their
power as astonish a European. By this means habits are formed in the heart of a free country
which may some day prove fatal to its liberties.
Power Exercised By The Majority In America Upon Opinion
In America, when the majority has once irrevocably decided a question, all discussion
ceases—Reason of this—Moral power exercised by the majority upon opinion—Democratic
republics have deprived despotism of its physical instruments—Their despotism sways the
minds of men.
It is in the examination of the display of public opinion in the United States that we clearly
perceive how far the power of the majority surpasses all the powers with which we are
acquainted in Europe. Intellectual principles exercise an influence which is so invisible, and
often so inappreciable, that they baffle the toils of oppression. At the present time the most
absolute monarchs in Europe are unable to prevent certain notions, which are opposed to their
authority, from circulating in secret throughout their dominions, and even in their courts.

majority entertains very strong prejudices against the blacks, and the magistrates are unable to protect them in
the exercise of their legal privileges.”
“What! then the majority claims the right not only of making the laws, but of breaking the laws it has made?”
 177

Such is not the case in America; as long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is
carried on; but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, a submissive silence is
observed, and the friends, as well as the opponents, of the measure unite in assenting to its
propriety. The reason of this is perfectly clear: no monarch is so absolute as to combine all
the powers of society in his own hands, and to conquer all opposition with the energy of a
majority which is invested with the right of making and of executing the laws.
The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the actions of the subject without
subduing his private will; but the majority possesses a power which is physical and moral at
the same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions of men, and it represses not
only all contest, but all controversy. I know no country in which there is so little true
independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitutional state in
Europe every sort of religious and political theory may be advocated and propagated abroad;
for there is no country in Europe so subdued by any single authority as not to contain citizens
who are ready to protect the man who raises his voice in the cause of truth from the
consequences of his hardihood. If he is unfortunate enough to live under an absolute
government, the people is upon his side; if he inhabits a free country, he may find a shelter
behind the authority of the throne, if he require one. The aristocratic part of society supports
him in some countries, and the democracy in others. But in a nation where democratic
institutions exist, organized like those of the United States, there is but one sole authority, one
single element of strength and of success, with nothing beyond it.
In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these
barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond
them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe, but he is tormented by the slights
and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has
offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation,
even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he
held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he
is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the
courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the
daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by
remorse for having spoken the truth.
Fetters and headsmen were the coarse instruments which tyranny formerly employed; but the
civilization of our age has refined the arts of despotism which seemed, however, to have been
sufficiently perfected before. The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of
physical means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as
entirely an affair of the mind as that will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute
sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul
escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is
not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the
soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer say, “You shall think as I do on pain of death;”
but he says, “You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property,
and all that you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an alien
among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you
will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens if you solicit their suffrages, and they will affect
to scorn you if you solicit their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be
deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being,
and those who are most persuaded of your innocence will abandon you too, lest they should
be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence in
comparably worse than death.”
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Monarchical institutions have thrown an odium upon despotism; let us beware lest
democratic republics should restore oppression, and should render it less odious and less
degrading in the eyes of the many, by making it still more onerous to the few.
Works have been published in the proudest nations of the Old World expressly intended to
censure the vices and deride the follies of the times; Labruyere inhabited the palace of Louis
XIV when he composed his chapter upon the Great, and Moliere criticised the courtiers in the
very pieces which were acted before the Court. But the ruling power in the United States is
not to be made game of; the smallest reproach irritates its sensibility, and the slightest joke
which has any foundation in truth renders it indignant; from the style of its language to the
more solid virtues of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No
writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape from this tribute of adulation to his fellow-
citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are certain
truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from experience.
If great writers have not at present existed in America, the reason is very simply given in
these facts; there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of
opinion does not exist in America. The Inquisition has never been able to prevent a vast
number of anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority
succeeds much better in the United States, since it actually removes the wish of publishing
them. Unbelievers are to be met with in America, but, to say the truth, there is no public
organ of infidelity. Attempts have been made by some governments to protect the morality of
nations by prohibiting licentious books. In the United States no one is punished for this sort
of works, but no one is induced to write them; not because all the citizens are immaculate in
their manners, but because the majority of the community is decent and orderly.
In these cases the advantages derived from the exercise of this power are unquestionable, and
I am simply discussing the nature of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant
fact, and its judicious exercise is an accidental occurrence.
Effects Of The Tyranny Of The Majority Upon The National Character Of The
Americans
Effects of the tyranny of the majority more sensibly felt hitherto in the manners than in the
conduct of society—They check the development of leading characters—Democratic
republics organized like the United States bring the practice of courting favor within the
reach of the many—Proofs of this spirit in the United States—Why there is more patriotism in
the people than in those who govern in its name.
The tendencies which I have just alluded to are as yet very slightly perceptible in political
society, but they already begin to exercise an unfavorable influence upon the national
character of the Americans. I am inclined to attribute the singular paucity of distinguished
political characters to the ever-increasing activity of the despotism of the majority in the
United States. When the American Revolution broke out they arose in great numbers, for
public opinion then served, not to tyrannize over, but to direct the exertions of individuals.
Those celebrated men took a full part in the general agitation of mind common at that period,
and they attained a high degree of personal fame, which was reflected back upon the nation,
but which was by no means borrowed from it.
In absolute governments the great nobles who are nearest to the throne flatter the passions of
the sovereign, and voluntarily truckle to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not
degrade itself by servitude: it often submits from weakness, from habit, or from ignorance,
and sometimes from loyalty. Some nations have been known to sacrifice their own desires to
those of the sovereign with pleasure and with pride, thus exhibiting a sort of independence in
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the very act of submission. These peoples are miserable, but they are not degraded. There is a
great difference between doing what one does not approve and feigning to approve what one
does; the one is the necessary case of a weak person, the other befits the temper of a lackey.
In free countries, where everyone is more or less called upon to give his opinion in the affairs
of state; in democratic republics, where public life is incessantly commingled with domestic
affairs, where the sovereign authority is accessible on every side, and where its attention can
almost always be attracted by vociferation, more persons are to be met with who speculate
upon its foibles and live at the cost of its passions than in absolute monarchies. Not because
men are naturally worse in these States than elsewhere, but the temptation is stronger, and of
easier access at the same time. The result is a far more extensive debasement of the characters
of citizens.
Democratic republics extend the practice of currying favor with the many, and they introduce
it into a greater number of classes at once: this is one of the most serious reproaches that can
be addressed to them. In democratic States organized on the principles of the American
republics, this is more especially the case, where the authority of the majority is so absolute
and so irresistible that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure his quality
as a human being, if 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
opinion which frequently distinguished the Americans in former times, and which constitutes
the leading feature in distinguished characters, wheresoever they may be found. It seems, at
first sight, as if all the minds of the Americans were formed upon one model, so accurately do
they correspond in their manner of judging. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes meet with
Americans who dissent from these rigorous formularies; with men who deplore the defects of
the laws, the mutability and the ignorance of democracy; who even go so far as to observe the
evil tendencies which impair the national character, and to point out such remedies as it might
be possible to apply; but no one is there to hear these things besides yourself, and you, to
whom these secret reflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird of passage. They are
very ready to communicate truths which are useless to you, but they continue to hold a
different language in public.
If ever these lines are read in America, I am well assured of two things: in the first place, that
all who peruse them will raise their voices to condemn me; and in the second place, that very
many of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.
I have heard of patriotism in the United States, and it is a virtue which may be found among
the people, but never among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy;
despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the
king has often great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is true that the
American courtiers do not say “Sire,” or “Your Majesty”—a distinction without a difference.
They are forever talking of the natural intelligence of the populace they serve; they do not
debate the question as to which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of
admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues under heaven without having
acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him their daughters and
their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his concubines, but, by sacrificing their
opinions, they prostitute themselves. Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged
to conceal their opinions under the veil of allegory; but, before they venture upon a harsh
truth, they say, “We are aware that the people which we are addressing is too superior to all
the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of its temper for an instant; and we
should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom their virtues and their
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intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the rest of the world.” It would have
been impossible for the sycophants of Louis XIV to flatter more dexterously. For my part, I
am persuaded that in all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to
force, and adulation will cling to power. The only means of preventing men from degrading
themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited authority which is the surest method of
debasing them.
The Greatest Dangers Of The American Republics Proceed From The Unlimited Power
Of The Majority
Democratic republics liable to perish from a misuse of their power, and not by impotence—
The Governments of the American republics are more centralized and more energetic than
those of the monarchies of Europe—Dangers resulting from this—Opinions of Hamilton and
Jefferson upon this point.
Governments usually fall a sacrifice to impotence or to tyranny. In the former case their
power escapes from them; it is wrested from their grasp in the latter. Many observers, who
have witnessed the anarchy of democratic States, have imagined that the government of those
States was naturally weak and impotent. The truth is, that when once hostilities are begun
between parties, the government loses its control over society. But I do not think that a
democratic power is naturally without force or without resources: say, rather, that it is almost
always by the abuse of its force and the misemployment of its resources that a democratic
government fails. Anarchy is almost always produced by its tyranny or its mistakes, but not
by its want of strength.
It is important not to confound stability with force, or the greatness of a thing with its
duration. In democratic republics, the power which directs 193 society is not stable; for it often
changes hands and assumes a new direction. But whichever way it turns, its force is almost
irresistible. The Governments of the American republics appear to me to be as much
centralized as those of the absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are. I
do not, therefore, imagine that they will perish from weakness. 194
If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the
unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to
desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the
result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.
Mr. Hamilton expresses the same opinion in the “Federalist,” No. 51. “It is of great
importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but
to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Justice is the end of
government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been, and ever will be, pursued until it
be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society, under the forms of which the
stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to
reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence
of the stronger: and as in the latter state even the stronger individuals are prompted by the
uncertainty of their condition to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well
as themselves, so in the former state will the more powerful factions be gradually induced by
a like motive to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as

193
This power may be centred in an assembly, in which case it will be strong without being stable; or it may be
centred in an individual, in which case it will be less strong, but more stable.
194
I presume that it is scarcely necessary to remind the reader here, as well as throughout the remainder of this
chapter, that I am speaking, not of the Federal Government, but of the several governments of each State, which
the majority controls at its pleasure.
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the more powerful. It can be little doubted that, if the State of Rhode Island was separated
from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of right under the popular form of
government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of
the factious majorities, that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be
called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it.”
Jefferson has also thus expressed himself in a letter to Madison: 195 “The executive power in
our Government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The
tyranny of the Legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so
for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a
more distant period.” I am glad to cite the opinion of Jefferson upon this subject rather than
that of another, because I consider him to be the most powerful advocate democracy has ever
sent forth.

195
March 15, 1789.
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XVI. Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United

States—Part 1

Chapter Summary
The national majority does not pretend to conduct all business—Is obliged to employ the
town and county magistrates to execute its supreme decisions.
I have already pointed out the distinction which is to be made between a centralized
government and a centralized administration. The former exists in America, but the latter is
nearly unknown there. If the directing power of the American communities had both these
instruments of government at its disposal, and united the habit of executing its own
commands to the right of commanding; if, after having established the general principles of
government, it descended to the details of public business; and if, having regulated the great
interests of the country, it could penetrate into the privacy of individual interests, freedom
would soon be banished from the New World.
But in the United States the majority, which so frequently displays the tastes and the
propensities of a despot, is still destitute of the more perfect instruments of tyranny. In the
American republics the activity of the central Government has never as yet been extended
beyond a limited number of objects sufficiently prominent to call forth its attention. The
secondary affairs of society have never been regulated by its authority, and nothing has
hitherto betrayed its desire of interfering in them. The majority is become more and more
absolute, but it has not increased the prerogatives of the central government; those great
prerogatives have been confined to a certain sphere; and although the despotism of the
majority may be galling upon one point, it cannot be said to extend to all. However the
predominant party in the nation may be carried away by its passions, however ardent it may
be in the pursuit of its projects, it cannot oblige all the citizens to comply with its desires in
the same manner and at the same time throughout the country. When the central Government
which represents that majority has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to
agents, over whom it frequently has no control, and whom it cannot perpetually direct. The
townships, municipal bodies, and counties may therefore be looked upon as concealed break-
waters, which check or part the tide of popular excitement. If an oppressive law were passed,
the liberties of the people would still be protected by the means by which that law would be
put in execution: the majority cannot descend to the details and (as I will venture to style
them) the puerilities of administrative tyranny. Nor does the people entertain that full
consciousness of its authority which would prompt it to interfere in these matters; it knows
the extent of its natural powers, but it is unacquainted with the increased resources which the
art of government might furnish.
This point deserves attention, for if a democratic republic similar to that of the United States
were ever founded in a country where the power of a single individual had previously
subsisted, and the effects of a centralized administration had sunk deep into the habits and the
laws of the people, I do not hesitate to assert, that in that country a more insufferable
despotism would prevail than any which now exists in the monarchical States of Europe, or
indeed than any which could be found on this side of the confines of Asia.
The Profession Of The Law In The United States Serves To Counterpoise The
Democracy
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Utility of discriminating the natural propensities of the members of the legal profession—
These men called upon to act a prominent part in future society—In what manner the
peculiar pursuits of lawyers give an aristocratic turn to their ideas—Accidental causes which
may check this tendency—Ease with which the aristocracy coalesces with legal men—Use of
lawyers to a despot—The profession of the law constitutes the only aristocratic element with
which the natural elements of democracy will combine—Peculiar causes which tend to give
an aristocratic turn of mind to the English and American lawyers—The aristocracy of
America is on the bench and at the bar—Influence of lawyers upon American society—Their
peculiar magisterial habits affect the legislature, the administration, and even the people.
In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we perceive that the authority they have
entrusted to members of the legal profession, and the influence which these individuals
exercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of
democracy. This effect seems to me to result from a general cause which it is useful to
investigate, since it may produce analogous consequences elsewhere.
The members of the legal profession have taken an important part in all the vicissitudes of
political society in Europe during the last five hundred years. At one time they have been the
instruments of those who were invested with political authority, and at another they have
succeeded in converting political authorities into their instrument. In the Middle Ages they
afforded a powerful support to the Crown, and since that period they have exerted themselves
to the utmost to limit the royal prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance
with the aristocracy; in France they have proved to be the most dangerous enemies of that
class. It is my object to inquire whether, under all these circumstances, the members of the
legal profession have been swayed by sudden and momentary impulses; or whether they have
been impelled by principles which are inherent in their pursuits, and which will always recur
in history. I am incited to this investigation by reflecting that this particular class of men will
most likely play a prominent part in that order of things to which the events of our time are
giving birth.
Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal pursuits derive from those
occupations certain habits of order, a taste for formalities, and a kind of instinctive regard for
the regular connection of ideas, which naturally render them very hostile to the revolutionary
spirit and the unreflecting passions of the multitude.
The special information which lawyers derive from their studies ensures them a separate
station in society, and they constitute a sort of privileged body in the scale of intelligence.
This notion of their superiority perpetually recurs to them in the practice of their profession:
they are the masters of a science which is necessary, but which is not very generally known;
they serve as arbiters between the citizens; and the habit of directing the blind passions of
parties in litigation to their purpose inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment of
the multitude. To this it may be added that they naturally constitute a body, not by any
previous understanding, or by an agreement which directs them to a common end; but the
analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their proceedings connect their minds together,
as much as a common interest could combine their endeavors.
A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy may consequently be discovered in
the characters of men in the profession of the law. They participate in the same instinctive
love of order and of formalities; and they entertain the same repugnance to the actions of the
multitude, and the same secret contempt of the government of the people. I do not mean to
say that the natural propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong to sway them irresistibly;
for they, like most other men, are governed by their private interests and the advantages of
the moment.
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In a state of society in which the members of the legal profession are prevented from holding
that rank in the political world which they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured that they
will be the foremost agents of revolution. But it must then be inquired whether the cause
which induces them to innovate and to destroy is accidental, or whether it belongs to some
lasting purpose which they entertain. It is true that lawyers mainly contributed to the
overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789; but it remains to be seen whether they acted thus
because they had studied the laws, or because they were prohibited from co-operating in the
work of legislation.
Five hundred years ago the English nobles headed the people, and spoke in its name; at the
present time the aristocracy supports the throne, and defends the royal prerogative. But
aristocracy has, notwithstanding this, its peculiar instincts and propensities. We must be
careful not to confound isolated members of a body with the body itself. In all free
governments, of whatsoever form they may be, members of the legal profession will be found
at the head of all parties. The same remark is also applicable to the aristocracy; for almost all
the democratic convulsions which have agitated the world have been directed by nobles.
A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its members; it has always more
talents and more passions to content and to employ than it can find places; so that a
considerable number of individuals are usually to be met with who are inclined to attack
those very privileges which they find it impossible to turn to their own account.
I do not, then, assert that all the members of the legal profession are at all times the friends of
order and the opponents of innovation, but merely that most of them usually are so. In a
community in which lawyers are allowed to occupy, without opposition, that high station
which naturally belongs to them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-
democratic. When an aristocracy excludes the leaders of that profession from its ranks, it
excites enemies which are the more formidable to its security as they are independent of the
nobility by their industrious pursuits; and they feel themselves to be its equal in point of
intelligence, although they enjoy less opulence and less power. But whenever an aristocracy
consents to impart some of its privileges to these same individuals, the two classes coalesce
very readily, and assume, as it were, the consistency of a single order of family interests.
I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will always be able to convert legal
practitioners into the most serviceable instruments of his authority. There is a far greater
affinity between this class of individuals and the executive power than there is between them
and the people; just as there is a greater natural affinity between the nobles and the monarch
than between the nobles and the people, although the higher orders of society have
occasionally resisted the prerogative of the Crown in concert with the lower classes.
Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other consideration, and the best security
of public order is authority. It must not be forgotten that, if they prize the free institutions of
their country much, they nevertheless value the legality of those institutions far more: they
are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power; and provided that the legislature take upon
itself to deprive men of their independence, they are not dissatisfied.
I am therefore convinced that the prince who, in presence of an encroaching democracy,
should endeavor to impair the judicial authority in his dominions, and to diminish the
political influence of lawyers, would commit a great mistake. He would let slip the substance
of authority to grasp at the shadow. He would act more wisely in introducing men connected
with the law into the government; and if he entrusted them with the conduct of a despotic
power, bearing some marks of violence, that power would most likely assume the external
features of justice and of legality in their hands.
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The government of democracy is favorable to the political power of lawyers; for when the
wealthy, the noble, and the prince are excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy
the highest stations, in their own right, as it were, since they are the only men of information
and sagacity, beyond the sphere of the people, who can be the object of the popular choice. If,
then, they are led by their tastes to combine with the aristocracy and to support the Crown,
they are naturally brought into contact with the people by their interests. They like the
government of democracy, without participating in its propensities and without imitating its
weaknesses; whence they derive a twofold authority, from it and over it. The people in
democratic states does not mistrust the members of the legal profession, because it is well
known that they are interested in serving the popular cause; and it listens to them without
irritation, because it does not attribute to them any sinister designs. The object of lawyers is
not, indeed, to overthrow the institutions of democracy, but they constantly endeavor to give
it an impulse which diverts it from its real tendency, by means which are foreign to its nature.
Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by taste,
and they may be looked upon as the natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes
of society.
The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element which can be amalgamated without
violence with the natural elements of democracy, and which can be advantageously and
permanently combined with them. I am not unacquainted with the defects which are inherent
in the character of that body of men; but without this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety with
the democratic principle, I question whether democratic institutions could long be
maintained, and I cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time if the
influence of lawyers in public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the
people.
This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the legal profession, is much more
distinctly marked in the United States and in England than in any other country. This
proceeds not only from the legal studies of the English and American lawyers, but from the
nature of the legislation, and the position which those persons occupy in the two countries.
The English and the Americans have retained the law of precedents; that is to say, they
continue to found their legal opinions and the decisions of their courts upon the opinions and
the decisions of their forefathers. In the mind of an English or American lawyer a taste and a
reverence for what is old is almost always united to a love of regular and lawful proceedings.
This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the legal profession and upon the
general course of society. The English and American lawyers investigate what has been done;
the French advocate inquires what should have been done; the former produce precedents, the
latter reasons. A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English dr an American
lawyer quotes the opinions of others, and how little he alludes to his own; whilst the reverse
occurs in France. There the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the
introduction of an entire system of ideas peculiar to the counsel employed; and the
fundamental principles of law are discussed in order to obtain a perch of land by the decision
of the court. This abnegation of his own opinion, and this implicit deference to the opinion of
his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this subjection of
thought which he is obliged to profess, necessarily give him more timid habits and more
sluggish inclinations in England and America than in France.
The French codes are often difficult of comprehension, but they can be read by every one;
nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation
founded upon precedents. The indispensable want of legal assistance which is felt in England
and in the United States, and the high opinion which is generally entertained of the ability of
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the legal profession, tend to separate it more and more from the people, and to place it in a
distinct class. The French lawyer is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of
his country; but the English or American lawyer resembles the hierophants of Egypt, for, like
them, he is the sole interpreter of an occult science.
The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises no less an influence
upon their habits and their opinions. The English aristocracy, which has taken care to attract
to its sphere whatever is at all analogous to itself, has conferred a high degree of importance
and of authority upon the members of the legal profession. In English society lawyers do not
occupy the first rank, but they are contented with the station assigned to them; they
constitute, as it were, the younger branch of the English aristocracy, and they are attached to
their elder brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges. The English lawyers
consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of the aristocratic circles in which they move
with the aristocratic interests of their profession.
And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavoring to depict is most distinctly to
be met with in England: there laws are esteemed not so much because they are good as
because they are old; and if it be necessary to modify them in any respect, or to adapt them
the changes which time operates in society, recourse is had to the most inconceivable
contrivances in order to uphold the traditionary fabric, and to maintain that nothing has been
done which does not square with the intentions and complete the labors of former
generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of
innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedients than plead guilty to so great a
crime. This spirit appertains more especially to the English lawyers; they seem indifferent to
the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming
inclined to infringe the rules of common sense and of humanity rather than to swerve one title
from the law. The English legislation may be compared to the stock of an old tree, upon
which lawyers have engrafted the most various shoots, with the hope that, although their
fruits may differ, their foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable trunk which
supports them all.
In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the people is apt to mistrust the wealthy;
lawyers consequently form the highest political class, and the most cultivated circle of
society. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a conservative
interest to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where I place the American
aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich, who are
united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.
The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States the more shall we be persuaded
that the lawyers as a body form the most powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the
democratic element. In that country we perceive how eminently the legal profession is
qualified by its powers, and even by its defects, to neutralize the vices which are inherent in
popular government. When the American people is intoxicated by passion, or carried away
by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of
its legal counsellors, who secretly oppose their aristocratic propensities to its democratic
instincts, their superstitious attachment to what is antique to its love of novelty, their narrow
views to its immense designs, and their habitual procrastination to its ardent impatience.
The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the legal profession is enabled to
control the democracy. The judge is a lawyer, who, independently of the taste for regularity
and order which he has contracted in the study of legislation, derives an additional love of
stability from his own inalienable functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to
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a distinguished rank amongst his fellow-citizens; his political power completes the distinction
of his station, and gives him the inclinations natural to privileged classes.
Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional, 196 the American
magistrate perpetually interferes in political affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws,
but at least he can oblige it not to disobey its own enactments; or to act inconsistently with its
own principles. I am aware that a secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the
United States, and by most of the constitutions of the several States the Government can,
upon the demand of the two houses of the legislature, remove the judges from their station.
By some other constitutions the members of the tribunals are elected, and they are even
subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or
later be attended with fatal consequences, and that it will be found out at some future period
that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected the democratic republic
itself.
It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I have been speaking has been
confined, in the United States, to the courts of justice; it extends far beyond them. As the
lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the people does not mistrust, they are
naturally called upon to occupy most of the public stations. They fill the legislative
assemblies, and they conduct the administration; they consequently exercise a powerful
influence upon the formation of the law, and upon its execution. The lawyers are, however,
obliged to yield to the current of public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist it, but it
is easy to find indications of what their conduct would be if they were free to act as they
chose. The Americans, who have made such copious innovations in their political legislation,
have introduced very sparing alterations in their civil laws, and that with great difficulty,
although those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition. The reason of this is,
that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal
profession, and that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to
their own choice.
It is curious for a Frenchman, accustomed to a very different state of things, to hear the
perpetual complaints which are made in the United States against the stationary propensities
of legal men, and their prejudices in favor of existing institutions.
The influence of the legal habits which are common in America extends beyond the limits I
have just pointed out. Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not
become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate; hence all parties are obliged to borrow
the ideas, and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As
most public men are, or have been, legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and
technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habitude
to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue; the
spirit of the law, which is produced in the schools and courts of justice, gradually penetrates
beyond their walls into the bosom of society, where it descends to the lowest classes, so that
the whole people contracts the habits and the tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the
United States form a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived, which has no
badge peculiar to itself, which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies of the time,
and accommodates itself to all the movements of the social body; but this party extends over
the whole community, and it penetrates into all classes of society; it acts upon the country
imperceptibly, but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes.

196
See chapter VI. on the “Judicial Power in the United States.”
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XVI. Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United

States—Part 2

Trial By Jury In The United States Considered As A Political Institution

Trial by jury, which is one of the instruments of the sovereignty of the people, deserves to be
compared with the other laws which establish that sovereignty—Composition of the jury in
the United States—Effect of trial by jury upon the national character—It educates the
people—It tends to establish the authority of the magistrates and to extend a knowledge of
law among the people.
Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the administration of justice in the United
States, I will not pass over this point without adverting to the institution of the jury. Trial by
jury may be considered in two separate points of view, as a judicial and as a political
institution. If it entered into my present purpose to inquire how far trial by jury (more
especially in civil cases) contributes to insure the best administration of justice, I admit that
its utility might be contested. As the jury was first introduced at a time when society was in
an uncivilized state, and when courts of justice were merely called upon to decide on the
evidence of facts, it is not an easy task to adapt it to the wants of a highly civilized
community when the mutual relations of men are multiplied to a surprising extent, and have
assumed the enlightened and intellectual character of the age. 197
My present object is to consider the jury as a political institution, and any other course would
divert me from my subject. Of trial by jury, considered as a judicial institution, I shall here
say but very few words. When the English adopted trial by jury they were a semi-barbarous
people; they are become, in course of time, one of the most enlightened nations of the earth;
and their attachment to this institution seems to have increased with their increasing
cultivation. They soon spread beyond their insular boundaries to every corner of the habitable
globe; some have formed colonies, others independent states; the mother-country has
maintained its monarchical constitution; many of its offspring have founded powerful
republics; but wherever the English have been they have boasted of the privilege of trial by
jury. 198 They have established it, or hastened to re-establish it, in all their settlements. A
judicial institution which obtains the suffrages of a great people for so long a series of ages,
which is zealously renewed at every epoch of civilization, in all the climates of the earth and
under every form of human government, cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice. 199

197
The investigation of trial by jury as a judicial institution, and the appreciation of its effects in the United
States, together with the advantages the Americans have derived from it, would suffice to form a book, and a
book upon a very useful and curious subject. The State of Louisiana would in particular afford the curious
phenomenon of a French and English legislation, as well as a French and English population, which are
gradually combining with each other. See the “Digeste des Lois de la Louisiane,” in two volumes; and the
“Traite sur les Regles des Actions civiles,” printed in French and English at New Orleans in 1830.
198
All the English and American jurists are unanimous upon this head. Mr. Story, judge of the Supreme Court
of the United States, speaks, in his “Treatise on the Federal Constitution,” of the advantages of trial by jury in
civil cases:—”The inestimable privilege of a trial by jury in civil cases—a privilege scarcely inferior to that in
criminal cases, which is counted by all persons to be essential to political and civil liberty. . . .” (Story, book iii.,
chap. xxxviii.)
199
If it were our province to point out the utility of the jury as a judicial institution in this place, much might be
said, and the following arguments might be brought forward amongst others:—
By introducing the jury into the business of the courts you are enabled to diminish the number of judges, which
is a very great advantage. When judges are very numerous, death is perpetually thinning the ranks of the judicial
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I turn, however, from this part of the subject. To look upon the jury as a mere judicial
institution is to confine our attention to a very narrow view of it; for however great its
influence may be upon the decisions of the law courts, that influence is very subordinate to
the powerful effects which it produces on the destinies of the community at large. The jury is
above all a political institution, and it must be regarded in this light in order to be duly
appreciated.
By the jury I mean a certain number of citizens chosen indiscriminately, and invested with a
temporary right of judging. Trial by jury, as applied to the repression of crime, appears to me
to introduce an eminently republican element into the government upon the following
grounds:—
The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic, according to the class of society
from which the jurors are selected; but it always preserves its republican character, inasmuch
as it places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed, or of a portion of the
governed, instead of leaving it under the authority of the Government. Force is never more
than a transient element of success; and after force comes the notion of right. A government
which should only be able to crush its enemies upon a field of battle would very soon be
destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation, and if that
sanction be wanting the law will sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes infractions
of the law is therefore the real master of society. Now the institution of the jury raises the
people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority. The institution of
the jury consequently invests the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of
society. 200
In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of the nation; 201 the aristocracy
makes the laws, applies the laws, and punishes all infractions of the laws; everything is
established upon a consistent footing, and England may with truth be said to constitute an
aristocratic republic. In the United States the same system is applied to the whole people.
Every American citizen is qualified to be an elector, a juror, and is eligible to office. 202 The
system of the jury, as it is understood in America, appears to me to be as direct and as
extreme a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suffrage. These
institutions are two instruments of equal power, which contribute to the supremacy of the
majority. All the sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own authority, and to direct

functionaries, and laying places vacant for newcomers. The ambition of the magistrates is therefore continually
excited, and they are naturally made dependent upon the will of the majority, or the individual who fills up the
vacant appointments; the officers of the court then rise like the officers of an army. This state of things is
entirely contrary to the sound administration of justice, and to the intentions of the legislator. The office of a
judge is made inalienable in order that he may remain independent: but of what advantage is it that his
independence should be protected if he be tempted to sacrifice it of his own accord? When judges are very
numerous many of them must necessarily be incapable of performing their important duties, for a great
magistrate is a man of no common powers; and I am inclined to believe that a half-enlightened tribunal is the
worst of all instruments for attaining those objects which it is the purpose of courts of justice to accomplish. For
my own part, I had rather submit the decision of a case to ignorant jurors directed by a skilful judge than to
judges a majority of whom are imperfectly acquainted with jurisprudence and with the laws.
200
An important remark must, however, be made. Trial by jury does unquestionably invest the people with a
general control over the actions of citizens, but it does not furnish means of exercising this control in all cases,
or with an absolute authority. When an absolute monarch has the right of trying offences by his representatives,
the fate of the prisoner is, as it were, decided beforehand. But even if the people were predisposed to convict,
the composition and the non-responsibility of the jury would still afford some chances favorable to the
protection of innocence.
201
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.
202
See Appendix, Q.
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society instead of obeying its directions, have destroyed or enfeebled the institution of the
jury. The monarchs of the House of Tudor sent to prison jurors who refused to convict, and
Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents.
However clear most of these truths may seem to be, they do not command universal assent,
and in France, at least, the institution of trial by jury is still very imperfectly understood. If
the question arises as to the proper qualification of jurors, it is confined to a discussion of the
intelligence and knowledge of the citizens who may be returned, as if the jury was merely a
judicial institution. This appears to me to be the least part of the subject. The jury is pre-
eminently a political institution; it must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the
people; when that sovereignty is repudiated, it must be rejected, or it must be adapted to the
laws by which that sovereignty is established. The jury is that portion of the nation to which
the execution of the laws is entrusted, as the Houses of Parliament constitute that part of the
nation which makes the laws; and in order that society may be governed with consistency and
uniformity, the list of citizens qualified to serve on juries must increase and diminish with the
list of electors. This I hold to be the point of view most worthy of the attention of the
legislator, and all that remains is merely accessory.
I am so entirely convinced that the jury is pre-eminently a political institution that I still
consider it in this light when it is applied in civil causes. Laws are always unstable unless
they are founded upon the manners of a nation; manners are the only durable and resisting
power in a people. When the jury is reserved for criminal offences, the people only witnesses
its occasional action in certain particular cases; the ordinary course of life goes on without its
interference, and it is considered as an instrument, but not as the only instrument, of obtaining
justice. This is true a fortiori when the jury is only applied to certain criminal causes.
When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended to civil causes, its application is
constantly palpable; it affects all the interests of the community; everyone co-operates in its
work: it thus penetrates into all the usages of life, it fashions the human mind to its peculiar
forms, and is gradually associated with the idea of justice itself.
The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is always in danger, but when once
it is introduced into civil proceedings it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it had
been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the laws of England, it would have
perished under Henry VIII, and Elizabeth, and the civil jury did in reality, at that period, save
the liberties of the country. In whatever manner the jury be applied, it cannot fail to exercise a
powerful influence upon the national character; but this influence is prodigiously increased
when it is introduced into civil causes. The jury, and more especially the jury in civil cases,
serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens; and this spirit,
with the habits which attend it, is the soundest preparation for free institutions. It imbues all
classes with a respect for the thing judged, and with the notion of right. If these two elements
be removed, the love of independence is reduced to a mere destructive passion. It teaches
men to practice equity, every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself be
judged; and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes, for, whilst the number of persons
who have reason to apprehend a criminal prosecution is small, every one is liable to have a
civil action brought against him. The jury teaches every man not to recoil before the
responsibility of his own actions, and impresses him with that manly confidence without
which political virtue cannot exist. It invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy, it makes
them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge towards society, and the part which
they take in the Government. By obliging men to turn their attention to affairs which are not
exclusively their own, it rubs off that individual egotism which is the rust of society.
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The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgement and to increase the natural
intelligence of a people, and this is, in my opinion, its greatest advantage. It may be regarded
as a gratuitous public school ever open, in which every juror learns to exercise his rights,
enters into daily communication with the most learned and enlightened members of the upper
classes, and becomes practically acquainted with the laws of his country, which are brought
within the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar, the advice of the judge, and even by
the passions of the parties. I think that the practical intelligence and political good sense of
the Americans are mainly attributable to the long use which they have made of the jury in
civil causes. I do not know whether the jury is useful to those who are in litigation; but I am
certain it is highly beneficial to those who decide the litigation; and I look upon it as one of
the most efficacious means for the education of the people which society can employ.
What I have hitherto said applies to all nations, but the remark I am now about to make is
peculiar to the Americans and to democratic peoples. I have already observed that in
democracies the members of the legal profession and the magistrates constitute the only
aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested
with no physical power, but it exercises its conservative influence upon the minds of men,
and the most abundant source of its authority is the institution of the civil jury. In criminal
causes, when society is armed against a single individual, the jury is apt to look upon the
judge as the passive instrument of social power, and to mistrust his advice. Moreover,
criminal causes are entirely founded upon the evidence of facts which common sense can
readily appreciate; upon this ground the judge and the jury are equal. Such, however, is not
the case in civil causes; then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter between the
conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look up to him with confidence and listen to
him with respect, for in this instance their intelligence is completely under the control of his
learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments with which their memory has
been wearied out, and who guides them through the devious course of the proceedings; he
points their attention to the exact question of fact which they are called upon to solve, and he
puts the answer to the question of law into their mouths. His influence upon their verdict is
almost unlimited.
If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by the arguments derived from the
ignorance of jurors in civil causes, I reply, that in these proceedings, whenever the question to
be solved is not a mere question of fact, the jury has only the semblance of a judicial body.
The jury sanctions the decision of the judge, they by the authority of society which they
represent, and he by that of reason and of law. 203
In England and in America the judges exercise an influence upon criminal trials which the
French judges have never possessed. The reason of this difference may easily be discovered;
the English and American magistrates establish their authority in civil causes, and only
transfer it afterwards to tribunals of another kind, where that authority was not acquired. In
some cases (and they are frequently the most important ones) the American judges have the
right of deciding causes alone. 204 Upon these occasions they are accidentally placed in the
position which the French judges habitually occupy, but they are invested with far more
power than the latter; they are still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury, and their
judgment has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at large, represented by
that institution. Their influence extends beyond the limits of the courts; in the recreations of
private life as well as in the turmoil of public business, abroad and in the legislative
assemblies, the American judge is constantly surrounded by men who are accustomed to

203
See Appendix, R.
204
The Federal judges decide upon their own authority almost all the questions most important to the country.
 192

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 magistracy, does in reality consolidate its
power, and in no country are the judges so powerful as there, where the people partakes their
privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury in civil causes that the American
magistrates imbue all classes of society with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury,
which is the most energetic means of making the people rule, is also the most efficacious
means of teaching it to rule well.
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XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic

Republic—Part 1

Principal Causes Which Tend To Maintain The Democratic Republic In The United
States
A democratic republic subsists in the United States, and the principal object of this book has
been to account for the fact of its existence. Several of the causes which contribute to
maintain the institutions of America have been involuntarily passed by or only hinted at as I
was borne along by my subject. Others I have been unable to discuss, and those on which I
have dwelt most are, as it were, buried in the details of the former parts of this work. I think,
therefore, that before I proceed to speak of the future, I cannot do better than collect within a
small compass the reasons which best explain the present. In this retrospective chapter I shall
be succinct, for I shall take care to remind the reader very summarily of what he already
knows; and I shall only select the most prominent of those facts which I have not yet pointed
out.
All the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the democratic republic in the United
States are reducible to three heads:—
I. The peculiar and accidental situation in which Providence has placed the Americans.
II. The laws.
III. The manners and customs of the people.
Accidental Or Providential Causes Which Contribute To The Maintenance Of The
Democratic Republic In The United States The Union has no neighbors—No metropolis—The
Americans have had the chances of birth in their favor—America an empty country—How
this circumstance contributes powerfully to the maintenance of the democratic republic in
America—How the American wilds are peopled—Avidity of the Anglo-Americans in taking
possession of the solitudes of the New World—Influence of physical prosperity upon the
political opinions of the Americans.
A thousand circumstances, independent of the will of man, concur to facilitate the
maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States. Some of these peculiarities are
known, the others may easily be pointed out; but I shall confine myself to the most prominent
amongst them.
The Americans have no neighbors, and consequently they have no great wars, or financial
crises, or inroads, or conquest to dread; they require neither great taxes, nor great armies, nor
great generals; and they have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more formidable to
republics than all these evils combined, namely, military glory. It is impossible to deny the
inconceivable influence which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation. General
Jackson, whom the Americans have twice elected to the head of their Government, is a man
of a violent temper and mediocre talents; no one circumstance in the whole course of his
career ever proved that he is qualified to govern a free people, and indeed the majority of the
enlightened classes of the Union has always been opposed to him. But he was raised to the
Presidency, and has been maintained in that lofty station, solely by the recollection of a
victory which he gained twenty years ago under the walls of New Orleans, a victory which
was, however, a very ordinary achievement, and which could only be remembered in a
country where battles are rare. Now the people which is thus carried away by the illusions of
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glory is unquestionably the most cold and calculating, the most unmilitary (if I may use the
expression), and the most prosaic of all the peoples of the earth.
America has no great capital 205 city, whose influence is directly or indirectly felt over the
whole extent of the country, which I hold to be one of the first causes of the maintenance of
republican institutions in the United States. In cities men cannot be prevented from
concerting together, and from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and
passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies, of which all the
inhabitants are members; their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the
magistrates, and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention.
To subject the provinces to the metropolis is therefore not only to place the destiny of the
empire in the hands of a portion of the community, which may be reprobated as unjust, but to
place it in the hands of a populace acting under its own impulses, which must be avoided as
dangerous. The preponderance of capital cities is therefore a serious blow upon the
representative system, and it exposes modern republics to the same defect as the republics of
antiquity, which all perished from not having been acquainted with that form of government.
It would be easy for me to adduce a great number of secondary causes which have
contributed to establish, and which concur to maintain, the democratic republic of the United
States. But I discern two principal circumstances amongst these favorable elements, which I
hasten to point out. I have already observed that the origin of the American settlements may
be looked upon as the first and most efficacious cause to which the present prosperity of the
United States may be attributed. The Americans had the chances of birth in their favor, and
their forefathers imported that equality of conditions into the country whence the democratic
republic has very naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did; for besides this republican
condition of society, the early settler bequeathed to their descendants those customs,
manners, and opinions which contribute most to the success of a republican form of
government. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance, methinks I
see the destiny of America embodied in the first Puritan who landed on those shores, just as
the human race was represented by the first man.

205
The United States have no metropolis, but they already contain several very large cities. Philadelphia
reckoned 161,000 inhabitants and New York 202,000 in the year 1830. The lower orders which inhabit these
cities constitute a rabble even more formidable than the populace of European towns. They consist of freed
blacks in the first place, who are condemned by the laws and by public opinion to a hereditary state of misery
and degradation. They also contain a multitude of Europeans who have been driven to the shores of the New
World by their misfortunes or their misconduct; and these men inoculate the United States with all our vices,
without bringing with them any of those interests which counteract their baneful influence. As inhabitants of a
country where they have no civil rights, they are ready to turn all the passions which agitate the community to
their own advantage; thus, within the last few months serious riots have broken out in Philadelphia and in New
York. Disturbances of this kind are unknown in the rest of the country, which is nowise alarmed by them,
because the population of the cities has hitherto exercised neither power nor influence over the rural districts.
Nevertheless, I look upon the size of certain American cities, and especially on the nature of their population, as
a real danger which threatens the future security of the democratic republics of the New World; and I venture to
predict that they will perish from this circumstance unless the government succeeds in creating an armed force,
which, whilst it remains under the control of the majority of the nation, will be independent of the town
population, and able to repress its excesses.
[The population of the city of New York had risen, in 1870, to 942,292, and that of Philadelphia to 674,022.
Brooklyn, which may be said to form part of New York city, has a population of 396,099, in addition to that of
New York. The frequent disturbances in the great cities of America, and the excessive corruption of their local
governments—over which there is no effectual control—are amongst the greatest evils and dangers of the
country.]
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The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and the maintenance of a
democratic republic in the United States is the nature of the territory which the American
inhabit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equality and of freedom, but God himself gave
them the means of remaining equal and free, by placing them upon a boundless continent,
which is open to their exertions. General prosperity is favorable to the stability of all
governments, but more particularly of a democratic constitution, which depends upon the
dispositions of the majority, and more particularly of that portion of the community which is
most exposed to feel the pressure of want. When the people rules, it must be rendered happy,
or it will overturn the State, and misery is apt to stimulate it to those excesses to which
ambition rouses kings. The physical causes, independent of the laws, which contribute to
promote general prosperity, are more numerous in America than they have ever been in any
other country in the world, at any other period of history. In the United States not only is
legislation democratic, but nature herself favors the cause of the people.
In what part of human tradition can be found anything at all similar to that which is occurring
under our eyes in North America? The celebrated communities of antiquity were all founded
in the midst of hostile nations, which they were obliged to subjugate before they could
flourish in their place. Even the moderns have found, in some parts of South America, vast
regions inhabited by a people of inferior civilization, but which occupied and cultivated the
soil. To found their new states it was necessary to extirpate or to subdue a numerous
population, until civilization has been made to blush for their success. But North America
was only inhabited by wandering tribes, who took no thought of the natural riches of the soil,
and that vast country was still, properly speaking, an empty continent, a desert land awaiting
its inhabitants.
Everything is extraordinary in America, the social condition of the inhabitants, as well as the
laws; but the soil upon which these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the
rest. When man was first placed upon the earth by the Creator, the earth was inexhaustible in
its youth, but man was weak and ignorant; and when he had learned to explore the treasures
which it contained, hosts of his fellow creatures covered its surface, and he was obliged to
earn an asylum for repose and for freedom by the sword. At that same period North America
was discovered, as if it had been kept in reserve by the Deity, and had just risen from beneath
the waters of the deluge.
That continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time, rivers which rise from never-
failing sources, green and moist solitudes, and fields which the ploughshare of the
husbandman has never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the barbarous and
isolated condition of the early ages, but to a being who is already in possession of the most
potent secrets of the natural world, who is united to his fellow-men, and instructed by the
experience of fifty centuries. At this very time thirteen millions of civilized Europeans are
peaceably spreading over those fertile plains, with whose resources and whose extent they are
not yet themselves accurately acquainted. Three or four thousand soldiers drive the
wandering races of the aborigines before them; these are followed by the pioneers, who
pierce the woods, scare off the beasts of prey, explore the courses of the inland streams, and
make ready the triumphal procession of civilization across the waste.
The favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of America upon the institutions of that
country has been so often described by others, and adverted to by myself, that I shall not
enlarge upon it beyond the addition of a few facts. An erroneous notion is generally
entertained that the deserts of America are peopled by European emigrants, who annually
disembark upon the coasts of the New World, whilst the American population increases and
multiplies upon the soil which its forefathers tilled. The European settler, however, usually
 196

arrives in the United States without friends, and sometimes without resources; in order to
subsist he is obliged to work for hire, and he rarely proceeds beyond that belt of industrious
population which adjoins the ocean. The desert cannot be explored without capital or credit;
and the body must be accustomed to the rigors of a new climate before it can be exposed to
the chances of forest life. It is the Americans themselves who daily quit the spots which gave
them birth to acquire extensive domains in a remote country. Thus the European leaves his
cottage for the trans-Atlantic shores; and the American, who is born on that very coast,
plunges in his turn into the wilds of Central America. This double emigration is incessant; it
begins in the remotest parts of Europe, it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and it advances over the
solitudes of the New World. Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon;
their language, their religion, their manners differ, their object is the same. The gifts of
fortune are promised in the West, and to the West they bend their course. 206
No event can be compared with this continuous removal of the human race, except perhaps
those irruptions which preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Then, as well as now,
generations of men were impelled forwards in the same direction to meet and struggle on the
same spot; but the designs of Providence were not the same; then, every newcomer was the
harbinger of destruction and of death; now, every adventurer brings with him the elements of
prosperity and of life. The future still conceals from us the ulterior consequences of this
emigration of the Americans towards the West; but we can readily apprehend its more
immediate results. As a portion of the inhabitants annually leave the States in which they
were born, the population of these States increases very slowly, although they have long been
established: thus in Connecticut, which only contains fifty-nine inhabitants to the square mile,
the population has not increased by more than one-quarter in forty years, whilst that of
England has been augmented by one-third in the lapse of the same period. The European
emigrant always lands, therefore, in a country which is but half full, and where hands are in
request: he becomes a workman in easy circumstances; his son goes to seek his fortune in
unpeopled regions, and he becomes a rich landowner. The former amasses the capital which
the latter invests, and the stranger as well as the native is unacquainted with want.
The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the division of property; but a cause
which is more powerful than the laws prevents property from being divided to excess. 207 This
is very perceptible in the States which are beginning to be thickly peopled; Massachusetts is
the most populous part of the Union, but it contains only eighty inhabitants to the square
mile, which is must less than in France, where 162 are reckoned to the same extent of
country. But in Massachusetts estates are very rarely divided; the eldest son takes the land,
and the others go to seek their fortune in the desert. The law has abolished the rights of
primogeniture, but circumstances have concurred to re-establish it under a form of which
none can complain, and by which no just rights are impaired.
A single fact will suffice to show the prodigious number of individuals who leave New
England, in this manner, to settle themselves in the wilds. We were assured in 1830 that
thirty-six of the members of Congress were born in the little State of Connecticut. The
population of Connecticut, which constitutes only one forty-third part of that of the United
States, thus furnished one-eighth of the whole body of representatives. The States of
Connecticut, however, only sends five delegates to Congress; and the thirty-one others sit for

206
The number of foreign immigrants into the United States in the last fifty years (from 1820 to 1871) is stated
to be 7,556,007. Of these, 4,104,553 spoke English—that is, they came from Great Britain, Ireland, or the
British colonies; 2,643,069 came from Germany or northern Europe; and about half a million from the south of
Europe.
207
In New England the estates are exceedingly small, but they are rarely subjected to further division.
 197

the new Western States. If these thirty-one individuals had remained in Connecticut, it is
probable that instead of becoming rich landowners they would have remained humble
laborers, that they would have lived in obscurity without being able to rise into public life,
and that, far from becoming useful members of the legislature, they might have been unruly
citizens.
These reflections do not escape the observation of the Americans any more than of ourselves.
“It cannot be doubted,” says Chancellor Kent in his “Treatise on American Law,” “that the
division of landed estates must produce great evils when it is carried to such excess as that
each parcel of land is insufficient to support a family; but these disadvantages have never
been felt in the United States, and many generations must elapse before they can be felt. The
extent of our inhabited territory, the abundance of adjacent land, and the continual stream of
emigration flowing from the shores of the Atlantic towards the interior of the country, suffice
as yet, and will long suffice, to prevent the parcelling out of estates.”
It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the American rushes forward to secure the
immense booty which fortune proffers to him. In the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrow of
the Indian and the distempers of the forest; he is unimpressed by the silence of the woods; the
approach of beasts of prey does not disturb him; for he is goaded onwards by a passion more
intense than the love of life. Before him lies a boundless continent, and he urges onwards as
if time pressed, and he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions. I have spoken of the
emigration from the older States, but how shall I describe that which takes place from the
more recent ones? Fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of Ohio was founded; the
greater part of its inhabitants were not born within its confines; its capital has only been built
thirty years, and its territory is still covered by an immense extent of uncultivated fields;
nevertheless the population of Ohio is already proceeding westward, and most of the settlers
who descend to the fertile savannahs of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. These men left their first
country to improve their condition; they quit their resting-place to ameliorate it still more;
fortune awaits them everywhere, but happiness they cannot attain. The desire of prosperity is
become an ardent and restless passion in their minds which grows by what it gains. They
early broke the ties which bound them to their natal earth, and they have contracted no fresh
ones on their way. Emigration was at first necessary to them as a means of subsistence; and it
soon becomes a sort of game of chance, which they pursue for the emotions it excites as
much as for the gain it procures.
Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert reappears behind him. The woods
stoop to give him a passage, and spring up again when he has passed. It is not uncommon in
crossing the new States of the West to meet with deserted dwellings in the midst of the wilds;
the traveller frequently discovers the vestiges of a log house in the most solitary retreats,
which bear witness to the power, and no less to the inconstancy of man. In these abandoned
fields, and over these ruins of a day, the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh vegetation, the
beasts resume the haunts which were once their own, and Nature covers the traces of man’s
path with branches and with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track.
I remember that, in crossing one of the woodland districts which still cover the State of New
York, I reached the shores of a lake embosomed in forests coeval with the world. A small
island, covered with woods whose thick foliage concealed its banks, rose from the centre of
the waters. Upon the shores of the lake no object attested the presence of man except a
column of smoke which might be seen on the horizon rising from the tops of the trees to the
clouds, and seeming to hang from heaven rather than to be mounting to the sky. An Indian
shallop was hauled up on the sand, which tempted me to visit the islet that had first attracted
my attention, and in a few minutes I set foot upon its banks. The whole island formed one of
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those delicious solitudes of the New World which almost lead civilized man to regret the
haunts of the savage. A luxuriant vegetation bore witness to the incomparable fruitfulness of
the soil. The deep silence which is common to the wilds of North America was only broken
by the hoarse cooing of the wood-pigeon, and the tapping of the woodpecker upon the bark of
trees. I was far from supposing that this spot had ever been inhabited, so completely did
Nature seem to be left to her own caprices; but when I reached the centre of the isle I thought
that I discovered some traces of man. I then proceeded to examine the surrounding objects
with care, and I soon perceived that a European had undoubtedly been led to seek a refuge in
this retreat. Yet what changes had taken place in the scene of his labors! The logs which he
had hastily hewn to build himself a shed had sprouted afresh; the very props were intertwined
with living verdure, and his cabin was transformed into a bower. In the midst of these shrubs
a few stones were to be seen, blackened with fire and sprinkled with thin ashes; here the
hearth had no doubt been, and the chimney in falling had covered it with rubbish. I stood for
some time in silent admiration of the exuberance of Nature and the littleness of man: and
when I was obliged to leave that enchanting solitude, I exclaimed with melancholy, “Are
ruins, then, already here?”
In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an unbounded desire of riches, and
an excessive love of independence, as propensities very formidable to society. Yet these are
the very elements which ensure a long and peaceful duration to the republics of America.
Without these unquiet passions the population would collect in certain spots, and would soon
be subject to wants like those of the Old World, which it is difficult to satisfy; for such is the
present good fortune of the New World, that the vices of its inhabitants are scarcely less
favorable to society than their virtues. These circumstances exercise a great influence on the
estimation in which human actions are held in the two hemispheres. The Americans
frequently term what we should call cupidity a laudable industry; and they blame as faint-
heartedness what we consider to be the virtue of moderate desires.
In France, simple tastes, orderly manners, domestic affections, and the attachments which
men feel to the place of their birth, are looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquillity and
happiness of the State. But in America nothing seems to be more prejudicial to society than
these virtues. The French Canadians, who have faithfully preserved the traditions of their
pristine manners, are already embarrassed for room upon their small territory; and this little
community, which has so recently begun to exist, will shortly be a prey to the calamities
incident to old nations. In Canada, the most enlightened, patriotic, and humane inhabitants
make extraordinary efforts to render the people dissatisfied with those simple enjoyments
which still content it. There, the seductions of wealth are vaunted with as much zeal as the
charms of an honest but limited income in the Old World, and more exertions are made to
excite the passions of the citizens there than to calm them elsewhere. If we listen to their
eulogies, we shall hear that nothing is more praiseworthy than to exchange the pure and
homely pleasures which even the poor man tastes in his own country for the dull delights of
prosperity under a foreign sky; to leave the patrimonial hearth and the turf beneath which his
forefathers sleep; in short, to abandon the living and the dead in quest of fortune.
At the present time America presents a field for human effort far more extensive than any
sum of labor which can be applied to work it. In America too much knowledge cannot be
diffused; for all knowledge, whilst it may serve him who possesses it, turns also to the
advantage of those who are without it. New wants are not to be feared, since they can be
satisfied without difficulty; the growth of human passions need not be dreaded, since all
passions may find an easy and a legitimate object; nor can men be put in possession of too
much freedom, since they are scarcely ever tempted to misuse their liberties.
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The American republics of the present day are like companies of adventurers formed to
explore in common the waste lands of the New World, and busied in a flourishing trade. The
passions which agitate the Americans most deeply are not their political but their commercial
passions; or, to speak more correctly, they introduce the habits they contract in business into
their political life. They love order, without which affairs do not prosper; and they set an
especial value upon a regular conduct, which is the foundation of a solid business; they prefer
the good sense which amasses large fortunes to that enterprising spirit which frequently
dissipates them; general ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to positive
calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than theory.
It is in America that one learns to understand the influence which physical prosperity
exercises over political actions, and even over opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway
but that of reason; and it is more especially amongst strangers that this truth is perceptible.
Most of the European emigrants to the New World carry with them that wild love of
independence and of change which our calamities are so apt to engender. I sometimes met
with Europeans in the United States who had been obliged to leave their own country on
account of their political opinions. They all astonished me by the language they held, but one
of them surprised me more than all the rest. As I was crossing one of the most remote
districts of Pennsylvania I was benighted, and obliged to beg for hospitality at the gate of a
wealthy planter, who was a Frenchman by birth. He bade me sit down beside his fire, and we
began to talk with that freedom which befits persons who meet in the backwoods, two
thousand leagues from their native country. I was aware that my host had been a great
leveller and an ardent demagogue forty years ago, and that his name was not unknown to
fame. I was, therefore, not a little surprised to hear him discuss the rights of property as an
economist or a landowner might have done: he spoke of the necessary gradations which
fortune establishes among men, of obedience to established laws, of the influence of good
morals in commonwealths, and of the support which religious opinions give to order and to
freedom; he even went to far as to quote an evangelical authority in corroboration of one of
his political tenets.
I listened, and marvelled at the feebleness of human reason. A proposition is true or false, but
no art can prove it to be one or the other, in the midst of the uncertainties of science and the
conflicting lessons of experience, until a new incident disperses the clouds of doubt; I was
poor, I become rich, and I am not to expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct, and
leave my judgment free; my opinions change with my fortune, and the happy circumstances
which I turn to my advantage furnish me with that decisive argument which was before
wanting. The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the American than upon
strangers. The American has always seen the connection of public order and public
prosperity, intimately united as they are, go on before his eyes; he does not conceive that one
can subsist without the other; he has therefore nothing to forget; nor has he, like so many
Europeans, to unlearn the lessons of his early education.
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XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic

Republic—Part 2

Influence Of The Laws Upon The Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic In The
United States
Three principal causes of the maintenance of the democratic republic—Federal
Constitutions—Municipal institutions—Judicial power.
The principal aim of this book has been to make known the laws of the United States; if this
purpose has been accomplished, the reader is already enabled to judge for himself which are
the laws that really tend to maintain the democratic republic, and which endanger its
existence. If I have not succeeded in explaining this in the whole course of my work, I cannot
hope to do so within the limits of a single chapter. It is not my intention to retrace the path I
have already pursued, and a very few lines will suffice to recapitulate what I have previously
explained.
Three circumstances seem to me to contribute most powerfully to the maintenance of the
democratic republic in the United States.
The first is that Federal form of Government which the Americans have adopted, and which
enables the Union to combine the power of a great empire with the security of a small State.
The second consists in those municipal institutions which limit the despotism of the majority,
and at the same time impart a taste for freedom and a knowledge of the art of being free to the
people.
The third is to be met with in the constitution of the judicial power. I have shown in what
manner the courts of justice serve to repress the excesses of democracy, and how they check
and direct the impulses of the majority without stopping its activity.
Influence Of Manners Upon The Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic In The
United States
I have previously remarked that the manners of the people may be considered as one of the
general causes to which the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is
attributable. I here used the word manners with the meaning which the ancients attached to
the word mores, for I apply it not only to manners in their proper sense of what constitutes
the character of social intercourse, but I extend it to the various notions and opinions current
among men, and to the mass of those ideas which constitute their character of mind. I
comprise, therefore, under this term the whole moral and intellectual condition of a people.
My intention is not to draw a picture of American manners, but simply to point out such
features of them as are favorable to the maintenance of political institutions.
Religion Considered As A Political Institution, Which Powerfully Contributes To The
Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic Amongst The Americans
North America peopled by men who professed a democratic and republican Christianity—
Arrival of the Catholics—For what reason the Catholics form the most democratic and the
most republican class at the present time.
Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political opinion which is connected with it
by affinity. If the human mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the temporal and
spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle; and man will endeavor, if I may
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use the expression, to harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth with the state which
he believes to await him in heaven. The greatest part of British America was peopled by men
who, after having shaken off the authority of the Pope, acknowledged no other religious
supremacy; they brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot
better describe than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This sect contributed
powerfully to the establishment of a democracy and a republic, and from the earliest
settlement of the emigrants politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been
dissolved.
About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Catholic population into the United States; on
the other hand, the Catholics of America made proselytes, and at the present moment more
than a million of Christians professing the truths of the Church of Rome are to be met with in
the Union. 208 The Catholics are faithful to the observances of their religion; they are fervent
and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines. Nevertheless they constitute the most
republican and the most democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States; and
although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes by which it is occasioned may
easily be discovered upon reflection.
I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as the natural enemy of
democracy. Amongst the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the
contrary, to be one of those which are most favorable to the equality of conditions. In the
Catholic Church, the religious community is composed of only two elements, the priest and
the people. The priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all below him are equal.
On doctrinal points the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level; it
subjects the wise and ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the
same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich and needy, it inflicts the same
austerities upon the strong and the weak, it listens to no compromise with mortal man, but,
reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society
at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism
predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not prepare them for inequality; but the
contrary may be said of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent, more
than to render them equal.
Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if the sovereign be removed, all the other classes of
society are more equal than they are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the
Catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the governing powers of society,
and to take his place amongst the civil gradations of men. This religious influence has
sometimes been used to secure the interests of that political state of things to which he
belonged. At other times Catholics have taken the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion.
But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the government, as is the case in the
United States, than is found that no class of men are more naturally disposed than the
Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions into the political world. If,
then, the Catholic citizens of the United States are not forcibly led by the nature of their
tenets to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are not necessarily opposed
to them; and their social position, as well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these

208
It is difficult to ascertain with accuracy the amount of the Roman Catholic population of the United States,
but in 1868 an able writer in the “Edinburgh Review” (vol. cxxvii. p. 521) affirmed that the whole Catholic
population of the United States was then about 4,000,000, divided into 43 dioceses, with 3,795 churches, under
the care of 45 bishops and 2,317 clergymen. But this rapid increase is mainly supported by immigration from
the Catholic countries of Europe.
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opinions. Most of the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance of taking a part in the
government unless it be open to all the citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights
must be respected in order to insure to them the free exercise of their own privileges. These
two causes induce them, unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines, which they would
perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and preponderant.
The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to oppose this political
tendency, but it seeks rather to justify its results. The priests in America have divided the
intellectual world into two parts: in the one they place the doctrines of revealed religion,
which command their assent; in the other they leave those truths which they believe to have
been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry. Thus the Catholics of the United
States are at the same time the most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.
It may be asserted that in the United States no religious doctrine displays the slightest
hostility to democratic and republican institutions. The clergy of all the different sects hold
the same language, their opinions are consonant to the laws, and the human intellect flows
onwards in one sole current.
I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the Union, when I was invited to
attend a public meeting which had been called for the purpose of assisting the Poles, and of
sending them supplies of arms and money. I found two or three thousand persons collected in
a vast hall which had been prepared to receive them. In a short time a priest in his
ecclesiastical robes advanced to the front of the hustings: the spectators rose, and stood
uncovered, whilst he spoke in the following terms:—
“Almighty God! the God of Armies! Thou who didst strengthen the hearts and guide the arms
of our fathers when they were fighting for the sacred rights of national independence; Thou
who didst make them triumph over a hateful oppression, and hast granted to our people the
benefits of liberty and peace; Turn, O Lord, a favorable eye upon the other hemisphere;
pitifully look down upon that heroic nation which is even now struggling as we did in the
former time, and for the same rights which we defended with our blood. Thou, who didst
create Man in the likeness of the same image, let not tyranny mar Thy work, and establish
inequality upon the earth. Almighty God! do Thou watch over the destiny of the Poles, and
render them worthy to be free. May Thy wisdom direct their councils, and may Thy strength
sustain their arms! Shed forth Thy terror over their enemies, scatter the powers which take
counsel against them; and vouchsafe that the injustice which the world has witnessed for fifty
years, be not consummated in our time. O Lord, who holdest alike the hearts of nations and of
men in Thy powerful hand; raise up allies to the sacred cause of right; arouse the French
nation from the apathy in which its rulers retain it, that it go forth again to fight for the
liberties of the world.
“Lord, turn not Thou Thy face from us, and grant that we may always be the most religious as
well as the freest people of the earth. Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. Save the
Poles, we beseech Thee, in the name of Thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who
died upon the cross for the salvation of men. Amen.”
The whole meeting responded “Amen!” with devotion.
Indirect Influence Of Religious Opinions Upon Political Society In The United States
Christian morality common to all sects—Influence of religion upon the manners of the
Americans—Respect for the marriage tie—In what manner religion confines the imagination
of the Americans within certain limits, and checks the passion of innovation—Opinion of the
Americans on the political utility of religion—Their exertions to extend and secure its
predominance.
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I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon politics is in the United States,
but its indirect influence appears to me to be still more considerable, and it never instructs the
Americans more fully in the art of being free than when it says nothing of freedom.
The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the
worship which is due from man to his Creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties
which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but
all the sects preach the same moral law in the name of God. If it be of the highest importance
to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same.
Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion,
the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests. Moreover,
almost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity,
and Christian morality is everywhere the same.
It may be believed without unfairness that a certain number of Americans pursue a peculiar
form of worship, from habit more than from conviction. In the United States the sovereign
authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country
in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of
men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to
human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and
free nation of the earth.
I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in general, without even excepting
those who do not admit religious liberty, are all in favor of civil freedom; but they do not
support any particular political system. They keep aloof from parties and from public affairs.
In the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details
of public opinion, but it directs the manners of the community, and by regulating domestic
life it regulates the State.
I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is observable in the United States,
arises, in the first instance, from religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man from
the numberless temptations of fortune; nor can it check that passion for gain which every
incident of his life contributes to arouse, but its influence over the mind of woman is
supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world
where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America, or where conjugal happiness is
more highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise
from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures
of home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and the evil of fluctuating
desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the
European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the State exact. But
when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds
in it the image of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple and natural, his joys are
innocent and calm; and as he finds that an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he
accustoms himself without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as his tastes. Whilst the
European endeavors to forget his domestic troubles by agitating society, the American
derives from his own home that love of order which he afterwards carries with him into
public affairs.
In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to
the intelligence of the people. Amongst the Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess the
doctrines of Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and others who do the same because
they are afraid to be suspected of unbelief. Christianity, therefore, reigns without any
obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before observed, that every
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principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate, although the political world is
abandoned to the debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind is never left to
wander across a boundless field; and, whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from
time to time by barriers which it cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain
primal and immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest conceptions of human device
are subjected to certain forms which retard and stop their completion.
The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights, is circumspect and undecided;
its impulses are checked, and its works unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political
society, and are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity of the people and to the durability
of the institutions it has established. Nature and circumstances concurred to make the
inhabitants of the United States bold men, as is sufficiently attested by the enterprising spirit
with which they seek for fortune. If the mind of the Americans were free from all trammels,
they would very shortly become the most daring innovators and the most implacable
disputants in the world. But the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible
respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not easily permit them to violate the
laws that oppose their designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their
partisans, even if they were able to get over their own. Hitherto no one in the United States
has dared to advance the maxim, that everything is permissible with a view to the interests of
society; an impious adage which seems to have been invented in an age of freedom to shelter
all the tyrants of future ages. Thus whilst the law permits the Americans to do what they
please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or
unjust.
Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must
nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it
does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. Indeed, it is in
this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon
religious belief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion,
for who can search the human heart? but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to
the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens
or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of society.
In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the
partisans of that very sect from supporting him; but if he attacks all the sects together,
everyone abandons him, and he remains alone.
Whilst I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of
Chester (State of New York), declared that he did not believe in the existence of God, or in
the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the
witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the Court in what he was about to
say. 209 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

209
The New York “Spectator” of August 23, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:—”The Court of
Common Pleas of Chester county (New York) a few days since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in
the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked that he had not before been aware that there was a man
living who did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a
court of justice, and that he knew of no cause in a Christian country where a witness had been permitted to
testify without such belief.”
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this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in
the soul rather than to live.
I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out ministers of the Gospel into
the new Western States to found schools and churches there, lest religion should be suffered
to die away in those remote settlements, and the rising States be less fitted to enjoy free
institutions than the people from which they emanated. I met with wealthy New Englanders
who abandoned the country in which they were born in order to lay the foundations of
Christianity and of freedom on the banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies of Illinois. Thus
religious zeal is perpetually stimulated in the United States by the duties of patriotism. These
men do not act from an exclusive consideration of the promises of a future life; eternity is
only one motive of their devotion to the cause; and if you converse with these missionaries of
Christian civilization, you will be surprised to find how much value they set upon the goods
of this world, and that you meet with a politician where you expected to find a priest. They
will tell you that “all the American republics are collectively involved with each other; if the
republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot, the republican
institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril.
It is, therefore, our interest that the new States should be religious, in order to maintain our
liberties.”
Such are the opinions of the Americans, and if any hold that the religious spirit which I
admire is the very thing most amiss in America, and that the only element wanting to the
freedom and happiness of the human race is to believe in some blind cosmogony, or to assert
with Cabanis the secretion of thought by the brain, I can only reply that those who hold this
language have never been in America, and that they have never seen a religious or a free
nation. When they return from their expedition, we shall hear what they have to say.
There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions as a temporary means of
power, of wealth, and distinction; men who are the condottieri of liberty, and who fight for
their own advantage, whatever be the colors they wear: it is not to these that I address myself.
But there are others who look forward to the republican form of government as a tranquil and
lasting state, towards which modern society is daily impelled by the ideas and manners of the
time, and who sincerely desire to prepare men to be free. When these men attack religious
opinions, they obey the dictates of their passions to the prejudice of their interests. Despotism
may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic
which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack; and it is more
needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should
escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is
relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if it be not submissive
to the Divinity?
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XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic

Republic—Part 3

Principal Causes Which Render Religion Powerful In America Care taken by the Americans
to separate the Church from the State—The laws, public opinion, and even the exertions of
the clergy concur to promote this end—Influence of religion upon the mind in the United
States attributable to this cause—Reason of this—What is the natural state of men with
regard to religion at the present time—What are the peculiar and incidental causes which
prevent men, in certain countries, from arriving at this state.
The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the gradual decay of religious faith in a
very simple manner. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally
liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no means in
accordance with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only
equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst in America one of the freest and
most enlightened nations in the world fulfils all the outward duties of religious fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing
that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there the more did I perceive the great
political consequences resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In
France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing
courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America I found that they were intimately
united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the
causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it I questioned the
members of all the different sects; and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, who
are the depositaries of the different persuasions, and who are more especially interested in
their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church I was more particularly brought
into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of
these men I expressed my astonishment and I explained my doubts; I found that they differed
upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion
in their country to the separation of Church and State. I do not hesitate to affirm that during
my stay in America I did not meet with a single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who
was not of the same opinion upon this point.
This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done, the station which the
American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public
appointments; 210 not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and they are not
even represented in the legislative assemblies. In several States 211 the law excludes them
from political life, public opinion in all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit

210
Unless this term be applied to the functions which many of them fill in the schools. Almost all education is
entrusted to the clergy.
211
See the Constitution of New York, art. 7, Section 4:— “And whereas the ministers of the gospel are, by their
profession, dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great
duties of their functions: therefore no minister of the gospel, or priest of any denomination whatsoever, shall at
any time hereafter, under any pretence or description whatever, be eligible to, or capable of holding, any civil or
military office or place within this State.”
See also the constitutions of North Carolina, art. 31; Virginia; South Carolina, art. I, Section 23; Kentucky, art.
2, Section 26; Tennessee, art. 8, Section I; Louisiana, art. 2, Section 22.
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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 government which they may profess with
sincerity, any more than they are for their mistakes in building a house or in driving a furrow.
I perceived that these ministers of the gospel eschewed all parties with the anxiety attendant
upon personal interest. These facts convinced me that what I had been told was true; and it
then became my object to investigate their causes, and to inquire how it happened that the
real authority of religion was increased by a state of things which diminished its apparent
force: these causes did not long escape my researches.
The short space of threescore years can never content the imagination of man; nor can the
imperfect joys of this world satisfy his heart. Man alone, of all created beings, displays a
natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist; he scorns life, but he
dreads annihilation. These different feelings incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation of
a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Religion, then, is simply another form
of hope; and it is no less natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon
their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect, and a sort of violent distortion of
their true natures; but they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments; for unbelief
is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. If we only consider religious
institutions in a purely human point of view, they may be said to derive an inexhaustible
element of strength from man himself, since they belong to one of the constituent principles
of human nature.
I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this influence, which originates in
itself, by the artificial power of the laws, and by the support of those temporal institutions
which direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments of the earth, have been
known to exercise a sovereign authority derived from the twofold source of terror and of
faith; but when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it
commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in
obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own.
When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human
heart, it may aspire to universal dominion; but when it connects itself with a government, it
must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming
an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over a few, and forfeits the
hope of reigning over all.
As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the consolation of all affliction, it
may attract the affections of mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the
world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests, and not the principle of love,
have given to it; or to repel as antagonists men who are still attached to its own spirit,
however opposed they may be to the powers to which it is allied. The Church cannot share
the temporal power of the State without being the object of a portion of that animosity which
the latter excites.
The political powers which seem to be most firmly established have frequently no better
guarantee for their duration than the opinions of a generation, the interests of the time, or the
life of an individual. A law may modify the social condition which seems to be most fixed
and determinate; and with the social condition everything else must change. The powers of
society are more or less fugitive, like the years which we spend upon the earth; they succeed
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each other with rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life; and no government has ever yet been
founded upon an invariable disposition of the human heart, or upon an imperishable interest.
As long as a religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities, and passions which are
found to occur under the same forms, at all the different periods of history, it may defy the
efforts of time; or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when religion
clings to the interests of the world, it becomes almost as fragile a thing as the powers of earth.
It is the only one of them all which can hope for immortality; but if it be connected with their
ephemeral authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with those transient passions which
supported them for a day. The alliance which religion contracts with political powers must
needs be onerous to itself; since it does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them
its assistance to live, and by giving them its assistance it may be exposed to decay.
The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is not always equally visible. In
some ages governments seem to be imperishable; in others, the existence of society appears
to be more precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the citizens into a
lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish excitement. When governments
appear to be so strong, and laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue
from a union of Church and State. When governments display so much weakness, and laws
so much inconstancy, the danger is self-evident, but it is no longer possible to avoid it; to be
effectual, measures must be taken to discover its approach.
In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition of society, and as communities
display democratic propensities, it becomes more and more dangerous to connect religion
with political institutions; for the time is coming when authority will be bandied from hand to
hand, when political theories will succeed each other, and when men, laws, and constitutions
will disappear, or be modified from day to day, and this, not for a season only, but
unceasingly. Agitation and mutability are inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just
as stagnation and inertness are the law of absolute monarchies.
If the Americans, who change the head of the Government once in four years, who elect new
legislators every two years, and renew the provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the
Americans, who have abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not
placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb and flow of human
opinions? where would that respect which belongs to it be paid, amidst the struggles of
faction? and what would become of its immortality, in the midst of perpetual decay? The
American clergy were the first to perceive this truth, and to act in conformity with it. They
saw that they must renounce their religious influence, if they were to strive for political
power; and they chose to give up the support of the State, rather than to share its vicissitudes.
In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at certain periods in the history
of certain peoples; but its influence is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own resources, but
of those none can deprive it: its circle is limited to certain principles, but those principles are
entirely its own, and under its undisputed control.
On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of the absence of religious faith, and
inquiring the means of restoring to religion some remnant of its pristine authority. It seems to
me that we must first attentively consider what ought to be the natural state of men with
regard to religion at the present time; and when we know what we have to hope and to fear,
we may discern the end to which our efforts ought to be directed.
The two great dangers which threaten the existence of religions are schism and indifference.
In ages of fervent devotion, men sometimes abandon their religion, but they only shake it off
in order to adopt another. Their faith changes the objects to which it is directed, but it suffers
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no decline. The old religion then excites enthusiastic attachment or bitter enmity in either
party; some leave it with anger, others cling to it with increased devotedness, and although
persuasions differ, irreligion is unknown. Such, however, is not the case when a religious
belief is secretly undermined by doctrines which may be termed negative, since they deny the
truth of one religion without affirming that of any other. Progidious revolutions then take
place in the human mind, without the apparent co-operation of the passions of man, and
almost without his knowledge. Men lose the objects of their fondest hopes, as if through
forgetfulness. They are carried away by an imperceptible current which they have not the
courage to stem, but which they follow with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love,
to a scepticism that plunges them into despair.
In ages which answer to this description, men desert their religious opinions from
lukewarmness rather than from dislike; they do not reject them, but the sentiments by which
they were once fostered disappear. But if the unbeliever does not admit religion to be true, he
still considers it useful. Regarding religious institutions in a human point of view, he
acknowledges their influence upon manners and legislation. He admits that they may serve to
make men live in peace with one another, and to prepare them gently for the hour of death.
He regrets the faith which he has lost; and as he is deprived of a treasure which he has
learned to estimate at its full value, he scruples to take it from those who still possess it.
On the other hand, those who continue to believe are not afraid openly to avow their faith.
They look upon those who do not share their persuasion as more worthy of pity than of
opposition; and they are aware that to acquire the esteem of the unbelieving, they are not
obliged to follow their example. They are hostile to no one in the world; and as they do not
consider the society in which they live as an arena in which religion is bound to face its
thousand deadly foes, they love their contemporaries, whilst they condemn their weaknesses
and lament their errors.
As those who do not believe, conceal their incredulity; and as those who believe, display their
faith, public opinion pronounces itself in favor of religion: love, support, and honor are
bestowed upon it, and it is only by searching the human soul that we can detect the wounds
which it has received. The mass of mankind, who are never without the feeling of religion, do
not perceive anything at variance with the established faith. The instinctive desire of a future
life brings the crowd about the altar, and opens the hearts of men to the precepts and
consolations of religion.
But this picture is not applicable to us: for there are men amongst us who have ceased to
believe in Christianity, without adopting any other religion; others who are in the perplexities
of doubt, and who already affect not to believe; and others, again, who are afraid to avow that
Christian faith which they still cherish in secret.
Amidst these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists a small number of believers exist,
who are ready to brave all obstacles and to scorn all dangers in defence of their faith. They
have done violence to human weakness, in order to rise superior to public opinion. Excited by
the effort they have made, they scarcely knew where to stop; and as they know that the first
use which the French made of independence was to attack religion, they look upon their
contemporaries with dread, and they recoil in alarm from the liberty which their fellow-
citizens are seeking to obtain. As unbelief appears to them to be a novelty, they comprise all
that is new in one indiscriminate animosity. They are at war with their age and country, and
they look upon every opinion which is put forth there as the necessary enemy of the faith.
Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion at the present day; and some
extraordinary or incidental cause must be at work in France to prevent the human mind from
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following its original propensities and to drive it beyond the limits at which it ought naturally
to stop. I am intimately convinced that this extraordinary and incidental cause is the close
connection of politics and religion. The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their
political opponents, rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion
as the opinion of a party, much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less
because they are the representatives of the Divinity than because they are the allies of
authority.
In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers
are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion
has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity: cut but the bonds which
restrain it, and that which is alive will rise once more. I know not what could restore the
Christian Church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days; that power belongs to God alone;
but it may be the effect of human policy to leave the faith in the full exercise of the strength
which it still retains.
How The Instruction, The Habits, And The Practical Experience Of The Americans
Promote The Success Of Their Democratic Institutions
What is to be understood by the instruction of the American people—The human mind more
superficially instructed in the United States than in Europe—No one completely
uninstructed—Reason of this—Rapidity with which opinions are diffused even in the
uncultivated States of the West—Practical experience more serviceable to the Americans
than book-learning.
I have but little to add to what I have already said concerning the influence which the
instruction and the habits of the Americans exercise upon the maintenance of their political
institutions.
America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinction; it possesses no great
historians, and not a single eminent poet. The inhabitants of that country look upon what are
properly styled literary pursuits with a kind of disapprobation; and there are towns of very
second-rate importance in Europe in which more literary works are annually published than
in the twenty-four States of the Union put together. The spirit of the Americans is averse to
general ideas; and it does not seek theoretical discoveries. Neither politics nor manufactures
direct them to these occupations; and although new laws are perpetually enacted in the United
States, no great writers have hitherto inquired into the general principles of their legislation.
The Americans have lawyers and commentators, but no jurists; 212 and they furnish examples
rather than lessons to the world. The same observation applies to the mechanical arts. In
America, the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagacity; they are perfected, and adapted
with admirable skill to the wants of the country. Manufactures exist, but the science of
manufacture is not cultivated; and they have good workmen, but very few inventors. Fulton
was obliged to proffer his services to foreign nations for a long time before he was able to
devote them to his own country.
The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of instruction amongst the
Anglo-Americans must consider the same object from two different points of view. If he only
singles out the learned, he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but if he counts the
ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most enlightened community in the
world. The whole population, as I observed in another place, is situated between these two
extremes. In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human

212
This cannot be said with truth of the country of Kent, Story, and Wheaton.
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knowledge; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history
of his country, and the leading features of its Constitution. In the States of Connecticut and
Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things,
and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.
When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American States; the manuscript
libraries of the former, and their rude population, with the innumerable journals and the
enlightened people of the latter; when I remember all the attempts which are made to judge
the modern republics by the assistance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen in
our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted to burn my books, in
order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of society.
What I have said of New England must not, however, be applied indistinctly to the whole
Union; as we advance towards the West or the South, the instruction of the people
diminishes. In the States which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain number of
individuals may be found, as in our own countries, who are devoid of the rudiments of
instruction. But there is not a single district in the United States sunk in complete ignorance;
and for a very simple reason: the peoples of Europe started from the darkness of a barbarous
condition, to advance toward the light of civilization; their progress has been unequal; some
of them have improved apace, whilst others have loitered in their course, and some have
stopped, and are still sleeping upon the way. 213
Such has not been the case in the United States. The Anglo-Americans settled in a state of
civilization, upon that territory which their descendants occupy; they had not to begin to
learn, and it was sufficient for them not to forget. Now the children of these same Americans
are the persons who, year by year, transport their dwellings into the wilds; and with their
dwellings their acquired information and their esteem for knowledge. Education has taught
them the utility of instruction, and has enabled them to transmit that instruction to their
posterity. In the United States society has no infancy, but it is born in man’s estate.
The Americans never use the word “peasant,” because they have no idea of the peculiar class
which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and
the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved amongst them; and they are alike
unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early
stage of civilization. At the extreme borders of the Confederate States, upon the confines of
society and of the wilderness, a population of bold adventurers have taken up their abode,
who pierce the solitudes of the American woods, and seek a country there, in order to escape
that poverty which awaited them in their native provinces. As soon as the pioneer arrives
upon the spot which is to serve him for a retreat, he fells a few trees and builds a loghouse.
Nothing can offer a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveller who
approaches one of them towards nightfall, sees the flicker of the hearth-flame through the
chinks in the walls; and at night, if the wind rises, he hears the roof of boughs shake to and
fro in the midst of the great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this poor hut is the
asylum of rudeness and ignorance? Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the
pioneer and the dwelling which shelters him. Everything about him is primitive and
unformed, but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen centuries.
He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past,
curious of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly

213
In the Northern States the number of persons destitute of instruction is inconsiderable, the largest number
being 241,152 in the State of New York (according to Spaulding’s “Handbook of American Statistics” for
1874); but in the South no less than 1,516,339 whites and 2,671,396 colored persons are returned as “illiterate.”
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civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into
the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.
It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which public opinion circulates in the
midst of these deserts. 214 I do not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the
most enlightened and populous districts of France. 215 It cannot be doubted that, in the United
States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic
republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which awakens the
understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart. But I by no
means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still further from thinking, as so many people do
think in Europe, that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and
write. True information is mainly derived from experience; and if the Americans had not
been gradually accustomed to govern themselves, their book-learning would not assist them
much at the present day.
I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States, and I cannot express how much
I admire their experience and their good sense. An American should never be allowed to
speak of Europe; for he will then probably display a vast deal of presumption and very
foolish pride. He will take up with those crude and vague notions which are so useful to the
ignorant all over the world. But if you question him respecting his own country, the cloud
which dimmed his intelligence will immediately disperse; his language will become as clear
and as precise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are, and by what means he
exercises them; he will be able to point out the customs which obtain in the political world.
You will find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administration, and that he is
familiar with the mechanism of the laws. The citizen of the United States does not acquire his
practical science and his positive notions from books; the instruction he has acquired may
have prepared him for receiving those ideas, but it did not furnish them. The American learns
to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the forms
of government from governing. The great work of society is ever going on beneath his eyes,
and, as it were, under his hands.
In the United States politics are the end and aim of education; in Europe its principal object is
to fit men for private life. The interference of the citizens in public affairs is too rare an

214
I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the United States in a sort of cart which was termed the mail. We
passed, day and night, with great rapidity along the roads which were scarcely marked out, through immense
forests; when the gloom of the woods became impenetrable the coachman lighted branches of fir, and we
journeyed along by the light they cast. From time to time we came to a hut in the midst of the forest, which was
a post-office. The mail dropped an enormous bundle of letters at the door of this isolated dwelling, and we
pursued our way at full gallop, leaving the inhabitants of the neighboring log houses to send for their share of
the treasure.
[When the author visited America the locomotive and the railroad were scarcely invented, and not yet
introduced in the United States. It is superfluous to point out the immense effect of those inventions in
extending civilization and developing the resources of that vast continent. In 1831 there were 51 miles of
railway in the United States; in 1872 there were 60,000 miles of railway.]
215
In 1832 each inhabitant of Michigan paid a sum equivalent to 1 fr. 22 cent. (French money) to the post-office
revenue, and each inhabitant of the Floridas paid 1 fr. 5 cent. (See “National Calendar,” 1833, p. 244.) In the
same year each inhabitant of the Departement du Nord paid 1 fr. 4 cent. to the revenue of the French post-office.
(See the “Compte rendu de l’administration des Finances,” 1833, p. 623.) Now the State of Michigan only
contained at that time 7 inhabitants per square league and Florida only 5: the public instruction and the
commercial activity of these districts is inferior to that of most of the States in the Union, whilst the
Departement du Nord, which contains 3,400 inhabitants per square league, is one of the most enlightened and
manufacturing parts of France.
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occurrence for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a glance over society in the two
hemispheres, these differences are indicated even by its external aspect.
In Europe we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of private life into public affairs;
and as we pass at once from the domestic circle to the government of the State, we may
frequently be heard to discuss the great interests of society in the same manner in which we
converse with our friends. The Americans, on the other hand, transfuse the habits of public
life into their manners in private; and in their country the jury is introduced into the games of
schoolboys, and parliamentary forms are observed in the order of a feast.
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XVII. Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic

Republic—Part 4

The Laws Contribute More To The Maintenance Of The Democratic Republic In The
United States Than The Physical Circumstances Of The Country, And The Manners
More Than The Laws
All the nations of America have a democratic state of society—Yet democratic institutions
only subsist amongst the Anglo-Americans—The Spaniards of South America, equally
favored by physical causes as the Anglo-Americans, unable to maintain a democratic
republic—Mexico, which has adopted the Constitution of the United States, in the same
predicament—The Anglo-Americans of the West less able to maintain it than those of the
East—Reason of these different results.
I have remarked that the maintenance of democratic institutions in the United States is
attributable to the circumstances, the laws, and the manners of that country. 216 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 democracy was established without difficulty. But this
circumstance is by no means peculiar to the United States; almost all the trans-Atlantic
colonies were founded by men equal amongst themselves, or who became so by inhabiting
them. In no one part of the New World have Europeans been able to create an aristocracy.
Nevertheless, democratic institutions prosper nowhere but in the United States.
The American Union has no enemies to contend with; it stands in the wilds like an island in
the ocean. But the Spaniards of South America were no less isolated by nature; yet their
position has not relieved them from the charge of standing armies. They make war upon each
other when they have no foreign enemies to oppose; and the Anglo-American democracy is
the only one which has hitherto been able to maintain itself in peace. 217
The territory of the Union presents a boundless field to human activity, and inexhaustible
materials for industry and labor. The passion of wealth takes the place of ambition, and the
warmth of faction is mitigated by a sense of prosperity. But in what portion of the globe shall
we meet with more fertile plains, with mightier rivers, or with more unexplored and
inexhaustible riches than in South America?
Nevertheless, South America has been unable to maintain democratic institutions. If the
welfare of nations depended on their being placed in a remote position, with an unbounded
space of habitable territory before them, the Spaniards of South America would have no
reason to complain of their fate. And although they might enjoy less prosperity than the
inhabitants of the United States, their lot might still be such as to excite the envy of some

216
I remind the reader of the general signification which I give to the word “manners,” namely, the moral and
intellectual characteristics of social man taken collectively.
217
A remark which, since the great Civil War of 1861-65, ceases to be applicable.
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nations in Europe. There are, however, no nations upon the face of the earth more miserable
than those of South America.
Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce results analogous to those which
occur in North America, but they are unable to raise the population of South America above
the level of European States, where they act in a contrary direction. Physical causes do not,
therefore, affect the destiny of nations so much as has been supposed.
I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving a country, where they
might have remained in easy circumstances, to go to seek their fortune in the wilds. Not far
from that district I found a French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a
narrow territory, although the same wilds were at hand; and whilst the emigrant from the
United States purchased an extensive estate with the earnings of a short term of labor, the
Canadian paid as much for land as he would have done in France. Nature offers the solitudes
of the New World to Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the means of
turning her gifts to account. Other peoples of America have the same physical conditions of
prosperity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and their manners; and these
peoples are wretched. The laws and manners of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that
efficient cause of their greatness which is the object of my inquiry.
I am far from supposing that the American laws are preeminently good in themselves; I do
not hold them to be applicable to all democratic peoples; and several of them seem to be
dangerous, even in the United States. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the American
legislation, taken collectively, is extremely well adapted to the genius of the people and the
nature of the country which it is intended to govern. The American laws are therefore good,
and to them must be attributed a large portion of the success which attends the government of
democracy in America: but I do not believe them to be the principal cause of that success;
and if they seem to me to have more influence upon the social happiness of the Americans
than the nature of the country, on the other hand there is reason to believe that their effect is
still inferior to that produced by the manners of the people.
The Federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important part of the legislation of the
United States. Mexico, which is not less fortunately situated than the Anglo-American Union,
has adopted the same laws, but is unable to accustom itself to the government of democracy.
Some other cause is therefore at work, independently of those physical circumstances and
peculiar laws which enable the democracy to rule in the United States.
Another still more striking proof may be adduced. Almost all the inhabitants of the territory
of the Union are the descendants of a common stock; they speak the same language, they
worship God in the same manner, they are affected by the same physical causes, and they
obey the same laws. Whence, then, do their characteristic differences arise? Why, in the
Eastern States of the Union, does the republican government display vigor and regularity, and
proceed with mature deliberation? Whence does it derive the wisdom and the durability
which mark its acts, whilst in the Western States, on the contrary, society seems to be ruled
by the powers of chance? There, public business is conducted with an irregularity and a
passionate and feverish excitement, which does not announce a long or sure duration.
I am no longer comparing the Anglo-American States to foreign nations; but I am contrasting
them with each other, and endeavoring to discover why they are so unlike. The arguments
which are derived from the nature of the country and the difference of legislation are here all
set aside. Recourse must be had to some other cause; and what other cause can there be
except the manners of the people?
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It is in the Eastern States that the Anglo-Americans have been longest accustomed to the
government of democracy, and that they have adopted the habits and conceived the notions
most favorable to its maintenance. Democracy has gradually penetrated into their customs,
their opinions, and the forms of social intercourse; it is to be found in all the details of daily
life equally as in the laws. In the Eastern States the instruction and practical education of the
people have been most perfected, and religion has been most thoroughly amalgamated with
liberty. Now these habits, opinions, customs, and convictions are precisely the constituent
elements of that which I have denominated manners.
In the Western States, on the contrary, a portion of the same advantages is still wanting.
Many of the Americans of the West were born in the woods, and they mix the ideas and the
customs of savage life with the civilization of their parents. Their passions are more intense;
their religious morality less authoritative; and their convictions less secure. The inhabitants
exercise no sort of control over their fellow-citizens, for they are scarcely acquainted with
each other. The nations of the West display, to a certain extent, the inexperience and the rude
habits of a people in its infancy; for although they are composed of old elements, their
assemblage is of recent date.
The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the real cause which renders
that people the only one of the American nations that is able to support a democratic
government; and it is the influence of manners which produces the different degrees of order
and of prosperity that may be distinguished in the several Anglo-American democracies.
Thus the effect which the geographical position of a country may have upon the duration of
democratic institutions is exaggerated in Europe. Too much importance is attributed to
legislation, too little to manners. These three great causes serve, no doubt, to regulate and
direct the American democracy; but if they were to be classed in their proper order, I should
say that the physical circumstances are less efficient than the laws, and the laws very
subordinate to the manners of the people. I am convinced that the most advantageous
situation and the best possible laws cannot maintain a constitution in spite of the manners of a
country; whilst the latter may turn the most unfavorable positions and the worst laws to some
advantage. The importance of manners is a common truth to which study and experience
incessantly direct our attention. It may be regarded as a central point in the range of human
observation, and the common termination of all inquiry. So seriously do I insist upon this
head, that if I have hitherto failed in making the reader feel the important influence which I
attribute to the practical experience, the habits, the opinions, in short, to the manners of the
Americans, upon the maintenance of their institutions, I have failed in the principal object of
my work.
Whether Laws And Manners Are Sufficient To Maintain Democratic Institutions In
Other Countries Besides America
The Anglo-Americans, if transported into Europe, would be obliged to modify their laws—
Distinction to be made between democratic institutions and American institutions—
Democratic laws may be conceived better than, or at least different from, those which the
American democracy has adopted—The example of America only proves that it is possible to
regulate democracy by the assistance of manners and legislation.
I have asserted that the success of democratic institutions in the United States is more
intimately connected with the laws themselves, and the manners of the people, than with the
nature of the country. But does it follow that the same causes would of themselves produce
the same results, if they were put into operation elsewhere; and if the country is no adequate
substitute for laws and manners, can laws and manners in their turn prove a substitute for the
country? It will readily be understood that the necessary elements of a reply to this question
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are wanting: other peoples are to be found in the New World besides the Anglo-Americans,
and as these people are affected by the same physical circumstances as the latter, they may
fairly be compared together. But there are no nations out of America which have adopted the
same laws and manners, being destitute of the physical advantages peculiar to the Anglo-
Americans. No standard of comparison therefore exists, and we can only hazard an opinion
upon this subject.
It appears to me, in the first place, that a careful distinction must be made between the
institutions of the United States and democratic institutions in general. When I reflect upon
the state of Europe, its mighty nations, its populous cities, its formidable armies, and the
complex nature of its politics, I cannot suppose that even the Anglo-Americans, if they were
transported to our hemisphere, with their ideas, their religion, and their manners, could exist
without considerably altering their laws. But a democratic nation may be imagined, organized
differently from the American people. It is not impossible to conceive a government really
established upon the will of the majority; but in which the majority, repressing its natural
propensity to equality, should consent, with a view to the order and the stability of the State,
to invest a family or an individual with all the prerogatives of the executive. A democratic
society might exist, in which the forces of the nation would be more centralized than they are
in the United States; the people would exercise a less direct and less irresistible influence
upon public affairs, and yet every citizen invested with certain rights would participate,
within his sphere, in the conduct of the government. The observations I made amongst the
Anglo-Americans induce me to believe that democratic institutions of this kind, prudently
introduced into society, so as gradually to mix with the habits and to be interfused with the
opinions of the people, might subsist in other countries besides America. If the laws of the
United States were the only imaginable democratic laws, or the most perfect which it is
possible to conceive, I should admit that the success of those institutions affords no proof of
the success of democratic institutions in general, in a country less favored by natural
circumstances. But as the laws of America appear to me to be defective in several respects,
and as I can readily imagine others of the same general nature, the peculiar advantages of that
country do not prove that democratic institutions cannot succeed in a nation less favored by
circumstances, if ruled by better laws.
If human nature were different in America from what it is elsewhere; or if the social
condition of the Americans engendered habits and opinions amongst them different from
those which originate in the same social condition in the Old World, the American
democracies would afford no means of predicting what may occur in other democracies. If
the Americans displayed the same propensities as all other democratic nations, and if their
legislators had relied upon the nature of the country and the favor of circumstances to restrain
those propensities within due limits, the prosperity of the United States would be exclusively
attributable to physical causes, and it would afford no encouragement to a people inclined to
imitate their example, without sharing their natural advantages. But neither of these
suppositions is borne out by facts.
In America the same passions are to be met with as in Europe; some originating in human
nature, others in the democratic condition of society. Thus in the United States I found that
restlessness of heart which is natural to men, when all ranks are nearly equal and the chances
of elevation are the same to all. I found the democratic feeling of envy expressed under a
thousand different forms. I remarked that the people frequently displayed, in the conduct of
affairs, a consummate mixture of ignorance and presumption; and I inferred that in America,
men are liable to the same failings and the same absurdities as amongst ourselves. But upon
examining the state of society more attentively, I speedily discovered that the Americans had
made great and successful efforts to counteract these imperfections of human nature, and to
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correct the natural defects of democracy. Their divers municipal laws appeared to me to be a
means of restraining the ambition of the citizens within a narrow sphere, and of turning those
same passions which might have worked havoc in the State, to the good of the township or
the parish. The American legislators have succeeded to a certain extent in opposing the
notion of rights to the feelings of envy; the permanence of the religious world to the continual
shifting of politics; the experience of the people to its theoretical ignorance; and its practical
knowledge of business to the impatience of its desires.
The Americans, then, have not relied upon the nature of their country to counterpoise those
dangers which originate in their Constitution and in their political laws. To evils which are
common to all democratic peoples they have applied remedies which none but themselves
had ever thought of before; and although they were the first to make the experiment, they
have succeeded in it.
The manners and laws of the Americans are not the only ones which may suit a democratic
people; but the Americans have shown that it would be wrong to despair of regulating
democracy by the aid of manners and of laws. If other nations should borrow this general and
pregnant idea from the Americans, without however intending to imitate them in the peculiar
application which they have made of it; if they should attempt to fit themselves for that social
condition, which it seems to be the will of Providence to impose upon the generations of this
age, and so to escape from the despotism or the anarchy which threatens them; what reason is
there to suppose that their efforts would not be crowned with success? The organization and
the establishment of democracy in Christendom is the great political problem of the time. The
Americans, unquestionably, have not resolved this problem, but they furnish useful data to
those who undertake the task.
Importance Of What Precedes With Respect To The State Of Europe
It may readily be discovered with what intention I undertook the foregoing inquiries. The
question here discussed is interesting not only to the United States, but to the whole world; it
concerns, not a nation, but all mankind. If those nations whose social condition is democratic
could only remain free as long as they are inhabitants of the wilds, we could not but despair
of the future destiny of the human race; for democracy is rapidly acquiring a more extended
sway, and the wilds are gradually peopled with men. If it were true that laws and manners are
insufficient to maintain democratic institutions, what refuge would remain open to the
nations, except the despotism of a single individual? I am aware that there are many worthy
persons at the present time who are not alarmed at this latter alternative, and who are so tired
of liberty as to be glad of repose, far from those storms by which it is attended. But these
individuals are ill acquainted with the haven towards which they are bound. They are so
deluded by their recollections, as to judge the tendency of absolute power by what it was
formerly, and not by what it might become at the present time.
If absolute power were re-established amongst the democratic nations of Europe, I am
persuaded that it would assume a new form, and appear under features unknown to our
forefathers. There was a time in Europe when the laws and the consent of the people had
invested princes with almost unlimited authority; but they scarcely ever availed themselves of
it. I do not speak of the prerogatives of the nobility, of the authority of supreme courts of
justice, of corporations and their chartered rights, or of provincial privileges, which served to
break the blows of the sovereign authority, and to maintain a spirit of resistance in the nation.
Independently of these political institutions—which, however opposed they might be to
personal liberty, served to keep alive the love of freedom in the mind of the public, and which
may be esteemed to have been useful in this respect—the manners and opinions of the nation
confined the royal authority within barriers which were not less powerful, although they were
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less conspicuous. Religion, the affections of the people, the benevolence of the prince, the
sense of honor, family pride, provincial prejudices, custom, and public opinion limited the
power of kings, and restrained their authority within an invisible circle. The constitution of
nations was despotic at that time, but their manners were free. Princes had the right, but they
had neither the means nor the desire, of doing whatever they pleased.
But what now remains of those barriers which formerly arrested the aggressions of tyranny?
Since religion has lost its empire over the souls of men, the most prominent boundary which
divided good from evil is overthrown; the very elements of the moral world are
indeterminate; the princes and the peoples of the earth are guided by chance, and none can
define the natural limits of despotism and the bounds of license. Long revolutions have
forever destroyed the respect which surrounded the rulers of the State; and since they have
been relieved from the burden of public esteem, princes may henceforward surrender
themselves without fear to the seductions of arbitrary power.
When kings find that the hearts of their subjects are turned towards them, they are clement,
because they are conscious of their strength, and they are chary of the affection of their
people, because the affection of their people is the bulwark of the throne. A mutual
interchange of good-will then takes place between the prince and the people, which resembles
the gracious intercourse of domestic society. The subjects may murmur at the sovereign’s
decree, but they are grieved to displease him; and the sovereign chastises his subjects with the
light hand of parental affection.
But when once the spell of royalty is broken in the tumult of revolution; when successive
monarchs have crossed the throne, so as alternately to display to the people the weakness of
their right and the harshness of their power, the sovereign is no longer regarded by any as the
Father of the State, and he is feared by all as its master. If he be weak, he is despised; if he be
strong, he is detested. He himself is full of animosity and alarm; he finds that he is as a
stranger in his own country, and he treats his subjects like conquered enemies.
When the provinces and the towns formed so many different nations in the midst of their
common country, each of them had a will of its own, which was opposed to the general spirit
of subjection; but now that all the parts of the same empire, after having lost their immunities,
their customs, their prejudices, their traditions, and their names, are subjected and
accustomed to the same laws, it is not more difficult to oppress them collectively than it was
formerly to oppress them singly.
Whilst the nobles enjoyed their power, and indeed long after that power was lost, the honor of
aristocracy conferred an extraordinary degree of force upon their personal opposition. They
afford instances of men who, notwithstanding their weakness, still entertained a high opinion
of their personal value, and dared to cope single-handed with the efforts of the public
authority. But at the present day, when all ranks are more and more confounded, when the
individual disappears in the throng, and is easily lost in the midst of a common obscurity,
when the honor of monarchy has almost lost its empire without being succeeded by public
virtue, and when nothing can enable man to rise above himself, who shall say at what point
the exigencies of power and the servility of weakness will stop?
As long as family feeling was kept alive, the antagonist of oppression was never alone; he
looked about him, and found his clients, his hereditary friends, and his kinsfolk. If this
support was wanting, he was sustained by his ancestors and animated by his posterity. But
when patrimonial estates are divided, and when a few years suffice to confound the
distinctions of a race, where can family feeling be found? What force can there be in the
customs of a country which has changed and is still perpetually changing, its aspect; in which
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every act of tyranny has a precedent, and every crime an example; in which there is nothing
so old that its antiquity can save it from destruction, and nothing so unparalleled that its
novelty can prevent it from being done? What resistance can be offered by manners of so
pliant a make that they have already often yielded? What strength can even public opinion
have retained, when no twenty persons are connected by a common tie; when not a man, nor
a family, nor chartered corporation, nor class, nor free institution, has the power of
representing or exerting that opinion; and when every citizen—being equally weak, equally
poor, and equally dependent—has only his personal impotence to oppose to the organized
force of the government?
The annals of France furnish nothing analogous to the condition in which that country might
then be thrown. But it may more aptly be assimilated to the times of old, and to those hideous
eras of Roman oppression, when the manners of the people were corrupted, their traditions
obliterated, their habits destroyed, their opinions shaken, and freedom, expelled from the
laws, could find no refuge in the land; when nothing protected the citizens, and the citizens
no longer protected themselves; when human nature was the sport of man, and princes
wearied out the clemency of Heaven before they exhausted the patience of their subjects.
Those who hope to revive the monarchy of Henry IV or of Louis XIV, appear to me to be
afflicted with mental blindness; and when I consider the present condition of several
European nations—a condition to which all the others tend—I am led to believe that they will
soon be left with no other alternative than democratic liberty, or the tyranny of the Caesars. 218
And indeed it is deserving of consideration, whether men are to be entirely emancipated or
entirely enslaved; whether their rights are to be made equal, or wholly taken away from them.
If the rulers of society were reduced either gradually to raise the crowd to their own level, or
to sink the citizens below that of humanity, would not the doubts of many be resolved, the
consciences of many be healed, and the community prepared to make great sacrifices with
little difficulty? In that case, the gradual growth of democratic manners and institutions
should be regarded, not as the best, but as the only means of preserving freedom; and without
liking the government of democracy, it might be adopted as the most applicable and the
fairest remedy for the present ills of society.
It is difficult to associate a people in the work of government; but it is still more difficult to
supply it with experience, and to inspire it with the feelings which it requires in order to
govern well. I grant that the caprices of democracy are perpetual; its instruments are rude; its
laws imperfect. But if it were true that soon no just medium would exist between the empire
of democracy and the dominion of a single arm, should we not rather incline towards the
former than submit voluntarily to the latter? And if complete equality be our fate, is it not
better to be levelled by free institutions than by despotic power?
Those who, after having read this book, should imagine that my intention in writing it has
been to propose the laws and manners of the Anglo-Americans for the imitation of all
democratic peoples, would commit a very great mistake; they must have paid more attention
to the form than to the substance of my ideas. My aim has been to show, by the example of
America, that laws, and especially manners, may exist which will allow a democratic people
to remain free. But I am very far from thinking that we ought to follow the example of the
American democracy, and copy the means which it has employed to attain its ends; for I am
well aware of the influence which the nature of a country and its political precedents exercise

218
This prediction of the return of France to imperial despotism, and of the true character of that despotic power,
was written in 1832, and realized to the letter in 1852.
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upon a constitution; and I should regard it as a great misfortune for mankind if liberty were to
exist all over the world under the same forms.
But I am of opinion that if we do not succeed in gradually introducing democratic institutions
into France, and if we despair of imparting to the citizens those ideas and sentiments which
first prepare them for freedom, and afterwards allow them to enjoy it, there will be no
independence at all, either for the middling classes or the nobility, for the poor or for the rich,
but an equal tyranny over all; and I foresee that if the peaceable empire of the majority be not
founded amongst us in time, we shall sooner or later arrive at the unlimited authority of a
single despot.
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XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races In The

United States—Part 1

The Present And Probable Future Condition Of The Three Races Which Inhabit The
Territory Of The United States
The principal part of the task which I had imposed upon myself is now performed. I have
shown, as far as I was able, the laws and the manners of the American democracy. Here I
might stop; but the reader would perhaps feel that I had not satisfied his expectations.
The absolute supremacy of democracy is not all that we meet with in America; the
inhabitants of the New World may be considered from more than one point of view. In the
course of this work my subject has often led me to speak of the Indians and the Negroes; but I
have never been able to stop in order to show what place these two races occupy in the midst
of the democratic people whom I was engaged in describing. I have mentioned in what spirit,
and according to what laws, the Anglo-American Union was formed; but I could only glance
at the dangers which menace that confederation, whilst it was equally impossible for me to
give a detailed account of its chances of duration, independently of its laws and manners.
When speaking of the united republican States, I hazarded no conjectures upon the
permanence of republican forms in the New World, and when making frequent allusion to the
commercial activity which reigns in the Union, I was unable to inquire into the future
condition of the Americans as a commercial people.
These topics are collaterally connected with my subject without forming a part of it; they are
American without being democratic; and to portray democracy has been my principal aim. It
was therefore necessary to postpone these questions, which I now take up as the proper
termination of my work.
The territory now occupied or claimed by the American Union spreads from the shores of the
Atlantic to those of the Pacific Ocean. On the east and west its limits are those of the
continent itself. On the south it advances nearly to the tropic, and it extends upwards to the
icy regions of the North. The human beings who are scattered over this space do not form, as
in Europe, so many branches of the same stock. Three races, naturally distinct, and, I might
almost say, hostile to each other, are discoverable amongst them at the first glance. Almost
insurmountable barriers had been raised between them by education and by law, as well as by
their origin and outward characteristics; but fortune has brought them together on the same
soil, where, although they are mixed, they do not amalgamate, and each race fulfils its destiny
apart.
Amongst these widely differing families of men, the first which attracts attention, the
superior in intelligence, in power and in enjoyment, is the white or European, the man pre-
eminent; and in subordinate grades, the negro and the Indian. These two unhappy races have
nothing in common; neither birth, nor features, nor language, nor habits. Their only
resemblance lies in their misfortunes. Both of them occupy an inferior rank in the country
they inhabit; both suffer from tyranny; and if their wrongs are not the same, they originate, at
any rate, with the same authors.
If we reasoned from what passes in the world, we should almost say that the European is to
the other races of mankind, what man is to the lower animals;—he makes them subservient to
his use; and when he cannot subdue, he destroys them. Oppression has, at one stroke,
deprived the descendants of the Africans of almost all the privileges of humanity. The negro
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of the United States has lost all remembrance of his country; the language which his
forefathers spoke is never heard around him; he abjured their religion and forgot their
customs when he ceased to belong to Africa, without acquiring any claim to European
privileges. But he remains half way between the two communities; sold by the one, repulsed
by the other; finding not a spot in the universe to call by the name of country, except the faint
image of a home which the shelter of his master’s roof affords.
The negro has no family; woman is merely the temporary companion of his pleasures, and his
children are upon an equality with himself from the moment of their birth. Am I to call it a
proof of God’s mercy or a visitation of his wrath, that man in certain states appears to be
insensible to his extreme wretchedness, and almost affects, with a depraved taste, the cause of
his misfortunes? The negro, who is plunged in this abyss of evils, scarcely feels his own
calamitous situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude gives him the
thoughts and desires of a slave; he admires his tyrants more than he hates them, and finds his
joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who oppress him: his understanding is
degraded to the level of his soul.
The negro enters upon slavery as soon as he is born: nay, he may have been purchased in the
womb, and have begun his slavery before he began his existence. Equally devoid of wants
and of enjoyment, and useless to himself, he learns, with his first notions of existence, that he
is the property of another, who has an interest in preserving his life, and that the care of it
does not devolve upon himself; even the power of thought appears to him a useless gift of
Providence, and he quietly enjoys the privileges of his debasement. If he becomes free,
independence is often felt by him to be a heavier burden than slavery; for having learned, in
the course of his life, to submit to everything except reason, he is too much unacquainted
with her dictates to obey them. A thousand new desires beset him, and he is destitute of the
knowledge and energy necessary to resist them: these are masters which it is necessary to
contend with, and he has learnt only to submit and obey. In short, he sinks to such a depth of
wretchedness, that while servitude brutalizes, liberty destroys him.
Oppression has been no less fatal to the Indian than to the negro race, but its effects are
different. Before the arrival of white men in the New World, the inhabitants of North
America lived quietly in their woods, enduring the vicissitudes and practising the virtues and
vices common to savage nations. The Europeans, having dispersed the Indian tribes and
driven them into the deserts, condemned them to a wandering life full of inexpressible
sufferings.
Savage nations are only controlled by opinion and by custom. When the North American
Indians had lost the sentiment of attachment to their country; when their families were
dispersed, their traditions obscured, and the chain of their recollections broken; when all their
habits were changed, and their wants increased beyond measure, European tyranny rendered
them more disorderly and less civilized than they were before. The moral and physical
condition of these tribes continually grew worse, and they became more barbarous as they
became more wretched. Nevertheless, the Europeans have not been able to metamorphose the
character of the Indians; and though they have had power to destroy them, they have never
been able to make them submit to the rules of civilized society.
The lot of the negro is placed on the extreme limit of servitude, while that of the Indian lies
on the uttermost verge of liberty; and slavery does not produce more fatal effects upon the
first, than independence upon the second. The negro has lost all property in his own person,
and he cannot dispose of his existence without committing a sort of fraud: but the savage is
his own master as soon as he is able to act; parental authority is scarcely known to him; he
has never bent his will to that of any of his kind, nor learned the difference between voluntary
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obedience and a shameful subjection; and the very name of law is unknown to him. To be
free, with him, signifies to escape from all the shackles of society. As he delights in this
barbarous independence, and would rather perish than sacrifice the least part of it, civilization
has little power over him.
The negro makes a thousand fruitless efforts to insinuate himself amongst men who repulse
him; he conforms to the tastes of his oppressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by imitating
them to form a part of their community. Having been told from infancy that his race is
naturally inferior to that of the whites, he assents to the proposition and is ashamed of his
own nature. In each of his features he discovers a trace of slavery, and, if it were in his
power, he would willingly rid himself of everything that makes him what he is.
The Indian, on the contrary, has his imagination inflated with the pretended nobility of his
origin, and lives and dies in the midst of these dreams of pride. Far from desiring to conform
his habits to ours, he loves his savage life as the distinguishing mark of his race, and he repels
every advance to civilization, less perhaps from the hatred which he entertains for it, than
from a dread of resembling the Europeans. 219 While he has nothing to oppose to our
perfection in the arts but the resources of the desert, to our tactics nothing but undisciplined
courage; whilst our well-digested plans are met by the spontaneous instincts of savage life,
who can wonder if he fails in this unequal contest?
The negro, who earnestly desires to mingle his race with that of the European, cannot effect
if; while the Indian, who might succeed to a certain extent, disdains to make the attempt. The
servility of the one dooms him to slavery, the pride of the other to death.
I remember that while I was travelling through the forests which still cover the State of
Alabama, I arrived one day at the log house of a pioneer. I did not wish to penetrate into the
dwelling of the American, but retired to rest myself for a while on the margin of a spring,
which was not far off, in the woods. While I was in this place (which was in the
neighborhood of the Creek territory), an Indian woman appeared, followed by a negress, and
holding by the hand a little white girl of five or six years old, whom I took to be the daughter
of the pioneer. A sort of barbarous luxury set off the costume of the Indian; rings of metal
were hanging from her nostrils and ears; her hair, which was adorned with glass beads, fell
loosely upon her shoulders; and I saw that she was not married, for she still wore that
necklace of shells which the bride always deposits on the nuptial couch. The negress was clad
in squalid European garments. They all three came and seated themselves upon the banks of
the fountain; and the young Indian, taking the child in her arms, lavished upon her such fond

219
The native of North America retains his opinions and the most insignificant of his habits with a degree of
tenacity which has no parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the wandering tribes of North
America have had daily intercourse with the whites, and they have never derived from them either a custom or
an idea. Yet the Europeans have exercised a powerful influence over the savages: they have made them more
licentious, but not more European. In the summer of 1831 I happened to be beyond Lake Michigan, at a place
called Green Bay, which serves as the extreme frontier between the United States and the Indians on the north-
western side. Here I became acquainted with an American officer, Major H., who, after talking to me at length
on the inflexibility of the Indian character, related the following fact:—”I formerly knew a young Indian,” said
he, “who had been educated at a college in New England, where he had greatly distinguished himself, and had
acquired the external appearance of a member of civilized society. When the war broke out between ourselves
and the English in 1810, I saw this young man again; he was serving in our army, at the head of the warriors of
his tribe, for the Indians were admitted amongst the ranks of the Americans, upon condition that they would
abstain from their horrible custom of scalping their victims. On the evening of the battle of . . ., C. came and sat
himself down by the fire of our bivouac. I asked him what had been his fortune that day: he related his exploits;
and growing warm and animated by the recollection of them, he concluded by suddenly opening the breast of
his coat, saying, ‘You must not betray me—see here!’ And I actually beheld,” said the Major, “between his
body and his shirt, the skin and hair of an English head, still dripping with gore.”
 225

caresses as mothers give; while the negress endeavored by various little artifices to attract the
attention of the young Creole.
The child displayed in her slightest gestures a consciousness of superiority which formed a
strange contrast with her infantine weakness; as if she received the attentions of her
companions with a sort of condescension. The negress was seated on the ground before her
mistress, watching her smallest desires, and apparently divided between strong affection for
the child and servile fear; whilst the savage displayed, in the midst of her tenderness, an air of
freedom and of pride which was almost ferocious. I had approached the group, and I
contemplated them in silence; but my curiosity was probably displeasing to the Indian
woman, for she suddenly rose, pushed the child roughly from her, and giving me an angry
look plunged into the thicket. I had often chanced to see individuals met together in the same
place, who belonged to the three races of men which people North America. I had perceived
from many different results the preponderance of the whites. But in the picture which I have
just been describing there was something peculiarly touching; a bond of affection here united
the oppressors with the oppressed, and the effort of nature to bring them together rendered
still more striking the immense distance placed between them by prejudice and by law.
The Present And Probable Future Condition Of The Indian Tribes Which Inhabit The
Territory Possessed By The Union
Gradual disappearance of the native tribes—Manner in which it takes place—Miseries
accompanying the forced migrations of the Indians—The savages of North America had only
two ways of escaping destruction; war or civilization—They are no longer able to make
war—Reasons why they refused to become civilized when it was in their power, and why they
cannot become so now that they desire it—Instance of the Creeks and Cherokees—Policy of
the particular States towards these Indians—Policy of the Federal Government.
None of the Indian tribes which formerly inhabited the territory of New England—the
Naragansetts, the Mohicans, the Pecots—have any existence but in the recollection of man.
The Lenapes, who received William Penn, a hundred and fifty years ago, upon the banks of
the Delaware, have disappeared; and I myself met with the last of the Iroquois, who were
begging alms. The nations I have mentioned formerly covered the country to the sea-coast;
but a traveller at the present day must penetrate more than a hundred leagues into the interior
of the continent to find an Indian. Not only have these wild tribes receded, but they are
destroyed; 220 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 became necessary,

220
In the thirteen original States there are only 6,273 Indians remaining. (See Legislative Documents, 20th
Congress, No. 117, p. 90.) [The decrease in now far greater, and is verging on extinction. See page 360 of this
volume.]
 226

not merely to provide for his subsistence, but in order to procure the only objects of barter
which he could furnish to Europe. 221 Whilst the wants of the natives were thus increasing,
their resources continued to diminish.
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. 222 Thousands of savages,
wandering in the forests and destitute of any fixed dwelling, did not disturb them; but as soon
as the continuous sounds of European labor are heard in their neighborhood, they begin to
flee away, and retire to the West, where their instinct teaches them that they will find deserts
of immeasurable extent. “The buffalo is constantly receding,” say Messrs. Clarke and Cass in
their Report of the year 1829; “a few years since they approached the base of the Alleghany;
and a few years hence they may even be rare upon the immense plains which extend to the
base of the Rocky Mountains.” I have been assured that this effect of the approach of the
whites is often felt at two hundred leagues’ distance from their frontier. Their influence is
thus exerted over tribes whose name is unknown to them; and who suffer the evils of
usurpation long before they are acquainted with the authors of their distress. 223
Bold adventurers soon penetrate into the country the Indians have deserted, and when they
have advanced about fifteen or twenty leagues from the extreme frontiers of the whites, they
begin to build habitations for civilized beings in the midst of the wilderness. This is done
without difficulty, as the territory of a hunting-nation is ill-defined; it is the common property
of the tribe, and belongs to no one in particular, so that individual interests are not concerned
in the protection of any part of it.
A few European families, settled in different situations at a considerable distance from each
other, soon drive away the wild animals which remain between their places of abode. The
Indians, who had previously lived in a sort of abundance, then find it difficult to subsist, and
still more difficult to procure the articles of barter which they stand in need of.

221
Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in their Report to Congress on February 4, 1829, p. 23, expressed themselves
thus:—”The time when the Indians generally could supply themselves with food and clothing, without any of
the articles of civilized life, has long since passed away. The more remote tribes, beyond the Mississippi, who
live where immense herds of buffalo are yet to be found and who follow those animals in their periodical
migrations, could more easily than any others recur to the habits of their ancestors, and live without the white
man or any of his manufactures. But the buffalo is constantly receding. The smaller animals, the bear, the deer,
the beaver, the otter, the muskrat, etc., principally minister to the comfort and support of the Indians; and these
cannot be taken without guns, ammunition, and traps. Among the Northwestern Indians particularly, the labor of
supplying a family with food is excessive. Day after day is spent by the hunter without success, and during this
interval his family must subsist upon bark or roots, or perish. Want and misery are around them and among
them. Many die every winter from actual starvation.”
The Indians will not live as Europeans live, and yet they can neither subsist without them, nor exactly after the
fashion of their fathers. This is demonstrated by a fact which I likewise give upon official authority. Some
Indians of a tribe on the banks of Lake Superior had killed a European; the American government interdicted all
traffic with the tribe to which the guilty parties belonged, until they were delivered up to justice. This measure
had the desired effect.
222
“Five years ago,” (says Volney in his “Tableau des Etats-Unis,” p. 370) “in going from Vincennes to
Kaskaskia, a territory which now forms part of the State of Illinois, but which at the time I mention was
completely wild (1797), you could not cross a prairie without seeing herds of from four to five hundred
buffaloes. There are now none remaining; they swam across the Mississippi to escape from the hunters, and
more particularly from the bells of the American cows.”
223
The truth of what I here advance may be easily proved by consulting the tabular statement of Indian tribes
inhabiting the United States and their territories. (Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.)
It is there shown that the tribes in the centre of America are rapidly decreasing, although the Europeans are still
at a considerable distance from them.
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To drive away their game is to deprive them of the means of existence, as effectually as if the
fields of our agriculturists were stricken with barrenness; and they are reduced, like famished
wolves, to prowl through the forsaken woods in quest of prey. Their instinctive love of their
country attaches them to the soil which gave them birth, 224 even after it has ceased to yield
anything but misery and death. At length they are compelled to acquiesce, and to depart: they
follow the traces of the elk, the buffalo, and the beaver, and are guided by these wild animals
in the choice of their future country. Properly speaking, therefore, it is not the Europeans who
drive away the native inhabitants of America; it is famine which compels them to recede; a
happy distinction which had escaped the casuists of former times, and for which we are
indebted to modern discovery!
It is impossible to conceive the extent of the sufferings which attend these forced
emigrations. They are undertaken by a people already exhausted and reduced; and the
countries to which the newcomers betake themselves are inhabited by other tribes which
receive them with jealous hostility. Hunger is in the rear; war awaits them, and misery besets
them on all sides. In the hope of escaping from such a host of enemies, they separate, and
each individual endeavors to procure the means of supporting his existence in solitude and
secrecy, living in the immensity of the desert like an outcast in civilized society. The social
tie, which distress had long since weakened, is then dissolved; they have lost their country,
and their people soon desert them: their very families are obliterated; the names they bore in
common are forgotten, their language perishes, and all traces of their origin disappear. Their
nation has ceased to exist, except in the recollection of the antiquaries of America and a few
of the learned of Europe.
I should be sorry to have my reader suppose that I am coloring the picture too highly; I saw
with my own eyes several of the cases of misery which I have been describing; and I was the
witness of sufferings which I have not the power to portray.
At the end of the year 1831, whilst I was on the left bank of the Mississippi at a place named
by Europeans, Memphis, there arrived a numerous band of Choctaws (or Chactas, as they are
called by the French in Louisiana). These savages had left their country, and were
endeavoring to gain the right bank of the Mississippi, where they hoped to find an asylum
which had been promised them by the American government. It was then the middle of
winter, and the cold was unusually severe; the snow had frozen hard upon the ground, and the
river was drifting huge masses of ice. The Indians had their families with them; and they
brought in their train the wounded and sick, with children newly born, and old men upon the
verge of death. They possessed neither tents nor wagons, but only their arms and some
provisions. I saw them embark to pass the mighty river, and never will that solemn spectacle
fade from my remembrance. No cry, no sob was heard amongst the assembled crowd; all
were silent. Their calamities were of ancient date, and they knew them to be irremediable.
The Indians had all stepped into the bark which was to carry them across, but their dogs
remained upon the bank. As soon as these animals perceived that their masters were finally
leaving the shore, they set up a dismal howl, and, plunging all together into the icy waters of
the Mississippi, they swam after the boat.

224
“The Indians,” say Messrs. Clarke and Cass in their Report to Congress, p. 15, “are attached to their country
by the same feelings which bind us to ours; and, besides, there are certain superstitious notions connected with
the alienation of what the Great Spirit gave to their ancestors, which operate strongly upon the tribes who have
made few or no cessions, but which are gradually weakened as our intercourse with them is extended. ‘We will
not sell the spot which contains the bones of our fathers,’ is almost always the first answer to a proposition for a
sale.”
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The ejectment of the Indians very often takes place at the present day, in a regular, and, as it
were, a legal manner. When the European population begins to approach the limit of the
desert inhabited by a savage tribe, the government of the United States usually dispatches
envoys to them, who assemble the Indians in a large plain, and having first eaten and drunk
with them, accost them in the following manner: “What have you to do in the land of your
fathers? Before long, you must dig up their bones in order to live. In what respect is the
country you inhabit better than another? Are there no woods, marshes, or prairies, except
where you dwell? And can you live nowhere but under your own sun? Beyond those
mountains which you see at the horizon, beyond the lake which bounds your territory on the
west, there lie vast countries where beasts of chase are found in great abundance; sell your
lands to us, and go to live happily in those solitudes.” After holding this language, they
spread before the eyes of the Indians firearms, woollen garments, kegs of brandy, glass
necklaces, bracelets of tinsel, earrings, and looking-glasses. 225 If, when they have beheld all
these riches, they still hesitate, it is insinuated that they have not the means of refusing their
required consent, and that the government itself will not long have the power of protecting
them in their rights. What are they to do? Half convinced, and half compelled, they go to
inhabit new deserts, where the importunate whites will not let them remain ten years in
tranquillity. In this manner do the Americans obtain, at a very low price, whole provinces,
which the richest sovereigns of Europe could not purchase. 226

225
See, in the Legislative Documents of Congress (Doc. 117), the narrative of what takes place on these
occasions. This curious passage is from the above-mentioned report, made to Congress by Messrs. Clarke and
Cass in February, 1829. Mr. Cass is now the Secretary of War.
“The Indians,” says the report, “reach the treaty-ground poor and almost naked. Large quantities of goods are
taken there by the traders, and are seen and examined by the Indians. The women and children become
importunate to have their wants supplied, and their influence is soon exerted to induce a sale. Their
improvidence is habitual and unconquerable. The gratification of his immediate wants and desires is the ruling
passion of an Indian. The expectation of future advantages seldom produces much effect. The experience of the
past is lost, and the prospects of the future disregarded. It would be utterly hopeless to demand a cession of land,
unless the means were at hand of gratifying their immediate wants; and when their condition and circumstances
are fairly considered, it ought not to surprise us that they are so anxious to relieve themselves.”
226
On May 19, 1830, Mr. Edward Everett affirmed before the House of Representatives, that the Americans had
already acquired by treaty, to the east and west of the Mississippi, 230,000,000 of acres. In 1808 the Osages
gave up 48,000,000 acres for an annual payment of $1,000. In 1818 the Quapaws yielded up 29,000,000 acres
for $4,000. They reserved for themselves a territory of 1,000,000 acres for a hunting-ground. A solemn oath was
taken that it should be respected: but before long it was invaded like the rest. Mr. Bell, in his Report of the
Committee on Indian Affairs, February 24, 1830, has these words:—”To pay an Indian tribe what their ancient
hunting-grounds are worth to them, after the game is fled or destroyed, as a mode of appropriating wild lands
claimed by Indians, has been found more convenient, and certainly it is more agreeable to the forms of justice,
as well as more merciful, than to assert the possession of them by the sword. Thus the practice of buying Indian
titles is but the substitute which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the sword, in arriving at the
actual enjoyment of property claimed by the right of discovery, and sanctioned by the natural superiority
allowed to the claims of civilized communities over those of savage tribes. Up to the present time so invariable
has been the operation of certain causes, first in diminishing the value of forest lands to the Indians, and
secondly in disposing them to sell readily, that the plan of buying their right of occupancy has never threatened
to retard, in any perceptible degree, the prosperity of any of the States.” (Legislative Documents, 21st Congress,
No. 227, p. 6.)
 229

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 2

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. 227 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.
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. 228 They several times attempted to do it, and were on the point of succeeding; but
the disproportion of their resources, at the present day, when compared with those of the
whites, is too great to allow such an enterprise to be thought of. Nevertheless, there do arise
from time to time among the Indians men of penetration, who foresee the final destiny which
awaits the native population, and who exert themselves to unite all the tribes in common
hostility to the Europeans; but their efforts are unavailing. Those tribes which are in the
neighborhood of the whites, are too much weakened to offer an effectual resistance; whilst
the others, giving way to that childish carelessness of the morrow which characterizes savage
life, wait for the near approach of danger before they prepare to meet it; some are unable, the
others are unwilling, to exert themselves.
It is easy to foresee that the Indians will never conform to civilization; or that it will be too
late, whenever they may be inclined to make the experiment.
Civilization is the result of a long social process which takes place in the same spot, and is
handed down from one generation to another, each one profiting by the experience of the last.
Of all nations, those submit to civilization with the most difficulty which habitually live by
the chase. Pastoral tribes, indeed, often change their place of abode; but they follow a regular
order in their migrations, and often return again to their old stations, whilst the dwelling of
the hunter varies with that of the animals he pursues.
Several attempts have been made to diffuse knowledge amongst the Indians, without
controlling their wandering propensities; by the Jesuits in Canada, and by the Puritans in New
England; 229 but none of these endeavors were crowned by any lasting success. Civilization
began in the cabin, but it soon retired to expire in the woods. The great error of these
legislators of the Indians was their not understanding that, in order to succeed in civilizing a
people, it is first necessary to fix it; which cannot be done without inducing it to cultivate the
soil; the Indians ought in the first place to have been accustomed to agriculture. But not only
are they destitute of this indispensable preliminary to civilization, they would even have great
difficulty in acquiring it. Men who have once abandoned themselves to the restless and
adventurous life of the hunter, feel an insurmountable disgust for the constant and regular

227
This seems, indeed, to be the opinion of almost all American statesmen. “Judging of the future by the past,”
says Mr. Cass, “we cannot err in anticipating a progressive diminution of their numbers, and their eventual
extinction, unless our border should become stationary, and they be removed beyond it, or unless some radical
change should take place in the principles of our intercourse with them, which it is easier to hope for than to
expect.”
228
Amongst other warlike enterprises, there was one of the Wampanaogs, and other confederate tribes, under
Metacom in 1675, against the colonists of New England; the English were also engaged in war in Virginia in
1622.
229
See the “Histoire de la Nouvelle France,” by Charlevoix, and the work entitled “Lettres edifiantes.”
 230

labor which tillage requires. We see this proved in the bosom of our own society; but it is far
more visible among peoples whose partiality for the chase is a part of their national character.
Independently of this general difficulty, there is another, which applies peculiarly to the
Indians; they consider labor not merely as an evil, but as a disgrace; so that their pride
prevents them from becoming civilized, as much as their indolence. 230
There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain under his hut of bark a lofty idea of his
personal worth; he considers the cares of industry and labor as degrading occupations; he
compares the husbandman to the ox which traces the furrow; and even in our most ingenious
handicraft, he can see nothing but the labor of slaves. Not that he is devoid of admiration for
the power and intellectual greatness of the whites; but although the result of our efforts
surprises him, he contemns the means by which we obtain it; and while he acknowledges our
ascendancy, he still believes in his superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits which
appear to him worthy to be the occupations of a man. 231 The Indian, in the dreary solitude of
his woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same opinions as the noble of the Middle ages in his
castle, and he only requires to become a conqueror to complete the resemblance; thus,
however strange it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World, and not amongst the
Europeans who people its coasts, that the ancient prejudices of Europe are still in existence.
More than once, in the course of this work, I have endeavored to explain the prodigious
influence which the social condition appears to exercise upon the laws and the manners of
men; and I beg to add a few words on the same subject.
When I perceive the resemblance which exists between the political institutions of our
ancestors, the Germans, and of the wandering tribes of North America; between the customs
described by Tacitus, and those of which I have sometimes been a witness, I cannot help
thinking that the same cause has brought about the same results in both hemispheres; and that
in the midst of the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of primary facts may
be discovered, from which all the others are derived. In what we usually call the German
institutions, then, I am inclined only to perceive barbarian habits; and the opinions of savages
in what we style feudal principles.
However strongly the vices and prejudices of the North American Indians may be opposed to
their becoming agricultural and civilized, necessity sometimes obliges them to it. Several of
the Southern nations, and amongst others the Cherokees and the Creeks, 232 were surrounded

230
“In all the tribes,” says Volney, in his “Tableau des Etats-Unis,” p. 423, “there still exists a generation of old
warriors, who cannot forbear, when they see their countrymen using the hoe, from exclaiming against the
degradation of ancient manners, and asserting that the savages owe their decline to these innovations; adding,
that they have only to return to their primitive habits in order to recover their power and their glory.”
231
The following description occurs in an official document: “Until a young man has been engaged with an
enemy, and has performed some acts of valor, he gains no consideration, but is regarded nearly as a woman. In
their great war-dances all the warriors in succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount their exploits. On
these occasions their auditory consists of the kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator. The profound
impression which his discourse produces on them is manifested by the silent attention it receives, and by the
loud shouts which hail its termination. The young man who finds himself at such a meeting without anything to
recount is very unhappy; and instances have sometimes occurred of young warriors, whose passions had been
thus inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to seek for trophies which they might
exhibit, and adventures which they might be allowed to relate.”
232
These nations are now swallowed up in the States of Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. There
were formerly in the South four great nations (remnants of which still exist), the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the
Creeks, and the Cherokees. The remnants of these four nations amounted, in 1830, to about 75,000 individuals.
It is computed that there are now remaining in the territory occupied or claimed by the Anglo-American Union
about 300,000 Indians. (See Proceedings of the Indian Board in the City of New York.) The official documents
supplied to Congress make the number amount to 313,130. The reader who is curious to know the names and
 231

by Europeans, who had landed on the shores of the Atlantic; and who, either descending the
Ohio or proceeding up the Mississippi, arrived simultaneously upon their borders. These
tribes have not been driven from place to place, like their Northern brethren; but they have
been gradually enclosed within narrow limits, like the game within the thicket, before the
huntsmen plunge into the interior. The Indians who were thus placed between civilization and
death, found themselves obliged to live by ignominious labor like the whites. They took to
agriculture, and without entirely forsaking their old habits or manners, sacrificed only as
much as was necessary to their existence.
The Cherokees went further; they created a written language; established a permanent form
of government; and as everything proceeds rapidly in the New World, before they had all of
them clothes, they set up a newspaper. 233
The growth of European habits has been remarkably accelerated among these Indians by the
mixed race which has sprung up. 234 Deriving intelligence from their father’s side, without
entirely losing the savage customs of the mother, the half-blood forms the natural link
between civilization and barbarism. Wherever this race has multiplied the savage state has
become modified, and a great change has taken place in the manners of the people. 235
The success of the Cherokees proves that the Indians are capable of civilization, but it does
not prove that they will succeed in it. This difficulty which the Indians find in submitting to
civilization proceeds from the influence of a general cause, which it is almost impossible for
them to escape. An attentive survey of history demonstrates that, in general, barbarous
nations have raised themselves to civilization by degrees, and by their own efforts. Whenever
they derive knowledge from a foreign people, they stood towards it in the relation of
conquerors, and not of a conquered nation. When the conquered nation is enlightened, and
the conquerors are half savage, as in the case of the invasion of Rome by the Northern nations
or that of China by the Mongols, the power which victory bestows upon the barbarian is
sufficient to keep up his importance among civilized men, and permit him to rank as their
equal, until he becomes their rival: the one has might on his side, the other has intelligence;

numerical strength of all the tribes which inhabit the Anglo-American territory should consult the documents I
refer to. (Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, pp. 90-105.) [In the Census of 1870 it is stated that
the Indian population of the United States is only 25,731, of whom 7,241 are in California.]
233
I brought back with me to France one or two copies of this singular publication.
234
See in the Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs, 21st Congress, No. 227, p. 23, the reasons for the
multiplication of Indians of mixed blood among the Cherokees. The principal cause dates from the War of
Independence. Many Anglo-Americans of Georgia, having taken the side of England, were obliged to retreat
among the Indians, where they married.
235
Unhappily the mixed race has been less numerous and less influential in North America than in any other
country. The American continent was peopled by two great nations of Europe, the French and the English. The
former were not slow in connecting themselves with the daughters of the natives, but there was an unfortunate
affinity between the Indian character and their own: instead of giving the tastes and habits of civilized life to the
savages, the French too often grew passionately fond of the state of wild freedom they found them in. They
became the most dangerous of the inhabitants of the desert, and won the friendship of the Indian by
exaggerating his vices and his virtues. M. de Senonville, the governor of Canada, wrote thus to Louis XIV in
1685: “It has long been believed that in order to civilize the savages we ought to draw them nearer to us. But
there is every reason to suppose we have been mistaken. Those which have been brought into contact with us
have not become French, and the French who have lived among them are changed into savages, affecting to
dress and live like them.” (“History of New France,” by Charlevoix, vol. ii., p. 345.) The Englishman, on the
contrary, continuing obstinately attached to the customs and the most insignificant habits of his forefathers, has
remained in the midst of the American solitudes just what he was in the bosom of European cities; he would not
allow of any communication with savages whom he despised, and avoided with care the union of his race with
theirs. Thus while the French exercised no salutary influence over the Indians, the English have always
remained alien from them.
 232

the former admires the knowledge and the arts of the conquered, the latter envies the power
of the conquerors. The barbarians at length admit civilized man into their palaces, and he in
turn opens his schools to the barbarians. But when the side on which the physical force lies,
also possesses an intellectual preponderance, the conquered party seldom become civilized; it
retreats, or is destroyed. It may therefore be said, in a general way, that savages go forth in
arms to seek knowledge, but that they do not receive it when it comes to them.
If the Indian tribes which now inhabit the heart of the continent could summon up energy
enough to attempt to civilize themselves, they might possibly succeed. Superior already to the
barbarous nations which surround them, they would gradually gain strength and experience,
and when the Europeans should appear upon their borders, they would be in a state, if not to
maintain their independence, at least to assert their right to the soil, and to incorporate
themselves with the conquerors. But it is the misfortune of Indians to be brought into contact
with a civilized people, which is also (it must be owned) the most avaricious nation on the
globe, whilst they are still semi-barbarian: to find despots in their instructors, and to receive
knowledge from the hand of oppression. Living in the freedom of the woods, the North
American Indian was destitute, but he had no feeling of inferiority towards anyone; as soon,
however, as he desires to penetrate into the social scale of the whites, he takes the lowest rank
in society, for he enters, ignorant and poor, within the pale of science and wealth. After
having led a life of agitation, beset with evils and dangers, but at the same time filled with
proud emotions, 236 he is obliged to submit to a wearisome, obscure, and degraded state; and
to gain the bread which nourishes him by hard and ignoble labor; such are in his eyes the only
results of which civilization can boast: and even this much he is not sure to obtain.
When the Indians undertake to imitate their European neighbors, and to till the earth like the
settlers, they are immediately exposed to a very formidable competition. The white man is
skilled in the craft of agriculture; the Indian is a rough beginner in an art with which he is
unacquainted. The former reaps abundant crops without difficulty, the latter meets with a
thousand obstacles in raising the fruits of the earth.
The European is placed amongst a population whose wants he knows and partakes. The
savage is isolated in the midst of a hostile people, with whose manners, language, and laws
he is imperfectly acquainted, but without whose assistance he cannot live. He can only
procure the materials of comfort by bartering his commodities against the goods of the
European, for the assistance of his countrymen is wholly insufficient to supply his wants.
When the Indian wishes to sell the produce of his labor, he cannot always meet with a

236
There is in the adventurous life of the hunter a certain irresistible charm, which seizes the heart of man and
carries him away in spite of reason and experience. This is plainly shown by the memoirs of Tanner. Tanner is a
European who was carried away at the age of six by the Indians, and has remained thirty years with them in the
woods. Nothing can be conceived more appalling that the miseries which he describes. He tells us of tribes
without a chief, families without a nation to call their own, men in a state of isolation, wrecks of powerful tribes
wandering at random amid the ice and snow and desolate solitudes of Canada. Hunger and cold pursue them;
every day their life is in jeopardy. Amongst these men, manners have lost their empire, traditions are without
power. They become more and more savage. Tanner shared in all these miseries; he was aware of his European
origin; he was not kept away from the whites by force; on the contrary, he came every year to trade with them,
entered their dwellings, and witnessed their enjoyments; he knew that whenever he chose to return to civilized
life he was perfectly able to do so—and he remained thirty years in the deserts. When he came into civilized
society he declared that the rude existence which he described, had a secret charm for him which he was unable
to define: he returned to it again and again: at length he abandoned it with poignant regret; and when he was at
length fixed among the whites, several of his children refused to share his tranquil and easy situation. I saw
Tanner myself at the lower end of Lake Superior; he seemed to me to be more like a savage than a civilized
being. His book is written without either taste or order; but he gives, even unconsciously, a lively picture of the
prejudices, the passions, the vices, and, above all, of the destitution in which he lived.]
 233

purchaser, whilst the European readily finds a market; and the former can only produce at a
considerable cost that which the latter vends at a very low rate. Thus the Indian has no sooner
escaped those evils to which barbarous nations are exposed, than he is subjected to the still
greater miseries of civilized communities; and he finds is scarcely less difficult to live in the
midst of our abundance, than in the depth of his own wilderness.
He has not yet lost the habits of his erratic life; the traditions of his fathers and his passion for
the chase are still alive within him. The wild enjoyments which formerly animated him in the
woods, painfully excite his troubled imagination; and his former privations appear to be less
keen, his former perils less appalling. He contrasts the independence which he possessed
amongst his equals with the servile position which he occupies in civilized society. On the
other hand, the solitudes which were so long his free home are still at hand; a few hours’
march will bring him back to them once more. The whites offer him a sum, which seems to
him to be considerable, for the ground which he has begun to clear. This money of the
Europeans may possibly furnish him with the means of a happy and peaceful subsistence in
remoter regions; and he quits the plough, resumes his native arms, and returns to the
wilderness forever. 237 The condition of the Creeks and Cherokees, to which I have already
alluded, sufficiently corroborates the truth of this deplorable picture.
The Indians, in the little which they have done, have unquestionably displayed as much
natural genius as the peoples of Europe in their most important designs; but nations as well as
men require time to learn, whatever may be their intelligence and their zeal. Whilst the
savages were engaged in the work of civilization, the Europeans continued to surround them
on every side, and to confine them within narrower limits; the two races gradually met, and
they are now in immediate juxtaposition to each other. The Indian is already superior to his
barbarous parent, but he is still very far below his white neighbor. With their resources and
acquired knowledge, the Europeans soon appropriated to themselves most of the advantages
which the natives might have derived from the possession of the soil; they have settled in the
country, they have purchased land at a very low rate or have occupied it by force, and the
Indians have been ruined by a competition which they had not the means of resisting. They

237
The destructive influence of highly civilized nations upon others which are less so, has been exemplified by
the Europeans themselves. About a century ago the French founded the town of Vincennes up on the Wabash, in
the middle of the desert; and they lived there in great plenty until the arrival of the American settlers, who first
ruined the previous inhabitants by their competition, and afterwards purchased their lands at a very low rate. At
the time when M. de Volney, from whom I borrow these details, passed through Vincennes, the number of the
French was reduced to a hundred individuals, most of whom were about to pass over to Louisiana or to Canada.
These French settlers were worthy people, but idle and uninstructed: they had contracted many of the habits of
savages. The Americans, who were perhaps their inferiors, in a moral point of view, were immeasurably
superior to them in intelligence: they were industrious, well informed, rich, and accustomed to govern their own
community.
I myself saw in Canada, where the intellectual difference between the two races is less striking, that the English
are the masters of commerce and manufacture in the Canadian country, that they spread on all sides, and confine
the French within limits which scarcely suffice to contain them. In like manner, in Louisiana, almost all activity
in commerce and manufacture centres in the hands of the Anglo-Americans.
But the case of Texas is still more striking: the State of Texas is a part of Mexico, and lies upon the frontier
between that country and the United States. In the course of the last few years the Anglo-Americans have
penetrated into this province, which is still thinly peopled; they purchase land, they produce the commodities of
the country, and supplant the original population. It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to
check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that government.
If the different degrees—comparatively so slight—which exist in European civilization produce results of such
magnitude, the consequences which must ensue from the collision of the most perfect European civilization with
Indian savages may readily be conceived.
 234

were isolated in their own country, and their race only constituted a colony of troublesome
aliens in the midst of a numerous and domineering people. 238
Washington said in one of his messages to Congress, “We are more enlightened and more
powerful than the Indian nations, we are therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness
and even with generosity.” But this virtuous and high-minded policy has not been followed.
The rapacity of the settlers is usually backed by the tyranny of the government. Although the
Cherokees and the Creeks are established upon the territory which they inhabited before the
settlement of the Europeans, and although the Americans have frequently treated with them
as with foreign nations, the surrounding States have not consented to acknowledge them as
independent peoples, and attempts have been made to subject these children of the woods to
Anglo-American magistrates, laws, and customs. 239 Destitution had driven these unfortunate
Indians to civilization, and oppression now drives them back to their former condition: many
of them abandon the soil which they had begun to clear, and return to their savage course of
life.

238
See in the Legislative Documents (21st Congress, No. 89) instances of excesses of every kind committed by
the whites upon the territory of the Indians, either in taking possession of a part of their lands, until compelled to
retire by the troops of Congress, or carrying off their cattle, burning their houses, cutting down their corn, and
doing violence to their persons. It appears, nevertheless, from all these documents that the claims of the natives
are constantly protected by the government from the abuse of force. The Union has a representative agent
continually employed to reside among the Indians; and the report of the Cherokee agent, which is among the
documents I have referred to, is almost always favorable to the Indians. “The intrusion of whites,” he says,
“upon the lands of the Cherokees would cause ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabitants.” And he
further remarks upon the attempt of the State of Georgia to establish a division line for the purpose of limiting
the boundaries of the Cherokees, that the line drawn having been made by the whites, and entirely upon ex parte
evidence of their several rights, was of no validity whatever.
239
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 assimilated the Choctaws and Chickasaws
to the white population, and declared that any of them that should take the title of chief would be punished by a
fine of $1,000 and a year’s imprisonment. When these laws were enforced upon the Choctaws, who inhabited
that district, the tribe assembled, their chief communicated to them the intentions of the whites, and read to them
some of the laws to which it was intended that they should submit; and they unanimously declared that it was
better at once to retreat again into the wilds.
 235

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 3

If we consider the tyrannical measures which have been adopted by the legislatures of the
Southern States, the conduct of their Governors, and the decrees of their courts of justice, we
shall be convinced that the entire expulsion of the Indians is the final result to which the
efforts of their policy are directed. The Americans of that part of the Union look with
jealousy upon the aborigines, 240 they are aware that these tribes have not yet lost the
traditions of savage life, and before civilization has permanently fixed them to the soil, it is
intended to force them to recede by reducing them to despair. The Creeks and Cherokees,
oppressed by the several States, have appealed to the central government, which is by no
means insensible to their misfortunes, and is sincerely desirous of saving the remnant of the
natives, and of maintaining them in the free possession of that territory, which the Union is
pledged to respect. 241 But the several States oppose so formidable a resistance to the
execution of this design, that the government is obliged to consent to the extirpation of a few
barbarous tribes in order not to endanger the safety of the American Union.
But the federal government, which is not able to protect the Indians, would fain mitigate the
hardships of their lot; and, with this intention, proposals have been made to transport them
into more remote regions at the public cost.
Between the thirty-third and thirty-seventh degrees of north latitude, a vast tract of country
lies, which has taken the name of Arkansas, from the principal river that waters its extent. It
is bounded on the one side by the confines of Mexico, on the other by the Mississippi.
Numberless streams cross it in every direction; the climate is mild, and the soil productive,
but it is only inhabited by a few wandering hordes of savages. The government of the Union
wishes to transport the broken remnants of the indigenous population of the South to the
portion of this country which is nearest to Mexico, and at a great distance from the American
settlements.
We were assured, towards the end of the year 1831, that 10,000 Indians had already gone
down to the shores of the Arkansas; and fresh detachments were constantly following them;
but Congress has been unable to excite a unanimous determination in those whom it is
disposed to protect. Some, indeed, are willing to quit the seat of oppression, but the most
enlightened members of the community refuse to abandon their recent dwellings and their
springing crops; they are of opinion that the work of civilization, once interrupted, will never
be resumed; they fear that those domestic habits which have been so recently contracted, may
be irrevocably lost in the midst of a country which is still barbarous, and where nothing is
prepared for the subsistence of an agricultural people; they know that their entrance into those
wilds will be opposed by inimical hordes, and that they have lost the energy of barbarians,
without acquiring the resources of civilization to resist their attacks. Moreover, the Indians
readily discover that the settlement which is proposed to them is merely a temporary
expedient. Who can assure them that they will at length be allowed to dwell in peace in their
new retreat? The United States pledge themselves to the observance of the obligation; but the

240
The Georgians, who are so much annoyed by the proximity of the Indians, inhabit a territory which does not
at present contain more than seven inhabitants to the square mile. In France there are one hundred and sixty-two
inhabitants to the same extent of country.
241
In 1818 Congress appointed commissioners to visit the Arkansas Territory, accompanied by a deputation of
Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. This expedition was commanded by Messrs. Kennerly, M’Coy, Wash
Hood, and John Bell. See the different reports of the commissioners, and their journal, in the Documents of
Congress, No. 87, House of Representatives.
 236

territory which they at present occupy was formerly secured to them by the most solemn
oaths of Anglo-American faith. 242 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. 243
Thus the tyranny of the States obliges the savages to retire, the Union, by its promises and
resources, facilitates their retreat; and these measures tend to precisely the same end. 244 “By
the will of our Father in Heaven, the Governor of the whole world,” said the Cherokees in
their petition to Congress, 245 “the red man of America has become small, and the white man
great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the
shores of America they found the red man strong: though he was ignorant and savage, yet he
received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and
shook hands in token of friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian,
the latter willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the white man the
suppliant. But now the scene has changed. The strength of the red man has become weakness.
As his neighbors increased in numbers his power became less and less, and now, of the many
and powerful tribes who once covered these United States, only a few are to be seen—a few
whom a sweeping pestilence has left. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and
powerful, are now nearly extinct. Thus it has happened to the red man of America. Shall we,
who are remnants, share the same fate?”
“The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who
possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. They

242
The fifth article of the treaty made with the Creeks in August, 1790, is in the following words:—”The United
States solemnly guarantee to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States.”
The seventh article of the treaty concluded in 1791 with the Cherokees says:—”The United States solemnly
guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded.” The following article declared that if any
citizen of the United States or other settler not of the Indian race should establish himself upon the territory of
the Cherokees, the United States would withdraw their protection from that individual, and give him up to be
punished as the Cherokee nation should think fit.
243
This does not prevent them from promising in the most solemn manner to do so. See the letter of the
President addressed to the Creek Indians, March 23, 1829 (Proceedings of the Indian Board, in the city of New
York, p. 5): “Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided
a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not
trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as
the grass grows, or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever.”
The Secretary of War, in a letter written to the Cherokees, April 18, 1829, (see the same work, p. 6), declares to
them that they cannot expect to retain possession of the lands at that time occupied by them, but gives them the
most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace if they would remove beyond the Mississippi: as if the power
which could not grant them protection then, would be able to afford it them hereafter!
244
To obtain a correct idea of the policy pursued by the several States and the Union with respect to the Indians,
it is necessary to consult, 1st, “The Laws of the Colonial and State Governments relating to the Indian
Inhabitants.” (See the Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, No. 319.) 2d, The Laws of the Union on the same
subject, and especially that of March 30, 1802. (See Story’s “Laws of the United States.”) 3d, The Report of Mr.
Cass, Secretary of War, relative to Indian Affairs, November 29, 1823.
245
December 18, 1829.
 237

bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing the remains
of our beloved men. This right of inheritance we have never ceded nor ever forfeited. Permit
us to ask what better right can the people have to a country than the right of inheritance and
immemorial peaceable possession? We know it is said of late by the State of Georgia and by
the Executive of the United States, that we have forfeited this right; but we think this is said
gratuitously. At what time have we made the forfeit? What great crime have we committed,
whereby we must forever be divested of our country and rights? Was it when we were hostile
to the United States, and took part with the King of Great Britain, during the struggle for
independence? If so, why was not this forfeiture declared in the first treaty of peace between
the United States and our beloved men? Why was not such an article as the following inserted
in the treaty:—’The United States give peace to the Cherokees, but, for the part they took in
the late war, declare them to be but tenants at will, to be removed when the convenience of
the States, within whose chartered limits they live, shall require it’? That was the proper time
to assume such a possession. But it was not thought of, nor would our forefathers have agreed
to any treaty whose tendency was to deprive them of their rights and their country.”
Such is the language of the Indians: their assertions are true, their forebodings inevitable.
From whichever side we consider the destinies of the aborigines of North America, their
calamities appear to be irremediable: if they continue barbarous, they are forced to retire; if
they attempt to civilize their manners, the contact of a more civilized community subjects
them to oppression and destitution. They perish if they continue to wander from waste to
waste, and if they attempt to settle they still must perish; the assistance of Europeans is
necessary to instruct them, but the approach of Europeans corrupts and repels them into
savage life; they refuse to change their habits as long as their solitudes are their own, and it is
too late to change them when they are constrained to submit.
The Spaniards pursued the Indians with bloodhounds, like wild beasts; they sacked the New
World with no more temper or compassion than a city taken by storm; but destruction must
cease, and frenzy be stayed; the remnant of the Indian population which had escaped the
massacre mixed with its conquerors, and adopted in the end their religion and their
manners. 246 The conduct of the Americans of the United States towards the aborigines is
characterized, on the other hand, by a singular attachment to the formalities of law. Provided
that the Indians retain their barbarous condition, the Americans take no part in their affairs;
they treat them as independent nations, and do not possess themselves of their hunting
grounds without a treaty of purchase; and if an Indian nation happens to be so encroached
upon as to be unable to subsist upon its territory, they afford it brotherly assistance in
transporting it to a grave sufficiently remote from the land of its fathers.
The Spaniards were unable to exterminate the Indian race by those unparalleled atrocities
which brand them with indelible shame, nor did they even succeed in wholly depriving it of
its rights; but the Americans of the United States have accomplished this twofold purpose
with singular felicity; tranquilly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, and
without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. 247 It is
impossible to destroy men with more respect for the laws of humanity.

246
The honor of this result is, however, by no means due to the Spaniards. If the Indian tribes had not been
tillers of the ground at the time of the arrival of the Europeans, they would unquestionably have been destroyed
in South as well as in North America.
247
See, amongst other documents, the report made by Mr. Bell in the name of the Committee on Indian Affairs,
February 24, 1830, in which is most logically established and most learnedly proved, that “the fundamental
principle that the Indians had no right by virtue of their ancient possession either of will or sovereignty, has
never been abandoned either expressly or by implication.” In perusing this report, which is evidently drawn up
 238

[I leave this chapter wholly unchanged, for it has always appeared to me to be one of the
most eloquent and touching parts of this book. But it has ceased to be prophetic; the
destruction of the Indian race in the United States is already consummated. In 1870 there
remained but 25,731 Indians in the whole territory of the Union, and of these by far the
largest part exist in California, Michigan, Wisconsin, Dakota, and New Mexico and Nevada.
In New England, Pennsylvania, and New York the race is extinct; and the predictions of M.
de Tocqueville are fulfilled. —Translator’s Note.]
Situation Of The Black Population In The United States, And Dangers With Which Its
Presence Threatens The Whites
Why it is more difficult to abolish slavery, and to efface all vestiges of it amongst the moderns
than it was amongst the ancients—In the United States the prejudices of the Whites against
the Blacks seem to increase in proportion as slavery is abolished—Situation of the Negroes in
the Northern and Southern States—Why the Americans abolish slavery—Servitude, which
debases the slave, impoverishes the master—Contrast between the left and the right bank of
the Ohio—To what attributable—The Black race, as well as slavery, recedes towards the
South—Explanation of this fact—Difficulties attendant upon the abolition of slavery in the
South—Dangers to come—General anxiety—Foundation of a Black colony in Africa—Why
the Americans of the South increase the hardships of slavery, whilst they are distressed at its
continuance.
The Indians will perish in the same isolated condition in which they have lived; but the
destiny of the negroes is in some measure interwoven with that of the Europeans. These two
races are attached to each other without intermingling, and they are alike unable entirely to
separate or to combine. The most formidable of all the ills which threaten the future existence
of the Union arises from the presence of a black population upon its territory; and in
contemplating the cause of the present embarrassments or of the future dangers of the United
States, the observer is invariably led to consider this as a primary fact.
The permanent evils to which mankind is subjected are usually produced by the vehement or
the increasing efforts of men; but there is one calamity which penetrated furtively into the
world, and which was at first scarcely distinguishable amidst the ordinary abuses of power; it
originated with an individual whose name history has not preserved; it was wafted like some
accursed germ upon a portion of the soil, but it afterwards nurtured itself, grew without effort,
and spreads naturally with the society to which it belongs. I need scarcely add that this
calamity is slavery. Christianity suppressed slavery, but the Christians of the sixteenth
century re-established it—as an exception, indeed, to their social system, and restricted to one
of the races of mankind; but the wound thus inflicted upon humanity, though less extensive,
was at the same time rendered far more difficult of cure.
It is important to make an accurate distinction between slavery itself and its consequences.
The immediate evils which are produced by slavery were very nearly the same in antiquity as
they are amongst the moderns; but the consequences of these evils were different. The slave,
amongst the ancients, belonged to the same race as his master, and he was often the superior
of the two in education 248 and instruction. Freedom was the only distinction between them;

by an experienced hand, one is astonished at the facility with which the author gets rid of all arguments founded
upon reason and natural right, which he designates as abstract and theoretical principles. The more I
contemplate the difference between civilized and uncivilized man with regard to the principles of justice, the
more I observe that the former contests the justice of those rights which the latter simply violates.
248
It is well known that several of the most distinguished authors of antiquity, and amongst them Aesop and
Terence, were, or had been slaves. Slaves were not always taken from barbarous nations, and the chances of war
reduced highly civilized men to servitude.
 239

and when freedom was conferred they were easily confounded together. The ancients, then,
had a very simple means of avoiding slavery and its evil consequences, which was that of
affranchisement; and they succeeded as soon as they adopted this measure generally. Not but,
in ancient States, the vestiges of servitude subsisted for some time after servitude itself was
abolished. There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been
their inferior long after he is become their equal; and the real inequality which is produced by
fortune or by law is always succeeded by an imaginary inequality which is implanted in the
manners of the people. Nevertheless, this secondary consequence of slavery was limited to a
certain term amongst the ancients, for the freedman bore so entire a resemblance to those
born free, that it soon became impossible to distinguish him from amongst them.
The greatest difficulty in antiquity was that of altering the law; amongst the moderns it is that
of altering the manners; and, as far as we are concerned, the real obstacles begin where those
of the ancients left off. This arises from the circumstance that, amongst the moderns, the
abstract and transient fact of slavery is fatally united to the physical and permanent fact of
color. The tradition of slavery dishonors the race, and the peculiarity of the race perpetuates
the tradition of slavery. No African has ever voluntarily emigrated to the shores of the New
World; whence it must be inferred, that all the blacks who are now to be found in that
hemisphere are either slaves or freedmen. Thus the negro transmits the eternal mark of his
ignominy to all his descendants; and although the law may abolish slavery, God alone can
obliterate the traces of its existence.
The modern slave differs from his master not only in his condition, but in his origin. You
may set the negro free, but you cannot make him otherwise than an alien to the European.
Nor is this all; we scarcely acknowledge the common features of mankind in this child of
debasement whom slavery has brought amongst us. His physiognomy is to our eyes hideous,
his understanding weak, his tastes low; and we are almost inclined to look upon him as a
being intermediate between man and the brutes. 249 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 born amongst men like ourselves by
nature, and equal to ourselves by law, to conceive the irreconcilable differences which
separate the negro from the European in America. But we may derive some faint notion of
them from analogy. France was formerly a country in which numerous distinctions of rank
existed, that had been created by the legislation. Nothing can be more fictitious than a purely
legal inferiority; nothing more contrary to the instinct of mankind than these permanent
divisions which had been established between beings evidently similar. Nevertheless these
divisions subsisted for ages; they still subsist in many places; and on all sides they have left
imaginary vestiges, which time alone can efface. If it be so difficult to root out an inequality
which solely originates in the law, how are those distinctions to be destroyed which seem to
be based upon the immutable laws of Nature herself? When I remember the extreme
difficulty with which aristocratic bodies, of whatever nature they may be, are commingled
with the mass of the people; and the exceeding care which they take to preserve the ideal
boundaries of their caste inviolate, I despair of seeing an aristocracy disappear which is
founded upon visible and indelible signs. Those who hope that the Europeans will ever mix

249
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.
 240

with the negroes, appear to me to delude themselves; and I am not led to any such conclusion
by my own reason, or by the evidence of facts.
Hitherto, wherever the whites have been the most powerful, they have maintained the blacks
in a subordinate or a servile position; wherever the negroes have been strongest they have
destroyed the whites; such has been the only retribution which has ever taken place between
the two races.
I see that in a certain portion of the territory of the United States at the present day, the legal
barrier which separated the two races is tending to fall away, but not that which exists in the
manners of the country; slavery recedes, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains
stationary. Whosoever has inhabited the United States must have perceived that in those parts
of the Union in which the negroes are no longer slaves, they have in no wise drawn nearer to
the whites. On the contrary, the prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States
which have abolished slavery, than in those where it still exists; and nowhere is it so
intolerant as in those States where servitude has never been known.
It is true, that in the North of the Union, marriages may be legally contracted between
negroes and whites; but public opinion would stigmatize a man who should connect himself
with a negress as infamous, and it would be difficult to meet with a single instance of such a
union. The electoral franchise has been conferred upon the negroes in almost all the States in
which slavery has been abolished; but if they come forward to vote, their lives are in danger.
If oppressed, they may bring an action at law, but they will find none but whites amongst
their judges; and although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice repulses them from that
office. The same schools do not receive the child of the black and of the European. In the
theatres, gold cannot procure a seat for the servile race beside their former masters; in the
hospitals they lie apart; and although they are allowed to invoke the same Divinity as the
whites, it must be at a different altar, and in their own churches, with their own clergy. The
gates of Heaven are not closed against these unhappy beings; but their inferiority is continued
to the very confines of the other world; when the negro is defunct, his bones are cast aside,
and the distinction of condition prevails even in the equality of death. The negro is free, but
he can share neither the rights, nor the pleasures, nor the labor, nor the afflictions, nor the
tomb of him whose equal he has been declared to be; and he cannot meet him upon fair terms
in life or in death.
In the South, where slavery still exists, the negroes are less carefully kept apart; they
sometimes share the labor and the recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix
with them to a certain extent, and although the legislation treats them more harshly, the habits
of the people are more tolerant and compassionate. In the South the master is not afraid to
raise his slave to his own standing, because he knows that he can in a moment reduce him to
the dust at pleasure. In the North the white no longer distinctly perceives the barrier which
separates him from the degraded race, and he shuns the negro with the more pertinacity, since
he fears lest they should some day be confounded together.
Amongst the Americans of the South, nature sometimes reasserts her rights, and restores a
transient equality between the blacks and the whites; but in the North pride restrains the most
imperious of human passions. The American of the Northern States would perhaps allow the
negress to share his licentious pleasures, if the laws of his country did not declare that she
may aspire to be the legitimate partner of his bed; but he recoils with horror from her who
might become his wife.
Thus it is, in the United States, that the prejudice which repels the negroes seems to increase
in proportion as they are emancipated, and inequality is sanctioned by the manners whilst it is
 241

effaced from the laws of the country. But if the relative position of the two races which
inhabit the United States is such as I have described, it may be asked why the Americans
have abolished slavery in the North of the Union, why they maintain it in the South, and why
they aggravate its hardships there? The answer is easily given. It is not for the good of the
negroes, but for that of the whites, that measures are taken to abolish slavery in the United
States.
The first negroes were imported into Virginia about the year 1621. 250 In America, therefore,
as well as in the rest of the globe, slavery originated in the South. Thence it spread from one
settlement to another; but the number of slaves diminished towards the Northern States, and
the negro population was always very limited in New England. 251
A century had scarcely elapsed since the foundation of the colonies, when the attention of the
planters was struck by the extraordinary fact, that the provinces which were comparatively
destitute of slaves, increased in population, in wealth, and in prosperity more rapidly than
those which contained the greatest number of negroes. In the former, however, the inhabitants
were obliged to cultivate the soil themselves, or by hired laborers; in the latter they were
furnished with hands for which they paid no wages; yet although labor and expenses were on
the one side, and ease with economy on the other, the former were in possession of the most
advantageous system. This consequence seemed to be the more difficult to explain, since the
settlers, who all belonged to the same European race, had the same habits, the same
civilization, the same laws, and their shades of difference were extremely slight.
Time, however, continued to advance, and the Anglo-Americans, spreading beyond the
coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, penetrated farther and farther into the solitudes of the West;
they met with a new soil and an unwonted climate; the obstacles which opposed them were of
the most various character; their races intermingled, the inhabitants of the South went up
towards the North, those of the North descended to the South; but in the midst of all these
causes, the same result occurred at every step, and in general, the colonies in which there
were no slaves became more populous and more rich than those in which slavery flourished.
The more progress was made, the more was it shown that slavery, which is so cruel to the
slave, is prejudicial to the master.

250
See Beverley’s “History of Virginia.” See also in Jefferson’s “Memoirs” some curious details concerning the
introduction of negroes into Virginia, and the first Act which prohibited the importation of them in 1778.
251
The number of slaves was less considerable in the North, but the advantages resulting from slavery were not
more contested there than in the South. In 1740, the Legislature of the State of New York declared that the
direct importation of slaves ought to be encouraged as much as possible, and smuggling severely punished in
order not to discourage the fair trader. (Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol. ii. p. 206.) Curious researches, by Belknap,
upon slavery in New England, are to be found in the “Historical Collection of Massachusetts,” vol. iv. p. 193. It
appears that negroes were introduced there in 1630, but that the legislation and manners of the people were
opposed to slavery from the first; see also, in the same work, the manner in which public opinion, and
afterwards the laws, finally put an end to slavery.
 242

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 4

But this truth was most satisfactorily demonstrated when civilization reached the banks of the
Ohio. The stream which the Indians had distinguished by the name of Ohio, or Beautiful
River, waters one of the most magnificent valleys that has ever been made the abode of man.
Undulating lands extend upon both shores of the Ohio, whose soil affords inexhaustible
treasures to the laborer; on either bank the air is wholesome and the climate mild, and each of
them forms the extreme frontier of a vast State: That which follows the numerous windings
of the Ohio upon the left is called Kentucky, that upon the right bears the name of the river.
These two States only differ in a single respect; Kentucky has admitted slavery, but the State
of Ohio has prohibited the existence of slaves within its borders. 252
Thus the traveller who floats down the current of the Ohio to the spot where that river falls
into the Mississippi, may be said to sail between liberty and servitude; and a transient
inspection of the surrounding objects will convince him as to which of the two is most
favorable to mankind. Upon the left bank of the stream the population is rare; from time to
time one descries a troop of slaves loitering in the half-desert fields; the primaeval forest
recurs at every turn; society seems to be asleep, man to be idle, and nature alone offers a
scene of activity and of life. From the right bank, on the contrary, a confused hum is heard
which proclaims the presence of industry; the fields are covered with abundant harvests, the
elegance of the dwellings announces the taste and activity of the laborer, and man appears to
be in the enjoyment of that wealth and contentment which is the reward of labor. 253
The State of Kentucky was founded in 1775, the State of Ohio only twelve years later; but
twelve years are more in America than half a century in Europe, and, at the present day, the
population of Ohio exceeds that of Kentucky by two hundred and fifty thousand souls. 254
These opposite consequences of slavery and freedom may readily be understood, and they
suffice to explain many of the differences which we remark between the civilization of
antiquity and that of our own time.
Upon the left bank of the Ohio labor is confounded with the idea of slavery, upon the right
bank it is identified with that of prosperity and improvement; on the one side it is degraded,
on the other it is honored; on the former territory no white laborers can be found, for they
would be afraid of assimilating themselves to the negroes; on the latter no one is idle, for the
white population extends its activity and its intelligence to every kind of employment. Thus
the men whose task it is to cultivate the rich soil of Kentucky are ignorant and lukewarm;
whilst those who are active and enlightened either do nothing or pass over into the State of
Ohio, where they may work without dishonor.
It is true that in Kentucky the planters are not obliged to pay wages to the slaves whom they
employ; but they derive small profits from their labor, whilst the wages paid to free workmen
would be returned with interest in the value of their services. The free workman is paid, but

252
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.
253
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.
254
The exact numbers given by the census of 1830 were: Kentucky, 688,-844; Ohio, 937,679. [In 1890 the
population of Ohio was 3,672,316, that of Kentucky, 1,858,635.]
 243

he does his work quicker than the slave, and rapidity of execution is one of the great elements
of economy. The white sells his services, but they are only purchased at the times at which
they may be useful; the black can claim no remuneration for his toil, but the expense of his
maintenance is perpetual; he must be supported in his old age as well as in the prime of
manhood, in his profitless infancy as well as in the productive years of youth. Payment must
equally be made in order to obtain the services of either class of men: the free workman
receives his wages in money, the slave in education, in food, in care, and in clothing. The
money which a master spends in the maintenance of his slaves goes gradually and in detail,
so that it is scarcely perceived; the salary of the free workman is paid in a round sum, which
appears only to enrich the individual who receives it, but in the end the slave has cost more
than the free servant, and his labor is less productive. 255
The influence of slavery extends still further; it affects the character of the master, and
imparts a peculiar tendency to his ideas and his tastes. Upon both banks of the Ohio, the
character of the inhabitants is enterprising and energetic; but this vigor is very differently
exercised in the two States. The white inhabitant of Ohio, who is obliged to subsist by his
own exertions, regards temporal prosperity as the principal aim of his existence; and as the
country which he occupies presents inexhaustible resources to his industry and ever-varying
lures to his activity, his acquisitive ardor surpasses the ordinary limits of human cupidity: he
is tormented by the desire of wealth, and he boldly enters upon every path which fortune
opens to him; he becomes a sailor, a pioneer, an artisan, or a laborer with the same
indifference, and he supports, with equal constancy, the fatigues and the dangers incidental to
these various professions; the resources of his intelligence are astonishing, and his avidity in
the pursuit of gain amounts to a species of heroism.
But the Kentuckian scorns not only labor, but all the undertakings which labor promotes; as
he lives in an idle independence, his tastes are those of an idle man; money loses a portion of
its value in his eyes; he covets wealth much less than pleasure and excitement; and the energy
which his neighbor devotes to gain, turns with him to a passionate love of field sports and
military exercises; he delights in violent bodily exertion, he is familiar with the use of arms,
and is accustomed from a very early age to expose his life in single combat. Thus slavery not
only prevents the whites from becoming opulent, but even from desiring to become so.
As the same causes have been continually producing opposite effects for the last two
centuries in the British colonies of North America, they have established a very striking
difference between the commercial capacity of the inhabitants of the South and those of the
North. At the present day it is only the Northern States which are in possession of shipping,
manufactures, railroads, and canals. This difference is perceptible not only in comparing the
North with the South, but in comparing the several Southern States. Almost all the
individuals who carry on commercial operations, or who endeavor to turn slave labor to
account in the most Southern districts of the Union, have emigrated from the North. The
natives of the Northern States are constantly spreading over that portion of the American

255
Independently of these causes, which, wherever free workmen abound, render their labor more productive
and more economical than that of slaves, another cause may be pointed out which is peculiar to the United
States: the sugar-cane has hitherto been cultivated with success only upon the banks of the Mississippi, near the
mouth of that river in the Gulf of Mexico. In Louisiana the cultivation of the sugar-cane is exceedingly
lucrative, and nowhere does a laborer earn so much by his work, and, as there is always a certain relation
between the cost of production and the value of the produce, the price of slaves is very high in Louisiana. But
Louisiana is one of the confederated States, and slaves may be carried thither from all parts of the Union; the
price given for slaves in New Orleans consequently raises the value of slaves in all the other markets. The
consequence of this is, that in the countries where the land is less productive, the cost of slave labor is still very
considerable, which gives an additional advantage to the competition of free labor.
 244

territory where they have less to fear from competition; they discover resources there which
escaped the notice of the inhabitants; and, as they comply with a system which they do not
approve, they succeed in turning it to better advantage than those who first founded and who
still maintain it.
Were I inclined to continue this parallel, I could easily prove that almost all the differences
which may be remarked between the characters of the Americans in the Southern and in the
Northern States have originated in slavery; but this would divert me from my subject, and my
present intention is not to point out all the consequences of servitude, but those effects which
it has produced upon the prosperity of the countries which have admitted it.
The influence of slavery upon the production of wealth must have been very imperfectly
known in antiquity, as slavery then obtained throughout the civilized world; and the nations
which were unacquainted with it were barbarous. And indeed Christianity only abolished
slavery by advocating the claims of the slave; at the present time it may be attacked in the
name of the master, and, upon this point, interest is reconciled with morality.
As these truths became apparent in the United States, slavery receded before the progress of
experience. Servitude had begun in the South, and had thence spread towards the North; but it
now retires again. Freedom, which started from the North, now descends uninterruptedly
towards the South. Amongst the great States, Pennsylvania now constitutes the extreme limit
of slavery to the North: but even within those limits the slave system is shaken: Maryland,
which is immediately below Pennsylvania, is preparing for its abolition; and Virginia, which
comes next to Maryland, is already discussing its utility and its dangers. 256
No great change takes place in human institutions without involving amongst its causes the
law of inheritance. When the law of primogeniture obtained in the South, each family was
represented by a wealthy individual, who was neither compelled nor induced to labor; and he
was surrounded, as by parasitic plants, by the other members of his family who were then
excluded by law from sharing the common inheritance, and who led the same kind of life as
himself. The very same thing then occurred in all the families of the South as still happens in
the wealthy families of some countries in Europe, namely, that the younger sons remain in
the same state of idleness as their elder brother, without being as rich as he is. This identical
result seems to be produced in Europe and in America by wholly analogous causes. In the
South of the United States the whole race of whites formed an aristocratic body, which was
headed by a certain number of privileged individuals, whose wealth was permanent, and
whose leisure was hereditary. These leaders of the American nobility kept alive the
traditional prejudices of the white race in the body of which they were the representatives,
and maintained the honor of inactive life. This aristocracy contained many who were poor,
but none who would work; its members preferred want to labor, consequently no competition
was set on foot against negro laborers and slaves, and, whatever opinion might be entertained
as to the utility of their efforts, it was indispensable to employ them, since there was no one
else to work.
No sooner was the law of primogeniture abolished than fortunes began to diminish, and all
the families of the country were simultaneously reduced to a state in which labor became

256
A peculiar reason contributes to detach the two last-mentioned States from the cause of slavery. The former
wealth of this part of the Union was principally derived from the cultivation of tobacco. This cultivation is
specially carried on by slaves; but within the last few years the market-price of tobacco has diminished, whilst
the value of the slaves remains the same. Thus the ratio between the cost of production and the value of the
produce is changed. The natives of Maryland and Virginia are therefore more disposed than they were thirty
years ago, to give up slave labor in the cultivation of tobacco, or to give up slavery and tobacco at the same
time.
 245

necessary to procure the means of subsistence: several of them have since entirely
disappeared, and all of them learned to look forward to the time at which it would be
necessary for everyone to provide for his own wants. Wealthy individuals are still to be met
with, but they no longer constitute a compact and hereditary body, nor have they been able to
adopt a line of conduct in which they could persevere, and which they could infuse into all
ranks of society. The prejudice which stigmatized labor was in the first place abandoned by
common consent; the number of needy men was increased, and the needy were allowed to
gain a laborious subsistence without blushing for their exertions. Thus one of the most
immediate consequences of the partible quality of estates has been to create a class of free
laborers. As soon as a competition was set on foot between the free laborer and the slave, the
inferiority of the latter became manifest, and slavery was attacked in its fundamental
principle, which is the interest of the master.
As slavery recedes, the black population follows its retrograde course, and returns with it
towards those tropical regions from which it originally came. However singular this fact may
at first appear to be, it may readily be explained. Although the Americans abolish the
principle of slavery, they do not set their slaves free. To illustrate this remark, I will quote the
example of the State of New York. In 1788, the State of New York prohibited the sale of
slaves within its limits, which was an indirect method of prohibiting the importation of
blacks. Thenceforward the number of negroes could only increase according to the ratio of
the natural increase of population. But eight years later a more decisive measure was taken,
and it was enacted that all children born of slave parents after July 4, 1799, should be free.
No increase could then take place, and although slaves still existed, slavery might be said to
be abolished.
From the time at which a Northern State prohibited the importation of slaves, no slaves were
brought from the South to be sold in its markets. On the other hand, as the sale of slaves was
forbidden in that State, an owner was no longer able to get rid of his slave (who thus became
a burdensome possession) otherwise than by transporting him to the South. But when a
Northern State declared that the son of the slave should be born free, the slave lost a large
portion of his market value, since his posterity was no longer included in the bargain, and the
owner had then a strong interest in transporting him to the South. Thus the same law prevents
the slaves of the South from coming to the Northern States, and drives those of the North to
the South.
The want of free hands is felt in a State in proportion as the number of slaves decreases. But
in proportion as labor is performed by free hands, slave labor becomes less productive; and
the slave is then a useless or onerous possession, whom it is important to export to those
Southern States where the same competition is not to be feared. Thus the abolition of slavery
does not set the slave free, but it merely transfers him from one master to another, and from
the North to the South.
The emancipated negroes, and those born after the abolition of slavery, do not, indeed,
migrate from the North to the South; but their situation with regard to the Europeans is not
unlike that of the aborigines of America; they remain half civilized, and deprived of their
rights in the midst of a population which is far superior to them in wealth and in knowledge;
where they are exposed to the tyranny of the laws 257 and the intolerance of the people. On
some accounts they are still more to be pitied than the Indians, since they are haunted by the

257
The States in which slavery is abolished usually do what they can to render their territory disagreeable to the
negroes as a place of residence; and as a kind of emulation exists between the different States in this respect, the
unhappy blacks can only choose the least of the evils which beset them.
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reminiscence of slavery, and they cannot claim possession of a single portion of the soil:
many of them perish miserably, 258 and the rest congregate 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 number of whites augments with twofold rapidity since the abolition
of slavery, the blacks would soon be, as it were, lost in the midst of a strange population.
A district which is cultivated by slaves is in general more scantily peopled than a district
cultivated by free labor: moreover, America is still a new country, and a State is therefore not
half peopled at the time when it abolishes slavery. No sooner is an end put to slavery than the
want of free labor is felt, and a crowd of enterprising adventurers immediately arrive from all
parts of the country, who hasten to profit by the fresh resources which are then opened to
industry. The soil is soon divided amongst them, and a family of white settlers takes
possession of each tract of country. Besides which, European emigration is exclusively
directed to the free States; for what would be the fate of a poor emigrant who crosses the
Atlantic in search of ease and happiness if he were to land in a country where labor is
stigmatized as degrading?
Thus the white population grows by its natural increase, and at the same time by the immense
influx of emigrants; whilst the black population receives no emigrants, and is upon its
decline. The proportion which existed between the two races is soon inverted. The negroes
constitute a scanty remnant, a poor tribe of vagrants, which is lost in the midst of an immense
people in full possession of the land; and the presence of the blacks is only marked by the
injustice and the hardships of which they are the unhappy victims.
In several of the Western States the negro race never made its appearance, and in all the
Northern States it is rapidly declining. Thus the great question of its future condition is
confined within a narrow circle, where it becomes less formidable, though not more easy of
solution.
The more we descend towards the South, the more difficult does it become to abolish slavery
with advantage: and this arises from several physical causes which it is important to point
out.
The first of these causes is the climate; it is well known that in proportion as Europeans
approach the tropics they suffer more from labor. Many of the Americans even assert that
within a certain latitude the exertions which a negro can make without danger are fatal to
them; 259 but I do not think that this opinion, which is so favorable to the indolence of the
inhabitants of southern regions, is confirmed by experience. The southern parts of the Union
are not hotter than the South of Italy and of Spain; 260 and it may be asked why the European

258
There is a very great difference between the mortality of the blacks and of the whites in the States in which
slavery is abolished; from 1820 to 1831 only one out of forty-two individuals of the white population died in
Philadelphia; but one negro out of twenty-one individuals of the black population died in the same space of
time. The mortality is by no means so great amongst the negroes who are still slaves. (See Emerson’s “Medical
Statistics,” p. 28.)
259
This is true of the spots in which rice is cultivated; rice-grounds, which are unwholesome in all countries, are
particularly dangerous in those regions which are exposed to the beams of a tropical sun. Europeans would not
find it easy to cultivate the soil in that part of the New World if it must be necessarily be made to produce rice;
but may they not subsist without rice-grounds?
260
These States are nearer to the equator than Italy and Spain, but the temperature of the continent of America is
very much lower than that of Europe.
 247

cannot work as well there as in the two latter countries. If slavery has been abolished in Italy
and in Spain without causing the destruction of the masters, why should not the same thing
take place in the Union? I cannot believe that nature has prohibited the Europeans in Georgia
and the Floridas, under pain of death, from raising the means of subsistence from the soil, but
their labor would unquestionably be more irksome and less productive to them than to the
inhabitants of New England. As the free workman thus loses a portion of his superiority over
the slave in the Southern States, there are fewer inducements to abolish slavery.
All the plants of Europe grow in the northern parts of the Union; the South has special
productions of its own. It has been observed that slave labor is a very expensive method of
cultivating corn. The farmer of corn land in a country where slavery is unknown habitually
retains a small number of laborers in his service, and at seed-time and harvest he hires several
additional hands, who only live at his cost for a short period. But the agriculturist in a slave
State is obliged to keep a large number of slaves the whole year round, in order to sow his
fields and to gather in his crops, although their services are only required for a few weeks; but
slaves are unable to wait till they are hired, and to subsist by their own labor in the mean time
like free laborers; in order to have their services they must be bought. Slavery, independently
of its general disadvantages, is therefore still more inapplicable to countries in which corn is
cultivated than to those which produce crops of a different kind. The cultivation of tobacco,
of cotton, and especially of the sugar-cane, demands, on the other hand, unremitting
attention: and women and children are employed in it, whose services are of but little use in
the cultivation of wheat. Thus slavery is naturally more fitted to the countries from which
these productions are derived. Tobacco, cotton, and the sugar-cane are exclusively grown in
the South, and they form one of the principal sources of the wealth of those States. If slavery
were abolished, the inhabitants of the South would be constrained to adopt one of two
alternatives: they must either change their system of cultivation, and then they would come
into competition with the more active and more experienced inhabitants of the North; or, if
they continued to cultivate the same produce without slave labor, they would have to support
the competition of the other States of the South, which might still retain their slaves. Thus,
peculiar reasons for maintaining slavery exist in the South which do not operate in the North.
But there is yet another motive which is more cogent than all the others: the South might
indeed, rigorously speaking, abolish slavery; but how should it rid its territory of the black
population? Slaves and slavery are driven from the North by the same law, but this twofold
result cannot be hoped for in the South.
The arguments which I have adduced to show that slavery is more natural and more
advantageous in the South than in the North, sufficiently prove that the number of slaves
must be far greater in the former districts. It was to the southern settlements that the first
Africans were brought, and it is there that the greatest number of them have always been
imported. As we advance towards the South, the prejudice which sanctions idleness increases
in power. In the States nearest to the tropics there is not a single white laborer; the negroes
are consequently much more numerous in the South than in the North. And, as I have already
observed, this disproportion increases daily, since the negroes are transferred to one part of
the Union as soon as slavery is abolished in the other. Thus the black population augments in
the South, not only by its natural fecundity, but by the compulsory emigration of the negroes

The Spanish Government formerly caused a certain number of peasants from the Acores to be transported into a
district of Louisiana called Attakapas, by way of experiment. These settlers still cultivate the soil without the
assistance of slaves, but their industry is so languid as scarcely to supply their most necessary wants.
 248

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 261 fifty-five per cent. Such was the
proportion of the black population to the whites in the year 1830. But this proportion is
perpetually changing, as it constantly decreases in the North and augments in the South.
It is evident that the most Southern States of the Union cannot abolish slavery without
incurring very great dangers, which the North had no reason to apprehend when it
emancipated its black population. We have already shown the system by which the Northern
States secure the transition from slavery to freedom, by keeping the present generation in
chains, and setting their descendants free; by this means the negroes are gradually introduced
into society; and whilst the men who might abuse their freedom are kept in a state of
servitude, those who are emancipated may learn the art of being free before they become their
own masters. But it would be difficult to apply this method in the South. To declare that all
the negroes born after a certain period shall be free, is to introduce the principle and the
notion of liberty into the heart of slavery; the blacks whom the law thus maintains in a state
of slavery from which their children are delivered, are astonished at so unequal a fate, and
their astonishment is only the prelude to their impatience and irritation. Thenceforward
slavery loses, in their eyes, that kind of moral power which it derived from time and habit; it
is reduced to a mere palpable abuse of force. The Northern States had nothing to fear from
the contrast, because in them the blacks were few in number, and the white population was
very considerable. But if this faint dawn of freedom were to show two millions of men their
true position, the oppressors would have reason to tremble. After having affranchised the
children of their slaves the Europeans of the Southern States would very shortly be obliged to
extend the same benefit to the whole black population.

261
We find it asserted in an American work, entitled “Letters on the Colonization Society,” by Mr. Carey, 1833,
“That for the last forty years the black race has increased more rapidly than the white race in the State of South
Carolina; and that if we take the average population of the five States of the South into which slaves were first
introduced, viz., Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia, we shall find that from 1790
to 1830 the whites have augmented in the proportion of 80 to 100, and the blacks in that of 112 to 100.”
In the United States, in 1830, the population of the two races stood as follows:—
States where slavery is abolished, 6,565,434 whites; 120,520 blacks. Slave States, 3,960,814 whites; 2,208,102
blacks. [In 1890 the United States contained a population of 54,983,890 whites, and 7,638,360 negroes.]
 249

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 5

In the North, as I have already remarked, a twofold migration ensues upon the abolition of
slavery, or even precedes that event when circumstances have rendered it probable; the slaves
quit the country to be transported southwards; and the whites of the Northern States, as well
as the emigrants from Europe, hasten to fill up their place. But these two causes cannot
operate in the same manner in the Southern States. On the one hand, the mass of slaves is too
great for any expectation of their ever being removed from the country to be entertained; and
on the other hand, the Europeans and Anglo-Americans of the North are afraid to come to
inhabit a country in which labor has not yet been reinstated in its rightful honors. Besides,
they very justly look upon the States in which the proportion of the negroes equals or exceeds
that of the whites, as exposed to very great dangers; and they refrain from turning their
activity in that direction.
Thus the inhabitants of the South would not be able, like their Northern countrymen, to
initiate the slaves gradually into a state of freedom by abolishing slavery; they have no means
of perceptibly diminishing the black population, and they would remain unsupported to
repress its excesses. So that in the course of a few years, a great people of free negroes would
exist in the heart of a white nation of equal size.
The same abuses of power which still maintain slavery, would then become the source of the
most alarming perils which the white population of the South might have to apprehend. At
the present time the descendants of the Europeans are the sole owners of the land; the
absolute masters of all labor; and the only persons who are possessed of wealth, knowledge,
and arms. The black is destitute of all these advantages, but he subsists without them because
he is a slave. If he were free, and obliged to provide for his own subsistence, would it be
possible for him to remain without these things and to support life? Or would not the very
instruments of the present superiority of the white, whilst slavery exists, expose him to a
thousand dangers if it were abolished?
As long as the negro remains a slave, he may be kept in a condition not very far removed
from that of the brutes; but, with his liberty, he cannot but acquire a degree of instruction
which will enable him to appreciate his misfortunes, and to discern a remedy for them.
Moreover, there exists a singular principle of relative justice which is very firmly implanted
in the human heart. Men are much more forcibly struck by those inequalities which exist
within the circle of the same class, than with those which may be remarked between different
classes. It is more easy for them to admit slavery, than to allow several millions of citizens to
exist under a load of eternal infamy and hereditary wretchedness. In the North the population
of freed negroes feels these hardships and resents these indignities; but its numbers and its
powers are small, whilst in the South it would be numerous and strong.
As soon as it is admitted that the whites and the emancipated blacks are placed upon the same
territory in the situation of two alien communities, it will readily be understood that there are
but two alternatives for the future; the negroes and the whites must either wholly part or
wholly mingle. I have already expressed the conviction which I entertain as to the latter
event. 262 I do not imagine that the white and black races will ever live in any country upon an

262
This opinion is sanctioned by authorities infinitely weightier than anything that I can say: thus, for instance,
it is stated in the “Memoirs of Jefferson” (as collected by M. Conseil), “Nothing is more clearly written in the
book of destiny than the emancipation of the blacks; and it is equally certain that the two races will never live in
 250

equal footing. But I believe the difficulty to be still greater in the United States than
elsewhere. An isolated individual may surmount the prejudices of religion, of his country, or
of his race, and if this individual is a king he may effect surprising changes in society; but a
whole people cannot rise, as it were, above itself. A despot who should subject the Americans
and their former slaves to the same yoke, might perhaps succeed in commingling their races;
but as long as the American democracy remains at the head of affairs, no one will undertake
so difficult a task; and it may be foreseen that the freer the white population of the United
States becomes, the more isolated will it remain. 263
I have previously observed that the mixed race is the true bond of union between the
Europeans and the Indians; just so the mulattoes are the true means of transition between the
white and the negro; so that wherever mulattoes abound, the intermixture of the two races is
not impossible. In some parts of America, the European and the negro races are so crossed by
one another, that it is rare to meet with a man who is entirely black, or entirely white: when
they are arrived at this point, the two races may really be said to be combined; or rather to
have been absorbed in a third race, which is connected with both without being identical with
either.
Of all the Europeans the English are those who have mixed least with the negroes. More
mulattoes are to be seen in the South of the Union than in the North, but still they are
infinitely more scarce than in any other European colony: mulattoes are by no means
numerous in the United States; they have no force peculiar to themselves, and when quarrels
originating in differences of color take place, they generally side with the whites; just as the
lackeys of the great, in Europe, assume the contemptuous airs of nobility to the lower orders.
The pride of origin, which is natural to the English, is singularly augmented by the personal
pride which democratic liberty fosters amongst the Americans: the white citizen of the United
States is proud of his race, and proud of himself. But if the whites and the negroes do not
intermingle in the North of the Union, how should they mix in the South? Can it be supposed
for an instant, that an American of the Southern States, placed, as he must forever be,
between the white man with all his physical and moral superiority and the negro, will ever
think of preferring the latter? The Americans of the Southern States have two powerful
passions which will always keep them aloof; the first is the fear of being assimilated to the
negroes, their former slaves; and the second the dread of sinking below the whites, their
neighbors.
If I were called upon to predict what will probably occur at some future time, I should say,
that the abolition of slavery in the South will, in the common course of things, increase the
repugnance of the white population for the men of color. I found this opinion upon the
analogous observation which I already had occasion to make in the North. I there remarked
that the white inhabitants of the North avoid the negroes with increasing care, in proportion
as the legal barriers of separation are removed by the legislature; and why should not the
same result take place in the South? In the North, the whites are deterred from intermingling
with the blacks by the fear of an imaginary danger; in the South, where the danger would be
real, I cannot imagine that the fear would be less general.
If, on the one hand, it be admitted (and the fact is unquestionable) that the colored population
perpetually accumulates in the extreme South, and that it increases more rapidly than that of

a state of equal freedom under the same government, so insurmountable are the barriers which nature, habit, and
opinions have established between them.”
263
If the British West India planters had governed themselves, they would assuredly not have passed the Slave
Emancipation Bill which the mother-country has recently imposed upon them.
 251

the whites; and if, on the other hand, it be allowed that it is impossible to foresee a time at
which the whites and the blacks will be so intermingled as to derive the same benefits from
society; must it not be inferred that the blacks and the whites will, sooner or later, come to
open strife in the Southern States of the Union? But if it be asked what the issue of the
struggle is likely to be, it will readily be understood that we are here left to form a very vague
surmise of the truth. The human mind may succeed in tracing a wide circle, as it were, which
includes the course of future events; but within that circle a thousand various chances and
circumstances may direct it in as many different ways; and in every picture of the future there
is a dim spot, which the eye of the understanding cannot penetrate. It appears, however, to be
extremely probable that in the West Indian Islands the white race is destined to be subdued,
and the black population to share the same fate upon the continent.
In the West India Islands the white planters are surrounded by an immense black population;
on the continent, the blacks are placed between the ocean and an innumerable people, which
already extends over them in a dense mass, from the icy confines of Canada to the frontiers of
Virginia, and from the banks of the Missouri to the shores of the Atlantic. If the white
citizens of North America remain united, it cannot be supposed that the negroes will escape
the destruction with which they are menaced; they must be subdued by want or by the sword.
But the black population which is accumulated along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, has a
chance of success if the American Union is dissolved when the struggle between the two
races begins. If the federal tie were broken, the citizens of the South would be wrong to rely
upon any lasting succor from their Northern countrymen. The latter are well aware that the
danger can never reach them; and unless they are constrained to march to the assistance of the
South by a positive obligation, it may be foreseen that the sympathy of color will be
insufficient to stimulate their exertions.
Yet, at whatever period the strife may break out, the whites of the South, even if they are
abandoned to their own resources, will enter the lists with an immense superiority of
knowledge and of the means of warfare; but the blacks will have numerical strength and the
energy of despair upon their side, and these are powerful resources to men who have taken up
arms. The fate of the white population of the Southern States will, perhaps, be similar to that
of the Moors in Spain. After having occupied the land for centuries, it will perhaps be forced
to retire to the country whence its ancestors came, and to abandon to the negroes the
possession of a territory, which Providence seems to have more peculiarly destined for them,
since they can subsist and labor in it more easily that the whites.
The danger of a conflict between the white and the black inhabitants of the Southern States of
the Union—a danger which, however remote it may be, is inevitable—perpetually haunts the
imagination of the Americans. The inhabitants of the North make it a common topic of
conversation, although they have no direct injury to fear from the struggle; but they vainly
endeavor to devise some means of obviating the misfortunes which they foresee. In the
Southern States the subject is not discussed: the planter does not allude to the future in
conversing with strangers; the citizen does not communicate his apprehensions to his friends;
he seeks to conceal them from himself; but there is something more alarming in the tacit
forebodings of the South, than in the clamorous fears of the Northern States.
This all-pervading disquietude has given birth to an undertaking which is but little known,
but which may have the effect of changing the fate of a portion of the human race. From
apprehension of the dangers which I have just been describing, a certain number of American
citizens have formed a society for the purpose of exporting to the coast of Guinea, at their
own expense, such free negroes as may be willing to escape from the oppression to which
 252

they are subject. 264 In 1820, the society to which I allude formed a settlement in Africa, upon
the seventh degree of north latitude, which bears the name of Liberia. The most recent
intelligence informs us that 2,500 negroes are collected there; they have introduced the
democratic institutions of America into the country of their forefathers; and Liberia has a
representative system of government, negro jurymen, negro magistrates, and negro priests;
churches have been built, newspapers established, and, by a singular change in the
vicissitudes of the world, white men are prohibited from sojourning within the settlement. 265
This is indeed a strange caprice of fortune. Two hundred years have now elapsed since the
inhabitants of Europe undertook to tear the negro from his family and his home, in order to
transport him to the shores of North America; at the present day, the European settlers are
engaged in sending back the descendants of those very negroes to the Continent from which
they were originally taken; and the barbarous Africans have been brought into contact with
civilization in the midst of bondage, and have become acquainted with free political
institutions in slavery. Up to the present time Africa has been closed against the arts and
sciences of the whites; but the inventions of Europe will perhaps penetrate into those regions,
now that they are introduced by Africans themselves. The settlement of Liberia is founded
upon a lofty and a most fruitful idea; but whatever may be its results with regard to the
Continent of Africa, it can afford no remedy to the New World.
In twelve years the Colonization Society has transported 2,500 negroes to Africa; in the same
space of time about 700,000 blacks were born in the United States. If the colony of Liberia
were so situated as to be able to receive thousands of new inhabitants every year, and if the
negroes were in a state to be sent thither with advantage; if the Union were to supply the
society with annual subsidies, 266 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. 267 The negro race will never leave those shores of the American
continent, to which it was brought by the passions and the vices of Europeans; and it will not
disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist. The inhabitants of the United
States may retard the calamities which they apprehend, but they cannot now destroy their
efficient cause.
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,

264
This society assumed the name of “The Society for the Colonization of the Blacks.” See its annual reports;
and more particularly the fifteenth. See also the pamphlet, to which allusion has already been made, entitled
“Letters on the Colonization Society, and on its probable Results,” by Mr. Carey, Philadelphia, 1833.
265
This last regulation was laid down by the founders of the settlement; they apprehended that a state of things
might arise in Africa similar to that which exists on the frontiers of the United States, and that if the negroes,
like the Indians, were brought into collision with a people more enlightened than themselves, they would be
destroyed before they could be civilized.
266
Nor would these be the only difficulties attendant upon the undertaking; if the Union undertook to buy up the
negroes now in America, in order to transport them to Africa, the price of slaves, increasing with their scarcity,
would soon become enormous; and the States of the North would never consent to expend such great sums for a
purpose which would procure such small advantages to themselves. If the Union took possession of the slaves in
the Southern States by force, or at a rate determined by law, an insurmountable resistance would arise in that
part of the country. Both alternatives are equally impossible.
267
In 1830 there were in the United States 2,010,327 slaves and 319,439 free blacks, in all 2,329,766 negroes:
which formed about one-fifth of the total population of the United States at that time.
 253

they will speedily declare themselves as enemies. In the North everything contributed to
facilitate the emancipation of the slaves; and slavery was abolished, without placing the free
negroes in a position which could become formidable, since their number was too small for
them ever to claim the exercise of their rights. But such is not the case in the South. The
question of slavery was a question of commerce and manufacture for the slave-owners in the
North; for those of the South, it is a question of life and death. God forbid that I should seek
to justify the principle of negro slavery, as has been done by some American writers! But I
only observe that all the countries which formerly adopted that execrable principle are not
equally able to abandon it at the present time.
When I contemplate the condition of the South, I can only discover two alternatives which
may be adopted by the white inhabitants of those States; viz., either to emancipate the
negroes, and to intermingle with them; or, remaining isolated from them, to keep them in a
state of slavery as long as possible. All intermediate measures seem to me likely to terminate,
and that shortly, in the most horrible of civil wars, and perhaps in the extirpation of one or
other of the two races. Such is the view which the Americans of the South take of the
question, and they act consistently with it. As they are determined not to mingle with the
negroes, they refuse to emancipate them.
Not that the inhabitants of the South regard slavery as necessary to the wealth of the planter,
for on this point many of them agree with their Northern countrymen in freely admitting that
slavery is prejudicial to their interest; but they are convinced that, however prejudicial it may
be, they hold their lives upon no other tenure. The instruction which is now diffused in the
South has convinced the inhabitants that slavery is injurious to the slave-owner, but it has
also shown them, more clearly than before, that no means exist of getting rid of its bad
consequences. Hence arises a singular contrast; the more the utility of slavery is contested,
the more firmly is it established in the laws; and whilst the principle of servitude is gradually
abolished in the North, that self-same principle gives rise to more and more rigorous
consequences in the South.
The legislation of the Southern States with regard to slaves, presents at the present day such
unparalleled atrocities as suffice to show how radically the laws of humanity have been
perverted, and to betray the desperate position of the community in which that legislation has
been promulgated. The Americans of this portion of the Union have not, indeed, augmented
the hardships of slavery; they have, on the contrary, bettered the physical condition of the
slaves. The only means by which the ancients maintained slavery were fetters and death; the
Americans of the South of the Union have discovered more intellectual securities for the
duration of their power. They have employed their despotism and their violence against the
human mind. In antiquity, precautions were taken to prevent the slave from breaking his
chains; at the present day measures are adopted to deprive him even of the desire of freedom.
The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage, but they placed no restraint upon the
mind and no check upon education; and they acted consistently with their established
principle, since a natural termination of slavery then existed, and one day or other the slave
might be set free, and become the equal of his master. But the Americans of the South, who
do not admit that the negroes can ever be commingled with themselves, have forbidden them
to be taught to read or to write, under severe penalties; and as they will not raise them to their
own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes.
The hope of liberty had always been allowed to the slave to cheer the hardships of his
condition. But the Americans of the South are well aware that emancipation cannot but be
dangerous, when the freed man can never be assimilated to his former master. To give a man
his freedom, and to leave him in wretchedness and ignominy, is nothing less than to prepare a
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future chief for a revolt of the slaves. Moreover, it has long been remarked that the presence
of a free negro vaguely agitates the minds of his less fortunate brethren, and conveys to them
a dim notion of their rights. The Americans of the South have consequently taken measures to
prevent slave-owners from emancipating their slaves in most cases; not indeed by a positive
prohibition, but by subjecting that step to various forms which it is difficult to comply with. I
happened to meet with an old man, in the South of the Union, who had lived in illicit
intercourse with one of his negresses, and had had several children by her, who were born the
slaves of their father. He had indeed frequently thought of bequeathing to them at least their
liberty; but years had elapsed without his being able to surmount the legal obstacles to their
emancipation, and in the mean while his old age was come, and he was about to die. He
pictured to himself his sons dragged from market to market, and passing from the authority of
a parent to the rod of the stranger, until these horrid anticipations worked his expiring
imagination into frenzy. When I saw him he was a prey to all the anguish of despair, and he
made me feel how awful is the retribution of nature upon those who have broken her laws.
These evils are unquestionably great; but they are the necessary and foreseen consequence of
the very principle of modern slavery. When the Europeans chose their slaves from a race
differing from their own, which many of them considered as inferior to the other races of
mankind, and which they all repelled with horror from any notion of intimate connection,
they must have believed that slavery would last forever; since there is no intermediate state
which can be durable between the excessive inequality produced by servitude and the
complete equality which originates in independence. The Europeans did imperfectly feel this
truth, but without acknowledging it even to themselves. Whenever they have had to do with
negroes, their conduct has either been dictated by their interest and their pride, or by their
compassion. They first violated every right of humanity by their treatment of the negro and
they afterwards informed him that those rights were precious and inviolable. They affected to
open their ranks to the slaves, but the negroes who attempted to penetrate into the community
were driven back with scorn; and they have incautiously and involuntarily been led to admit
of freedom instead of slavery, without having the courage to be wholly iniquitous, or wholly
just.
If it be impossible to anticipate a period at which the Americans of the South will mingle
their blood with that of the negroes, can they allow their slaves to become free without
compromising their own security? And if they are obliged to keep that race in bondage in
order to save their own families, may they not be excused for availing themselves of the
means best adapted to that end? The events which are taking place in the Southern States of
the Union appear to me to be at once the most horrible and the most natural results of slavery.
When I see the order of nature overthrown, and when I hear the cry of humanity in its vain
struggle against the laws, my indignation does not light upon the men of our own time who
are the instruments of these outrages; but I reserve my execration for those who, after a
thousand years of freedom, brought back slavery into the world once more.
Whatever may be the efforts of the Americans of the South to maintain slavery, they will not
always succeed. Slavery, which is now confined to a single tract of the civilized earth, which
is attacked by Christianity as unjust, and by political economy as prejudicial; and which is
now contrasted with democratic liberties and the information of our age, cannot survive. By
the choice of the master, or by the will of the slave, it will cease; and in either case great
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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. 268

268
[This chapter is no longer applicable to the condition of the negro race in the United States, since the
abolition of slavery was the result, though not the object, of the great Civil War, and the negroes have been
raised to the condition not only of freedmen, but of citizens; and in some States they exercise a preponderating
political power by reason of their numerical majority. Thus, in South Carolina there were in 1870, 289,667
whites and 415,814 blacks. But the emancipation of the slaves has not solved the problem, how two races so
different and so hostile are to live together in peace in one country on equal terms. That problem is as difficult,
perhaps more difficult than ever; and to this difficulty the author’s remarks are still perfectly applicable.]
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XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 6

What Are The Chances In Favor Of The Duration Of The American Union, And What
Dangers Threaten It 269
Reason for which the preponderating force lies in the States rather than in the Union—The
Union will only last as long as all the States choose to belong to it—Causes which tend to
keep them united—Utility of the Union to resist foreign enemies, and to prevent the existence
of foreigners in America—No natural barriers between the several States—No conflicting
interests to divide them—Reciprocal interests of the Northern, Southern, and Western
States—Intellectual ties of union—Uniformity of opinions—Dangers of the Union resulting
from the different characters and the passions of its citizens—Character of the citizens in the
South and in the North—The rapid growth of the Union one of its greatest dangers—
Progress of the population to the Northwest—Power gravitates in the same direction—
Passions originating from sudden turns of fortune—Whether the existing Government of the
Union tends to gain strength, or to lose it—Various signs of its decrease—Internal
improvements—Waste lands—Indians—The Bank—The Tariff—General Jackson.

269
This chapter is one of the most curious and interesting portions of the work, because it embraces almost all
the constitutional and social questions which were raised by the great secession of the South and decided by the
results of the Civil War. But it must be confessed that the sagacity of the author is sometimes at fault in these
speculations, and did not save him from considerable errors, which the course of events has since made
apparent. He held that “the legislators of the Constitution of 1789 were not appointed to constitute the
government of a single people, but to regulate the association of several States; that the Union was formed by
the voluntary agreement of the States, and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality, nor have
they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people.” Whence he inferred that “if one of the States
chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and that the
Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right.” This is
the Southern theory of the Constitution, and the whole case of the South in favor of secession. To many
Europeans, and to some American (Northern) jurists, this view appeared to be sound; but it was vigorously
resisted by the North, and crushed by force of arms.
The author of this book was mistaken in supposing that the “Union was a vast body which presents no definite
object to patriotic feeling.” When the day of trial came, millions of men were ready to lay down their lives for it.
He was also mistaken in supposing that the Federal Executive is so weak that it requires the free consent of the
governed to enable it to subsist, and that it would be defeated in a struggle to maintain the Union against one or
more separate States. In 1861 nine States, with a population of 8,753,000, seceded, and maintained for four
years a resolute but unequal contest for independence, but they were defeated.
Lastly, the author was mistaken in supposing that a community of interests would always prevail between North
and South sufficiently powerful to bind them together. He overlooked the influence which the question of
slavery must have on the Union the moment that the majority of the people of the North declared against it. In
1831, when the author visited America, the anti-slavery agitation had scarcely begun; and the fact of Southern
slavery was accepted by men of all parties, even in the States where there were no slaves: and that was
unquestionably the view taken by all the States and by all American statesmen at the time of the adoption of the
Constitution, in 1789. But in the course of thirty years a great change took place, and the North refused to
perpetuate what had become the “peculiar institution” of the South, especially as it gave the South a species of
aristocratic preponderance. The result was the ratification, in December, 1865, of the celebrated 13th article or
amendment of the Constitution, which declared that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude—except as a
punishment for crime—shall exist within the United States.” To which was soon afterwards added the 15th
article, “The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on
account of race, color, or previous servitude.” The emancipation of several millions of negro slaves without
compensation, and the transfer to them of political preponderance in the States in which they outnumber the
white population, were acts of the North totally opposed to the interests of the South, and which could only have
been carried into effect by conquest.—Translator’s Note.]
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The maintenance of the existing institutions of the several States depends in some measure
upon the maintenance of the Union itself. It is therefore important in the first instance to
inquire into the probable fate of the Union. One point may indeed be assumed at once: if the
present confederation were dissolved, it appears to me to be incontestable that the States of
which it is now composed would not return to their original isolated condition, but that
several unions would then be formed in the place of one. It is not my intention to inquire into
the principles upon which these new unions would probably be established, but merely to
show what the causes are which may effect the dismemberment of the existing confederation.
With this object I shall be obliged to retrace some of the steps which I have already taken,
and to revert to topics which I have before discussed. I am aware that the reader may accuse
me of repetition, but the importance of the matter which still remains to be treated is my
excuse; I had rather say too much, than say too little to be thoroughly understood, and I prefer
injuring the author to slighting the subject.
The legislators who formed the Constitution of 1789 endeavored to confer a distinct and
preponderating authority upon the federal power. But they were confined by the conditions of
the task which they had undertaken to perform. They were not appointed to constitute the
government of a single people, but to regulate the association of several States; and, whatever
their inclinations might be, they could not but divide the exercise of sovereignty in the end.
In order to understand the consequences of this division, it is necessary to make a short
distinction between the affairs of the Government. There are some objects which are national
by their very nature, that is to say, which affect the nation as a body, and can only be
intrusted to the man or the assembly of men who most completely represent the entire nation.
Amongst these may be reckoned war and diplomacy. There are other objects which are
provincial by their very nature, that is to say, which only affect certain localities, and which
can only be properly treated in that locality. Such, for instance, is the budget of a
municipality. Lastly, there are certain objects of a mixed nature, which are national inasmuch
as they affect all the citizens who compose the nation, and which are provincial inasmuch as
it is not necessary that the nation itself should provide for them all. Such are the rights which
regulate the civil and political condition of the citizens. No society can exist without civil and
political rights. These rights therefore interest all the citizens alike; but it is not always
necessary to the existence and the prosperity of the nation that these rights should be uniform,
nor, consequently, that they should be regulated by the central authority.
There are, then, two distinct categories of objects which are submitted to the direction of the
sovereign power; and these categories occur in all well-constituted communities, whatever
the basis of the political constitution may otherwise be. Between these two extremes the
objects which I have termed mixed may be considered to lie. As these objects are neither
exclusively national nor entirely provincial, they may be obtained by a national or by a
provincial government, according to the agreement of the contracting parties, without in any
way impairing the contract of association.
The sovereign power is usually formed by the union of separate individuals, who compose a
people; and individual powers or collective forces, each representing a very small portion of
the sovereign authority, are the sole elements which are subjected to the general Government
of their choice. In this case the general Government is more naturally called upon to regulate,
not only those affairs which are of essential national importance, but those which are of a
more local interest; and the local governments are reduced to that small share of sovereign
authority which is indispensable to their prosperity.
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But sometimes the sovereign authority is composed of preorganized political bodies, by

virtue of circumstances anterior to their union; and in this case the provincial governments
assume the control, not only of those affairs which more peculiarly belong to their province,
but of all, or of a part of the mixed affairs to which allusion has been made. For the
confederate nations which were independent sovereign States before their union, and which
still represent a very considerable share of the sovereign power, have only consented to cede
to the general Government the exercise of those rights which are indispensable to the Union.
When the national Government, independently of the prerogatives inherent in its nature, is
invested with the right of regulating the affairs which relate partly to the general and partly to
the local interests, it possesses a preponderating influence. Not only are its own rights
extensive, but all the rights which it does not possess exist by its sufferance, and it may be
apprehended that the provincial governments may be deprived of their natural and necessary
prerogatives by its influence.
When, on the other hand, the provincial governments are invested with the power of
regulating those same affairs of mixed interest, an opposite tendency prevails in society. The
preponderating force resides in the province, not in the nation; and it may be apprehended
that the national Government may in the end be stripped of the privileges which are necessary
to its existence.
Independent nations have therefore a natural tendency to centralization, and confederations to
dismemberment.
It now only remains for us to apply these general principles to the American Union. The
several States were necessarily possessed of the right of regulating all exclusively provincial
affairs. Moreover these same States retained the rights of determining the civil and political
competency of the citizens, or regulating the reciprocal relations of the members of the
community, and of dispensing justice; rights which are of a general nature, but which do not
necessarily appertain to the national Government. We have shown that the Government of the
Union is invested with the power of acting in the name of the whole nation in those cases in
which the nation has to appear as a single and undivided power; as, for instance, in foreign
relations, and in offering a common resistance to a common enemy; in short, in conducting
those affairs which I have styled exclusively national.
In this division of the rights of sovereignty, the share of the Union seems at first sight to be
more considerable than that of the States; but a more attentive investigation shows it to be
less so. The undertakings of the Government of the Union are more vast, but their influence is
more rarely felt. Those of the provincial governments are comparatively small, but they are
incessant, and they serve to keep alive the authority which they represent. The Government of
the Union watches the general interests of the country; but the general interests of a people
have a very questionable influence upon individual happiness, whilst provincial interests
produce a most immediate effect upon the welfare of the inhabitants. The Union secures the
independence and the greatness of the nation, which do not immediately affect private
citizens; but the several States maintain the liberty, regulate the rights, protect the fortune,
and secure the life and the whole future prosperity of every citizen.
The Federal Government is very far removed from its subjects, whilst the provincial
governments are within the reach of them all, and are ready to attend to the smallest appeal.
The central Government has upon its side the passions of a few superior men who aspire to
conduct it; but upon the side of the provincial governments are the interests of all those
second-rate individuals who can only hope to obtain power within their own State, and who
nevertheless exercise the largest share of authority over the people because they are placed
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nearest to its level. The Americans have therefore much more to hope and to fear from the
States than from the Union; and, in conformity with the natural tendency of the human mind,
they are more likely to attach themselves to the former than to the latter. In this respect their
habits and feelings harmonize with their interests.
When a compact nation divides its sovereignty, and adopts a confederate form of
government, the traditions, the customs, and the manners of the people are for a long time at
variance with their legislation; and the former tend to give a degree of influence to the central
government which the latter forbids. When a number of confederate states unite to form a
single nation, the same causes operate in an opposite direction. I have no doubt that if France
were to become a confederate republic like that of the United States, the government would at
first display more energy than that of the Union; and if the Union were to alter its constitution
to a monarchy like that of France, I think that the American Government would be a long
time in acquiring the force which now rules the latter nation. When the national existence of
the Anglo-Americans began, their provincial existence was already of long standing;
necessary relations were established between the townships and the individual citizens of the
same States; and they were accustomed to consider some objects as common to them all, and
to conduct other affairs as exclusively relating to their own special interests.
The Union is a vast body which presents no definite object to patriotic feeling. The forms and
limits of the State are distinct and circumscribed; since it represents a certain number of
objects which are familiar to the citizens and beloved by all. It is identified with the very soil,
with the right of property and the domestic affections, with the recollections of the past, the
labors of the present, and the hopes of the future. Patriotism, then, which is frequently a mere
extension of individual egotism, is still directed to the State, and is not excited by the Union.
Thus the tendency of the interests, the habits, and the feelings of the people is to centre
political activity in the States, in preference to the Union.
It is easy to estimate the different forces of the two governments, by remarking the manner in
which they fulfil their respective functions. Whenever the government of a State has occasion
to address an individual or an assembly of individuals, its language is clear and imperative;
and such is also the tone of the Federal Government in its intercourse with individuals, but no
sooner has it anything to do with a State than it begins to parley, to explain its motives and to
justify its conduct, to argue, to advise, and, in short, anything but to command. If doubts are
raised as to the limits of the constitutional powers of each government, the provincial
government prefers its claim with boldness, and takes prompt and energetic steps to support
it. In the mean while the Government of the Union reasons; it appeals to the interests, to the
good sense, to the glory of the nation; it temporizes, it negotiates, and does not consent to act
until it is reduced to the last extremity. At first sight it might readily be imagined that it is the
provincial government which is armed with the authority of the nation, and that Congress
represents a single State.
The Federal Government is, therefore, notwithstanding the precautions of those who founded
it, naturally so weak that it more peculiarly requires the free consent of the governed to
enable it to subsist. It is easy to perceive that its object is to enable the States to realize with
facility their determination of remaining united; and, as long as this preliminary condition
exists, its authority is great, temperate, and effective. The Constitution fits the Government to
control individuals, and easily to surmount such obstacles as they may be inclined to offer;
but it was by no means established with a view to the possible separation of one or more of
the States from the Union.
If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with that of the States at the
present day, its defeat may be confidently predicted; and it is not probable that such a
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struggle would be seriously undertaken. As often as a steady resistance is offered to the

Federal Government it will be found to yield. Experience has hitherto shown that whenever a
State has demanded anything with perseverance and resolution, it has invariably succeeded;
and that if a separate government has distinctly refused to act, it was left to do as it thought
fit. 270
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. 271 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 admitted as the foundation of its constitution. The Union was
formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and, in uniting together, they have not
forfeited their nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same
people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult
to disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would have no means of
maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right. In order to enable the Federal
Government easily to conquer the resistance which may be offered to it by any one of its
subjects, it would be necessary that one or more of them should be specially interested in the
existence of the Union, as has frequently been the case in the history of confederations.
If it be supposed that amongst the States which are united by the federal tie there are some
which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity depends on
the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the
central Government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the Government would then
be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature. States
form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just
alluded to, the Federal Government would derive its power from the unequal distribution of
those benefits amongst the States.
If one of the confederate States have acquired a preponderance sufficiently great to enable it
to take exclusive possession of the central authority, it will consider the other States as
subject provinces, and it will cause its own supremacy to be respected under the borrowed
name of the sovereignty of the Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the
Federal Government, but in reality that Government will have ceased to exist. 272 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.

270
See the conduct of the Northern States in the war of 1812. “During that war,” says Jefferson in a letter to
General Lafayette, “four of the Eastern States were only attached to the Union, like so many inanimate bodies to
living men.”
271
The profound peace of the Union affords no pretext for a standing army; and without a standing army a
government is not prepared to profit by a favorable opportunity to conquer resistance, and take the sovereign
power by surprise. [This note, and the paragraph in the text which precedes, have been shown by the results of
the Civil War to be a misconception of the writer.]
272
Thus the province of Holland in the republic of the Low Countries, and the Emperor in the Germanic
Confederation, have sometimes put themselves in the place of the union, and have employed the federal
authority to their own advantage.
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In America the existing Union is advantageous to all the States, but it is not indispensable to
any one of them. Several of them might break the federal tie without compromising the
welfare of the others, although their own prosperity would be lessened. As the existence and
the happiness of none of the States are wholly dependent on the present Constitution, they
would none of them be disposed to make great personal sacrifices to maintain it. On the other
hand, there is no State which seems hitherto to have its ambition much interested in the
maintenance of the existing Union. They certainly do not all exercise the same influence in
the federal councils, but no one of them can hope to domineer over the rest, or to treat them
as its inferiors or as its subjects.
It appears to me unquestionable that if any portion of the Union seriously desired to separate
itself from the other States, they would not be able, nor indeed would they attempt, to prevent
it; and that the present Union will only last as long as the States which compose it choose to
continue members of the confederation. If this point be admitted, the question becomes less
difficult; and our object is, not to inquire whether the States of the existing Union are capable
of separating, but whether they will choose to remain united.
Amongst the various reasons which tend to render the existing Union useful to the
Americans, two principal causes are peculiarly evident to the observer. Although the
Americans are, as it were, alone upon their continent, their commerce makes them the
neighbors of all the nations with which they trade. Notwithstanding their apparent isolation,
the Americans require a certain degree of strength, which they cannot retain otherwise than
by remaining united to each other. If the States were to split, they would not only diminish
the strength which they are now able to display towards foreign nations, but they would soon
create foreign powers upon their own territory. A system of inland custom-houses would then
be established; the valleys would be divided by imaginary boundary lines; the courses of the
rivers would be confined by territorial distinctions; and a multitude of hindrances would
prevent the Americans from exploring the whole of that vast continent which Providence has
allotted to them for a dominion. At present they have no invasion to fear, and consequently
no standing armies to maintain, no taxes to levy. If the Union were dissolved, all these
burdensome measures might ere long be required. The Americans are then very powerfully
interested in the maintenance of their Union. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to
discover any sort of material interest which might at present tempt a portion of the Union to
separate from the other States.
When we cast our eyes upon the map of the United States, we perceive the chain of the
Alleghany Mountains, running from the northeast to the southwest, and crossing nearly one
thousand miles of country; and we are led to imagine that the design of Providence was to
raise between the valley of the Mississippi and the coast of the Atlantic Ocean one of those
natural barriers which break the mutual intercourse of men, and form the necessary limits of
different States. But the average height of the Alleghanies does not exceed 2,500 feet; their
greatest elevation is not above 4,000 feet; their rounded summits, and the spacious valleys
which they conceal within their passes, are of easy access from several sides. Besides which,
the principal rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean—the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and
the Potomac—take their rise beyond the Alleghanies, in an open district, which borders upon
the valley of the Mississippi. These streams quit this tract of country, make their way through
the barrier which would seem to turn them westward, and as they wind through the mountains
they open an easy and natural passage to man. No natural barrier exists in the regions which
are now inhabited by the Anglo-Americans; the Alleghanies are so far from serving as a
boundary to separate nations, that they do not even serve as a frontier to the States. New
York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia comprise them within their borders, and they extend as
much to the west as to the east of the line. The territory now occupied by the twenty-four
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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, 273 which is about equal to five times the extent of France. Within these limits the
qualities of the soil, the temperature, and the produce of the country, are extremely various.
The vast extent of territory occupied by the Anglo-American republics has given rise to
doubts as to the maintenance of their Union. Here a distinction must be made; contrary
interests sometimes arise in the different provinces of a vast empire, which often terminate in
open dissensions; and the extent of the country is then most prejudicial to the power of the
State. But if the inhabitants of these vast regions are not divided by contrary interests, the
extent of the territory may be favorable to their prosperity; for the unity of the government
promotes the interchange of the different productions of the soil, and increases their value by
facilitating their consumption.
It is indeed easy to discover different interests in the different parts of the Union, but I am
unacquainted with any which are hostile to each other. The Southern States are almost
exclusively agricultural. The Northern States are more peculiarly commercial and
manufacturing. The States of the West are at the same time agricultural and manufacturing. In
the South the crops consist of tobacco, of rice, of cotton, and of sugar; in the North and the
West, of wheat and maize. These are different sources of wealth; but union is the means by
which these sources are opened to all, and rendered equally advantageous to the several
districts.
The North, which ships the produce of the Anglo-Americans to all parts of the world, and
brings back the produce of the globe to the Union, is evidently interested in maintaining the
confederation in its present condition, in order that the number of American producers and
consumers may remain as large as possible. The North is the most natural agent of
communication between the South and the West of the Union on the one hand, and the rest of
the world upon the other; the North is therefore interested in the union and prosperity of the
South and the West, in order that they may continue to furnish raw materials for its
manufactures, and cargoes for its shipping.
The South and the West, on their side, are still more directly interested in the preservation of
the Union, and the prosperity of the North. The produce of the South is, for the most part,
exported beyond seas; the South and the West consequently stand in need of the commercial
resources of the North. They are likewise interested in the maintenance of a powerful fleet by
the Union, to protect them efficaciously. The South and the West have no vessels, but they
cannot refuse a willing subsidy to defray the expenses of the navy; for if the fleets of Europe
were to blockade the ports of the South and the delta of the Mississippi, what would become
of the rice of the Carolinas, the tobacco of Virginia, and the sugar and cotton which grow in
the valley of the Mississippi? Every portion of the federal budget does therefore contribute to
the maintenance of material interests which are common to all the confederate States.
Independently of this commercial utility, the South and the West of the Union derive great
political advantages from their connection with the North. The South contains an enormous
slave population; a population which is already alarming, and still more formidable for the
future. The States of the West lie in the remotest parts of a single valley; and all the rivers

273
See “Darby’s View of the United States,” p. 435. [In 1890 the number of States and Territories had increased
to 51, the population to 62,831,900, and the area of the States, 3,602,990 square miles. This does not include the
Philippine Islands, Hawaii, or Porto Rico. A conservative estimate of the population of the Philippine Islands is
8,000,000; that of Hawaii, by the census of 1897, was given at 109,020; and the present estimated population of
Porto Rico is 900,000. The area of the Philippine Islands is about 120,000 square miles, that of Hawaii is 6,740
square miles, and the area of Porto Rico is about 3,600 square miles.]
 263

which intersect their territory rise in the Rocky Mountains or in the Alleghanies, and fall into
the Mississippi, which bears them onwards to the Gulf of Mexico. The Western States are
consequently entirely cut off, by their position, from the traditions of Europe and the
civilization of the Old World. The inhabitants of the South, then, are induced to support the
Union in order to avail themselves of its protection against the blacks; and the inhabitants of
the West in order not to be excluded from a free communication with the rest of the globe,
and shut up in the wilds of central America. The North cannot but desire the maintenance of
the Union, in order to remain, as it now is, the connecting link between that vast body and the
other parts of the world.
The temporal interests of all the several parts of the Union are, then, intimately connected;
and the same assertion holds true respecting those opinions and sentiments which may be
termed the immaterial interests of men.
 264

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 7

The inhabitants of the United States talk a great deal of their attachment to their country; but I
confess that I do not rely upon that calculating patriotism which is founded upon interest, and
which a change in the interests at stake may obliterate. Nor do I attach much importance to
the language of the Americans, when they manifest, in their daily conversations, the intention
of maintaining the federal system adopted by their forefathers. A government retains its sway
over a great number of citizens, far less by the voluntary and rational consent of the
multitude, than by that instinctive, and to a certain extent involuntary agreement, which
results from similarity of feelings and resemblances of opinion. I will never admit that men
constitute a social body, simply because they obey the same head and the same laws. Society
can only exist when a great number of men consider a great number of things in the same
point of view; when they hold the same opinions upon many subjects, and when the same
occurrences suggest the same thoughts and impressions to their minds.
The observer who examines the present condition of the United States upon this principle,
will readily discover, that although the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct
sovereignties, they nevertheless constitute a single people; and he may perhaps be led to think
that the state of the Anglo-American Union is more truly a state of society than that of certain
nations of Europe which live under the same legislation and the same prince.
Although the Anglo-Americans have several religious sects, they all regard religion in the
same manner. They are not always agreed upon the measures which are most conducive to
good government, and they vary upon some of the forms of government which it is expedient
to adopt; but they are unanimous upon the general principles which ought to rule human
society. From Maine to the Floridas, and from the Missouri to the Atlantic Ocean, the people
is held to be the legitimate source of all power. The same notions are entertained respecting
liberty and equality, the liberty of the press, the right of association, the jury, and the
responsibility of the agents of Government.
If we turn from their political and religious opinions to the moral and philosophical principles
which regulate the daily actions of life and govern their conduct, we shall still find the same
uniformity. The Anglo-Americans 274 acknowledge the absolute moral authority of the reason
of the community, as they acknowledge the political authority of the mass of citizens; and
they hold that public opinion is the surest arbiter of what is lawful or forbidden, true or false.
The majority of them believe that a man will be led to do what is just and good by following
his own interest rightly understood. They hold that every man is born in possession of the
right of self-government, and that no one has the right of constraining his fellow-creatures to
be happy. They have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man; they are of opinion that the
effects of the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the
consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of
improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent;
and they admit that what appears to them to be good to-day may be superseded by something
better-to-morrow. I do not give all these opinions as true, but I quote them as characteristic of
the Americans.

274
It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that by the expression Anglo-Americans, I only mean to designate
the great majority of the nation; for a certain number of isolated individuals are of course to be met with holding
very different opinions.
 265

The Anglo-Americans are not only united together by these common opinions, but they are
separated from all other nations by a common feeling of pride. For the last fifty years no
pains have been spared to convince the inhabitants of the United States that they constitute
the only religious, enlightened, and free people. They perceive that, for the present, their own
democratic institutions succeed, whilst those of other countries fail; hence they conceive an
overweening opinion of their superiority, and they are not very remote from believing
themselves to belong to a distinct race of mankind.
The dangers which threaten the American Union do not originate in the diversity of interests
or of opinions, but in the various characters and passions of the Americans. The men who
inhabit the vast territory of the United States are almost all the issue of a common stock; but
the effects of the climate, and more especially of slavery, have gradually introduced very
striking differences between the British settler of the Southern States and the British settler of
the North. In Europe it is generally believed that slavery has rendered the interests of one part
of the Union contrary to those of another part; but I by no means remarked this to be the case:
slavery has not created interests in the South contrary to those of the North, but it has
modified the character and changed the habits of the natives of the South.
I have already explained the influence which slavery has exercised upon the commercial
ability of the Americans in the South; and this same influence equally extends to their
manners. The slave is a servant who never remonstrates, and who submits to everything
without complaint. He may sometimes assassinate, but he never withstands, his master. In the
South there are no families so poor as not to have slaves. The citizen of the Southern States of
the Union is invested with a sort of domestic dictatorship, from his earliest years; the first
notion he acquires in life is that he is born to command, and the first habit which he contracts
is that of being obeyed without resistance. His education tends, then, to give him the
character of a supercilious and a hasty man; irascible, violent, and ardent in his desires,
impatient of obstacles, but easily discouraged if he cannot succeed upon his first attempt.
The American of the Northern States is surrounded by no slaves in his childhood; he is even
unattended by free servants, and is usually obliged to provide for his own wants. No sooner
does he enter the world than the idea of necessity assails him on every side: he soon learns to
know exactly the natural limit of his authority; he never expects to subdue those who
withstand him, by force; and he knows that the surest means of obtaining the support of his
fellow-creatures, is to win their favor. He therefore becomes patient, reflecting, tolerant, slow
to act, and persevering in his designs.
In the Southern States the more immediate wants of life are always supplied; the inhabitants
of those parts are not busied in the material cares of life, which are always provided for by
others; and their imagination is diverted to more captivating and less definite objects. The
American of the South is fond of grandeur, luxury, and renown, of gayety, of pleasure, and
above all of idleness; nothing obliges him to exert himself in order to subsist; and as he has
no necessary occupations, he gives way to indolence, and does not even attempt what would
be useful.
But the equality of fortunes, and the absence of slavery in the North, plunge the inhabitants in
those same cares of daily life which are disdained by the white population of the South. They
are taught from infancy to combat want, and to place comfort above all the pleasures of the
intellect or the heart. The imagination is extinguished by the trivial details of life, and the
ideas become less numerous and less general, but far more practical and more precise. As
prosperity is the sole aim of exertion, it is excellently well attained; nature and mankind are
turned to the best pecuniary advantage, and society is dexterously made to contribute to the
welfare of each of its members, whilst individual egotism is the source of general happiness.
 266

The citizen of the North has not only experience, but knowledge: nevertheless he sets but
little value upon the pleasures of knowledge; he esteems it as the means of attaining a certain
end, and he is only anxious to seize its more lucrative applications. The citizen of the South is
more given to act upon impulse; he is more clever, more frank, more generous, more
intellectual, and more brilliant. The former, with a greater degree of activity, of common-
sense, of information, and of general aptitude, has the characteristic good and evil qualities of
the middle classes. The latter has the tastes, the prejudices, the weaknesses, and the
magnanimity of all aristocracies. If two men are united in society, who have the same
interests, and to a certain extent the same opinions, but different characters, different
acquirements, and a different style of civilization, it is probable that these men will not agree.
The same remark is applicable to a society of nations. Slavery, then, does not attack the
American Union directly in its interests, but indirectly in its manners.
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. 275 Changes of such magnitude cannot take place without some danger.
A society of nations, as well as a society of individuals, derives its principal chances of
duration from the wisdom of its members, their individual weakness, and their limited
number. The Americans who quit the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean to plunge into the western
wilderness, are adventurers impatient of restraint, greedy of wealth, and frequently men
expelled from the States in which they were born. When they arrive in the deserts they are
unknown to each other, and they have neither traditions, family feeling, nor the force of
example to check their excesses. The empire of the laws is feeble amongst them; that of
morality is still more powerless. The settlers who are constantly peopling the valley of the
Mississippi are, then, in every respect very inferior to the Americans who inhabit the older
parts of the Union. Nevertheless, they already exercise a great influence in its councils; and
they arrive at the government of the commonwealth before they have learnt to govern
themselves. 276
The greater the individual weakness of each of the contracting parties, the greater are the
chances of the duration of the contract; for their safety is then dependent upon their union.
When, in 1790, the most populous of the American republics did not contain 500,000
inhabitants, 277 each of them felt its own insignificance as an independent people, and this
feeling rendered compliance with the federal authority more easy. But when one of the
confederate States reckons, like the State of New York, 2,000,000 of inhabitants, and covers
an extent of territory equal in surface to a quarter of France, 278 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?

275
Census of 1790, 3,929,328; 1830, 12,856,165; 1860, 31,443,321; 1870, 38,555,983; 1890, 62,831,900.
276
This indeed is only a temporary danger. I have no doubt that in time society will assume as much stability
and regularity in the West as it has already done upon the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.
277
Pennsylvania contained 431,373 inhabitants in 1790 [and 5,258,014 in 1890.]
278
The area of the State of New York is 49,170 square miles. [See U. S. census report of 1890.]
 267

Since the first settlement of the British colonies, the number of inhabitants has about doubled
every twenty-two years. I perceive no causes which are likely to check this progressive
increase of the Anglo-American population for the next hundred years; and before that space
of time has elapsed, I believe that the territories and dependencies of the United States will be
covered by more than 100,000,000 of inhabitants, and divided into forty States. 279 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.
Whatever faith I may have in the perfectibility of man, until human nature is altered, and men
wholly transformed, I shall refuse to believe in the duration of a government which is called
upon to hold together forty different peoples, disseminated over a territory equal to one-half
of Europe in extent; to avoid all rivalry, ambition, and struggles between them, and to direct
their independent activity to the accomplishment of the same designs.
But the greatest peril to which the Union is exposed by its increase arises from the continual
changes which take place in the position of its internal strength. The distance from Lake
Superior to the Gulf of Mexico extends from the 47th to the 30th degree of latitude, a
distance of more than 1,200 miles as the bird flies. The frontier of the United States winds
along the whole of this immense line, sometimes falling within its limits, but more frequently
extending far beyond it, into the waste. It has been calculated that the whites advance every
year a mean distance of seventeen miles along the whole of his vast boundary. 280 Obstacles,
such as an unproductive district, a lake or an Indian nation unexpectedly encountered, are
sometimes met with. The advancing column then halts for a while; its two extremities fall
back upon themselves, and as soon as they are reunited they proceed onwards. This gradual
and continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has the
solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily
driven onwards by the hand of God.
Within this first line of conquering settlers towns are built, and vast States founded. In 1790
there were only a few thousand pioneers sprinkled along the valleys of the Mississippi; and at
the present day these valleys contain as many inhabitants as were to be found in the whole
Union in 1790. Their population amounts to nearly 4,000,000. 281 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

279
If the population continues to double every twenty-two years, as it has done for the last two hundred years,
the number of inhabitants in the United States in 1852 will be twenty millions; in 1874, forty-eight millions; and
in 1896, ninety-six millions. This may still be the case even if the lands on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains should be found to be unfit for cultivation. The territory which is already occupied can easily contain
this number of inhabitants. One hundred millions of men disseminated over the surface of the twenty-four
States, and the three dependencies, which constitute the Union, would only give 762 inhabitants to the square
league; this would be far below the mean population of France, which is 1,063 to the square league; or of
England, which is 1,457; and it would even be below the population of Switzerland, for that country,
notwithstanding its lakes and mountains, contains 783 inhabitants to the square league. See “Malte Brun,” vol.
vi. p. 92.
[The actual result has fallen somewhat short of these calculations, in spite of the vast territorial acquisitions of
the United States: but in 1899 the population is probably about eighty-seven millions, including the population
of the Philippines, Hawaii, and Porto Rico.]
280
See Legislative Documents, 20th Congress, No. 117, p. 105.
281
3,672,317—Census of 1830.
 268

Western States are already obliged to perform a journey as long as that from Vienna to
Paris. 282
All the States are borne onwards at the same time in the path of fortune, but of course they do
not all increase and prosper in the same proportion. To the North of the Union the detached
branches of the Alleghany chain, which extend as far as the Atlantic Ocean, form spacious
roads and ports, which are constantly accessible to vessels of the greatest burden. But from
the Potomac to the mouth of the Mississippi the coast is sandy and flat. In this part of the
Union the mouths of almost all the rivers are obstructed; and the few harbors which exist
amongst these lagoons afford much shallower water to vessels, and much fewer commercial
advantages than those of the North.
This first natural cause of inferiority is united to another cause proceeding from the laws. We
have already seen that slavery, which is abolished in the North, still exists in the South; and I
have pointed out its fatal consequences upon the prosperity of the planter himself.
The North is therefore superior to the South both in commerce 283 and manufacture; the
natural consequence of which is the more rapid increase of population and of wealth within
its borders. The States situate upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean are already half-peopled.
Most of the land is held by an owner; and these districts cannot therefore receive so many
emigrants as the Western States, where a boundless field is still open to their exertions. The
valley of the Mississippi is far more fertile than the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. This reason,
added to all the others, contributes to drive the Europeans westward—a fact which may be
rigorously demonstrated by figures. It is found that the sum total of the population of all the
United States has about tripled in the course of forty years. But in the recent States adjacent
to the Mississippi, the population has increased thirty-one-fold, within the same space of
time. 284
The relative position of the central federal power is continually displaced. Forty years ago the
majority of the citizens of the Union was established upon the coast of the Atlantic, in the
environs of the spot upon which Washington now stands; but the great body of the people is
now advancing inland and to the north, so that in twenty years the majority will
unquestionably be on the western side of the Alleghanies. If the Union goes on to subsist, the
basin of the Mississippi is evidently marked out, by its fertility and its extent, as the future
centre of the Federal Government. In thirty or forty years, that tract of country will have

282
The distance from Jefferson, the capital of the State of Missouri, to Washington is 1,019 miles. (“American
Almanac,” 1831, p. 48.)
283
The following statements will suffice to show the difference which exists between the commerce of the
South and that of the North:—
In 1829 the tonnage of all the merchant vessels belonging to Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia (the four
great Southern States), amounted to only 5,243 tons. In the same year the tonnage of the vessels of the State of
Massachusetts alone amounted to 17,322 tons. (See Legislative Documents, 21st Congress, 2d session, No. 140,
p. 244.) Thus the State of Massachusetts had three times as much shipping as the four above-mentioned States.
Nevertheless the area of the State of Massachusetts is only 7,335 square miles, and its population amounts to
610,014 inhabitants [2,238,943 in 1890]; whilst the area of the four other States I have quoted is 210,000 square
miles, and their population 3,047,767. Thus the area of the State of Massachusetts forms only one-thirtieth part
of the area of the four States; and its population is five times smaller than theirs. (See “Darby’s View of the
United States.”) Slavery is prejudicial to the commercial prosperity of the South in several different ways; by
diminishing the spirit of enterprise amongst the whites, and by preventing them from meeting with as numerous
a class of sailors as they require. Sailors are usually taken from the lowest ranks of the population. But in the
Southern States these lowest ranks are composed of slaves, and it is very difficult to employ them at sea. They
are unable to serve as well as a white crew, and apprehensions would always be entertained of their mutinying
in the middle of the ocean, or of their escaping in the foreign countries at which they might touch.
284
“Darby’s View of the United States,” p. 444.
 269

assumed the rank which naturally belongs to it. It is easy to calculate that its population,
compared to that of the coast of the Atlantic, will be, in round numbers, as 40 to 11. In a few
years the States which founded the Union will lose the direction of its policy, and the
population of the valley of the Mississippi will preponderate in the federal assemblies.
This constant gravitation of the federal power and influence towards the northwest is shown
every ten years, when a general census of the population is made, and the number of
delegates which each State sends to Congress is settled afresh. 285 In 1790 Virginia had
nineteen representatives in Congress. This number continued to increase until the year 1813,
when it reached to twenty-three; from that time it began to decrease, and in 1833 Virginia
elected only twenty-one representatives. 286 During the same period the State of New York
progressed in the contrary direction: in 1790 it had ten representatives in Congress; in 1813,
twenty-seven; in 1823, thirty-four; and in 1833, forty. The State of Ohio had only one
representative in 1803, and in 1833 it had already nineteen.

285
It may be seen that in the course of the last ten years (1820-1830) the population of one district, as, for
instance, the State of Delaware, has increased in the proportion of five per cent.; whilst that of another, as the
territory of Michigan, has increased 250 per cent. Thus the population of Virginia had augmented thirteen per
cent., and that of the border State of Ohio sixty-one per cent., in the same space of time. The general table of
these changes, which is given in the “National Calendar,” displays a striking picture of the unequal fortunes of
the different States.
286
It has just been said that in the course of the last term the population of Virginia has increased thirteen per
cent.; and it is necessary to explain how the number of representatives for a State may decrease, when the
population of that State, far from diminishing, is actually upon the increase. I take the State of Virginia, to which
I have already alluded, as my term of comparison. The number of representatives of Virginia in 1823 was
proportionate to the total number of the representatives of the Union, and to the relation which the population
bore to that of the whole Union: in 1833 the number of representatives of Virginia was likewise proportionate to
the total number of the representatives of the Union, and to the relation which its population, augmented in the
course of ten years, bore to the augmented population of the Union in the same space of time. The new number
of Virginian representatives will then be to the old number, on the one hand, as the new number of all the
representatives is to the old number; and, on the other hand, as the augmentation of the population of Virginia is
to that of the whole population of the country. Thus, if the increase of the population of the lesser country be to
that of the greater in an exact inverse ratio of the proportion between the new and the old numbers of all the
representatives, the number of the representatives of Virginia will remain stationary; and if the increase of the
Virginian population be to that of the whole Union in a feeble rratio than the new number of the representatives
of the Union to the old number, the number of the representatives of Virginia must decrease. [Thus, to the 56th
Congress in 1899, Virginia and West Virginia send only fourteen representatives.]
 270

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 8

It is difficult to imagine a durable union of a people which is rich and strong with one which
is poor and weak, even if it were proved that the strength and wealth of the one are not the
causes of the weakness and poverty of the other. But union is still more difficult to maintain
at a time at which one party is losing strength, and the other is gaining it. This rapid and
disproportionate increase of certain States threatens the independence of the others. New
York might perhaps succeed, with its 2,000,000 of inhabitants and its forty representatives, in
dictating to the other States in Congress. But even if the more powerful States make no
attempt to bear down the lesser ones, the danger still exists; for there is almost as much in the
possibility of the act as in the act itself. The weak generally mistrust the justice and the reason
of the strong. The States which increase less rapidly than the others look upon those which
are more favored by fortune with envy and suspicion. Hence arise the deep-seated uneasiness
and ill-defined agitation which are observable in the South, and which form so striking a
contrast to the confidence and prosperity which are common to other parts of the Union. I am
inclined to think that the hostile measures taken by the Southern provinces upon a recent
occasion are attributable to no other cause. The inhabitants of the Southern States are, of all
the Americans, those who are most interested in the maintenance of the Union; they would
assuredly suffer most from being left to themselves; and yet they are the only citizens who
threaten to break the tie of confederation. But it is easy to perceive that the South, which has
given four Presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, to the Union, which
perceives that it is losing its federal influence, and that the number of its representatives in
Congress is diminishing from year to year, whilst those of the Northern and Western States
are increasing; the South, which is peopled with ardent and irascible beings, is becoming
more and more irritated and alarmed. The citizens reflect upon their present position and
remember their past influence, with the melancholy uneasiness of men who suspect
oppression: if they discover a law of the Union which is not unequivocally favorable to their
interests, they protest against it as an abuse of force; and if their ardent remonstrances are not
listened to, they threaten to quit an association which loads them with burdens whilst it
deprives them of their due profits. “The tariff,” said the inhabitants of Carolina in 1832,
“enriches the North, and ruins the South; for if this were not the case, to what can we attribute
the continually increasing power and wealth of the North, with its inclement skies and arid
soil; whilst the South, which may be styled the garden of America, is rapidly declining?” 287
If the changes which I have described were gradual, so that each generation at least might
have time to disappear with the order of things under which it had lived, the danger would be
less; but the progress of society in America is precipitate, and almost revolutionary. The same
citizen may have lived to see his State take the lead in the Union, and afterwards become
powerless in the federal assemblies; and an Anglo-American republic has been known to
grow as rapidly as a man passing from birth and infancy to maturity in the course of thirty
years. It must not be imagined, however, that the States which lose their preponderance, also
lose their population or their riches: no stop is put to their prosperity, and they even go on to
increase more rapidly than any kingdom in Europe. 288 But they believe themselves to be

287
See the report of its committee to the Convention which proclaimed the nullification of the tariff in South
Carolina.
288
The population of a country assuredly constitutes the first element of its wealth. In the ten years (1820-1830)
during which Virginia lost two of its representatives in Congress, its population increased in the proportion of
13.7 per cent.; that of Carolina in the proportion of fifteen per cent.; and that of Georgia, 15.5 per cent. (See the
 271

impoverished because their wealth does not augment as rapidly as that of their neighbors; any
they think that their power is lost, because they suddenly come into collision with a power
greater than their own: 289 thus they are more hurt in their feelings and their passions than in
their interests. But this is amply sufficient to endanger the maintenance of the Union. If kings
and peoples had only had their true interests in view ever since the beginning of the world,
the name of war would scarcely be known among mankind.
Thus the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers that threaten
them, since it tends to create in some of the confederate States that over-excitement which
accompanies a rapid increase of fortune; and to awaken in others those feelings of envy,
mistrust, and regret which usually attend upon the loss of it. The Americans contemplate this
extraordinary and hasty progress with exultation; but they would be wiser to consider it with
sorrow and alarm. The Americans of the United States must inevitably become one of the
greatest nations in the world; their offset will cover almost the whole of North America; the
continent which they inhabit is their dominion, and it cannot escape them. What urges them
to take possession of it so soon? Riches, power, and renown cannot fail to be theirs at some
future time, but they rush upon their fortune as if but a moment remained for them to make it
their own.
I think that I have demonstrated that the existence of the present confederation depends
entirely on the continued assent of all the confederates; and, starting from this principle, I
have inquired into the causes which may induce the several States to separate from the others.
The Union may, however, perish in two different ways: one of the confederate States may
choose to retire from the compact, and so forcibly to sever the federal tie; and it is to this
supposition that most of the remarks that I have made apply: or the authority of the Federal
Government may be progressively entrenched on by the simultaneous tendency of the united
republics to resume their independence. The central power, successively stripped of all its
prerogatives, and reduced to impotence by tacit consent, would become incompetent to fulfil
its purpose; and the second Union would perish, like the first, by a sort of senile inaptitude.
The gradual weakening of the federal tie, which may finally lead to the dissolution of the
Union, is a distinct circumstance, that may produce a variety of minor consequences before it
operates so violent a change. The confederation might still subsist, although its Government
were reduced to such a degree of inanition as to paralyze the nation, to cause internal
anarchy, and to check the general prosperity of the country.
After having investigated the causes which may induce the Anglo-Americans to disunite, it is
important to inquire whether, if the Union continues to subsist, their Government will extend
or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will become more energetic or more weak.
The Americans are evidently disposed to look upon their future condition with alarm. They
perceive that in most of the nations of the world the exercise of the rights of sovereignty
tends to fall under the control of a few individuals, and they are dismayed by the idea that
such will also be the case in their own country. Even the statesmen feel, or affect to feel,
these fears; for, in America, centralization is by no means popular, and there is no surer
means of courting the majority than by inveighing against the encroachments of the central
power. The Americans do not perceive that the countries in which this alarming tendency to

“American Almanac,” 1832, p. 162) But the population of Russia, which increases more rapidly than that of any
other European country, only augments in ten years at the rate of 9.5 per cent.; in France, at the rate of seven per
cent.; and in Europe in general, at the rate of 4.7 per cent. (See “Malte Brun,” vol. vi. p. 95)
289
It must be admitted, however, that the depreciation which has taken place in the value of tobacco, during the
last fifty years, has notably diminished the opulence of the Southern planters: but this circumstance is as
independent of the will of their Northern brethren as it is of their own.
 272

centralization exists are inhabited by a single people; whilst the fact of the Union being
composed of different confederate communities is sufficient to baffle all the inferences which
might be drawn from analogous circumstances. I confess that I am inclined to consider the
fears of a great number of Americans as purely imaginary; and far from participating in their
dread of the consolidation of power in the hands of the Union, I think that the Federal
Government is visibly losing strength.
To prove this assertion I shall not have recourse to any remote occurrences, but to
circumstances which I have myself witnessed, and which belong to our own time.
An attentive examination of what is going on in the United States will easily convince us that
two opposite tendencies exist in that country, like two distinct currents flowing in contrary
directions in the same channel. The Union has now existed for forty-five years, and in the
course of that time a vast number of provincial prejudices, which were at first hostile to its
power, have died away. The patriotic feeling which attached each of the Americans to his
own native State is become less exclusive; and the different parts of the Union have become
more intimately connected the better they have become acquainted with each other. The
post, 290 that great instrument of intellectual intercourse, now reaches into the backwoods; and
steamboats have established daily means of communication between the different points of
the coast. An inland navigation of unexampled rapidity conveys commodities up and down
the rivers of the country. 291 And to these facilities of nature and art may be added those
restless cravings, that busy-mindedness, and love of pelf, which are constantly urging the
American into active life, and bringing him into contact with his fellow-citizens. He crosses
the country in every direction; he visits all the various populations of the land; and there is
not a province in France in which the natives are so well known to each other as the
13,000,000 of men who cover the territory of the United States.
But whilst the Americans intermingle, they grow in resemblance of each other; the
differences resulting from their climate, their origin, and their institutions, diminish; and they
all draw nearer and nearer to the common type. Every year, thousands of men leave the North
to settle in different parts of the Union: they bring with them their faith, their opinions, and
their manners; and as they are more 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 peculiarly favorable to the fusion of all
the different provincial characters into one national character. The civilization of the North
appears to be the common standard, to which the whole nation will one day be assimilated.
The commercial ties which unite the confederate States are strengthened by the increasing
manufactures of the Americans; and the union which began to exist in their opinions,
gradually forms a part of their habits: the course of time has swept away the bugbear thoughts
which haunted the imaginations of the citizens in 1789. The federal power is not become
oppressive; it has not destroyed the independence of the States; it has not subjected the
confederates to monarchial institutions; and the Union has not rendered the lesser States
dependent upon the larger ones; but the confederation has continued to increase in
population, in wealth, and in power. I am therefore convinced that the natural obstacles to the

290
In 1832, the district of Michigan, which only contains 31,639 inhabitants, and is still an almost unexplored
wilderness, possessed 940 miles of mail-roads. The territory of Arkansas, which is still more uncultivated, was
already intersected by 1,938 miles of mail-roads. (See the report of the General Post Office, November 30,
1833.) The postage of newspapers alone in the whole Union amounted to $254,796.
291
In the course of ten years, from 1821 to 1831, 271 steamboats have been launched upon the rivers which
water the valley of the Mississippi alone. In 1829 259 steamboats existed in the United States. (See Legislative
Documents, No. 140, p. 274.)
 273

continuance of the American Union are not so powerful at the present time as they were in
1789; and that the enemies of the Union are not so numerous.
Nevertheless, a careful examination of the history of the United States for the last forty-five
years will readily convince us that the federal power is declining; nor is it difficult to explain
the causes of this phenomenon. 292 When the Constitution of 1789 was promulgated, the
nation was a prey to anarchy; the Union, which succeeded this confusion, excited much dread
and much animosity; but it was warmly supported because it satisfied an imperious want.
Thus, although it was more attacked than it is now, the federal power soon reached the
maximum of its authority, as is usually the case with a government which triumphs after
having braced its strength by the struggle. At that time the interpretation of the Constitution
seemed to extend, rather than to repress, the federal sovereignty; and the Union offered, in
several respects, the appearance of a single and undivided people, directed in its foreign and
internal policy by a single Government. But to attain this point the people had risen, to a
certain extent, above itself.
The Constitution had not destroyed the distinct sovereignty of the States; and all
communities, of whatever nature they may be, are impelled by a secret propensity to assert
their independence. This propensity is still more decided in a country like America, in which
every village forms a sort of republic accustomed to conduct its own affairs. It therefore cost
the States an effort to submit to the federal supremacy; and all efforts, however successful
they may be, necessarily subside with the causes in which they originated.
As the Federal Government consolidated its authority, America resumed its rank amongst the
nations, peace returned to its frontiers, and public credit was restored; confusion was
succeeded by a fixed state of things, which was favorable to the full and free exercise of
industrious enterprise. It was this very prosperity which made the Americans forget the cause
to which it was attributable; and when once the danger was passed, the energy and the
patriotism which had enabled them to brave it disappeared from amongst them. No sooner
were they delivered from the cares which oppressed them, than they easily returned to their
ordinary habits, and gave themselves up without resistance to their natural inclinations. When
a powerful Government no longer appeared to be necessary, they once more began to think it
irksome. The Union encouraged a general prosperity, and the States were not inclined to
abandon the Union; but they desired to render the action of the power which represented that
body as light as possible. The general principle of Union was adopted, but in every minor
detail there was an actual tendency to independence. The principle of confederation was
every day more easily admitted, and more rarely applied; so that the Federal Government
brought about its own decline, whilst it was creating order and peace.
As soon as this tendency of public opinion began to be manifested externally, the leaders of
parties, who live by the passions of the people, began to work it to their own advantage. The
position of the Federal Government then became exceedingly critical. Its enemies were in
possession of the popular favor; and they obtained the right of conducting its policy by
pledging themselves to lessen its influence. From that time forwards the Government of the
Union has invariably been obliged to recede, as often as it has attempted to enter the lists with
the governments of the States. And whenever an interpretation of the terms of the Federal
Constitution has been called for, that interpretation has most frequently been opposed to the
Union, and favorable to the States.

292
Since 1861 the movement is certainly in the opposite direction, and the federal power has largely increased,
and tends to further increase.
 274

The Constitution invested the Federal Government with the right of providing for the
interests of the nation; and it had been held that no other authority was so fit to superintend
the “internal improvements” which affected the prosperity of the whole Union; such, for
instance, as the cutting of canals. But the States were alarmed at a power, distinct from their
own, which could thus dispose of a portion of their territory; and they were afraid that the
central Government would, by this means, acquire a formidable extent of patronage within
their own confines, and exercise a degree of influence which they intended to reserve
exclusively to their own agents. The Democratic party, which has constantly been opposed to
the increase of the federal authority, then accused the Congress of usurpation, and the Chief
Magistrate of ambition. The central Government was intimidated by the opposition; and it
soon acknowledged its error, promising exactly to confine its influence for the future within
the circle which was prescribed to it.
The Constitution confers upon the Union the right of treating with foreign nations. The Indian
tribes, which border upon the frontiers of the United States, had usually been regarded in this
light. As long as these savages consented to retire before the civilized settlers, the federal
right was not contested: but as soon as an Indian tribe attempted to fix its dwelling upon a
given spot, the adjacent States claimed possession of the lands and the rights of sovereignty
over the natives. The central Government soon recognized both these claims; and after it had
concluded treaties with the Indians as independent nations, it gave them up as subjects to the
legislative tyranny of the States. 293
Some of the States which had been founded upon the coast of the Atlantic, extended
indefinitely to the West, into wild regions where no European had ever penetrated. The States
whose confines were irrevocably fixed, looked with a jealous eye upon the unbounded
regions which the future would enable their neighbors to explore. The latter then agreed, with
a view to conciliate the others, and to facilitate the act of union, to lay down their own
boundaries, and to abandon all the territory which lay beyond those limits to the
confederation at large. 294 Thenceforward the Federal Government became the owner of all
the uncultivated lands which lie beyond the borders of the thirteen States first confederated. It
was invested with the right of parcelling and selling them, and the sums derived from this
source were exclusively reserved to the public treasure of the Union, in order to furnish
supplies for purchasing tracts of country from the Indians, for opening roads to the remote
settlements, and for accelerating the increase of civilization as much as possible. New States
have, however, been formed in the course of time, in the midst of those wilds which were
formerly ceded by the inhabitants of the shores of the Atlantic. Congress has gone on to sell,
for the profit of the nation at large, the uncultivated lands which those new States contained.
But the latter at length asserted that, as they were now fully constituted, they ought to enjoy
the exclusive right of converting the produce of these sales to their own use. As their
remonstrances became more and more threatening, Congress thought fit to deprive the Union
of a portion of the privileges which it had hitherto enjoyed; and at the end of 1832 it passed a
law by which the greatest part of the revenue derived from the sale of lands was made over to
the new western republics, although the lands themselves were not ceded to them. 295

293
See in the Legislative Documents, already quoted in speaking of the Indians, the letter of the President of the
United States to the Cherokees, his correspondence on this subject with his agents, and his messages to
Congress.
294
The first act of session was made by the State of New York in 1780; Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
South and North Carolina, followed this example at different times, and lastly, the act of cession of Georgia was
made as recently as 1802.
295
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.)
 275

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. 296
The Bank of the United States is nevertheless the object of great animosity. Its directors have
proclaimed their hostility to the President: and they are accused, not without some show of
probability, of having abused their influence to thwart his election. The President therefore
attacks the establishment which they represent with all the warmth of personal enmity; and he
is encouraged in the pursuit of his revenge by the conviction that he is supported by the secret
propensities of the majority. The bank may be regarded as the great monetary tie of the
Union, just as Congress is the great legislative tie; and the same passions which tend to
render the States independent of the central power, contribute to the overthrow of the bank.
The Bank of the United States always holds a great number of the notes issued by the
provincial banks, which it can at any time oblige them to convert into cash. It has itself
nothing to fear from a similar demand, as the extent of its resources enables it to meet all
claims. But the existence of the provincial banks is thus threatened, and their operations are
restricted, since they are only able to issue a quantity of notes duly proportioned to their
capital. They submit with impatience to this salutary control. The newspapers which they
have bought over, and the President, whose interest renders him their instrument, attack the
bank with the greatest vehemence. They rouse the local passions and the blind democratic
instinct of the country to aid their cause; and they assert that the bank directors form a
permanent aristocratic body, whose influence must ultimately be felt in the Government, and
must affect those principles of equality upon which society rests in America.
The contest between the bank and its opponents is only an incident in the great struggle
which is going on in America between the provinces and the central power; between the spirit
of democratic independence and the spirit of gradation and subordination. I do not mean that
the enemies of the bank are identically the same individuals who, on other points, attack the
Federal Government; but I assert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United
States originate in the same propensities which militate against the Federal Government; and
that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the
decreasing support of the latter.
The Union has never displayed so much weakness as in the celebrated question of the
tariff. 297 The wars of the French Revolution and of 1812 had created manufacturing
establishments in the North of the Union, by cutting off all free communication between
America and Europe. When peace was concluded, and the channel of intercourse reopened by
which the produce of Europe was transmitted to the New World, the Americans thought fit to
establish a system of import duties, for the twofold purpose of protecting their incipient
manufactures and of paying off the amount of the debt contracted during the war. The
Southern States, which have no manufactures to encourage, and which are exclusively
agricultural, soon complained of this measure. Such were the simple facts, and I do not
pretend to examine in this place whether their complaints were well founded or unjust.

296
The present Bank of the United States was established in 1816, with a capital of $35,000,000; its charter
expires in 1836. Last year Congress passed a law to renew it, but the President put his veto upon the bill. The
struggle is still going on with great violence on either side, and the speedy fall of the bank may easily be
foreseen. [It was soon afterwards extinguished by General Jackson.]
297
See principally for the details of this affair, the Legislative Documents, 22d Congress, 2d Session, No. 30.
 276

As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a petition to Congress, that the tariff
was “unconstitutional, oppressive, and unjust.” And the States of Georgia, Virginia, North
Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi subsequently remonstrated against it with more or less
vigor. But Congress, far from lending an ear to these complaints, raised the scale of tariff
duties in the years 1824 and 1828, and recognized anew the principle on which it was
founded. A doctrine was then proclaimed, or rather revived, in the South, which took the
name of Nullification.
I have shown in the proper place that the object of the Federal Constitution was not to form a
league, but to create a national government. The Americans of the United States form a sole
and undivided people, in all the cases which are specified by that Constitution; and upon
these points the will of the nation is expressed, as it is in all constitutional nations, by the
voice of the majority. When the majority has pronounced its decision, it is the duty of the
minority to submit. Such is the sound legal doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the
text of the Constitution, and the known intention of those who framed it.
The partisans of Nullification in the South maintain, on the contrary, that the intention of the
Americans in uniting was not to reduce themselves to the condition of one and the same
people; that they meant to constitute a league of independent States; and that each State,
consequently retains its entire sovereignty, if not de facto, at least de jure; and has the right of
putting its own construction upon the laws of Congress, and of suspending their execution
within the limits of its own territory, if they are held to be unconstitutional and unjust.
The entire doctrine of Nullification is comprised in a sentence uttered by Vice-President
Calhoun, the head of that party in the South, before the Senate of the United States, in the
year 1833: could: “The Constitution is a compact to which the States were parties in their
sovereign capacity; now, whenever a compact is entered into by parties which acknowledge
no tribunal above their authority to decide in the last resort, each of them has a right to judge
for itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument.” It is evident that
a similar doctrine destroys the very basis of the Federal Constitution, and brings back all the
evils of the old confederation, from which the Americans were supposed to have had a safe
deliverance.
When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its remonstrances, it
threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in
its former system; and at length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the citizens of
South Carolina, 298 named a national Convention, to consult upon the extraordinary measures
which they were called upon to take; and on November 24th of the same year this Convention
promulgated a law, under the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of the tariff,
forbade the levy of the imposts which that law commands, and refused to recognize the
appeal which might be made to the federal courts of law. 299 This decree was only to be put in

298
That is to say, the majority of the people; for the opposite party, called the Union party, always formed a very
strong and active minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors; 30,000 were in favor of nullification,
and 17,000 opposed to it.
299
This decree was preceded by a report of the committee by which it was framed, containing the explanation of
the motives and object of the law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34:—”When the rights reserved by the
Constitution to the different States are deliberately violated, it is the duty and the right of those States to
interfere, in order to check the progress of the evil; to resist usurpation, and to maintain, within their respective
limits, those powers and privileges which belong to them as independent sovereign States. If they were destitute
of this right, they would not be sovereign. South Carolina declares that she acknowledges no tribunal upon earth
above her authority. She has indeed entered into a solemn compact of union with the other States; but she
demands, and will exercise, the right of putting her own construction upon it; and when this compact is violated
by her sister States, and by the Government which they have created, she is determined to avail herself of the
 277

execution in the ensuing month of February, and it was intimated, that if Congress modified
the tariff before that period, South Carolina might be induced to proceed no further with her
menaces; and a vague desire was afterwards expressed of submitting the question to an
extraordinary assembly of all the confederate States.

unquestionable right of judging what is the extent of the infraction, and what are the measures best fitted to
obtain justice.”
 278

XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 9

In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and prepared for war. But Congress,
which had slighted its suppliant subjects, listened to their complaints as soon as they were
found to have taken up arms. 300 A law was passed, by which the tariff duties were to be
progressively reduced for ten years, until they were brought so low as not to exceed the
amount of supplies necessary to the Government. 301 Thus Congress completely abandoned
the principle of the tariff; and substituted a mere fiscal impost to a system of protective
duties. 302 The Government of the Union, in order to conceal its defeat, had recourse to an
expedient which is very much in vogue with feeble governments. It yielded the point de
facto, but it remained inflexible upon the principles in question; and whilst Congress was
altering the tariff law, it passed another bill, by which the President was invested with
extraordinary powers, enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no
longer to be apprehended.
But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in the enjoyment of these scanty
trophies of success: the same national Convention which had annulled the tariff bill, met
again, and accepted the proffered concession; but at the same time it declared it unabated
perseverance in the doctrine of Nullification: and to prove what it said, it annulled the law
investing the President with extraordinary powers, although it was very certain that the
clauses of that law would never be carried into effect.
Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking have taken place under the
Presidency of General Jackson; and it cannot be denied that in the question of the tariff he has
supported the claims of the Union with vigor and with skill. I am, however, of opinion that
the conduct of the individual who now represents the Federal Government may be reckoned
as one of the dangers which threaten its continuance.
Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the possible influence of General Jackson
upon the affairs of his country, which appears highly extravagant to those who have seen
more of the subject. We have been told that General Jackson has won sundry battles, that he
is an energetic man, prone by nature and by habit to the use of force, covetous of power, and
a despot by taste. All this may perhaps be true; but the inferences which have been drawn
from these truths are exceedingly erroneous. It has been imagined that General Jackson is
bent on establishing a dictatorship in America, on introducing a military spirit, and on giving
a degree of influence to the central authority which cannot but be dangerous to provincial
liberties. But in America the time for similar undertakings, and the age for men of this kind,
is not yet come: if General Jackson had entertained a hope of exercising his authority in this
manner, he would infallibly have forfeited his political station, and compromised his life;
accordingly he has not been so imprudent as to make any such attempt.
Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the President belongs to the party which is
desirous of limiting that power to the bare and precise letter of the Constitution, and which
never puts a construction upon that act favorable to the Government of the Union; far from

300
Congress was finally decided to take this step by the conduct of the powerful State of Virginia, whose
legislature offered to serve as mediator between the Union and South Carolina. Hitherto the latter State had
appeared to be entirely abandoned, even by the States which had joined in her remonstrances.
301
This law was passed on March 2, 1833.
302
This bill was brought in by Mr. Clay, and it passed in four days through both Houses of Congress by an
immense majority.
 279

standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the agent of all the
jealousies of the States; and he was placed in the lofty station he occupies by the passions of
the people which are most opposed to the central Government. It is by perpetually flattering
these passions that he maintains his station and his popularity. General Jackson is the slave of
the majority: he yields to its wishes, its propensities, and its demands; say rather, that he
anticipates and forestalls them.
Whenever the governments of the States come into collision with that of the Union, the
President is generally the first to question his own rights: he almost always outstrips the
legislature; and when the extent of the federal power is controverted, he takes part, as it were,
against himself; he conceals his official interests, and extinguishes his own natural
inclinations. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile to the Union; for when the
majority decided against the claims of the partisans of nullification, he put himself at its head,
asserted the doctrines which the nation held distinctly and energetically, and was the first to
recommend forcible measures; but General Jackson appears to me, if I may use the American
expressions, to be a Federalist by taste, and a Republican by calculation.
General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority, but when he feels that his popularity
is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the pursuit of the objects which the community
approves, or of those which it does not look upon with a jealous eye. He is supported by a
power with which his predecessors were unacquainted; and he tramples on his personal
enemies whenever they cross his path with a facility which no former President ever enjoyed;
he takes upon himself the responsibility of measures which no one before him would have
ventured to attempt: he even treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to
insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of Congress, and frequently neglects to reply to that
powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes treats his master roughly. The power of
General Jackson perpetually increases; but that of the President declines; in his hands the
Federal Government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his successor.
I am strangely mistaken if the Federal Government of the United States be not constantly
losing strength, retiring gradually from public affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more
and more. It is naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to strength. On the
other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively sense of independence, and a more
decided attachment to provincial government in the States. The Union is to subsist, but to
subsist as a shadow; it is to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all others; in time of
warfare, it is to be able to concentrate all the forces of the nation and all the resources of the
country in its hands; and in time of peace its existence is to be scarcely perceptible: as if this
alternate debility and vigor were natural or possible.
I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to check this general impulse of
public opinion; the causes in which it originated do not cease to operate with the same effect.
The change will therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless some extraordinary
event occurs, the Government of the Union will grow weaker and weaker every day.
I think, however, that the period is still remote at which the federal power will be entirely
extinguished by its inability to protect itself and to maintain peace in the country. The Union
is sanctioned by the manners and desires of the people; its results are palpable, its benefits
visible. When it is perceived that the weakness of the Federal Government compromises the
existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a reaction will take place with a view to increase
its strength.
The Government of the United States is, of all the federal governments which have hitherto
been established, the one which is most naturally destined to act. As long as it is only
 280

indirectly assailed by the interpretation of its laws, and as long as its substance is not
seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal crisis, or a war, may restore all the vigor
which it requires. The point which I have been most anxious to put in a clear light is simply
this: Many people, especially in France, imagine that a change in opinion is going on in the
United States, which is favorable to a centralization of power in the hands of the President
and the Congress. I hold that a contrary tendency may distinctly be observed. So far is the
Federal Government from acquiring strength, and from threatening the sovereignty of the
States, as it grows older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and weaker, and that the
sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such are the facts which the present time
discloses. The future conceals the final result of this tendency, and the events which may
check, retard, or accelerate the changes I have described; but I do not affect to be able to
remove the veil which hides them from our sight.
Of The Republican Institutions Of The United States, And What Their Chances Of
Duration Are
The Union is accidental—The Republican institutions have more prospect of permanence—A
republic for the present the natural state of the Anglo-Americans—Reason of this—In order
to destroy it, all the laws must be changed at the same time, and a great alteration take place
in manners—Difficulties experienced by the Americans in creating an aristocracy.
The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into the heart of those States
which are now confederate, with standing armies, a dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, might,
eventually, compromise the fate of the republican institutions. But we ought not to confound
the future prospects of the republic with those of the Union. The Union is an accident, which
will only last as long as circumstances are favorable to its existence; but a republican form of
government seems to me to be the natural state of the Americans; which nothing but the
continued action of hostile causes, always acting in the same direction, could change into a
monarchy. The Union exists principally in the law which formed it; one revolution, one
change in public opinion, might destroy it forever; but the republic has a much deeper
foundation to rest upon.
What is understood by a republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet
action of society upon itself. It is a regular state of things really founded upon the enlightened
will of the people. It is a conciliatory government under which resolutions are allowed time to
ripen; and in which they are deliberately discussed, and executed with mature judgment. The
republicans in the United States set a high value upon morality, respect religious belief, and
acknowledge the existence of rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be moral,
religious, and temperate, in proportion as it is free. What is called the republic in the United
States, is the tranquil rule of the majority, which, after having had time to examine itself, and
to give proof of its existence, is the common source of all the powers of the State. But the
power of the majority is not of itself unlimited. In the moral world humanity, justice, and
reason enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the political world vested rights are treated with no
less deference. The majority recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep
them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and, like them, it is prone to do what is
wrong, whilst it discerns what is right.
But the demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. A republic is not, according to
them, the rule of the majority, as has hitherto been thought, but the rule of those who are
strenuous partisans of the majority. It is not the people who preponderates in this kind of
government, but those who are best versed in the good qualities of the people. A happy
distinction, which allows men to act in the name of nations without consulting them, and to
claim their gratitude whilst their rights are spurned. A republican government, moreover, is
 281

the only one which claims the right of doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men
have hitherto respected, from the highest moral obligations to the vulgar rules of common-
sense. It had been supposed, until our time, that despotism was odious, under whatever form
it appeared. But it is a discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate
tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of the people.
The ideas which the Americans have adopted respecting the republican form of government,
render it easy for them to live under it, and insure its duration. If, in their country, this form
be often practically bad, at least it is theoretically good; and, in the end, the people always
acts in conformity to it.
It was impossible at the foundation of the States, and it would still be difficult, to establish a
central administration in America. The inhabitants are dispersed over too great a space, and
separated by too many natural obstacles, for one man to undertake to direct the details of their
existence. America is therefore pre-eminently the country of provincial and municipal
government. To this cause, which was plainly felt by all the Europeans of the New World, the
Anglo-Americans added several others peculiar to themselves.
At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies, municipal liberty had already
penetrated into the laws as well as the manners of the English; and the emigrants adopted it,
not only as a necessary thing, but as a benefit which they knew how to appreciate. We have
already seen the manner in which the colonies were founded: every province, and almost
every district, was peopled separately by men who were strangers to each other, or who
associated with very different purposes. The English settlers in the United States, therefore,
early perceived that they were divided into a great number of small and distinct communities
which belonged to no common centre; and that it was needful for each of these little
communities to take care of its own affairs, since there did not appear to be any central
authority which was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the nature
of the country, the manner in which the British colonies were founded, the habits of the first
emigrants, in short everything, united to promote, in an extraordinary degree, municipal and
provincial liberties.
In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the country is essentially
republican; and in order permanently to destroy the laws which form the basis of the republic,
it would be necessary to abolish all the laws at once. At the present day it would be even
more difficult for a party to succeed in founding a monarchy in the United States than for a
set of men to proclaim that France should henceforward be a republic. Royalty would not find
a system of legislation prepared for it beforehand; and a monarchy would then exist, really
surrounded by republican institutions. The monarchical principle would likewise have great
difficulty in penetrating into the manners of the Americans.
In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an isolated doctrine bearing no
relation to the prevailing manners and ideas of the people: it may, on the contrary, be
regarded as the last link of a chain of opinions which binds the whole Anglo-American world.
That Providence has given to every human being the degree of reason necessary to direct
himself in the affairs which interest him exclusively—such is the grand maxim upon which
civil and political society rests in the United States. The father of a family applies it to his
children; the master to his servants; the township to its officers; the province to its townships;
the State to its provinces; the Union to the States; and when extended to the nation, it
becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.
Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the republic is the same which
governs the greater part of human actions; republican notions insinuate themselves into all
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the ideas, opinions, and habits of the Americans, whilst they are formerly recognized by the
legislation: and before this legislation can be altered the whole community must undergo very
serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of most of the citizens is republican,
since it submits the truths of the other world to private judgment: as in politics the care of its
temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people. Thus every man is allowed
freely to take that road which he thinks will lead him to heaven; just as the law permits every
citizen to have the right of choosing his government.
It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all having the same tendency, can
substitute for this combination of laws, opinions, and manners, a mass of opposite opinions,
manners, and laws.
If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only yield after a laborious social
process, often interrupted, and as often resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and
will not become totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to that
which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that there is no symptom or presage of the
approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the
United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The
laws are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable
in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short space of time, a completely new form of
government. Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which affects
political institutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: the first, which
modifies secondary laws, is not incompatible with a very settled state of society; the other
shakes the very foundations of the Constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of
legislation; this species of instability is always followed by troubles and revolutions, and the
nation which suffers under it is in a state of violent transition.
Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability have no necessary connection;
for they have been found united or separate, according to times and circumstances. The first
is common in the United States, but not the second: the Americans often change their laws,
but the foundation of the Constitution is respected.
In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the monarchical principle did in
France under Louis XIV. The French of that period were not only friends of the monarchy,
but they thought it impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we receive the
rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Amongst them the royal power had neither
advocates nor opponents. In like manner does the republican government exist in America,
without contention or opposition; without proofs and arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort
of consensus universalis. It is, however, my opinion that by changing their administrative
forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the future stability
of their government.
It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their designs by the mutability of the
legislation, will learn to look upon republican institutions as an inconvenient form of society;
the evil resulting from the instability of the secondary enactments might then raise a doubt as
to the nature of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and indirectly bring about a
revolution; but this epoch is still very remote.
It may, however, be foreseen even now, that when the Americans lose their republican
institutions they will speedily arrive at a despotic government, without a long interval of
limited monarchy. Montesquieu remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the authority of
a prince who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had fearlessly been
intrusted to an elected magistrate are then transferred to a hereditary sovereign. This is true in
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general, but it is more peculiarly applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, the
magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens, but by the majority of the nation;
they are the immediate representatives of the passions of the multitude; and as they are
wholly dependent upon its pleasure, they excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have
already shown, very little care has been taken to limit their influence, and they are left in
possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This state of things has engendered habits which
would outlive itself; the American magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to
be responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to say what bounds could then be set
to tyranny.
Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in America, and they
already predict the exact period at which it will be able to assume the reins of government. I
have previously observed, and I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of American
society appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not assert that
the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the circle of political rights in their
country, or confiscate those rights to the advantage of a single individual; but I cannot
imagine that they will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a privileged class of
citizens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an aristocracy.
An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens who, without being very far
removed from the mass of the people, are, nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a
body which it is easy to touch and difficult to strike; with which the people are in daily
contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined more contrary to
nature and to the secret propensities of the human heart than a subjection of this kind; and
men who are left to follow their own bent will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to
the regular administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions cannot subsist without
laying down the inequality of men as a fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the
legislation, affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects that of society;
but these are things so repugnant to natural equity that they can only be extorted from men by
constraint.
I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began to exist, which has,
by its own free will and by its own exertions, created an aristocracy within its own bosom.
All the aristocracies of the Middle Ages were founded by military conquest; the conqueror
was the noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequality was then imposed by force; and
after it had been introduced into the manners of the country it maintained its own authority,
and was sanctioned by the legislation. Communities have existed which were aristocratic
from their earliest origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event, and which became
more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the Romans, and of the
barbarians after them. But a people, having taken its rise in civilization and democracy,
which should gradually establish an inequality of conditions, until it arrived at inviolable
privileges and exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates that
America is likely to furnish so singular an example.
Reflection On The Causes Of The Commercial Prosperity Of The Of The United States
The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime people—Extent of their coasts—
Depth of their ports—Size of their rivers—The commercial superiority of the Anglo-
Americans less attributable, however, to physical circumstances than to moral and
intellectual causes—Reason of this opinion—Future destiny of the Anglo-Americans as a
commercial nation—The dissolution of the Union would not check the maritime vigor of the
States—Reason of this—Anglo-Americans will naturally supply the wants of the inhabitants
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of South America—They will become, like the English, the factors of a great portion of the
world.
The coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine River in the Gulf of
Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in extent. These shores form an unbroken line, and
they are all subject to the same government. No nation in the world possesses vaster, deeper,
or more secure ports for shipping than the Americans.
The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized people, which fortune has
placed in the midst of an uncultivated country at a distance of three thousand miles from the
central point of civilization. America consequently stands in daily need of European trade.
The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or manufacturing at home
most of the articles which they require; but the two continents can never be independent of
each other, so numerous are the natural ties which exist between their wants, their ideas, their
habits, and their manners.
The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become necessary to us, but which
cannot be cultivated, or can only be raised at an enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe.
The Americans only consume a small portion of this produce, and they are willing to sell us
the rest. Europe is therefore the market of America, as America is the market of Europe; and
maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the inhabitants of the United States to
transport their raw materials to the ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with
our manufactured produce. The United States were therefore necessarily reduced to the
alternative of increasing the business of other maritime nations to a great extent, if they had
themselves declined to enter into commerce, as the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done;
or, in the second place, of becoming one of the first trading powers of the globe.
The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste for the sea. The
Declaration of Independence broke the commercial restrictions which united them to
England, and gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to their maritime genius. Ever since that
time, the shipping of the Union has increased in almost the same rapid proportion as the
number of its inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores nine-
tenths of the European produce which they consume. 303 And they also bring three-quarters of
the exports of the New World to the European consumer. 304 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. 305
Thus, not only does the American merchant face the competition of his own countrymen, but
he even supports that of foreign nations in their own ports with success. This is readily
explained by the fact that the vessels of the United States can cross the seas at a cheaper rate

303
The total value of goods imported during the year which ended on September 30, 1832, was $101,129,266.
The value of the cargoes of foreign vessels did not amount to $10,731,039, or about one-tenth of the entire sum.
304
The value of goods exported during the same year amounted to $87,176,943; the value of goods exported by
foreign vessels amounted to $21,036,183, or about one quarter of the whole sum. (Williams’s “Register,” 1833,
p. 398.)
305
The tonnage of the vessels which entered all the ports of the Union in the years 1829, 1830, and 1831,
amounted to 3,307,719 tons, of which 544,571 tons were foreign vessels; they stood, therefore, to the American
vessels in a ratio of about 16 to 100. (“National Calendar,” 1833, p. 304.) The tonnage of the English vessels
which entered the ports of London, Liverpool, and Hull, in the years 1820, 1826, and 1831, amounted to
443,800 tons. The foreign vessels which entered the same ports during the same years amounted to 159,431
tons. The ratio between them was, therefore, about 36 to 100. (“Companion to the Almanac,” 1834, p. 169.) In
the year 1832 the ratio between the foreign and British ships which entered the ports of Great Britain was 29 to
100. [These statements relate to a condition of affairs which has ceased to exist; the Civil War and the heavy
taxation of the United States entirely altered the trade and navigation of the country.]
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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.
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XVIII. Future Condition Of Three Races—Part 10

It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade at a lower rate than other
nations; and one is at first led to attribute this circumstance to the physical or natural
advantages which are within their reach; but this supposition is erroneous. The American
vessels cost almost as much to build as our own; 306 they are not better built, and they
generally last for a shorter time. The pay of the American sailor is more considerable than the
pay on board European ships; which is proved by the great number of Europeans who are to
be met with in the merchant vessels of the United States. But I am of opinion that the true
cause of their superiority must not be sought for in physical advantages, but that it is wholly
attributable to their moral and intellectual qualities.
The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the campaigns of the
Revolution the French introduced a new system of tactics into the art of war, which perplexed
the oldest generals, and very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe. They
undertook (what had never before been attempted) to make shift without a number of things
which had always been held to be indispensable in warfare; they required novel exertions on
the part of their troops which no civilized nations had ever thought of; they achieved great
actions in an incredibly short space of time; and they risked human life without hesitation to
obtain the object in view. The French had less money and fewer men than their enemies; their
resources were infinitely inferior; nevertheless they were constantly victorious, until their
adversaries chose to imitate their example.
The Americans have introduced a similar system into their commercial speculations; and they
do for cheapness what the French did for conquest. The European sailor navigates with
prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable; if an unforseen accident befalls
him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas; and when the whitening
billows intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and takes an observation of the sun.
But the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in
the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to the wind; he
repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and
when he at last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he
already descried a port. The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas
so rapidly. And as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can perform it at a
cheaper rate.
The European touches several times at different ports in the course of a long voyage; he loses
a good deal of precious time in making the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave
it; and he pays daily dues to be allowed to remain there. The American starts from Boston to
go to purchase tea in China; he arrives at Canton, stays there a few days, and then returns. In
less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire circumference of the globe, and he has
seen land but once. It is true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk
brackish water and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea,
with disease, and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a pound of his tea
for a half-penny less than the English merchant, and his purpose is accomplished.

306
Materials are, generally speaking, less expensive in America than in Europe, but the price of labor is much
higher.
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I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the Americans affect a sort of heroism
in their manner of trading. But the European merchant will always find it very difficult to
imitate his American competitor, who, in adopting the system which I have just described,
follows not only a calculation of his gain, but an impulse of his nature.
The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all the wants and all the desires which
result from an advanced stage of civilization; but as they are not surrounded by a community
admirably adapted, like that of Europe, to satisfy their wants, they are often obliged to
procure for themselves the various articles which education and habit have rendered
necessaries. In America it sometimes happens that the same individual tills his field, builds
his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his shoes, and weaves the coarse stuff of which his
dress is composed. This circumstance is prejudicial to the excellence of the work; but it
powerfully contributes to awaken the intelligence of the workman. Nothing tends to
materialize man, and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme
division of labor. In a country like America, where men devoted to special occupations are
rare, a long apprenticeship cannot be required from anyone who embraces a profession. The
Americans, therefore, change their means of gaining a livelihood very readily; and they suit
their occupations to the exigencies of the moment, in the manner most profitable to
themselves. Men are to be met with who have successively been barristers, farmers,
merchants, ministers of the gospel, and physicians. If the American be less perfect in each
craft than the European, at least there is scarcely any trade with which he is utterly
unacquainted. His capacity is more general, and the circle of his intelligence is enlarged.
The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the axioms of their profession; they
escape from all the prejudices of their present station; they are not more attached to one line
of operation than to another; they are not more prone to employ an old method than a new
one; they have no rooted habits, and they easily shake off the influence which the habits of
other nations might exercise upon their minds from a conviction that their country is unlike
any other, and that its situation is without a precedent in the world. America is a land of
wonders, in which everything is in constant motion, and every movement seems an
improvement. The idea of novelty is there indissolubly connected with the idea of
amelioration. No natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet
done is only what he has not yet attempted to do.
This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these frequent vicissitudes of
fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen fluctuations in private and in public wealth, serve
to keep the minds of the citizens in a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably
invigorates their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the ordinary level
of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary
crisis, or a battle. As the same causes are continually in operation throughout the country,
they ultimately impart an irresistible impulse to the national character. The American, taken
as a chance specimen of his countrymen, must then be a man of singular warmth in his
desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and, above all, of innovation. The same bent is
manifest in all that he does; he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his
theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations; he bears it with him in the depths
of the backwoods, as well as in the business of the city. It is this same passion, applied to
maritime commerce, which makes him the cheapest and the quickest trader in the world.
As long as the sailors of the United States retain these inspiriting advantages, and the
practical superiority which they derive from them, they will not only continue to supply the
wants of the producers and consumers of their own country, but they will tend more and more
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to become, like the English, the factors of all other peoples. 307 This prediction has already
begun to be realized; we perceive that the American traders are introducing themselves as
intermediate agents in the commerce of several European nations; 308 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 inhabitants are too
much absorbed in the cares of self-defense even to attempt any amelioration of their
condition. Such, however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own
efforts in piercing the gloom of the Middle Ages; South America has the same Christian laws
and Christian manners as we have; she contains all the germs of civilization which have
grown amidst the nations of Europe or their offsets, added to the advantages to be derived
from our example: why then should she always remain uncivilized? It is clear that the
question is simply one of time; at some future period, which may be more or less remote, the
inhabitants of South America will constitute flourishing and enlightened nations.
But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America begin to feel the wants common to
all civilized nations, they will still be unable to satisfy those wants for themselves; as the
youngest children of civilization, they must perforce admit the superiority of their elder
brethren. They will be agriculturists long before they succeed in manufactures or commerce,
and they will require the mediation of strangers to exchange their produce beyond seas for
those articles for which a demand will begin to be felt.
It is unquestionable that the Americans of the North will one day supply the wants of the
Americans of the South. Nature has placed them in contiguity, and has furnished the former
with every means of knowing and appreciating those demands, of establishing a permanent
connection with those States, and of gradually filling their markets. The merchants of the
United States could only forfeit these natural advantages if he were very inferior to the
merchant of Europe; to whom he is, on the contrary, superior in several respects. The
Americans of the United States already exercise a very considerable moral influence upon all
the peoples of the New World. They are the source of intelligence, and all the nations which
inhabit the same continent are already accustomed to consider them as the most enlightened,
the most powerful, and the most wealthy members of the great American family. All eyes are
therefore turned towards the Union; and the States of which that body is composed are the
models which the other communities try to imitate to the best of their power; it is from the
United States that they borrow their political principles and their laws.
The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the same position with regard to the
peoples of South America as their fathers, the English, occupy with regard to the Italians, the
Spaniards, the Portuguese, and all those nations of Europe which receive their articles of
daily consumption from England, because they are less advanced in civilization and trade.
England is at this time the natural emporium of almost all the nations which are within its
reach; the American Union will perform the same part in the other hemisphere; and every

307
It must not be supposed that English vessels are exclusively employed in transporting foreign produce into
England, or British produce to foreign countries; at the present day the merchant shipping of England may be
regarded in the light of a vast system of public conveyances, ready to serve all the producers of the world, and to
open communications between all peoples. The maritime genius of the Americans prompts them to enter into
competition with the English.
308
Part of the commerce of the Mediterranean is already carried on by American vessels.
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community which is founded, or which prospers in the New World, is founded and prospers
to the advantage of the Anglo-Americans.
If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the States which now compose it would
undoubtedly be checked for a time; but this consequence would be less perceptible than is
generally supposed. It is evident that, whatever may happen, the commercial States will
remain united. They are all contiguous to each other; they have identically the same opinions,
interests, and manners; and they are alone competent to form a very great maritime power.
Even if the South of the Union were to become independent of the North, it would still
require the services of those States. I have already observed that the South is not a
commercial country, and nothing intimates that it is likely to become so. The Americans of
the South of the United States will therefore be obliged, for a long time to come, to have
recourse to strangers to export their produce, and to supply them with the commodities which
are requisite to satisfy their wants. But the Northern States are undoubtedly able to act as
their intermediate agents cheaper than any other merchants. They will therefore retain that
employment, for cheapness is the sovereign law of commerce. National claims and national
prejudices cannot resist the influence of cheapness. Nothing can be more virulent than the
hatred which exists between the Americans of the United States and the English. But
notwithstanding these inimical feelings, the Americans derive the greater part of their
manufactured commodities from England, because England supplies them at a cheaper rate
than any other nation. Thus the increasing prosperity of America turns, notwithstanding the
grudges of the Americans, to the advantage of British manufactures.
Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial prosperity can be durable if it
cannot be united, in case of need, to naval force. This truth is as well understood in the
United States as it can be anywhere else: the Americans are already able to make their flag
respected; in a few years they will be able to make it feared. I am convinced that the
dismemberment of the Union would not have the effect of diminishing the naval power of the
Americans, but that it would powerfully contribute to increase it. At the present time the
commercial States are connected with others which have not the same interests, and which
frequently yield an unwilling consent to the increase of a maritime power by which they are
only indirectly benefited. If, on the contrary, the commercial States of the Union formed one
independent nation, commerce would become the foremost of their national interests; they
would consequently be willing to make very great sacrifices to protect their shipping, and
nothing would prevent them from pursuing their designs upon this point.
Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent features of their future
destiny in their earliest years. When I contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans
prosecute commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the success of
their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they will one day become the first
maritime power of the globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer
the world.
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Conclusion

I have now nearly reached the close of my inquiry; hitherto, in speaking of the future destiny
of the United States, I have endeavored to divide my subject into distinct portions, in order to
study each of them with more attention. My present object is to embrace the whole from one
single point; the remarks I shall make will be less detailed, but they will be more sure. I shall
perceive each object less distinctly, but I shall descry the principal facts with more certainty.
A traveller who has just left the walls of an immense city, climbs the neighboring hill; as he
goes father off he loses sight of the men whom he has so recently quitted; their dwellings are
confused in a dense mass; he can no longer distinguish the public squares, and he can
scarcely trace out the great thoroughfares; but his eye has less difficulty in following the
boundaries of the city, and for the first time he sees the shape of the vast whole. Such is the
future destiny of the British race in North America to my eye; the details of the stupendous
picture are overhung with shade, but I conceive a clear idea of the entire subject.
The territory now occupied or possessed by the United States of America forms about one-
twentieth part of the habitable earth. But extensive as these confines are, it must not be
supposed that the Anglo-American race will always remain within them; indeed, it has
already far overstepped them.
There was once a time at which we also might have created a great French nation in the
American wilds, to counterbalance the influence of the English upon the destinies of the New
World. France formerly possessed a territory in North America, scarcely less extensive than
the whole of Europe. The three greatest rivers of that continent then flowed within her
dominions. The Indian tribes which dwelt between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the
delta of the Mississippi were unaccustomed to any other tongue but ours; and all the
European settlements scattered over that immense region recalled the traditions of our
country. Louisbourg, Montmorency, Duquesne, St. Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans (for such
were the names they bore) are words dear to France and familiar to our ears.
But a concourse of circumstances, which it would be tedious to enumerate, 309 have deprived
us of this magnificent inheritance. Wherever the French settlers were numerically weak and
partially established, they have disappeared: those who remain are collected on a small extent
of country, and are now subject to other laws. The 400,000 French inhabitants of Lower
Canada constitute, at the present time, the remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a new
people. A foreign population is increasing around them unceasingly and on all sides, which
already penetrates amongst the ancient masters of the country, predominates in their cities
and corrupts their language. This population is identical with that of the United States; it is
therefore with truth that I asserted that the British race is not confined within the frontiers of
the Union, since it already extends to the northeast.
To the northwest nothing is to be met with but a few insignificant Russian settlements; but to
the southwest, Mexico presents a barrier to the Anglo-Americans. Thus, the Spaniards and
the Anglo-Americans are, properly speaking, the only two races which divide the possession
of the New World. The limits of separation between them have been settled by a treaty; but
although the conditions of that treaty are exceedingly favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I do

309
The foremost of these circumstances is, that nations which are accustomed to free institutions and municipal
government are better able than any others to found prosperous colonies. The habit of thinking and governing
for oneself is indispensable in a new country, where success necessarily depends, in a great measure, upon the
individual exertions of the settlers.
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not doubt that they will shortly infringe this arrangement. Vast provinces, extending beyond
the frontiers of the Union towards Mexico, are still destitute of inhabitants. The natives of the
United States will forestall the rightful occupants of these solitary regions. They will take
possession of the soil, and establish social institutions, so that when the legal owner arrives at
length, he will find the wilderness under cultivation, and strangers quietly settled in the midst
of his inheritance. 310
The lands of the New World belong to the first occupant, and they are the natural reward of
the swiftest pioneer. Even the countries which are already peopled will have some difficulty
in securing themselves from this invasion. I have already alluded to what is taking place in
the province of Texas. The inhabitants of the United States are perpetually migrating to
Texas, where they purchase land; and although they conform to the laws of the country, they
are gradually founding the empire of their own language and their own manners. The
province of Texas is still part of the Mexican dominions, but it will soon contain no
Mexicans; the same thing has occurred whenever the Anglo-Americans have come into
contact with populations of a different origin.
It cannot be denied that the British race has acquired an amazing preponderance over all the
other European races in the New World; and that it is very superior to them in civilization, in
industry, and in power. As long as it is only surrounded by desert or thinly peopled countries,
as long as it encounters no dense populations upon its route, through which it cannot work its
way, it will assuredly continue to spread. The lines marked out by treaties will not stop it; but
it will everywhere transgress these imaginary barriers.
The geographical position of the British race in the New World is peculiarly favorable to its
rapid increase. Above its northern frontiers the icy regions of the Pole extend; and a few
degrees below its southern confines lies the burning climate of the Equator. The Anglo-
Americans are, therefore, placed in the most temperate and habitable zone of the continent.
It is generally supposed that the prodigious increase of population in the United States is
posterior to their Declaration of Independence. But this is an error: the population increased
as rapidly under the colonial system as it does at the present day; that is to say, it doubled in
about twenty-two years. But this proportion which is now applied to millions, was then
applied to thousands of inhabitants; and the same fact which was scarcely noticeable a
century ago, is now evident to every observer.
The British subjects in Canada, who are dependent on a king, augment and spread almost as
rapidly as the British settlers of the United States, who live under a republican government.
During the war of independence, which lasted eight years, the population continued to
increase without intermission in the same ratio. Although powerful Indian nations allied with
the English existed at that time upon the western frontiers, the emigration westward was
never checked. Whilst the enemy laid waste the shores of the Atlantic, Kentucky, the western
parts of Pennsylvania, and the States of Vermont and of Maine were filling with inhabitants.
Nor did the unsettled state of the Constitution, which succeeded the war, prevent the increase
of the population, or stop its progress across the wilds. Thus, the difference of laws, the
various conditions of peace and war, of order and of anarchy, have exercised no perceptible
influence upon the gradual development of the Anglo-Americans. This may be readily
understood; for the fact is, that no causes are sufficiently general to exercise a simultaneous
influence over the whole of so extensive a territory. One portion of the country always offers

310
This was speedily accomplished, and ere long both Texas and California formed part of the United States.
The Russian settlements were acquired by purchase.
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a sure retreat from the calamities which afflict another part; and however great may be the
evil, the remedy which is at hand is greater still.
It must not, then, be imagined that the impulse of the British race in the New World can be
arrested. The dismemberment of the Union, and the hostilities which might ensure, the
abolition of republican institutions, and the tyrannical government which might succeed it,
may retard this impulse, but they cannot prevent it from ultimately fulfilling the destinies to
which that race is reserved. No power upon earth can close upon the emigrants that fertile
wilderness which offers resources to all industry, and a refuge from all want. Future events,
of whatever nature they may be, will not deprive the Americans of their climate or of their
inland seas, of their great rivers or of their exuberant soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, and
anarchy be able to obliterate that love of prosperity and that spirit of enterprise which seem to
be the distinctive characteristics of their race, or to extinguish that knowledge which guides
them on their way.
Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is sure. At a period which may be
said to be near (for we are speaking of the life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone
cover the immense space contained between the polar regions and the tropics, extending from
the coasts of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The territory which will probably
be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at some future time, may be computed to equal three-
quarters of Europe in extent. 311 The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to that
of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it is therefore evident that its
population will at some future time be proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is
between so many different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars and the
barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a population of 410
inhabitants to the square league. 312 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 British race in America cease to
present the same homogeneous characteristics: and the time cannot be foreseen at which a
permanent inequality of conditions will be established in the New World. Whatever
differences may arise, from peace or from war, from freedom or oppression, from prosperity
or want, between the destinies of the different descendants of the great Anglo-American
family, they will at least preserve an analogous social condition, and they will hold in
common the customs and the opinions to which that social condition has given birth.
In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful to imbue all the different
populations of Europe with the same civilization. The British of the New World have a
thousand other reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to equality is general
amongst mankind. The Middle Ages were a period when everything was broken up; when
each people, each province, each city, and each family, had a strong tendency to maintain its
distinct individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency seems to prevail, and the
nations seem to be advancing to unity. Our means of intellectual intercourse unite the most
remote parts of the earth; and it is impossible for men to remain strangers to each other, or to
be ignorant of the events which are taking place in any corner of the globe. The consequence
is that there is less difference, at the present day, between the Europeans and their

311
The United States already extend over a territory equal to one-half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000
square leagues, and its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. (“Malte Brun,” liv. 114. vol. vi. p. 4.)
[This computation is given in French leagues, which were in use when the author wrote. Twenty years later, in
1850, the superficial area of the United States had been extended to 3,306,865 square miles of territory, which is
about the area of Europe.]
312
See “Malte Brun,” liv. 116, vol. vi. p. 92.
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descendants in the New World, than there was between certain towns in the thirteenth century
which were only separated by a river. If this tendency to assimilation brings foreign nations
closer to each other, it must a fortiori prevent the descendants of the same people from
becoming aliens to each other.
The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of men will be living in
North America, 313 equal in condition, the progeny of one race, owing their origin to the same
cause, and preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same
habits, the same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the same
forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact new to the world—a fact
fraught with such portentous consequences as to baffle the efforts even of the imagination.
There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which seem to tend towards the
same end, although they started from different points: I allude to the Russians and the
Americans. Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was
directed elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the nations;
and the world learned their existence and their greatness at almost the same time.
All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and only to be charged with
the maintenance of their power; but these are still in the act of growth; 314 all the others are
stopped, or continue to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and
with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term. The American
struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose him; the adversaries of the Russian are
men; the former combats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its
weapons and its arts: the conquests of the one are therefore gained by the ploughshare; those
of the other by the sword. The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish
his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common-sense of the citizens;
the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm: the principal instrument of the
former is freedom; of the latter servitude. Their starting-point is different, and their courses
are not the same; yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the
destinies of half the globe.

313
This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe, taken at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the
square league.
314
Russia is the country in the Old World in which population increases most rapidly in proportion.
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Book Two
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De Tocqueville’s Preface To The Second Part

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally suggested to them
certain laws and a certain political character. This same state of society has, moreover,
engendered amongst them a multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown
amongst the elder aristocratic communities of Europe: it has destroyed or modified all the
relations which before existed, and established others of a novel kind. The—aspect of civil
society has been no less affected by these changes than that of the political world. The former
subject has been treated of in the work on the Democracy of America, which I published five
years ago; to examine the latter is the object of the present book; but these two parts complete
each other, and form one and the same work.
I must at once warn the reader against an error which would be extremely prejudicial to me.
When he finds that I attribute so many different consequences to the principle of equality, he
may thence infer that I consider that principle to be the sole cause of all that takes place in the
present age: but this would be to impute to me a very narrow view. A multitude of opinions,
feelings, and propensities are now in existence, which owe their origin to circumstances
unconnected with or even contrary to the principle of equality. Thus if I were to select the
United States as an example, I could easily prove that the nature of the country, the origin of
its inhabitants, the religion of its founders, their acquired knowledge, and their former habits,
have exercised, and still exercise, independently of democracy, a vast influence upon the
thoughts and feelings of that people. Different causes, but no less distinct from the
circumstance of the equality of conditions, might be traced in Europe, and would explain a
great portion of the occurrences taking place amongst us.
I acknowledge the existence of all these different causes, and their power, but my subject
does not lead me to treat of them. I have not undertaken to unfold the reason of all our
inclinations and all our notions: my only object is to show in what respects the principle of
equality has modified both the former and the latter.
Some readers may perhaps be astonished that—firmly persuaded as I am that the democratic
revolution which we are witnessing is an irresistible fact against which it would be neither
desirable nor wise to struggle—I should often have had occasion in this book to address
language of such severity to those democratic communities which this revolution has brought
into being. My answer is simply, that it is because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I
have sought to speak of democracy in all sincerity.
Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them
by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it.
I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the new blessings which
the principle of equality promises to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar
the dangers with which it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief
attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not had the cowardice to
leave them untold.
I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality which seems to have been
remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in the midst of the conflicting opinions between
which we are divided, I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable
sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires me.
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If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to flatter any of the great
parties which have agitated my country, or any of those petty factions which now harass and
weaken it, let such readers raise their voices to accuse me.
The subject I have sought to embrace is immense, for it includes the greater part of the
feelings and opinions to which the new state of society has given birth. Such a subject is
doubtless above my strength, and in treating it I have not succeeded in satisfying myself.
But, if I have not been able to reach the goal which I had in view, my readers will at least do
me the justice to acknowledge that I have conceived and followed up my undertaking in a
spirit not unworthy of success.
A. De T.
March, 1840
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Section I. Influence Of Democracy On The Action

Of Intellect In The United States
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I. Philosophical Method Among The Americans

I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the
United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but
little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely
known to them. Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that almost all the inhabitants of the
United States conduct their understanding in the same manner, and govern it by the same
rules; that is to say, that without ever having taken the trouble to define the rules of a
philosophical method, they are in possession of one, common to the whole people. To evade
the bondage of system and habit, of family maxims, class opinions, and, in some degree, of
national prejudices; to accept tradition only as a means of information, and existing facts only
as a lesson used in doing otherwise, and doing better; to seek the reason of things for one’s
self, and in one’s self alone; to tend to results without being bound to means, and to aim at
the substance through the form;—such are the principal characteristics of what I shall call the
philosophical method of the Americans. But if I go further, and if I seek amongst these
characteristics that which predominates over and includes almost all the rest, I discover that
in most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals to the individual exercise of his
own understanding alone. America is therefore one of the countries in the world where
philosophy is least studied, and where the precepts of Descartes are best applied. Nor is this
surprising. The Americans do not read the works of Descartes, because their social condition
deters them from speculative studies; but they follow his maxims because this very social
condition naturally disposes their understanding to adopt them. In the midst of the continual
movement which agitates a democratic community, the tie which unites one generation to
another is relaxed or broken; every man readily loses the trace of the ideas of his forefathers
or takes no care about them. Nor can men living in this state of society derive their belief
from the opinions of the class to which they belong, for, so to speak, there are no longer any
classes, or those which still exist are composed of such mobile elements, that their body can
never exercise a real control over its members. As to the influence which the intelligence of
one man has on that of another, it must necessarily be very limited in a country where the
citizens, placed on the footing of a general similitude, are all closely seen by each other; and
where, as no signs of incontestable greatness or superiority are perceived in any one of them,
they are constantly brought back to their own reason as the most obvious and proximate
source of truth. It is not only confidence in this or that man which is then destroyed, but the
taste for trusting the ipse dixit of any man whatsoever. Everyone shuts himself up in his own
breast, and affects from that point to judge the world.
The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard of their judgment in
themselves alone, leads them to other habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in
resolving without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they
readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it
transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot
comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost
insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural. As it is on their own testimony that they
are accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which engages their attention with
extreme clearness; they therefore strip off as much as possible all that covers it, they rid
themselves of whatever separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight,
in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This disposition of the mind
soon leads them to contemn forms, which they regard as useless and inconvenient veils
placed between them and the truth.
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The Americans then have not required to extract their philosophical method from books; they
have found it in themselves. The same thing may be remarked in what has taken place in
Europe. This same method has only been established and made popular in Europe in
proportion as the condition of society has become more equal, and men have grown more like
each other. Let us consider for a moment the connection of the periods in which this change
may be traced. In the sixteenth century the Reformers subjected some of the dogmas of the
ancient faith to the scrutiny of private judgment; but they still withheld from it the judgment
of all the rest. In the seventeenth century, Bacon in the natural sciences, and Descartes in the
study of philosophy in the strict sense of the term, abolished recognized formulas, destroyed
the empire of tradition, and overthrew the authority of the schools. The philosophers of the
eighteenth century, generalizing at length the same principle, undertook to submit to the
private judgment of each man all the objects of his belief.
Who does not perceive that Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire employed the same method, and
that they differed only in the greater or less use which they professed should be made of it?
Why did the Reformers confine themselves so closely within the circle of religious ideas?
Why did Descartes, choosing only to apply his method to certain matters, though he had
made it fit to be applied to all, declare that men might judge for themselves in matters
philosophical but not in matters political? How happened it that in the eighteenth century
those general applications were all at once drawn from this same method, which Descartes
and his predecessors had either not perceived or had rejected? To what, lastly, is the fact to be
attributed, that at this period the method we are speaking of suddenly emerged from the
schools, to penetrate into society and become the common standard of intelligence; and that,
after it had become popular among the French, it has been ostensibly adopted or secretly
followed by all the nations of Europe?
The philosophical method here designated may have been engendered in the sixteenth
century—it may have been more accurately defined and more extensively applied in the
seventeenth; but neither in the one nor in the other could it be commonly adopted. Political
laws, the condition of society, and the habits of mind which are derived from these causes,
were as yet opposed to it. It was discovered at a time when men were beginning to equalize
and assimilate their conditions. It could only be generally followed in ages when those
conditions had at length become nearly equal, and men nearly alike.
The philosophical method of the eighteenth century is then not only French, but it is
democratic; and this explains why it was so readily admitted throughout Europe, where it has
contributed so powerfully to change the face of society. It is not because the French have
changed their former opinions, and altered their former manners, that they have convulsed the
world; but because they were the first to generalize and bring to light a philosophical method,
by the assistance of which it became easy to attack all that was old, and to open a path to all
that was new.
If it be asked why, at the present day, this same method is more rigorously followed and more
frequently applied by the French than by the Americans, although the principle of equality be
no less complete, and of more ancient date, amongst the latter people, the fact may be
attributed to two circumstances, which it is essential to have clearly understood in the first
instance. It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. In the
United States religion is therefore commingled with all the habits of the nation and all the
feelings of patriotism; whence it derives a peculiar force. To this powerful reason another of
no less intensity may be added: in American religion has, as it were, laid down its own limits.
Religious institutions have remained wholly distinct from political institutions, so that former
laws have been easily changed whilst former belief has remained unshaken. Christianity has
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therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind in America; and, I would more
particularly remark, that its sway is not only that of a philosophical doctrine which has been
adopted upon inquiry, but of a religion which is believed without discussion. In the United
States Christian sects are infinitely diversified and perpetually modified; but Christianity
itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.
The Americans, having admitted the principal doctrines of the Christian religion without
inquiry, are obliged to accept in like manner a great number of moral truths originating in it
and connected with it. Hence the activity of individual analysis is restrained within narrow
limits, and many of the most important of human opinions are removed from the range of its
influence.
The second circumstance to which I have alluded is the following: the social condition and
the constitution of the Americans are democratic, but they have not had a democratic
revolution. They arrived upon the soil they occupy in nearly the condition in which we see
them at the present day; and this is of very considerable importance.
There are no revolutions which do not shake existing belief, enervate authority, and throw
doubts over commonly received ideas. The effect of all revolutions is therefore, more or less,
to surrender men to their own guidance, and to open to the mind of every man a void and
almost unlimited range of speculation. When equality of conditions succeeds a protracted
conflict between the different classes of which the elder society was composed, envy, hatred,
and uncharitableness, pride, and exaggerated self-confidence are apt to seize upon the human
heart, and plant their sway there for a time. This, independently of equality itself, tends
powerfully to divide men—to lead them to mistrust the judgment of others, and to seek the
light of truth nowhere but in their own understandings. Everyone then attempts to be his own
sufficient guide, and makes it his boast to form his own opinions on all subjects. Men are no
longer bound together by ideas, but by interests; and it would seem as if human opinions
were reduced to a sort of intellectual dust, scattered on every side, unable to collect, unable to
cohere.
Thus, that independence of mind which equality supposes to exist, is never so great, nor ever
appears so excessive, as at the time when equality is beginning to establish itself, and in the
course of that painful labor by which it is established. That sort of intellectual freedom which
equality may give ought, therefore, to be very carefully distinguished from the anarchy which
revolution brings. Each of these two things must be severally considered, in order not to
conceive exaggerated hopes or fears of the future.
I believe that the men who will live under the new forms of society will make frequent use of
their private judgment; but I am far from thinking that they will often abuse it. This is
attributable to a cause of more general application to all democratic countries, and which, in
the long run, must needs restrain in them the independence of individual speculation within
fixed, and sometimes narrow, limits. I shall proceed to point out this cause in the next
chapter.
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II. Of The Principal Source Of Belief Among Democratic

Nations

At different periods dogmatical belief is more or less abundant. It arises in different ways,
and it may change its object or its form; but under no circumstances will dogmatical belief
cease to exist, or, in other words, men will never cease to entertain some implicit opinions
without trying them by actual discussion. If everyone undertook to form his own opinions
and to seek for truth by isolated paths struck out by himself alone, it is not to be supposed that
any considerable number of men would ever unite in any common belief. But obviously
without such common belief no society can prosper—say rather no society can subsist; for
without ideas held in common, there is no common action, and without common action, there
may still be men, but there is no social body. In order that society should exist, and, a fortiori,
that a society should prosper, it is required that all the minds of the citizens should be rallied
and held together by certain predominant ideas; and this cannot be the case, unless each of
them sometimes draws his opinions from the common source, and consents to accept certain
matters of belief at the hands of the community.
If I now consider man in his isolated capacity, I find that dogmatical belief is not less
indispensable to him in order to live alone, than it is to enable him to co-operate with his
fellow-creatures. If man were forced to demonstrate to himself all the truths of which he
makes daily use, his task would never end. He would exhaust his strength in preparatory
exercises, without advancing beyond them. As, from the shortness of his life, he has not the
time, nor, from the limits of his intelligence, the capacity, to accomplish this, he is reduced to
take upon trust a number of facts and opinions which he has not had either the time or the
power to verify himself, but which men of greater ability have sought out, or which the world
adopts. On this groundwork he raises for himself the structure of his own thoughts; nor is he
led to proceed in this manner by choice so much as he is constrained by the inflexible law of
his condition. There is no philosopher of such great parts in the world, but that he believes a
million of things on the faith of other people, and supposes a great many more truths than he
demonstrates. This is not only necessary but desirable. A man who should undertake to
inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention.
His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating
to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect
would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from
amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without
discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for
investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far
enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to make a good use of
freedom.
A principle of authority must then always occur, under all circumstances, in some part or
other of the moral and intellectual world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has.
The independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot
be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority exists in the ages of
democracy, but simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.
I have shown in the preceding chapter how the equality of conditions leads men to entertain a
sort of instinctive incredulity of the supernatural, and a very lofty and often exaggerated
opinion of the human understanding. The men who live at a period of social equality are not
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therefore easily led to place that intellectual authority to which they bow either beyond or
above humanity. They commonly seek for the sources of truth in themselves, or in those who
are like themselves. This would be enough to prove that at such periods no new religion
could be established, and that all schemes for such a purpose would be not only impious but
absurd and irrational. It may be foreseen that a democratic people will not easily give
credence to divine missions; that they will turn modern prophets to a ready jest; and they that
will seek to discover the chief arbiter of their belief within, and not beyond, the limits of their
kind.
When the ranks of society are unequal, and men unlike each other in condition, there are
some individuals invested with all the power of superior intelligence, learning, and
enlightenment, whilst the multitude is sunk in ignorance and prejudice. Men living at these
aristocratic periods are therefore naturally induced to shape their opinions by the superior
standard of a person or a class of persons, whilst they are averse to recognize the infallibility
of the mass of the people.
The contrary takes place in ages of equality. The nearer the citizens are drawn to the common
level of an equal and similar condition, the less prone does each man become to place
implicit faith in a certain man or a certain class of men. But his readiness to believe the
multitude increases, and opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. Not only is common
opinion the only guide which private judgment retains amongst a democratic people, but
amongst such a people it possesses a power infinitely beyond what it has elsewhere. At
periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by reason of their common
resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded confidence in the
judgment of the public; for it would not seem probable, as they are all endowed with equal
means of judging, but that the greater truth should go with the greater number.
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those
about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them; but when he comes to
survey the totality of his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is
instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and weakness. The same
equality which renders him independent of each of his fellow-citizens taken severally,
exposes him alone and unprotected to the influence of the greater number. The public has
therefore among a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations could
never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to certain opinions, but it
enforces them, and infuses them into the faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the
minds of all upon the reason of each.
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for
the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their
own. Everybody there adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics,
without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it will be perceived that
religion herself holds her sway there, much less as a doctrine of revelation than as a
commonly received opinion. The fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that
the majority rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the power which
that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For nothing is more customary in man than to
recognize superior wisdom in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the
majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which public opinion would
obtain without it over the mind of each member of the community; but the foundations of that
influence do not rest upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not in
the more or less popular institutions which men living under that condition may give
themselves. The intellectual dominion of the greater number would probably be less absolute
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amongst a democratic people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but
it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws men are governed in the
ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith in public opinion will become a species of
religion there, and the majority its ministering prophet.
Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be diminished; and far from
thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it may readily acquire too much preponderance,
and confine the action of private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the
greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of equality I very clearly
discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other
inclined to prohibit him from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of
certain laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a democratic
social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all the bondage once imposed on it
by ranks or by men, the human mind would be closely fettered to the general will of the
greatest number.
If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by democratic nations, for all the
different powers which checked or retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the
evil would only have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of
independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new dress for servitude.
There is—and I cannot repeat it too often—there is in this matter for profound reflection for
those who look on freedom as a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism.
For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know
who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke, because it is
held out to me by the arms of a million of men.
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III. Why The Americans Display More Readiness And

More Taste For General Ideas Than Their Forefathers,
The English

The Deity does not regard the human race collectively. He surveys at one glance and
severally all the beings of whom mankind is composed, and he discerns in each man the
resemblances which assimilate him to all his fellows, and the differences which distinguish
him from them. God, therefore, stands in no need of general ideas; that is to say, he is never
sensible of the necessity of collecting a considerable number of analogous objects under the
same form for greater convenience in thinking. Such is, however, not the case with man. If
the human mind were to attempt to examine and pass a judgment on all the individual cases
before it, the immensity of detail would soon lead it astray and bewilder its discernment: in
this strait, man has recourse to an imperfect but necessary expedient, which at once assists
and demonstrates his weakness. Having superficially considered a certain number of objects,
and remarked their resemblance, he assigns to them a common name, sets them apart, and
proceeds onwards.
General ideas are no proof of the strength, but rather of the insufficiency of the human
intellect; for there are in nature no beings exactly alike, no things precisely identical, nor any
rules indiscriminately and alike applicable to several objects at once. The chief merit of
general ideas is, that they enable the human mind to pass a rapid judgment on a great many
objects at once; but, on the other hand, the notions they convey are never otherwise than
incomplete, and they always cause the mind to lose as much in accuracy as it gains in
comprehensiveness. As social bodies advance in civilization, they acquire the knowledge of
new facts, and they daily lay hold almost unconsciously of some particular truths. The more
truths of this kind a man apprehends, the more general ideas is he naturally led to conceive. A
multitude of particular facts cannot be seen separately, without at last discovering the
common tie which connects them. Several individuals lead to the perception of the species;
several species to that of the genus. Hence the habit and the taste for general ideas will
always be greatest amongst a people of ancient cultivation and extensive knowledge.
But there are other reasons which impel men to generalize their ideas, or which restrain them
from it.
The Americans are much more addicted to the use of general ideas than the English, and
entertain a much greater relish for them: this appears very singular at first sight, when it is
remembered that the two nations have the same origin, that they lived for centuries under the
same laws, and that they still incessantly interchange their opinions and their manners. This
contrast becomes much more striking still, if we fix our eyes on our own part of the world,
and compare together the two most enlightened nations which inhabit it. It would seem as if
the mind of the English could only tear itself reluctantly and painfully away from the
observation of particular facts, to rise from them to their causes; and that it only generalizes
in spite of itself. Amongst the French, on the contrary, the taste for general ideas would seem
to have grown to so ardent a passion, that it must be satisfied on every occasion. I am
informed, every morning when I wake, that some general and eternal law has just been
discovered, which I never heard mentioned before. There is not a mediocre scribbler who
does not try his hand at discovering truths applicable to a great kingdom, and who is very ill
pleased with himself if he does not succeed in compressing the human race into the compass
of an article. So great a dissimilarity between two very enlightened nations surprises me. If I
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again turn my attention to England, and observe the events which have occurred there in the
last half-century, I think I may affirm that a taste for general ideas increases in that country in
proportion as its ancient constitution is weakened.
The state of civilization is therefore insufficient by itself to explain what suggests to the
human mind the love of general ideas, or diverts it from them. When the conditions of men
are very unequal, and inequality itself is the permanent state of society, individual men
gradually become so dissimilar that each class assumes the aspect of a distinct race: only one
of these classes is ever in view at the same instant; and losing sight of that general tie which
binds them all within the vast bosom of mankind, the observation invariably rests not on man,
but on certain men. Those who live in this aristocratic state of society never, therefore,
conceive very general ideas respecting themselves, and that is enough to imbue them with an
habitual distrust of such ideas, and an instinctive aversion of them. He, on the contrary, who
inhabits a democratic country, sees around him, one very hand, men differing but little from
each other; he cannot turn his mind to any one portion of mankind, without expanding and
dilating his thought till it embrace the whole. All the truths which are applicable to himself,
appear to him equally and similarly applicable to each of his fellow-citizens and fellow-men.
Having contracted the habit of generalizing his ideas in the study which engages him most,
and interests him more than others, he transfers the same habit to all his pursuits; and thus it
is that the craving to discover general laws in everything, to include a great number of objects
under the same formula, and to explain a mass of facts by a single cause, becomes an ardent,
and sometimes an undiscerning, passion in the human mind.
Nothing shows the truth of this proposition more clearly than the opinions of the ancients
respecting their slaves. The most profound and capacious minds of Rome and Greece were
never able to reach the idea, at once so general and so simple, of the common likeness of
men, and of the common birthright of each to freedom: they strove to prove that slavery was
in the order of nature, and that it would always exist. Nay, more, everything shows that those
of the ancients who had passed from the servile to the free condition, many of whom have left
us excellent writings, did themselves regard servitude in no other light.
All the great writers of antiquity belonged to the aristocracy of masters, or at least they saw
that aristocracy established and uncontested before their eyes. Their mind, after it had
expanded itself in several directions, was barred from further progress in this one; and the
advent of Jesus Christ upon earth was required to teach that all the members of the human
race are by nature equal and alike.
In the ages of equality all men are independent of each other, isolated and weak. The
movements of the multitude are not permanently guided by the will of any individuals; at
such times humanity seems always to advance of itself. In order, therefore, to explain what is
passing in the world, man is driven to seek for some great causes, which, acting in the same
manner on all our fellow-creatures, thus impel them all involuntarily to pursue the same
track. This again naturally leads the human mind to conceive general ideas, and superinduces
a taste for them.
I have already shown in what way the equality of conditions leads every man to investigate
truths for himself. It may readily be perceived that a method of this kind must insensibly
beget a tendency to general ideas in the human mind. When I repudiate the traditions of rank,
profession, and birth; when I escape from the authority of example, to seek out, by the single
effort of my reason, the path to be followed, I am inclined to derive the motives of my
opinions from human nature itself; which leads me necessarily, and almost unconsciously, to
adopt a great number of very general notions.
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All that I have here said explains the reasons for which the English display much less
readiness and taste or the generalization of ideas than their American progeny, and still less
again than their French neighbors; and likewise the reason for which the English of the
present day display more of these qualities than their forefathers did. The English have long
been a very enlightened and a very aristocratic nation; their enlightened condition urged them
constantly to generalize, and their aristocratic habits confined them to particularize. Hence
arose that philosophy, at once bold and timid, broad and narrow, which has hitherto prevailed
in England, and which still obstructs and stagnates in so many minds in that country.
Independently of the causes I have pointed out in what goes before, others may be discerned
less apparent, but no less efficacious, which engender amongst almost every democratic
people a taste, and frequently a passion, for general ideas. An accurate distinction must be
taken between ideas of this kind. Some are the result of slow, minute, and conscientious labor
of the mind, and these extend the sphere of human knowledge; others spring up at once from
the first rapid exercise of the wits, and beget none but very superficial and very uncertain
notions. Men who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and very little leisure;
their life is so practical, so confused, so excited, so active, that but little time remains to them
for thought. Such men are prone to general ideas because they spare them the trouble of
studying particulars; they contain, if I may so speak, a great deal in a little compass, and give,
in a little time, a great return. If then, upon a brief and inattentive investigation, a common
relation is thought to be detected between certain objects, inquiry is not pushed any further;
and without examining in detail how far these different objects differ or agree, they are
hastily arranged under one formulary, in order to pass to another subject.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of a democratic period is the taste all men have at
such ties for easy success and present enjoyment. This occurs in the pursuits of the intellect
as well as in all others. Most of those who live at a time of equality are full of an ambition at
once aspiring and relaxed: they would fain succeed brilliantly and at once, but they would be
dispensed from great efforts to obtain success. These conflicting tendencies lead straight to
the research of general ideas, by aid of which they flatter themselves that they can figure very
importantly at a small expense, and draw the attention of the public with very little trouble.
And I know not whether they be wrong in thinking thus. For their readers are as much averse
to investigating anything to the bottom as they can be themselves; and what is generally
sought in the productions of the mind is easy pleasure and information without labor.
If aristocratic nations do not make sufficient use of general ideas, and frequently treat them
with inconsiderate disdain, it is true, on the other hand, that a democratic people is ever ready
to carry ideas of this kind to excess, and to espouse the with injudicious warmth.
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IV. Why The Americans Have Never Been So Eager As

The French For General Ideas In Political Matters

I observed in the last chapter, that the Americans show a less decided taste for general ideas
than the French; this is more especially true in political matters. Although the Americans
infuse into their legislation infinitely more general ideas than the English, and although they
pay much more attention than the latter people to the adjustment of the practice of affairs to
theory, no political bodies in the United States have ever shown so warm an attachment to
general ideas as the Constituent Assembly and the Convention in France. At no time has the
American people laid hold on ideas of this kind with the passionate energy of the French
people in the eighteenth century, or displayed the same blind confidence in the value and
absolute truth of any theory. This difference between the Americans and the French
originates in several causes, but principally in the following one. The Americans form a
democratic people, which has always itself directed public affairs. The French are a
democratic people, who, for a long time, could only speculate on the best manner of
conducting them. The social condition of France led that people to conceive very general
ideas on the subject of government, whilst its political constitution prevented it from
correcting those ideas by experiment, and from gradually detecting their insufficiency;
whereas in America the two things constantly balance and correct each other.
It may seem, at first sight, that this is very much opposed to what I have said before, that
democratic nations derive their love of theory from the excitement of their active life. A more
attentive examination will show that there is nothing contradictory in the proposition. Men
living in democratic countries eagerly lay hold of general ideas because they have but little
leisure, and because these ideas spare them the trouble of studying particulars. This is true;
but it is only to be understood to apply to those matters which are not the necessary and
habitual subjects of their thoughts. Mercantile men will take up very eagerly, and without any
very close scrutiny, all the general ideas on philosophy, politics, science, or the arts, which
may be presented to them; but for such as relate to commerce, they will not receive them
without inquiry, or adopt them without reserve. The same thing applies to statesmen with
regard to general ideas in politics. If, then, there be a subject upon which a democratic people
is peculiarly liable to abandon itself, blindly and extravagantly, to general ideas, the best
corrective that can be used will be to make that subject a part of the daily practical occupation
of that people. The people will then be compelled to enter upon its details, and the details will
teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy may frequently be a painful one, but
its effect is certain.
Thus it happens, that the democratic institutions which compel every citizen to take a
practical part in the government, moderate that excessive taste for general theories in politics
which the principle of equality suggests.
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V. Of The Manner In Which Religion In The United

States Avails Itself Of Democratic Tendencies

I have laid it down in a preceding chapter that men cannot do without dogmatical belief; and
even that it is very much to be desired that such belief should exist amongst them. I now add,
that of all the kinds of dogmatical belief the most desirable appears to me to be dogmatical
belief in matters of religion; and this is a very clear inference, even from no higher
consideration than the interests of this world. There is hardly any human action, however
particular a character be assigned to it, which does not originate in some very general idea
men have conceived of the Deity, of his relation to mankind, of the nature of their own souls,
and of their duties to their fellow-creatures. Nor can anything prevent these ideas from being
the common spring from which everything else emanates. Men are therefore immeasurably
interested in acquiring fixed ideas of God, of the soul, and of their common duties to their
Creator and to their fellow-men; for doubt on these first principles would abandon all their
actions to the impulse of chance, and would condemn them to live, to a certain extent,
powerless and undisciplined.
This is then the subject on which it is most important for each of us to entertain fixed ideas;
and unhappily it is also the subject on which it is most difficult for each of us, left to himself,
to settle his opinions by the sole force of his reason. None but minds singularly free from the
ordinary anxieties of life—minds at once penetrating, subtle, and trained by thinking—can
even with the assistance of much time and care, sound the depth of these most necessary
truths. And, indeed, we see that these philosophers are themselves almost always enshrouded
in uncertainties; that at every step the natural light which illuminates their path grows dimmer
and less secure; and that, in spite of all their efforts, they have as yet only discovered a small
number of conflicting notions, on which the mind of man has been tossed about for thousands
of years, without either laying a firmer grasp on truth, or finding novelty even in its errors.
Studies of this nature are far above the average capacity of men; and even if the majority of
mankind were capable of such pursuits, it is evident that leisure to cultivate them would still
be wanting. Fixed ideas of God and human nature are indispensable to the daily practice of
men’s lives; but the practice of their lives prevents them from acquiring such ideas.
The difficulty appears to me to be without a parallel. Amongst the sciences there are some
which are useful to the mass of mankind, and which are within its reach; others can only be
approached by the few, and are not cultivated by the many, who require nothing beyond their
more remote applications: but the daily practice of the science I speak of is indispensable to
all, although the study of it is inaccessible to the far greater number.
General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore the ideas above all others which
it is most suitable to withdraw from the habitual action of private judgment, and in which
there is most to gain and least to lose by recognizing a principle of authority. The first object
and one of the principal advantages of religions, is to furnish to each of these fundamental
questions a solution which is at once clear, precise, intelligible to the mass of mankind, and
lasting. There are religions which are very false and very absurd; but it may be affirmed, that
any religion which remains within the circle I have just traced, without aspiring to go beyond
it (as many religions have attempted to do, for the purpose of enclosing on every side the free
progress of the human mind), imposes a salutary restraint on the intellect; and it must be
admitted that, if it do not save men in another world, such religion is at least very conducive
to their happiness and their greatness in this. This is more especially true of men living in free
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countries. When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the highest portions
of the intellect, and half paralyzes all the rest of its powers. Every man accustoms himself to
entertain none but confused and changing notions on the subjects most interesting to his
fellow-creatures and himself. His opinions are ill-defended and easily abandoned: and,
despairing of ever resolving by himself the hardest problems of the destiny of man, he
ignobly submits to think no more about them. Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul,
relax the springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude. Nor does it only happen, in
such a case, that they allow their freedom to be wrested from them; they frequently
themselves surrender it. When there is no longer any principle of authority in religion any
more than in politics, men are speedily frightened at the aspect of this unbounded
independence. The constant agitation of all surrounding things alarms and exhausts them. As
everything is at sea in the sphere of the intellect, they determine at least that the mechanism
of society should be firm and fixed; and as they cannot resume their ancient belief, they
assume a master.
For my own part, I doubt whether man can ever support at the same time complete religious
independence and entire public freedom. And I am inclined to think, that if faith be wanting
in him, he must serve; and if he be free, he must believe.
Perhaps, however, this great utility of religions is still more obvious amongst nations where
equality of conditions prevails than amongst others. It must be acknowledged that equality,
which brings great benefits into the world, nevertheless suggests to men (as will be shown
hereafter) some very dangerous propensities. It tends to isolate them from each other, to
concentrate every man’s attention upon himself; and it lays open the soul to an inordinate
love of material gratification. The greatest advantage of religion is to inspire diametrically
contrary principles. There is no religion which does not place the object of man’s desires
above and beyond the treasures of earth, and which does not naturally raise his soul to
regions far above those of the senses. Nor is there any which does not impose on man some
sort of duties to his kind, and thus draws him at times from the contemplation of himself.
This occurs in religions the most false and dangerous. Religious nations are therefore
naturally strong on the very point on which democratic nations are weak; which shows of
what importance it is for men to preserve their religion as their conditions become more
equal.
I have neither the right nor the intention of examining the supernatural means which God
employs to infuse religious belief into the heart of man. I am at this moment considering
religions in a purely human point of view: my object is to inquire by what means they may
most easily retain their sway in the democratic ages upon which we are entering. It has been
shown that, at times of general cultivation and equality, the human mind does not consent to
adopt dogmatical opinions without reluctance, and feels their necessity acutely in spiritual
matters only. This proves, in the first place, that at such times religions ought, more
cautiously than at any other, to confine themselves within their own precincts; for in seeking
to extend their power beyond religious matters, they incur a risk of not being believed at all.
The circle within which they seek to bound the human intellect ought therefore to be
carefully traced, and beyond its verge the mind should be left in entire freedom to its own
guidance. Mahommed professed to derive from Heaven, and he has inserted in the Koran, not
only a body of religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories
of science. The gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God
and to each other—beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone,
besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions
will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to
retain its sway at these as at all other periods.
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But in continuation of this branch of the subject, I find that in order for religions to maintain
their authority, humanly speaking, in democratic ages, they must not only confine themselves
strictly within the circle of spiritual matters: their power also depends very much on the
nature of the belief they inculcate, on the external forms they assume, and on the obligations
they impose. The preceding observation, that equality leads men to very general and very
extensive notions, is principally to be understood as applied to the question of religion. Men
living in a similar and equal condition in the world readily conceive the idea of the one God,
governing every man by the same laws, and granting to every man future happiness on the
same conditions. The idea of the unity of mankind constantly leads them back to the idea of
the unity of the Creator; whilst, on the contrary, in a state of society where men are broken up
into very unequal ranks, they are apt to devise as many deities as there are nations, castes,
classes, or families, and to trace a thousand private roads to heaven.
It cannot be denied that Christianity itself has felt, to a certain extent, the influence which
social and political conditions exercise on religious opinions. At the epoch at which the
Christian religion appeared upon earth, Providence, by whom the world was doubtless
prepared for its coming, had gathered a large portion of the human race, like an immense
flock, under the sceptre of the Caesars. The men of whom this multitude was composed were
distinguished by numerous differences; but they had thus much in common, that they all
obeyed the same laws, and that every subject was so weak and insignificant in relation to the
imperial potentate, that all appeared equal when their condition was contrasted with his. This
novel and peculiar state of mankind necessarily predisposed men to listen to the general
truths which Christianity teaches, and may serve to explain the facility and rapidity with
which they then penetrated into the human mind. The counterpart of this state of things was
exhibited after the destruction of the empire. The Roman world being then as it were
shattered into a thousand fragments, each nation resumed its pristine individuality. An infinite
scale of ranks very soon grew up in the bosom of these nations; the different races were more
sharply defined, and each nation was divided by castes into several peoples. In the midst of
this common effort, which seemed to be urging human society to the greatest conceivable
amount of voluntary subdivision, Christianity did not lose sight of the leading general ideas
which it had brought into the world. But it appeared, nevertheless, to lend itself, as much as
was possible, to those new tendencies to which the fractional distribution of mankind had
given birth. Men continued to worship an only God, the Creator and Preserver of all things;
but every people, every city, and, so to speak, every man, thought to obtain some distinct
privilege, and win the favor of an especial patron at the foot of the Throne of Grace. Unable
to subdivide the Deity, they multiplied and improperly enhanced the importance of the divine
agents. The homage due to saints and angels became an almost idolatrous worship amongst
the majority of the Christian world; and apprehensions might be entertained for a moment lest
the religion of Christ should retrograde towards the superstitions which it had subdued. It
seems evident, that the more the barriers are removed which separate nation from nation
amongst mankind, and citizen from citizen amongst a people, the stronger is the bent of the
human mind, as if by its own impulse, towards the idea of an only and all-powerful Being,
dispensing equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic ages, then, it is more
particularly important not to allow the homage paid to secondary agents to be confounded
with the worship due to the Creator alone.
Another truth is no less clear—that religions ought to assume fewer external observances in
democratic periods than at any others. In speaking of philosophical method among the
Americans, I have shown that nothing is more repugnant to the human mind in an age of
equality than the idea of subjection to forms. Men living at such times are impatient of
figures; to their eyes symbols appear to be the puerile artifice which is used to conceal or to
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set off truths, which should more naturally be bared to the light of open day: they are
unmoved by ceremonial observances, and they are predisposed to attach a secondary
importance to the details of public worship. Those whose care it is to regulate the external
forms of religion in a democratic age should pay a close attention to these natural
propensities of the human mind, in order not unnecessarily to run counter to them. I firmly
believe in the necessity of forms, which fix the human mind in the contemplation of abstract
truths, and stimulate its ardor in the pursuit of them, whilst they invigorate its powers of
retaining them steadfastly. Nor do I suppose that it is possible to maintain a religion without
external observances; but, on the other hand, I am persuaded that, in the ages upon which we
are entering, it would be peculiarly dangerous to multiply them beyond measure; and that
they ought rather to be limited to as much as is absolutely necessary to perpetuate the
doctrine itself, which is the substance of religions of which the ritual is only the form. 315 A
religion which should become more minute, more peremptory, and more surcharged with
small observances at a time in which men are becoming more equal, would soon find itself
reduced to a band of fanatical zealots in the midst of an infidel people.
I anticipate the objection, that as all religions have general and eternal truths for their object,
they cannot thus shape themselves to the shifting spirit of every age without forfeiting their
claim to certainty in the eyes of mankind. To this I reply again, that the principal opinions
which constitute belief, and which theologians call articles of faith, must be very carefully
distinguished from the accessories connected with them. Religions are obliged to hold fast to
the former, whatever be the peculiar spirit of the age; but they should take good care not to
bind themselves in the same manner to the latter at a time when everything is in transition,
and when the mind, accustomed to the moving pageant of human affairs, reluctantly endures
the attempt to fix it to any given point. The fixity of external and secondary things can only
afford a chance of duration when civil society is itself fixed; under any other circumstances I
hold it to be perilous.
We shall have occasion to see that, of all the passions which originate in, or are fostered by,
equality, there is one which it renders peculiarly intense, and which it infuses at the same
time into the heart of every man: I mean the love of well-being. The taste for well-being is
the prominent and indelible feature of democratic ages. It may be believed that a religion
which should undertake to destroy so deep seated a passion, would meet its own destruction
thence in the end; and if it attempted to wean men entirely from the contemplation of the
good things of this world, in order to devote their faculties exclusively to the thought of
another, it may be foreseen that the soul would at length escape from its grasp, to plunge into
the exclusive enjoyment of present and material pleasures. The chief concern of religions is
to purify, to regulate, and to restrain the excessive and exclusive taste for well-being which
men feel at periods of equality; but they would err in attempting to control it completely or to
eradicate it. They will not succeed in curing men of the love of riches: but they may still
persuade men to enrich themselves by none but honest means.
This brings me to a final consideration, which comprises, as it were, all the others. The more
the conditions of men are equalized and assimilated to each other, the more important is it for
religions, whilst they carefully abstain from the daily turmoil of secular affairs, not needlessly
to run counter to the ideas which generally prevail, and the permanent interests which exist in
the mass of the people. For as public opinion grows to be more and more evidently the first
and most irresistible of existing powers, the religious principle has no external support strong

315
In all religions there are some ceremonies which are inherent in the substance of the faith itself, and in these
nothing should, on any account, be changed. This is especially the case with Roman Catholicism, in which the
doctrine and the form are frequently so closely united as to form one point of belief.
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enough to enable it long to resist its attacks. This is not less true of a democratic people, ruled
by a despot, than in a republic. In ages of equality, kings may often command obedience, but
the majority always commands belief: to the majority, therefore, deference is to be paid in
whatsoever is not contrary to the faith.
I showed in my former volumes how the American clergy stand aloof from secular affairs.
This is the most obvious, but it is not the only, example of their self-restraint. In America
religion is a distinct sphere, in which the priest is sovereign, but out of which he takes care
never to go. Within its limits he is the master of the mind; beyond them, he leaves men to
themselves, and surrenders them to the independence and instability which belong to their
nature and their age. I have seen no country in which Christianity is clothed with fewer
forms, figures, and observances than in the United States; or where it presents more distinct,
more simple, or more general notions to the mind. Although the Christians of America are
divided into a multitude of sects, they all look upon their religion in the same light. This
applies to Roman Catholicism as well as to the other forms of belief. There are no Romish
priests who show less taste for the minute individual observances for extraordinary or
peculiar means of salvation, or who cling more to the spirit, and less to the letter of the law,
than the Roman Catholic priests of the United States. Nowhere is that doctrine of the Church,
which prohibits the worship reserved to God alone from being offered to the saints, more
clearly inculcated or more generally followed. Yet the Roman Catholics of America are very
submissive and very sincere.
Another remark is applicable to the clergy of every communion. The American ministers of
the gospel do not attempt to draw or to fix all the thoughts of man upon the life to come; they
are willing to surrender a portion of his heart to the cares of the present; seeming to consider
the goods of this world as important, although as secondary, objects. If they take no part
themselves in productive labor, they are at least interested in its progression, and ready to
applaud its results; and whilst they never cease to point to the other world as the great object
of the hopes and fears of the believer, they do not forbid him honestly to court prosperity in
this. Far from attempting to show that these things are distinct and contrary to one another,
they study rather to find out on what point they are most nearly and closely connected.
All the American clergy know and respect the intellectual supremacy exercised by the
majority; they never sustain any but necessary conflicts with it. They take no share in the
altercations of parties, but they readily adopt the general opinions of their country and their
age; and they allow themselves to be borne away without opposition in the current of feeling
and opinion by which everything around them is carried along. They endeavor to amend their
contemporaries, but they do not quit fellowship with them. Public opinion is therefore never
hostile to them; it rather supports and protects them; and their belief owes its authority at the
same time to the strength which is its own, and to that which they borrow from the opinions
of the majority. Thus it is that, by respecting all democratic tendencies not absolutely
contrary to herself, and by making use of several of them for her own purposes, religion
sustains an advantageous struggle with that spirit of individual independence which is her
most dangerous antagonist.
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VI. Of The Progress Of Roman Catholicism In The United

States

America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time (according to
reports worthy of belief) the country in which the Roman Catholic religion makes most
progress. At first sight this is surprising. Two things must here be accurately distinguished:
equality inclines men to wish to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues
them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power which
governs society. Men living in democratic ages are therefore very prone to shake off all
religious authority; but if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind,
they choose at least that it should be single and uniform. Religious powers not radiating from
a common centre are naturally repugnant to their minds; and they almost as readily conceive
that there should be no religion, as that there should be several. At the present time, more
than in any preceding one, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants
to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If the Roman Catholic faith be considered within the
pale of the church, it would seem to be losing ground; without that pale, to be gaining it. Nor
is this circumstance difficult of explanation. The men of our days are naturally disposed to
believe; but, as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent
propensity which urges them unconsciously towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and
the practices of the Romish Church astonish them; but they feel a secret admiration for its
discipline, and its great unity attracts them. If Catholicism could at length withdraw itself
from the political animosities to which it has given rise, I have hardly any doubt but that the
same spirit of the age, which appears to be so opposed to it, would become so favorable as to
admit of its great and sudden advancement. One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the
human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the
expense of logic. Thus there have ever been, and will ever be, men who, after having
submitted some portion of their religious belief to the principle of authority, will seek to
exempt several other parts of their faith from its influence, and to keep their minds floating at
random between liberty and obedience. But I am inclined to believe that the number of these
thinkers will be less in democratic than in other ages; and that our posterity will tend more
and more to a single division into two parts—some relinquishing Christianity entirely, and
others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.
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VII. Of The Cause Of A Leaning To Pantheism Amongst

Democratic Nations

I shall take occasion hereafter to show under what form the preponderating taste of a
democratic people for very general ideas manifests itself in politics; but I would point out, at
the present stage of my work, its principal effect on philosophy. It cannot be denied that
pantheism has made great progress in our age. The writings of a part of Europe bear visible
marks of it: the Germans introduce it into philosophy, and the French into literature. Most of
the works of imagination published in France contain some opinions or some tinge caught
from pantheistical doctrines, or they disclose some tendency to such doctrines in their
authors. This appears to me not only to proceed from an accidental, but from a permanent
cause.
When the conditions of society are becoming more equal, and each individual man becomes
more like all the rest, more weak and more insignificant, a habit grows up of ceasing to notice
the citizens to consider only the people, and of overlooking individuals to think only of their
kind. At such times the human mind seeks to embrace a multitude of different objects at
once; and it constantly strives to succeed in connecting a variety of consequences with a
single cause. The idea of unity so possesses itself of man, and is sought for by him so
universally, that if he thinks he has found it, he readily yields himself up to repose in that
belief. Nor does he content himself with the discovery that nothing is in the world but a
creation and a Creator; still embarrassed by this primary division of things, he seeks to
expand and to simplify his conception by including God and the universe in one great whole.
If there be a philosophical system which teaches that all things material and immaterial,
visible and invisible, which the world contains, are only to be considered as the several parts
of an immense Being, which alone remains unchanged amidst the continual change and
ceaseless transformation of all that constitutes it, we may readily infer that such a system,
although it destroy the individuality of man—nay, rather because it destroys that
individuality—will have secret charms for men living in democracies. All their habits of
thought prepare them to conceive it, and predispose them to adopt it. It naturally attracts and
fixes their imagination; it fosters the pride, whilst it soothes the indolence, of their minds.
Amongst the different systems by whose aid philosophy endeavors to explain the universe, I
believe pantheism to be one of those most fitted to seduce the human mind in democratic
ages. Against it all who abide in their attachment to the true greatness of man should struggle
and combine.
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VIII. The Principle Of Equality Suggests To The

Americans The Idea Of The Indefinite Perfectibility Of
Man

Equality suggests to the human mind several ideas which would not have originated from any
other source, and it modifies almost all those previously entertained. I take as an example the
idea of human perfectibility, because it is one of the principal notions that the intellect can
conceive, and because it constitutes of itself a great philosophical theory, which is every
instant to be traced by its consequences in the practice of human affairs. Although man has
many points of resemblance with the brute creation, one characteristic is peculiar to
himself—he improves: they are incapable of improvement. Mankind could not fail to
discover this difference from its earliest period. The idea of perfectibility is therefore as old
as the world; equality did not give birth to it, although it has imparted to it a novel character.
When the citizens of a community are classed according to their rank, their profession, or
their birth, and when all men are constrained to follow the career which happens to open
before them, everyone thinks that the utmost limits of human power are to be discerned in
proximity to himself, and none seeks any longer to resist the inevitable law of his destiny.
Not indeed that an aristocratic people absolutely contests man’s faculty of self-improvement,
but they do not hold it to be indefinite; amelioration they conceive, but not change: they
imagine that the future condition of society may be better, but not essentially different; and
whilst they admit that mankind has made vast strides in improvement, and may still have
some to make, they assign to it beforehand certain impassable limits. Thus they do not
presume that they have arrived at the supreme good or at absolute truth (what people or what
man was ever wild enough to imagine it?) but they cherish a persuasion that they have pretty
nearly reached that degree of greatness and knowledge which our imperfect nature admits of;
and as nothing moves about them they are willing to fancy that everything is in its fit place.
Then it is that the legislator affects to lay down eternal laws; that kings and nations will raise
none but imperishable monuments; and that the present generation undertakes to spare
generations to come the care of regulating their destinies.
In proportion as castes disappear and the classes of society approximate—as manners,
customs, and laws vary, from the tumultuous intercourse of men—as new facts arise—as new
truths are brought to light—as ancient opinions are dissipated, and others take their place—
the image of an ideal perfection, forever on the wing, presents itself to the human mind.
Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man: the
position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well, that no people and no
individual, how enlightened soever they may be, can lay claim to infallibility;—the condition
of others is improved; whence he infers that man is endowed with an indefinite faculty of
improvement. His reverses teach him that none may hope to have discovered absolute good—
his success stimulates him to the never-ending pursuit of it. Thus, forever seeking—forever
falling, to rise again—often disappointed, but not discouraged—he tends unceasingly towards
that unmeasured greatness so indistinctly visible at the end of the long track which humanity
has yet to tread. It can hardly be believed how many facts naturally flow from the
philosophical theory of the indefinite perfectibility of man, or how strong an influence it
exercises even on men who, living entirely for the purposes of action and not of thought,
seem to conform their actions to it, without knowing anything about it. I accost an American
sailor, and I inquire why the ships of his country are built so as to last but for a short time; he
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answers without hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making such rapid progress,
that the finest vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a certain number of
years. In these words, which fell accidentally and on a particular subject from a man of rude
attainments, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people directs all
its concerns.
Aristocratic nations are naturally too apt to narrow the scope of human perfectibility;
democratic nations to expand it beyond compass.
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IX. The Example Of The Americans Does Not Prove That

A Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude And No
Taste For Science, Literature, Or Art

It must be acknowledged that amongst few of the civilized nations of our time have the
higher sciences made less progress than in the United States; and in few have great artists,
fine poets, or celebrated writers been more rare. Many Europeans, struck by this fact, have
looked upon it as a natural and inevitable result of equality; and they have supposed that if a
democratic state of society and democratic institutions were ever to prevail over the whole
earth, the human mind would gradually find its beacon-lights grow dim, and men would
relapse into a period of darkness. To reason thus is, I think, to confound several ideas which it
is important to divide and to examine separately: it is to mingle, unintentionally, what is
democratic with what is only American.
The religion professed by the first emigrants, and bequeathed by them to their descendants,
simple in its form of worship, austere and almost harsh in its principles, and hostile to
external symbols and to ceremonial pomp, is naturally unfavorable to the fine arts, and only
yields a reluctant sufferance to the pleasures of literature. The Americans are a very old and a
very enlightened people, who have fallen upon a new and unbounded country, where they
may extend themselves at pleasure, and which they may fertilize without difficulty. This state
of things is without a parallel in the history of the world. In America, then, every one finds
facilities, unknown elsewhere, for making or increasing his fortune. The spirit of gain is
always on the stretch, and the human mind, constantly diverted from the pleasures of
imagination and the labors of the intellect, is there swayed by no impulse but the pursuit of
wealth. Not only are manufacturing and commercial classes to be found in the United States,
as they are in all other countries; but what never occurred elsewhere, the whole community is
simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce. I am convinced that, if the
Americans had been alone in the world, with the freedom and the knowledge acquired by
their forefathers, and the passions which are their own, they would not have been slow to
discover that progress cannot long be made in the application of the sciences without
cultivating the theory of them; that all the arts are perfected by one another: and, however
absorbed they might have been by the pursuit of the principal object of their desires, they
would speedily have admitted, that it is necessary to turn aside from it occasionally, in order
the better to attain it in the end.
The taste for the pleasures of the mind is moreover so natural to the heart of civilized man,
that amongst the polite nations, which are least disposed to give themselves up to these
pursuits, a certain number of citizens are always to be found who take part in them. This
intellectual craving, when once felt, would very soon have been satisfied. But at the very time
when the Americans were naturally inclined to require nothing of science but its special
applications to the useful arts and the means of rendering life comfortable, learned and
literary Europe was engaged in exploring the common sources of truth, and in improving at
the same time all that can minister to the pleasures or satisfy the wants of man. At the head of
the enlightened nations of the Old World the inhabitants of the United States more
particularly distinguished one, to which they were closely united by a common origin and by
kindred habits. Amongst this people they found distinguished men of science, artists of skill,
writers of eminence, and they were enabled to enjoy the treasures of the intellect without
requiring to labor in amassing them. I cannot consent to separate America from Europe, in
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spite of the ocean which intervenes. I consider the people of the United States as that portion
of the English people which is commissioned to explore the wilds of the New World; whilst
the rest of the nation, enjoying more leisure and less harassed by the drudgery of life, may
devote its energies to thought, and enlarge in all directions the empire of the mind. The
position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no
democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin—their
exclusively commercial habits—even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their
minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts—the proximity of Europe, which
allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism—a thousand special
causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important—have singularly
concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his
wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the
United States earthward: his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and
distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease then to view all democratic nations under the mask
of the American people, and let us attempt to survey them at length with their own proper
features.
It is possible to conceive a people not subdivided into any castes or scale of ranks; in which
the law, recognizing no privileges, should divide inherited property into equal shares; but
which, at the same time, should be without knowledge and without freedom. Nor is this an
empty hypothesis: a despot may find that it is his interest to render his subjects equal and to
leave them ignorant, in order more easily to keep them slaves. Not only would a democratic
people of this kind show neither aptitude nor taste for science, literature, or art, but it would
probably never arrive at the possession of them. The law of descent would of itself provide
for the destruction of fortunes at each succeeding generation; and new fortunes would be
acquired by none. The poor man, without either knowledge or freedom, would not so much as
conceive the idea of raising himself to wealth; and the rich man would allow himself to be
degraded to poverty, without a notion of self-defence. Between these two members of the
community complete and invincible equality would soon be established.
No one would then have time or taste to devote himself to the pursuits or pleasures of the
intellect; but all men would remain paralyzed by a state of common ignorance and equal
servitude. When I conceive a democratic society of this kind, I fancy myself in one of those
low, close, and gloomy abodes, where the light which breaks in from without soon faints and
fades away. A sudden heaviness overpowers me, and I grope through the surrounding
darkness, to find the aperture which will restore me to daylight and the air.
But all this is not applicable to men already enlightened who retain their freedom, after
having abolished from amongst them those peculiar and hereditary rights which perpetuated
the tenure of property in the hands of certain individuals or certain bodies. When men living
in a democratic state of society are enlightened, they readily discover that they are confined
and fixed within no limits which constrain them to take up with their present fortune. They all
therefore conceive the idea of increasing it; if they are free, they all attempt it, but all do not
succeed in the same manner. The legislature, it is true, no longer grants privileges, but they
are bestowed by nature. As natural inequality is very great, fortunes become unequal as soon
as every man exerts all his faculties to get rich. The law of descent prevents the establishment
of wealthy families; but it does not prevent the existence of wealthy individuals. It constantly
brings back the members of the community to a common level, from which they as constantly
escape: and the inequality of fortunes augments in proportion as knowledge is diffused and
liberty increased.
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A sect which arose in our time, and was celebrated for its talents and its extravagance,
proposed to concentrate all property into the hands of a central power, whose function it
should afterwards be to parcel it out to individuals, according to their capacity. This would
have been a method of escaping from that complete and eternal equality which seems to
threaten democratic society. But it would be a simpler and less dangerous remedy to grant no
privilege to any, giving to all equal cultivation and equal independence, and leaving everyone
to determine his own position. Natural inequality will very soon make way for itself, and
wealth will spontaneously pass into the hands of the most capable.
Free and democratic communities, then, will always contain a considerable number of people
enjoying opulence or competency. The wealthy will not be so closely linked to each other as
the members of the former aristocratic class of society: their propensities will be different,
and they will scarcely ever enjoy leisure as secure or as complete: but they will be far more
numerous than those who belonged to that class of society could ever be. These persons will
not be strictly confined to the cares of practical life, and they will still be able, though in
different degrees, to indulge in the pursuits and pleasures of the intellect. In those pleasures
they will indulge; for if it be true that the human mind leans on one side to the narrow, the
practical, and the useful, it naturally rises on the other to the infinite, the spiritual, and the
beautiful. Physical wants confine it to the earth; but, as soon as the tie is loosened, it will
unbend itself again.
Not only will the number of those who can take an interest in the productions of the mind be
enlarged, but the taste for intellectual enjoyment will descend, step by step, even to those
who, in aristocratic societies, seem to have neither time nor ability to in indulge in them.
When hereditary wealth, the privileges of rank, and the prerogatives of birth have ceased to
be, and when every man derives his strength from himself alone, it becomes evident that the
chief cause of disparity between the fortunes of men is the mind. Whatever tends to
invigorate, to extend, or to adorn the mind, instantly rises to great value. The utility of
knowledge becomes singularly conspicuous even to the eyes of the multitude: those who
have no taste for its charms set store upon its results, and make some efforts to acquire it. In
free and enlightened democratic ages, there is nothing to separate men from each other or to
retain them in their peculiar sphere; they rise or sink with extreme rapidity. All classes live in
perpetual intercourse from their great proximity to each other. They communicate and
intermingle every day—they imitate and envy one other: this suggests to the people many
ideas, notions, and desires which it would never have entertained if the distinctions of rank
had been fixed and society at rest. In such nations the servant never considers himself as an
entire stranger to the pleasures and toils of his master, nor the poor man to those of the rich;
the rural population assimilates itself to that of the towns, and the provinces to the capital. No
one easily allows himself to be reduced to the mere material cares of life; and the humblest
artisan casts at times an eager and a furtive glance into the higher regions of the intellect.
People do not read with the same notions or in the same manner as they do in an aristocratic
community; but the circle of readers is unceasingly expanded, till it includes all the citizens.
As soon as the multitude begins to take an interest in the labors of the mind, it finds out that
to excel in some of them is a powerful method of acquiring fame, power, or wealth. The
restless ambition which equality begets instantly takes this direction as it does all others. The
number of those who cultivate science, letters, and the arts, becomes immense. The
intellectual world starts into prodigious activity: everyone endeavors to open for himself a
path there, and to draw the eyes of the public after him. Something analogous occurs to what
happens in society in the United States, politically considered. What is done is often
imperfect, but the attempts are innumerable; and, although the results of individual effort are
commonly very small, the total amount is always very large.
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It is therefore not true to assert that men living in democratic ages are naturally indifferent to
science, literature, and the arts: only it must be acknowledged that they cultivate them after
their own fashion, and bring to the task their own peculiar qualifications and deficiencies.
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X. Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical

Than To Theoretical Science

If a democratic state of society and democratic institutions do not stop the career of the
human mind, they incontestably guide it in one direction in preference to another. Their
effects, thus circumscribed, are still exceedingly great; and I trust I may be pardoned if I
pause for a moment to survey them. We had occasion, in speaking of the philosophical
method of the American people, to make several remarks which must here be turned to
account.
Equality begets in man the desire of judging of everything for himself: it gives him, in all
things, a taste for the tangible and the real, a contempt for tradition and for forms. These
general tendencies are principally discernible in the peculiar subject of this chapter. Those
who cultivate the sciences amongst a democratic people are always afraid of losing their way
in visionary speculation. They mistrust systems; they adhere closely to facts and the study of
facts with their own senses. As they do not easily defer to the mere name of any fellow-man,
they are never inclined to rest upon any man’s authority; but, on the contrary, they are
unremitting in their efforts to point out the weaker points of their neighbors’ opinions.
Scientific precedents have very little weight with them; they are never long detained by the
subtilty of the schools, nor ready to accept big words for sterling coin; they penetrate, as far
as they can, into the principal parts of the subject which engages them, and they expound
them in the vernacular tongue. Scientific pursuits then follow a freer and a safer course, but a
less lofty one.
The mind may, as it appears to me, divide science into three parts. The first comprises the
most theoretical principles, and those more abstract notions whose application is either
unknown or very remote. The second is composed of those general truths which still belong
to pure theory, but lead, nevertheless, by a straight and short road to practical results.
Methods of application and means of execution make up the third. Each of these different
portions of science may be separately cultivated, although reason and experience show that
none of them can prosper long, if it be absolutely cut off from the two others.
In America the purely practical part of science is admirably understood, and careful attention
is paid to the theoretical portion which is immediately requisite to application. On this head
the Americans always display a clear, free, original, and inventive power of mind. But hardly
anyone in the United States devotes himself to the essentially theoretical and abstract portion
of human knowledge. In this respect the Americans carry to excess a tendency which is, I
think, discernible, though in a less degree, amongst all democratic nations.
Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated
departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the
structure of democratic society. We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic people, one
class which clings to a state of repose because it is well off; and another which does not
venture to stir because it despairs of improving its condition. Everyone is actively in motion:
some in quest of power, others of gain. In the midst of this universal tumult—this incessant
conflict of jarring interests—this continual stride of men after fortune—where is that calm to
be found which is necessary for the deeper combinations of the intellect? How can the mind
dwell upon any single point, when everything whirls around it, and man himself is swept and
beaten onwards by the heady current which rolls all things in its course? But the permanent
agitation which subsists in the bosom of a peaceable and established democracy, must be
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distinguished from the tumultuous and revolutionary movements which almost always attend
the birth and growth of democratic society. When a violent revolution occurs amongst a
highly civilized people, it cannot fail to give a sudden impulse to their feelings and their
opinions. This is more particularly true of democratic revolutions, which stir up all the classes
of which a people is composed, and beget, at the same time, inordinate ambition in the breast
of every member of the community. The French made most surprising advances in the exact
sciences at the very time at which they were finishing the destruction of the remains of their
former feudal society; yet this sudden fecundity is not to be attributed to democracy, but to
the unexampled revolution which attended its growth. What happened at that period was a
special incident, and it would be unwise to regard it as the test of a general principle. Great
revolutions are not more common amongst democratic nations than amongst others: I am
even inclined to believe that they are less so. But there prevails amongst those populations a
small distressing motion—a sort of incessant jostling of men—which annoys and disturbs the
mind, without exciting or elevating it. Men who live in democratic communities not only
seldom indulge in meditation, but they naturally entertain very little esteem for it. A
democratic state of society and democratic institutions plunge the greater part of men in
constant active life; and the habits of mind which are suited to an active life, are not always
suited to a contemplative one. The man of action is frequently obliged to content himself with
the best he can get, because he would never accomplish his purpose if he chose to carry every
detail to perfection. He has perpetually occasion to rely on ideas which he has not had leisure
to search to the bottom; for he is much more frequently aided by the opportunity of an idea
than by its strict accuracy; and, in the long run, he risks less in making use of some false
principles, than in spending his time in establishing all his principles on the basis of truth.
The world is not led by long or learned demonstrations; a rapid glance at particular incidents,
the daily study of the fleeting passions of the multitude, the accidents of the time, and the art
of turning them to account, decide all its affairs.
In the ages in which active life is the condition of almost everyone, men are therefore
generally led to attach an excessive value to the rapid bursts and superficial conceptions of
the intellect; and, on the other hand, to depreciate below their true standard its slower and
deeper labors. This opinion of the public influences the judgment of the men who cultivate
the sciences; they are persuaded that they may succeed in those pursuits without meditation,
or deterred from such pursuits as demand it.
There are several methods of studying the sciences. Amongst a multitude of men you will
find a selfish, mercantile, and trading taste for the discoveries of the mind, which must not be
confounded with that disinterested passion which is kindled in the heart of the few. A desire
to utilize knowledge is one thing; the pure desire to know is another. I do not doubt that in a
few minds and far between, an ardent, inexhaustible love of truth springs up, self-supported,
and living in ceaseless fruition without ever attaining the satisfaction which it seeks. This
ardent love it is—this proud, disinterested love of what is true—which raises men to the
abstract sources of truth, to draw their mother-knowledge thence. If Pascal had had nothing in
view but some large gain, or even if he had been stimulated by the love of fame alone, I
cannot conceive that he would ever have been able to rally all the powers of his mind, as he
did, for the better discovery of the most hidden things of the Creator. When I see him, as it
were, tear his soul from the midst of all the cares of life to devote it wholly to these
researches, and, prematurely snapping the links which bind the frame to life, die of old age
before forty, I stand amazed, and I perceive that no ordinary cause is at work to produce
efforts so extra-ordinary.
The future will prove whether these passions, at once so rare and so productive, come into
being and into growth as easily in the midst of democratic as in aristocratic communities. For
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myself, I confess that I am slow to believe it. In aristocratic society, the class which gives the
tone to opinion, and has the supreme guidance of affairs, being permanently and hereditarily
placed above the multitude, naturally conceives a lofty idea of itself and of man. It loves to
invent for him noble pleasures, to carve out splendid objects for his ambition. Aristocracies
often commit very tyrannical and very inhuman actions; but they rarely entertain grovelling
thoughts; and they show a kind of haughty contempt of little pleasures, even whilst they
indulge in them. The effect is greatly to raise the general pitch of society. In aristocratic ages
vast ideas are commonly entertained of the dignity, the power, and the greatness of man.
These opinions exert their influence on those who cultivate the sciences, as well as on the rest
of the community. They facilitate the natural impulse of the mind to the highest regions of
thought, and they naturally prepare it to conceive a sublime—nay, almost a divine—love of
truth. Men of science at such periods are consequently carried away by theory; and it even
happens that they frequently conceive an inconsiderate contempt for the practical part of
learning. “Archimedes,” says Plutarch, “was of so lofty a spirit, that he never condescended
to write any treatise on the manner of constructing all these engines of offence and defence.
And as he held this science of inventing and putting together engines, and all arts generally
speaking which tended to any useful end in practice, to be vile, low, and mercenary, he spent
his talents and his studious hours in writing of those things only whose beauty and subtilty
had in them no admixture of necessity.” Such is the aristocratic aim of science; in democratic
nations it cannot be the same.
The greater part of the men who constitute these nations are extremely eager in the pursuit of
actual and physical gratification. As they are always dissatisfied with the position which they
occupy, and are always free to leave it, they think of nothing but the means of changing their
fortune, or of increasing it. To minds thus predisposed, every new method which leads by a
shorter road to wealth, every machine which spares labor, every instrument which diminishes
the cost of production, every discovery which facilitates pleasures or augments them, seems
to be the grandest effort of the human intellect. It is chiefly from these motives that a
democratic people addicts itself to scientific pursuits—that it understands, and that it respects
them. In aristocratic ages, science is more particularly called upon to furnish gratification to
the mind; in democracies, to the body. You may be sure that the more a nation is democratic,
enlightened, and free, the greater will be the number of these interested promoters of
scientific genius, and the more will discoveries immediately applicable to productive industry
confer gain, fame, and even power on their authors. For in democracies the working class
takes a part in public affairs; and public honors, as well as pecuniary remuneration, may be
awarded to those who deserve them. In a community thus organized it may easily be
conceived that the human mind may be led insensibly to the neglect of theory; and that it is
urged, on the contrary, with unparalleled vehemence to the applications of science, or at least
to that portion of theoretical science which is necessary to those who make such applications.
In vain will some innate propensity raise the mind towards the loftier spheres of the intellect;
interest draws it down to the middle zone. There it may develop all its energy and restless
activity, there it may engender all its wonders. These very Americans, who have not
discovered one of the general laws of mechanics, have introduced into navigation an engine
which changes the aspect of the world.
Assuredly I do not content that the democratic nations of our time are destined to witness the
extinction of the transcendent luminaries of man’s intelligence, nor even that no new lights
will ever start into existence. At the age at which the world has now arrived, and amongst so
many cultivated nations, perpetually excited by the fever of productive industry, the bonds
which connect the different parts of science together cannot fail to strike the observation; and
the taste for practical science itself, if it be enlightened, ought to lead men not to neglect
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theory. In the midst of such numberless attempted applications of so many experiments,

repeated every day, it is almost impossible that general laws should not frequently be brought
to light; so that great discoveries would be frequent, though great inventors be rare. I believe,
moreover, in the high calling of scientific minds. If the democratic principle does not, on the
one hand, induce men to cultivate science for its own sake, on the other it enormously
increases the number of those who do cultivate it. Nor is it credible that, from amongst so
great a multitude no speculative genius should from time to time arise, inflamed by the love
of truth alone. Such a one, we may be sure, would dive into the deepest mysteries of nature,
whatever be the spirit of his country or his age. He requires no assistance in his course—
enough that he be not checked in it.
All that I mean to say is this:—permanent inequality of conditions leads men to confine
themselves to the arrogant and sterile research of abstract truths; whilst the social condition
and the institutions of democracy prepare them to seek the immediate and useful practical
results of the sciences. This tendency is natural and inevitable: it is curious to be acquainted
with it, and it may be necessary to point it out. If those who are called upon to guide the
nations of our time clearly discerned from afar off these new tendencies, which will soon be
irresistible, they would understand that, possessing education and freedom, men living in
democratic ages cannot fail to improve the industrial part of science; and that henceforward
all the efforts of the constituted authorities ought to be directed to support the highest
branches of learning, and to foster the nobler passion for science itself. In the present age the
human mind must be coerced into theoretical studies; it runs of its own accord to practical
applications; and, instead of perpetually referring it to the minute examination of secondary
effects, it is well to divert it from them sometimes, in order to raise it up to the contemplation
of primary causes. Because the civilization of ancient Rome perished in consequence of the
invasion of the barbarians, we are perhaps too apt to think that civilization cannot perish in
any other manner. If the light by which we are guided is ever extinguished, it will dwindle by
degrees, and expire of itself. By dint of close adherence to mere applications, principles
would be lost sight of; and when the principles were wholly forgotten, the methods derived
from them would be ill-pursued. New methods could no longer be invented, and men would
continue to apply, without intelligence, and without art, scientific processes no longer
understood.
When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years ago, they found that almost all
the arts had reached a certain degree of perfection there; and they were surprised that a people
which had attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later period they
discovered some traces of the higher branches of science which were lost. The nation was
absorbed in productive industry: the greater part of its scientific processes had been
preserved, but science itself no longer existed there. This served to explain the strangely
motionless state in which they found the minds of this people. The Chinese, in following the
track of their forefathers, had forgotten the reasons by which the latter had been guided. They
still used the formula, without asking for its meaning: they retained the instrument, but they
no longer possessed the art of altering or renewing it. The Chinese, then, had lost the power
of change; for them to improve was impossible. They were compelled, at all times and in all
points, to imitate their predecessors, lest they should stray into utter darkness, by deviating
for an instant from the path already laid down for them. The source of human knowledge was
all but dry; and though the stream still ran on, it could neither swell its waters nor alter its
channel. Notwithstanding this, China had subsisted peaceably for centuries. The invaders
who had conquered the country assumed the manners of the inhabitants, and order prevailed
there. A sort of physical prosperity was everywhere discernible: revolutions were rare, and
war was, so to speak, unknown.
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It is then a fallacy to flatter ourselves with the reflection that the barbarians are still far from
us; for if there be some nations which allow civilization to be torn from their grasp, there are
others who trample it themselves under their feet.
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XI. Of The Spirit In Which The Americans Cultivate The

Arts

It would be to waste the time of my readers and my own if I strove to demonstrate how the
general mediocrity of fortunes, the absence of superfluous wealth, the universal desire of
comfort, and the constant efforts by which everyone attempts to procure it, make the taste for
the useful predominate over the love of the beautiful in the heart of man. Democratic nations,
amongst which all these things exist, will therefore cultivate the arts which serve to render
life easy, in preference to those whose object is to adorn it. They will habitually prefer the
useful to the beautiful, and they will require that the beautiful should be useful. But I propose
to go further; and after having pointed out this first feature, to sketch several others.
It commonly happens that in the ages of privilege the practice of almost all the arts becomes a
privilege; and that every profession is a separate walk, upon which it is not allowable for
everyone to enter. Even when productive industry is free, the fixed character which belongs
to aristocratic nations gradually segregates all the persons who practise the same art, till they
form a distinct class, always composed of the same families, whose members are all known
to each other, and amongst whom a public opinion of their own and a species of corporate
pride soon spring up. In a class or guild of this kind, each artisan has not only his fortune to
make, but his reputation to preserve. He is not exclusively swayed by his own interest, or
even by that of his customer, but by that of the body to which he belongs; and the interest of
that body is, that each artisan should produce the best possible workmanship. In aristocratic
ages, the object of the arts is therefore to manufacture as well as possible—not with the
greatest despatch, or at the lowest rate.
When, on the contrary, every profession is open to all—when a multitude of persons are
constantly embracing and abandoning it—and when its several members are strangers to each
other, indifferent, and from their numbers hardly seen amongst themselves; the social tie is
destroyed, and each workman, standing alone, endeavors simply to gain the greatest possible
quantity of money at the least possible cost. The will of the customer is then his only limit.
But at the same time a corresponding revolution takes place in the customer also. In countries
in which riches as well as power are concentrated and retained in the hands of the few, the
use of the greater part of this world’s goods belongs to a small number of individuals, who
are always the same. Necessity, public opinion, or moderate desires exclude all others from
the enjoyment of them. As this aristocratic class remains fixed at the pinnacle of greatness on
which it stands, without diminution or increase, it is always acted upon by the same wants
and affected by them in the same manner. The men of whom it is composed naturally derive
from their superior and hereditary position a taste for what is extremely well made and
lasting. This affects the general way of thinking of the nation in relation to the arts. It often
occurs, among such a people, that even the peasant will rather go without the object he
covets, than procure it in a state of imperfection. In aristocracies, then, the handicraftsmen
work for only a limited number of very fastidious customers: the profit they hope to make
depends principally on the perfection of their workmanship.
Such is no longer the case when, all privileges being abolished, ranks are intermingled, and
men are forever rising or sinking upon the ladder of society. Amongst a democratic people a
number of citizens always exist whose patrimony is divided and decreasing. They have
contracted, under more prosperous circumstances, certain wants, which remain after the
means of satisfying such wants are gone; and they are anxiously looking out for some
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surreptitious method of providing for them. On the other hand, there are always in
democracies a large number of men whose fortune is upon the increase, but whose desires
grow much faster than their fortunes: and who gloat upon the gifts of wealth in anticipation,
long before they have means to command them. Such men eager to find some short cut to
these gratifications, already almost within their reach. From the combination of these causes
the result is, that in democracies there are always a multitude of individuals whose wants are
above their means, and who are very willing to take up with imperfect satisfaction rather than
abandon the object of their desires.
The artisan readily understands these passions, for he himself partakes in them: in an
aristocracy he would seek to sell his workmanship at a high price to the few; he now
conceives that the more expeditious way of getting rich is to sell them at a low price to all.
But there are only two ways of lowering the price of commodities. The first is to discover
some better, shorter, and more ingenious method of producing them: the second is to
manufacture a larger quantity of goods, nearly similar, but of less value. Amongst a
democratic population, all the intellectual faculties of the workman are directed to these two
objects: he strives to invent methods which may enable him not only to work better, but
quicker and cheaper; or, if he cannot succeed in that, to diminish the intrinsic qualities of the
thing he makes, without rendering it wholly unfit for the use for which it is intended. When
none but the wealthy had watches, they were almost all very good ones: few are now made
which are worth much, but everybody has one in his pocket. Thus the democratic principle
not only tends to direct the human mind to the useful arts, but it induces the artisan to
produce with greater rapidity a quantity of imperfect commodities, and the consumer to
content himself with these commodities.
Not that in democracies the arts are incapable of producing very commendable works, if such
be required. This may occasionally be the case, if customers appear who are ready to pay for
time and trouble. In this rivalry of every kind of industry—in the midst of this immense
competition and these countless experiments, some excellent workmen are formed who reach
the utmost limits of their craft. But they have rarely an opportunity of displaying what they
can do; they are scrupulously sparing of their powers; they remain in a state of accomplished
mediocrity, which condemns itself, and, though it be very well able to shoot beyond the mark
before it, aims only at what it hits. In aristocracies, on the contrary, workmen always do all
they can; and when they stop, it is because they have reached the limit of their attainments.
When I arrive in a country where I find some of the finest productions of the arts, I learn from
this fact nothing of the social condition or of the political constitution of the country. But if I
perceive that the productions of the arts are generally of an inferior quality, very abundant
and very cheap, I am convinced that, amongst the people where this occurs, privilege is on
the decline, and that ranks are beginning to intermingle, and will soon be confounded
together.
The handicraftsmen of democratic ages endeavor not only to bring their useful productions
within the reach of the whole community, but they strive to give to all their commodities
attractive qualities which they do not in reality possess. In the confusion of all ranks everyone
hopes to appear what he is not, and makes great exertions to succeed in this object. This
sentiment indeed, which is but too natural to the heart of man, does not originate in the
democratic principle; but that principle applies it to material objects. To mimic virtue is of
every age; but the hypocrisy of luxury belongs more particularly to the ages of democracy.
To satisfy these new cravings of human vanity the arts have recourse to every species of
imposture: and these devices sometimes go so far as to defeat their own purpose. Imitation
diamonds are now made which may be easily mistaken for real ones; as soon as the art of
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fabricating false diamonds shall have reached so high a degree of perfection that they cannot
be distinguished from real ones, it is probable that both one and the other will be abandoned,
and become mere pebbles again.
This leads me to speak of those arts which are called the fine arts, by way of distinction. I do
not believe that it is a necessary effect of a democratic social condition and of democratic
institutions to diminish the number of men who cultivate the fine arts; but these causes exert a
very powerful influence on the manner in which these arts are cultivated. Many of those who
had already contracted a taste for the fine arts are impoverished: on the other hand, many of
those who are not yet rich begin to conceive that taste, at least by imitation; and the number
of consumers increases, but opulent and fastidious consumers become more scarce.
Something analogous to what I have already pointed out in the useful arts then takes place in
the fine arts; the productions of artists are more numerous, but the merit of each production is
diminished. No longer able to soar to what is great, they cultivate what is pretty and elegant;
and appearance is more attended to than reality. In aristocracies a few great pictures are
produced; in democratic countries, a vast number of insignificant ones. In the former, statues
are raised of bronze; in the latter, they are modelled in plaster.
When I arrived for the first time at New York, by that part of the Atlantic Ocean which is
called the Narrows, I was surprised to perceive along the shore, at some distance from the
city, a considerable number of little palaces of white marble, several of which were built after
the models of ancient architecture. When I went the next day to inspect more closely the
building which had particularly attracted my notice, I found that its walls were of
whitewashed brick, and its columns of painted wood. All the edifices which I had admired
the night before were of the same kind.
The social condition and the institutions of democracy impart, moreover, certain peculiar
tendencies to all the imitative arts, which it is easy to point out. They frequently withdraw
them from the delineation of the soul to fix them exclusively on that of the body: and they
substitute the representation of motion and sensation for that of sentiment and thought: in a
word, they put the real in the place of the ideal. I doubt whether Raphael studied the minutest
intricacies of the mechanism of the human body as thoroughly as the draughtsmen of our own
time. He did not attach the same importance to rigorous accuracy on this point as they do,
because he aspired to surpass nature. He sought to make of man something which should be
superior to man, and to embellish beauty’s self. David and his scholars were, on the contrary,
as good anatomists as they were good painters. They wonderfully depicted the models which
they had before their eyes, but they rarely imagined anything beyond them: they followed
nature with fidelity: whilst Raphael sought for something better than nature. They have left us
an exact portraiture of man; but he discloses in his works a glimpse of the Divinity. This
remark as to the manner of treating a subject is no less applicable to the choice of it. The
painters of the Middle Ages generally sought far above themselves, and away from their own
time, for mighty subjects, which left to their imagination an unbounded range. Our painters
frequently employ their talents in the exact imitation of the details of private life, which they
have always before their eyes; and they are forever copying trivial objects, the originals of
which are only too abundant in nature.
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XII. Why The Americans Raise Some Monuments So

Insignificant, And Others So Important

I have just observed, that in democratic ages monuments of the arts tend to become more
numerous and less important. I now hasten to point out the exception to this rule. In a
democratic community individuals are very powerless; but the State which represents them
all, and contains them all in its grasp, is very powerful. Nowhere do citizens appear so
insignificant as in a democratic nation; nowhere does the nation itself appear greater, or does
the mind more easily take in a wide general survey of it. In democratic communities the
imagination is compressed when men consider themselves; it expands indefinitely when they
think of the State. Hence it is that the same men who live on a small scale in narrow
dwellings, frequently aspire to gigantic splendor in the erection of their public monuments.
The Americans traced out the circuit of an immense city on the site which they intended to
make their capital, but which, up to the present time, is hardly more densely peopled than
Pontoise, though, according to them, it will one day contain a million of inhabitants. They
have already rooted up trees for ten miles round, lest they should interfere with the future
citizens of this imaginary metropolis. They have erected a magnificent palace for Congress in
the centre of the city, and have given it the pompous name of the Capitol. The several States
of the Union are every day planning and erecting for themselves prodigious undertakings,
which would astonish the engineers of the great European nations. Thus democracy not only
leads men to a vast number of inconsiderable productions; it also leads them to raise some
monuments on the largest scale: but between these two extremes there is a blank. A few
scattered remains of enormous buildings can therefore teach us nothing of the social
condition and the institutions of the people by whom they were raised. I may add, though the
remark leads me to step out of my subject, that they do not make us better acquainted with its
greatness, its civilization, and its real prosperity. Whensoever a power of any kind shall be
able to make a whole people co-operate in a single undertaking, that power, with a little
knowledge and a great deal of time, will succeed in obtaining something enormous from the
co-operation of efforts so multiplied. But this does not lead to the conclusion that the people
was very happy, very enlightened, or even very strong.
The Spaniards found the City of Mexico full of magnificent temples and vast palaces; but that
did not prevent Cortes from conquering the Mexican Empire with 600 foot soldiers and
sixteen horses. If the Romans had been better acquainted with the laws of hydraulics, they
would not have constructed all the aqueducts which surround the ruins of their cities—they
would have made a better use of their power and their wealth. If they had invented the steam-
engine, perhaps they would not have extended to the extremities of their empire those long
artificial roads which are called Roman roads. These things are at once the splendid
memorials of their ignorance and of their greatness. A people which should leave no other
vestige of its track than a few leaden pipes in the earth and a few iron rods upon its surface,
might have been more the master of nature than the Romans.
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XIII. Literary Characteristics Of Democratic Ages

When a traveller goes into a bookseller’s shop in the United States, and examines the
American books upon the shelves, the number of works appears extremely great; whilst that
of known authors appears, on the contrary, to be extremely small. He will first meet with a
number of elementary treatises, destined to teach the rudiments of human knowledge. Most
of these books are written in Europe; the Americans reprint them, adapting them to their own
country. Next comes an enormous quantity of religious works, Bibles, sermons, edifying
anecdotes, controversial divinity, and reports of charitable societies; lastly, appears the long
catalogue of political pamphlets. In America, parties do not write books to combat each
others’ opinions, but pamphlets which are circulated for a day with incredible rapidity, and
then expire. In the midst of all these obscure productions of the human brain are to be found
the more remarkable works of that small number of authors, whose names are, or ought to be,
known to Europeans.
Although America is perhaps in our days the civilized country in which literature is least
attended to, a large number of persons are nevertheless to be found there who take an interest
in the productions of the mind, and who make them, if not the study of their lives, at least the
charm of their leisure hours. But England supplies these readers with the larger portion of the
books which they require. Almost all important English books are republished in the United
States. The literary genius of Great Britain still darts its rays into the recesses of the forests of
the New World. There is hardly a pioneer’s hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of
Shakespeare. I remember that I read the feudal play of Henry V for the first time in a
loghouse.
Not only do the Americans constantly draw upon the treasures of English literature, but it
may be said with truth that they find the literature of England growing on their own soil. The
larger part of that small number of men in the United States who are engaged in the
composition of literary works are English in substance, and still more so in form. Thus they
transport into the midst of democracy the ideas and literary fashions which are current
amongst the aristocratic nation they have taken for their model. They paint with colors
borrowed from foreign manners; and as they hardly ever represent the country they were born
in as it really is, they are seldom popular there. The citizens of the United States are
themselves so convinced that it is not for them that books are published, that before they can
make up their minds upon the merit of one of their authors, they generally wait till his fame
has been ratified in England, just as in pictures the author of an original is held to be entitled
to judge of the merit of a copy. The inhabitants of the United States have then at present,
properly speaking, no literature. The only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the
journalists. They indeed are not great writers, but they speak the language of their
countrymen, and make themselves heard by them. Other authors are aliens; they are to the
Americans what the imitators of the Greeks and Romans were to us at the revival of
learning—an object of curiosity, not of general sympathy. They amuse the mind, but they do
not act upon the manners of the people.
I have already said that this state of things is very far from originating in democracy alone,
and that the causes of it must be sought for in several peculiar circumstances independent of
the democratic principle. If the Americans, retaining the same laws and social condition, had
had a different origin, and had been transported into another country, I do not question that
they would have had a literature. Even as they now are, I am convinced that they will
ultimately have one; but its character will be different from that which marks the American
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literary productions of our time, and that character will be peculiarly its own. Nor is it
impossible to trace this character beforehand.
I suppose an aristocratic people amongst whom letters are cultivated; the labors of the mind,
as well as the affairs of state, are conducted by a ruling class in society. The literary as well
as the political career is almost entirely confined to this class, or to those nearest to it in rank.
These premises suffice to give me a key to all the rest. When a small number of the same men
are engaged at the same time upon the same objects, they easily concert with one another, and
agree upon certain leading rules which are to govern them each and all. If the object which
attracts the attention of these men is literature, the productions of the mind will soon be
subjected by them to precise canons, from which it will no longer be allowable to depart. If
these men occupy a hereditary position in the country, they will be naturally inclined, not
only to adopt a certain number of fixed rules for themselves, but to follow those which their
forefathers laid down for their own guidance; their code will be at once strict and traditional.
As they are not necessarily engrossed by the cares of daily life—as they have never been so,
any more than their fathers were before them—they have learned to take an interest, for
several generations back, in the labors of the mind. They have learned to understand literature
as an art, to love it in the end for its own sake, and to feel a scholar-like satisfaction in seeing
men conform to its rules. Nor is this all: the men of whom I speak began and will end their
lives in easy or in affluent circumstances; hence they have naturally conceived a taste for
choice gratifications, and a love of refined and delicate pleasures. Nay more, a kind of
indolence of mind and heart, which they frequently contract in the midst of this long and
peaceful enjoyment of so much welfare, leads them to put aside, even from their pleasures,
whatever might be too startling or too acute. They had rather be amused than intensely
excited; they wish to be interested, but not to be carried away.
Now let us fancy a great number of literary performances executed by the men, or for the
men, whom I have just described, and we shall readily conceive a style of literature in which
everything will be regular and prearranged. The slightest work will be carefully touched in its
least details; art and labor will be conspicuous in everything; each kind of writing will have
rules of its own, from which it will not be allowed to swerve, and which distinguish it from
all others. Style will be thought of almost as much importance as thought; and the form will
be no less considered than the matter: the diction will be polished, measured, and uniform.
The tone of the mind will be always dignified, seldom very animated; and writers will care
more to perfect what they produce than to multiply their productions. It will sometimes
happen that the members of the literary class, always living amongst themselves and writing
for themselves alone, will lose sight of the rest of the world, which will infect them with a
false and labored style; they will lay down minute literary rules for their exclusive use, which
will insensibly lead them to deviate from common-sense, and finally to transgress the bounds
of nature. By dint of striving after a mode of parlance different from the vulgar, they will
arrive at a sort of aristocratic jargon, which is hardly less remote from pure language than is
the coarse dialect of the people. Such are the natural perils of literature amongst aristocracies.
Every aristocracy which keeps itself entirely aloof from the people becomes impotent—a fact
which is as true in literature as it is in politics. 316

316
All this is especially true of the aristocratic countries which have been long and peacefully subject to a
monarchical government. When liberty prevails in an aristocracy, the higher ranks are constantly obliged to
make use of the lower classes; and when they use, they approach them. This frequently introduces something of
a democratic spirit into an aristocratic community. There springs up, moreover, in a privileged body, governing
with energy and an habitually bold policy, a taste for stir and excitement which must infallibly affect all literary
performances.
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Let us now turn the picture and consider the other side of it; let us transport ourselves into the
midst of a democracy, not unprepared by ancient traditions and present culture to partake in
the pleasures of the mind. Ranks are there intermingled and confounded; knowledge and
power are both infinitely subdivided, and, if I may use the expression, scattered on every
side. Here then is a motley multitude, whose intellectual wants are to be supplied. These new
votaries of the pleasures of the mind have not all received the same education; they do not
possess the same degree of culture as their fathers, nor any resemblance to them—nay, they
perpetually differ from themselves, for they live in a state of incessant change of place,
feelings, and fortunes. The mind of each member of the community is therefore unattached to
that of his fellow-citizens by tradition or by common habits; and they have never had the
power, the inclination, nor the time to concert together. It is, however, from the bosom of this
heterogeneous and agitated mass that authors spring; and from the same source their profits
and their fame are distributed. I can without difficulty understand that, under these
circumstances, I must expect to meet in the literature of such a people with but few of those
strict conventional rules which are admitted by readers and by writers in aristocratic ages. If it
should happen that the men of some one period were agreed upon any such rules, that would
prove nothing for the following period; for amongst democratic nations each new generation
is a new people. Amongst such nations, then, literature will not easily be subjected to strict
rules, and it is impossible that any such rules should ever be permanent.
In democracies it is by no means the case that all the men who cultivate literature have
received a literary education; and most of those who have some tinge of belles-lettres are
either engaged in politics, or in a profession which only allows them to taste occasionally and
by stealth the pleasures of the mind. These pleasures, therefore, do not constitute the principal
charm of their lives; but they are considered as a transient and necessary recreation amidst the
serious labors of life. Such man can never acquire a sufficiently intimate knowledge of the art
of literature to appreciate its more delicate beauties; and the minor shades of expression must
escape them. As the time they can devote to letters is very short, they seek to make the best
use of the whole of it. They prefer books which may be easily procured, quickly read, and
which require no learned researches to be understood. They ask for beauties, self-proffered
and easily enjoyed; above all, they must have what is unexpected and new. Accustomed to
the struggle, the crosses, and the monotony of practical life, they require rapid emotions,
startling passages—truths or errors brilliant enough to rouse them up, and to plunge them at
once, as if by violence, into the midst of a subject.
Why should I say more? or who does not understand what is about to follow, before I have
expressed it? Taken as a whole, literature in democratic ages can never present, as it does in
the periods of aristocracy, an aspect of order, regularity, science, and art; its form will, on the
contrary, ordinarily be slighted, sometimes despised. Style will frequently be fantastic,
incorrect, overburdened, and loose—almost always vehement and bold. Authors will aim at
rapidity of execution, more than at perfection of detail. Small productions will be more
common than bulky books; there will be more wit than erudition, more imagination than
profundity; and literary performances will bear marks of an untutored and rude vigor of
thought—frequently of great variety and singular fecundity. The object of authors will be to
astonish rather than to please, and to stir the passions more than to charm the taste. Here and
there, indeed, writers will doubtless occur who will choose a different track, and who will, if
they are gifted with superior abilities, succeed in finding readers, in spite of their defects or
their better qualities; but these exceptions will be rare, and even the authors who shall so
depart from the received practice in the main subject of their works, will always relapse into
it in some lesser details.
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I have just depicted two extreme conditions: the transition by which a nation passes from the
former to the latter is not sudden but gradual, and marked with shades of very various
intensity. In the passage which conducts a lettered people from the one to the other, there is
almost always a moment at which the literary genius of democratic nations has its confluence
with that of aristocracies, and both seek to establish their joint sway over the human mind.
Such epochs are transient, but very brilliant: they are fertile without exuberance, and
animated without confusion. The French literature of the eighteenth century may serve as an
example.
I should say more than I mean if I were to assert that the literature of a nation is always
subordinate to its social condition and its political constitution. I am aware that,
independently of these causes, there are several others which confer certain characteristics on
literary productions; but these appear to me to be the chief. The relations which exist between
the social and political condition of a people and the genius of its authors are always very
numerous: whoever knows the one is never completely ignorant of the other.
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XIV. The Trade Of Literature

Democracy not only infuses a taste for letters among the trading classes, but introduces a
trading spirit into literature. In aristocracies, readers are fastidious and few in number; in
democracies, they are far more numerous and far less difficult to please. The consequence is,
that among aristocratic nations, no one can hope to succeed without immense exertions, and
that these exertions may bestow a great deal of fame, but can never earn much money; whilst
among democratic nations, a writer may flatter himself that he will obtain at a cheap rate a
meagre reputation and a large fortune. For this purpose he need not be admired; it is enough
that he is liked. The ever-increasing crowd of readers, and their continual craving for
something new, insure the sale of books which nobody much esteems.
In democratic periods the public frequently treat authors as kings do their courtiers; they
enrich, and they despise them. What more is needed by the venal souls which are born in
courts, or which are worthy to live there? Democratic literature is always infested with a tribe
of writers who look upon letters as a mere trade: and for some few great authors who adorn it
you may reckon thousands of idea-mongers.
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XV. The Study Of Greek And Latin Literature Peculiarly

Useful In Democratic Communities

What was called the People in the most democratic republics of antiquity, was very unlike
what we designate by that term. In Athens, all the citizens took part in public affairs; but
there were only 20,000 citizens to more than 350,000 inhabitants. All the rest were slaves,
and discharged the greater part of those duties which belong at the present day to the lower or
even to the middle classes. Athens, then, with her universal suffrage, was after all merely an
aristocratic republic in which all the nobles had an equal right to the government. The
struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome must be considered in the same light:
it was simply an intestine feud between the elder and younger branches of the same family.
All the citizens belonged, in fact, to the aristocracy, and partook of its character.
It is moreover to be remarked, that amongst the ancients books were always scarce and dear;
and that very great difficulties impeded their publication and circulation. These circumstances
concentrated literary tastes and habits amongst a small number of men, who formed a small
literary aristocracy out of the choicer spirits of the great political aristocracy. Accordingly
nothing goes to prove that literature was ever treated as a trade amongst the Greeks and
Romans.
These peoples, which not only constituted aristocracies, but very polished and free nations, of
course imparted to their literary productions the defects and the merits which characterize the
literature of aristocratic ages. And indeed a very superficial survey of the literary remains of
the ancients will suffice to convince us, that if those writers were sometimes deficient in
variety, or fertility in their subjects, or in boldness, vivacity, or power of generalization in
their thoughts, they always displayed exquisite care and skill in their details. Nothing in their
works seems to be done hastily or at random: every line is written for the eye of the
connoisseur, and is shaped after some conception of ideal beauty. No literature places those
fine qualities, in which the writers of democracies are naturally deficient, in bolder relief than
that of the ancients; no literature, therefore, ought to be more studied in democratic ages. This
study is better suited than any other to combat the literary defects inherent in those ages; as
for their more praiseworthy literary qualities, they will spring up of their own accord, without
its being necessary to learn to acquire them.
It is important that this point should be clearly understood. A particular study may be useful
to the literature of a people, without being appropriate to its social and political wants. If men
were to persist in teaching nothing but the literature of the dead languages in a community
where everyone is habitually led to make vehement exertions to augment or to maintain his
fortune, the result would be a very polished, but a very dangerous, race of citizens. For as
their social and political condition would give them every day a sense of wants which their
education would never teach them to supply, they would perturb the State, in the name of the
Greeks and Romans, instead of enriching it by their productive industry.
It is evident that in democratic communities the interest of individuals, as well as the security
of the commonwealth, demands that the education of the greater number should be scientific,
commercial, and industrial, rather than literary. Greek and Latin should not be taught in all
schools; but it is important that those who by their natural disposition or their fortune are
destined to cultivate letters or prepared to relish them, should find schools where a complete
knowledge of ancient literature may be acquired, and where the true scholar may be formed.
A few excellent universities would do more towards the attainment of this object than a vast
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number of bad grammar schools, where superfluous matters, badly learned, stand in the way
of sound instruction in necessary studies.
All who aspire to literary excellence in democratic nations, ought frequently to refresh
themselves at the springs of ancient literature: there is no more wholesome course for the
mind. Not that I hold the literary productions of the ancients to be irreproachable; but I think
that they have some especial merits, admirably calculated to counterbalance our peculiar
defects. They are a prop on the side on which we are in most danger of falling.
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XVI. The Effect Of Democracy On Language

If the reader has rightly understood what I have already said on the subject of literature in
general, he will have no difficulty in comprehending that species of influence which a
democratic social condition and democratic institutions may exercise over language itself,
which is the chief instrument of thought.
American authors may truly be said to live more in England than in their own country; since
they constantly study the English writers, and take them every day for their models. But such
is not the case with the bulk of the population, which is more immediately subjected to the
peculiar causes acting upon the United States. It is not then to the written, but to the spoken
language that attention must be paid, if we would detect the modifications which the idiom of
an aristocratic people may undergo when it becomes the language of a democracy.
Englishmen of education, and more competent judges than I can be myself of the nicer shades
of expression, have frequently assured me that the language of the educated classes in the
United States is notably different from that of the educated classes in Great Britain. They
complain not only that the Americans have brought into use a number of new words—the
difference and the distance between the two countries might suffice to explain that much—
but that these new words are more especially taken from the jargon of parties, the mechanical
arts, or the language of trade. They assert, in addition to this, that old English words are often
used by the Americans in new acceptations; and lastly, that the inhabitants of the United
States frequently intermingle their phraseology in the strangest manner, and sometimes place
words together which are always kept apart in the language of the mother-country. These
remarks, which were made to me at various times by persons who appeared to be worthy of
credit, led me to reflect upon the subject; and my reflections brought me, by theoretical
reasoning, to the same point at which my informants had arrived by practical observation.
In aristocracies, language must naturally partake of that state of repose in which everything
remains. Few new words are coined, because few new things are made; and even if new
things were made, they would be designated by known words, whose meaning has been
determined by tradition. If it happens that the human mind bestirs itself at length, or is roused
by light breaking in from without, the novel expressions which are introduced are
characterized by a degree of learning, intelligence, and philosophy, which shows that they do
not originate in a democracy. After the fall of Constantinople had turned the tide of science
and literature towards the west, the French language was almost immediately invaded by a
multitude of new words, which had all Greek or Latin roots. An erudite neologism then
sprang up in France which was confined to the educated classes, and which produced no
sensible effect, or at least a very gradual one, upon the people. All the nations of Europe
successively exhibited the same change. Milton alone introduced more than six hundred
words into the English language, almost all derived from the Latin, the Greek, or the Hebrew.
The constant agitation which prevails in a democratic community tends unceasingly, on the
contrary, to change the character of the language, as it does the aspect of affairs. In the midst
of this general stir and competition of minds, a great number of new ideas are formed, old
ideas are lost, or reappear, or are subdivided into an infinite variety of minor shades. The
consequence is, that many words must fall into desuetude, and others must be brought into
use.
Democratic nations love change for its own sake; and this is seen in their language as much
as in their politics. Even when they do not need to change words, they sometimes feel a wish
to transform them. The genius of a democratic people is not only shown by the great number
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of words they bring into use, but also by the nature of the ideas these new words represent.
Amongst such a people the majority lays down the law in language as well as in everything
else; its prevailing spirit is as manifest in that as in other respects. But the majority is more
engaged in business than in study—in political and commercial interests than in philosophical
speculation or literary pursuits. Most of the words coined or adopted for its use will therefore
bear the mark of these habits; they will mainly serve to express the wants of business, the
passions of party, or the details of the public administration. In these departments the
language will constantly spread, whilst on the other hand it will gradually lose ground in
metaphysics and theology.
As to the source from which democratic nations are wont to derive their new expressions, and
the manner in which they go to work to coin them, both may easily be described. Men living
in democratic countries know but little of the language which was spoken at Athens and at
Rome, and they do not care to dive into the lore of antiquity to find the expression they
happen to want. If they have sometimes recourse to learned etymologies, vanity will induce
them to search at the roots of the dead languages; but erudition does not naturally furnish
them with its resources. The most ignorant, it sometimes happens, will use them most. The
eminently democratic desire to get above their own sphere will often lead them to seek to
dignify a vulgar profession by a Greek or Latin name. The lower the calling is, and the more
remote from learning, the more pompous and erudite is its appellation. Thus the French rope-
dancers have transformed themselves into acrobates and funambules.
In the absence of knowledge of the dead languages, democratic nations are apt to borrow
words from living tongues; for their mutual intercourse becomes perpetual, and the
inhabitants of different countries imitate each other the more readily as they grow more like
each other every day.
But it is principally upon their own languages that democratic nations attempt to perpetrate
innovations. From time to time they resume forgotten expressions in their vocabulary, which
they restore to use; or they borrow from some particular class of the community a term
peculiar to it, which they introduce with a figurative meaning into the language of daily life.
Many expressions which originally belonged to the technical language of a profession or a
party, are thus drawn into general circulation.
The most common expedient employed by democratic nations to make an innovation in
language consists in giving some unwonted meaning to an expression already in use. This
method is very simple, prompt, and convenient; no learning is required to use it aright, and
ignorance itself rather facilitates the practice; but that practice is most dangerous to the
language. When a democratic people doubles the meaning of a word in this way, they
sometimes render the signification which it retains as ambiguous as that which it acquires. An
author begins by a slight deflection of a known expression from its primitive meaning, and he
adapts it, thus modified, as well as he can to his subject. A second writer twists the sense of
the expression in another way; a third takes possession of it for another purpose; and as there
is no common appeal to the sentence of a permanent tribunal which may definitely settle the
signification of the word, it remains in an ambiguous condition. The consequence is that
writers hardly ever appear to dwell upon a single thought, but they always seem to point their
aim at a knot of ideas, leaving the reader to judge which of them has been hit. This is a
deplorable consequence of democracy. I had rather that the language should be made hideous
with words imported from the Chinese, the Tartars, or the Hurons, than that the meaning of a
word in our own language should become indeterminate. Harmony and uniformity are only
secondary beauties in composition; many of these things are conventional, and, strictly
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speaking, it is possible to forego them; but without clear phraseology there is no good
language.
The principle of equality necessarily introduces several other changes into language. In
aristocratic ages, when each nation tends to stand aloof from all others and likes to have
distinct characteristics of its own, it often happens that several peoples which have a common
origin become nevertheless estranged from each other, so that, without ceasing to understand
the same language, they no longer all speak it in the same manner. In these ages each nation
is divided into a certain number of classes, which see but little of each other, and do not
intermingle. Each of these classes contracts, and invariably retains, habits of mind peculiar to
itself, and adopts by choice certain words and certain terms, which afterwards pass from
generation to generation, like their estates. The same idiom then comprises a language of the
poor and a language of the rich—a language of the citizen and a language of the nobility—a
learned language and a vulgar one. The deeper the divisions, and the more impassable the
barriers of society become, the more must this be the case. I would lay a wager, that amongst
the castes of India there are amazing variations of language, and that there is almost as much
difference between the language of the pariah and that of the Brahmin as there is in their
dress. When, on the contrary, men, being no longer restrained by ranks, meet on terms of
constant intercourse—when castes are destroyed, and the classes of society are recruited and
intermixed with each other, all the words of a language are mingled. Those which are
unsuitable to the greater number perish; the remainder form a common store, whence
everyone chooses pretty nearly at random. Almost all the different dialects which divided the
idioms of European nations are manifestly declining; there is no patois in the New World,
and it is disappearing every day from the old countries.
The influence of this revolution in social conditions is as much felt in style as it is in
phraseology. Not only does everyone use the same words, but a habit springs up of using
them without discrimination. The rules which style had set up are almost abolished: the line
ceases to be drawn between expressions which seem by their very nature vulgar, and other
which appear to be refined. Persons springing from different ranks of society carry the terms
and expressions they are accustomed to use with them, into whatever circumstances they may
pass; thus the origin of words is lost like the origin of individuals, and there is as much
confusion in language as there is in society.
I am aware that in the classification of words there are rules which do not belong to one form
of society any more than to another, but which are derived from the nature of things. Some
expressions and phrases are vulgar, because the ideas they are meant to express are low in
themselves; others are of a higher character, because the objects they are intended to
designate are naturally elevated. No intermixture of ranks will ever efface these differences.
But the principle of equality cannot fail to root out whatever is merely conventional and
arbitrary in the forms of thought. Perhaps the necessary classification which I pointed out in
the last sentence will always be less respected by a democratic people than by any other,
because amongst such a people there are no men who are permanently disposed by education,
culture, and leisure to study the natural laws of language, and who cause those laws to be
respected by their own observance of them.
I shall not quit this topic without touching on a feature of democratic languages, which is
perhaps more characteristic of them than any other. It has already been shown that
democratic nations have a taste, and sometimes a passion, for general ideas, and that this
arises from their peculiar merits and defects. This liking for general ideas is displayed in
democratic languages by the continual use of generic terms or abstract expressions, and by
the manner in which they are employed. This is the great merit and the great imperfection of
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these languages. Democratic nations are passionately addicted to generic terms or abstract
expressions, because these modes of speech enlarge thought, and assist the operations of the
mind by enabling it to include several objects in a small compass. A French democratic writer
will be apt to say capacites in the abstract for men of capacity, and without particularizing the
objects to which their capacity is applied: he will talk about actualities to designate in one
word the things passing before his eyes at the instant; and he will comprehend under the term
eventualities whatever may happen in the universe, dating from the moment at which he
speaks. Democratic writers are perpetually coining words of this kind, in which they
sublimate into further abstraction the abstract terms of the language. Nay, more, to render
their mode of speech more succinct, they personify the subject of these abstract terms, and
make it act like a real entity. Thus they would say in French, “La force des choses veut que
les capacites gouvernent.”
I cannot better illustrate what I mean than by my own example. I have frequently used the
word “equality” in an absolute sense—nay, I have personified equality in several places; thus
I have said that equality does such and such things, or refrains from doing others. It may be
affirmed that the writers of the age of Louis XIV would not have used these expressions: they
would never have thought of using the word “equality” without applying it to some particular
object; and they would rather have renounced the term altogether than have consented to
make a living personage of it.
These abstract terms which abound in democratic languages, and which are used on every
occasion without attaching them to any particular fact, enlarge and obscure the thoughts they
are intended to convey; they render the mode of speech more succinct, and the idea contained
in it less clear. But with regard to language, democratic nations prefer obscurity to labor. I
know not indeed whether this loose style has not some secret charm for those who speak and
write amongst these nations. As the men who live there are frequently left to the efforts of
their individual powers of mind, they are almost always a prey to doubt; and as their situation
in life is forever changing, they are never held fast to any of their opinions by the certain
tenure of their fortunes. Men living in democratic countries are, then, apt to entertain
unsettled ideas, and they require loose expressions to convey them. As they never know
whether the idea they express to-day will be appropriate to the new position they may occupy
to-morrow, they naturally acquire a liking for abstract terms. An abstract term is like a box
with a false bottom: you may put in it what ideas you please, and take them out again without
being observed.
Amongst all nations, generic and abstract terms form the basis of language. I do not,
therefore, affect to expel these terms from democratic languages; I simply remark that men
have an especial tendency, in the ages of democracy, to multiply words of this kind—to take
them always by themselves in their most abstract acceptation, and to use them on all
occasions, even when the nature of the discourse does not require them.
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XVII. Of Some Of The Sources Of Poetry Amongst

Democratic Nations

Various different significations have been given to the word “poetry.” It would weary my
readers if I were to lead them into a discussion as to which of these definitions ought to be
selected: I prefer telling them at once that which I have chosen. In my opinion, poetry is the
search and the delineation of the ideal. The poet is he who, by suppressing a part of what
exists, by adding some imaginary touches to the picture, and by combining certain real
circumstances, but which do not in fact concurrently happen, completes and extends the work
of nature. Thus the object of poetry is not to represent what is true, but to adorn it, and to
present to the mind some loftier imagery. Verse, regarded as the ideal beauty of language,
may be eminently poetical; but verse does not, of itself, constitute poetry.
I now proceed to inquire whether, amongst the actions, the sentiments, and the opinions of
democratic nations, there are any which lead to a conception of ideal beauty, and which may
for this reason be considered as natural sources of poetry. It must in the first place, be
acknowledged that the taste for ideal beauty, and the pleasure derived from the expression of
it, are never so intense or so diffused amongst a democratic as amongst an aristocratic people.
In aristocratic nations it sometimes happens that the body goes on to act as it were
spontaneously, whilst the higher faculties are bound and burdened by repose. Amongst these
nations the people will very often display poetic tastes, and sometimes allow their fancy to
range beyond and above what surrounds them. But in democracies the love of physical
gratification, the notion of bettering one’s condition, the excitement of competition, the
charm of anticipated success, are so many spurs to urge men onwards in the active
professions they have embraced, without allowing them to deviate for an instant from the
track. The main stress of the faculties is to this point. The imagination is not extinct; but its
chief function is to devise what may be useful, and to represent what is real.
The principle of equality not only diverts men from the description of ideal beauty—it also
diminishes the number of objects to be described. Aristocracy, by maintaining society in a
fixed position, is favorable to the solidity and duration of positive religions, as well as to the
stability of political institutions. It not only keeps the human mind within a certain sphere of
belief, but it predisposes the mind to adopt one faith rather than another. An aristocratic
people will always be prone to place intermediate powers between God and man. In this
respect it may be said that the aristocratic element is favorable to poetry. When the universe
is peopled with supernatural creatures, not palpable to the senses but discovered by the mind,
the imagination ranges freely, and poets, finding a thousand subjects to delineate, also find a
countless audience to take an interest in their productions. In democratic ages it sometimes
happens, on the contrary, that men are as much afloat in matters of belief as they are in their
laws. Scepticism then draws the imagination of poets back to earth, and confines them to the
real and visible world. Even when the principle of equality does not disturb religious belief, it
tends to simplify it, and to divert attention from secondary agents, to fix it principally on the
Supreme Power. Aristocracy naturally leads the human mind to the contemplation of the past,
and fixes it there. Democracy, on the contrary, gives men a sort of instinctive distaste for
what is ancient. In this respect aristocracy is far more favorable to poetry; for things
commonly grow larger and more obscure as they are more remote; and for this twofold
reason they are better suited to the delineation of the ideal.
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After having deprived poetry of the past, the principle of equality robs it in part of the
present. Amongst aristocratic nations there are a certain number of privileged personages,
whose situation is, as it were, without and above the condition of man; to these, power,
wealth, fame, wit, refinement, and distinction in all things appear peculiarly to belong. The
crowd never sees them very closely, or does not watch them in minute details; and little is
needed to make the description of such men poetical. On the other hand, amongst the same
people, you will meet with classes so ignorant, low, and enslaved, that they are no less fit
objects for poetry from the excess of their rudeness and wretchedness, than the former are
from their greatness and refinement. Besides, as the different classes of which an aristocratic
community is composed are widely separated, and imperfectly acquainted with each other,
the imagination may always represent them with some addition to, or some subtraction from,
what they really are. In democratic communities, where men are all insignificant and very
much alike, each man instantly sees all his fellows when he surveys himself. The poets of
democratic ages can never, therefore, take any man in particular as the subject of a piece; for
an object of slender importance, which is distinctly seen on all sides, will never lend itself to
an ideal conception. Thus the principle of equality; in proportion as it has established itself in
the world, has dried up most of the old springs of poetry. Let us now attempt to show what
new ones it may disclose.
When scepticism had depopulated heaven, and the progress of equality had reduced each
individual to smaller and better known proportions, the poets, not yet aware of what they
could substitute for the great themes which were departing together with the aristocracy,
turned their eyes to inanimate nature. As they lost sight of gods and heroes, they set
themselves to describe streams and mountains. Thence originated in the last century, that
kind of poetry which has been called, by way of distinction, the descriptive. Some have
thought that this sort of delineation, embellished with all the physical and inanimate objects
which cover the earth, was the kind of poetry peculiar to democratic ages; but I believe this to
be an error, and that it only belongs to a period of transition.
I am persuaded that in the end democracy diverts the imagination from all that is external to
man, and fixes it on man alone. Democratic nations may amuse themselves for a while with
considering the productions of nature; but they are only excited in reality by a survey of
themselves. Here, and here alone, the true sources of poetry amongst such nations are to be
found; and it may be believed that the poets who shall neglect to draw their inspirations
hence, will lose all sway over the minds which they would enchant, and will be left in the end
with none but unimpassioned spectators of their transports. I have shown how the ideas of
progression and of the indefinite perfectibility of the human race belong to democratic ages.
Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what
will be; in this direction their unbounded imagination grows and dilates beyond all measure.
Here then is the wildest range open to the genius of poets, which allows them to remove their
performances to a sufficient distance from the eye. Democracy shuts the past against the poet,
but opens the future before him. As all the citizens who compose a democratic community
are nearly equal and alike, the poet cannot dwell upon any one of them; but the nation itself
invites the exercise of his powers. The general similitude of individuals, which renders any
one of them taken separately an improper subject of poetry, allows poets to include them all
in the same imagery, and to take a general survey of the people itself. Democratic nations
have a clearer perception than any others of their own aspect; and an aspect so imposing is
admirably fitted to the delineation of the ideal.
I readily admit that the Americans have no poets; I cannot allow that they have no poetic
ideas. In Europe people talk a great deal of the wilds of America, but the Americans
themselves never think about them: they are insensible to the wonders of inanimate nature,
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and they may be said not to perceive the mighty forests which surround them till they fall
beneath the hatchet. Their eyes are fixed upon another sight: the American people views its
own march across these wilds—drying swamps, turning the course of rivers, peopling
solitudes, and subduing nature. This magnificent image of themselves does not meet the gaze
of the Americans at intervals only; it may be said to haunt every one of them in his least as
well as in his most important actions, and to be always flitting before his mind. Nothing
conceivable is so petty, so insipid, so crowded with paltry interests, in one word so anti-
poetic, as the life of a man in the United States. But amongst the thoughts which it suggests
there is always one which is full of poetry, and that is the hidden nerve which gives vigor to
the frame.
In aristocratic ages each people, as well as each individual, is prone to stand separate and
aloof from all others. In democratic ages, the extreme fluctuations of men and the impatience
of their desires keep them perpetually on the move; so that the inhabitants of different
countries intermingle, see, listen to, and borrow from each other’s stores. It is not only then
the members of the same community who grow more alike; communities are themselves
assimilated to one another, and the whole assemblage presents to the eye of the spectator one
vast democracy, each citizen of which is a people. This displays the aspect of mankind for the
first time in the broadest light. All that belongs to the existence of the human race taken as a
whole, to its vicissitudes and to its future, becomes an abundant mine of poetry. The poets
who lived in aristocratic ages have been eminently successful in their delineations of certain
incidents in the life of a people or a man; but none of them ever ventured to include within
his performances the destinies of mankind—a task which poets writing in democratic ages
may attempt. At that same time at which every man, raising his eyes above his country,
begins at length to discern mankind at large, the Divinity is more and more manifest to the
human mind in full and entire majesty. If in democratic ages faith in positive religions be
often shaken, and the belief in intermediate agents, by whatever name they are called, be
overcast; on the other hand men are disposed to conceive a far broader idea of Providence
itself, and its interference in human affairs assumes a new and more imposing appearance to
their eyes. Looking at the human race as one great whole, they easily conceive that its
destinies are regulated by the same design; and in the actions of every individual they are led
to acknowledge a trace of that universal and eternal plan on which God rules our race. This
consideration may be taken as another prolific source of poetry which is opened in
democratic ages. Democratic poets will always appear trivial and frigid if they seek to invest
gods, demons, or angels, with corporeal forms, and if they attempt to draw them down from
heaven to dispute the supremacy of earth. But if they strive to connect the great events they
commemorate with the general providential designs which govern the universe, and, without
showing the finger of the Supreme Governor, reveal the thoughts of the Supreme Mind, their
works will be admired and understood, for the imagination of their contemporaries takes this
direction of its own accord.
It may be foreseen in the like manner that poets living in democratic ages will prefer the
delineation of passions and ideas to that of persons and achievements. The language, the
dress, and the daily actions of men in democracies are repugnant to ideal conceptions. These
things are not poetical in themselves; and, if it were otherwise, they would cease to be so,
because they are too familiar to all those to whom the poet would speak of them. This forces
the poet constantly to search below the external surface which is palpable to the senses, in
order to read the inner soul: and nothing lends itself more to the delineation of the ideal than
the scrutiny of the hidden depths in the immaterial nature of man. I need not to ramble over
earth and sky to discover a wondrous object woven of contrasts, of greatness and littleness
infinite, of intense gloom and of amazing brightness—capable at once of exciting pity,
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admiration, terror, contempt. I find that object in myself. Man springs out of nothing, crosses
time, and disappears forever in the bosom of God; he is seen but for a moment, staggering on
the verge of the two abysses, and there he is lost. If man were wholly ignorant of himself, he
would have no poetry in him; for it is impossible to describe what the mind does not
conceive. If man clearly discerned his own nature, his imagination would remain idle, and
would have nothing to add to the picture. But the nature of man is sufficiently disclosed for
him to apprehend something of himself; and sufficiently obscure for all the rest to be plunged
in thick darkness, in which he gropes forever—and forever in vain—to lay hold on some
completer notion of his being.
Amongst a democratic people poetry will not be fed with legendary lays or the memorials of
old traditions. The poet will not attempt to people the universe with supernatural beings in
whom his readers and his own fancy have ceased to believe; nor will he present virtues and
vices in the mask of frigid personification, which are better received under their own features.
All these resources fail him; but Man remains, and the poet needs no more. The destinies of
mankind—man himself, taken aloof from his age and his country, and standing in the
presence of Nature and of God, with his passions, his doubts, his rare prosperities, and
inconceivable wretchedness—will become the chief, if not the sole theme of poetry amongst
these nations.
Experience may confirm this assertion, if we consider the productions of the greatest poets
who have appeared since the world has been turned to democracy. The authors of our age
who have so admirably delineated the features of Faust, Childe Harold, Rene, and Jocelyn,
did not seek to record the actions of an individual, but to enlarge and to throw light on some
of the obscurer recesses of the human heart. Such are the poems of democracy. The principle
of equality does not then destroy all the subjects of poetry: it renders them less numerous, but
more vast.
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XVIII. Of The Inflated Style Of American Writers And

Orators

I have frequently remarked that the Americans, who generally treat of business in clear, plain
language, devoid of all ornament, and so extremely simple as to be often coarse, are apt to
become inflated as soon as they attempt a more poetical diction. They then vent their
pomposity from one end of a harangue to the other; and to hear them lavish imagery on every
occasion, one might fancy that they never spoke of anything with simplicity. The English are
more rarely given to a similar failing. The cause of this may be pointed out without much
difficulty. In democratic communities each citizen is habitually engaged in the contemplation
of a very puny object, namely himself. If he ever raises his looks higher, he then perceives
nothing but the immense form of society at large, or the still more imposing aspect of
mankind. His ideas are all either extremely minute and clear, or extremely general and vague:
what lies between is an open void. When he has been drawn out of his own sphere, therefore,
he always expects that some amazing object will be offered to his attention; and it is on these
terms alone that he consents to tear himself for an instant from the petty complicated cares
which form the charm and the excitement of his life. This appears to me sufficiently to
explain why men in democracies, whose concerns are in general so paltry, call upon their
poets for conceptions so vast and descriptions so unlimited.
The authors, on their part, do not fail to obey a propensity of which they themselves partake;
they perpetually inflate their imaginations, and expanding them beyond all bounds, they not
unfrequently abandon the great in order to reach the gigantic. By these means they hope to
attract the observation of the multitude, and to fix it easily upon themselves: nor are their
hopes disappointed; for as the multitude seeks for nothing in poetry but subjects of very vast
dimensions, it has neither the time to measure with accuracy the proportions of all the
subjects set before it, nor a taste sufficiently correct to perceive at once in what respect they
are out of proportion. The author and the public at once vitiate one another.
We have just seen that amongst democratic nations, the sources of poetry are grand, but not
abundant. They are soon exhausted: and poets, not finding the elements of the ideal in what is
real and true, abandon them entirely and create monsters. I do not fear that the poetry of
democratic nations will prove too insipid, or that it will fly too near the ground; I rather
apprehend that it will be forever losing itself in the clouds, and that it will range at last to
purely imaginary regions. I fear that the productions of democratic poets may often be
surcharged with immense and incoherent imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and strange
creations; and that the fantastic beings of their brain may sometimes make us regret the world
of reality.
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XIX. Some Observations On The Drama Amongst

Democratic Nations

When the revolution which subverts the social and political state of an aristocratic people
begins to penetrate into literature, it generally first manifests itself in the drama, and it always
remains conspicuous there. The spectator of a dramatic piece is, to a certain extent, taken by
surprise by the impression it conveys. He has no time to refer to his memory, or to consult
those more able to judge than himself. It does not occur to him to resist the new literary
tendencies which begin to be felt by him; he yields to them before he knows what they are.
Authors are very prompt in discovering which way the taste of the public is thus secretly
inclined. They shape their productions accordingly; and the literature of the stage, after
having served to indicate the approaching literary revolution, speedily completes its
accomplishment. If you would judge beforehand of the literature of a people which is lapsing
into democracy, study its dramatic productions.
The literature of the stage, moreover, even amongst aristocratic nations, constitutes the most
democratic part of their literature. No kind of literary gratification is so much within the reach
of the multitude as that which is derived from theatrical representations. Neither preparation
nor study is required to enjoy them: they lay hold on you in the midst of your prejudices and
your ignorance. When the yet untutored love of the pleasures of the mind begins to affect a
class of the community, it instantly draws them to the stage. The theatres of aristocratic
nations have always been filled with spectators not belonging to the aristocracy. At the
theatre alone the higher ranks mix with the middle and the lower classes; there alone do the
former consent to listen to the opinion of the latter, or at least to allow them to give an
opinion at all. At the theatre, men of cultivation and of literary attainments have always had
more difficulty than elsewhere in making their taste prevail over that of the people, and in
preventing themselves from being carried away by the latter. The pit has frequently made
laws for the boxes.
If it be difficult for an aristocracy to prevent the people from getting the upper hand in the
theatre, it will readily be understood that the people will be supreme there when democratic
principles have crept into the laws and manners—when ranks are intermixed—when minds,
as well as fortunes, are brought more nearly together—and when the upper class has lost,
with its hereditary wealth, its power, its precedents, and its leisure. The tastes and
propensities natural to democratic nations, in respect to literature, will therefore first be
discernible in the drama, and it may be foreseen that they will break out there with
vehemence. In written productions, the literary canons of aristocracy will be gently,
gradually, and, so to speak, legally modified; at the theatre they will be riotously overthrown.
The drama brings out most of the good qualities, and almost all the defects, inherent in
democratic literature. Democratic peoples hold erudition very cheap, and care but little for
what occurred at Rome and Athens; they want to hear something which concerns themselves,
and the delineation of the present age is what they demand.
When the heroes and the manners of antiquity are frequently brought upon the stage, and
dramatic authors faithfully observe the rules of antiquated precedent, that is enough to
warrant a conclusion that the democratic classes have not yet got the upper hand of the
theatres. Racine makes a very humble apology in the preface to the “Britannicus” for having
disposed of Junia amongst the Vestals, who, according to Aulus Gellius, he says, “admitted
no one below six years of age nor above ten.” We may be sure that he would neither have
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accused himself of the offence, nor defended himself from censure, if he had written for our
contemporaries. A fact of this kind not only illustrates the state of literature at the time when
it occurred, but also that of society itself. A democratic stage does not prove that the nation is
in a state of democracy, for, as we have just seen, even in aristocracies it may happen that
democratic tastes affect the drama; but when the spirit of aristocracy reigns exclusively on the
stage, the fact irrefragably demonstrates that the whole of society is aristocratic; and it may
be boldly inferred that the same lettered and learned class which sways the dramatic writers
commands the people and governs the country.
The refined tastes and the arrogant bearing of an aristocracy will rarely fail to lead it, when it
manages the stage, to make a kind of selection in human nature. Some of the conditions of
society claim its chief interest; and the scenes which delineate their manners are preferred
upon the stage. Certain virtues, and even certain vices, are thought more particularly to
deserve to figure there; and they are applauded whilst all others are excluded. Upon the stage,
as well as elsewhere, an aristocratic audience will only meet personages of quality, and share
the emotions of kings. The same thing applies to style: an aristocracy is apt to impose upon
dramatic authors certain modes of expression which give the key in which everything is to be
delivered. By these means the stage frequently comes to delineate only one side of man, or
sometimes even to represent what is not to be met with in human nature at all—to rise above
nature and to go beyond it.
In democratic communities the spectators have no such partialities, and they rarely display
any such antipathies: they like to see upon the stage that medley of conditions, of feelings,
and of opinions, which occurs before their eyes. The drama becomes more striking, more
common, and more true. Sometimes, however, those who write for the stage in democracies
also transgress the bounds of human nature—but it is on a different side from their
predecessors. By seeking to represent in minute detail the little singularities of the moment
and the peculiar characteristics of certain personages, they forget to portray the general
features of the race.
When the democratic classes rule the stage, they introduce as much license in the manner of
treating subjects as in the choice of them. As the love of the drama is, of all literary tastes,
that which is most natural to democratic nations, the number of authors and of spectators, as
well as of theatrical representations, is constantly increasing amongst these communities. A
multitude composed of elements so different, and scattered in so many different places,
cannot acknowledge the same rules or submit to the same laws. No concurrence is possible
amongst judges so numerous, who know not when they may meet again; and therefore each
pronounces his own sentence on the piece. If the effect of democracy is generally to question
the authority of all literary rules and conventions, on the stage it abolishes them altogether,
and puts in their place nothing but the whim of each author and of each public.
The drama also displays in an especial manner the truth of what I have said before in
speaking more generally of style and art in democratic literature. In reading the criticisms
which were occasioned by the dramatic productions of the age of Louis XIV, one is surprised
to remark the great stress which the public laid on the probability of the plot, and the
importance which was attached to the perfect consistency of the characters, and to their doing
nothing which could not be easily explained and understood. The value which was set upon
the forms of language at that period, and the paltry strife about words with which dramatic
authors were assailed, are no less surprising. It would seem that the men of the age of Louis
XIV attached very exaggerated importance to those details, which may be perceived in the
study, but which escape attention on the stage. For, after all, the principal object of a dramatic
piece is to be performed, and its chief merit is to affect the audience. But the audience and the
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readers in that age were the same: on quitting the theatre they called up the author for
judgment to their own firesides. In democracies, dramatic pieces are listened to, but not read.
Most of those who frequent the amusements of the stage do not go there to seek the pleasures
of the mind, but the keen emotions of the heart. They do not expect to hear a fine literary
work, but to see a play; and provided the author writes the language of his country correctly
enough to be understood, and that his characters excite curiosity and awaken sympathy, the
audience are satisfied. They ask no more of fiction, and immediately return to real life.
Accuracy of style is therefore less required, because the attentive observance of its rules is
less perceptible on the stage. As for the probability of the plot, it is incompatible with
perpetual novelty, surprise, and rapidity of invention. It is therefore neglected, and the public
excuses the neglect. You may be sure that if you succeed in bringing your audience into the
presence of something that affects them, they will not care by what road you brought them
there; and they will never reproach you for having excited their emotions in spite of dramatic
rules.
The Americans very broadly display all the different propensities which I have here described
when they go to the theatres; but it must be acknowledged that as yet a very small number of
them go to theatres at all. Although playgoers and plays have prodigiously increased in the
United States in the last forty years, the population indulges in this kind of amusement with
the greatest reserve. This is attributable to peculiar causes, which the reader is already
acquainted with, and of which a few words will suffice to remind him. The Puritans who
founded the American republics were not only enemies to amusements, but they professed an
especial abhorrence for the stage. They considered it as an abominable pastime; and as long
as their principles prevailed with undivided sway, scenic performances were wholly unknown
amongst them. These opinions of the first fathers of the colony have left very deep marks on
the minds of their descendants. The extreme regularity of habits and the great strictness of
manners which are observable in the United States, have as yet opposed additional obstacles
to the growth of dramatic art. There are no dramatic subjects in a country which has
witnessed no great political catastrophes, and in which love invariably leads by a straight and
easy road to matrimony. People who spend every day in the week in making money, and the
Sunday in going to church, have nothing to invite the muse of Comedy.
A single fact suffices to show that the stage is not very popular in the United States. The
Americans, whose laws allow of the utmost freedom and even license of language in all other
respects, have nevertheless subjected their dramatic authors to a sort of censorship. Theatrical
performances can only take place by permission of the municipal authorities. This may serve
to show how much communities are like individuals; they surrender themselves
unscrupulously to their ruling passions, and afterwards take the greatest care not to yield too
much to the vehemence of tastes which they do not possess.
No portion of literature is connected by closer or more numerous ties with the present
condition of society than the drama. The drama of one period can never be suited to the
following age, if in the interval an important revolution has changed the manners and the
laws of the nation. The great authors of a preceding age may be read; but pieces written for a
different public will not be followed. The dramatic authors of the past live only in books. The
traditional taste of certain individuals, vanity, fashion, or the genius of an actor may sustain
or resuscitate for a time the aristocratic drama amongst a democracy; but it will speedily fall
away of itself—not overthrown, but abandoned.
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XX. Characteristics Of Historians In Democratic Ages

Historians who write in aristocratic ages are wont to refer all occurrences to the particular
will or temper of certain individuals; and they are apt to attribute the most important
revolutions to very slight accidents. They trace out the smallest causes with sagacity, and
frequently leave the greatest unperceived. Historians who live in democratic ages exhibit
precisely opposite characteristics. Most of them attribute hardly any influence to the
individual over the destiny of the race, nor to citizens over the fate of a people; but, on the
other hand, they assign great general causes to all petty incidents. These contrary tendencies
explain each other.
When the historian of aristocratic ages surveys the theatre of the world, he at once perceives a
very small number of prominent actors, who manage the whole piece. These great
personages, who occupy the front of the stage, arrest the observation, and fix it on
themselves; and whilst the historian is bent on penetrating the secret motives which make
them speak and act, the rest escape his memory. The importance of the things which some
men are seen to do, gives him an exaggerated estimate of the influence which one man may
possess; and naturally leads him to think, that in order to explain the impulses of the
multitude, it is necessary to refer them to the particular influence of some one individual.
When, on the contrary, all the citizens are independent of one another, and each of them is
individually weak, no one is seen to exert a great, or still less a lasting power, over the
community. At first sight, individuals appear to be absolutely devoid of any influence over it;
and society would seem to advance alone by the free and voluntary concurrence of all the
men who compose it. This naturally prompts the mind to search for that general reason which
operates upon so many men’s faculties at the same time, and turns them simultaneously in the
same direction.
I am very well convinced that even amongst democratic nations, the genius, the vices, or the
virtues of certain individuals retard or accelerate the natural current of a people’s history: but
causes of this secondary and fortuitous nature are infinitely more various, more concealed,
more complex, less powerful, and consequently less easy to trace in periods of equality than
in ages of aristocracy, when the task of the historian is simply to detach from the mass of
general events the particular influences of one man or of a few men. In the former case the
historian is soon wearied by the toil; his mind loses itself in this labyrinth; and, in his inability
clearly to discern or conspicuously to point out the influence of individuals, he denies their
existence. He prefers talking about the characteristics of race, the physical conformation of
the country, or the genius of civilization, which abridges his own labors, and satisfies his
reader far better at less cost.
M. de Lafayette says somewhere in his “Memoirs” that the exaggerated system of general
causes affords surprising consolations to second-rate statesmen. I will add, that its effects are
not less consolatory to second-rate historians; it can always furnish a few mighty reasons to
extricate them from the most difficult part of their work, and it indulges the indolence or
incapacity of their minds, whilst it confers upon them the honors of deep thinking.
For myself, I am of opinion that at all times one great portion of the events of this world are
attributable to general facts, and another to special influences. These two kinds of cause are
always in operation: their proportion only varies. General facts serve to explain more things
in democratic than in aristocratic ages, and fewer things are then assignable to special
influences. At periods of aristocracy the reverse takes place: special influences are stronger,
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general causes weaker—unless indeed we consider as a general cause the fact itself of the
inequality of conditions, which allows some individuals to baffle the natural tendencies of all
the rest. The historians who seek to describe what occurs in democratic societies are right,
therefore, in assigning much to general causes, and in devoting their chief attention to
discover them; but they are wrong in wholly denying the special influence of individuals,
because they cannot easily trace or follow it.
The historians who live in democratic ages are not only prone to assign a great cause to every
incident, but they are also given to connect incidents together, so as to deduce a system from
them. In aristocratic ages, as the attention of historians is constantly drawn to individuals, the
connection of events escapes them; or rather, they do not believe in any such connection. To
them the clew of history seems every instant crossed and broken by the step of man. In
democratic ages, on the contrary, as the historian sees much more of actions than of actors, he
may easily establish some kind of sequency and methodical order amongst the former.
Ancient literature, which is so rich in fine historical compositions, does not contain a single
great historical system, whilst the poorest of modern literatures abound with them. It would
appear that the ancient historians did not make sufficient use of those general theories which
our historical writers are ever ready to carry to excess.
Those who write in democratic ages have another more dangerous tendency. When the traces
of individual action upon nations are lost, it often happens that the world goes on to move,
though the moving agent is no longer discoverable. As it becomes extremely difficult to
discern and to analyze the reasons which, acting separately on the volition of each member of
the community, concur in the end to produce movement in the old mass, men are led to
believe that this movement is involuntary, and that societies unconsciously obey some
superior force ruling over them. But even when the general fact which governs the private
volition of all individuals is supposed to be discovered upon the earth, the principle of human
free-will is not secure. A cause sufficiently extensive to affect millions of men at once, and
sufficiently strong to bend them all together in the same direction, may well seem irresistible:
having seen that mankind do yield to it, the mind is close upon the inference that mankind
cannot resist it.
Historians who live in democratic ages, then, not only deny that the few have any power of
acting upon the destiny of a people, but they deprive the people themselves of the power of
modifying their own condition, and they subject them either to an inflexible Providence, or to
some blind necessity. According to them, each nation is indissolubly bound by its position, its
origin, its precedents, and its character, to a certain lot which no efforts can ever change.
They involve generation in generation, and thus, going back from age to age, and from
necessity to necessity, up to the origin of the world, they forge a close and enormous chain,
which girds and binds the human race. To their minds it is not enough to show what events
have occurred: they would fain show that events could not have occurred otherwise. They
take a nation arrived at a certain stage of its history, and they affirm that it could not but
follow the track which brought it thither. It is easier to make such an assertion than to show
by what means the nation might have adopted a better course.
In reading the historians of aristocratic ages, and especially those of antiquity, it would seem
that, to be master of his lot, and to govern his fellow-creatures, man requires only to be
master of himself. In perusing the historical volumes which our age has produced, it would
seem that man is utterly powerless over himself and over all around him. The historians of
antiquity taught how to command: those of our time teach only how to obey; in their writings
the author often appears great, but humanity is always diminutive. If this doctrine of
necessity, which is so attractive to those who write history in democratic ages, passes from
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authors to their readers, till it infects the whole mass of the community and gets possession of
the public mind, it will soon paralyze the activity of modern society, and reduce Christians to
the level of the Turks. I would moreover observe, that such principles are peculiarly
dangerous at the period at which we are arrived. Our contemporaries are but too prone to
doubt of the human free-will, because each of them feels himself confined on every side by
his own weakness; but they are still willing to acknowledge the strength and independence of
men united in society. Let not this principle be lost sight of; for the great object in our time is
to raise the faculties of men, not to complete their prostration.
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XXI. Of Parliamentary Eloquence In The United States

Amongst aristocratic nations all the members of the community are connected with and
dependent upon each other; the graduated scale of different ranks acts as a tie, which keeps
everyone in his proper place and the whole body in subordination. Something of the same
kind always occurs in the political assemblies of these nations. Parties naturally range
themselves under certain leaders, whom they obey by a sort of instinct, which is only the
result of habits contracted elsewhere. They carry the manners of general society into the
lesser assemblage.
In democratic countries it often happens that a great number of citizens are tending to the
same point; but each one only moves thither, or at least flatters himself that he moves, of his
own accord. Accustomed to regulate his doings by personal impulse alone, he does not
willingly submit to dictation from without. This taste and habit of independence accompany
him into the councils of the nation. If he consents to connect himself with other men in the
prosecution of the same purpose, at least he chooses to remain free to contribute to the
common success after his own fashion. Hence it is that in democratic countries parties are so
impatient of control, and are never manageable except in moments of great public danger.
Even then, the authority of leaders, which under such circumstances may be able to make
men act or speak, hardly ever reaches the extent of making them keep silence.
Amongst aristocratic nations the members of political assemblies are at the same time
members of the aristocracy. Each of them enjoys high established rank in his own right, and
the position which he occupies in the assembly is often less important in his eyes than that
which he fills in the country. This consoles him for playing no part in the discussion of public
affairs, and restrains him from too eagerly attempting to play an insignificant one.
In America, it generally happens that a Representative only becomes somebody from his
position in the Assembly. He is therefore perpetually haunted by a craving to acquire
importance there, and he feels a petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon
the House. His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him on in this course, but
that of his constituents, and the continual necessity of propitiating them. Amongst aristocratic
nations a member of the legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his constituents: he is
frequently to them a sort of unavoidable representative; sometimes they are themselves
strictly dependent upon him; and if at length they reject him, he may easily get elected
elsewhere, or, retiring from public life, he may still enjoy the pleasures of splendid idleness.
In a democratic country like the United States a Representative has hardly ever a lasting hold
on the minds of his constituents. However small an electoral body may be, the fluctuations of
democracy are constantly changing its aspect; it must, therefore, be courted unceasingly. He
is never sure of his supporters, and, if they forsake him, he is left without a resource; for his
natural position is not sufficiently elevated for him to be easily known to those not close to
him; and, with the complete state of independence prevailing among the people, he cannot
hope that his friends or the government will send him down to be returned by an electoral
body unacquainted with him. The seeds of his fortune are, therefore, sown in his own
neighborhood; from that nook of earth he must start, to raise himself to the command of a
people and to influence the destinies of the world. Thus it is natural that in democratic
countries the members of political assemblies think more of their constituents than of their
party, whilst in aristocracies they think more of their party than of their constituents.
But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what ought to be said in order
to serve the party to which Representatives profess to belong. The general interest of a party
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frequently demands that members belonging to it should not speak on great questions which
they understand imperfectly; that they should speak but little on those minor questions which
impede the great ones; lastly, and for the most part, that they should not speak at all. To keep
silence is the most useful service that an indifferent spokesman can render to the
commonwealth. Constituents, however, do not think so. The population of a district sends a
representative to take a part in the government of a country, because they entertain a very
lofty notion of his merits. As men appear greater in proportion to the littleness of the objects
by which they are surrounded, it may be assumed that the opinion entertained of the delegate
will be so much the higher as talents are more rare among his constituents. It will therefore
frequently happen that the less constituents have to expect from their representative, the more
they will anticipate from him; and, however incompetent he may be, they will not fail to call
upon him for signal exertions, corresponding to the rank they have conferred upon him.
Independently of his position as a legislator of the State, electors also regard their
Representative as the natural patron of the constituency in the Legislature; they almost
consider him as the proxy of each of his supporters, and they flatter themselves that he will
not be less zealous in defense of their private interests than of those of the country. Thus
electors are well assured beforehand that the Representative of their choice will be an orator;
that he will speak often if he can, and that in case he is forced to refrain, he will strive at any
rate to compress into his less frequent orations an inquiry into all the great questions of state,
combined with a statement of all the petty grievances they have themselves to complain to; so
that, though he be not able to come forward frequently, he should on each occasion prove
what he is capable of doing; and that, instead of perpetually lavishing his powers, he should
occasionally condense them in a small compass, so as to furnish a sort of complete and
brilliant epitome of his constituents and of himself. On these terms they will vote for him at
the next election. These conditions drive worthy men of humble abilities to despair, who,
knowing their own powers, would never voluntarily have come forward. But thus urged on,
the Representative begins to speak, to the great alarm of his friends; and rushing imprudently
into the midst of the most celebrated orators, he perplexes the debate and wearies the House.
All laws which tend to make the Representative more dependent on the elector, not only
affect the conduct of the legislators, as I have remarked elsewhere, but also their language.
They exercise a simultaneous influence on affairs themselves, and on the manner in which
affairs are discussed.
There is hardly a member of Congress who can make up his mind to go home without having
despatched at least one speech to his constituents; nor who will endure any interruption until
he has introduced into his harangue whatever useful suggestions may be made touching the
four-and-twenty States of which the Union is composed, and especially the district which he
represents. He therefore presents to the mind of his auditors a succession of great general
truths (which he himself only comprehends, and expresses, confusedly), and of petty minutia,
which he is but too able to discover and to point out. The consequence is that the debates of
that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, and that they seem rather to drag
their slow length along than to advance towards a distinct object. Some such state of things
will, I believe, always arise in the public assemblies of democracies.
Propitious circumstances and good laws might succeed in drawing to the legislature of a
democratic people men very superior to those who are returned by the Americans to
Congress; but nothing will ever prevent the men of slender abilities who sit there from
obtruding themselves with complacency, and in all ways, upon the public. The evil does not
appear to me to be susceptible of entire cure, because it not only originates in the tactics of
that assembly, but in its constitution and in that of the country. The inhabitants of the United
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States seem themselves to consider the matter in this light; and they show their long
experience of parliamentary life not by abstaining from making bad speeches, but by
courageously submitting to hear them made. They are resigned to it, as to an evil which they
know to be inevitable.
We have shown the petty side of political debates in democratic assemblies—let us now
exhibit the more imposing one. The proceedings within the Parliament of England for the last
one hundred and fifty years have never occasioned any great sensation out of that country;
the opinions and feelings expressed by the speakers have never awakened much sympathy,
even amongst the nations placed nearest to the great arena of British liberty; whereas Europe
was excited by the very first debates which took place in the small colonial assemblies of
America at the time of the Revolution. This was attributable not only to particular and
fortuitous circumstances, but to general and lasting causes. I can conceive nothing more
admirable or more powerful than a great orator debating on great questions of state in a
democratic assembly. As no particular class is ever represented there by men commissioned
to defend its own interests, it is always to the whole nation, and in the name of the whole
nation, that the orator speaks. This expands his thoughts, and heightens his power of
language. As precedents have there but little weight-as there are no longer any privileges
attached to certain property, nor any rights inherent in certain bodies or in certain individuals,
the mind must have recourse to general truths derived from human nature to resolve the
particular question under discussion. Hence the political debates of a democratic people,
however small it may be, have a degree of breadth which frequently renders them attractive
to mankind. All men are interested by them, because they treat of man, who is everywhere
the same. Amongst the greatest aristocratic nations, on the contrary, the most general
questions are almost always argued on some special grounds derived from the practice of a
particular time, or the rights of a particular class; which interest that class alone, or at most
the people amongst whom that class happens to exist. It is owing to this, as much as to the
greatness of the French people, and the favorable disposition of the nations who listen to
them, that the great effect which the French political debates sometimes produce in the world,
must be attributed. The orators of France frequently speak to mankind, even when they are
addressing their countrymen only.
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Section II. Influence Of Democracy On The Feelings

Of Americans
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I. Why Democratic Nations Show A More Ardent And

Enduring Love Of Equality Than Of Liberty

The first and most intense passion which is engendered by the equality of conditions is, I
need hardly say, the love of that same equality. My readers will therefore not be surprised
that I speak of its before all others. Everybody has remarked that in our time, and especially
in France, this passion for equality is every day gaining ground in the human heart. It has
been said a hundred times that our contemporaries are far more ardently and tenaciously
attached to equality than to freedom; but as I do not find that the causes of the fact have been
sufficiently analyzed, I shall endeavor to point them out.
It is possible to imagine an extreme point at which freedom and equality would meet and be
confounded together. Let us suppose that all the members of the community take a part in the
government, and that each of them has an equal right to take a part in it. As none is different
from his fellows, none can exercise a tyrannical power: men will be perfectly free, because
they will all be entirely equal; and they will all be perfectly equal, because they will be
entirely free. To this ideal state democratic nations tend. Such is the completest form that
equality can assume upon earth; but there are a thousand others which, without being equally
perfect, are not less cherished by those nations.
The principle of equality may be established in civil society, without prevailing in the
political world. Equal rights may exist of indulging in the same pleasures, of entering the
same professions, of frequenting the same places—in a word, of living in the same manner
and seeking wealth by the same means, although all men do not take an equal share in the
government. A kind of equality may even be established in the political world, though there
should be no political freedom there. A man may be the equal of all his countrymen save one,
who is the master of all without distinction, and who selects equally from among them all the
agents of his power. Several other combinations might be easily imagined, by which very
great equality would be united to institutions more or less free, or even to institutions wholly
without freedom. Although men cannot become absolutely equal unless they be entirely free,
and consequently equality, pushed to its furthest extent, may be confounded with freedom,
yet there is good reason for distinguishing the one from the other. The taste which men have
for liberty, and that which they feel for equality, are, in fact, two different things; and I am
not afraid to add that, amongst democratic nations, they are two unequal things.
Upon close inspection, it will be seen that there is in every age some peculiar and
preponderating fact with which all others are connected; this fact almost always gives birth to
some pregnant idea or some ruling passion, which attracts to itself, and bears away in its
course, all the feelings and opinions of the time: it is like a great stream, towards which each
of the surrounding rivulets seems to flow. Freedom has appeared in the world at different
times and under various forms; it has not been exclusively bound to any social condition, and
it is not confined to democracies. Freedom cannot, therefore, form the distinguishing
characteristic of democratic ages. The peculiar and preponderating fact which marks those
ages as its own is the equality of conditions; the ruling passion of men in those periods is the
love of this equality. Ask not what singular charm the men of democratic ages find in being
equal, or what special reasons they may have for clinging so tenaciously to equality rather
than to the other advantages which society holds out to them: equality is the distinguishing
characteristic of the age they live in; that, of itself, is enough to explain that they prefer it to
all the rest.
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But independently of this reason there are several others, which will at all times habitually
lead men to prefer equality to freedom. If a people could ever succeed in destroying, or even
in diminishing, the equality which prevails in its own body, this could only be accomplished
by long and laborious efforts. Its social condition must be modified, its laws abolished, its
opinions superseded, its habits changed, its manners corrupted. But political liberty is more
easily lost; to neglect to hold it fast is to allow it to escape. Men therefore not only cling to
equality because it is dear to them; they also adhere to it because they think it will last
forever.
That political freedom may compromise in its excesses the tranquillity, the property, the lives
of individuals, is obvious to the narrowest and most unthinking minds. But, on the contrary,
none but attentive and clear-sighted men perceive the perils with which equality threatens us,
and they commonly avoid pointing them out. They know that the calamities they apprehend
are remote, and flatter themselves that they will only fall upon future generations, for which
the present generation takes but little thought. The evils which freedom sometimes brings
with it are immediate; they are apparent to all, and all are more or less affected by them. The
evils which extreme equality may produce are slowly disclosed; they creep gradually into the
social frame; they are only seen at intervals, and at the moment at which they become most
violent habit already causes them to be no longer felt. The advantages which freedom brings
are only shown by length of time; and it is always easy to mistake the cause in which they
originate. The advantages of equality are instantaneous, and they may constantly be traced
from their source. Political liberty bestows exalted pleasures, from time to time, upon a
certain number of citizens. Equality every day confers a number of small enjoyments on
every man. The charms of equality are every instant felt, and are within the reach of all; the
noblest hearts are not insensible to them, and the most vulgar souls exult in them. The passion
which equality engenders must therefore be at once strong and general. Men cannot enjoy
political liberty unpurchased by some sacrifices, and they never obtain it without great
exertions. But the pleasures of equality are self-proffered: each of the petty incidents of life
seems to occasion them, and in order to taste them nothing is required but to live.
Democratic nations are at all times fond of equality, but there are certain epochs at which the
passion they entertain for it swells to the height of fury. This occurs at the moment when the
old social system, long menaced, completes its own destruction after a last intestine struggle,
and when the barriers of rank are at length thrown down. At such times men pounce upon
equality as their booty, and they cling to it as to some precious treasure which they fear to
lose. The passion for equality penetrates on every side into men’s hearts, expands there, and
fills them entirely. Tell them not that by this blind surrender of themselves to an exclusive
passion they risk their dearest interests: they are deaf. Show them not freedom escaping from
their grasp, whilst they are looking another way: they are blind—or rather, they can discern
but one sole object to be desired in the universe.
What I have said is applicable to all democratic nations: what I am about to say concerns the
French alone. Amongst most modern nations, and especially amongst all those of the
Continent of Europe, the taste and the idea of freedom only began to exist and to extend
themselves at the time when social conditions were tending to equality, and as a consequence
of that very equality. Absolute kings were the most efficient levellers of ranks amongst their
subjects. Amongst these nations equality preceded freedom: equality was therefore a fact of
some standing when freedom was still a novelty: the one had already created customs,
opinions, and laws belonging to it, when the other, alone and for the first time, came into
actual existence. Thus the latter was still only an affair of opinion and of taste, whilst the
former had already crept into the habits of the people, possessed itself of their manners, and
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given a particular turn to the smallest actions of their lives. Can it be wondered that the men
of our own time prefer the one to the other?
I think that democratic communities have a natural taste for freedom: left to themselves, they
will seek it, cherish it, and view any privation of it with regret. But for equality, their passion
is ardent, insatiable, incessant, invincible: they call for equality in freedom; and if they cannot
obtain that, they still call for equality in slavery. They will endure poverty, servitude,
barbarism—but they will not endure aristocracy. This is true at all times, and especially true
in our own. All men and all powers seeking to cope with this irresistible passion, will be
overthrown and destroyed by it. In our age, freedom cannot be established without it, and
despotism itself cannot reign without its support.
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II. Of Individualism In Democratic Countries

I have shown how it is that in ages of equality every man seeks for his opinions within
himself: I am now about to show how it is that, in the same ages, all his feelings are turned
towards himself alone. Individualism 317 is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has
given birth. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Egotism is a passionate and
exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to connect everything with his own person, and
to prefer himself to everything in the world. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling,
which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-
creatures; and to draw apart with his family and his friends; so that, after he has thus formed a
little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism originates in
blind instinct: individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment more than from depraved
feelings; it originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in the perversity of the heart.
Egotism blights the germ of all virtue; individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public
life; but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in
downright egotism. Egotism is a vice as old as the world, which does not belong to one form
of society more than to another: individualism is of democratic origin, and it threatens to
spread in the same ratio as the equality of conditions.
Amongst aristocratic nations, as families remain for centuries in the same condition, often on
the same spot, all generations become as it were contemporaneous. A man almost always
knows his forefathers, and respects them: he thinks he already sees his remote descendants,
and he loves them. He willingly imposes duties on himself towards the former and the latter;
and he will frequently sacrifice his personal gratifications to those who went before and to
those who will come after him. Aristocratic institutions have, moreover, the effect of closely
binding every man to several of his fellow-citizens. As the classes of an aristocratic people
are strongly marked and permanent, each of them is regarded by its own members as a sort of
lesser country, more tangible and more cherished than the country at large. As in aristocratic
communities all the citizens occupy fixed positions, one above the other, the result is that
each of them always sees a man above himself whose patronage is necessary to him, and
below himself another man whose co-operation he may claim. Men living in aristocratic ages
are therefore almost always closely attached to something placed out of their own sphere, and
they are often disposed to forget themselves. It is true that in those ages the notion of human
fellowship is faint, and that men seldom think of sacrificing themselves for mankind; but they
often sacrifice themselves for other men. In democratic ages, on the contrary, when the duties
of each individual to the race are much more clear, devoted service to any one man becomes
more rare; the bond of human affection is extended, but it is relaxed.
Amongst democratic nations new families are constantly springing up, others are constantly
falling away, and all that remain change their condition; the woof of time is every instant
broken, and the track of generations effaced. Those who went before are soon forgotten; of
those who will come after no one has any idea: the interest of man is confined to those in
close propinquity to himself.

317
I adopt the expression of the original, however strange it may seem to the English ear, partly because it
illustrates the remark on the introduction of general terms into democratic language which was made in a
preceding chapter, and partly because I know of no English word exactly equivalent to the expression. The
chapter itself defines the meaning attached to it by the author.—Translator’s Note.
 360

As each class approximates to other classes, and intermingles with them, its members become
indifferent and as strangers to one another. Aristocracy had made a chain of all the members
of the community, from the peasant to the king: democracy breaks that chain, and severs
every link of it.
As social conditions become more equal, the number of persons increases who, although they
are neither rich enough nor powerful enough to exercise any great influence over their fellow-
creatures, have nevertheless acquired or retained sufficient education and fortune to satisfy
their own wants. They owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they
acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to
imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands.
Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his
descendants, and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon
himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own
heart.
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III. Individualism Stronger At The Close Of A Democratic

Revolution Than At Other Periods

The period when the construction of democratic society upon the ruins of an aristocracy has
just been completed, is especially that at which this separation of men from one another, and
the egotism resulting from it, most forcibly strike the observation. Democratic communities
not only contain a large number of independent citizens, but they are constantly filled with
men who, having entered but yesterday upon their independent condition, are intoxicated
with their new power. They entertain a presumptuous confidence in their strength, and as they
do not suppose that they can henceforward ever have occasion to claim the assistance of their
fellow-creatures, they do not scruple to show that they care for nobody but themselves.
An aristocracy seldom yields without a protracted struggle, in the course of which implacable
animosities are kindled between the different classes of society. These passions survive the
victory, and traces of them may be observed in the midst of the democratic confusion which
ensues. Those members of the community who were at the top of the late gradations of rank
cannot immediately forget their former greatness; they will long regard themselves as aliens
in the midst of the newly composed society. They look upon all those whom this state of
society has made their equals as oppressors, whose destiny can excite no sympathy; they have
lost sight of their former equals, and feel no longer bound by a common interest to their fate:
each of them, standing aloof, thinks that he is reduced to care for himself alone. Those, on the
contrary, who were formerly at the foot of the social scale, and who have been brought up to
the common level by a sudden revolution, cannot enjoy their newly acquired independence
without secret uneasiness; and if they meet with some of their former superiors on the same
footing as themselves, they stand aloof from them with an expression of triumph and of fear.
It is, then, commonly at the outset of democratic society that citizens are most disposed to
live apart. Democracy leads men not to draw near to their fellow-creatures; but democratic
revolutions lead them to shun each other, and perpetuate in a state of equality the animosities
which the state of inequality engendered. The great advantage of the Americans is that they
have arrived at a state of democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution; and
that they are born equal, instead of becoming so.
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IV. That The Americans Combat The Effects Of

Individualism By Free Institutions

Despotism, which is of a very timorous nature, is never more secure of continuance than
when it can keep men asunder; and all is influence is commonly exerted for that purpose. No
vice of the human heart is so acceptable to it as egotism: a despot easily forgives his subjects
for not loving him, provided they do not love each other. He does not ask them to assist him
in governing the State; it is enough that they do not aspire to govern it themselves. He
stigmatizes as turbulent and unruly spirits those who would combine their exertions to
promote the prosperity of the community, and, perverting the natural meaning of words, he
applauds as good citizens those who have no sympathy for any but themselves. Thus the
vices which despotism engenders are precisely those which equality fosters. These two things
mutually and perniciously complete and assist each other. Equality places men side by side,
unconnected by any common tie; despotism raises barriers to keep them asunder; the former
predisposes them not to consider their fellow-creatures, the latter makes general indifference
a sort of public virtue.
Despotism then, which is at all times dangerous, is more particularly to be feared in
democratic ages. It is easy to see that in those same ages men stand most in need of freedom.
When the members of a community are forced to attend to public affairs, they are necessarily
drawn from the circle of their own interests, and snatched at times from self-observation. As
soon as a man begins to treat of public affairs in public, he begins to perceive that he is not so
independent of his fellow-men as he had at first imagined, and that, in order to obtain their
support, he must often lend them his co-operation.
When the public is supreme, there is no man who does not feel the value of public goodwill,
or who does not endeavor to court it by drawing to himself the esteem and affection of those
amongst whom he is to live. Many of the passions which congeal and keep asunder human
hearts, are then obliged to retire and hide below the surface. Pride must be dissembled;
disdain dares not break out; egotism fears its own self. Under a free government, as most
public offices are elective, the men whose elevated minds or aspiring hopes are too closely
circumscribed in private life, constantly feel that they cannot do without the population which
surrounds them. Men learn at such times to think of their fellow-men from ambitious
motives; and they frequently find it, in a manner, their interest to forget themselves.
I may here be met by an objection derived from electioneering intrigues, the meannesses of
candidates, and the calumnies of their opponents. These are opportunities for animosity
which occur the oftener the more frequent elections become. Such evils are doubtless great,
but they are transient; whereas the benefits which attend them remain. The desire of being
elected may lead some men for a time to violent hostility; but this same desire leads all men
in the long run mutually to support each other; and if it happens that an election accidentally
severs two friends, the electoral system brings a multitude of citizens permanently together,
who would always have remained unknown to each other. Freedom engenders private
animosities, but despotism gives birth to general indifference.
The Americans have combated by free institutions the tendency of equality to keep men
asunder, and they have subdued it. The legislators of America did not suppose that a general
representation of the whole nation would suffice to ward off a disorder at once so natural to
the frame of democratic society, and so fatal: they also thought that it would be well to infuse
political life into each portion of the territory, in order to multiply to an infinite extent
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opportunities of acting in concert for all the members of the community, and to make them
constantly feel their mutual dependence on each other. The plan was a wise one. The general
affairs of a country only engage the attention of leading politicians, who assemble from time
to time in the same places; and as they often lose sight of each other afterwards, no lasting
ties are established between them. But if the object be to have the local affairs of a district
conducted by the men who reside there, the same persons are always in contact, and they are,
in a manner, forced to be acquainted, and to adapt themselves to one another.
It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the State,
because he does not clearly understand what influence the destiny of the State can have upon
his own lot. But if it be proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he will see at a
glance that there is a connection between this small public affair and his greatest private
affairs; and he will discover, without its being shown to him, the close tie which unites
private to general interest. Thus, far more may be done by intrusting to the citizens the
administration of minor affairs than by surrendering to them the control of important ones,
towards interesting them in the public welfare, and convincing them that they constantly
stand in need one of the other in order to provide for it. A brilliant achievement may win for
you the favor of a people at one stroke; but to earn the love and respect of the population
which surrounds you, a long succession of little services rendered and of obscure good
deeds—a constant habit of kindness, and an established reputation for disinterestedness—will
be required. Local freedom, then, which leads a great number of citizens to value the
affection of their neighbors and of their kindred, perpetually brings men together, and forces
them to help one another, in spite of the propensities which sever them.
In the United States the more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the
people; on the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: they listen
to them, they speak to them every day. They know that the rich in democracies always stand
in need of the poor; and that in democratic ages you attach a poor man to you more by your
manner than by benefits conferred. The magnitude of such benefits, which sets off the
difference of conditions, causes a secret irritation to those who reap advantage from them; but
the charm of simplicity of manners is almost irresistible: their affability carries men away,
and even their want of polish is not always displeasing. This truth does not take root at once
in the minds of the rich. They generally resist it as long as the democratic revolution lasts,
and they do not acknowledge it immediately after that revolution is accomplished. They are
very ready to do good to the people, but they still choose to keep them at arm’s length; they
think that is sufficient, but they are mistaken. They might spend fortunes thus without
warming the hearts of the population around them;—that population does not ask them for
the sacrifice of their money, but of their pride.
It would seem as if every imagination in the United States were upon the stretch to invent
means of increasing the wealth and satisfying the wants of the public. The best-informed
inhabitants of each district constantly use their information to discover new truths which may
augment the general prosperity; and if they have made any such discoveries, they eagerly
surrender them to the mass of the people.
When the vices and weaknesses, frequently exhibited by those who govern in America, are
closely examined, the prosperity of the people occasions—but improperly occasions—
surprise. Elected magistrates do not make the American democracy flourish; it flourishes
because the magistrates are elective.
It would be unjust to suppose that the patriotism and the zeal which every American displays
for the welfare of his fellow-citizens are wholly insincere. Although private interest directs
the greater part of human actions in the United States as well as elsewhere, it does not
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regulate them all. I must say that I have often seen Americans make great and real sacrifices
to the public welfare; and I have remarked a hundred instances in which they hardly ever
failed to lend faithful support to each other.
The free institutions which the inhabitants of the United States possess, and the political
rights of which they make so much use, remind every citizen, and in a thousand ways, that he
lives in society.
They every instant impress upon his mind the notion that it is the duty, as well as the interest
of men, to make themselves useful to their fellow-creatures; and as he sees no particular
ground of animosity to them, since he is never either their master or their slave, his heart
readily leans to the side of kindness. Men attend to the interests of the public, first by
necessity, afterwards by choice: what was intentional becomes an instinct; and by dint of
working for the good of one’s fellow citizens, the habit and the taste for serving them is at
length acquired.
Many people in France consider equality of conditions as one evil, and political freedom as a
second. When they are obliged to yield to the former, they strive at least to escape from the
latter. But I contend that in order to combat the evils which equality may produce, there is
only one effectual remedy—namely, political freedom.
 365

V. Of The Use Which The Americans Make Of Public

Associations In Civil Life

I do not propose to speak of those political associations—by the aid of which men endeavor
to defend themselves against the despotic influence of a majority—or against the aggressions
of regal power. That subject I have already treated. If each citizen did not learn, in proportion
as he individually becomes more feeble, and consequently more incapable of preserving his
freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow-citizens for the purpose of defending it, it
is clear that tyranny would unavoidably increase together with equality.
Those associations only which are formed in civil life, without reference to political objects,
are here adverted to. The political associations which exist in the United States are only a
single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of associations in that country.
Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations. They
have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but
associations of a thousand other kinds—religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive, or
restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments,
to found establishments for education, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books,
to send missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and
schools. If it be proposed to advance some truth, or to foster some feeling by the
encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever, at the head of some new
undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United
States you will be sure to find an association. I met with several kinds of associations in
America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have often admired the extreme
skill with which the inhabitants of the United States succeed in proposing a common object to
the exertions of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to pursue it. I have since
travelled over England, whence the Americans have taken some of their laws and many of
their customs; and it seemed to me that the principle of association was by no means so
constantly or so adroitly used in that country. The English often perform great things singly;
whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest undertakings. It is evident that the
former people consider association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to
regard it as the only means they have of acting.
Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in which men have in our
time carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their
common desires, and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes. Is this
the result of accident? or is there in reality any necessary connection between the principle of
association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities always contain, amongst a
multitude of persons who by themselves are powerless, a small number of powerful and
wealthy citizens, each of whom can achieve great undertakings single-handed. In aristocratic
societies men do not need to combine in order to act, because they are strongly held together.
Every wealthy and powerful citizen constitutes the head of a permanent and compulsory
association, composed of all those who are dependent upon him, or whom he makes
subservient to the execution of his designs. Amongst democratic nations, on the contrary, all
the citizens are independent and feeble; they can do hardly anything by themselves, and none
of them can oblige his fellow-men to lend him their assistance. They all, therefore, fall into a
state of incapacity, if they do not learn voluntarily to help each other. If men living in
democratic countries had no right and no inclination to associate for political purposes, their
independence would be in great jeopardy; but they might long preserve their wealth and their
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cultivation: whereas if they never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary life,
civilization itself would be endangered. A people amongst which individuals should lose the
power of achieving great things single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing
them by united exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism.
Unhappily, the same social condition which renders associations so necessary to democratic
nations, renders their formation more difficult amongst those nations than amongst all others.
When several members of an aristocracy agree to combine, they easily succeed in doing so;
as each of them brings great strength to the partnership, the number of its members may be
very limited; and when the members of an association are limited in number, they may easily
become mutually acquainted, understand each other, and establish fixed regulations. The
same opportunities do not occur amongst democratic nations, where the associated members
must always be very numerous for their association to have any power.
I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed by this difficulty.
They contend that the more enfeebled and incompetent the citizens become, the more able
and active the government ought to be rendered, in order that society at large may execute
what individuals can no longer accomplish. They believe this answers the whole difficulty,
but I think they are mistaken. A government might perform the part of some of the largest
American companies; and several States, members of the Union, have already attempted it;
but what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which
the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of the principle of association?
It is easy to foresee that the time is drawing near when man will be less and less able to
produce, of himself alone, the commonest necessaries of life. The task of the governing
power will therefore perpetually increase, and its very efforts will extend it every day. The
more it stands in the place of associations, the more will individuals, losing the notion of
combining together, require its assistance: these are causes and effects which unceasingly
engender each other. Will the administration of the country ultimately assume the
management of all the manufacturers, which no single citizen is able to carry on? And if a
time at length arrives, when, in consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property,
the soil is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can only be cultivated by
companies of husbandmen, will it be necessary that the head of the government should leave
the helm of state to follow the plough? The morals and the intelligence of a democratic
people would be as much endangered as its business and manufactures, if the government
ever wholly usurped the place of private companies.
Feelings and opinions are recruited, the heart is enlarged, and the human mind is developed
by no other means than by the reciprocal influence of men upon each other. I have shown that
these influences are almost null in democratic countries; they must therefore be artificially
created, and this can only be accomplished by associations.
When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new opinion, or conceive a new
sentiment, they give it a station, as it were, beside themselves, upon the lofty platform where
they stand; and opinions or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of the multitude are easily
introduced into the minds or hearts of all around. In democratic countries the governing
power alone is naturally in a condition to act in this manner; but it is easy to see that its action
is always inadequate, and often dangerous. A government can no more be competent to keep
alive and to renew the circulation of opinions and feelings amongst a great people, than to
manage all the speculations of productive industry. No sooner does a government attempt to
go beyond its political sphere and to enter upon this new track, than it exercises, even
unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a government can only dictate strict rules, the
opinions which it favors are rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between its
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advice and its commands. Worse still will be the case if the government really believes itself
interested in preventing all circulation of ideas; it will then stand motionless, and oppressed
by the heaviness of voluntary torpor. Governments therefore should not be the only active
powers: associations ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those powerful private
individuals whom the equality of conditions has swept away.
As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have taken up an opinion or a
feeling which they wish to promote in the world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as
soon as they have found each other out, they combine. From that moment they are no longer
isolated men, but a power seen from afar, whose actions serve for an example, and whose
language is listened to. The first time I heard in the United States that 100,000 men had
bound themselves publicly to abstain from spirituous liquors, it appeared to me more like a
joke than a serious engagement; and I did not at once perceive why these temperate citizens
could not content themselves with drinking water by their own firesides. I at last understood
that 300,000 Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them, had made up
their minds to patronize temperance. They acted just in the same way as a man of high rank
who should dress very plainly, in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt of
luxury. It is probable that if these 100,000 men had lived in France, each of them would
singly have memorialized the government to watch the public-houses all over the kingdom.
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention than the intellectual and moral
associations of America. The political and industrial associations of that country strike us
forcibly; but the others elude our observation, or if we discover them, we understand them
imperfectly, because we have hardly ever seen anything of the kind. It must, however, be
acknowledged that they are as necessary to the American people as the former, and perhaps
more so. In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the
progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made. Amongst the laws which rule
human societies there is one which seems to be more precise and clear than all others. If men
are to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must grow and
improve in the same ratio in which the equality of conditions is increased.
 368

VI. Of The Relation Between Public Associations And

Newspapers

When men are no longer united amongst themselves by firm and lasting ties, it is impossible
to obtain the cooperation of any great number of them, unless you can persuade every man
whose concurrence you require that this private interest obliges him voluntarily to unite his
exertions to the exertions of all the rest. This can only be habitually and conveniently effected
by means of a newspaper; nothing but a newspaper can drop the same thought into a thousand
minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an adviser who does not require to be sought, but
who comes of his own accord, and talks to you briefly every day of the common weal,
without distracting you from your private affairs.
Newspapers therefore become more necessary in proportion as men become more equal, and
individualism more to be feared. To suppose that they only serve to protect freedom would be
to diminish their importance: they maintain civilization. I shall not deny that in democratic
countries newspapers frequently lead the citizens to launch together in very ill-digested
schemes; but if there were no newspapers there would be no common activity. The evil which
they produce is therefore much less than that which they cure.
The effect of a newspaper is not only to suggest the same purpose to a great number of
persons, but also to furnish means for executing in common the designs which they may have
singly conceived. The principal citizens who inhabit an aristocratic country discern each
other from afar; and if they wish to unite their forces, they move towards each other, drawing
a multitude of men after them. It frequently happens, on the contrary, in democratic countries,
that a great number of men who wish or who want to combine cannot accomplish it, because
as they are very insignificant and lost amidst the crowd, they cannot see, and know not where
to find, one another. A newspaper then takes up the notion or the feeling which had occurred
simultaneously, but singly, to each of them. All are then immediately guided towards this
beacon; and these wandering minds, which had long sought each other in darkness, at length
meet and unite.
The newspaper brought them together, and the newspaper is still necessary to keep them
united. In order that an association amongst a democratic people should have any power, it
must be a numerous body. The persons of whom it is composed are therefore scattered over a
wide extent, and each of them is detained in the place of his domicile by the narrowness of
his income, or by the small unremitting exertions by which he earns it. Means then must be
found to converse every day without seeing each other, and to take steps in common without
having met. Thus hardly any democratic association can do without newspapers. There is
consequently a necessary connection between public associations and newspapers:
newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers; and if it has been
correctly advanced that associations will increase in number as the conditions of men become
more equal, it is not less certain that the number of newspapers increases in proportion to that
of associations. Thus it is in America that we find at the same time the greatest number of
associations and of newspapers.
This connection between the number of newspapers and that of associations leads us to the
discovery of a further connection between the state of the periodical press and the form of the
administration in a country; and shows that the number of newspapers must diminish or
increase amongst a democratic people, in proportion as its administration is more or less
centralized. For amongst democratic nations the exercise of local powers cannot be intrusted
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to the principal members of the community as in aristocracies. Those powers must either be
abolished, or placed in the hands of very large numbers of men, who then in fact constitute an
association permanently established by law for the purpose of administering the affairs of a
certain extent of territory; and they require a journal, to bring to them every day, in the midst
of their own minor concerns, some intelligence of the state of their public weal. The more
numerous local powers are, the greater is the number of men in whom they are vested by law;
and as this want is hourly felt, the more profusely do newspapers abound.
The extraordinary subdivision of administrative power has much more to do with the
enormous number of American newspapers than the great political freedom of the country
and the absolute liberty of the press. If all the inhabitants of the Union had the suffrage—but
a suffrage which should only extend to the choice of their legislators in Congress—they
would require but few newspapers, because they would only have to act together on a few
very important but very rare occasions. But within the pale of the great association of the
nation, lesser associations have been established by law in every country, every city, and
indeed in every village, for the purposes of local administration. The laws of the country thus
compel every American to co-operate every day of his life with some of his fellow-citizens
for a common purpose, and each one of them requires a newspaper to inform him what all the
others are doing.
I am of opinion that a democratic people, 318 without any national representative assemblies,
but with a great number of small local powers, would have in the end more newspapers than
another people governed by a centralized administration and an elective legislation. What
best explains to me the enormous circulation of the daily press in the United States, is that
amongst the Americans I find the utmost national freedom combined with local freedom of
every kind. There is a prevailing opinion in France and England that the circulation of
newspapers would be indefinitely increased by removing the taxes which have been laid upon
the press. This is a very exaggerated estimate of the effects of such a reform. Newspapers
increase in numbers, not according to their cheapness, but according to the more or less
frequent want which a great number of men may feel for intercommunication and
combination.
In like manner I should attribute the increasing influence of the daily press to causes more
general than those by which it is commonly explained. A newspaper can only subsist on the
condition of publishing sentiments or principles common to a large number of men. A
newspaper therefore always represents an association which is composed of its habitual
readers. This association may be more or less defined, more or less restricted, more or less
numerous; but the fact that the newspaper keeps alive, is a proof that at least the germ of such
an association exists in the minds of its readers.
This leads me to a last reflection, with which I shall conclude this chapter. The more equal
the conditions of men become, and the less strong men individually are, the more easily do
they give way to the current of the multitude, and the more difficult is it for them to adhere by
themselves to an opinion which the multitude discard. A newspaper represents an association;
it may be said to address each of its readers in the name of all the others, and to exert its
influence over them in proportion to their individual weakness. The power of the newspaper
press must therefore increase as the social conditions of men become more equal.

318
I say a democratic people: the administration of an aristocratic people may be the reverse of centralized, and
yet the want of newspapers be little felt, because local powers are then vested in the hands of a very small
number of men, who either act apart, or who know each other and can easily meet and come to an
understanding.
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VII. Connection Of Civil And Political Associations

There is only one country on the face of the earth where the citizens enjoy unlimited freedom
of association for political purposes. This same country is the only one in the world where the
continual exercise of the right of association has been introduced into civil life, and where all
the advantages which civilization can confer are procured by means of it. In all the countries
where political associations are prohibited, civil associations are rare. It is hardly probable
that this is the result of accident; but the inference should rather be, that there is a natural, and
perhaps a necessary, connection between these two kinds of associations. Certain men happen
to have a common interest in some concern—either a commercial undertaking is to be
managed, or some speculation in manufactures to be tried; they meet, they combine, and thus
by degrees they become familiar with the principle of association. The greater is the
multiplicity of small affairs, the more do men, even without knowing it, acquire facility in
prosecuting great undertakings in common. Civil associations, therefore, facilitate political
association: but, on the other hand, political association singularly strengthens and improves
associations for civil purposes. In civil life every man may, strictly speaking, fancy that he
can provide for his own wants; in politics, he can fancy no such thing. When a people, then,
have any knowledge of public life, the notion of association, and the wish to coalesce, present
themselves every day to the minds of the whole community: whatever natural repugnance
may restrain men from acting in concert, they will always be ready to combine for the sake of
a party. Thus political life makes the love and practice of association more general; it imparts
a desire of union, and teaches the means of combination to numbers of men who would have
always lived apart.
Politics not only give birth to numerous associations, but to associations of great extent. In
civil life it seldom happens that any one interest draws a very large number of men to act in
concert; much skill is required to bring such an interest into existence: but in politics
opportunities present themselves every day. Now it is solely in great associations that the
general value of the principle of association is displayed. Citizens who are individually
powerless, do not very clearly anticipate the strength which they may acquire by uniting
together; it must be shown to them in order to be understood. Hence it is often easier to
collect a multitude for a public purpose than a few persons; a thousand citizens do not see
what interest they have in combining together—ten thousand will be perfectly aware of it. In
politics men combine for great undertakings; and the use they make of the principle of
association in important affairs practically teaches them that it is their interest to help each
other in those of less moment. A political association draws a number of individuals at the
same time out of their own circle: however they may be naturally kept asunder by age, mind,
and fortune, it places them nearer together and brings them into contact. Once met, they can
always meet again.
Men can embark in few civil partnerships without risking a portion of their possessions; this
is the case with all manufacturing and trading companies. When men are as yet but little
versed in the art of association, and are unacquainted with its principal rules, they are afraid,
when first they combine in this manner, of buying their experience dear. They therefore
prefer depriving themselves of a powerful instrument of success to running the risks which
attend the use of it. They are, however, less reluctant to join political associations, which
appear to them to be without danger, because they adventure no money in them. But they
cannot belong to these associations for any length of time without finding out how order is
maintained amongst a large number of men, and by what contrivance they are made to
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advance, harmoniously and methodically, to the same object. Thus they learn to surrender
their own will to that of all the rest, and to make their own exertions subordinate to the
common impulse—things which it is not less necessary to know in civil than in political
associations. Political associations may therefore be considered as large free schools, where
all the members of the community go to learn the general theory of association.
But even if political association did not directly contribute to the progress of civil association,
to destroy the former would be to impair the latter. When citizens can only meet in public for
certain purposes, they regard such meetings as a strange proceeding of rare occurrence, and
they rarely think at all about it. When they are allowed to meet freely for all purposes, they
ultimately look upon public association as the universal, or in a manner the sole means,
which men can employ to accomplish the different purposes they may have in view. Every
new want instantly revives the notion. The art of association then becomes, as I have said
before, the mother of action, studied and applied by all.
When some kinds of associations are prohibited and others allowed, it is difficult to
distinguish the former from the latter, beforehand. In this state of doubt men abstain from
them altogether, and a sort of public opinion passes current which tends to cause any
association whatsoever to be regarded as a bold and almost an illicit enterprise. 319
It is therefore chimerical to suppose that the spirit of association, when it is repressed on
some one point, will nevertheless display the same vigor on all others; and that if men be
allowed to prosecute certain undertakings in common, that is quite enough for them eagerly
to set about them. When the members of a community are allowed and accustomed to
combine for all purposes, they will combine as readily for the lesser as for the more important
ones; but if they are only allowed to combine for small affairs, they will be neither inclined
nor able to effect it. It is in vain that you will leave them entirely free to prosecute their
business on joint-stock account: they will hardly care to avail themselves of the rights you
have granted to them; and, after having exhausted your strength in vain efforts to put down
prohibited associations, you will be surprised that you cannot persuade men to form the
associations you encourage.
I do not say that there can be no civil associations in a country where political association is
prohibited; for men can never live in society without embarking in some common
undertakings: but I maintain that in such a country civil associations will always be few in
number, feebly planned, unskillfully managed, that they will never form any vast designs, or
that they will fail in the execution of them.
This naturally leads me to think that freedom of association in political matters is not so
dangerous to public tranquillity as is supposed; and that possibly, after having agitated
society for some time, it may strengthen the State in the end. In democratic countries political

319
This is more especially true when the executive government has a discretionary power of allowing or
prohibiting associations. When certain associations are simply prohibited by law, and the courts of justice have
to punish infringements of that law, the evil is far less considerable. Then every citizen knows beforehand pretty
nearly what he has to expect. He judges himself before he is judged by the law, and, abstaining from prohibited
associations, he embarks in those which are legally sanctioned. It is by these restrictions that all free nations
have always admitted that the right of association might be limited. But if the legislature should invest a man
with a power of ascertaining beforehand which associations are dangerous and which are useful, and should
authorize him to destroy all associations in the bud or allow them to be formed, as nobody would be able to
foresee in what cases associations might be established and in what cases they would be put down, the spirit of
association would be entirely paralyzed. The former of these laws would only assail certain associations; the
latter would apply to society itself, and inflict an injury upon it. I can conceive that a regular government may
have recourse to the former, but I do not concede that any government has the right of enacting the latter.
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associations are, so to speak, the only powerful persons who aspire to rule the State.
Accordingly, the governments of our time look upon associations of this kind just as
sovereigns in the Middle Ages regarded the great vassals of the Crown: they entertain a sort
of instinctive abhorrence of them, and they combat them on all occasions. They bear, on the
contrary, a natural goodwill to civil associations, because they readily discover that, instead
of directing the minds of the community to public affairs, these institutions serve to divert
them from such reflections; and that, by engaging them more and more in the pursuit of
objects which cannot be attained without public tranquillity, they deter them from
revolutions. But these governments do not attend to the fact that political associations tend
amazingly to multiply and facilitate those of a civil character, and that in avoiding a
dangerous evil they deprive themselves of an efficacious remedy.
When you see the Americans freely and constantly forming associations for the purpose of
promoting some political principle, of raising one man to the head of affairs, or of wresting
power from another, you have some difficulty in understanding that men so independent do
not constantly fall into the abuse of freedom. If, on the other hand, you survey the infinite
number of trading companies which are in operation in the United States, and perceive that
the Americans are on every side unceasingly engaged in the execution of important and
difficult plans, which the slightest revolution would throw into confusion, you will readily
comprehend why people so well employed are by no means tempted to perturb the State, nor
to destroy that public tranquillity by which they all profit.
Is it enough to observe these things separately, or should we not discover the hidden tie
which connects them? In their political associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds,
and ages, daily acquire a general taste for association, and grow accustomed to the use of it.
There they meet together in large numbers, they converse, they listen to each other, and they
are mutually stimulated to all sorts of undertakings. They afterwards transfer to civil life the
notions they have thus acquired, and make them subservient to a thousand purposes. Thus it
is by the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that the Americans learn the art of rendering the
dangers of freedom less formidable.
If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be selected, it is easy to prove that political
associations perturb the State, and paralyze productive industry; but take the whole life of a
people, and it may perhaps be easy to demonstrate that freedom of association in political
matters is favorable to the prosperity and even to the tranquillity of the community.
I said in the former part of this work, “The unrestrained liberty of political association cannot
be entirely assimilated to the liberty of the press. The one is at the same time less necessary
and more dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain limits without
ceasing to be mistress of itself; and it may sometimes be obliged to do so in order to maintain
its own authority.” And further on I added: “It cannot be denied that the unrestrained liberty
of association for political purposes is the last degree of liberty which a people is fit for. If it
does not throw them into anarchy, it perpetually brings them, as it were, to the verge of it.”
Thus I do not think that a nation is always at liberty to invest its citizens with an absolute
right of association for political purposes; and I doubt whether, in any country or in any age,
it be wise to set no limits to freedom of association. A certain nation, it is said, could not
maintain tranquillity in the community, cause the laws to be respected, or establish a lasting
government, if the right of association were not confined within narrow limits. These
blessings are doubtless invaluable, and I can imagine that, to acquire or to preserve them, a
nation may impose upon itself severe temporary restrictions: but still it is well that the nation
should know at what price these blessings are purchased. I can understand that it may be
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advisable to cut off a man’s arm in order to save his life; but it would be ridiculous to assert
that he will be as dexterous as he was before he lost it.
 374

VIII. The Americans Combat Individualism By The

Principle Of Interest Rightly Understood

When the world was managed by a few rich and powerful individuals, these persons loved to
entertain a lofty idea of the duties of man. They were fond of professing that it is
praiseworthy to forget one’s self, and that good should be done without hope of reward, as it
is by the Deity himself. Such were the standard opinions of that time in morals. I doubt
whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in others; but they were incessantly
talking of the beauties of virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. But since the
imagination takes less lofty flights and every man’s thoughts are centred in himself, moralists
are alarmed by this idea of self-sacrifice, and they no longer venture to present it to the
human mind. They therefore content themselves with inquiring whether the personal
advantage of each member of the community does not consist in working for the good of all;
and when they have hit upon some point on which private interest and public interest meet
and amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice. Observations of this kind are gradually
multiplied: what was only a single remark becomes a general principle; and it is held as a
truth that man serves himself in serving his fellow-creatures, and that his private interest is to
do good.
I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what means the inhabitants of the
United States almost always manage to combine their own advantage with that of their
fellow-citizens: my present purpose is to point out the general rule which enables them to do
so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the beauty of virtue; but they maintain that
virtue is useful, and prove it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men
ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow-creatures because it is noble to make such
sacrifices; but they boldly aver that such sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them
upon himself as to him for whose sake they are made. They have found out that in their
country and their age man is brought home to himself by an irresistible force; and losing all
hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the direction of it. They therefore
do not deny that every man may follow his own interest; but they endeavor to prove that it is
the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall not here enter into the reasons they allege,
which would divert me from my subject: suffice it to say that they have convinced their
fellow-countrymen.
Montaigne said long ago: “Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should
follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most
useful track.” The doctrine of interest rightly understood is not, then, new, but amongst the
Americans of our time it finds universal acceptance: it has become popular there; you may
trace it at the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they say. It is as often to be
met with on the lips of the poor man as of the rich. In Europe the principle of interest is much
grosser than it is in America, but at the same time it is less common, and especially it is less
avowed; amongst us, men still constantly feign great abnegation which they no longer feel.
The Americans, on the contrary, are fond of explaining almost all the actions of their lives by
the principle of interest rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened
regard for themselves constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them
willingly to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the State. In this
respect I think they frequently fail to do themselves justice; for in the United States, as well
as elsewhere, people are sometimes seen to give way to those disinterested and spontaneous
impulses which are natural to man; but the Americans seldom allow that they yield to
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emotions of this kind; they are more anxious to do honor to their philosophy than to
themselves.
I might here pause, without attempting to pass a judgment on what I have described. The
extreme difficulty of the subject would be my excuse, but I shall not avail myself of it; and I
had rather that my readers, clearly perceiving my object, should refuse to follow me than that
I should leave them in suspense. The principle of interest rightly understood is not a lofty
one, but it is clear and sure. It does not aim at mighty objects, but it attains without excessive
exertion all those at which it aims. As it lies within the reach of all capacities, everyone can
without difficulty apprehend and retain it. By its admirable conformity to human weaknesses,
it easily obtains great dominion; nor is that dominion precarious, since the principle checks
one personal interest by another, and uses, to direct the passions, the very same instrument
which excites them. The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of
self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make
a man virtuous, but it disciplines a number of citizens in habits of regularity, temperance,
moderation, foresight, self-command; and, if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the
will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of interest
rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world, extraordinary virtues would
doubtless be more rare; but I think that gross depravity would then also be less common. The
principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents some men from rising far above the
level of mankind; but a great number of other men, who were falling far below it, are caught
and restrained by it. Observe some few individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, it
is raised. I am not afraid to say that the principle of interest, rightly understood, appears to me
the best suited of all philosophical theories to the wants of the men of our time, and that I
regard it as their chief remaining security against themselves. Towards it, therefore, the minds
of the moralists of our age should turn; even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must
nevertheless be adopted as necessary.
I do not think upon the whole that there is more egotism amongst us than in America; the
only difference is, that there it is enlightened—here it is not. Every American will sacrifice a
portion of his private interests to preserve the rest; we would fain preserve the whole, and
oftentimes the whole is lost. Everybody I see about me seems bent on teaching his
contemporaries, by precept and example, that what is useful is never wrong. Will nobody
undertake to make them understand how what is right may be useful? No power upon earth
can prevent the increasing equality of conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out
what is useful, or from leading every member of the community to be wrapped up in himself.
It must therefore be expected that personal interest will become more than ever the principal,
if not the sole, spring of men’s actions; but it remains to be seen how each man will
understand his personal interest. If the members of a community, as they become more equal,
become more ignorant and coarse, it is difficult to foresee to what pitch of stupid excesses
their egotism may lead them; and no one can foretell into what disgrace and wretchedness
they would plunge themselves, lest they should have to sacrifice something of their own well-
being to the prosperity of their fellow-creatures. I do not think that the system of interest, as it
is professed in America, is, in all its parts, self-evident; but it contains a great number of
truths so evident that men, if they are but educated, cannot fail to see them. Educate, then, at
any rate; for the age of implicit self-sacrifice and instinctive virtues is already flitting far
away from us, and the time is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order
itself will not be able to exist without education.
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IX. That The Americans Apply The Principle Of Interest

Rightly Understood To Religious Matters

If the principle of interest rightly understood had nothing but the present world in view, it
would be very insufficient; for there are many sacrifices which can only find their
recompense in another; and whatever ingenuity may be put forth to demonstrate the utility of
virtue, it will never be an easy task to make that man live aright who has no thoughts of
dying. It is therefore necessary to ascertain whether the principle of interest rightly
understood is easily compatible with religious belief. The philosophers who inculcate this
system of morals tell men, that to be happy in this life they must watch their own passions
and steadily control their excess; that lasting happiness can only be secured by renouncing a
thousand transient gratifications; and that a man must perpetually triumph over himself, in
order to secure his own advantage. The founders of almost all religions have held the same
language. The track they point out to man is the same, only that the goal is more remote;
instead of placing in this world the reward of the sacrifices they impose, they transport it to
another. Nevertheless I cannot believe that all those who practise virtue from religious
motives are only actuated by the hope of a recompense. I have known zealous Christians who
constantly forgot themselves, to work with greater ardor for the happiness of their fellow-
men; and I have heard them declare that all they did was only to earn the blessings of a future
state. I cannot but think that they deceive themselves; I respect them too much to believe
them.
Christianity indeed teaches that a man must prefer his neighbor to himself, in order to gain
eternal life; but Christianity also teaches that men ought to benefit their fellow-creatures for
the love of God. A sublime expression! Man, searching by his intellect into the divine
conception, and seeing that order is the purpose of God, freely combines to prosecute the
great design; and whilst he sacrifices his personal interests to this consummate order of all
created things, expects no other recompense than the pleasure of contemplating it. I do not
believe that interest is the sole motive of religious men: but I believe that interest is the
principal means which religions themselves employ to govern men, and I do not question that
this way they strike into the multitude and become popular. It is not easy clearly to perceive
why the principle of interest rightly understood should keep aloof from religious opinions;
and it seems to me more easy to show why it should draw men to them.
Let it be supposed that, in order to obtain happiness in this world, a man combats his instinct
on all occasions and deliberately calculates every action of his life; that, instead of yielding
blindly to the impetuosity of first desires, he has learned the art of resisting them, and that he
has accustomed himself to sacrifice without an effort the pleasure of a moment to the lasting
interest of his whole life. If such a man believes in the religion which he professes, it will cost
him but little to submit to the restrictions it may impose. Reason herself counsels him to
obey, and habit has prepared him to endure them. If he should have conceived any doubts as
to the object of his hopes, still he will not easily allow himself to be stopped by them; and he
will decide that it is wise to risk some of the advantages of this world, in order to preserve his
rights to the great inheritance promised him in another. “To be mistaken in believing that the
Christian religion is true,” says Pascal, “is no great loss to anyone; but how dreadful to be
mistaken in believing it to be false!”
The Americans do not affect a brutal indifference to a future state; they affect no puerile pride
in despising perils which they hope to escape from. They therefore profess their religion
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without shame and without weakness; but there generally is, even in their zeal, something so
indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate, that it would seem as if the head, far more
than the heart, brought them to the foot of the altar.
The Americans not only follow their religion from interest, but they often place in this world
the interest which makes them follow it. In the Middle Ages the clergy spoke of nothing but a
future state; they hardly cared to prove that a sincere Christian may be a happy man here
below. But the American preachers are constantly referring to the earth; and it is only with
great difficulty that they can divert their attention from it.
To touch their congregations, they always show them how favorable religious opinions are to
freedom and public tranquillity; and it is often difficult to ascertain from their discourses
whether the principal object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the other world, or
prosperity in this.
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X. Of The Taste For Physical Well-Being In America

In America the passion for physical well-being is not always exclusive, but it is general; and
if all do not feel it in the same manner, yet it is felt by all. Carefully to satisfy all, even the
least wants of the body, and to provide the little conveniences of life, is uppermost in every
mind. Something of an analogous character is more and more apparent in Europe. Amongst
the causes which produce these similar consequences in both hemispheres, several are so
connected with my subject as to deserve notice.
When riches are hereditarily fixed in families, there are a great number of men who enjoy the
comforts of life without feeling an exclusive taste for those comforts. The heart of man is not
so much caught by the undisturbed possession of anything valuable as by the desire, as yet
imperfectly satisfied, of possessing it, and by the incessant dread of losing it. In aristocratic
communities, the wealthy, never having experienced a condition different from their own,
entertain no fear of changing it; the existence of such conditions hardly occurs to them. The
comforts of life are not to them the end of life, but simply a way of living; they regard them
as existence itself—enjoyed, but scarcely thought of. As the natural and instinctive taste
which all men feel for being well off is thus satisfied without trouble and without
apprehension, their faculties are turned elsewhere, and cling to more arduous and more lofty
undertakings, which excite and engross their minds. Hence it is that, in the midst of physical
gratifications, the members of an aristocracy often display a haughty contempt of these very
enjoyments, and exhibit singular powers of endurance under the privation of them. All the
revolutions which have ever shaken or destroyed aristocracies, have shown how easily men
accustomed to superfluous luxuries can do without the necessaries of life; whereas men who
have toiled to acquire a competency can hardly live after they have lost it.
If I turn my observation from the upper to the lower classes, I find analogous effects
produced by opposite causes. Amongst a nation where aristocracy predominates in society,
and keeps it stationary, the people in the end get as much accustomed to poverty as the rich to
their opulence. The latter bestow no anxiety on their physical comforts, because they enjoy
them without an effort; the former do not think of things which they despair of obtaining, and
which they hardly know enough of to desire them. In communities of this kind, the
imagination of the poor is driven to seek another world; the miseries of real life inclose it
around, but it escapes from their control, and flies to seek its pleasures far beyond. When, on
the contrary, the distinctions of ranks are confounded together and privileges are destroyed—
when hereditary property is subdivided, and education and freedom widely diffused, the
desire of acquiring the comforts of the world haunts the imagination of the poor, and the
dread of losing them that of the rich. Many scanty fortunes spring up; those who possess
them have a sufficient share of physical gratifications to conceive a taste for these
pleasures—not enough to satisfy it. They never procure them without exertion, and they
never indulge in them without apprehension. They are therefore always straining to pursue or
to retain gratifications so delightful, so imperfect, so fugitive.
If I were to inquire what passion is most natural to men who are stimulated and circumscribed
by the obscurity of their birth or the mediocrity of their fortune, I could discover none more
peculiarly appropriate to their condition than this love of physical prosperity. The passion for
physical comforts is essentially a passion of the middle classes: with those classes it grows
and spreads, with them it preponderates. From them it mounts into the higher orders of
society, and descends into the mass of the people. I never met in America with any citizen so
poor as not to cast a glance of hope and envy on the enjoyments of the rich, or whose
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imagination did not possess itself by anticipation of those good things which fate still
obstinately withheld from him. On the other hand, I never perceived amongst the wealthier
inhabitants of the United States that proud contempt of physical gratifications which is
sometimes to be met with even in the most opulent and dissolute aristocracies. Most of these
wealthy persons were once poor; they have felt the sting of want; they were long a prey to
adverse fortunes; and now that the victory is won, the passions which accompanied the
contest have survived it: their minds are, as it were, intoxicated by the small enjoyments
which they have pursued for forty years. Not but that in the United States, as elsewhere, there
are a certain number of wealthy persons who, having come into their property by inheritance,
possess, without exertion, an opulence they have not earned. But even these men are not less
devotedly attached to the pleasures of material life. The love of well-being is now become the
predominant taste of the nation; the great current of man’s passions runs in that channel, and
sweeps everything along in its course.
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XI. Peculiar Effects Of The Love Of Physical

Gratifications In Democratic Ages

It may be supposed, from what has just been said, that the love of physical gratifications must
constantly urge the Americans to irregularities in morals, disturb the peace of families, and
threaten the security of society at large. Such is not the case: the passion for physical
gratifications produces in democracies effects very different from those which it occasions in
aristocratic nations. It sometimes happens that, wearied with public affairs and sated with
opulence, amidst the ruin of religious belief and the decline of the State, the heart of an
aristocracy may by degrees be seduced to the pursuit of sensual enjoyments only. At other
times the power of the monarch or the weakness of the people, without stripping the nobility
of their fortune, compels them to stand aloof from the administration of affairs, and whilst the
road to mighty enterprise is closed, abandons them to the inquietude of their own desires;
they then fall back heavily upon themselves, and seek in the pleasures of the body oblivion of
their former greatness. When the members of an aristocratic body are thus exclusively
devoted to the pursuit of physical gratifications, they commonly concentrate in that direction
all the energy which they derive from their long experience of power. Such men are not
satisfied with the pursuit of comfort; they require sumptuous depravity and splendid
corruption. The worship they pay the senses is a gorgeous one; and they seem to vie with
each other in the art of degrading their own natures. The stronger, the more famous, and the
more free an aristocracy has been, the more depraved will it then become; and however
brilliant may have been the lustre of its virtues, I dare predict that they will always be
surpassed by the splendor of its vices.
The taste for physical gratifications leads a democratic people into no such excesses. The
love of well-being is there displayed as a tenacious, exclusive, universal passion; but its range
is confined. To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world
in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of: but to add a few roods of land to
your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be always making life more
comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to satisfy the smallest wants without effort
and almost without cost. These are small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon
them closely and day by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world, and sometimes
intervene between itself and heaven.
This, it may be said, can only be applicable to those members of the community who are in
humble circumstances; wealthier individuals will display tastes akin to those which belonged
to them in aristocratic ages. I contest the proposition: in point of physical gratifications, the
most opulent members of a democracy will not display tastes very different from those of the
people; whether it be that, springing from the people, they really share those tastes, or that
they esteem it a duty to submit to them. In democratic society the sensuality of the public has
taken a moderate and tranquil course, to which all are bound to conform: it is as difficult to
depart from the common rule by one’s vices as by one’s virtues. Rich men who live amidst
democratic nations are therefore more intent on providing for their smallest wants than for
their extraordinary enjoyments; they gratify a number of petty desires, without indulging in
any great irregularities of passion: thus they are more apt to become enervated than
debauched. The especial taste which the men of democratic ages entertain for physical
enjoyments is not naturally opposed to the principles of public order; nay, it often stands in
need of order that it may be gratified. Nor is it adverse to regularity of morals, for good
morals contribute to public tranquillity and are favorable to industry. It may even be
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frequently combined with a species of religious morality: men wish to be as well off as they
can in this world, without foregoing their chance of another. Some physical gratifications
cannot be indulged in without crime; from such they strictly abstain. The enjoyment of others
is sanctioned by religion and morality; to these the heart, the imagination, and life itself are
unreservedly given up; till, in snatching at these lesser gifts, men lose sight of those more
precious possessions which constitute the glory and the greatness of mankind. The reproach I
address to the principle of equality, is not that it leads men away in the pursuit of forbidden
enjoyments, but that it absorbs them wholly in quest of those which are allowed. By these
means, a kind of virtuous materialism may ultimately be established in the world, which
would not corrupt, but enervate the soul, and noiselessly unbend its springs of action.
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XII. Causes Of Fanatical Enthusiasm In Some Americans

Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is the prevailing passion of the
American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur, when their souls seem suddenly to
burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained, and to soar impetuously towards
heaven. In all the States of the Union, but especially in the half-peopled country of the Far
West, wandering preachers may be met with who hawk about the word of God from place to
place. Whole families—old men, women, and children—cross rough passes and untrodden
wilds, coming from a great distance, to join a camp-meeting, where they totally forget for
several days and nights, in listening to these discourses, the cares of business and even the
most urgent wants of the body. Here and there, in the midst of American society, you meet
with men, full of a fanatical and almost wild enthusiasm, which hardly exists in Europe. From
time to time strange sects arise, which endeavor to strike out extraordinary paths to eternal
happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the United States.
Nor ought these facts to surprise us. It was not man who implanted in himself the taste for
what is infinite and the love of what is immortal: those lofty instincts are not the offspring of
his capricious will; their steadfast foundation is fixed in human nature, and they exist in spite
of his efforts. He may cross and distort them—destroy them he cannot. The soul has wants
which must be satisfied; and whatever pains be taken to divert it from itself, it soon grows
weary, restless, and disquieted amidst the enjoyments of sense. If ever the faculties of the
great majority of mankind were exclusively bent upon the pursuit of material objects, it might
be anticipated that an amazing reaction would take place in the souls of some men. They
would drift at large in the world of spirits, for fear of remaining shackled by the close
bondage of the body.
It is not then wonderful if, in the midst of a community whose thoughts tend earthward, a
small number of individuals are to be found who turn their looks to heaven. I should be
surprised if mysticism did not soon make some advance amongst a people solely engaged in
promoting its own worldly welfare. It is said that the deserts of the Thebaid were peopled by
the persecutions of the emperors and the massacres of the Circus; I should rather say that it
was by the luxuries of Rome and the Epicurean philosophy of Greece. If their social
condition, their present circumstances, and their laws did not confine the minds of the
Americans so closely to the pursuit of worldly welfare, it is probable that they would display
more reserve and more experience whenever their attention is turned to things immaterial,
and that they would check themselves without difficulty. But they feel imprisoned within
bounds which they will apparently never be allowed to pass. As soon as they have passed
these bounds, their minds know not where to fix themselves, and they often rush unrestrained
beyond the range of common-sense.
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XIII. Causes Of The Restless Spirit Of Americans In The

Midst Of Their Prosperity

In certain remote corners of the Old World you may still sometimes stumble upon a small
district which seems to have been forgotten amidst the general tumult, and to have remained
stationary whilst everything around it was in motion. The inhabitants are for the most part
extremely ignorant and poor; they take no part in the business of the country, and they are
frequently oppressed by the government; yet their countenances are generally placid, and
their spirits light. In America I saw the freest and most enlightened men, placed in the
happiest circumstances which the world affords: it seemed to me as if a cloud habitually hung
upon their brow, and I thought them serious and almost sad even in their pleasures. The chief
reason of this contrast is that the former do not think of the ills they endure—the latter are
forever brooding over advantages they do not possess. It is strange to see with what feverish
ardor the Americans pursue their own welfare; and to watch the vague dread that constantly
torments them lest they should not have chosen the shortest path which may lead to it. A
native of the United States clings to this world’s goods as if he were certain never to die; and
he is so hasty in grasping at all within his reach, that one would suppose he was constantly
afraid of not living long enough to enjoy them. He clutches everything, he holds nothing fast,
but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.
In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it, and he sells it before
the roof is on: he plants a garden, and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing: he
brings a field into tillage, and leaves other men to gather the crops: he embraces a profession,
and gives it up: he settles in a place, which he soon afterwards leaves, to carry his changeable
longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure, he instantly plunges into the
vortex of politics; and if at the end of a year of unremitting labor he finds he has a few days’
vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will
travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days, to shake off his happiness. Death at length
overtakes him, but it is before he is weary of his bootless chase of that complete felicity
which is forever on the wing.
At first sight there is something surprising in this strange unrest of so many happy men,
restless in the midst of abundance. The spectacle itself is however as old as the world; the
novelty is to see a whole people furnish an exemplification of it. Their taste for physical
gratifications must be regarded as the original source of that secret inquietude which the
actions of the Americans betray, and of that inconstancy of which they afford fresh examples
every day. He who has set his heart exclusively upon the pursuit of worldly welfare is always
in a hurry, for he has but a limited time at his disposal to reach it, to grasp it, and to enjoy it.
The recollection of the brevity of life is a constant spur to him. Besides the good things which
he possesses, he every instant fancies a thousand others which death will prevent him from
trying if he does not try them soon. This thought fills him with anxiety, fear, and regret, and
keeps his mind in ceaseless trepidation, which leads him perpetually to change his plans and
his abode. If in addition to the taste for physical well-being a social condition be superadded,
in which the laws and customs make no condition permanent, here is a great additional
stimulant to this restlessness of temper. Men will then be seen continually to change their
track, for fear of missing the shortest cut to happiness. It may readily be conceived that if
men, passionately bent upon physical gratifications, desire eagerly, they are also easily
discouraged: as their ultimate object is to enjoy, the means to reach that object must be
prompt and easy, or the trouble of acquiring the gratification would be greater than the
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gratification itself. Their prevailing frame of mind then is at once ardent and relaxed, violent
and enervated. Death is often less dreaded than perseverance in continuous efforts to one end.
The equality of conditions leads by a still straighter road to several of the effects which I have
here described. When all the privileges of birth and fortune are abolished, when all
professions are accessible to all, and a man’s own energies may place him at the top of any
one of them, an easy and unbounded career seems open to his ambition, and he will readily
persuade himself that he is born to no vulgar destinies. But this is an erroneous notion, which
is corrected by daily experience. The same equality which allows every citizen to conceive
these lofty hopes, renders all the citizens less able to realize them: it circumscribes their
powers on every side, whilst it gives freer scope to their desires. Not only are they themselves
powerless, but they are met at every step by immense obstacles, which they did not at first
perceive. They have swept away the privileges of some of their fellow-creatures which stood
in their way, but they have opened the door to universal competition: the barrier has changed
its shape rather than its position. When men are nearly alike, and all follow the same track, it
is very difficult for any one individual to walk quick and cleave a way through the dense
throng which surrounds and presses him. This constant strife between the propensities
springing from the equality of conditions and the means it supplies to satisfy them, harasses
and wearies the mind.
It is possible to conceive men arrived at a degree of freedom which should completely
content them; they would then enjoy their independence without anxiety and without
impatience. But men will never establish any equality with which they can be contented.
Whatever efforts a people may make, they will never succeed in reducing all the conditions
of society to a perfect level; and even if they unhappily attained that absolute and complete
depression, the inequality of minds would still remain, which, coming directly from the hand
of God, will forever escape the laws of man. However democratic then the social state and
the political constitution of a people may be, it is certain that every member of the
community will always find out several points about him which command his own position;
and we may foresee that his looks will be doggedly fixed in that direction. When inequality
of conditions is the common law of society, the most marked inequalities do not strike the
eye: when everything is nearly on the same level, the slightest are marked enough to hurt it.
Hence the desire of equality always becomes more insatiable in proportion as equality is
more complete.
Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never
attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding
itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are
about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its
charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they die.
To these causes must be attributed that strange melancholy which oftentimes will haunt the
inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and that disgust at life
which sometimes seizes upon them in the midst of calm and easy circumstances. Complaints
are made in France that the number of suicides increases; in America suicide is rare, but
insanity is said to be more common than anywhere else. These are all different symptoms of
the same disease. The Americans do not put an end to their lives, however disquieted they
may be, because their religion forbids it; and amongst them materialism may be said hardly to
exist, notwithstanding the general passion for physical gratification. The will resists—reason
frequently gives way. In democratic ages enjoyments are more intense than in the ages of
aristocracy, and especially the number of those who partake in them is larger: but, on the
other hand, it must be admitted that man’s hopes and his desires are oftener blasted, the soul
is more stricken and perturbed, and care itself more keen.
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XIV. Taste For Physical Gratifications United In America

To Love Of Freedom And Attention To Public Affairs

When a democratic state turns to absolute monarchy, the activity which was before directed
to public and to private affairs is all at once centred upon the latter: the immediate
consequence is, for some time, great physical prosperity; but this impulse soon slackens, and
the amount of productive industry is checked. I know not if a single trading or manufacturing
people can be cited, from the Tyrians down to the Florentines and the English, who were not
a free people also. There is therefore a close bond and necessary relation between these two
elements—freedom and productive industry. This proposition is generally true of all nations,
but especially of democratic nations. I have already shown that men who live in ages of
equality continually require to form associations in order to procure the things they covet;
and, on the other hand, I have shown how great political freedom improves and diffuses the
art of association. Freedom, in these ages, is therefore especially favorable to the production
of wealth; nor is it difficult to perceive that despotism is especially adverse to the same result.
The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and
meddling. Despotism of this kind, though it does not trample on humanity, is directly
opposed to the genius of commerce and the pursuits of industry.
Thus the men of democratic ages require to be free in order more readily to procure those
physical enjoyments for which they are always longing. It sometimes happens, however, that
the excessive taste they conceive for these same enjoyments abandons them to the first master
who appears. The passion for worldly welfare then defeats itself, and, without perceiving it,
throws the object of their desires to a greater distance.
There is, indeed, a most dangerous passage in the history of a democratic people. When the
taste for physical gratifications amongst such a people has grown more rapidly than their
education and their experience of free institutions, the time will come when men are carried
away, and lose all self-restraint, at the sight of the new possessions they are about to lay hold
upon. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to make a fortune, they lose sight of the close
connection which exists between the private fortune of each of them and the prosperity of all.
It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they
enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of political duties appears
to them to be a troublesome annoyance, which diverts them from their occupations and
business. If they be required to elect representatives, to support the Government by personal
service, to meet on public business, they have no time—they cannot waste their precious time
in useless engagements: such idle amusements are unsuited to serious men who are engaged
with the more important interests of life. These people think they are following the principle
of self-interest, but the idea they entertain of that principle is a very rude one; and the better
to look after what they call their business, they neglect their chief business, which is to
remain their own masters.
As the citizens who work do not care to attend to public business, and as the class which
might devote its leisure to these duties has ceased to exist, the place of the Government is, as
it were, unfilled. If at that critical moment some able and ambitious man grasps the supreme
power, he will find the road to every kind of usurpation open before him. If he does but
attend for some time to the material prosperity of the country, no more will be demanded of
him. Above all he must insure public tranquillity: men who are possessed by the passion of
physical gratification generally find out that the turmoil of freedom disturbs their welfare,
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before they discover how freedom itself serves to promote it. If the slightest rumor of public
commotion intrudes into the petty pleasures of private life, they are aroused and alarmed by
it. The fear of anarchy perpetually haunts them, and they are always ready to fling away their
freedom at the first disturbance.
I readily admit that public tranquillity is a great good; but at the same time I cannot forget
that all nations have been enslaved by being kept in good order. Certainly it is not to be
inferred that nations ought to despise public tranquillity; but that state ought not to content
them. A nation which asks nothing of its government but the maintenance of order is already
a slave at heart—the slave of its own well-being, awaiting but the hand that will bind it. By
such a nation the despotism of faction is not less to be dreaded than the despotism of an
individual. When the bulk of the community is engrossed by private concerns, the smallest
parties need not despair of getting the upper hand in public affairs. At such times it is not rare
to see upon the great stage of the world, as we see at our theatres, a multitude represented by
a few players, who alone speak in the name of an absent or inattentive crowd: they alone are
in action whilst all are stationary; they regulate everything by their own caprice; they change
the laws, and tyrannize at will over the manners of the country; and then men wonder to see
into how small a number of weak and worthless hands a great people may fall.
Hitherto the Americans have fortunately escaped all the perils which I have just pointed out;
and in this respect they are really deserving of admiration. Perhaps there is no country in the
world where fewer idle men are to be met with than in America, or where all who work are
more eager to promote their own welfare. But if the passion of the Americans for physical
gratifications is vehement, at least it is not indiscriminating; and reason, though unable to
restrain it, still directs its course. An American attends to his private concerns as if he were
alone in the world, and the next minute he gives himself up to the common weal as if he had
forgotten them. At one time he seems animated by the most selfish cupidity, at another by the
most lively patriotism. The human heart cannot be thus divided. The inhabitants of the United
States alternately display so strong and so similar a passion for their own welfare and for their
freedom, that it may be supposed that these passions are united and mingled in some part of
their character. And indeed the Americans believe their freedom to be the best instrument and
surest safeguard of their welfare: they are attached to the one by the other. They by no means
think that they are not called upon to take a part in the public weal; they believe, on the
contrary, that their chief business is to secure for themselves a government which will allow
them to acquire the things they covet, and which will not debar them from the peaceful
enjoyment of those possessions which they have acquired.
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XV. That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns The Thoughts

Of The Americans To Immaterial Pleasures

In the United States, on the seventh day of every week, the trading and working life of the
nation seems suspended; all noises cease; a deep tranquillity, say rather the solemn calm of
meditation, succeeds the turmoil of the week, and the soul resumes possession and
contemplation of itself. Upon this day the marts of traffic are deserted; every member of the
community, accompanied by his children, goes to church, where he listens to strange
language which would seem unsuited to his ear. He is told of the countless evils caused by
pride and covetousness: he is reminded of the necessity of checking his desires, of the finer
pleasures which belong to virtue alone, and of the true happiness which attends it. On his
return home, he does not turn to the ledgers of his calling, but he opens the book of Holy
Scripture; there he meets with sublime or affecting descriptions of the greatness and goodness
of the Creator, of the infinite magnificence of the handiwork of God, of the lofty destinies of
man, of his duties, and of his immortal privileges. Thus it is that the American at times steals
an hour from himself; and laying aside for a while the petty passions which agitate his life,
and the ephemeral interests which engross it, he strays at once into an ideal world, where all
is great, eternal, and pure.
I have endeavored to point out in another part of this work the causes to which the
maintenance of the political institutions of the Americans is attributable; and religion
appeared to be one of the most prominent amongst them. I am now treating of the Americans
in an individual capacity, and I again observe that religion is not less useful to each citizen
than to the whole State. The Americans show, by their practice, that they feel the high
necessity of imparting morality to democratic communities by means of religion. What they
think of themselves in this respect is a truth of which every democratic nation ought to be
thoroughly persuaded.
I do not doubt that the social and political constitution of a people predisposes them to adopt
a certain belief and certain tastes, which afterwards flourish without difficulty amongst them;
whilst the same causes may divert a people from certain opinions and propensities, without
any voluntary effort, and, as it were, without any distinct consciousness, on their part. The
whole art of the legislator is correctly to discern beforehand these natural inclinations of
communities of men, in order to know whether they should be assisted, or whether it may not
be necessary to check them. For the duties incumbent on the legislator differ at different
times; the goal towards which the human race ought ever to be tending is alone stationary; the
means of reaching it are perpetually to be varied.
If I had been born in an aristocratic age, in the midst of a nation where the hereditary wealth
of some, and the irremediable penury of others, should equally divert men from the idea of
bettering their condition, and hold the soul as it were in a state of torpor fixed on the
contemplation of another world, I should then wish that it were possible for me to rouse that
people to a sense of their wants; I should seek to discover more rapid and more easy means
for satisfying the fresh desires which I might have awakened; and, directing the most
strenuous efforts of the human mind to physical pursuits, I should endeavor to stimulate it to
promote the well-being of man. If it happened that some men were immoderately incited to
the pursuit of riches, and displayed an excessive liking for physical gratifications, I should
not be alarmed; these peculiar symptoms would soon be absorbed in the general aspect of the
people.
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The attention of the legislators of democracies is called to other cares. Give democratic
nations education and freedom, and leave them alone. They will soon learn to draw from this
world all the benefits which it can afford; they will improve each of the useful arts, and will
day by day render life more comfortable, more convenient, and more easy. Their social
condition naturally urges them in this direction; I do not fear that they will slacken their
course.
But whilst man takes delight in this honest and lawful pursuit of his wellbeing, it is to be
apprehended that he may in the end lose the use of his sublimest faculties; and that whilst he
is busied in improving all around him, he may at length degrade himself. Here, and here only,
does the peril lie. It should therefore be the unceasing object of the legislators of
democracies, and of all the virtuous and enlightened men who live there, to raise the souls of
their fellow-citizens, and keep them lifted up towards heaven. It is necessary that all who feel
an interest in the future destinies of democratic society should unite, and that all should make
joint and continual efforts to diffuse the love of the infinite, a sense of greatness, and a love
of pleasures not of earth. If amongst the opinions of a democratic people any of those
pernicious theories exist which tend to inculcate that all perishes with the body, let men by
whom such theories are professed be marked as the natural foes of such a people.
The materialists are offensive to me in many respects; their doctrines I hold to be pernicious,
and I am disgusted at their arrogance. If their system could be of any utility to man, it would
seem to be by giving him a modest opinion of himself. But these reasoners show that it is not
so; and when they think they have said enough to establish that they are brutes, they show
themselves as proud as if they had demonstrated that they are gods. Materialism is, amongst
all nations, a dangerous disease of the human mind; but it is more especially to be dreaded
amongst a democratic people, because it readily amalgamates with that vice which is most
familiar to the heart under such circumstances. Democracy encourages a taste for physical
gratification: this taste, if it become excessive, soon disposes men to believe that all is matter
only; and materialism, in turn, hurries them back with mad impatience to these same delights:
such is the fatal circle within which democratic nations are driven round. It were well that
they should see the danger and hold back.
Most religions are only general, simple, and practical means of teaching men the doctrine of
the immortality of the soul. That is the greatest benefit which a democratic people derives,
from its belief, and hence belief is more necessary to such a people than to all others. When
therefore any religion has struck its roots deep into a democracy, beware lest you disturb
them; but rather watch it carefully, as the most precious bequest of aristocratic ages. Seek not
to supersede the old religious opinions of men by new ones; lest in the passage from one faith
to another, the soul being left for a while stripped of all belief, the love of physical
gratifications should grow upon it and fill it wholly.
The doctrine of metempsychosis is assuredly not more rational than that of materialism;
nevertheless if it were absolutely necessary that a democracy should choose one of the two, I
should not hesitate to decide that the community would run less risk of being brutalized by
believing that the soul of man will pass into the carcass of a hog, than by believing that the
soul of man is nothing at all. The belief in a supersensual and immortal principle, united for a
time to matter, is so indispensable to man’s greatness, that its effects are striking even when it
is not united to the doctrine of future reward and punishment; and when it holds no more than
that after death the divine principle contained in man is absorbed in the Deity, or transferred
to animate the frame of some other creature. Men holding so imperfect a belief will still
consider the body as the secondary and inferior portion of their nature, and they will despise
it even whilst they yield to its influence; whereas they have a natural esteem and secret
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admiration for the immaterial part of man, even though they sometimes refuse to submit to its
dominion. That is enough to give a lofty cast to their opinions and their tastes, and to bid
them tend with no interested motive, and as it were by impulse, to pure feelings and elevated
thoughts.
It is not certain that Socrates and his followers had very fixed opinions as to what would
befall man hereafter; but the sole point of belief on which they were determined—that the
soul has nothing in common with the body, and survives it—was enough to give the Platonic
philosophy that sublime aspiration by which it is distinguished. It is clear from the works of
Plato, that many philosophical writers, his predecessors or contemporaries, professed
materialism. These writers have not reached us, or have reached us in mere fragments. The
same thing has happened in almost all ages; the greater part of the most famous minds in
literature adhere to the doctrines of a supersensual philosophy. The instinct and the taste of
the human race maintain those doctrines; they save them oftentimes in spite of men
themselves, and raise the names of their defenders above the tide of time. It must not then be
supposed that at any period or under any political condition, the passion for physical
gratifications, and the opinions which are superinduced by that passion, can ever content a
whole people. The heart of man is of a larger mould: it can at once comprise a taste for the
possessions of earth and the love of those of heaven: at times it may seem to cling devotedly
to the one, but it will never be long without thinking of the other.
If it be easy to see that it is more particularly important in democratic ages that spiritual
opinions should prevail, it is not easy to say by what means those who govern democratic
nations may make them predominate. I am no believer in the prosperity, any more than in the
durability, of official philosophies; and as to state religions, I have always held, that if they be
sometimes of momentary service to the interests of political power, they always, sooner or
later, become fatal to the Church. Nor do I think with those who assert, that to raise religion
in the eyes of the people, and to make them do honor to her spiritual doctrines, it is desirable
indirectly to give her ministers a political influence which the laws deny them. I am so much
alive to the almost inevitable dangers which beset religious belief whenever the clergy take
part in public affairs, and I am so convinced that Christianity must be maintained at any cost
in the bosom of modern democracies, that I had rather shut up the priesthood within the
sanctuary than allow them to step beyond it.
What means then remain in the hands of constituted authorities to bring men back to spiritual
opinions, or to hold them fast to the religion by which those opinions are suggested? My
answer will do me harm in the eyes of politicians. I believe that the sole effectual means
which governments can employ in order to have the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
duly respected, is ever to act as if they believed in it themselves; and I think that it is only by
scrupulous conformity to religious morality in great affairs that they can hope to teach the
community at large to know, to love, and to observe it in the lesser concerns of life.
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XVI. That Excessive Care Of Worldly Welfare May

Impair That Welfare

There is a closer tie than is commonly supposed between the improvement of the soul and the
amelioration of what belongs to the body. Man may leave these two things apart, and
consider each of them alternately; but he cannot sever them entirely without at last losing
sight of one and of the other. The beasts have the same senses as ourselves, and very nearly
the same appetites. We have no sensual passions which are not common to our race and
theirs, and which are not to be found, at least in the germ, in a dog as well as in a man.
Whence is it then that the animals can only provide for their first and lowest wants, whereas
we can infinitely vary and endlessly increase our enjoyments?
We are superior to the beasts in this, that we use our souls to find out those material benefits
to which they are only led by instinct. In man, the angel teaches the brute the art of contenting
its desires. It is because man is capable of rising above the things of the body, and of
contemning life itself, of which the beasts have not the least notion, that he can multiply these
same things of the body to a degree which inferior races are equally unable to conceive.
Whatever elevates, enlarges, and expands the soul, renders it more capable of succeeding in
those very undertakings which concern it not. Whatever, on the other hand, enervates or
lowers it, weakens it for all purposes, the chiefest, as well as the least, and threatens to render
it almost equally impotent for the one and for the other. Hence the soul must remain great and
strong, though it were only to devote its strength and greatness from time to time to the
service of the body. If men were ever to content themselves with material objects, it is
probable that they would lose by degrees the art of producing them; and they would enjoy
them in the end, like the brutes, without discernment and without improvement.
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XVII. That In Times Marked By Equality Of Conditions

And Sceptical Opinions, It Is Important To Remove To A
Distance The Objects Of Human Actions

In the ages of faith the final end of life is placed beyond life. The men of those ages therefore
naturally, and in a manner involuntarily, accustom themselves to fix their gaze for a long
course of years on some immovable object, towards which they are constantly tending; and
they learn by insensible degrees to repress a multitude of petty passing desires, in order to be
the better able to content that great and lasting desire which possesses them. When these
same men engage in the affairs of this world, the same habits may be traced in their conduct.
They are apt to set up some general and certain aim and end to their actions here below,
towards which all their efforts are directed: they do not turn from day to day to chase some
novel object of desire, but they have settled designs which they are never weary of pursuing.
This explains why religious nations have so often achieved such lasting results: for whilst
they were thinking only of the other world, they had found out the great secret of success in
this. Religions give men a general habit of conducting themselves with a view to futurity: in
this respect they are not less useful to happiness in this life than to felicity hereafter; and this
is one of their chief political characteristics.
But in proportion as the light of faith grows dim, the range of man’s sight is circumscribed, as
if the end and aim of human actions appeared every day to be more within his reach. When
men have once allowed themselves to think no more of what is to befall them after life, they
readily lapse into that complete and brutal indifference to futurity, which is but too
conformable to some propensities of mankind. As soon as they have lost the habit of placing
their chief hopes upon remote events, they naturally seek to gratify without delay their
smallest desires; and no sooner do they despair of living forever, than they are disposed to act
as if they were to exist but for a single day. In sceptical ages it is always therefore to be
feared that men may perpetually give way to their daily casual desires; and that, wholly
renouncing whatever cannot be acquired without protracted effort, they may establish nothing
great, permanent, and calm.
If the social condition of a people, under these circumstances, becomes democratic, the
danger which I here point out is thereby increased. When everyone is constantly striving to
change his position—when an immense field for competition is thrown open to all—when
wealth is amassed or dissipated in the shortest possible space of time amidst the turmoil of
democracy, visions of sudden and easy fortunes—of great possessions easily won and lost—
of chance, under all its forms—haunt the mind. The instability of society itself fosters the
natural instability of man’s desires. In the midst of these perpetual fluctuations of his lot, the
present grows upon his mind, until it conceals futurity from his sight, and his looks go no
further than the morrow.
In those countries in which unhappily irreligion and democracy coexist, the most important
duty of philosophers and of those in power is to be always striving to place the objects of
human actions far beyond man’s immediate range. Circumscribed by the character of his
country and his age, the moralist must learn to vindicate his principles in that position. He
must constantly endeavor to show his contemporaries, that, even in the midst of the perpetual
commotion around them, it is easier than they think to conceive and to execute protracted
undertakings. He must teach them that, although the aspect of mankind may have changed,
the methods by which men may provide for their prosperity in this world are still the same;
 392

and that amongst democratic nations, as well as elsewhere, it is only by resisting a thousand
petty selfish passions of the hour that the general and unquenchable passion for happiness can
be satisfied.
The task of those in power is not less clearly marked out. At all times it is important that
those who govern nations should act with a view to the future: but this is even more
necessary in democratic and sceptical ages than in any others. By acting thus, the leading
men of democracies not only make public affairs prosperous, but they also teach private
individuals, by their example, the art of managing private concerns. Above all they must
strive as much as possible to banish chance from the sphere of politics. The sudden and
undeserved promotion of a courtier produces only a transient impression in an aristocratic
country, because the aggregate institutions and opinions of the nation habitually compel men
to advance slowly in tracks which they cannot get out of. But nothing is more pernicious than
similar instances of favor exhibited to the eyes of a democratic people: they give the last
impulse to the public mind in a direction where everything hurries it onwards. At times of
scepticism and equality more especially, the favor of the people or of the prince, which
chance may confer or chance withhold, ought never to stand in lieu of attainments or
services. It is desirable that every advancement should there appear to be the result of some
effort; so that no greatness should be of too easy acquirement, and that ambition should be
obliged to fix its gaze long upon an object before it is gratified. Governments must apply
themselves to restore to men that love of the future with which religion and the state of
society no longer inspire them; and, without saying so, they must practically teach the
community day by day that wealth, fame, and power are the rewards of labor—that great
success stands at the utmost range of long desires, and that nothing lasting is obtained but
what is obtained by toil. When men have accustomed themselves to foresee from afar what is
likely to befall in the world and to feed upon hopes, they can hardly confine their minds
within the precise circumference of life, and they are ready to break the boundary and cast
their looks beyond. I do not doubt that, by training the members of a community to think of
their future condition in this world, they would be gradually and unconsciously brought
nearer to religious convictions. Thus the means which allow men, up to a certain point, to go
without religion, are perhaps after all the only means we still possess for bringing mankind
back by a long and roundabout path to a state of faith.
 393

XVIII. That Amongst The Americans All Honest Callings

Are Honorable

Amongst a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn
a living, or has worked, or is born of parents who have worked. The notion of labor is
therefore presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural, and honest condition
of human existence. Not only is labor not dishonorable amongst such a people, but it is held
in honor: the prejudice is not against it, but in its favor. In the United States a wealthy man
thinks that he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or
commercial pursuit, or to public business. He would think himself in bad repute if he
employed his life solely in living. It is for the purpose of escaping this obligation to work,
that so many rich Americans come to Europe, where they find some scattered remains of
aristocratic society, amongst which idleness is still held in honor.
Equality of conditions not only ennobles the notion of labor in men’s estimation, but it raises
the notion of labor as a source of profit. In aristocracies it is not exactly labor that is despised,
but labor with a view to profit. Labor is honorific in itself, when it is undertaken at the sole
bidding of ambition or of virtue. Yet in aristocratic society it constantly happens that he who
works for honor is not insensible to the attractions of profit. But these two desires only
intermingle in the innermost depths of his soul: he carefully hides from every eye the point at
which they join; he would fain conceal it from himself. In aristocratic countries there are few
public officers who do not affect to serve their country without interested motives. Their
salary is an incident of which they think but little, and of which they always affect not to
think at all. Thus the notion of profit is kept distinct from that of labor; however they may be
united in point of fact, they are not thought of together.
In democratic communities these two notions are, on the contrary, always palpably united. As
the desire of well-being is universal—as fortunes are slender or fluctuating—as everyone
wants either to increase his own resources, or to provide fresh ones for his progeny, men
clearly see that it is profit which, if not wholly, at least partially, leads them to work. Even
those who are principally actuated by the love of fame are necessarily made familiar with the
thought that they are not exclusively actuated by that motive; and they discover that the
desire of getting a living is mingled in their minds with the desire of making life illustrious.
As soon as, on the one hand, labor is held by the whole community to be an honorable
necessity of man’s condition, and, on the other, as soon as labor is always ostensibly
performed, wholly or in part, for the purpose of earning remuneration, the immense interval
which separated different callings in aristocratic societies disappears. If all are not alike, all at
least have one feature in common. No profession exists in which men do not work for money;
and the remuneration which is common to them all gives them all an air of resemblance. This
serves to explain the opinions which the Americans entertain with respect to different
callings. In America no one is degraded because he works, for everyone about him works
also; nor is anyone humiliated by the notion of receiving pay, for the President of the United
States also works for pay. He is paid for commanding, other men for obeying orders. In the
United States professions are more or less laborious, more or less profitable; but they are
never either high or low: every honest calling is honorable.
 394

XIX. That Almost All The Americans Follow Industrial

Callings

Agriculture is, perhaps, of all the useful arts that which improves most slowly amongst
democratic nations. Frequently, indeed, it would seem to be stationary, because other arts are
making rapid strides towards perfection. On the other hand, almost all the tastes and habits
which the equality of condition engenders naturally lead men to commercial and industrial
occupations.
Suppose an active, enlightened, and free man, enjoying a competency, but full of desires: he
is too poor to live in idleness; he is rich enough to feel himself protected from the immediate
fear of want, and he thinks how he can better his condition. This man has conceived a taste
for physical gratifications, which thousands of his fellow-men indulge in around him; he has
himself begun to enjoy these pleasures, and he is eager to increase his means of satisfying
these tastes more completely. But life is slipping away, time is urgent—to what is he to turn?
The cultivation of the ground promises an almost certain result to his exertions, but a slow
one; men are not enriched by it without patience and toil. Agriculture is therefore only suited
to those who have already large, superfluous wealth, or to those whose penury bids them only
seek a bare subsistence. The choice of such a man as we have supposed is soon made; he sells
his plot of ground, leaves his dwelling, and embarks in some hazardous but lucrative calling.
Democratic communities abound in men of this kind; and in proportion as the equality of
conditions becomes greater, their multitude increases. Thus democracy not only swells the
number of workingmen, but it leads men to prefer one kind of labor to another; and whilst it
diverts them from agriculture, it encourages their taste for commerce and manufactures. 320
This spirit may be observed even amongst the richest members of the community. In
democratic countries, however opulent a man is supposed to be, he is almost always
discontented with his fortune, because he finds that he is less rich than his father was, and he
fears that his sons will be less rich than himself. Most rich men in democracies are therefore
constantly haunted by the desire of obtaining wealth, and they naturally turn their attention to
trade and manufactures, which appear to offer the readiest and most powerful means of
success. In this respect they share the instincts of the poor, without feeling the same
necessities; say rather, they feel the most imperious of all necessities, that of not sinking in
the world.
In aristocracies the rich are at the same time those who govern. The attention which they
unceasingly devote to important public affairs diverts them from the lesser cares which trade
and manufactures demand. If the will of an individual happens, nevertheless, to turn his
attention to business, the will of the body to which he belongs will immediately debar him
from pursuing it; for however men may declaim against the rule of numbers, they cannot

320
It has often been remarked that manufacturers and mercantile men are inordinately addicted to physical
gratifications, and this has been attributed to commerce and manufactures; but that is, I apprehend, to take the
effect for the cause. The taste for physical gratifications is not imparted to men by commerce or manufactures,
but it is rather this taste which leads men to embark in commerce and manufactures, as a means by which they
hope to satisfy themselves more promptly and more completely. If commerce and manufactures increase the
desire of well-being, it is because every passion gathers strength in proportion as it is cultivated, and is increased
by all the efforts made to satiate it. All the causes which make the love of worldly welfare predominate in the
heart of man are favorable to the growth of commerce and manufactures. Equality of conditions is one of those
causes; it encourages trade, not directly by giving men a taste for business, but indirectly by strengthening and
expanding in their minds a taste for prosperity.
 395

wholly escape their sway; and even amongst those aristocratic bodies which most obstinately
refuse to acknowledge the rights of the majority of the nation, a private majority is formed
which governs the rest. 321
In democratic countries, where money does not lead those who possess it to political power,
but often removes them from it, the rich do not know how to spend their leisure. They are
driven into active life by the inquietude and the greatness of their desires, by the extent of
their resources, and by the taste for what is extraordinary, which is almost always felt by
those who rise, by whatsoever means, above the crowd. Trade is the only road open to them.
In democracies nothing is more great or more brilliant than commerce: it attracts the attention
of the public, and fills the imagination of the multitude; all energetic passions are directed
towards it. Neither their own prejudices, nor those of anybody else, can prevent the rich from
devoting themselves to it. The wealthy members of democracies never form a body which
has manners and regulations of its own; the opinions peculiar to their class do not restrain
them, and the common opinions of their country urge them on. Moreover, as all the large
fortunes which are to be met with in a democratic community are of commercial growth,
many generations must succeed each other before their possessors can have entirely laid aside
their habits of business.
Circumscribed within the narrow space which politics leave them, rich men in democracies
eagerly embark in commercial enterprise: there they can extend and employ their natural
advantages; and indeed it is even by the boldness and the magnitude of their industrial
speculations that we may measure the slight esteem in which productive industry would have
been held by them, if they had been born amidst an aristocracy.
A similar observation is likewise applicable to all men living in democracies, whether they be
poor or rich. Those who live in the midst of democratic fluctuations have always before their
eyes the phantom of chance; and they end by liking all undertakings in which chance plays a
part. They are therefore all led to engage in commerce, not only for the sake of the profit it
holds out to them, but for the love of the constant excitement occasioned by that pursuit.
The United States of America have only been emancipated for half a century [in 1840] from
the state of colonial dependence in which they stood to Great Britain; the number of large
fortunes there is small, and capital is still scarce. Yet no people in the world has made such
rapid progress in trade and manufactures as the Americans: they constitute at the present day

321
Some aristocracies, however, have devoted themselves eagerly to commerce, and have cultivated
manufactures with success. The history of the world might furnish several conspicuous examples. But, generally
speaking, it may be affirmed that the aristocratic principle is not favorable to the growth of trade and
manufactures. Moneyed aristocracies are the only exception to the rule. Amongst such aristocracies there are
hardly any desires which do not require wealth to satisfy them; the love of riches becomes, so to speak, the high
road of human passions, which is crossed by or connected with all lesser tracks. The love of money and the
thirst for that distinction which attaches to power, are then so closely intermixed in the same souls, that it
becomes difficult to discover whether men grow covetous from ambition, or whether they are ambitious from
covetousness. This is the case in England, where men seek to get rich in order to arrive at distinction, and seek
distinctions as a manifestation of their wealth. The mind is then seized by both ends, and hurried into trade and
manufactures, which are the shortest roads that lead to opulence.
This, however, strikes me as an exceptional and transitory circumstance. When wealth is become the only
symbol of aristocracy, it is very difficult for the wealthy to maintain sole possession of political power, to the
exclusion of all other men. The aristocracy of birth and pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social and
political state of nations: between them moneyed aristocracy finds its place. The latter approximates to the
aristocracy of birth by conferring great privileges on a small number of persons; it so far belongs to the
democratic element, that these privileges may be successively acquired by all. It frequently forms a natural
transition between these two conditions of society, and it is difficult to say whether it closes the reign of
aristocratic institutions, or whether it already opens the new era of democracy.
 396

the second maritime nation in the world; and although their manufactures have to struggle
with almost insurmountable natural impediments, they are not prevented from making great
and daily advances. In the United States the greatest undertakings and speculations are
executed without difficulty, because the whole population is engaged in productive industry,
and because the poorest as well as the most opulent members of the commonwealth are ready
to combine their efforts for these purposes. The consequence is, that a stranger is constantly
amazed by the immense public works executed by a nation which contains, so to speak, no
rich men. The Americans arrived but as yesterday on the territory which they inhabit, and
they have already changed the whole order of nature for their own advantage. They have
joined the Hudson to the Mississippi, and made the Atlantic Ocean communicate with the
Gulf of Mexico, across a continent of more than five hundred leagues in extent which
separates the two seas. The longest railroads which have been constructed up to the present
time are in America. But what most astonishes me in the United States, is not so much the
marvellous grandeur of some undertakings, as the innumerable multitude of small ones.
Almost all the farmers of the United States combine some trade with agriculture; most of
them make agriculture itself a trade. It seldom happens that an American farmer settles for
good upon the land which he occupies: especially in the districts of the Far West he brings
land into tillage in order to sell it again, and not to farm it: he builds a farmhouse on the
speculation that, as the state of the country will soon be changed by the increase of
population, a good price will be gotten for it. Every year a swarm of the inhabitants of the
North arrive in the Southern States, and settle in the parts where the cotton plant and the
sugar-cane grow. These men cultivate the soil in order to make it produce in a few years
enough to enrich them; and they already look forward to the time when they may return home
to enjoy the competency thus acquired. Thus the Americans carry their business-like qualities
into agriculture; and their trading passions are displayed in that as in their other pursuits.
The Americans make immense progress in productive industry, because they all devote
themselves to it at once; and for this same reason they are exposed to very unexpected and
formidable embarrassments. As they are all engaged in commerce, their commercial affairs
are affected by such various and complex causes that it is impossible to foresee what
difficulties may arise. As they are all more or less engaged in productive industry, at the least
shock given to business all private fortunes are put in jeopardy at the same time, and the State
is shaken. I believe that the return of these commercial panics is an endemic disease of the
democratic nations of our age. It may be rendered less dangerous, but it cannot be cured;
because it does not originate in accidental circumstances, but in the temperament of these
nations.
 397

XX. That Aristocracy May Be Engendered By

Manufactures

I have shown that democracy is favorable to the growth of manufactures, and that it increases
without limit the numbers of the manufacturing classes: we shall now see by what side road
manufacturers may possibly in their turn bring men back to aristocracy. It is acknowledged
that when a workman is engaged every day upon the same detail, the whole commodity is
produced with greater ease, promptitude, and economy. It is likewise acknowledged that the
cost of the production of manufactured goods is diminished by the extent of the establishment
in which they are made, and by the amount of capital employed or of credit. These truths had
long been imperfectly discerned, but in our time they have been demonstrated. They have
been already applied to many very important kinds of manufactures, and the humblest will
gradually be governed by them. I know of nothing in politics which deserves to fix the
attention of the legislator more closely than these two new axioms of the science of
manufactures.
When a workman is unceasingly and exclusively engaged in the fabrication of one thing, he
ultimately does his work with singular dexterity; but at the same time he loses the general
faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. He every day becomes more adroit
and less industrious; so that it may be said of him, that in proportion as the workman
improves the man is degraded. What can be expected of a man who has spent twenty years of
his life in making heads for pins? and to what can that mighty human intelligence, which has
so often stirred the world, be applied in him, except it be to investigate the best method of
making pins’ heads? When a workman has spent a considerable portion of his existence in
this manner, his thoughts are forever set upon the object of his daily toil; his body has
contracted certain fixed habits, which it can never shake off: in a word, he no longer belongs
to himself, but to the calling which he has chosen. It is in vain that laws and manners have
been at the pains to level all barriers round such a man, and to open to him on every side a
thousand different paths to fortune; a theory of manufactures more powerful than manners
and laws binds him to a craft, and frequently to a spot, which he cannot leave: it assigns to
him a certain place in society, beyond which he cannot go: in the midst of universal
movement it has rendered him stationary.
In proportion as the principle of the division of labor is more extensively applied, the
workman becomes more weak, more narrow-minded, and more dependent. The art advances,
the artisan recedes. On the other hand, in proportion as it becomes more manifest that the
productions of manufactures are by so much the cheaper and better as the manufacture is
larger and the amount of capital employed more considerable, wealthy and educated men
come forward to embark in manufactures which were heretofore abandoned to poor or
ignorant handicraftsmen. The magnitude of the efforts required, and the importance of the
results to be obtained, attract them. Thus at the very time at which the science of
manufactures lowers the class of workmen, it raises the class of masters.
Whereas the workman concentrates his faculties more and more upon the study of a single
detail, the master surveys a more extensive whole, and the mind of the latter is enlarged in
proportion as that of the former is narrowed. In a short time the one will require nothing but
physical strength without intelligence; the other stands in need of science, and almost of
genius, to insure success. This man resembles more and more the administrator of a vast
empire—that man, a brute. The master and the workman have then here no similarity, and
 398

their differences increase every day. They are only connected as the two rings at the
extremities of a long chain. Each of them fills the station which is made for him, and out of
which he does not get: the one is continually, closely, and necessarily dependent upon the
other, and seems as much born to obey as that other is to command. What is this but
aristocracy?
As the conditions of men constituting the nation become more and more equal, the demand
for manufactured commodities becomes more general and more extensive; and the cheapness
which places these objects within the reach of slender fortunes becomes a great element of
success. Hence there are every day more men of great opulence and education who devote
their wealth and knowledge to manufactures; and who seek, by opening large establishments,
and by a strict division of labor, to meet the fresh demands which are made on all sides. Thus,
in proportion as the mass of the nation turns to democracy, that particular class which is
engaged in manufactures becomes more aristocratic. Men grow more alike in the one—more
different in the other; and inequality increases in the less numerous class in the same ratio in
which it decreases in the community. Hence it would appear, on searching to the bottom, that
aristocracy should naturally spring out of the bosom of democracy.
But this kind of aristocracy by no means resembles those kinds which preceded it. It will be
observed at once, that as it applies exclusively to manufactures and to some manufacturing
callings, it is a monstrous exception in the general aspect of society. The small aristocratic
societies which are formed by some manufacturers in the midst of the immense democracy of
our age, contain, like the great aristocratic societies of former ages, some men who are very
opulent, and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. The poor have few means of escaping
from their condition and becoming rich; but the rich are constantly becoming poor, or they
give up business when they have realized a fortune. Thus the elements of which the class of
the poor is composed are fixed; but the elements of which the class of the rich is composed
are not so. To say the truth, though there are rich men, the class of rich men does not exist;
for these rich individuals have no feelings or purposes in common, no mutual traditions or
mutual hopes; there are therefore members, but no body.
Not only are the rich not compactly united amongst themselves, but there is no real bond
between them and the poor. Their relative position is not a permanent one; they are constantly
drawn together or separated by their interests. The workman is generally dependent on the
master, but not on any particular master; these two men meet in the factory, but know not
each other elsewhere; and whilst they come into contact on one point, they stand very wide
apart on all others. The manufacturer asks nothing of the workman but his labor; the
workman expects nothing from him but his wages. The one contracts no obligation to protect,
nor the other to defend; and they are not permanently connected either by habit or by duty.
The aristocracy created by business rarely settles in the midst of the manufacturing
population which it directs; the object is not to govern that population, but to use it. An
aristocracy thus constituted can have no great hold upon those whom it employs; and even if
it succeed in retaining them at one moment, they escape the next; it knows not how to will,
and it cannot act. The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or
thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men, and to succor their
distresses. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the
men who serve it, and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public. This
is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the workmen and the master
there are frequent relations, but no real partnership.
I am of opinion, upon the whole, that the manufacturing aristocracy which is growing up
under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever existed in the world; but at the same time it
 399

is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy
should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of
conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into the world, it may be predicted that this is the
channel by which they will enter.
 400

Book Three
 401

I. That Manners Are Softened As Social Conditions

Become More Equal

We perceive that for several ages social conditions have tended to equality, and we discover
that in the course of the same period the manners of society have been softened. Are these
two things merely contemporaneous, or does any secret link exist between them, so that the
one cannot go on without making the other advance? Several causes may concur to render the
manners of a people less rude; but, of all these causes, the most powerful appears to me to be
the equality of conditions. Equality of conditions and growing civility in manners are, then, in
my eyes, not only contemporaneous occurrences, but correlative facts. When the fabulists
seek to interest us in the actions of beasts, they invest them with human notions and passions;
the poets who sing of spirits and angels do the same; there is no wretchedness so deep, nor
any happiness so pure, as to fill the human mind and touch the heart, unless we are ourselves
held up to our own eyes under other features.
This is strictly applicable to the subject upon which we are at present engaged. When all men
are irrevocably marshalled in an aristocratic community, according to their professions, their
property, and their birth, the members of each class, considering themselves as children of the
same family, cherish a constant and lively sympathy towards each other, which can never be
felt in an equal degree by the citizens of a democracy. But the same feeling does not exist
between the several classes towards each other. Amongst an aristocratic people each caste has
its own opinions, feelings, rights, manners, and modes of living. Thus the men of whom each
caste is composed do not resemble the mass of their fellow-citizens; they do not think or feel
in the same manner, and they scarcely believe that they belong to the same human race. They
cannot, therefore, thoroughly understand what others feel, nor judge of others by themselves.
Yet they are sometimes eager to lend each other mutual aid; but this is not contrary to my
previous observation. These aristocratic institutions, which made the beings of one and the
same race so different, nevertheless bound them to each other by close political ties.
Although the serf had no natural interest in the fate of nobles, he did not the less think
himself obliged to devote his person to the service of that noble who happened to be his lord;
and although the noble held himself to be of a different nature from that of his serfs, he
nevertheless held that his duty and his honor constrained him to defend, at the risk of his own
life, those who dwelt upon his domains.
It is evident that these mutual obligations did not originate in the law of nature, but in the law
of society; and that the claim of social duty was more stringent than that of mere humanity.
These services were not supposed to be due from man to man, but to the vassal or to the lord.
Feudal institutions awakened a lively sympathy for the sufferings of certain men, but none at
all for the miseries of mankind. They infused generosity rather than mildness into the
manners of the time, and although they prompted men to great acts of self-devotion, they
engendered no real sympathies; for real sympathies can only exist between those who are
alike; and in aristocratic ages men acknowledge none but the members of their own caste to
be like themselves.
When the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, who all belonged to the aristocracy by birth or
education, relate the tragical end of a noble, their grief flows apace; whereas they tell you at a
breath, and without wincing, of massacres and tortures inflicted on the common sort of
people. Not that these writers felt habitual hatred or systematic disdain for the people; war
between the several classes of the community was not yet declared. They were impelled by
 402

an instinct rather than by a passion; as they had formed no clear notion of a poor man’s
sufferings, they cared but little for his fate. The same feelings animated the lower orders
whenever the feudal tie was broken. The same ages which witnessed so many heroic acts of
self-devotion on the part of vassals for their lords, were stained with atrocious barbarities,
exercised from time to time by the lower classes on the higher. It must not be supposed that
this mutual insensibility arose solely from the absence of public order and education; for
traces of it are to be found in the following centuries, which became tranquil and enlightened
whilst they remained aristocratic. In 1675 the lower classes in Brittany revolted at the
imposition of a new tax. These disturbances were put down with unexampled atrocity.
Observe the language in which Madame de Sevigne, a witness of these horrors, relates them
to her daughter:—
“Aux Rochers, 30 Octobre, 1675.
“Mon Dieu, ma fille, que votre lettre d’Aix est plaisante! Au moins relisez vos lettres avant
que de les envoyer; laissez-vous surpendre a leur agrement, et consolez-vous par ce plaisir de
la peine que vous avez d’en tant ecrire. Vous avez donc baise toute la Provence? il n’y aurait
pas satisfaction a baiser toute la Bretagne, a moins qu’on n’aimat a sentir le vin. . . . Voulez-
vous savoir des nouvelles de Rennes? On a fait une taxe de cent mille ecus sur le bourgeois;
et si on ne trouve point cette somme dans vingt-quatre heures, elle sera doublee et exigible
par les soldats. On a chasse et banni toute une grand rue, et defendu de les recueillir sous
peine de la vie; de sorte qu’on voyait tous ces miserables, veillards, femmes accouchees,
enfans, errer en pleurs au sortir de cette ville sans savoir ou aller. On roua avant-hier un
violon, qui avait commence la danse et la pillerie du papier timbre; il a ete ecartele apres sa
mort, et ses quatre quartiers exposes aux quatre coins de la ville. On a pris soixante
bourgeois, et on commence demain les punitions. Cette province est un bel exemple pour les
autres, et surtout de respecter les gouverneurs et les gouvernantes, et de ne point jeter de
pierres dans leur jardin.” 322
“Madame de Tarente etait hier dans ces bois par un temps enchante: il n’est question ni de
chambre ni de collation; elle entre par la barriere et s’en retourne de meme. . . .”
In another letter she adds:—
“Vous me parlez bien plaisamment de nos miseres; nous ne sommes plus si roues; un en huit
jours, pour entretenir la justice. Il est vrai que la penderie me parait maintenant un
refraichissement. J’ai une tout autre idee de la justice, depuis que je suis en ce pays. Vos
galeriens me paraissent une societe d’honnetes gens qui se sont retires du monde pour mener
une vie douce.”
It would be a mistake to suppose that Madame de Sevigne, who wrote these lines, was a
selfish or cruel person; she was passionately attached to her children, and very ready to
sympathize in the sorrows of her friends; nay, her letters show that she treated her vassals and
servants with kindness and indulgence. But Madame de Sevigne had no clear notion of
suffering in anyone who was not a person of quality.
In our time the harshest man writing to the most insensible person of his acquaintance would
not venture wantonly to indulge in the cruel jocularity which I have quoted; and even if his
own manners allowed him to do so, the manners of society at large would forbid it. Whence
does this arise? Have we more sensibility than our forefathers? I know not that we have; but I
am sure that our insensibility is extended to a far greater range of objects. When all the ranks

322
To feel the point of this joke the reader should recollect that Madame de Grignan was Gouvernante de
Provence.
 403

of a community are nearly equal, as all men think and feel in nearly the same manner, each of
them may judge in a moment of the sensations of all the others; he casts a rapid glance upon
himself, and that is enough. There is no wretchedness into which he cannot readily enter, and
a secret instinct reveals to him its extent. It signifies not that strangers or foes be the sufferers;
imagination puts him in their place; something like a personal feeling is mingled with his
pity, and makes himself suffer whilst the body of his fellow-creature is in torture. In
democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for one another; but they display general
compassion for the members of the human race. They inflict no useless ills; and they are
happy to relieve the griefs of others, when they can do so without much hurting themselves;
they are not disinterested, but they are humane.
Although the Americans have, in a manner, reduced egotism to a social and philosophical
theory, they are nevertheless extremely open to compassion. In no country is criminal justice
administered with more mildness than in the United States. Whilst the English seem disposed
carefully to retain the bloody traces of the dark ages in their penal legislation, the Americans
have almost expunged capital punishment from their codes. North America is, I think, the
only one country upon earth in which the life of no one citizen has been taken for a political
offence in the course of the last fifty years. The circumstance which conclusively shows that
this singular mildness of the Americans arises chiefly from their social condition, is the
manner in which they treat their slaves. Perhaps there is not, upon the whole, a single
European colony in the New World in which the physical condition of the blacks is less
severe than in the United States; yet the slaves still endure horrid sufferings there, and are
constantly exposed to barbarous punishments. It is easy to perceive that the lot of these
unhappy beings inspires their masters with but little compassion, and that they look upon
slavery, not only as an institution which is profitable to them, but as an evil which does not
affect them. Thus the same man who is full of humanity towards his fellow-creatures when
they are at the same time his equals, becomes insensible to their afflictions as soon as that
equality ceases. His mildness should therefore be attributed to the equality of conditions,
rather than to civilization and education.
What I have here remarked of individuals is, to a certain extent, applicable to nations. When
each nation has its distinct opinions, belief, laws, and customs, it looks upon itself as the
whole of mankind, and is moved by no sorrows but its own. Should war break out between
two nations animated by this feeling, it is sure to be waged with great cruelty. At the time of
their highest culture, the Romans slaughtered the generals of their enemies, after having
dragged them in triumph behind a car; and they flung their prisoners to the beasts of the
Circus for the amusement of the people. Cicero, who declaimed so vehemently at the notion
of crucifying a Roman citizen, had not a word to say against these horrible abuses of victory.
It is evident that in his eyes a barbarian did not belong to the same human race as a Roman.
On the contrary, in proportion as nations become more like each other, they become
reciprocally more compassionate, and the law of nations is mitigated.
 404

II. That Democracy Renders The Habitual

Intercourse Of The Americans Simple And Easy

Democracy does not attach men strongly to each other; but it places their habitual intercourse
upon an easier footing. If two Englishmen chance to meet at the Antipodes, where they are
surrounded by strangers whose language and manners are almost unknown to them, they will
first stare at each other with much curiosity and a kind of secret uneasiness; they will then
turn away, or, if one accosts the other, they will take care only to converse with a constrained
and absent air upon very unimportant subjects. Yet there is no enmity between these men;
they have never seen each other before, and each believes the other to be a respectable
person. Why then should they stand so cautiously apart? We must go back to England to
learn the reason.
When it is birth alone, independent of wealth, which classes men in society, everyone knows
exactly what his own position is upon the social scale; he does not seek to rise, he does not
fear to sink. In a community thus organized, men of different castes communicate very little
with each other; but if accident brings them together, they are ready to converse without
hoping or fearing to lose their own position. Their intercourse is not upon a footing of
equality, but it is not constrained. When moneyed aristocracy succeeds to aristocracy of birth,
the case is altered. The privileges of some are still extremely great, but the possibility of
acquiring those privileges is open to all: whence it follows that those who possess them are
constantly haunted by the apprehension of losing them, or of other men’s sharing them; those
who do not yet enjoy them long to possess them at any cost, or, if they fail to appear at least
to possess them—which is not impossible. As the social importance of men is no longer
ostensibly and permanently fixed by blood, and is infinitely varied by wealth, ranks still exist,
but it is not easy clearly to distinguish at a glance those who respectively belong to them.
Secret hostilities then arise in the community; one set of men endeavor by innumerable
artifices to penetrate, or to appear to penetrate, amongst those who are above them; another
set are constantly in arms against these usurpers of their rights; or rather the same individual
does both at once, and whilst he seeks to raise himself into a higher circle, he is always on the
defensive against the intrusion of those below him.
Such is the condition of England at the present time; and I am of opinion that the peculiarity
before adverted to is principally to be attributed to this cause. As aristocratic pride is still
extremely great amongst the English, and as the limits of aristocracy are ill-defined,
everybody lives in constant dread lest advantage should be taken of his familiarity. Unable to
judge at once of the social position of those he meets, an Englishman prudently avoids all
contact with them. Men are afraid lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an
unsuitable acquaintance; they dread civilities, and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a
stranger quite as much as his hatred. Many people attribute these singular anti-social
propensities, and the reserved and taciturn bearing of the English, to purely physical causes. I
may admit that there is something of it in their race, but much more of it is attributable to
their social condition, as is proved by the contrast of the Americans.
In America, where the privileges of birth never existed, and where riches confer no peculiar
rights on their possessors, men unacquainted with each other are very ready to frequent the
same places, and find neither peril nor advantage in the free interchange of their thoughts. If
they meet by accident, they neither seek nor avoid intercourse; their manner is therefore
natural, frank, and open: it is easy to see that they hardly expect or apprehend anything from
 405

each other, and that they do not care to display, any more than to conceal, their position in the
world. If their demeanor is often cold and serious, it is never haughty or constrained; and if
they do not converse, it is because they are not in a humor to talk, not because they think it
their interest to be silent. In a foreign country two Americans are at once friends, simply
because they are Americans. They are repulsed by no prejudice; they are attracted by their
common country. For two Englishmen the same blood is not enough; they must be brought
together by the same rank. The Americans remark this unsociable mood of the English as
much as the French do, and they are not less astonished by it. Yet the Americans are
connected with England by their origin, their religion, their language, and partially by their
manners; they only differ in their social condition. It may therefore be inferred that the
reserve of the English proceeds from the constitution of their country much more than from
that of its inhabitants.
 406

III. Why The Americans Show So Little

Sensitiveness In Their Own Country, And Are So
Sensitive In Europe

The temper of the Americans is vindictive, like that of all serious and reflecting nations. They
hardly ever forget an offence, but it is not easy to offend them; and their resentment is as
slow to kindle as it is to abate. In aristocratic communities where a small number of persons
manage everything, the outward intercourse of men is subject to settled conventional rules.
Everyone then thinks he knows exactly what marks of respect or of condescension he ought
to display, and none are presumed to be ignorant of the science of etiquette. These usages of
the first class in society afterwards serve as a model to all the others; besides which each of
the latter lays down a code of its own, to which all its members are bound to conform. Thus
the rules of politeness form a complex system of legislation, which it is difficult to be
perfectly master of, but from which it is dangerous for anyone to deviate; so that men are
constantly exposed involuntarily to inflict or to receive bitter affronts. But as the distinctions
of rank are obliterated, as men differing in education and in birth meet and mingle in the
same places of resort, it is almost impossible to agree upon the rules of good breeding. As its
laws are uncertain, to disobey them is not a crime, even in the eyes of those who know what
they are; men attach more importance to intentions than to forms, and they grow less civil,
but at the same time less quarrelsome. There are many little attentions which an American
does not care about; he thinks they are not due to him, or he presumes that they are not
known to be due: he therefore either does not perceive a rudeness or he forgives it; his
manners become less courteous, and his character more plain and masculine.
The mutual indulgence which the Americans display, and the manly confidence with which
they treat each other, also result from another deeper and more general cause, which I have
already adverted to in the preceding chapter. In the United States the distinctions of rank in
civil society are slight, in political society they are null; an American, therefore, does not
think himself bound to pay particular attentions to any of his fellow-citizens, nor does he
require such attentions from them towards himself. As he does not see that it is his interest
eagerly to seek the company of any of his countrymen, he is slow to fancy that his own
company is declined: despising no one on account of his station, he does not imagine that
anyone can despise him for that cause; and until he has clearly perceived an insult, he does
not suppose that an affront was intended. The social condition of the Americans naturally
accustoms them not to take offence in small matters; and, on the other hand, the democratic
freedom which they enjoy transfuses this same mildness of temper into the character of the
nation. The political institutions of the United States constantly bring citizens of all ranks into
contact, and compel them to pursue great undertakings in concert. People thus engaged have
scarcely time to attend to the details of etiquette, and they are besides too strongly interested
in living harmoniously for them to stick at such things. They therefore soon acquire a habit of
considering the feelings and opinions of those whom they meet more than their manners, and
they do not allow themselves to be annoyed by trifles.
I have often remarked in the United States that it is not easy to make a man understand that
his presence may be dispensed with; hints will not always suffice to shake him off. I
contradict an American at every word he says, to show him that his conversation bores me;
he instantly labors with fresh pertinacity to convince me; I preserve a dogged silence, and he
thinks I am meditating deeply on the truths which he is uttering; at last I rush from his
 407

company, and he supposes that some urgent business hurries me elsewhere. This man will
never understand that he wearies me to extinction unless I tell him so: and the only way to get
rid of him is to make him my enemy for life.
It appears surprising at first sight that the same man transported to Europe suddenly becomes
so sensitive and captious, that I often find it as difficult to avoid offending him here as it was
to put him out of countenance. These two opposite effects proceed from the same cause.
Democratic institutions generally give men a lofty notion of their country and of themselves.
An American leaves his country with a heart swollen with pride; on arriving in Europe he at
once finds out that we are not so engrossed by the United States and the great people which
inhabits them as he had supposed, and this begins to annoy him. He has been informed that
the conditions of society are not equal in our part of the globe, and he observes that among
the nations of Europe the traces of rank are not wholly obliterated; that wealth and birth still
retain some indeterminate privileges, which force themselves upon his notice whilst they
elude definition. He is therefore profoundly ignorant of the place which he ought to occupy in
this half-ruined scale of classes, which are sufficiently distinct to hate and despise each other,
yet sufficiently alike for him to be always confounding them. He is afraid of ranging himself
too high—still more is he afraid of being ranged too low; this twofold peril keeps his mind
constantly on the stretch, and embarrasses all he says and does. He learns from tradition that
in Europe ceremonial observances were infinitely varied according to different ranks; this
recollection of former times completes his perplexity, and he is the more afraid of not
obtaining those marks of respect which are due to him, as he does not exactly know in what
they consist. He is like a man surrounded by traps: society is not a recreation for him, but a
serious toil: he weighs your least actions, interrogates your looks, and scrutinizes all you say,
lest there should be some hidden allusion to affront him. I doubt whether there was ever a
provincial man of quality so punctilious in breeding as he is: he endeavors to attend to the
slightest rules of etiquette, and does not allow one of them to be waived towards himself: he
is full of scruples and at the same time of pretensions; he wishes to do enough, but fears to do
too much; and as he does not very well know the limits of the one or of the other, he keeps up
a haughty and embarrassed air of reserve.
But this is not all: here is yet another double of the human heart. An American is forever
talking of the admirable equality which prevails in the United States; aloud he makes it the
boast of his country, but in secret he deplores it for himself; and he aspires to show that, for
his part, he is an exception to the general state of things which he vaunts. There is hardly an
American to be met with who does not claim some remote kindred with the first founders of
the colonies; and as for the scions of the noble families of England, America seemed to me to
be covered with them. When an opulent American arrives in Europe, his first care is to
surround himself with all the luxuries of wealth: he is so afraid of being taken for the plain
citizen of a democracy, that he adopts a hundred distorted ways of bringing some new
instance of his wealth before you every day. His house will be in the most fashionable part of
the town: he will always be surrounded by a host of servants. I have heard an American
complain, that in the best houses of Paris the society was rather mixed; the taste which
prevails there was not pure enough for him; and he ventured to hint that, in his opinion, there
was a want of elegance of manner; he could not accustom himself to see wit concealed under
such unpretending forms.
These contrasts ought not to surprise us. If the vestiges of former aristocratic distinctions
were not so completely effaced in the United States, the Americans would be less simple and
less tolerant in their own country—they would require less, and be less fond of borrowed
manners in ours.
 408

IV. Consequences Of The Three Preceding Chapters

When men feel a natural compassion for their mutual sufferings—when they are brought
together by easy and frequent intercourse, and no sensitive feelings keep them asunder—it
may readily be supposed that they will lend assistance to one another whenever it is needed.
When an American asks for the co-operation of his fellow-citizens it is seldom refused, and I
have often seen it afforded spontaneously and with great goodwill. If an accident happens on
the highway, everybody hastens to help the sufferer; if some great and sudden calamity
befalls a family, the purses of a thousand strangers are at once willingly opened, and small
but numerous donations pour in to relieve their distress. It often happens amongst the most
civilized nations of the globe, that a poor wretch is as friendless in the midst of a crowd as the
savage in his wilds: this is hardly ever the case in the United States. The Americans, who are
always cold and often coarse in their manners, seldom show insensibility; and if they do not
proffer services eagerly, yet they do not refuse to render them.
All this is not in contradiction to what I have said before on the subject of individualism. The
two things are so far from combating each other, that I can see how they agree. Equality of
conditions, whilst it makes men feel their independence, shows them their own weakness:
they are free, but exposed to a thousand accidents; and experience soon teaches them that,
although they do not habitually require the assistance of others, a time almost always comes
when they cannot do without it. We constantly see in Europe that men of the same profession
are ever ready to assist each other; they are all exposed to the same ills, and that is enough to
teach them to seek mutual preservatives, however hard-hearted and selfish they may
otherwise be. When one of them falls into danger, from which the others may save him by a
slight transient sacrifice or a sudden effort, they do not fail to make the attempt. Not that they
are deeply interested in his fate; for if, by chance, their exertions are unavailing, they
immediately forget the object of them, and return to their own business; but a sort of tacit and
almost involuntary agreement has been passed between them, by which each one owes to the
others a temporary support which he may claim for himself in turn. Extend to a people the
remark here applied to a class, and you will understand my meaning. A similar covenant
exists in fact between all the citizens of a democracy: they all feel themselves subject to the
same weakness and the same dangers; and their interest, as well as their sympathy, makes it a
rule with them to lend each other mutual assistance when required. The more equal social
conditions become, the more do men display this reciprocal disposition to oblige each other.
In democracies no great benefits are conferred, but good offices are constantly rendered: a
man seldom displays self-devotion, but all men are ready to be of service to one another.
 409

V. How Democracy Affects The Relation Of Masters

And Servants

An American who had travelled for a long time in Europe once said to me, “The English treat
their servants with a stiffness and imperiousness of manner which surprise us; but on the
other hand the French sometimes treat their attendants with a degree of familiarity or of
politeness which we cannot conceive. It looks as if they were afraid to give orders: the
posture of the superior and the inferior is ill-maintained.” The remark was a just one, and I
have often made it myself. I have always considered England as the country in the world
where, in our time, the bond of domestic service is drawn most tightly, and France as the
country where it is most relaxed. Nowhere have I seen masters stand so high or so low as in
these two countries. Between these two extremes the Americans are to be placed. Such is the
fact as it appears upon the surface of things: to discover the causes of that fact, it is necessary
to search the matter thoroughly.
No communities have ever yet existed in which social conditions have been so equal that
there were neither rich nor poor, and consequently neither masters nor servants. Democracy
does not prevent the existence of these two classes, but it changes their dispositions and
modifies their mutual relations. Amongst aristocratic nations servants form a distinct class,
not more variously composed than that of masters. A settled order is soon established; in the
former as well as in the latter class a scale is formed, with numerous distinctions or marked
gradations of rank, and generations succeed each other thus without any change of position.
These two communities are superposed one above the other, always distinct, but regulated by
analogous principles. This aristocratic constitution does not exert a less powerful influence on
the notions and manners of servants than on those of masters; and, although the effects are
different, the same cause may easily be traced. Both classes constitute small communities in
the heart of the nation, and certain permanent notions of right and wrong are ultimately
engendered amongst them. The different acts of human life are viewed by one particular and
unchanging light. In the society of servants, as in that of masters, men exercise a great
influence over each other: they acknowledge settled rules, and in the absence of law they are
guided by a sort of public opinion: their habits are settled, and their conduct is placed under a
certain control.
These men, whose destiny is to obey, certainly do not understand fame, virtue, honesty, and
honor in the same manner as their masters; but they have a pride, a virtue, and an honesty
pertaining to their condition; and they have a notion, if I may use the expression, of a sort of
servile honor. 323 Because a class is mean, it must not be supposed that all who belong to it are
mean-hearted; to think so would be a great mistake. However lowly it may be, he who is
foremost there, and who has no notion of quitting it, occupies an aristocratic position which
inspires him with lofty feelings, pride, and self-respect, that fit him for the higher virtues and
actions above the common. Amongst aristocratic nations it was by no means rare to find men
of noble and vigorous minds in the service of the great, who felt not the servitude they bore,
and who submitted to the will of their masters without any fear of their displeasure. But this
was hardly ever the case amongst the inferior ranks of domestic servants. It may be imagined

323
If the principal opinions by which men are guided are examined closely and in detail, the analogy appears
still more striking, and one is surprised to find amongst them, just as much as amongst the haughtiest scions of a
feudal race, pride of birth, respect for their ancestry and their descendants, disdain of their inferiors, a dread of
contact, a taste for etiquette, precedents, and antiquity.
 410

that he who occupies the lowest stage of the order of menials stands very low indeed. The
French created a word on purpose to designate the servants of the aristocracy—they called
them lackeys. This word “lackey” served as the strongest expression, when all others were
exhausted, to designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy, to denote by a
single expression a low-spirited contemptible fellow, it was usual to say that he had the “soul
of a lackey”; the term was enough to convey all that was intended.
The permanent inequality of conditions not only gives servants certain peculiar virtues and
vices, but it places them in a peculiar relation with respect to their masters. Amongst
aristocratic nations the poor man is familiarized from his childhood with the notion of being
commanded: to whichever side he turns his eyes the graduated structure of society and the
aspect of obedience meet his view. Hence in those countries the master readily obtains
prompt, complete, respectful, and easy obedience from his servants, because they revere in
him not only their master but the class of masters. He weighs down their will by the whole
weight of the aristocracy. He orders their actions—to a certain extent he even directs their
thoughts. In aristocracies the master often exercises, even without being aware of it, an
amazing sway over the opinions, the habits, and the manners of those who obey him, and his
influence extends even further than his authority.
In aristocratic communities there are not only hereditary families of servants as well as of
masters, but the same families of servants adhere for several generations to the same families
of masters (like two parallel lines which neither meet nor separate); and this considerably
modifies the mutual relations of these two classes of persons. Thus, although in aristocratic
society the master and servant have no natural resemblance—although, on the contrary, they
are placed at an immense distance on the scale of human beings by their fortune, education,
and opinions—yet time ultimately binds them together. They are connected by a long series
of common reminiscences, and however different they may be, they grow alike; whilst in
democracies, where they are naturally almost alike, they always remain strangers to each
other. Amongst an aristocratic people the master gets to look upon his servants as an inferior
and secondary part of himself, and he often takes an interest in their lot by a last stretch of
egotism.
Servants, on their part, are not averse to regard themselves in the same light; and they
sometimes identify themselves with the person of the master, so that they become an
appendage to him in their own eyes as well as in his. In aristocracies a servant fills a
subordinate position which he cannot get out of; above him is another man, holding a
superior rank which he cannot lose. On one side are obscurity, poverty, obedience for life; on
the other, and also for life, fame, wealth, and command. The two conditions are always
distinct and always in propinquity; the tie that connects them is as lasting as they are
themselves. In this predicament the servant ultimately detaches his notion of interest from his
own person; he deserts himself, as it were, or rather he transports himself into the character of
his master, and thus assumes an imaginary personality. He complacently invests himself with
the wealth of those who command him; he shares their fame, exalts himself by their rank, and
feeds his mind with borrowed greatness, to which he attaches more importance than those
who fully and really possess it. There is something touching, and at the same time ridiculous,
in this strange confusion of two different states of being. These passions of masters, when
they pass into the souls of menials, assume the natural dimensions of the place they occupy—
they are contracted and lowered. What was pride in the former becomes puerile vanity and
paltry ostentation in the latter. The servants of a great man are commonly most punctilious as
to the marks of respect due to him, and they attach more importance to his slightest privileges
than he does himself. In France a few of these old servants of the aristocracy are still to be
met with here and there; they have survived their race, which will soon disappear with them
 411

altogether. In the United States I never saw anyone at all like them. The Americans are not
only unacquainted with the kind of man, but it is hardly possible to make them understand
that such ever existed. It is scarcely less difficult for them to conceive it, than for us to form a
correct notion of what a slave was amongst the Romans, or a serf in the Middle Ages. All
these men were in fact, though in different degrees, results of the same cause: they are all
retiring from our sight, and disappearing in the obscurity of the past, together with the social
condition to which they owed their origin.
Equality of conditions turns servants and masters into new beings, and places them in new
relative positions. When social conditions are nearly equal, men are constantly changing their
situations in life: there is still a class of menials and a class of masters, but these classes are
not always composed of the same individuals, still less of the same families; and those who
command are not more secure of perpetuity than those who obey. As servants do not form a
separate people, they have no habits, prejudices, or manners peculiar to themselves; they are
not remarkable for any particular turn of mind or moods of feeling. They know no vices or
virtues of their condition, but they partake of the education, the opinions, the feelings, the
virtues, and the vices of their contemporaries; and they are honest men or scoundrels in the
same way as their masters are. The conditions of servants are not less equal than those of
masters. As no marked ranks or fixed subordination are to be found amongst them, they will
not display either the meanness or the greatness which characterizes the aristocracy of
menials as well as all other aristocracies. I never saw a man in the United States who
reminded me of that class of confidential servants of which we still retain a reminiscence in
Europe, neither did I ever meet with such a thing as a lackey: all traces of the one and of the
other have disappeared.
In democracies servants are not only equal amongst themselves, but it may be said that they
are in some sort the equals of their masters. This requires explanation in order to be rightly
understood. At any moment a servant may become a master, and he aspires to rise to that
condition: the servant is therefore not a different man from the master. Why then has the
former a right to command, and what compels the latter to obey?—the free and temporary
consent of both their wills. Neither of them is by nature inferior to the other; they only
become so for a time by covenant. Within the terms of this covenant, the one is a servant, the
other a master; beyond it they are two citizens of the commonwealth—two men. I beg the
reader particularly to observe that this is not only the notion which servants themselves
entertain of their own condition; domestic service is looked upon by masters in the same
light; and the precise limits of authority and obedience are as clearly settled in the mind of the
one as in that of the other.
When the greater part of the community have long attained a condition nearly alike, and
when equality is an old and acknowledged fact, the public mind, which is never affected by
exceptions, assigns certain general limits to the value of man, above or below which no man
can long remain placed. It is in vain that wealth and poverty, authority and obedience,
accidentally interpose great distances between two men; public opinion, founded upon the
usual order of things, draws them to a common level, and creates a species of imaginary
equality between them, in spite of the real inequality of their conditions. This all-powerful
opinion penetrates at length even into the hearts of those whose interest might arm them to
resist it; it affects their judgment whilst it subdues their will. In their inmost convictions the
master and the servant no longer perceive any deep-seated difference between them, and they
neither hope nor fear to meet with any such at any time. They are therefore neither subject to
disdain nor to anger, and they discern in each other neither humility nor pride. The master
holds the contract of service to be the only source of his power, and the servant regards it as
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the only cause of his obedience. They do not quarrel about their reciprocal situations, but
each knows his own and keeps it.
In the French army the common soldier is taken from nearly the same classes as the officer,
and may hold the same commissions; out of the ranks he considers himself entirely equal to
his military superiors, and in point of fact he is so; but when under arms he does not hesitate
to obey, and his obedience is not the less prompt, precise, and ready, for being voluntary and
defined. This example may give a notion of what takes place between masters and servants in
democratic communities.
It would be preposterous to suppose that those warm and deep-seated affections, which are
sometimes kindled in the domestic service of aristocracy, will ever spring up between these
two men, or that they will exhibit strong instances of self-sacrifice. In aristocracies masters
and servants live apart, and frequently their only intercourse is through a third person; yet
they commonly stand firmly by one another. In democratic countries the master and the
servant are close together; they are in daily personal contact, but their minds do not
intermingle; they have common occupations, hardly ever common interests. Amongst such a
people the servant always considers himself as a sojourner in the dwelling of his masters. He
knew nothing of their forefathers—he will see nothing of their descendants—he has nothing
lasting to expect from their hand. Why then should he confound his life with theirs, and
whence should so strange a surrender of himself proceed? The reciprocal position of the two
men is changed—their mutual relations must be so too.
I would fain illustrate all these reflections by the example of the Americans; but for this
purpose the distinctions of persons and places must be accurately traced. In the South of the
Union, slavery exists; all that I have just said is consequently inapplicable there. In the North,
the majority of servants are either freedmen or the children of freedmen; these persons
occupy a contested position in the public estimation; by the laws they are brought up to the
level of their masters—by the manners of the country they are obstinately detruded from it.
They do not themselves clearly know their proper place, and they are almost always either
insolent or craven. But in the Northern States, especially in New England, there are a certain
number of whites, who agree, for wages, to yield a temporary obedience to the will of their
fellow-citizens. I have heard that these servants commonly perform the duties of their
situation with punctuality and intelligence; and that without thinking themselves naturally
inferior to the person who orders them, they submit without reluctance to obey him. They
appear to me to carry into service some of those manly habits which independence and
equality engender. Having once selected a hard way of life, they do not seek to escape from it
by indirect means; and they have sufficient respect for themselves, not to refuse to their
master that obedience which they have freely promised. On their part, masters require
nothing of their servants but the faithful and rigorous performance of the covenant: they do
not ask for marks of respect, they do not claim their love or devoted attachment; it is enough
that, as servants, they are exact and honest. It would not then be true to assert that, in
democratic society, the relation of servants and masters is disorganized: it is organized on
another footing; the rule is different, but there is a rule.
It is not my purpose to inquire whether the new state of things which I have just described is
inferior to that which preceded it, or simply different. Enough for me that it is fixed and
determined: for what is most important to meet with among men is not any given ordering,
but order. But what shall I say of those sad and troubled times at which equality is established
in the midst of the tumult of revolution—when democracy, after having been introduced into
the state of society, still struggles with difficulty against the prejudices and manners of the
country? The laws, and partially public opinion, already declare that no natural or permanent
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inferiority exists between the servant and the master. But this new belief has not yet reached
the innermost convictions of the latter, or rather his heart rejects it; in the secret persuasion of
his mind the master thinks that he belongs to a peculiar and superior race; he dares not say so,
but he shudders whilst he allows himself to be dragged to the same level. His authority over
his servants becomes timid and at the same time harsh: he has already ceased to entertain for
them the feelings of patronizing kindness which long uncontested power always engenders,
and he is surprised that, being changed himself, his servant changes also. He wants his
attendants to form regular and permanent habits, in a condition of domestic service which is
only temporary: he requires that they should appear contented with and proud of a servile
condition, which they will one day shake off—that they should sacrifice themselves to a man
who can neither protect nor ruin them—and in short that they should contract an indissoluble
engagement to a being like themselves, and one who will last no longer than they will.
Amongst aristocratic nations it often happens that the condition of domestic service does not
degrade the character of those who enter upon it, because they neither know nor imagine any
other; and the amazing inequality which is manifest between them and their master appears to
be the necessary and unavoidable consequence of some hidden law of Providence. In
democracies the condition of domestic service does not degrade the character of those who
enter upon it, because it is freely chosen, and adopted for a time only; because it is not
stigmatized by public opinion, and creates no permanent inequality between the servant and
the master. But whilst the transition from one social condition to another is going on, there is
almost always a time when men’s minds fluctuate between the aristocratic notion of
subjection and the democratic notion of obedience. Obedience then loses its moral
importance in the eyes of him who obeys; he no longer considers it as a species of divine
obligation, and he does not yet view it under its purely human aspect; it has to him no
character of sanctity or of justice, and he submits to it as to a degrading but profitable
condition. At that moment a confused and imperfect phantom of equality haunts the minds of
servants; they do not at once perceive whether the equality to which they are entitled is to be
found within or without the pale of domestic service; and they rebel in their hearts against a
subordination to which they have subjected themselves, and from which they derive actual
profit. They consent to serve, and they blush to obey; they like the advantages of service, but
not the master; or rather, they are not sure that they ought not themselves to be masters, and
they are inclined to consider him who orders them as an unjust usurper of their own rights.
Then it is that the dwelling of every citizen offers a spectacle somewhat analogous to the
gloomy aspect of political society. A secret and intestine warfare is going on there between
powers, ever rivals and suspicious of one another: the master is ill-natured and weak, the
servant ill-natured and intractable; the one constantly attempts to evade by unfair restrictions
his obligation to protect and to remunerate—the other his obligation to obey. The reins of
domestic government dangle between them, to be snatched at by one or the other. The lines
which divide authority from oppression, liberty from license, and right from might, are to
their eyes so jumbled together and confused, that no one knows exactly what he is, or what he
may be, or what he ought to be. Such a condition is not democracy, but revolution.
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VI. That Democratic Institutions And Manners

Tend To Raise Rents And Shorten The Terms Of
Leases

What has been said of servants and masters is applicable, to a certain extent, to landowners
and farming tenants; but this subject deserves to be considered by itself. In America there are,
properly speaking, no tenant farmers; every man owns the ground he tills. It must be admitted
that democratic laws tend greatly to increase the number of landowners, and to diminish that
of farming tenants. Yet what takes place in the United States is much less attributable to the
institutions of the country than to the country itself. In America land is cheap, and anyone
may easily become a landowner; its returns are small, and its produce cannot well be divided
between a landowner and a farmer. America therefore stands alone in this as well as in many
other respects, and it would be a mistake to take it as an example.
I believe that in democratic as well as in aristocratic countries there will be landowners and
tenants, but the connection existing between them will be of a different kind. In aristocracies
the hire of a farm is paid to the landlord, not only in rent, but in respect, regard, and duty; in
democracies the whole is paid in cash. When estates are divided and passed from hand to
hand, and the permanent connection which existed between families and the soil is dissolved,
the landowner and the tenant are only casually brought into contact. They meet for a moment
to settle the conditions of the agreement, and then lose sight of each other; they are two
strangers brought together by a common interest, and who keenly talk over a matter of
business, the sole object of which is to make money.
In proportion as property is subdivided and wealth distributed over the country, the
community is filled with people whose former opulence is declining, and with others whose
fortunes are of recent growth and whose wants increase more rapidly than their resources. For
all such persons the smallest pecuniary profit is a matter of importance, and none of them feel
disposed to waive any of their claims, or to lose any portion of their income. As ranks are
intermingled, and as very large as well as very scanty fortunes become more rare, every day
brings the social condition of the landowner nearer to that of the farmer; the one has not
naturally any uncontested superiority over the other; between two men who are equal, and not
at ease in their circumstances, the contract of hire is exclusively an affair of money. A man
whose estate extends over a whole district, and who owns a hundred farms, is well aware of
the importance of gaining at the same time the affections of some thousands of men; this
object appears to call for his exertions, and to attain it he will readily make considerable
sacrifices. But he who owns a hundred acres is insensible to similar considerations, and he
cares but little to win the private regard of his tenant.
An aristocracy does not expire like a man in a single day; the aristocratic principle is slowly
undermined in men’s opinion, before it is attacked in their laws. Long before open war is
declared against it, the tie which had hitherto united the higher classes to the lower may be
seen to be gradually relaxed. Indifference and contempt are betrayed by one class, jealousy
and hatred by the others; the intercourse between rich and poor becomes less frequent and
less kind, and rents are raised. This is not the consequence of a democratic revolution, but its
certain harbinger; for an aristocracy which has lost the affections of the people, once and
forever, is like a tree dead at the root, which is the more easily torn up by the winds the
higher its branches have spread.
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In the course of the last fifty years the rents of farms have amazingly increased, not only in
France but throughout the greater part of Europe. The remarkable improvements which have
taken place in agriculture and manufactures within the same period do not suffice in my
opinion to explain this fact; recourse must be had to another cause more powerful and more
concealed. I believe that cause is to be found in the democratic institutions which several
European nations have adopted, and in the democratic passions which more or less agitate all
the rest. I have frequently heard great English landowners congratulate themselves that, at the
present day, they derive a much larger income from their estates than their fathers did. They
have perhaps good reasons to be glad; but most assuredly they know not what they are glad
of. They think they are making a clear gain, when it is in reality only an exchange; their
influence is what they are parting with for cash; and what they gain in money will ere long be
lost in power.
There is yet another sign by which it is easy to know that a great democratic revolution is
going on or approaching. In the Middle Ages almost all lands were leased for lives, or for
very long terms; the domestic economy of that period shows that leases for ninety-nine years
were more frequent then than leases for twelve years are now. Men then believed that
families were immortal; men’s conditions seemed settled forever, and the whole of society
appeared to be so fixed, that it was not supposed that anything would ever be stirred or
shaken in its structure. In ages of equality, the human mind takes a different bent; the
prevailing notion is that nothing abides, and man is haunted by the thought of mutability.
Under this impression the landowner and the tenant himself are instinctively averse to
protracted terms of obligation; they are afraid of being tied up to-morrow by the contract
which benefits them today. They have vague anticipations of some sudden and unforeseen
change in their conditions; they mistrust themselves; they fear lest their taste should change,
and lest they should lament that they cannot rid themselves of what they coveted; nor are
such fears unfounded, for in democratic ages that which is most fluctuating amidst the
fluctuation of all around is the heart of man.
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VII. Influence Of Democracy On Wages

Most of the remarks which I have already made in speaking of servants and masters, may be
applied to masters and workmen. As the gradations of the social scale come to be less
observed, whilst the great sink the humble rise, and as poverty as well as opulence ceases to
be hereditary, the distance both in reality and in opinion, which heretofore separated the
workman from the master, is lessened every day. The workman conceives a more lofty
opinion of his rights, of his future, of himself; he is filled with new ambition and with new
desires, he is harassed by new wants. Every instant he views with longing eyes the profits of
his employer; and in order to share them, he strives to dispose of his labor at a higher rate,
and he generally succeeds at length in the attempt. In democratic countries, as well as
elsewhere, most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost, by men
little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ.
These manufacturing speculators are extremely numerous; their interests differ; they cannot
therefore easily concert or combine their exertions. On the other hand the workmen have
almost always some sure resources, which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot
get what they conceive to be the fair price of their labor. In the constant struggle for wages
which is going on between these two classes, their strength is divided, and success alternates
from one to the other. It is even probable that in the end the interest of the working class must
prevail; for the high wages which they have already obtained make them every day less
dependent on their masters; and as they grow more independent, they have greater facilities
for obtaining a further increase of wages.
I shall take for example that branch of productive industry which is still at the present day the
most generally followed in France, and in almost all the countries of the world—I mean the
cultivation of the soil. In France most of those who labor for hire in agriculture, are
themselves owners of certain plots of ground, which just enable them to subsist without
working for anyone else. When these laborers come to offer their services to a neighboring
landowner or farmer, if he refuses them a certain rate of wages, they retire to their own small
property and await another opportunity.
I think that, upon the whole, it may be asserted that a slow and gradual rise of wages is one of
the general laws of democratic communities. In proportion as social conditions become more
equal, wages rise; and as wages are higher, social conditions become more equal. But a great
and gloomy exception occurs in our own time. I have shown in a preceding chapter that
aristocracy, expelled from political society, has taken refuge in certain departments of
productive industry, and has established its sway there under another form; this powerfully
affects the rate of wages. As a large capital is required to embark in the great manufacturing
speculations to which I allude, the number of persons who enter upon them is exceedingly
limited: as their number is small, they can easily concert together, and fix the rate of wages as
they please. Their workmen on the contrary are exceedingly numerous, and the number of
them is always increasing; for, from time to time, an extraordinary run of business takes
place, during which wages are inordinately high, and they attract the surrounding population
to the factories. But, when once men have embraced that line of life, we have already seen
that they cannot quit it again, because they soon contract habits of body and mind which unfit
them for any other sort of toil. These men have generally but little education and industry,
with but few resources; they stand therefore almost at the mercy of the master. When
competition, or other fortuitous circumstances, lessen his profits, he can reduce the wages of
his workmen almost at pleasure, and make from them what he loses by the chances of
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business. Should the workmen strike, the master, who is a rich man, can very well wait
without being ruined until necessity brings them back to him; but they must work day by day
or they die, for their only property is in their hands. They have long been impoverished by
oppression, and the poorer they become the more easily may they be oppressed: they can
never escape from this fatal circle of cause and consequence. It is not then surprising that
wages, after having sometimes suddenly risen, are permanently lowered in this branch of
industry; whereas in other callings the price of labor, which generally increases but little, is
nevertheless constantly augmented.
This state of dependence and wretchedness, in which a part of the manufacturing population
of our time lives, forms an exception to the general rule, contrary to the state of all the rest of
the community; but, for this very reason, no circumstance is more important or more
deserving of the especial consideration of the legislator; for when the whole of society is in
motion, it is difficult to keep any one class stationary; and when the greater number of men
are opening new paths to fortune, it is no less difficult to make the few support in peace their
wants and their desires.
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VIII. Influence Of Democracy On Kindred

I have just examined the changes which the equality of conditions produces in the mutual
relations of the several members of the community amongst democratic nations, and amongst
the Americans in particular. I would now go deeper, and inquire into the closer ties of
kindred: my object here is not to seek for new truths, but to show in what manner facts
already known are connected with my subject.
It has been universally remarked, that in our time the several members of a family stand upon
an entirely new footing towards each other; that the distance which formerly separated a
father from his sons has been lessened; and that paternal authority, if not destroyed, is at least
impaired. Something analogous to this, but even more striking, may be observed in the
United States. In America the family, in the Roman and aristocratic signification of the word,
does not exist. All that remains of it are a few vestiges in the first years of childhood, when
the father exercises, without opposition, that absolute domestic authority, which the
feebleness of his children renders necessary, and which their interest, as well as his own
incontestable superiority, warrants. But as soon as the young American approaches manhood,
the ties of filial obedience are relaxed day by day: master of his thoughts, he is soon master of
his conduct. In America there is, strictly speaking, no adolescence: at the close of boyhood
the man appears, and begins to trace out his own path. It would be an error to suppose that
this is preceded by a domestic struggle, in which the son has obtained by a sort of moral
violence the liberty that his father refused him. The same habits, the same principles which
impel the one to assert his independence, predispose the other to consider the use of that
independence as an incontestable right. The former does not exhibit any of those rancorous or
irregular passions which disturb men long after they have shaken off an established authority;
the latter feels none of that bitter and angry regret which is apt to survive a bygone power.
The father foresees the limits of his authority long beforehand, and when the time arrives he
surrenders it without a struggle: the son looks forward to the exact period at which he will be
his own master; and he enters upon his freedom without precipitation and without effort, as a
possession which is his own and which no one seeks to wrest from him. 324
It may perhaps not be without utility to show how these changes which take place in family
relations, are closely connected with the social and political revolution which is approaching
its consummation under our own observation. There are certain great social principles, which
a people either introduces everywhere, or tolerates nowhere. In countries which are
aristocratically constituted with all the gradations of rank, the government never makes a
direct appeal to the mass of the governed: as men are united together, it is enough to lead the

324
The Americans, however, have not yet thought fit to strip the parent, as has been done in France, of one of
the chief elements of parental authority, by depriving him of the power of disposing of his property at his death.
In the United States there are no restrictions on the powers of a testator. In this respect, as in almost all others, it
is easy to perceive, that if the political legislation of the Americans is much more democratic than that of the
French, the civil legislation of the latter is infinitely more democratic than that of the former. This may easily be
accounted for. The civil legislation of France was the work of a man who saw that it was his interest to satisfy
the democratic passions of his contemporaries in all that was not directly and immediately hostile to his own
power. He was willing to allow some popular principles to regulate the distribution of property and the
government of families, provided they were not to be introduced into the administration of public affairs. Whilst
the torrent of democracy overwhelmed the civil laws of the country, he hoped to find an easy shelter behind its
political institutions. This policy was at once both adroit and selfish; but a compromise of this kind could not
last; for in the end political institutions never fail to become the image and expression of civil society; and in
this sense it may be said that nothing is more political in a nation than its civil legislation.
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foremost, the rest will follow. This is equally applicable to the family, as to all aristocracies
which have a head. Amongst aristocratic nations, social institutions recognize, in truth, no
one in the family but the father; children are received by society at his hands; society governs
him, he governs them. Thus the parent has not only a natural right, but he acquires a political
right, to command them: he is the author and the support of his family; but he is also its
constituted ruler. In democracies, where the government picks out every individual singly
from the mass, to make him subservient to the general laws of the community, no such
intermediate person is required: a father is there, in the eye of the law, only a member of the
community, older and richer than his sons.
When most of the conditions of life are extremely unequal, and the inequality of these
conditions is permanent, the notion of a superior grows upon the imaginations of men: if the
law invested him with no privileges, custom and public opinion would concede them. When,
on the contrary, men differ but little from each other, and do not always remain in dissimilar
conditions of life, the general notion of a superior becomes weaker and less distinct: it is vain
for legislation to strive to place him who obeys very much beneath him who commands; the
manners of the time bring the two men nearer to one another, and draw them daily towards
the same level. Although the legislation of an aristocratic people should grant no peculiar
privileges to the heads of families; I shall not be the less convinced that their power is more
respected and more extensive than in a democracy; for I know that, whatsoever the laws may
be, superiors always appear higher and inferiors lower in aristocracies than amongst
democratic nations.
When men live more for the remembrance of what has been than for the care of what is, and
when they are more given to attend to what their ancestors thought than to think themselves,
the father is the natural and necessary tie between the past and the present—the link by which
the ends of these two chains are connected. In aristocracies, then, the father is not only the
civil head of the family, but the oracle of its traditions, the expounder of its customs, the
arbiter of its manners. He is listened to with deference, he is addressed with respect, and the
love which is felt for him is always tempered with fear. When the condition of society
becomes democratic, and men adopt as their general principle that it is good and lawful to
judge of all things for one’s self, using former points of belief not as a rule of faith but simply
as a means of information, the power which the opinions of a father exercise over those of his
sons diminishes as well as his legal power.
Perhaps the subdivision of estates which democracy brings with it contributes more than
anything else to change the relations existing between a father and his children. When the
property of the father of a family is scanty, his son and himself constantly live in the same
place, and share the same occupations: habit and necessity bring them together, and force
them to hold constant communication: the inevitable consequence is a sort of familiar
intimacy, which renders authority less absolute, and which can ill be reconciled with the
external forms of respect. Now in democratic countries the class of those who are possessed
of small fortunes is precisely that which gives strength to the notions, and a particular
direction to the manners, of the community. That class makes its opinions preponderate as
universally as its will, and even those who are most inclined to resist its commands are
carried away in the end by its example. I have known eager opponents of democracy who
allowed their children to address them with perfect colloquial equality.
Thus, at the same time that the power of aristocracy is declining, the austere, the
conventional, and the legal part of parental authority vanishes, and a species of equality
prevails around the domestic hearth. I know not, upon the whole, whether society loses by the
change, but I am inclined to believe that man individually is a gainer by it. I think that, in
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proportion as manners and laws become more democratic, the relation of father and son
becomes more intimate and more affectionate; rules and authority are less talked of;
confidence and tenderness are oftentimes increased, and it would seem that the natural bond
is drawn closer in proportion as the social bond is loosened. In a democratic family the father
exercises no other power than that with which men love to invest the affection and the
experience of age; his orders would perhaps be disobeyed, but his advice is for the most part
authoritative. Though he be not hedged in with ceremonial respect, his sons at least accost
him with confidence; no settled form of speech is appropriated to the mode of addressing
him, but they speak to him constantly, and are ready to consult him day by day; the master
and the constituted ruler have vanished—the father remains. Nothing more is needed, in order
to judge of the difference between the two states of society in this respect, than to peruse the
family correspondence of aristocratic ages. The style is always correct, ceremonious, stiff,
and so cold that the natural warmth of the heart can hardly be felt in the language. The
language, on the contrary, addressed by a son to his father in democratic countries is always
marked by mingled freedom, familiarity and affection, which at once show that new relations
have sprung up in the bosom of the family.
A similar revolution takes place in the mutual relations of children. In aristocratic families, as
well as in aristocratic society, every place is marked out beforehand. Not only does the father
occupy a separate rank, in which he enjoys extensive privileges, but even the children are not
equal amongst themselves. The age and sex of each irrevocably determine his rank, and
secure to him certain privileges: most of these distinctions are abolished or diminished by
democracy. In aristocratic families the eldest son, inheriting the greater part of the property,
and almost all the rights of the family, becomes the chief, and, to a certain extent, the master,
of his brothers. Greatness and power are for him—for them, mediocrity and dependence.
Nevertheless it would be wrong to suppose that, amongst aristocratic nations, the privileges
of the eldest son are advantageous to himself alone, or that they excite nothing but envy and
hatred in those around him. The eldest son commonly endeavors to procure wealth and power
for his brothers, because the general splendor of the house is reflected back on him who
represents it; the younger sons seek to back the elder brother in all his undertakings, because
the greatness and power of the head of the family better enable him to provide for all its
branches. The different members of an aristocratic family are therefore very closely bound
together; their interests are connected, their minds agree, but their hearts are seldom in
harmony.
Democracy also binds brothers to each other, but by very different means. Under democratic
laws all the children are perfectly equal, and consequently independent; nothing brings them
forcibly together, but nothing keeps them apart; and as they have the same origin, as they are
trained under the same roof, as they are treated with the same care, and as no peculiar
privilege distinguishes or divides them, the affectionate and youthful intimacy of early years
easily springs up between them. Scarcely any opportunities occur to break the tie thus formed
at the outset of life; for their brotherhood brings them daily together, without embarrassing
them. It is not, then, by interest, but by common associations and by the free sympathy of
opinion and of taste, that democracy unites brothers to each other. It divides their inheritance,
but it allows their hearts and minds to mingle together. Such is the charm of these democratic
manners, that even the partisans of aristocracy are caught by it; and after having experienced
it for some time, they are by no means tempted to revert to the respectful and frigid
observance of aristocratic families. They would be glad to retain the domestic habits of
democracy, if they might throw off its social conditions and its laws; but these elements are
indissolubly united, and it is impossible to enjoy the former without enduring the latter. The
remarks I have made on filial love and fraternal affection are applicable to all the passions
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which emanate spontaneously from human nature itself. If a certain mode of thought or
feeling is the result of some peculiar condition of life, when that condition is altered nothing
whatever remains of the thought or feeling. Thus a law may bind two members of the
community very closely to one another; but that law being abolished, they stand asunder.
Nothing was more strict than the tie which united the vassal to the lord under the feudal
system; at the present day the two men know not each other; the fear, the gratitude, and the
affection which formerly connected them have vanished, and not a vestige of the tie remains.
Such, however, is not the case with those feelings which are natural to mankind. Whenever a
law attempts to tutor these feelings in any particular manner, it seldom fails to weaken them;
by attempting to add to their intensity, it robs them of some of their elements, for they are
never stronger than when left to themselves.
Democracy, which destroys or obscures almost all the old conventional rules of society, and
which prevents men from readily assenting to new ones, entirely effaces most of the feelings
to which these conventional rules have given rise; but it only modifies some others, and
frequently imparts to them a degree of energy and sweetness unknown before. Perhaps it is
not impossible to condense into a single proposition the whole meaning of this chapter, and
of several others that preceded it. Democracy loosens social ties, but it draws the ties of
nature more tight; it brings kindred more closely together, whilst it places the various
members of the community more widely apart.
 422

IX. Education Of Young Women In The United

States

No free communities ever existed without morals; and, as I observed in the former part of this
work, morals are the work of woman. Consequently, whatever affects the condition of
women, their habits and their opinions, has great political importance in my eyes. Amongst
almost all Protestant nations young women are far more the mistresses of their own actions
than they are in Catholic countries. This independence is still greater in Protestant countries,
like England, which have retained or acquired the right of self-government; the spirit of
freedom is then infused into the domestic circle by political habits and by religious opinions.
In the United States the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with great political freedom
and a most democratic state of society; and nowhere are young women surrendered so early
or so completely to their own guidance. Long before an American girl arrives at the age of
marriage, her emancipation from maternal control begins; she has scarcely ceased to be a
child when she already thinks for herself, speaks with freedom, and acts on her own impulse.
The great scene of the world is constantly open to her view; far from seeking concealment, it
is every day disclosed to her more completely, and she is taught to survey it with a firm and
calm gaze. Thus the vices and dangers of society are early revealed to her; as she sees them
clearly, she views them without illusions, and braves them without fear; for she is full of
reliance on her own strength, and her reliance seems to be shared by all who are about her.
An American girl scarcely ever displays that virginal bloom in the midst of young desires, or
that innocent and ingenuous grace which usually attends the European woman in the
transition from girlhood to youth. It is rarely that an American woman at any age displays
childish timidity or ignorance. Like the young women of Europe, she seeks to please, but she
knows precisely the cost of pleasing. If she does not abandon herself to evil, at least she
knows that it exists; and she is remarkable rather for purity of manners than for chastity of
mind. I have been frequently surprised, and almost frightened, at the singular address and
happy boldness with which young women in America contrive to manage their thoughts and
their language amidst all the difficulties of stimulating conversation; a philosopher would
have stumbled at every step along the narrow path which they trod without accidents and
without effort. It is easy indeed to perceive that, even amidst the independence of early youth,
an American woman is always mistress of herself; she indulges in all permitted pleasures,
without yielding herself up to any of them; and her reason never allows the reins of self-
guidance to drop, though it often seems to hold them loosely.
In France, where remnants of every age are still so strangely mingled in the opinions and
tastes of the people, women commonly receive a reserved, retired, and almost cloistral
education, as they did in aristocratic times; and then they are suddenly abandoned, without a
guide and without assistance, in the midst of all the irregularities inseparable from democratic
society. The Americans are more consistent. They have found out that in a democracy the
independence of individuals cannot fail to be very great, youth premature, tastes ill-
restrained, customs fleeting, public opinion often unsettled and powerless, paternal authority
weak, and marital authority contested. Under these circumstances, believing that they had
little chance of repressing in woman the most vehement passions of the human heart, they
held that the surer way was to teach her the art of combating those passions for herself. As
they could not prevent her virtue from being exposed to frequent danger, they determined that
she should know how best to defend it; and more reliance was placed on the free vigor of her
will than on safeguards which have been shaken or overthrown. Instead, then, of inculcating
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mistrust of herself, they constantly seek to enhance their confidence in her own strength of
character. As it is neither possible nor desirable to keep a young woman in perpetual or
complete ignorance, they hasten to give her a precocious knowledge on all subjects. Far from
hiding the corruptions of the world from her, they prefer that she should see them at once and
train herself to shun them; and they hold it of more importance to protect her conduct than to
be over-scrupulous of her innocence.
Although the Americans are a very religious people, they do not rely on religion alone to
defend the virtue of woman; they seek to arm her reason also. In this they have followed the
same method as in several other respects; they first make the most vigorous efforts to bring
individual independence to exercise a proper control over itself, and they do not call in the
aid of religion until they have reached the utmost limits of human strength. I am aware that an
education of this kind is not without danger; I am sensible that it tends to invigorate the
judgment at the expense of the imagination, and to make cold and virtuous women instead of
affectionate wives and agreeable companions to man. Society may be more tranquil and
better regulated, but domestic life has often fewer charms. These, however, are secondary
evils, which may be braved for the sake of higher interests. At the stage at which we are now
arrived the time for choosing is no longer within our control; a democratic education is
indispensable to protect women from the dangers with which democratic institutions and
manners surround them.
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X. The Young Woman In The Character Of A Wife

In America the independence of woman is irrevocably lost in the bonds of matrimony: if an

unmarried woman is less constrained there than elsewhere, a wife is subjected to stricter
obligations. The former makes her father’s house an abode of freedom and of pleasure; the
latter lives in the home of her husband as if it were a cloister. Yet these two different
conditions of life are perhaps not so contrary as may be supposed, and it is natural that the
American women should pass through the one to arrive at the other.
Religious peoples and trading nations entertain peculiarly serious notions of marriage: the
former consider the regularity of woman’s life as the best pledge and most certain sign of the
purity of her morals; the latter regard it as the highest security for the order and prosperity of
the household. The Americans are at the same time a puritanical people and a commercial
nation: their religious opinions, as well as their trading habits, consequently lead them to
require much abnegation on the part of woman, and a constant sacrifice of her pleasures to
her duties which is seldom demanded of her in Europe. Thus in the United States the
inexorable opinion of the public carefully circumscribes woman within the narrow circle of
domestic interest and duties, and forbids her to step beyond it.
Upon her entrance into the world a young American woman finds these notions firmly
established; she sees the rules which are derived from them; she is not slow to perceive that
she cannot depart for an instant from the established usages of her contemporaries, without
putting in jeopardy her peace of mind, her honor, nay even her social existence; and she finds
the energy required for such an act of submission in the firmness of her understanding and in
the virile habits which her education has given her. It may be said that she has learned by the
use of her independence to surrender it without a struggle and without a murmur when the
time comes for making the sacrifice. But no American woman falls into the toils of
matrimony as into a snare held out to her simplicity and ignorance. She has been taught
beforehand what is expected of her, and voluntarily and freely does she enter upon this
engagement. She supports her new condition with courage, because she chose it. As in
America paternal discipline is very relaxed and the conjugal tie very strict, a young woman
does not contract the latter without considerable circumspection and apprehension.
Precocious marriages are rare. Thus American women do not marry until their
understandings are exercised and ripened; whereas in other countries most women generally
only begin to exercise and to ripen their understandings after marriage.
I by no means suppose, however, that the great change which takes place in all the habits of
women in the United States, as soon as they are married, ought solely to be attributed to the
constraint of public opinion: it is frequently imposed upon themselves by the sole effort of
their own will. When the time for choosing a husband is arrived, that cold and stern reasoning
power which has been educated and invigorated by the free observation of the world, teaches
an American woman that a spirit of levity and independence in the bonds of marriage is a
constant subject of annoyance, not of pleasure; it tells her that the amusements of the girl
cannot become the recreations of the wife, and that the sources of a married woman’s
happiness are in the home of her husband. As she clearly discerns beforehand the only road
which can lead to domestic happiness, she enters upon it at once, and follows it to the end
without seeking to turn back.
The same strength of purpose which the young wives of America display, in bending
themselves at once and without repining to the austere duties of their new condition, is no
 425

less manifest in all the great trials of their lives. In no country in the world are private
fortunes more precarious than in the United States. It is not uncommon for the same man, in
the course of his life, to rise and sink again through all the grades which lead from opulence
to poverty. American women support these vicissitudes with calm and unquenchable energy:
it would seem that their desires contract, as easily as they expand, with their fortunes. 325
The greater part of the adventurers who migrate every year to people the western wilds,
belong, as I observed in the former part of this work, to the old Anglo-American race of the
Northern States. Many of these men, who rush so boldly onwards in pursuit of wealth, were
already in the enjoyment of a competency in their own part of the country. They take their
wives along with them, and make them share the countless perils and privations which
always attend the commencement of these expeditions. I have often met, even on the verge of
the wilderness, with young women, who after having been brought up amidst all the comforts
of the large towns of New England, had passed, almost without any intermediate stage, from
the wealthy abode of their parents to a comfortless hovel in a forest. Fever, solitude, and a
tedious life had not broken the springs of their courage. Their features were impaired and
faded, but their looks were firm: they appeared to be at once sad and resolute. I do not doubt
that these young American women had amassed, in the education of their early years, that
inward strength which they displayed under these circumstances. The early culture of the girl
may still therefore be traced, in the United States, under the aspect of marriage: her part is
changed, her habits are different, but her character is the same.

325
See Appendix S.
 426

XI. That The Equality Of Conditions Contributes To

The Maintenance Of Good Morals In America

Some philosophers and historians have said, or have hinted, that the strictness of female
morality was increased or diminished simply by the distance of a country from the equator.
This solution of the difficulty was an easy one; and nothing was required but a globe and a
pair of compasses to settle in an instant one of the most difficult problems in the condition of
mankind. But I am not aware that this principle of the materialists is supported by facts. The
same nations have been chaste or dissolute at different periods of their history; the strictness
or the laxity of their morals depended therefore on some variable cause, not only on the
natural qualities of their country, which were invariable. I do not deny that in certain climates
the passions which are occasioned by the mutual attraction of the sexes are peculiarly intense;
but I am of opinion that this natural intensity may always be excited or restrained by the
condition of society and by political institutions.
Although the travellers who have visited North America differ on a great number of points,
they all agree in remarking that morals are far more strict there than elsewhere. It is evident
that on this point the Americans are very superior to their progenitors the English. A
superficial glance at the two nations will establish the fact. In England, as in all other
countries of Europe, public malice is constantly attacking the frailties of women.
Philosophers and statesmen are heard to deplore that morals are not sufficiently strict, and the
literary productions of the country constantly lead one to suppose so. In America all books,
novels not excepted, suppose women to be chaste, and no one thinks of relating affairs of
gallantry. No doubt this great regularity of American morals originates partly in the country,
in the race of the people, and in their religion: but all these causes, which operate elsewhere,
do not suffice to account for it; recourse must be had to some special reason. This reason
appears to me to be the principle of equality and the institutions derived from it. Equality of
conditions does not of itself engender regularity of morals, but it unquestionably facilitates
and increases it. 326
Amongst aristocratic nations birth and fortune frequently make two such different beings of
man and woman, that they can never be united to each other. Their passions draw them
together, but the condition of society, and the notions suggested by it, prevent them from
contracting a permanent and ostensible tie. The necessary consequence is a great number of
transient and clandestine connections. Nature secretly avenges herself for the constraint
imposed upon her by the laws of man. This is not so much the case when the equality of
conditions has swept away all the imaginary, or the real, barriers which separated man from
woman. No girl then believes that she cannot become the wife of the man who loves her; and
this renders all breaches of morality before marriage very uncommon: for, whatever be the
credulity of the passions, a woman will hardly be able to persuade herself that she is beloved,
when her lover is perfectly free to marry her and does not.
The same cause operates, though more indirectly, on married life. Nothing better serves to
justify an illicit passion, either to the minds of those who have conceived it or to the world
which looks on, than compulsory or accidental marriages. 327 In a country in which a woman

See Appendix T.
326

The literature of Europe sufficiently corroborates this remark. When a European author wishes to depict in a
327

work of imagination any of these great catastrophes in matrimony which so frequently occur amongst us, he
 427

is always free to exercise her power of choosing, and in which education has prepared her to
choose rightly, public opinion is inexorable to her faults. The rigor of the Americans arises in
part from this cause. They consider marriages as a covenant which is often onerous, but every
condition of which the parties are strictly bound to fulfil, because they knew all those
conditions beforehand, and were perfectly free not to have contracted them.
The very circumstances which render matrimonial fidelity more obligatory also render it
more easy. In aristocratic countries the object of marriage is rather to unite property than
persons; hence the husband is sometimes at school and the wife at nurse when they are
betrothed. It cannot be wondered at if the conjugal tie which holds the fortunes of the pair
united allows their hearts to rove; this is the natural result of the nature of the contract. When,
on the contrary, a man always chooses a wife for himself, without any external coercion or
even guidance, it is generally a conformity of tastes and opinions which brings a man and a
woman together, and this same conformity keeps and fixes them in close habits of intimacy.
Our forefathers had conceived a very strange notion on the subject of marriage: as they had
remarked that the small number of love-matches which occurred in their time almost always
turned out ill, they resolutely inferred that it was exceedingly dangerous to listen to the
dictates of the heart on the subject. Accident appeared to them to be a better guide than
choice. Yet it was not very difficult to perceive that the examples which they witnessed did in
fact prove nothing at all. For in the first place, if democratic nations leave a woman at liberty
to choose her husband, they take care to give her mind sufficient knowledge, and her will
sufficient strength, to make so important a choice: whereas the young women who, amongst
aristocratic nations, furtively elope from the authority of their parents to throw themselves of
their own accord into the arms of men whom they have had neither time to know, nor ability
to judge of, are totally without those securities. It is not surprising that they make a bad use of
their freedom of action the first time they avail themselves of it; nor that they fall into such
cruel mistakes, when, not having received a democratic education, they choose to marry in
conformity to democratic customs. But this is not all. When a man and woman are bent upon
marriage in spite of the differences of an aristocratic state of society, the difficulties to be
overcome are enormous. Having broken or relaxed the bonds of filial obedience, they have
then to emancipate themselves by a final effort from the sway of custom and the tyranny of
opinion; and when at length they have succeeded in this arduous task, they stand estranged
from their natural friends and kinsmen: the prejudice they have crossed separates them from
all, and places them in a situation which soon breaks their courage and sours their hearts. If,
then, a couple married in this manner are first unhappy and afterwards criminal, it ought not
to be attributed to the freedom of their choice, but rather to their living in a community in
which this freedom of choice is not admitted.
Moreover it should not be forgotten that the same effort which makes a man violently shake
off a prevailing error, commonly impels him beyond the bounds of reason; that, to dare to
declare war, in however just a cause, against the opinion of one’s age and country, a violent
and adventurous spirit is required, and that men of this character seldom arrive at happiness
or virtue, whatever be the path they follow. And this, it may be observed by the way, is the
reason why in the most necessary and righteous revolutions, it is so rare to meet with virtuous

takes care to bespeak the compassion of the reader by bringing before him ill-assorted or compulsory marriages.
Although habitual tolerance has long since relaxed our morals, an author could hardly succeed in interesting us
in the misfortunes of his characters, if he did not first palliate their faults. This artifice seldom fails: the daily
scenes we witness prepare us long beforehand to be indulgent. But American writers could never render these
palliations probable to their readers; their customs and laws are opposed to it; and as they despair of rendering
levity of conduct pleasing, they cease to depict it. This is one of the causes to which must be attributed the small
number of novels published in the United States.
 428

or moderate revolutionary characters. There is then no just ground for surprise if a man, who
in an age of aristocracy chooses to consult nothing but his own opinion and his own taste in
the choice of a wife, soon finds that infractions of morality and domestic wretchedness
invade his household: but when this same line of action is in the natural and ordinary course
of things, when it is sanctioned by parental authority and backed by public opinion, it cannot
be doubted that the internal peace of families will be increased by it, and conjugal fidelity
more rigidly observed.
Almost all men in democracies are engaged in public or professional life; and on the other
hand the limited extent of common incomes obliges a wife to confine herself to the house, in
order to watch in person and very closely over the details of domestic economy. All these
distinct and compulsory occupations are so many natural barriers, which, by keeping the two
sexes asunder, render the solicitations of the one less frequent and less ardent—the resistance
of the other more easy.
Not indeed that the equality of conditions can ever succeed in making men chaste, but it may
impart a less dangerous character to their breaches of morality. As no one has then either
sufficient time or opportunity to assail a virtue armed in self-defence, there will be at the
same time a great number of courtesans and a great number of virtuous women. This state of
things causes lamentable cases of individual hardship, but it does not prevent the body of
society from being strong and alert: it does not destroy family ties, or enervate the morals of
the nation. Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by laxity of morals
amongst all. In the eyes of a legislator, prostitution is less to be dreaded than intrigue.
The tumultuous and constantly harassed life which equality makes men lead, not only
distracts them from the passion of love, by denying them time to indulge in it, but it diverts
them from it by another more secret but more certain road. All men who live in democratic
ages more or less contract the ways of thinking of the manufacturing and trading classes;
their minds take a serious, deliberate, and positive turn; they are apt to relinquish the ideal, in
order to pursue some visible and proximate object, which appears to be the natural and
necessary aim of their desires. Thus the principle of equality does not destroy the
imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth. No men are less addicted to reverie
than the citizens of a democracy; and few of them are ever known to give way to those idle
and solitary meditations which commonly precede and produce the great emotions of the
heart. It is true they attach great importance to procuring for themselves that sort of deep,
regular, and quiet affection which constitutes the charm and safeguard of life, but they are not
apt to run after those violent and capricious sources of excitement which disturb and abridge
it.
I am aware that all this is only applicable in its full extent to America, and cannot at present
be extended to Europe. In the course of the last half-century, whilst laws and customs have
impelled several European nations with unexampled force towards democracy, we have not
had occasion to observe that the relations of man and woman have become more orderly or
more chaste. In some places the very reverse may be detected: some classes are more strict—
the general morality of the people appears to be more lax. I do not hesitate to make the
remark, for I am as little disposed to flatter my contemporaries as to malign them. This fact
must distress, but it ought not to surprise us. The propitious influence which a democratic
state of society may exercise upon orderly habits, is one of those tendencies which can only
be discovered after a time. If the equality of conditions is favorable to purity of morals, the
social commotion by which conditions are rendered equal is adverse to it. In the last fifty
years, during which France has been undergoing this transformation, that country has rarely
had freedom, always disturbance. Amidst this universal confusion of notions and this general
 429

stir of opinions—amidst this incoherent mixture of the just and unjust, of truth and falsehood,
of right and might—public virtue has become doubtful, and private morality wavering. But
all revolutions, whatever may have been their object or their agents, have at first produced
similar consequences; even those which have in the end drawn the bonds of morality more
tightly began by loosening them. The violations of morality which the French frequently
witness do not appear to me to have a permanent character; and this is already betokened by
some curious signs of the times.
Nothing is more wretchedly corrupt than an aristocracy which retains its wealth when it has
lost its power, and which still enjoys a vast deal of leisure after it is reduced to mere vulgar
pastimes. The energetic passions and great conceptions which animated it heretofore, leave it
then; and nothing remains to it but a host of petty consuming vices, which cling about it like
worms upon a carcass. No one denies that the French aristocracy of the last century was
extremely dissolute; whereas established habits and ancient belief still preserved some
respect for morality amongst the other classes of society. Nor will it be contested that at the
present day the remnants of that same aristocracy exhibit a certain severity of morals; whilst
laxity of morals appears to have spread amongst the middle and lower ranks. So that the same
families which were most profligate fifty years ago are nowadays the most exemplary, and
democracy seems only to have strengthened the morality of the aristocratic classes. The
French Revolution, by dividing the fortunes of the nobility, by forcing them to attend
assiduously to their affairs and to their families, by making them live under the same roof
with their children, and in short by giving a more rational and serious turn to their minds, has
imparted to them, almost without their being aware of it, a reverence for religious belief, a
love of order, of tranquil pleasures, of domestic endearments, and of comfort; whereas the
rest of the nation, which had naturally these same tastes, was carried away into excesses by
the effort which was required to overthrow the laws and political habits of the country. The
old French aristocracy has undergone the consequences of the Revolution, but it neither felt
the revolutionary passions nor shared in the anarchical excitement which produced that crisis;
it may easily be conceived that this aristocracy feels the salutary influence of the Revolution
in its manners, before those who achieve it. It may therefore be said, though at first it seems
paradoxical, that, at the present day, the most anti-democratic classes of the nation principally
exhibit the kind of morality which may reasonably be anticipated from democracy. I cannot
but think that when we shall have obtained all the effects of this democratic Revolution, after
having got rid of the tumult it has caused, the observations which are now only applicable to
the few will gradually become true of the whole community.
 430

XII. How The Americans Understand The Equality

Of The Sexes

I have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the different inequalities which originate
in society; but is this all? or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of man and
woman which has seemed, up to the present day, to be eternally based in human nature? I
believe that the social changes which bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the
master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally speaking, will raise woman and
make her more and more the equal of man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of
making myself clearly understood; for there is no subject on which the coarse and lawless
fancies of our age have taken a freer range.
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the
sexes, would make of man and woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to
both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights;
they would mix them in all things—their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may
readily be conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are
degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result
but weak men and disorderly women. It is not thus that the Americans understand that species
of democratic equality which may be established between the sexes. They admit, that as
nature has appointed such wide differences between the physical and moral constitution of
man and woman, her manifest design was to give a distinct employment to their various
faculties; and they hold that improvement does not consist in making beings so dissimilar do
pretty nearly the same things, but in getting each of them to fulfil their respective tasks in the
best possible manner. The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political
economy which governs the manufactures of our age, by carefully dividing the duties of man
from those of woman, in order that the great work of society may be the better carried on.
In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct
lines of action for the two sexes, and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two
pathways which are always different. American women never manage the outward concerns
of the family, or conduct a business, or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other
hand, ever compelled to perform the rough labor of the fields, or to make any of those
laborious exertions which demand the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor
as to form an exception to this rule. If on the one hand an American woman cannot escape
from the quiet circle of domestic employments, on the other hand she is never forced to go
beyond it. Hence it is that the women of America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of
understanding and a manly energy, generally preserve great delicacy of personal appearance
and always retain the manners of women, although they sometimes show that they have the
hearts and minds of men.
Nor have the Americans ever supposed that one consequence of democratic principles is the
subversion of marital power, of the confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold
that every association must have a head in order to accomplish its object, and that the natural
head of the conjugal association is man. They do not therefore deny him the right of directing
his partner; and they maintain, that in the smaller association of husband and wife, as well as
in the great social community, the object of democracy is to regulate and legalize the powers
which are necessary, not to subvert all power. This opinion is not peculiar to one sex, and
contested by the other: I never observed that the women of America consider conjugal
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authority as a fortunate usurpation of their rights, nor that they thought themselves degraded
by submitting to it. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that they attach a sort of pride to the
voluntary surrender of their own will, and make it their boast to bend themselves to the yoke,
not to shake it off. Such at least is the feeling expressed by the most virtuous of their sex; the
others are silent; and in the United States it is not the practice for a guilty wife to clamor for
the rights of women, whilst she is trampling on her holiest duties.
It has often been remarked that in Europe a certain degree of contempt lurks even in the
flattery which men lavish upon women: although a European frequently affects to be the
slave of woman, it may be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his equal. In the United
States men seldom compliment women, but they daily show how much they esteem them.
They constantly display an entire confidence in the understanding of a wife, and a profound
respect for her freedom; they have decided that her mind is just as fitted as that of a man to
discover the plain truth, and her heart as firm to embrace it; and they have never sought to
place her virtue, any more than his, under the shelter of prejudice, ignorance, and fear. It
would seem that in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, they
are nevertheless curtailed of some of the greatest qualities of the human species, and
considered as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment)
women ultimately look upon themselves in the same light, and almost consider it as a
privilege that they are entitled to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of
America claim no such privileges.
Again, it may be said that in our morals we have reserved strange immunities to man; so that
there is, as it were, one virtue for his use, and another for the guidance of his partner; and
that, according to the opinion of the public, the very same act may be punished alternately as
a crime or only as a fault. The Americans know not this iniquitous division of duties and
rights; amongst them the seducer is as much dishonored as his victim. It is true that the
Americans rarely lavish upon women those eager attentions which are commonly paid them
in Europe; but their conduct to women always implies that they suppose them to be virtuous
and refined; and such is the respect entertained for the moral freedom of the sex, that in the
presence of a woman the most guarded language is used, lest her ear should be offended by
an expression. In America a young unmarried woman may, alone and without fear, undertake
a long journey.
The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated almost all the penalties of criminal
law, still make rape a capital offence, and no crime is visited with more inexorable severity
by public opinion. This may be accounted for; as the Americans can conceive nothing more
precious than a woman’s honor, and nothing which ought so much to be respected as her
independence, they hold that no punishment is too severe for the man who deprives her of
them against her will. In France, where the same offence is visited with far milder penalties,
it is frequently difficult to get a verdict from a jury against the prisoner. Is this a consequence
of contempt of decency or contempt of women? I cannot but believe that it is a contempt of
one and of the other.
Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to
perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and
though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value. They do not
give to the courage of woman the same form or the same direction as to that of man; but they
never doubt her courage: and if they hold that man and his partner ought not always to
exercise their intellect and understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the
understanding of the one to be as sound as that of the other, and her intellect to be as clear.
Thus, then, whilst they have allowed the social inferiority of woman to subsist, they have
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done all they could to raise her morally and intellectually to the level of man; and in this
respect they appear to me to have excellently understood the true principle of democratic
improvement. As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that, although the women of the
United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in
some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier
position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have
spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity
and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply—to the
superiority of their women.
 433

XIII. That The Principle Of Equality Naturally

Divides The Americans Into A Number Of Small
Private Circles

It may probably be supposed that the final consequence and necessary effect of democratic
institutions is to confound together all the members of the community in private as well as in
public life, and to compel them all to live in common; but this would be to ascribe a very
coarse and oppressive form to the equality which originates in democracy. No state of society
or laws can render men so much alike, but that education, fortune, and tastes will interpose
some differences between them; and, though different men may sometimes find it their
interest to combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their pleasure. They will
therefore always tend to evade the provisions of legislation, whatever they may be; and
departing in some one respect from the circle within which they were to be bounded, they
will set up, close by the great political community, small private circles, united together by
the similitude of their conditions, habits, and manners.
In the United States the citizens have no sort of pre-eminence over each other; they owe each
other no mutual obedience or respect; they all meet for the administration of justice, for the
government of the State, and in general to treat of the affairs which concern their common
welfare; but I never heard that attempts have been made to bring them all to follow the same
diversions, or to amuse themselves promiscuously in the same places of recreation. The
Americans, who mingle so readily in their political assemblies and courts of justice, are wont
on the contrary carefully to separate into small distinct circles, in order to indulge by
themselves in the enjoyments of private life. Each of them is willing to acknowledge all his
fellow-citizens as his equals, but he will only receive a very limited number of them amongst
his friends or his guests. This appears to me to be very natural. In proportion as the circle of
public society is extended, it may be anticipated that the sphere of private intercourse will be
contracted; far from supposing that the members of modern society will ultimately live in
common, I am afraid that they may end by forming nothing but small coteries.
Amongst aristocratic nations the different classes are like vast chambers, out of which it is
impossible to get, into which it is impossible to enter. These classes have no communication
with each other, but within their pale men necessarily live in daily contact; even though they
would not naturally suit, the general conformity of a similar condition brings them nearer
together. But when neither law nor custom professes to establish frequent and habitual
relations between certain men, their intercourse originates in the accidental analogy of
opinions and tastes; hence private society is infinitely varied. In democracies, where the
members of the community never differ much from each other, and naturally stand in such
propinquity that they may all at any time be confounded in one general mass, numerous
artificial and arbitrary distinctions spring up, by means of which every man hopes to keep
himself aloof, lest he should be carried away in the crowd against his will. This can never fail
to be the case; for human institutions may be changed, but not man: whatever may be the
general endeavor of a community to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of
individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form somewhere an inequality to
their own advantage.
In aristocracies men are separated from each other by lofty stationary barriers; in democracies
they are divided by a number of small and almost invisible threads, which are constantly
 434

broken or moved from place to place. Thus, whatever may be the progress of equality, in
democratic nations a great number of small private communities will always be formed
within the general pale of political society; but none of them will bear any resemblance in its
manners to the highest class in aristocracies.
 435

XIV. Some Reflections On American Manners

Nothing seems at first sight less important than the outward form of human actions, yet there
is nothing upon which men set more store: they grow used to everything except to living in a
society which has not their own manners. The influence of the social and political state of a
country upon manners is therefore deserving of serious examination. Manners are, generally,
the product of the very basis of the character of a people, but they are also sometimes the
result of an arbitrary convention between certain men; thus they are at once natural and
acquired. When certain men perceive that they are the foremost persons in society, without
contestation and without effort—when they are constantly engaged on large objects, leaving
the more minute details to others—and when they live in the enjoyment of wealth which they
did not amass and which they do not fear to lose, it may be supposed that they feel a kind of
haughty disdain of the petty interests and practical cares of life, and that their thoughts
assume a natural greatness, which their language and their manners denote. In democratic
countries manners are generally devoid of dignity, because private life is there extremely
petty in its character; and they are frequently low, because the mind has few opportunities of
rising above the engrossing cares of domestic interests. True dignity in manners consists in
always taking one’s proper station, neither too high nor too low; and this is as much within
the reach of a peasant as of a prince. In democracies all stations appear doubtful; hence it is
that the manners of democracies, though often full of arrogance, are commonly wanting in
dignity, and, moreover, they are never either well disciplined or accomplished.
The men who live in democracies are too fluctuating for a certain number of them ever to
succeed in laying down a code of good breeding, and in forcing people to follow it. Every
man therefore behaves after his own fashion, and there is always a certain incoherence in the
manners of such times, because they are moulded upon the feelings and notions of each
individual, rather than upon an ideal model proposed for general imitation. This, however, is
much more perceptible at the time when an aristocracy has just been overthrown than after it
has long been destroyed. New political institutions and new social elements then bring to the
same places of resort, and frequently compel to live in common, men whose education and
habits are still amazingly dissimilar, and this renders the motley composition of society
peculiarly visible. The existence of a former strict code of good breeding is still remembered,
but what it contained or where it is to be found is already forgotten. Men have lost the
common law of manners, and they have not yet made up their minds to do without it; but
everyone endeavors to make to himself some sort of arbitrary and variable rule, from the
remnant of former usages; so that manners have neither the regularity and the dignity which
they often display amongst aristocratic nations, nor the simplicity and freedom which they
sometimes assume in democracies; they are at once constrained and without constraint.
This, however, is not the normal state of things. When the equality of conditions is long
established and complete, as all men entertain nearly the same notions and do nearly the same
things, they do not require to agree or to copy from one another in order to speak or act in the
same manner: their manners are constantly characterized by a number of lesser diversities,
but not by any great differences. They are never perfectly alike, because they do not copy
from the same pattern; they are never very unlike, because their social condition is the same.
At first sight a traveller would observe that the manners of all the Americans are exactly
similar; it is only upon close examination that the peculiarities in which they differ may be
detected.
 436

The English make game of the manners of the Americans; but it is singular that most of the
writers who have drawn these ludicrous delineations belonged themselves to the middle
classes in England, to whom the same delineations are exceedingly applicable: so that these
pitiless censors for the most part furnish an example of the very thing they blame in the
United States; they do not perceive that they are deriding themselves, to the great amusement
of the aristocracy of their own country.
Nothing is more prejudicial to democracy than its outward forms of behavior: many men
would willingly endure its vices, who cannot support its manners. I cannot, however, admit
that there is nothing commendable in the manners of a democratic people. Amongst
aristocratic nations, all who live within reach of the first class in society commonly strain to
be like it, which gives rise to ridiculous and insipid imitations. As a democratic people does
not possess any models of high breeding, at least it escapes the daily necessity of seeing
wretched copies of them. In democracies manners are never so refined as amongst aristocratic
nations, but on the other hand they are never so coarse. Neither the coarse oaths of the
populace, nor the elegant and choice expressions of the nobility are to be heard there: the
manners of such a people are often vulgar, but they are neither brutal nor mean. I have
already observed that in democracies no such thing as a regular code of good breeding can be
laid down; this has some inconveniences and some advantages. In aristocracies the rules of
propriety impose the same demeanor on everyone; they make all the members of the same
class appear alike, in spite of their private inclinations; they adorn and they conceal the
natural man. Amongst a democratic people manners are neither so tutored nor so uniform, but
they are frequently more sincere. They form, as it were, a light and loosely woven veil,
through which the real feelings and private opinions of each individual are easily discernible.
The form and the substance of human actions often, therefore, stand in closer relation; and if
the great picture of human life be less embellished, it is more true. Thus it may be said, in one
sense, that the effect of democracy is not exactly to give men any particular manners, but to
prevent them from having manners at all.
The feelings, the passions, the virtues, and the vices of an aristocracy may sometimes
reappear in a democracy, but not its manners; they are lost, and vanish forever, as soon as the
democratic revolution is completed. It would seem that nothing is more lasting than the
manners of an aristocratic class, for they are preserved by that class for some time after it has
lost its wealth and its power—nor so fleeting, for no sooner have they disappeared than not a
trace of them is to be found; and it is scarcely possible to say what they have been as soon as
they have ceased to be. A change in the state of society works this miracle, and a few
generations suffice to consummate it. The principal characteristics of aristocracy are handed
down by history after an aristocracy is destroyed, but the light and exquisite touches of
manners are effaced from men’s memories almost immediately after its fall. Men can no
longer conceive what these manners were when they have ceased to witness them; they are
gone, and their departure was unseen, unfelt; for in order to feel that refined enjoyment which
is derived from choice and distinguished manners, habit and education must have prepared
the heart, and the taste for them is lost almost as easily as the practice of them. Thus not only
a democratic people cannot have aristocratic manners, but they neither comprehend nor
desire them; and as they never have thought of them, it is to their minds as if such things had
never been. Too much importance should not be attached to this loss, but it may well be
regretted.
I am aware that it has not unfrequently happened that the same men have had very high-bred
manners and very low-born feelings: the interior of courts has sufficiently shown what
imposing externals may conceal the meanest hearts. But though the manners of aristocracy
did not constitute virtue, they sometimes embellish virtue itself. It was no ordinary sight to
 437

see a numerous and powerful class of men, whose every outward action seemed constantly to
be dictated by a natural elevation of thought and feeling, by delicacy and regularity of taste,
and by urbanity of manners. Those manners threw a pleasing illusory charm over human
nature; and though the picture was often a false one, it could not be viewed without a noble
satisfaction.
 438

XV. Of The Gravity Of The Americans, And Why It

Does Not Prevent Them From Often Committing
Inconsiderate Actions

Men who live in democratic countries do not value the simple, turbulent, or coarse diversions
in which the people indulge in aristocratic communities: such diversions are thought by them
to be puerile or insipid. Nor have they a greater inclination for the intellectual and refined
amusements of the aristocratic classes. They want something productive and substantial in
their pleasures; they want to mix actual fruition with their joy. In aristocratic communities the
people readily give themselves up to bursts of tumultuous and boisterous gayety, which shake
off at once the recollection of their privations: the natives of democracies are not fond of
being thus violently broken in upon, and they never lose sight of their own selves without
regret. They prefer to these frivolous delights those more serious and silent amusements
which are like business, and which do not drive business wholly from their minds. An
American, instead of going in a leisure hour to dance merrily at some place of public resort,
as the fellows of his calling continue to do throughout the greater part of Europe, shuts
himself up at home to drink. He thus enjoys two pleasures; he can go on thinking of his
business, and he can get drunk decently by his own fireside.
I thought that the English constituted the most serious nation on the face of the earth, but I
have since seen the Americans and have changed my opinion. I do not mean to say that
temperament has not a great deal to do with the character of the inhabitants of the United
States, but I think that their political institutions are a still more influential cause. I believe the
seriousness of the Americans arises partly from their pride. In democratic countries even poor
men entertain a lofty notion of their personal importance: they look upon themselves with
complacency, and are apt to suppose that others are looking at them, too. With this
disposition they watch their language and their actions with care, and do not lay themselves
open so as to betray their deficiencies; to preserve their dignity they think it necessary to
retain their gravity.
But I detect another more deep-seated and powerful cause which instinctively produces
amongst the Americans this astonishing gravity. Under a despotism communities give way at
times to bursts of vehement joy; but they are generally gloomy and moody, because they are
afraid. Under absolute monarchies tempered by the customs and manners of the country, their
spirits are often cheerful and even, because as they have some freedom and a good deal of
security, they are exempted from the most important cares of life; but all free peoples are
serious, because their minds are habitually absorbed by the contemplation of some dangerous
or difficult purpose. This is more especially the case amongst those free nations which form
democratic communities. Then there are in all classes a very large number of men constantly
occupied with the serious affairs of the government; and those whose thoughts are not
engaged in the direction of the commonwealth are wholly engrossed by the acquisition of a
private fortune. Amongst such a people a serious demeanor ceases to be peculiar to certain
men, and becomes a habit of the nation.
We are told of small democracies in the days of antiquity, in which the citizens met upon the
public places with garlands of roses, and spent almost all their time in dancing and theatrical
amusements. I do not believe in such republics any more than in that of Plato; or, if the things
we read of really happened, I do not hesitate to affirm that these supposed democracies were
 439

composed of very different elements from ours, and that they had nothing in common with
the latter except their name. But it must not be supposed that, in the midst of all their toils, the
people who live in democracies think themselves to be pitied; the contrary is remarked to be
the case. No men are fonder of their own condition. Life would have no relish for them if
they were delivered from the anxieties which harass them, and they show more attachment to
their cares than aristocratic nations to their pleasures.
I am next led to inquire how it is that these same democratic nations, which are so serious,
sometimes act in so inconsiderate a manner. The Americans, who almost always preserve a
staid demeanor and a frigid air, nevertheless frequently allow themselves to be borne away,
far beyond the bound of reason, by a sudden passion or a hasty opinion, and they sometimes
gravely commit strange absurdities. This contrast ought not to surprise us. There is one sort
of ignorance which originates in extreme publicity. In despotic States men know not how to
act, because they are told nothing; in democratic nations they often act at random, because
nothing is to be left untold. The former do not know—the latter forget; and the chief features
of each picture are lost to them in a bewilderment of details.
It is astonishing what imprudent language a public man may sometimes use in free countries,
and especially in democratic States, without being compromised; whereas in absolute
monarchies a few words dropped by accident are enough to unmask him forever, and ruin
him without hope of redemption. This is explained by what goes before. When a man speaks
in the midst of a great crowd, many of his words are not heard, or are forthwith obliterated
from the memories of those who hear them; but amidst the silence of a mute and motionless
throng the slightest whisper strikes the ear.
In democracies men are never stationary; a thousand chances waft them to and fro, and their
life is always the sport of unforeseen or (so to speak) extemporaneous circumstances. Thus
they are often obliged to do things which they have imperfectly learned, to say things they
imperfectly understand, and to devote themselves to work for which they are unprepared by
long apprenticeship. In aristocracies every man has one sole object which he unceasingly
pursues, but amongst democratic nations the existence of man is more complex; the same
mind will almost always embrace several objects at the same time, and these objects are
frequently wholly foreign to each other: as it cannot know them all well, the mind is readily
satisfied with imperfect notions of each.
When the inhabitant of democracies is not urged by his wants, he is so at least by his desires;
for of all the possessions which he sees around him, none are wholly beyond his reach. He
therefore does everything in a hurry, he is always satisfied with “pretty well,” and never
pauses more than an instant to consider what he has been doing. His curiosity is at once
insatiable and cheaply satisfied; for he cares more to know a great deal quickly than to know
anything well: he has no time and but little taste to search things to the bottom. Thus then
democratic peoples are grave, because their social and political condition constantly leads
them to engage in serious occupations; and they act inconsiderately, because they give but
little time and attention to each of these occupations. The habit of inattention must be
considered as the greatest bane of the democratic character.
 440

XVI. Why The National Vanity Of The Americans Is

More Restless And Captious Than That Of The
English

All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same
manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest
censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most
exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist
their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit,
they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy,
but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it demands everything, but is ready to
beg and to quarrel at the same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a
fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its fellow in the world.” If I applaud the freedom
which its inhabitants enjoy, he answers, “Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy
to enjoy it.” If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, “I can
imagine,” says he, “that a stranger, who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations,
is astonished at the difference.” At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he
returns to the charge, and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying.
It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even
those who are disposed to respect it. 328
Such is not the case with the English. An Englishman calmly enjoys the real or imaginary
advantages which in his opinion his country possesses. If he grants nothing to other nations,
neither does he solicit anything for his own. The censure of foreigners does not affect him,
and their praise hardly flatters him; his position with regard to the rest of the world is one of
disdainful and ignorant reserve: his pride requires no sustenance, it nourishes itself. It is
remarkable that two nations, so recently sprung from the same stock, should be so opposite to
one another in their manner of feeling and conversing.
In aristocratic countries the great possess immense privileges, upon which their pride rests,
without seeking to rely upon the lesser advantages which accrue to them. As these privileges
came to them by inheritance, they regard them in some sort as a portion of themselves, or at
least as a natural right inherent in their own persons. They therefore entertain a calm sense of
their superiority; they do not dream of vaunting privileges which everyone perceives and no
one contests, and these things are not sufficiently new to them to be made topics of
conversation. They stand unmoved in their solitary greatness, well assured that they are seen
of all the world without any effort to show themselves off, and that no one will attempt to
drive them from that position. When an aristocracy carries on the public affairs, its national
pride naturally assumes this reserved, indifferent, and haughty form, which is imitated by all
the other classes of the nation.
When, on the contrary, social conditions differ but little, the slightest privileges are of some
importance; as every man sees around himself a million of people enjoying precisely similar
or analogous advantages, his pride becomes craving and jealous, he clings to mere trifles, and
doggedly defends them. In democracies, as the conditions of life are very fluctuating, men
have almost always recently acquired the advantages which they possess; the consequence is

328
See Appendix U.
 441

that they feel extreme pleasure in exhibiting them, to show others and convince themselves
that they really enjoy them. As at any instant these same advantages may be lost, their
possessors are constantly on the alert, and make a point of showing that they still retain them.
Men living in democracies love their country just as they love themselves, and they transfer
the habits of their private vanity to their vanity as a nation. The restless and insatiable vanity
of a democratic people originates so entirely in the equality and precariousness of social
conditions, that the members of the haughtiest nobility display the very same passion in those
lesser portions of their existence in which there is anything fluctuating or contested. An
aristocratic class always differs greatly from the other classes of the nation, by the extent and
perpetuity of its privileges; but it often happens that the only differences between the
members who belong to it consist in small transient advantages, which may any day be lost or
acquired. The members of a powerful aristocracy, collected in a capital or a court, have been
known to contest with virulence those frivolous privileges which depend on the caprice of
fashion or the will of their master. These persons then displayed towards each other precisely
the same puerile jealousies which animate the men of democracies, the same eagerness to
snatch the smallest advantages which their equals contested, and the same desire to parade
ostentatiously those of which they were in possession. If national pride ever entered into the
minds of courtiers, I do not question that they would display it in the same manner as the
members of a democratic community.
 442

XVII. That The Aspect Of Society In The United

States Is At Once Excited And Monotonous

It would seem that nothing can be more adapted to stimulate and to feed curiosity than the
aspect of the United States. Fortunes, opinions, and laws are there in ceaseless variation: it is
as if immutable nature herself were mutable, such are the changes worked upon her by the
hand of man. Yet in the end the sight of this excited community becomes monotonous, and
after having watched the moving pageant for a time the spectator is tired of it. Amongst
aristocratic nations every man is pretty nearly stationary in his own sphere; but men are
astonishingly unlike each other—their passions, their notions, their habits, and their tastes are
essentially different: nothing changes, but everything differs. In democracies, on the contrary,
all men are alike and do things pretty nearly alike. It is true that they are subject to great and
frequent vicissitudes; but as the same events of good or adverse fortune are continually
recurring, the name of the actors only is changed, the piece is always the same. The aspect of
American society is animated, because men and things are always changing; but it is
monotonous, because all these changes are alike.
Men living in democratic ages have many passions, but most of their passions either end in
the love of riches or proceed from it. The cause of this is, not that their souls are narrower,
but that the importance of money is really greater at such times. When all the members of a
community are independent of or indifferent to each other, the co-operation of each of them
can only be obtained by paying for it: this infinitely multiplies the purposes to which wealth
may be applied, and increases its value. When the reverence which belonged to what is old
has vanished, birth, condition, and profession no longer distinguish men, or scarcely
distinguish them at all: hardly anything but money remains to create strongly marked
differences between them, and to raise some of them above the common level. The
distinction originating in wealth is increased by the disappearance and diminution of all other
distinctions. Amongst aristocratic nations money only reaches to a few points on the vast
circle of man’s desires—in democracies it seems to lead to all. The love of wealth is therefore
to be traced, either as a principal or an accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the
Americans do: this gives to all their passions a sort of family likeness, and soon renders the
survey of them exceedingly wearisome. This perpetual recurrence of the same passion is
monotonous; the peculiar methods by which this passion seeks its own gratification are no
less so.
In an orderly and constituted democracy like the United States, where men cannot enrich
themselves by war, by public office, or by political confiscation, the love of wealth mainly
drives them into business and manufactures. Although these pursuits often bring about great
commotions and disasters, they cannot prosper without strictly regular habits and a long
routine of petty uniform acts. The stronger the passion is, the more regular are these habits,
and the more uniform are these acts. It may be said that it is the vehemence of their desires
which makes the Americans so methodical; it perturbs their minds, but it disciplines their
lives.
The remark I here apply to America may indeed be addressed to almost all our
contemporaries. Variety is disappearing from the human race; the same ways of acting,
thinking, and feeling are to be met with all over the world. This is not only because nations
work more upon each other, and are more faithful in their mutual imitation; but as the men of
each country relinquish more and more the peculiar opinions and feelings of a caste, a
 443

profession, or a family, they simultaneously arrive at something nearer to the constitution of

man, which is everywhere the same. Thus they become more alike, even without having
imitated each other. Like travellers scattered about some large wood, which is intersected by
paths converging to one point, if all of them keep, their eyes fixed upon that point and
advance towards it, they insensibly draw nearer together—though they seek not, though they
see not, though they know not each other; and they will be surprised at length to find
themselves all collected on the same spot. All the nations which take, not any particular man,
but man himself, as the object of their researches and their imitations, are tending in the end
to a similar state of society, like these travellers converging to the central plot of the forest.
 444

XVIII. Of Honor In The United States And In

Democratic Communities

It would seem that men employ two very distinct methods in the public estimation 329 of the
actions of their fellowmen; at one time they judge them by those simple notions of right and
wrong which are diffused all over the world; at another they refer their decision to a few very
special notions which belong exclusively to some particular age and country. It often happens
that these two rules differ; they sometimes conflict: but they are never either entirely
identified or entirely annulled by one another. Honor, at the periods of its greatest power,
sways the will more than the belief of men; and even whilst they yield without hesitation and
without a murmur to its dictates, they feel notwithstanding, by a dim but mighty instinct, the
existence of a more general, more ancient, and more holy law, which they sometimes disobey
although they cease not to acknowledge it. Some actions have been held to be at the same
time virtuous and dishonorable—a refusal to fight a duel is a case in point.
I think these peculiarities may be otherwise explained than by the mere caprices of certain
individuals and nations, as has hitherto been the customary mode of reasoning on the subject.
Mankind is subject to general and lasting wants that have engendered moral laws, to the
neglect of which men have ever and in all places attached the notion of censure and shame: to
infringe them was “to do ill”—”to do well” was to conform to them. Within the bosom of this
vast association of the human race, lesser associations have been formed which are called
nations; and amidst these nations further subdivisions have assumed the names of classes or
castes. Each of these associations forms, as it were, a separate species of the human race; and
though it has no essential difference from the mass of mankind, to a certain extent it stands
apart and has certain wants peculiar to itself. To these special wants must be attributed the
modifications which affect in various degrees and in different countries the mode of
considering human actions, and the estimate which ought to be formed of them. It is the
general and permanent interest of mankind that men should not kill each other: but it may
happen to be the peculiar and temporary interest of a people or a class to justify, or even to
honor, homicide.
Honor is simply that peculiar rule, founded upon a peculiar state of society, by the application
of which a people or a class allot praise or blame. Nothing is more unproductive to the mind
than an abstract idea; I therefore hasten to call in the aid of facts and examples to illustrate
my meaning.
I select the most extraordinary kind of honor which was ever known in the world, and that
which we are best acquainted with, viz., aristocratic honor springing out of feudal society. I
shall explain it by means of the principle already laid down, and I shall explain the principle
by means of the illustration. I am not here led to inquire when and how the aristocracy of the
Middle Ages came into existence, why it was so deeply severed from the remainder of the
nation, or what founded and consolidated its power. I take its existence as an established fact,
and I am endeavoring to account for the peculiar view which it took of the greater part of
human actions. The first thing that strikes me is, that in the feudal world actions were not

329
The word “honor” is not always used in the same sense either in French or English. I. It first signifies the
dignity, glory, or reverence which a man receives from his kind; and in this sense a man is said to acquire honor.
2. Honor signifies the aggregate of those rules by the assistance of which this dignity, glory, or reverence is
obtained. Thus we say that a man has always strictly obeyed the laws of honor; or a man has violated his honor.
In this chapter the word is always used in the latter sense.
 445

always praised or blamed with reference to their intrinsic worth, but that they were
sometimes appreciated exclusively with reference to the person who was the actor or the
object of them, which is repugnant to the general conscience of mankind. Thus some of the
actions which were indifferent on the part of a man in humble life, dishonored a noble; others
changed their whole character according as the person aggrieved by them belonged or did not
belong to the aristocracy. When these different notions first arose, the nobility formed a
distinct body amidst the people, which it commanded from the inaccessible heights where it
was ensconced. To maintain this peculiar position, which constituted its strength, it not only
required political privileges, but it required a standard of right and wrong for its own especial
use. That some particular virtue or vice belonged to the nobility rather than to the humble
classes—that certain actions were guiltless when they affected the villain, which were
criminal when they touched the noble—these were often arbitrary matters; but that honor or
shame should be attached to a man’s actions according to his condition, was a result of the
internal constitution of an aristocratic community. This has been actually the case in all the
countries which have had an aristocracy; as long as a trace of the principle remains, these
peculiarities will still exist; to debauch a woman of color scarcely injures the reputation of an
American—to marry her dishonors him.
In some cases feudal honor enjoined revenge, and stigmatized the forgiveness of insults; in
others it imperiously commanded men to conquer their own passions, and imposed
forgetfulness of self. It did not make humanity or kindness its law, but it extolled generosity;
it set more store on liberality than on benevolence; it allowed men to enrich themselves by
gambling or by war, but not by labor; it preferred great crimes to small earnings; cupidity was
less distasteful to it than avarice; violence it often sanctioned, but cunning and treachery it
invariably reprobated as contemptible. These fantastical notions did not proceed exclusively
from the caprices of those who entertained them. A class which has succeeded in placing
itself at the head of and above all others, and which makes perpetual exertions to maintain
this lofty position, must especially honor those virtues which are conspicuous for their dignity
and splendor, and which may be easily combined with pride and the love of power. Such men
would not hesitate to invert the natural order of the conscience in order to give those virtues
precedence before all others. It may even be conceived that some of the more bold and
brilliant vices would readily be set above the quiet, unpretending virtues. The very existence
of such a class in society renders these things unavoidable.
The nobles of the Middle Ages placed military courage foremost amongst virtues, and in lieu
of many of them. This was again a peculiar opinion which arose necessarily from the
peculiarity of the state of society. Feudal aristocracy existed by war and for war; its power
had been founded by arms, and by arms that power was maintained; it therefore required
nothing more than military courage, and that quality was naturally exalted above all others;
whatever denoted it, even at the expense of reason and humanity, was therefore approved and
frequently enjoined by the manners of the time. Such was the main principle; the caprice of
man was only to be traced in minuter details. That a man should regard a tap on the cheek as
an unbearable insult, and should be obliged to kill in single combat the person who struck
him thus lightly, is an arbitrary rule; but that a noble could not tranquilly receive an insult,
and was dishonored if he allowed himself to take a blow without fighting, were direct
consequences of the fundamental principles and the wants of military aristocracy.
Thus it was true to a certain extent to assert that the laws of honor were capricious; but these
caprices of honor were always confined within certain necessary limits. The peculiar rule,
which was called honor by our forefathers, is so far from being an arbitrary law in my eyes,
that I would readily engage to ascribe its most incoherent and fantastical injunctions to a
small number of fixed and invariable wants inherent in feudal society.
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If I were to trace the notion of feudal honor into the domain of politics, I should not find it
more difficult to explain its dictates. The state of society and the political institutions of the
Middle Ages were such, that the supreme power of the nation never governed the community
directly. That power did not exist in the eyes of the people: every man looked up to a certain
individual whom he was bound to obey; by that intermediate personage he was connected
with all the others. Thus in feudal society the whole system of the commonwealth rested upon
the sentiment of fidelity to the person of the lord: to destroy that sentiment was to open the
sluices of anarchy. Fidelity to a political superior was, moreover, a sentiment of which all the
members of the aristocracy had constant opportunities of estimating the importance; for every
one of them was a vassal as well as a lord, and had to command as well as to obey. To remain
faithful to the lord, to sacrifice one’s self for him if called upon, to share his good or evil
fortunes, to stand by him in his undertakings whatever they might be—such were the first
injunctions of feudal honor in relation to the political institutions of those times. The
treachery of a vassal was branded with extraordinary severity by public opinion, and a name
of peculiar infamy was invented for the offence which was called “felony.”
On the contrary, few traces are to be found in the Middle Ages of the passion which
constituted the life of the nations of antiquity—I mean patriotism; the word itself is not of
very ancient date in the language. 330 Feudal institutions concealed the country at large from
men’s sight, and rendered the love of it less necessary. The nation was forgotten in the
passions which attached men to persons. Hence it was no part of the strict law of feudal honor
to remain faithful to one’s country. Not indeed that the love of their country did not exist in
the hearts of our forefathers; but it constituted a dim and feeble instinct, which has grown
more clear and strong in proportion as aristocratic classes have been abolished, and the
supreme power of the nation centralized. This may be clearly seen from the contrary
judgments which European nations have passed upon the various events of their histories,
according to the generations by which such judgments have been formed. The circumstance
which most dishonored the Constable de Bourbon in the eyes of his contemporaries was that
he bore arms against his king: that which most dishonors him in our eyes, is that he made war
against his country; we brand him as deeply as our forefathers did, but for different reasons.
I have chosen the honor of feudal times by way of illustration of my meaning, because its
characteristics are more distinctly marked and more familiar to us than those of any other
period; but I might have taken an example elsewhere, and I should have reached the same
conclusion by a different road. Although we are less perfectly acquainted with the Romans
than with our own ancestors, yet we know that certain peculiar notions of glory and disgrace
obtained amongst them, which were not solely derived from the general principles of right
and wrong. Many human actions were judged differently, according as they affected a Roman
citizen or a stranger, a freeman or a slave; certain vices were blazoned abroad, certain virtues
were extolled above all others. “In that age,” says Plutarch in the life of Coriolanus, “martial
prowess was more honored and prized in Rome than all the other virtues, insomuch that it
was called virtus, the name of virtue itself, by applying the name of the kind to this particular
species; so that virtue in Latin was as much as to say valor.” Can anyone fail to recognize the
peculiar want of that singular community which was formed for the conquest of the world?
Any nation would furnish us with similar grounds of observation; for, as I have already
remarked, whenever men collect together as a distinct community, the notion of honor
instantly grows up amongst them; that is to say, a system of opinions peculiar to themselves
as to what is blamable or commendable; and these peculiar rules always originate in the
special habits and special interests of the community. This is applicable to a certain extent to

330
Even the word “patrie” was not used by the French writers until the sixteenth century.
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democratic communities as well as to others, as we shall now proceed to prove by the

example of the Americans. 331 Some loose notions of the old aristocratic honor of Europe are
still to be found scattered amongst the opinions of the Americans; but these traditional
opinions are few in number, they have but little root in the country, and but little power. They
are like a religion which has still some temples left standing, though men have ceased to
believe in it. But amidst these half-obliterated notions of exotic honor, some new opinions
have sprung up, which constitute what may be termed in our days American honor. I have
shown how the Americans are constantly driven to engage in commerce and industry. Their
origin, their social condition, their political institutions, and even the spot they inhabit, urge
them irresistibly in this direction. Their present condition is then that of an almost exclusively
manufacturing and commercial association, placed in the midst of a new and boundless
country, which their principal object is to explore for purposes of profit. This is the
characteristic which most peculiarly distinguishes the American people from all others at the
present time. All those quiet virtues which tend to give a regular movement to the
community, and to encourage business, will therefore be held in peculiar honor by that
people, and to neglect those virtues will be to incur public contempt. All the more turbulent
virtues, which often dazzle, but more frequently disturb society, will on the contrary occupy a
subordinate rank in the estimation of this same people: they may be neglected without
forfeiting the esteem of the community—to acquire them would perhaps be to run a risk of
losing it.
The Americans make a no less arbitrary classification of men’s vices. There are certain
propensities which appear censurable to the general reason and the universal conscience of
mankind, but which happen to agree with the peculiar and temporary wants of the American
community: these propensities are lightly reproved, sometimes even encouraged; for instance,
the love of wealth and the secondary propensities connected with it may be more particularly
cited. To clear, to till, and to transform the vast uninhabited continent which is his domain,
the American requires the daily support of an energetic passion; that passion can only be the
love of wealth; the passion for wealth is therefore not reprobated in America, and provided it
does not go beyond the bounds assigned to it for public security, it is held in honor. The
American lauds as a noble and praiseworthy ambition what our own forefathers in the Middle
Ages stigmatized as servile cupidity, just as he treats as a blind and barbarous frenzy that
ardor of conquest and martial temper which bore them to battle. In the United States fortunes
are lost and regained without difficulty; the country is boundless, and its resources
inexhaustible. The people have all the wants and cravings of a growing creature; and
whatever be their efforts, they are always surrounded by more than they can appropriate. It is
not the ruin of a few individuals which may be soon repaired, but the inactivity and sloth of
the community at large which would be fatal to such a people. Boldness of enterprise is the
foremost cause of its rapid progress, its strength, and its greatness. Commercial business is
there like a vast lottery, by which a small number of men continually lose, but the State is
always a gainer; such a people ought therefore to encourage and do honor to boldness in
commercial speculations. But any bold speculation risks the fortune of the speculator and of
all those who put their trust in him. The Americans, who make a virtue of commercial
temerity, have no right in any case to brand with disgrace those who practise it. Hence arises
the strange indulgence which is shown to bankrupts in the United States; their honor does not
suffer by such an accident. In this respect the Americans differ, not only from the nations of

331
I speak here of the Americans inhabiting those States where slavery does not exist; they alone can be said to
present a complete picture of democratic society.
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Europe, but from all the commercial nations of our time, and accordingly they resemble none
of them in their position or their wants.
In America all those vices which tend to impair the purity of morals, and to destroy the
conjugal tie, are treated with a degree of severity which is unknown in the rest of the world.
At first sight this seems strangely at variance with the tolerance shown there on other
subjects, and one is surprised to meet with a morality so relaxed and so austere amongst the
selfsame people. But these things are less incoherent than they seem to be. Public opinion in
the United States very gently represses that love of wealth which promotes the commercial
greatness and the prosperity of the nation, and it especially condemns that laxity of morals
which diverts the human mind from the pursuit of well-being, and disturbs the internal order
of domestic life which is so necessary to success in business. To earn the esteem of their
countrymen, the Americans are therefore constrained to adapt themselves to orderly habits—
and it may be said in this sense that they make it a matter of honor to live chastely.
On one point American honor accords with the notions of honor acknowledged in Europe; it
places courage as the highest virtue, and treats it as the greatest of the moral necessities of
man; but the notion of courage itself assumes a different aspect. In the United States martial
valor is but little prized; the courage which is best known and most esteemed is that which
emboldens men to brave the dangers of the ocean, in order to arrive earlier in port—to
support the privations of the wilderness without complaint, and solitude more cruel than
privations—the courage which renders them almost insensible to the loss of a fortune
laboriously acquired, and instantly prompts to fresh exertions to make another. Courage of
this kind is peculiarly necessary to the maintenance and prosperity of the American
communities, and it is held by them in peculiar honor and estimation; to betray a want of it is
to incur certain disgrace.
I have yet another characteristic point which may serve to place the idea of this chapter in
stronger relief. In a democratic society like that of the United States, where fortunes are
scanty and insecure, everybody works, and work opens a way to everything: this has changed
the point of honor quite round, and has turned it against idleness. I have sometimes met in
America with young men of wealth, personally disinclined to all laborious exertion, but who
had been compelled to embrace a profession. Their disposition and their fortune allowed
them to remain without employment; public opinion forbade it, too imperiously to be
disobeyed. In the European countries, on the contrary, where aristocracy is still struggling
with the flood which overwhelms it, I have often seen men, constantly spurred on by their
wants and desires, remain in idleness, in order not to lose the esteem of their equals; and I
have known them submit to ennui and privations rather than to work. No one can fail to
perceive that these opposite obligations are two different rules of conduct, both nevertheless
originating in the notion of honor.
What our forefathers designated as honor absolutely was in reality only one of its forms; they
gave a generic name to what was only a species. Honor therefore is to be found in democratic
as well as in aristocratic ages, but it will not be difficult to show that it assumes a different
aspect in the former. Not only are its injunctions different, but we shall shortly see that they
are less numerous, less precise, and that its dictates are less rigorously obeyed. The position
of a caste is always much more peculiar than that of a people. Nothing is so much out of the
way of the world as a small community invariably composed of the same families (as was for
instance the aristocracy of the Middle Ages), whose object is to concentrate and to retain,
exclusively and hereditarily, education, wealth, and power amongst its own members. But the
more out of the way the position of a community happens to be, the more numerous are its
special wants, and the more extensive are its notions of honor corresponding to those wants.
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The rules of honor will therefore always be less numerous amongst a people not divided into
castes than amongst any other. If ever any nations are constituted in which it may even be
difficult to find any peculiar classes of society, the notion of honor will be confined to a small
number of precepts, which will be more and more in accordance with the moral laws adopted
by the mass of mankind. Thus the laws of honor will be less peculiar and less multifarious
amongst a democratic people than in an aristocracy. They will also be more obscure; and this
is a necessary consequence of what goes before; for as the distinguishing marks of honor are
less numerous and less peculiar, it must often be difficult to distinguish them. To this, other
reasons may be added. Amongst the aristocratic nations of the Middle Ages, generation
succeeded generation in vain; each family was like a never-dying, ever-stationary man, and
the state of opinions was hardly more changeable than that of conditions. Everyone then had
always the same objects before his eyes, which he contemplated from the same point; his
eyes gradually detected the smallest details, and his discernment could not fail to become in
the end clear and accurate. Thus not only had the men of feudal times very extraordinary
opinions in matters of honor, but each of those opinions was present to their minds under a
clear and precise form.
This can never be the case in America, where all men are in constant motion; and where
society, transformed daily by its own operations, changes its opinions together with its wants.
In such a country men have glimpses of the rules of honor, but they have seldom time to fix
attention upon them.
But even if society were motionless, it would still be difficult to determine the meaning
which ought to be attached to the word “honor.” In the Middle Ages, as each class had its
own honor, the same opinion was never received at the same time by a large number of men;
and this rendered it possible to give it a determined and accurate form, which was the more
easy, as all those by whom it was received, having a perfectly identical and most peculiar
position, were naturally disposed to agree upon the points of a law which was made for
themselves alone. Thus the code of honor became a complete and detailed system, in which
everything was anticipated and provided for beforehand, and a fixed and always palpable
standard was applied to human actions. Amongst a democratic nation, like the Americans, in
which ranks are identified, and the whole of society forms one single mass, composed of
elements which are all analogous though not entirely similar, it is impossible ever to agree
beforehand on what shall or shall not be allowed by the laws of honor. Amongst that people,
indeed, some national wants do exist which give rise to opinions common to the whole nation
on points of honor; but these opinions never occur at the same time, in the same manner, or
with the same intensity to the minds of the whole community; the law of honor exists, but it
has no organs to promulgate it.
The confusion is far greater still in a democratic country like France, where the different
classes of which the former fabric of society was composed, being brought together but not
yet mingled, import day by day into each other’s circles various and sometimes conflicting
notions of honor—where every man, at his own will and pleasure, forsakes one portion of his
forefathers’ creed, and retains another; so that, amidst so many arbitrary measures, no
common rule can ever be established, and it is almost impossible to predict which actions will
be held in honor and which will be thought disgraceful. Such times are wretched, but they are
of short duration.
As honor, amongst democratic nations, is imperfectly defined, its influence is of course less
powerful; for it is difficult to apply with certainty and firmness a law which is not distinctly
known. Public opinion, the natural and supreme interpreter of the laws of honor, not clearly
discerning to which side censure or approval ought to lean, can only pronounce a hesitating
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judgment. Sometimes the opinion of the public may contradict itself; more frequently it does
not act, and lets things pass.
The weakness of the sense of honor in democracies also arises from several other causes. In
aristocratic countries, the same notions of honor are always entertained by only a few
persons, always limited in number, often separated from the rest of their fellow-citizens.
Honor is easily mingled and identified in their minds with the idea of all that distinguishes
their own position; it appears to them as the chief characteristic of their own rank; they apply
its different rules with all the warmth of personal interest, and they feel (if I may use the
expression) a passion for complying with its dictates. This truth is extremely obvious in the
old black-letter lawbooks on the subject of “trial by battel.” The nobles, in their disputes,
were bound to use the lance and sword; whereas the villains used only sticks amongst
themselves, “inasmuch as,” to use the words of the old books, “villains have no honor.” This
did not mean, as it may be imagined at the present day, that these people were contemptible;
but simply that their actions were not to be judged by the same rules which were applied to
the actions of the aristocracy.
It is surprising, at first sight, that when the sense of honor is most predominant, its injunctions
are usually most strange; so that the further it is removed from common reason the better it is
obeyed; whence it has sometimes been inferred that the laws of honor were strengthened by
their own extravagance. The two things indeed originate from the same source, but the one is
not derived from the other. Honor becomes fantastical in proportion to the peculiarity of the
wants which it denotes, and the paucity of the men by whom those wants are felt; and it is
because it denotes wants of this kind that its influence is great. Thus the notion of honor is
not the stronger for being fantastical, but it is fantastical and strong from the selfsame cause.
Further, amongst aristocratic nations each rank is different, but all ranks are fixed; every man
occupies a place in his own sphere which he cannot relinquish, and he lives there amidst
other men who are bound by the same ties. Amongst these nations no man can either hope or
fear to escape being seen; no man is placed so low but that he has a stage of his own, and
none can avoid censure or applause by his obscurity. In democratic States on the contrary,
where all the members of the community are mingled in the same crowd and in constant
agitation, public opinion has no hold on men; they disappear at every instant, and elude its
power. Consequently the dictates of honor will be there less imperious and less stringent; for
honor acts solely for the public eye—differing in this respect from mere virtue, which lives
upon itself contented with its own approval.
If the reader has distinctly apprehended all that goes before, he will understand that there is a
close and necessary relation between the inequality of social conditions and what has here
been styled honor—a relation which, if I am not mistaken, had not before been clearly
pointed out. I shall therefore make one more attempt to illustrate it satisfactorily. Suppose a
nation stands apart from the rest of mankind: independently of certain general wants inherent
in the human race, it will also have wants and interests peculiar to itself: certain opinions of
censure or approbation forthwith arise in the community, which are peculiar to itself, and
which are styled honor by the members of that community. Now suppose that in this same
nation a caste arises, which, in its turn, stands apart from all the other classes, and contracts
certain peculiar wants, which give rise in their turn to special opinions. The honor of this
caste, composed of a medley of the peculiar notions of the nation, and the still more peculiar
notions of the caste, will be as remote as it is possible to conceive from the simple and
general opinions of men.
Having reached this extreme point of the argument, I now return. When ranks are
commingled and privileges abolished, the men of whom a nation is composed being once
 451

more equal and alike, their interests and wants become identical, and all the peculiar notions
which each caste styled honor successively disappear: the notion of honor no longer proceeds
from any other source than the wants peculiar to the nation at large, and it denotes the
individual character of that nation to the world. Lastly, if it be allowable to suppose that all
the races of mankind should be commingled, and that all the peoples of earth should
ultimately come to have the same interests, the same wants, undistinguished from each other
by any characteristic peculiarities, no conventional value whatever would then be attached to
men’s actions; they would all be regarded by all in the same light; the general necessities of
mankind, revealed by conscience to every man, would become the common standard. The
simple and general notions of right and wrong only would then be recognized in the world, to
which, by a natural and necessary tie, the idea of censure or approbation would be attached.
Thus, to comprise all my meaning in a single proposition, the dissimilarities and inequalities
of men gave rise to the notion of honor; that notion is weakened in proportion as these
differences are obliterated, and with them it would disappear.
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XIX. Why So Many Ambitious Men And So Little

Lofty Ambition Are To Be Found In The United
States

The first thing which strikes a traveller in the United States is the innumerable multitude of
those who seek to throw off their original condition; and the second is the rarity of lofty
ambition to be observed in the midst of the universally ambitious stir of society. No
Americans are devoid of a yearning desire to rise; but hardly any appear to entertain hopes of
great magnitude, or to drive at very lofty aims. All are constantly seeking to acquire property,
power, and reputation—few contemplate these things upon a great scale; and this is the more
surprising, as nothing is to be discerned in the manners or laws of America to limit desire, or
to prevent it from spreading its impulses in every direction. It seems difficult to attribute this
singular state of things to the equality of social conditions; for at the instant when that same
equality was established in France, the flight of ambition became unbounded. Nevertheless, I
think that the principal cause which may be assigned to this fact is to be found in the social
condition and democratic manners of the Americans.
All revolutions enlarge the ambition of men: this proposition is more peculiarly true of those
revolutions which overthrow an aristocracy. When the former barriers which kept back the
multitude from fame and power are suddenly thrown down, a violent and universal rise takes
place towards that eminence so long coveted and at length to be enjoyed. In this first burst of
triumph nothing seems impossible to anyone: not only are desires boundless, but the power of
satisfying them seems almost boundless, too. Amidst the general and sudden renewal of laws
and customs, in this vast confusion of all men and all ordinances, the various members of the
community rise and sink again with excessive rapidity; and power passes so quickly from
hand to hand that none need despair of catching it in turn. It must be recollected, moreover,
that the people who destroy an aristocracy have lived under its laws; they have witnessed its
splendor, and they have unconsciously imbibed the feelings and notions which it entertained.
Thus at the moment when an aristocracy is dissolved, its spirit still pervades the mass of the
community, and its tendencies are retained long after it has been defeated. Ambition is
therefore always extremely great as long as a democratic revolution lasts, and it will remain
so for some time after the revolution is consummated. The reminiscence of the extraordinary
events which men have witnessed is not obliterated from their memory in a day. The passions
which a revolution has roused do not disappear at its close. A sense of instability remains in
the midst of re-established order: a notion of easy success survives the strange vicissitudes
which gave it birth; desires still remain extremely enlarged, when the means of satisfying
them are diminished day by day. The taste for large fortunes subsists, though large fortunes
are rare: and on every side we trace the ravages of inordinate and hapless ambition kindled in
hearts which they consume in secret and in vain.
At length, however, the last vestiges of the struggle are effaced; the remains of aristocracy
completely disappear; the great events by which its fall was attended are forgotten; peace
succeeds to war, and the sway of order is restored in the new realm; desires are again adapted
to the means by which they may be fulfilled; the wants, the opinions, and the feelings of men
cohere once more; the level of the community is permanently determined, and democratic
society established. A democratic nation, arrived at this permanent and regular state of things,
will present a very different spectacle from that which we have just described; and we may
readily conclude that, if ambition becomes great whilst the conditions of society are growing
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equal, it loses that quality when they have grown so. As wealth is subdivided and knowledge
diffused, no one is entirely destitute of education or of property; the privileges and
disqualifications of caste being abolished, and men having shattered the bonds which held
them fixed, the notion of advancement suggests itself to every mind, the desire to rise swells
in every heart, and all men want to mount above their station: ambition is the universal
feeling.
But if the equality of conditions gives some resources to all the members of the community, it
also prevents any of them from having resources of great extent, which necessarily
circumscribes their desires within somewhat narrow limits. Thus amongst democratic nations
ambition is ardent and continual, but its aim is not habitually lofty; and life is generally spent
in eagerly coveting small objects which are within reach. What chiefly diverts the men of
democracies from lofty ambition is not the scantiness of their fortunes, but the vehemence of
the exertions they daily make to improve them. They strain their faculties to the utmost to
achieve paltry results, and this cannot fail speedily to limit their discernment and to
circumscribe their powers. They might be much poorer and still be greater. The small number
of opulent citizens who are to be found amidst a democracy do not constitute an exception to
this rule. A man who raises himself by degrees to wealth and power, contracts, in the course
of this protracted labor, habits of prudence and restraint which he cannot afterwards shake
off. A man cannot enlarge his mind as he would his house. The same observation is
applicable to the sons of such a man; they are born, it is true, in a lofty position, but their
parents were humble; they have grown up amidst feelings and notions which they cannot
afterwards easily get rid of; and it may be presumed that they will inherit the propensities of
their father as well as his wealth. It may happen, on the contrary, that the poorest scion of a
powerful aristocracy may display vast ambition, because the traditional opinions of his race
and the general spirit of his order still buoy him up for some time above his fortune. Another
thing which prevents the men of democratic periods from easily indulging in the pursuit of
lofty objects, is the lapse of time which they foresee must take place before they can be ready
to approach them. “It is a great advantage,” says Pascal, “to be a man of quality, since it
brings one man as forward at eighteen or twenty as another man would be at fifty, which is a
clear gain of thirty years.” Those thirty years are commonly wanting to the ambitious
characters of democracies. The principle of equality, which allows every man to arrive at
everything, prevents all men from rapid advancement.
In a democratic society, as well as elsewhere, there are only a certain number of great
fortunes to be made; and as the paths which lead to them are indiscriminately open to all, the
progress of all must necessarily be slackened. As the candidates appear to be nearly alike, and
as it is difficult to make a selection without infringing the principle of equality, which is the
supreme law of democratic societies, the first idea which suggests itself is to make them all
advance at the same rate and submit to the same probation. Thus in proportion as men
become more alike, and the principle of equality is more peaceably and deeply infused into
the institutions and manners of the country, the rules of advancement become more
inflexible, advancement itself slower, the difficulty of arriving quickly at a certain height far
greater. From hatred of privilege and from the embarrassment of choosing, all men are at last
constrained, whatever may be their standard, to pass the same ordeal; all are indiscriminately
subjected to a multitude of petty preliminary exercises, in which their youth is wasted and
their imagination quenched, so that they despair of ever fully attaining what is held out to
them; and when at length they are in a condition to perform any extraordinary acts, the taste
for such things has forsaken them.
In China, where the equality of conditions is exceedingly great and very ancient, no man
passes from one public office to another without undergoing a probationary trial. This
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probation occurs afresh at every stage of his career; and the notion is now so rooted in the
manners of the people that I remember to have read a Chinese novel, in which the hero, after
numberless crosses, succeeds at length in touching the heart of his mistress by taking honors.
A lofty ambition breathes with difficulty in such an atmosphere.
The remark I apply to politics extends to everything; equality everywhere produces the same
effects; where the laws of a country do not regulate and retard the advancement of men by
positive enactment, competition attains the same end. In a well-established democratic
community great and rapid elevation is therefore rare; it forms an exception to the common
rule; and it is the singularity of such occurrences that makes men forget how rarely they
happen. Men living in democracies ultimately discover these things; they find out at last that
the laws of their country open a boundless field of action before them, but that no one can
hope to hasten across it. Between them and the final object of their desires, they perceive a
multitude of small intermediate impediments, which must be slowly surmounted: this
prospect wearies and discourages their ambition at once. They therefore give up hopes so
doubtful and remote, to search nearer to themselves for less lofty and more easy enjoyments.
Their horizon is not bounded by the laws but narrowed by themselves.
I have remarked that lofty ambitions are more rare in the ages of democracy than in times of
aristocracy: I may add that when, in spite of these natural obstacles, they do spring into
existence, their character is different. In aristocracies the career of ambition is often wide, but
its boundaries are determined. In democracies ambition commonly ranges in a narrower field,
but if once it gets beyond that, hardly any limits can be assigned to it. As men are
individually weak—as they live asunder, and in constant motion—as precedents are of little
authority and laws but of short duration, resistance to novelty is languid, and the fabric of
society never appears perfectly erect or firmly consolidated. So that, when once an ambitious
man has the power in his grasp, there is nothing he may noted are; and when it is gone from
him, he meditates the overthrow of the State to regain it. This gives to great political ambition
a character of revolutionary violence, which it seldom exhibits to an equal degree in
aristocratic communities. The common aspect of democratic nations will present a great
number of small and very rational objects of ambition, from amongst which a few ill-
controlled desires of a larger growth will at intervals break out: but no such a thing as
ambition conceived and contrived on a vast scale is to be met with there.
I have shown elsewhere by what secret influence the principle of equality makes the passion
for physical gratifications and the exclusive love of the present predominate in the human
heart: these different propensities mingle with the sentiment of ambition, and tinge it, as it
were, with their hues. I believe that ambitious men in democracies are less engrossed than
any others with the interests and the judgment of posterity; the present moment alone engages
and absorbs them. They are more apt to complete a number of undertakings with rapidity than
to raise lasting monuments of their achievements; and they care much more for success than
for fame. What they most ask of men is obedience—what they most covet is empire. Their
manners have in almost all cases remained below the height of their station; the consequence
is that they frequently carry very low tastes into their extraordinary fortunes, and that they
seem to have acquired the supreme power only to minister to their coarse or paltry pleasures.
I think that in our time it is very necessary to cleanse, to regulate, and to adapt the feeling of
ambition, but that it would be extremely dangerous to seek to impoverish and to repress it
over-much. We should attempt to lay down certain extreme limits, which it should never be
allowed to outstep; but its range within those established limits should not be too much
checked. I confess that I apprehend much less for democratic society from the boldness than
from the mediocrity of desires. What appears to me most to be dreaded is that, in the midst of
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the small incessant occupations of private life, ambition should lose its vigor and its
greatness—that the passions of man should abate, but at the same time be lowered, so that the
march of society should every day become more tranquil and less aspiring. I think then that
the leaders of modern society would be wrong to seek to lull the community by a state of too
uniform and too peaceful happiness; and that it is well to expose it from time to time to
matters of difficulty and danger, in order to raise ambition and to give it a field of action.
Moralists are constantly complaining that the ruling vice of the present time is pride. This is
true in one sense, for indeed no one thinks that he is not better than his neighbor, or consents
to obey his superior: but it is extremely false in another; for the same man who cannot endure
subordination or equality, has so contemptible an opinion of himself that he thinks he is only
born to indulge in vulgar pleasures. He willingly takes up with low desires, without daring to
embark in lofty enterprises, of which he scarcely dreams. Thus, far from thinking that
humility ought to be preached to our contemporaries, I would have endeavors made to give
them a more enlarged idea of themselves and of their kind. Humility is unwholesome to
them; what they most want is, in my opinion, pride. I would willingly exchange several of
our small virtues for this one vice.
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XX. The Trade Of Place-Hunting In Certain

Democratic Countries

In the United States as soon as a man has acquired some education and pecuniary resources,
he either endeavors to get rich by commerce or industry, or he buys land in the bush and turns
pioneer. All that he asks of the State is not to be disturbed in his toil, and to be secure of his
earnings. Amongst the greater part of European nations, when a man begins to feel his
strength and to extend his desires, the first thing that occurs to him is to get some public
employment. These opposite effects, originating in the same cause, deserve our passing
notice.
When public employments are few in number, ill-paid and precarious, whilst the different
lines of business are numerous and lucrative, it is to business, and not to official duties, that
the new and eager desires engendered by the principle of equality turn from every side. But
if, whilst the ranks of society are becoming more equal, the education of the people remains
incomplete, or their spirit the reverse of bold—if commerce and industry, checked in their
growth, afford only slow and arduous means of making a fortune—the various members of
the community, despairing of ameliorating their own condition, rush to the head of the State
and demand its assistance. To relieve their own necessities at the cost of the public treasury,
appears to them to be the easiest and most open, if not the only, way they have to rise above a
condition which no longer contents them; place-hunting becomes the most generally followed
of all trades. This must especially be the case, in those great centralized monarchies in which
the number of paid offices is immense, and the tenure of them tolerably secure, so that no one
despairs of obtaining a place, and of enjoying it as undisturbedly as a hereditary fortune.
I shall not remark that the universal and inordinate desire for place is a great social evil; that
it destroys the spirit of independence in the citizen, and diffuses a venal and servile humor
throughout the frame of society; that it stifles the manlier virtues: nor shall I be at the pains to
demonstrate that this kind of traffic only creates an unproductive activity, which agitates the
country without adding to its resources: all these things are obvious. But I would observe,
that a government which encourages this tendency risks its own tranquillity, and places its
very existence in great jeopardy. I am aware that at a time like our own, when the love and
respect which formerly clung to authority are seen gradually to decline, it may appear
necessary to those in power to lay a closer hold on every man by his own interest, and it may
seem convenient to use his own passions to keep him in order and in silence; but this cannot
be so long, and what may appear to be a source of strength for a certain time will assuredly
become in the end a great cause of embarrassment and weakness.
Amongst democratic nations, as well as elsewhere, the number of official appointments has
in the end some limits; but amongst those nations, the number of aspirants is unlimited; it
perpetually increases, with a gradual and irresistible rise in proportion as social conditions
become more equal, and is only checked by the limits of the population. Thus, when public
employments afford the only outlet for ambition, the government necessarily meets with a
permanent opposition at last; for it is tasked to satisfy with limited means unlimited desires. It
is very certain that of all people in the world the most difficult to restrain and to manage are a
people of solicitants. Whatever endeavors are made by rulers, such a people can never be
contented; and it is always to be apprehended that they will ultimately overturn the
constitution of the country, and change the aspect of the State, for the sole purpose of making
a clearance of places. The sovereigns of the present age, who strive to fix upon themselves
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alone all those novel desires which are aroused by equality, and to satisfy them, will repent in
the end, if I am not mistaken, that they ever embarked in this policy: they will one day
discover that they have hazarded their own power, by making it so necessary; and that the
more safe and honest course would have been to teach their subjects the art of providing for
themselves. 332

332
As a matter of fact, more recent experience has shown that place-hunting is quite as intense in the United
States as in any country in Europe. It is regarded by the Americans themselves as one of the great evils of their
social condition, and it powerfully affects their political institutions. But the American who seeks a place seeks
not so much a means of subsistence as the distinction which office and public employment confer. In the
absence of any true aristocracy, the public service creates a spurious one, which is as much an object of
ambition as the distinctions of rank in aristocratic countries.—Translator’s Note.
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XXI. Why Great Revolutions Will Become More

Rare

A people which has existed for centuries under a system of castes and classes can only arrive
at a democratic state of society by passing through a long series of more or less critical
transformations, accomplished by violent efforts, and after numerous vicissitudes; in the
course of which, property, opinions, and power are rapidly transferred from one hand to
another. Even after this great revolution is consummated, the revolutionary habits engendered
by it may long be traced, and it will be followed by deep commotion. As all this takes place
at the very time at which social conditions are becoming more equal, it is inferred that some
concealed relation and secret tie exist between the principle of equality itself and revolution,
insomuch that the one cannot exist without giving rise to the other.
On this point reasoning may seem to lead to the same result as experience. Amongst a people
whose ranks are nearly equal, no ostensible bond connects men together, or keeps them
settled in their station. None of them have either a permanent right or power to command—
none are forced by their condition to obey; but every man, finding himself possessed of some
education and some resources, may choose his won path and proceed apart from all his
fellow-men. The same causes which make the members of the community independent of
each other, continually impel them to new and restless desires, and constantly spur them
onwards. It therefore seems natural that, in a democratic community, men, things, and
opinions should be forever changing their form and place, and that democratic ages should be
times of rapid and incessant transformation.
But is this really the case? does the equality of social conditions habitually and permanently
lead men to revolution? does that state of society contain some perturbing principle which
prevents the community from ever subsiding into calm, and disposes the citizens to alter
incessantly their laws, their principles, and their manners? I do not believe it; and as the
subject is important, I beg for the reader’s close attention. Almost all the revolutions which
have changed the aspect of nations have been made to consolidate or to destroy social
inequality. Remove the secondary causes which have produced the great convulsions of the
world, and you will almost always find the principle of inequality at the bottom. Either the
poor have attempted to plunder the rich, or the rich to enslave the poor. If then a state of
society can ever be founded in which every man shall have something to keep, and little to
take from others, much will have been done for the peace of the world. I am aware that
amongst a great democratic people there will always be some members of the community in
great poverty, and others in great opulence; but the poor, instead of forming the immense
majority of the nation, as is always the case in aristocratic communities, are comparatively
few in number, and the laws do not bind them together by the ties of irremediable and
hereditary penury. The wealthy, on their side, are scarce and powerless; they have no
privileges which attract public observation; even their wealth, as it is no longer incorporated
and bound up with the soil, is impalpable, and as it were invisible. As there is no longer a
race of poor men, so there is no longer a race of rich men; the latter spring up daily from the
multitude, and relapse into it again. Hence they do not form a distinct class, which may be
easily marked out and plundered; and, moreover, as they are connected with the mass of their
fellow-citizens by a thousand secret ties, the people cannot assail them without inflicting an
injury upon itself. Between these two extremes of democratic communities stand an
innumerable multitude of men almost alike, who, without being exactly either rich or poor,
are possessed of sufficient property to desire the maintenance of order, yet not enough to
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excite envy. Such men are the natural enemies of violent commotions: their stillness keeps all
beneath them and above them still, and secures the balance of the fabric of society. Not
indeed that even these men are contented with what they have gotten, or that they feel a
natural abhorrence for a revolution in which they might share the spoil without sharing the
calamity; on the contrary, they desire, with unexampled ardor, to get rich, but the difficulty is
to know from whom riches can be taken. The same state of society which constantly prompts
desires, restrains these desires within necessary limits: it gives men more liberty of changing
and less interest in change.
Not only are the men of democracies not naturally desirous of revolutions, but they are afraid
of them. All revolutions more or less threaten the tenure of property: but most of those who
live in democratic countries are possessed of property—not only are they possessed of
property, but they live in the condition of men who set the greatest store upon their property.
If we attentively consider each of the classes of which society is composed, it is easy to see
that the passions engendered by property are keenest and most tenacious amongst the middle
classes. The poor often care but little for what they possess, because they suffer much more
from the want of what they have not, than they enjoy the little they have. The rich have many
other passions besides that of riches to satisfy; and, besides, the long and arduous enjoyment
of a great fortune sometimes makes them in the end insensible to its charms. But the men
who have a competency, alike removed from opulence and from penury, attach an enormous
value to their possessions. As they are still almost within the reach of poverty, they see its
privations near at hand, and dread them; between poverty and themselves there is nothing but
a scanty fortune, upon which they immediately fix their apprehensions and their hopes. Every
day increases the interest they take in it, by the constant cares which it occasions; and they
are the more attached to it by their continual exertions to increase the amount. The notion of
surrendering the smallest part of it is insupportable to them, and they consider its total loss as
the worst of misfortunes. Now these eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute
the class which is constantly increased by the equality of conditions. Hence, in democratic
communities, the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a
revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one.
I have shown in another part of this work that the equality of conditions naturally urges men
to embark in commercial and industrial pursuits, and that it tends to increase and to distribute
real property: I have also pointed out the means by which it inspires every man with an eager
and constant desire to increase his welfare. Nothing is more opposed to revolutionary
passions than these things. It may happen that the final result of a revolution is favorable to
commerce and manufactures; but its first consequence will almost always be the ruin of
manufactures and mercantile men, because it must always change at once the general
principles of consumption, and temporarily upset the existing proportion between supply and
demand. I know of nothing more opposite to revolutionary manners than commercial
manners. Commerce is naturally adverse to all the violent passions; it loves to temporize,
takes delight in compromise, and studiously avoids irritation. It is patient, insinuating,
flexible, and never has recourse to extreme measures until obliged by the most absolute
necessity. Commerce renders men independent of each other, gives them a lofty notion of
their personal importance, leads them to seek to conduct their own affairs, and teaches how to
conduct them well; it therefore prepares men for freedom, but preserves them from
revolutions. In a revolution the owners of personal property have more to fear than all others;
for on the one hand their property is often easy to seize, and on the other it may totally
disappear at any moment—a subject of alarm to which the owners of real property are less
exposed, since, although they may lose the income of their estates, they may hope to preserve
the land itself through the greatest vicissitudes. Hence the former are much more alarmed at
 460

the symptoms of revolutionary commotion than the latter. Thus nations are less disposed to
make revolutions in proportion as personal property is augmented and distributed amongst
them, and as the number of those possessing it increases. Moreover, whatever profession men
may embrace, and whatever species of property they may possess, one characteristic is
common to them all. No one is fully contented with his present fortune—all are perpetually
striving in a thousand ways to improve it. Consider any one of them at any period of his life,
and he will be found engaged with some new project for the purpose of increasing what he
has; talk not to him of the interests and the rights of mankind: this small domestic concern
absorbs for the time all his thoughts, and inclines him to defer political excitement to some
other season. This not only prevents men from making revolutions, but deters men from
desiring them. Violent political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted all
their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being. The ardor which they display in small matters
calms their zeal for momentous undertakings.
From time to time indeed, enterprising and ambitious men will arise in democratic
communities, whose unbounded aspirations cannot be contented by following the beaten
track. Such men like revolutions and hail their approach; but they have great difficulty in
bringing them about, unless unwonted events come to their assistance. No man can struggle
with advantage against the spirit of his age and country; and, however powerful he may be
supposed to be, he will find it difficult to make his contemporaries share in feelings and
opinions which are repugnant to t all their feelings and desires.
It is a mistake to believe that, when once the equality of conditions has become the old and
uncontested state of society, and has imparted its characteristics to the manners of a nation,
men will easily allow themselves to be thrust into perilous risks by an imprudent leader or a
bold innovator. Not indeed that they will resist him openly, by well-contrived schemes, or
even by a premeditated plan of resistance. They will not struggle energetically against him,
sometimes they will even applaud him—but they do not follow him. To his vehemence they
secretly oppose their inertia; to his revolutionary tendencies their conservative interests; their
homely tastes to his adventurous passions; their good sense to the flights of his genius; to his
poetry their prose. With immense exertion he raises them for an instant, but they speedily
escape from him, and fall back, as it were, by their own weight. He strains himself to rouse
the indifferent and distracted multitude, and finds at last that he is reduced to impotence, not
because he is conquered, but because he is alone.
I do not assert that men living in democratic communities are naturally stationary; I think, on
the contrary, that a perpetual stir prevails in the bosom of those societies, and that rest is
unknown there; but I think that men bestir themselves within certain limits beyond which
they hardly ever go. They are forever varying, altering, and restoring secondary matters; but
they carefully abstain from touching what is fundamental. They love change, but they dread
revolutions. Although the Americans are constantly modifying or abrogating some of their
laws, they by no means display revolutionary passions. It may be easily seen, from the
promptitude with which they check and calm themselves when public excitement begins to
grow alarming, and at the very moment when passions seem most roused, that they dread a
revolution as the worst of misfortunes, and that every one of them is inwardly resolved to
make great sacrifices to avoid such a catastrophe. In no country in the world is the love of
property more active and more anxious than in the United States; nowhere does the majority
display less inclination for those principles which threaten to alter, in whatever manner, the
laws of property. I have often remarked that theories which are of a revolutionary nature,
since they cannot be put in practice without a complete and sometimes a sudden change in the
state of property and persons, are much less favorably viewed in the United States than in the
great monarchical countries of Europe: if some men profess them, the bulk of the people
 461

reject them with instinctive abhorrence. I do not hesitate to say that most of the maxims
commonly called democratic in France would be proscribed by the democracy of the United
States. This may easily be understood: in America men have the opinions and passions of
democracy, in Europe we have still the passions and opinions of revolution. If ever America
undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on
the soil of the United States—that is to say, they will owe their origin, not to the equality, but
to the inequality, of conditions.
When social conditions are equal, every man is apt to live apart, centred in himself and
forgetful of the public. If the rulers of democratic nations were either to neglect to correct this
fatal tendency, or to encourage it from a notion that it weans men from political passions and
thus wards off revolutions, they might eventually produce the evil they seek to avoid, and a
time might come when the inordinate passions of a few men, aided by the unintelligent
selfishness or the pusillanimity of the greater number, would ultimately compel society to
pass through strange vicissitudes. In democratic communities revolutions are seldom desired
except by a minority; but a minority may sometimes effect them. I do not assert that
democratic nations are secure from revolutions; I merely say that the state of society in those
nations does not lead to revolutions, but rather wards them off. A democratic people left to
itself will not easily embark in great hazards; it is only led to revolutions unawares; it may
sometimes undergo them, but it does not make them; and I will add that, when such a people
has been allowed to acquire sufficient knowledge and experience, it will not suffer them to be
made. I am well aware that it this respect public institutions may themselves do much; they
may encourage or repress the tendencies which originate in the state of society. I therefore do
not maintain, I repeat, that a people is secure from revolutions simply because conditions are
equal in the community; but I think that, whatever the institutions of such a people may be,
great revolutions will always be far less violent and less frequent than is supposed; and I can
easily discern a state of polity, which, when combined with the principle of equality, would
render society more stationary than it has ever been in our western apart of the world.
The observations I have here made on events may also be applied in part to opinions. Two
things are surprising in the United States—the mutability of the greater part of human
actions, and the singular stability of certain principles. Men are in constant motion; the mind
of man appears almost unmoved. When once an opinion has spread over the country and
struck root there, it would seem that no power on earth is strong enough to eradicate it. In the
United States, general principles in religion, philosophy, morality, and even politics, do not
vary, or at least are only modified by a hidden and often an imperceptible process: even the
grossest prejudices are obliterated with incredible slowness, amidst the continual friction of
men and things. I hear it said that it is in the nature and the habits of democracies to be
constantly changing their opinions and feelings. This may be true of small democratic
nations, like those of the ancient world, in which the whole community could be assembled in
a public place and then excited at will by an orator. But I saw nothing of the kind amongst the
great democratic people which dwells upon the opposite shores of the Atlantic Ocean. What
struck me in the United States was the difficulty in shaking the majority in an opinion once
conceived, or of drawing it off from a leader once adopted. Neither speaking nor writing can
accomplish it; nothing but experience will avail, and even experience must be repeated. This
is surprising at first sight, but a more attentive investigation explains the fact. I do not think
that it is as easy as is supposed to uproot the prejudices of a democratic people—to change its
belief—to supersede principles once established, by new principles in religion, politics, and
morals—in a word, to make great and frequent changes in men’s minds. Not that the human
mind is there at rest—it is in constant agitation; but it is engaged in infinitely varying the
consequences of known principles, and in seeking for new consequences, rather than in
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seeking for new principles. Its motion is one of rapid circumvolution, rather than of
straightforward impulse by rapid and direct effort; it extends its orbit by small continual and
hasty movements, but it does not suddenly alter its position.
Men who are equal in rights, in education, in fortune, or, to comprise all in one word, in their
social condition, have necessarily wants, habits, and tastes which are hardly dissimilar. As
they look at objects under the same aspect, their minds naturally tend to analogous
conclusions; and, though each of them may deviate from his contemporaries and from
opinions of his own, they will involuntarily and unconsciously concur in a certain number of
received opinions. The more attentively I consider the effects of equality upon the mind, the
more am I persuaded that the intellectual anarchy which we witness about us is not, as many
men suppose, the natural state of democratic nations. I think it is rather to be regarded as an
accident peculiar to their youth, and that it only breaks out at that period of transition when
men have already snapped the former ties which bound them together, but are still amazingly
different in origin, education, and manners; so that, having retained opinions, propensities
and tastes of great diversity, nothing any longer prevents men from avowing them openly.
The leading opinions of men become similar in proportion as their conditions assimilate; such
appears to me to be the general and permanent law—the rest is casual and transient.
I believe that it will rarely happen to any man amongst a democratic community, suddenly to
frame a system of notions very remote from that which his contemporaries have adopted; and
if some such innovator appeared, I apprehend that he would have great difficulty in finding
listeners, still more in finding believers. When the conditions of men are almost equal, they
do not easily allow themselves to be persuaded by each other. As they all live in close
intercourse, as they have learned the same things together, and as they lead the same life, they
are not naturally disposed to take one of themselves for a guide, and to follow him implicitly.
Men seldom take the opinion of their equal, or of a man like themselves, upon trust. Not only
is confidence in the superior attainments of certain individuals weakened amongst democratic
nations, as I have elsewhere remarked, but the general notion of the intellectual superiority
which any man whatsoever may acquire in relation to the rest of the community is soon
overshadowed. As men grow more like each other, the doctrine of the equality of the intellect
gradually infuses itself into their opinions; and it becomes more difficult for any innovator to
acquire or to exert much influence over the minds of a people. In such communities sudden
intellectual revolutions will therefore be rare; for, if we read aright the history of the world,
we shall find that great and rapid changes in human opinions have been produced far less by
the force of reasoning than by the authority of a name. Observe, too, that as the men who live
in democratic societies are not connected with each other by any tie, each of them must be
convinced individually; whilst in aristocratic society it is enough to convince a few—the rest
follow. If Luther had lived in an age of equality, and had not had princes and potentates for
his audience, he would perhaps have found it more difficult to change the aspect of Europe.
Not indeed that the men of democracies are naturally strongly persuaded of the certainty of
their opinions, or are unwavering in belief; they frequently entertain doubts which no one, in
their eyes, can remove. It sometimes happens at such times that the human mind would
willingly change its position; but as nothing urges or guides it forwards, it oscillates to and
fro without progressive motion. 333

333
If I inquire what state of society is most favorable to the great revolutions of the mind, I find that it occurs
somewhere between the complete equality of the whole community and the absolute separation of ranks. Under
a system of castes generations succeed each other without altering men’s positions; some have nothing more,
others nothing better, to hope for. The imagination slumbers amidst this universal silence and stillness, and the
very idea of change fades from the human mind. When ranks have been abolished and social conditions are
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Even when the reliance of a democratic people has been won, it is still no easy matter to gain
their attention. It is extremely difficult to obtain a hearing from men living in democracies,
unless it be to speak to them of themselves. They do not attend to the things said to them,
because they are always fully engrossed with the things they are doing. For indeed few men
are idle in democratic nations; life is passed in the midst of noise and excitement, and men
are so engaged in acting that little remains to them for thinking. I would especially remark
that they are not only employed, but that they are passionately devoted to their employments.
They are always in action, and each of their actions absorbs their faculties: the zeal which
they display in business puts out the enthusiasm they might otherwise entertain for idea. I
think that it is extremely difficult to excite the enthusiasm of a democratic people for any
theory which has not a palpable, direct, and immediate connection with the daily occupations
of life: therefore they will not easily forsake their old opinions; for it is enthusiasm which
flings the minds of men out of the beaten track, and effects the great revolutions of the
intellect as well as the great revolutions of the political world. Thus democratic nations have
neither time nor taste to go in search of novel opinions. Even when those they possess
become doubtful, they still retain them, because it would take too much time and inquiry to
change them—they retain them, not as certain, but as established.
There are yet other and more cogent reasons which prevent any great change from being
easily effected in the principles of a democratic people. I have already adverted to them at the
commencement of this part of my work. If the influence of individuals is weak and hardly
perceptible amongst such a people, the power exercised by the mass upon the mind of each
individual is extremely great—I have already shown for what reasons. I would now observe
that it is wrong to suppose that this depends solely upon the form of government, and that the
majority would lose its intellectual supremacy if it were to lose its political power. In
aristocracies men have often much greatness and strength of their own: when they find
themselves at variance with the greater number of their fellow-countrymen, they withdraw to
their own circle, where they support and console themselves. Such is not the case in a
democratic country; there public favor seems as necessary as the air we breathe, and to live at
variance with the multitude is, as it were, not to live. The multitude requires no laws to coerce
those who think not like itself: public disapprobation is enough; a sense of their loneliness
and impotence overtakes them and drives them to despair.
Whenever social conditions are equal, public opinion presses with enormous weight upon the
mind of each individual; it surrounds, directs, and oppresses him; and this arises from the
very constitution of society, much more than from its political laws. As men grow more alike,
each man feels himself weaker in regard to all the rest; as he discerns nothing by which he is
considerably raised above them, or distinguished from them, he mistrusts himself as soon as
they assail him. Not only does he mistrust his strength, but he even doubts of his right; and he
is very near acknowledging that he is in the wrong, when the greater number of his
countrymen assert that he is so. The majority do not need to constrain him—they convince
him. In whatever way then the powers of a democratic community may be organized and
balanced, it will always be extremely difficult to believe what the bulk of the people reject, or
to profess what they condemn.

almost equalized, all men are in ceaseless excitement, but each of them stands alone, independent and weak.
This latter state of things is excessively different from the former one; yet it has one point of analogy—great
revolutions of the human mind seldom occur in it. But between these two extremes of the history of nations is an
intermediate period—a period as glorious as it is agitated—when the conditions of men are not sufficiently
settled for the mind to be lulled in torpor, when they are sufficiently unequal for men to exercise a vast power on
the minds of one another, and when some few may modify the convictions of all. It is at such times that great
reformers start up, and new opinions suddenly change the face of the world.
 464

This circumstance is extraordinarily favorable to the stability of opinions. When an opinion

has taken root amongst a democratic people, and established itself in the minds of the bulk of
the community, it afterwards subsists by itself and is maintained without effort, because no
one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false, ultimately receive it as the general
impression; and those who still dispute it in their hearts, conceal their dissent; they are careful
not to engage in a dangerous and useless conflict. It is true, that when the majority of a
democratic people change their opinions, they may suddenly and arbitrarily effect strange
revolutions in men’s minds; but their opinions do not change without much difficulty, and it
is almost as difficult to show that they are changed.
Time, events, or the unaided individual action of the mind, will sometimes undermine or
destroy an opinion, without any outward sign of the change. It has not been openly assailed,
no conspiracy has been formed to make war on it, but its followers one by one noiselessly
secede—day by day a few of them abandon it, until last it is only professed by a minority. In
this state it will still continue to prevail. As its enemies remain mute, or only interchange their
thoughts by stealth, they are themselves unaware for a long period that a great revolution has
actually been effected; and in this state of uncertainly they take no steps—they observe each
other and are silent. The majority have ceased to believe what they believed before; but they
still affect to believe, and this empty phantom of public opinion in strong enough to chill
innovators, and to keep them silent and at respectful distance. We live at a time which has
witnessed the most rapid changes of opinion in the minds of men; nevertheless it may be that
the leading opinions of society will ere long be more settled than they have been for several
centuries in our history: that time is not yet come, but it may perhaps be approaching. As I
examine more closely the natural wants and tendencies of democratic nations, I grow
persuaded that if ever social equality is generally and permanently established in the world,
great intellectual and political revolutions will become more difficult and less frequent than is
supposed. Because the men of democracies appear always excited, uncertain, eager,
changeable in their wills and in their positions, it is imagined that they are suddenly to
abrogate their laws, to adopt new opinions, and to assume new manners. But if the principle
of equality predisposes men to change, it also suggests to them certain interests and tastes
which cannot be satisfied without a settled order of things; equality urges them on, but at the
same time it holds them back; it spurs them, but fastens them to earth;—it kindles their
desires, but limits their powers. This, however, is not perceived at first; the passions which
tend to sever the citizens of a democracy are obvious enough; but the hidden force which
restrains and unites them is not discernible at a glance.
Amidst the ruins which surround me, shall I dare to say that revolutions are not what I most
fear coming generations? If men continue to shut themselves more closely within the narrow
circle of domestic interests and to live upon that kind of excitement, it is to be apprehended
that they may ultimately become inaccessible to those great and powerful public emotions
which perturb nations—but which enlarge them and recruit them. When property becomes so
fluctuating, and the love of property so restless and so ardent, I cannot but fear that men may
arrive at such a state as to regard every new theory as a peril, every innovation as an irksome
toil, every social improvement as a stepping-stone to revolution, and so refuse to move
altogether for fear of being moved too far. I dread, and I confess it, lest they should at last so
entirely give way to a cowardly love of present enjoyment, as to lose sight of the interests of
their future selves and of those of their descendants; and to prefer to glide along the easy
current of life, rather than to make, when it is necessary, a strong and sudden effort to a
higher purpose. It is believed by some that modern society will be ever changing its aspect;
for myself, I fear that it will ultimately be too invariably fixed in the same institutions, the
same prejudices, the same manners, so that mankind will be stopped and circumscribed; that
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the mind will swing backwards and forwards forever, without begetting fresh ideas; that man
will waste his strength in bootless and solitary trifling; and, though in continual motion, that
humanity will cease to advance.
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XXII. Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally

Desirous Of Peace, And Democratic Armies Of War

The same interests, the same fears, the same passions which deter democratic nations from
revolutions, deter them also from war; the spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution
are weakened at the same time and by the same causes. The ever-increasing numbers of men
of property—lovers of peace, the growth of personal wealth which war so rapidly consumes,
the mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart, those tendencies to pity which are
engendered by the equality of conditions, that coolness of understanding which renders men
comparatively insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms—all these causes
concur to quench the military spirit. I think it may be admitted as a general and constant rule,
that, amongst civilized nations, the warlike passions will become more rare and less intense
in proportion as social conditions shall be more equal. War is nevertheless an occurrence to
which all nations are subject, democratic nations as well as others. Whatever taste they may
have for peace, they must hold themselves in readiness to repel aggression, or in other words
they must have an army.
Fortune, which has conferred so many peculiar benefits upon the inhabitants of the United
States, has placed them in the midst of a wilderness, where they have, so to speak, no
neighbors: a few thousand soldiers are sufficient for their wants; but this is peculiar to
America, not to democracy. The equality of conditions, and the manners as well as the
institutions resulting from it, do not exempt a democratic people from the necessity of
standing armies, and their armies always exercise a powerful influence over their fate. It is
therefore of singular importance to inquire what are the natural propensities of the men of
whom these armies are composed.
Amongst aristocratic nations, especially amongst those in which birth is the only source of
rank, the same inequality exists in the army as in the nation; the officer is noble, the soldier is
a serf; the one is naturally called upon to command, the other to obey. In aristocratic armies,
the private soldier’s ambition is therefore circumscribed within very narrow limits. Nor has
the ambition of the officer an unlimited range. An aristocratic body not only forms a part of
the scale of ranks in the nation, but it contains a scale of ranks within itself: the members of
whom it is composed are placed one above another, in a particular and unvarying manner.
Thus one man is born to the command of a regiment, another to that of a company; when
once they have reached the utmost object of their hopes, they stop of their own accord, and
remain contented with their lot. There is, besides, a strong cause, which, in aristocracies,
weakens the officer’s desire of promotion. Amongst aristocratic nations, an officer,
independently of his rank in the army, also occupies an elevated rank in society; the former is
almost always in his eyes only an appendage to the latter. A nobleman who embraces the
profession of arms follows it less from motives of ambition than from a sense of the duties
imposed on him by his birth. He enters the army in order to find an honorable employment
for the idle years of his youth, and to be able to bring back to his home and his peers some
honorable recollections of military life; but his principal object is not to obtain by that
profession either property, distinction, or power, for he possesses these advantages in his own
right, and enjoys them without leaving his home.
In democratic armies all the soldiers may become officers, which makes the desire of
promotion general, and immeasurably extends the bounds of military ambition. The officer,
on his part, sees nothing which naturally and necessarily stops him at one grade more than at
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another; and each grade has immense importance in his eyes, because his rank in society
almost always depends on his rank in the army. Amongst democratic nations it often happens
that an officer has no property but his pay, and no distinction but that of military honors:
consequently as often as his duties change, his fortune changes, and he becomes, as it were, a
new man. What was only an appendage to his position in aristocratic armies, has thus become
the main point, the basis of his whole condition. Under the old French monarchy officers
were always called by their titles of nobility; they are now always called by the title of their
military rank. This little change in the forms of language suffices to show that a great
revolution has taken place in the constitution of society and in that of the army. In democratic
armies the desire of advancement is almost universal: it is ardent, tenacious, perpetual; it is
strengthened by all other desires, and only extinguished with life itself. But it is easy to see,
that of all armies in the world, those in which advancement must be slowest in time of peace
are the armies of democratic countries. As the number of commissions is naturally limited,
whilst the number of competitors is almost unlimited, and as the strict law of equality is over
all alike, none can make rapid progress—many can make no progress at all. Thus the desire
of advancement is greater, and the opportunities of advancement fewer, there than elsewhere.
All the ambitious spirits of a democratic army are consequently ardently desirous of war,
because war makes vacancies, and warrants the violation of that law of seniority which is the
sole privilege natural to democracy.
We thus arrive at this singular consequence, that of all armies those most ardently desirous of
war are democratic armies, and of all nations those most fond of peace are democratic
nations: and, what makes these facts still more extraordinary, is that these contrary effects are
produced at the same time by the principle of equality.
All the members of the community, being alike, constantly harbor the wish, and discover the
possibility, of changing their condition and improving their welfare: this makes them fond of
peace, which is favorable to industry, and allows every man to pursue his own little
undertakings to their completion. On the other hand, this same equality makes soldiers dream
of fields of battle, by increasing the value of military honors in the eyes of those who follow
the profession of arms, and by rendering those honors accessible to all. In either case the
inquietude of the heart is the same, the taste for enjoyment as insatiable, the ambition of
success as great—the means of gratifying it are alone different.
These opposite tendencies of the nation and the army expose democratic communities to
great dangers. When a military spirit forsakes a people, the profession of arms immediately
ceases to be held in honor, and military men fall to the lowest rank of the public servants:
they are little esteemed, and no longer understood. The reverse of what takes place in
aristocratic ages then occurs; the men who enter the army are no longer those of the highest,
but of the lowest rank. Military ambition is only indulged in when no other is possible. Hence
arises a circle of cause and consequence from which it is difficult to escape: the best part of
the nation shuns the military profession because that profession is not honored, and the
profession is not honored because the best part of the nation has ceased to follow it. It is then
no matter of surprise that democratic armies are often restless, ill-tempered, and dissatisfied
with their lot, although their physical condition is commonly far better, and their discipline
less strict than in other countries. The soldier feels that he occupies an inferior position, and
his wounded pride either stimulates his taste for hostilities which would render his services
necessary, or gives him a turn for revolutions, during which he may hope to win by force of
arms the political influence and personal importance now denied him. The composition of
democratic armies makes this last-mentioned danger much to be feared. In democratic
communities almost every man has some property to preserve; but democratic armies are
generally led by men without property, most of whom have little to lose in civil broils. The
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bulk of the nation is naturally much more afraid of revolutions than in the ages of aristocracy,
but the leaders of the army much less so.
Moreover, as amongst democratic nations (to repeat what I have just remarked) the
wealthiest, the best educated, and the most able men seldom adopt the military profession, the
army, taken collectively, eventually forms a small nation by itself, where the mind is less
enlarged, and habits are more rude than in the nation at large. Now, this small uncivilized
nation has arms in its possession, and alone knows how to use them: for, indeed, the pacific
temper of the community increases the danger to which a democratic people is exposed from
the military and turbulent spirit of the army. Nothing is so dangerous as an army amidst an
unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for quiet continually puts its
constitution at the mercy of the soldiery. It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that
if democratic nations are naturally prone to peace from their interests and their propensities,
they are constantly drawn to war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which
are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always to be dreaded amongst
democratic nations. These perils must be reckoned amongst the most formidable which beset
their future fate, and the attention of statesmen should be sedulously applied to find a remedy
for the evil.
When a nation perceives that it is inwardly affected by the restless ambition of its army, the
first thought which occurs is to give this inconvenient ambition an object by going to war. I
speak no ill of war: war almost always enlarges the mind of a people, and raises their
character. In some cases it is the only check to the excessive growth of certain propensities
which naturally spring out of the equality of conditions, and it must be considered as a
necessary corrective to certain inveterate diseases to which democratic communities are
liable. War has great advantages, but we must not flatter ourselves that it can diminish the
danger I have just pointed out. That peril is only suspended by it, to return more fiercely
when the war is over; for armies are much more impatient of peace after having tasted
military exploits. War could only be a remedy for a people which should always be athirst for
military glory. I foresee that all the military rulers who may rise up in great democratic
nations, will find it easier to conquer with their armies, than to make their armies live at
peace after conquest. There are two things which a democratic people will always find very
difficult—to begin a war, and to end it.
Again, if war has some peculiar advantages for democratic nations, on the other hand it
exposes them to certain dangers which aristocracies have no cause to dread to an equal
extent. I shall only point out two of these. Although war gratifies the army, it embarrasses
and often exasperates that countless multitude of men whose minor passions every day
require peace in order to be satisfied. Thus there is some risk of its causing, under another
form, the disturbance it is intended to prevent. No protracted war can fail to endanger the
freedom of a democratic country. Not indeed that after every victory it is to be apprehended
that the victorious generals will possess themselves by force of the supreme power, after the
manner of Sylla and Caesar: the danger is of another kind. War does not always give over
democratic communities to military government, but it must invariably and immeasurably
increase the powers of civil government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the
direction of all men and the management of all things in the hands of the administration. If it
lead not to despotism by sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their habits.
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is
the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it. This is the first axiom of the science.
One remedy, which appears to be obvious when the ambition of soldiers and officers
becomes the subject of alarm, is to augment the number of commissions to be distributed by
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increasing the army. This affords temporary relief, but it plunges the country into deeper
difficulties at some future period. To increase the army may produce a lasting effect in an
aristocratic community, because military ambition is there confined to one class of men, and
the ambition of each individual stops, as it were, at a certain limit; so that it may be possible
to satisfy all who feel its influence. But nothing is gained by increasing the army amongst a
democratic people, because the number of aspirants always rises in exactly the same ratio as
the army itself. Those whose claims have been satisfied by the creation of new commissions
are instantly succeeded by a fresh multitude beyond all power of satisfaction; and even those
who were but now satisfied soon begin to crave more advancement; for the same excitement
prevails in the ranks of the army as in the civil classes of democratic society, and what men
want is not to reach a certain grade, but to have constant promotion. Though these wants may
not be very vast, they are perpetually recurring. Thus a democratic nation, by augmenting its
army, only allays for a time the ambition of the military profession, which soon becomes
even more formidable, because the number of those who feel it is increased. I am of opinion
that a restless and turbulent spirit is an evil inherent in the very constitution of democratic
armies, and beyond hope of cure. The legislators of democracies must not expect to devise
any military organization capable by its influence of calming and restraining the military
profession: their efforts would exhaust their powers, before the object is attained.
The remedy for the vices of the army is not to be found in the army itself, but in the country.
Democratic nations are naturally afraid of disturbance and of despotism; the object is to turn
these natural instincts into well-digested, deliberate, and lasting tastes. When men have at last
learned to make a peaceful and profitable use of freedom, and have felt its blessings—when
they have conceived a manly love of order, and have freely submitted themselves to
discipline—these same men, if they follow the profession of arms, bring into it,
unconsciously and almost against their will, these same habits and manners. The general
spirit of the nation being infused into the spirit peculiar to the army, tempers the opinions and
desires engendered by military life, or represses them by the mighty force of public opinion.
Teach but the citizens to be educated, orderly, firm, and free, the soldiers will be disciplined
and obedient. Any law which, in repressing the turbulent spirit of the army, should tend to
diminish the spirit of freedom in the nation, and to overshadow the notion of law and right,
would defeat its object: it would do much more to favor, than to defeat, the establishment of
military tyranny.
After all, and in spite of all precautions, a large army amidst a democratic people will always
be a source of great danger; the most effectual means of diminishing that danger would be to
reduce the army, but this is a remedy which all nations have it not in their power to use.
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XXIII. Which Is The Most Warlike And Most

Revolutionary Class In Democratic Armies?

It is a part of the essence of a democratic army to be very numerous in proportion to the

people to which it belongs, as I shall hereafter show. On the other hand, men living in
democratic times seldom choose a military life. Democratic nations are therefore soon led to
give up the system of voluntary recruiting for that of compulsory enlistment. The necessity of
their social condition compels them to resort to the latter means, and it may easily be foreseen
that they will all eventually adopt it. When military service is compulsory, the burden is
indiscriminately and equally borne by the whole community. This is another necessary
consequence of the social condition of these nations, and of their notions. The government
may do almost whatever it pleases, provided it appeals to the whole community at once: it is
the unequal distribution of the weight, not the weight itself, which commonly occasions
resistance. But as military service is common to all the citizens, the evident consequence is
that each of them remains but for a few years on active duty. Thus it is in the nature of things
that the soldier in democracies only passes through the army, whilst among most aristocratic
nations the military profession is one which the soldier adopts, or which is imposed upon
him, for life.
This has important consequences. Amongst the soldiers of a democratic army, some acquire a
taste for military life, but the majority, being enlisted against their will, and ever ready to go
back to their homes, do not consider themselves as seriously engaged in the military
profession, and are always thinking of quitting it. Such men do not contract the wants, and
only half partake in the passions, which that mode of life engenders. They adapt themselves
to their military duties, but their minds are still attached to the interests and the duties which
engaged them in civil life. They do not therefore imbibe the spirit of the army—or rather,
they infuse the spirit of the community at large into the army, and retain it there. Amongst
democratic nations the private soldiers remain most like civilians: upon them the habits of the
nation have the firmest hold, and public opinion most influence. It is by the instrumentality of
the private soldiers especially that it may be possible to infuse into a democratic army the
love of freedom and the respect of rights, if these principles have once been successfully
inculcated on the people at large. The reverse happens amongst aristocratic nations, where the
soldiery have eventually nothing in common with their fellow-citizens, and where they live
amongst them as strangers, and often as enemies. In aristocratic armies the officers are the
conservative element, because the officers alone have retained a strict connection with civil
society, and never forego their purpose of resuming their place in it sooner or later: in
democratic armies the private soldiers stand in this position, and from the same cause.
It often happens, on the contrary, that in these same democratic armies the officers contract
tastes and wants wholly distinct from those of the nation—a fact which may be thus
accounted for. Amongst democratic nations, the man who becomes an officer severs all the
ties which bound him to civil life; he leaves it forever; he has no interest to resume it. His true
country is the army, since he owes all he has to the rank he has attained in it; he therefore
follows the fortunes of the army, rises or sinks with it, and henceforward directs all his hopes
to that quarter only. As the wants of an officer are distinct from those of the country, he may
perhaps ardently desire war, or labor to bring about a revolution at the very moment when the
nation is most desirous of stability and peace. There are, nevertheless, some causes which
allay this restless and warlike spirit. Though ambition is universal and continual amongst
democratic nations, we have seen that it is seldom great. A man who, being born in the lower
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classes of the community, has risen from the ranks to be an officer, has already taken a
prodigious step. He has gained a footing in a sphere above that which he filled in civil life,
and he has acquired rights which most democratic nations will ever consider as inalienable. 334
He is willing to pause after so great an effort, and to enjoy what he has won. The fear of
risking what he has already obtained damps the desire of acquiring what he has not got.
Having conquered the first and greatest impediment which opposed his advancement, he
resigns himself with less impatience to the slowness of his progress. His ambition will be
more and more cooled in proportion as the increasing distinction of his rank teaches him that
he has more to put in jeopardy. If I am not mistaken, the least warlike, and also the least
revolutionary part, of a democratic army, will always be its chief commanders.
But the remarks I have just made on officers and soldiers are not applicable to a numerous
class which in all armies fills the intermediate space between them—I mean the class of non-
commissioned officers. This class of non-commissioned officers which have never acted a
part in history until the present century, is henceforward destined, I think, to play one of some
importance. Like the officers, non-commissioned officers have broken, in their minds, all the
ties which bound them to civil life; like the former, they devote themselves permanently to
the service, and perhaps make it even more exclusively the object of all their desires: but non-
commissioned officers are men who have not yet reached a firm and lofty post at which they
may pause and breathe more freely, ere they can attain further promotion. By the very nature
of his duties, which is invariable, a non-commissioned officer is doomed to lead an obscure,
confined, comfortless, and precarious existence; as yet he sees nothing of military life but its
dangers; he knows nothing but its privations and its discipline—more difficult to support than
dangers: he suffers the more from his present miseries, from knowing that the constitution of
society and of the army allow him to rise above them; he may, indeed, at any time obtain his
commission, and enter at once upon command, honors, independence, rights, and
enjoyments. Not only does this object of his hopes appear to him of immense importance, but
he is never sure of reaching it till it is actually his own; the grade he fills is by no means
irrevocable; he is always entirely abandoned to the arbitrary pleasure of his commanding
officer, for this is imperiously required by the necessity of discipline: a slight fault, a whim,
may always deprive him in an instant of the fruits of many years of toil and endeavor; until he
has reached the grade to which he aspires he has accomplished nothing; not till he reaches
that grade does his career seem to begin. A desperate ambition cannot fail to be kindled in a
man thus incessantly goaded on by his youth, his wants, his passions, the spirit of his age, his
hopes, and his age, his hopes, and his fears. Non-commissioned officers are therefore bent on
war—on war always, and at any cost; but if war be denied them, then they desire revolutions
to suspend the authority of established regulations, and to enable them, aided by the general
confusion and the political passions of the time, to get rid of their superior officers and to take
their places. Nor is it impossible for them to bring about such a crisis, because their common
origin and habits give them much influence over the soldiers, however different may be their
passions and their desires.
It would be an error to suppose that these various characteristics of officers, non-
commissioned officers, and men, belong to any particular time or country; they will always
occur at all times, and amongst all democratic nations. In every democratic army the non-
commissioned officers will be the worst representatives of the pacific and orderly spirit of the
country, and the private soldiers will be the best. The latter will carry with them into military

334
The position of officers is indeed much more secure amongst democratic nations than elsewhere; the lower
the personal standing of the man, the greater is the comparative importance of his military grade, and the more
just and necessary is it that the enjoyment of that rank should be secured by the laws.
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life the strength or weakness of the manners of the nation; they will display a faithful
reflection of the community: if that community is ignorant and weak, they will allow
themselves to be drawn by their leaders into disturbances, either unconsciously or against
their will; if it is enlightened and energetic, the community will itself keep them within the
bounds of order.
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XXIV. Causes Which Render Democratic Armies

Weaker Than Other Armies At The Outset Of A
Campaign, And More Formidable In Protracted
Warfare

Any army is in danger of being conquered at the outset of a campaign, after a long peace; any
army which has long been engaged in warfare has strong chances of victory: this truth is
peculiarly applicable to democratic armies. In aristocracies the military profession, being a
privileged career, is held in honor even in time of peace. Men of great talents, great
attainments, and great ambition embrace it; the army is in all respects on a level with the
nation, and frequently above it. We have seen, on the contrary, that amongst a democratic
people the choicer minds of the nation are gradually drawn away from the military
profession, to seek by other paths, distinction, power, and especially wealth. After a long
peace—and in democratic ages the periods of peace are long—the army is always inferior to
the country itself. In this state it is called into active service; and until war has altered it, there
is danger for the country as well as for the army.
I have shown that in democratic armies, and in time of peace, the rule of seniority is the
supreme and inflexible law of advancement. This is not only a consequence, as I have before
observed, of the constitution of these armies, but of the constitution of the people, and it will
always occur. Again, as amongst these nations the officer derives his position in the country
solely from his position in the army, and as he draws all the distinction and the competency
he enjoys from the same source, he does not retire from his profession, or is not super-
annuated, till towards the extreme close of life. The consequence of these two causes is, that
when a democratic people goes to war after a long interval of peace all the leading officers of
the army are old men. I speak not only of the generals, but of the non-commissioned officers,
who have most of them been stationary, or have only advanced step by step. It may be
remarked with surprise, that in a democratic army after a long peace all the soldiers are mere
boys, and all the superior officers in declining years; so that the former are wanting in
experience, the latter in vigor. This is a strong element of defeat, for the first condition of
successful generalship is youth: I should not have ventured to say so if the greatest captain of
modern times had not made the observation. These two causes do not act in the same manner
upon aristocratic armies: as men are promoted in them by right of birth much more than by
right of seniority, there are in all ranks a certain number of young men, who bring to their
profession all the early vigor of body and mind. Again, as the men who seek for military
honors amongst an aristocratic people, enjoy a settled position in civil society, they seldom
continue in the army until old age overtakes them. After having devoted the most vigorous
years of youth to the career of arms, they voluntarily retire, and spend at home the remainder
of their maturer years.
A long peace not only fills democratic armies with elderly officers, but it also gives to all the
officers habits both of body and mind which render them unfit for actual service. The man
who has long lived amidst the calm and lukewarm atmosphere of democratic manners can at
first ill adapt himself to the harder toils and sterner duties of warfare; and if he has not
absolutely lost the taste for arms, at least he has assumed a mode of life which unfits him for
conquest.
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Amongst aristocratic nations, the ease of civil life exercises less influence on the manners of
the army, because amongst those nations the aristocracy commands the army: and an
aristocracy, however plunged in luxurious pleasures, has always many other passions besides
that of its own well-being, and to satisfy those passions more thoroughly its well-being will
be readily sacrificed. 335
I have shown that in democratic armies, in time of peace, promotion is extremely slow. The
officers at first support this state of things with impatience, they grow excited, restless,
exasperated, but in the end most of them make up their minds to it. Those who have the
largest share of ambition and of resources quit the army; others, adapting their tastes and their
desires to their scanty fortunes, ultimately look upon the military profession in a civil point of
view. The quality they value most in it is the competency and security which attend it: their
whole notion of the future rests upon the certainty of this little provision, and all they require
is peaceably to enjoy it. Thus not only does a long peace fill an army with old men, but it is
frequently imparts the views of old men to those who are still in the prime of life.
I have also shown that amongst democratic nations in time of peace the military profession is
held in little honor and indifferently followed. This want of public favor is a heavy
discouragement to the army; it weighs down the minds of the troops, and when war breaks
out at last, they cannot immediately resume their spring and vigor. No similar cause of moral
weakness occurs in aristocratic armies: there the officers are never lowered either in their
own eyes or in those of their countrymen, because, independently of their military greatness,
they are personally great. But even if the influence of peace operated on the two kinds of
armies in the same manner, the results would still be different. When the officers of an
aristocratic army have lost their warlike spirit and the desire of raising themselves by service,
they still retain a certain respect for the honor of their class, and an old habit of being
foremost to set an example. But when the officers of a democratic army have no longer the
love of war and the ambition of arms, nothing whatever remains to them.
I am therefore of opinion that, when a democratic people engages in a war after a long peace,
it incurs much more risk of defeat than any other nation; but it ought not easily to be cast
down by its reverses, for the chances of success for such an army are increased by the
duration of the war. When a war has at length, by its long continuance, roused the whole
community from their peaceful occupations and ruined their minor undertakings, the same
passions which made them attach so much importance to the maintenance of peace will be
turned to arms. War, after it has destroyed all modes of speculation, becomes itself the great
and sole speculation, to which all the ardent and ambitious desires which equality engenders
are exclusively directed. Hence it is that the selfsame democratic nations which are so
reluctant to engage in hostilities, sometimes perform prodigious achievements when once
they have taken the field. As the war attracts more and more of public attention, and is seen to
create high reputations and great fortunes in a short space of time, the choicest spirits of the
nation enter the military profession: all the enterprising, proud, and martial minds, no longer
of the aristocracy solely, but of the whole country, are drawn in this direction. As the number
of competitors for military honors is immense, and war drives every man to his proper level,
great generals are always sure to spring up. A long war produces upon a democratic army the
same effects that a revolution produces upon a people; it breaks through regulations, and
allows extraordinary men to rise above the common level. Those officers whose bodies and
minds have grown old in peace, are removed, or superannuated, or they die. In their stead a
host of young men are pressing on, whose frames are already hardened, whose desires are
extended and inflamed by active service. They are bent on advancement at all hazards, and

335
See Appendix V.
 475

perpetual advancement; they are followed by others with the same passions and desires, and
after these are others yet unlimited by aught but the size of the army. The principle of
equality opens the door of ambition to all, and death provides chances for ambition. Death is
constantly thinning the ranks, making vacancies, closing and opening the career of arms.
There is moreover a secret connection between the military character and the character of
democracies, which war brings to light. The men of democracies are naturally passionately
eager to acquire what they covet, and to enjoy it on easy conditions. They for the most part
worship chance, and are much less afraid of death than of difficulty. This is the spirit which
they bring to commerce and manufactures; and this same spirit, carried with them to the field
of battle, induces them willingly to expose their lives in order to secure in a moment the
rewards of victory. No kind of greatness is more pleasing to the imagination of a democratic
people than military greatness—a greatness of vivid and sudden lustre, obtained without toil,
by nothing but the risk of life. Thus, whilst the interests and the tastes of the members of a
democratic community divert them from war, their habits of mind fit them for carrying on
war well; they soon make good soldiers, when they are roused from their business and their
enjoyments. If peace is peculiarly hurtful to democratic armies, war secures to them
advantages which no other armies ever possess; and these advantages, however little felt at
first, cannot fail in the end to give them the victory. An aristocratic nation, which in a contest
with a democratic people does not succeed in ruining the latter at the outset of the war,
always runs a great risk of being conquered by it.
 476

XXV. Of Discipline In Democratic Armies

It is a very general opinion, especially in aristocratic countries, that the great social equality
which prevails in democracies ultimately renders the private soldier independent of the
officer, and thus destroys the bond of discipline. This is a mistake, for there are two kinds of
discipline, which it is important not to confound. When the officer is noble and the soldier a
serf—one rich, the other poor—the former educated and strong, the latter ignorant and
weak—the strictest bond of obedience may easily be established between the two men. The
soldier is broken in to military discipline, as it were, before he enters the army; or rather,
military discipline is nothing but an enhancement of social servitude. In aristocratic armies
the soldier will soon become insensible to everything but the orders of his superior officers;
he acts without reflection, triumphs without enthusiasm, and dies without complaint: in this
state he is no longer a man, but he is still a most formidable animal trained for war.
A democratic people must despair of ever obtaining from soldiers that blind, minute,
submissive, and invariable obedience which an aristocratic people may impose on them
without difficulty. The state of society does not prepare them for it, and the nation might be
in danger of losing its natural advantages if it sought artificially to acquire advantages of this
particular kind. Amongst democratic communities, military discipline ought not to attempt to
annihilate the free spring of the faculties; all that can be done by discipline is to direct it; the
obedience thus inculcated is less exact, but it is more eager and more intelligent. It has its
root in the will of him who obeys: it rests not only on his instinct, but on his reason; and
consequently it will often spontaneously become more strict as danger requires it. The
discipline of an aristocratic army is apt to be relaxed in war, because that discipline is
founded upon habits, and war disturbs those habits. The discipline of a democratic army on
the contrary is strengthened in sight of the enemy, because every soldier then clearly
perceives that he must be silent and obedient in order to conquer.
The nations which have performed the greatest warlike achievements knew no other
discipline than that which I speak of. Amongst the ancients none were admitted into the
armies but freemen and citizens, who differed but little from one another, and were
accustomed to treat each other as equals. In this respect it may be said that the armies of
antiquity were democratic, although they came out of the bosom of aristocracy; the
consequence was that in those armies a sort of fraternal familiarity prevailed between the
officers and the men. Plutarch’s lives of great commanders furnish convincing instances of
the fact: the soldiers were in the constant habit of freely addressing their general, and the
general listened to and answered whatever the soldiers had to say: they were kept in order by
language and by example, far more than by constraint or punishment; the general was as
much their companion as their chief. I know not whether the soldiers of Greece and Rome
ever carried the minutiae of military discipline to the same degree of perfection as the
Russians have done; but this did not prevent Alexander from conquering Asia—and Rome,
the world.
 477

XXVI. Some Considerations On War In Democratic

Communities

When the principle of equality is in growth, not only amongst a single nation, but amongst
several neighboring nations at the same time, as is now the case in Europe, the inhabitants of
these different countries, notwithstanding the dissimilarity of language, of customs, and of
laws, nevertheless resemble each other in their equal dread of war and their common love of
peace. 336 It is in vain that ambition or anger puts arms in the hands of princes; they are
appeased in spite of themselves by a species of general apathy and goodwill, which makes the
sword drop from their grasp, and wars become more rare. As the spread of equality, taking
place in several countries at once, simultaneously impels their various inhabitants to follow
manufactures and commerce, not only do their tastes grow alike, but their interests are so
mixed and entangled with one another that no nation can inflict evils on other nations without
those evils falling back upon itself; and all nations ultimately regard war as a calamity, almost
as severe to the conqueror as to the conquered. Thus, on the one hand, it is extremely difficult
in democratic ages to draw nations into hostilities; but on the other hand, it is almost
impossible that any two of them should go to war without embroiling the rest. The interests
of all are so interlaced, their opinions and their wants so much alike, that none can remain
quiet when the others stir. Wars therefore become more rare, but when they break out they
spread over a larger field. Neighboring democratic nations not only become alike in some
respects, but they eventually grow to resemble each other in almost all. 337 This similitude of
nations has consequences of great importance in relation to war.
If I inquire why it is that the Helvetic Confederacy made the greatest and most powerful
nations of Europe tremble in the fifteenth century, whilst at the present day the power of that
country is exactly proportioned to its population, I perceive that the Swiss are become like all
the surrounding communities, and those surrounding communities like the Swiss: so that as

336
It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that the dread of war displayed by the nations of Europe is not
solely attributable to the progress made by the principle of equality amongst them; independently of this
permanent cause several other accidental causes of great weight might be pointed out, and I may mention before
all the rest the extreme lassitude which the wars of the Revolution and the Empire have left behind them.
337
This is not only because these nations have the same social condition, but it arises from the very nature of
that social condition which leads men to imitate and identify themselves with each other. When the members of
a community are divided into castes and classes, they not only differ from one another, but they have no taste
and no desire to be alike; on the contrary, everyone endeavors, more and more, to keep his own opinions
undisturbed, to retain his own peculiar habits, and to remain himself. The characteristics of individuals are very
strongly marked. When the state of society amongst a people is democratic—that is to say, when there are no
longer any castes or classes in the community, and all its members are nearly equal in education and in
property—the human mind follows the opposite direction. Men are much alike, and they are annoyed, as it were,
by any deviation from that likeness: far from seeking to preserve their own distinguishing singularities, they
endeavor to shake them off, in order to identify themselves with the general mass of the people, which is the
sole representative of right and of might to their eyes. The characteristics of individuals are nearly obliterated. In
the ages of aristocracy even those who are naturally alike strive to create imaginary differences between
themselves: in the ages of democracy even those who are not alike seek only to become so, and to copy each
other—so strongly is the mind of every man always carried away by the general impulse of mankind. Something
of the same kind may be observed between nations: two nations having the same aristocratic social condition,
might remain thoroughly distinct and extremely different, because the spirit of aristocracy is to retain strong
individual characteristics; but if two neighboring nations have the same democratic social condition, they cannot
fail to adopt similar opinions and manners, because the spirit of democracy tends to assimilate men to each
other.
 478

numerical strength now forms the only difference between them, victory necessarily attends
the largest army. Thus one of the consequences of the democratic revolution which is going
on in Europe is to make numerical strength preponderate on all fields of battle, and to
constrain all small nations to incorporate themselves with large States, or at least to adopt the
policy of the latter. As numbers are the determining cause of victory, each people ought of
course to strive by all the means in its power to bring the greatest possible number of men
into the field. When it was possible to enlist a kind of troops superior to all others, such as the
Swiss infantry or the French horse of the sixteenth century, it was not thought necessary to
raise very large armies; but the case is altered when one soldier is as efficient as another.
The same cause which begets this new want also supplies means of satisfying it; for, as I have
already observed, when men are all alike, they are all weak, and the supreme power of the
State is naturally much stronger amongst democratic nations than elsewhere. Hence, whilst
these nations are desirous of enrolling the whole male population in the ranks of the army,
they have the power of effecting this object: the consequence is, that in democratic ages
armies seem to grow larger in proportion as the love of war declines. In the same ages, too,
the manner of carrying on war is likewise altered by the same causes. Machiavelli observes in
“The Prince,” “that it is much more difficult to subdue a people which has a prince and his
barons for its leaders, than a nation which is commanded by a prince and his slaves.” To
avoid offence, let us read public functionaries for slaves, and this important truth will be
strictly applicable to our own time.
A great aristocratic people cannot either conquer its neighbors, or be conquered by them,
without great difficulty. It cannot conquer them, because all its forces can never be collected
and held together for a considerable period: it cannot be conquered, because an enemy meets
at every step small centres of resistance by which invasion is arrested. War against an
aristocracy may be compared to war in a mountainous country; the defeated party has
constant opportunities of rallying its forces to make a stand in a new position. Exactly the
reverse occurs amongst democratic nations: they easily bring their whole disposable force
into the field, and when the nation is wealthy and populous it soon becomes victorious; but if
ever it is conquered, and its territory invaded, it has few resources at command; and if the
enemy takes the capital, the nation is lost. This may very well be explained: as each member
of the community is individually isolated and extremely powerless, no one of the whole body
can either defend himself or present a rallying point to others. Nothing is strong in a
democratic country except the State; as the military strength of the State is destroyed by the
destruction of the army, and its civil power paralyzed by the capture of the chief city, all that
remains is only a multitude without strength or government, unable to resist the organized
power by which it is assailed. I am aware that this danger may be lessened by the creation of
provincial liberties, and consequently of provincial powers, but this remedy will always be
insufficient. For after such a catastrophe, not only is the population unable to carry on
hostilities, but it may be apprehended that they will not be inclined to attempt it. In
accordance with the law of nations adopted in civilized countries, the object of wars is not to
seize the property of private individuals, but simply to get possession of political power. The
destruction of private property is only occasionally resorted to for the purpose of attaining the
latter object. When an aristocratic country is invaded after the defeat of its army, the nobles,
although they are at the same time the wealthiest members of the community, will continue to
defend themselves individually rather than submit; for if the conqueror remained master of
the country, he would deprive them of their political power, to which they cling even more
closely than to their property. They therefore prefer fighting to subjection, which is to them
the greatest of all misfortunes; and they readily carry the people along with them because the
people has long been used to follow and obey them, and besides has but little to risk in the
 479

war. Amongst a nation in which equality of conditions prevails, each citizen, on the contrary,
has but slender share of political power, and often has no share at all; on the other hand, all
are independent, and all have something to lose; so that they are much less afraid of being
conquered, and much more afraid of war, than an aristocratic people. It will always be
extremely difficult to decide a democratic population to take up arms, when hostilities have
reached its own territory. Hence the necessity of giving to such a people the rights and the
political character which may impart to every citizen some of those interests that cause the
nobles to act for the public welfare in aristocratic countries.
It should never be forgotten by the princes and other leaders of democratic nations, that
nothing but the passion and the habit of freedom can maintain an advantageous contest with
the passion and the habit of physical well-being. I can conceive nothing better prepared for
subjection, in case of defeat, than a democratic people without free institutions.
Formerly it was customary to take the field with a small body of troops, to fight in small
engagements, and to make long, regular sieges: modern tactics consist in fighting decisive
battles, and, as soon as a line of march is open before the army, in rushing upon the capital
city, in order to terminate the war at a single blow. Napoleon, it is said, was the inventor of
this new system; but the invention of such a system did not depend on any individual man,
whoever he might be. The mode in which Napoleon carried on war was suggested to him by
the state of society in his time; that mode was successful, because it was eminently adapted to
that state of society, and because he was the first to employ it. Napoleon was the first
commander who marched at the head of an army from capital to capital, but the road was
opened for him by the ruin of feudal society. It may fairly be believed that, if that
extraordinary man had been born three hundred years ago, he would not have derived the
same results from his method of warfare, or, rather, that he would have had a different
method.
I shall add but a few words on civil wars, for fear of exhausting the patience of the reader.
Most of the remarks which I have made respecting foreign wars are applicable a fortiori to
civil wars. Men living in democracies are not naturally prone to the military character; they
sometimes assume it, when they have been dragged by compulsion to the field; but to rise in
a body and voluntarily to expose themselves to the horrors of war, and especially of civil war,
is a course which the men of democracies are not apt to adopt. None but the most
adventurous members of the community consent to run into such risks; the bulk of the
population remains motionless. But even if the population were inclined to act, considerable
obstacles would stand in their way; for they can resort to no old and well-established
influence which they are willing to obey—no well-known leaders to rally the discontented, as
well as to discipline and to lead them—no political powers subordinate to the supreme power
of the nation, which afford an effectual support to the resistance directed against the
government. In democratic countries the moral power of the majority is immense, and the
physical resources which it has at its command are out of all proportion to the physical
resources which may be combined against it. Therefore the party which occupies the seat of
the majority, which speaks in its name and wields its power, triumphs instantaneously and
irresistibly over all private resistance; it does not even give such opposition time to exist, but
nips it in the bud. Those who in such nations seek to effect a revolution by force of arms have
no other resource than suddenly to seize upon the whole engine of government as it stands,
which can better be done by a single blow than by a war; for as soon as there is a regular war,
the party which represents the State is always certain to conquer. The only case in which a
civil war could arise is, if the army should divide itself into two factions, the one raising the
standard of rebellion, the other remaining true to its allegiance. An army constitutes a small
community, very closely united together, endowed with great powers of vitality, and able to
 480

supply its own wants for some time. Such a war might be bloody, but it could not be long; for
either the rebellious army would gain over the government by the sole display of its
resources, or by its first victory, and then the war would be over; or the struggle would take
place, and then that portion of the army which should not be supported by the organized
powers of the State would speedily either disband itself or be destroyed. It may therefore be
admitted as a general truth, that in ages of equality civil wars will become much less frequent
and less protracted. 338

338
It should be borne in mind that I speak here of sovereign and independent democratic nations, not of
confederate democracies; in confederacies, as the preponderating power always resides, in spite of all political
fictions, in the state governments, and not in the federal government, civil wars are in fact nothing but foreign
wars in disguise.
 481

Book Four
 482

I. That Equality Naturally Gives Men A Taste For

Free Institutions

I should imperfectly fulfil the purpose of this book, if, after having shown what opinions and
sentiments are suggested by the principle of equality, I did not point out, ere I conclude, the
general influence which these same opinions and sentiments may exercise upon the
government of human societies. To succeed in this object I shall frequently have to retrace
my steps; but I trust the reader will not refuse to follow me through paths already known to
him, which may lead to some new truth.
The principle of equality, which makes men independent of each other, gives them a habit
and a taste for following, in their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This
complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their equals and in the
intercourse of private life, tends to make them look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and
speedily suggests to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living at such
times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any one of them at a venture, and search if
you can his most deep-seated instincts; you will find that of all governments he will soonest
conceive and most highly value that government, whose head he has himself elected, and
whose administration he may control. Of all the political effects produced by the equality of
conditions, this love of independence is the first to strike the observing, and to alarm the
timid; nor can it be said that their alarm is wholly misplaced, for anarchy has a more
formidable aspect in democratic countries than elsewhere. As the citizens have no direct
influence on each other, as soon as the supreme power of the nation fails, which kept them all
in their several stations, it would seem that disorder must instantly reach its utmost pitch, and
that, every man drawing aside in a different direction, the fabric of society must at once
crumble away.
I am, however, persuaded that anarchy is not the principal evil which democratic ages have to
fear, but the least. For the principle of equality begets two tendencies; the one leads men
straight to independence, and may suddenly drive them into anarchy; the other conducts them
by a longer, more secret, but more certain road, to servitude. Nations readily discern the
former tendency, and are prepared to resist it; they are led away by the latter, without
perceiving its drift; hence it is peculiarly important to point it out. For myself, I am so far
from urging as a reproach to the principle of equality that it renders men untractable, that this
very circumstance principally calls forth my approbation. I admire to see how it deposits in
the mind and heart of man the dim conception and instinctive love of political independence,
thus preparing the remedy for the evil which it engenders; it is on this very account that I am
attached to it.
 483

II. That The Notions Of Democratic Nations On

Government Are Naturally Favorable To The
Concentration Of Power

The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign and his subjects, occurred
naturally to the imagination of aristocratic nations, because those communities contained
individuals or families raised above the common level, and apparently destined to command
by their birth, their education, and their wealth. This same notion is naturally wanting in the
minds of men in democratic ages, for converse reasons: it can only be introduced artificially,
it can only be kept there with difficulty; whereas they conceive, as it were, without thinking
upon the subject, the notion of a sole and central power which governs the whole community
by its direct influence. Moreover in politics, as well as in philosophy and in religion, the
intellect of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general notions. Complicated
systems are repugnant to it, and its favorite conception is that of a great nation composed of
citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all governed by a single power.
The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which presents itself to the minds of
men in the ages of equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every man sees that
he differs but little from those about him, he cannot understand why a rule which is
applicable to one man should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the slightest
privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest dissimilarities in the political institutions of
the same people offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be the first
condition of good government. I find, on the contrary, that this same notion of a uniform rule,
equally binding on all the members of the community, was almost unknown to the human
mind in aristocratic ages; it was either never entertained, or it was rejected. These contrary
tendencies of opinion ultimately turn on either side to such blind instincts and such
ungovernable habits that they still direct the actions of men, in spite of particular exceptions.
Notwithstanding the immense variety of conditions in the Middle Ages, a certain number of
persons existed at that period in precisely similar circumstances; but this did not prevent the
laws then in force from assigning to each of them distinct duties and different rights. On the
contrary, at the present time all the powers of government are exerted to impose the same
customs and the same laws on populations which have as yet but few points of resemblance.
As the conditions of men become equal amongst a people, individuals seem of less
importance, and society of greater dimensions; or rather, every citizen, being assimilated to
all the rest, is lost in the crowd, and nothing stands conspicuous but the great and imposing
image of the people at large. This naturally gives the men of democratic periods a lofty
opinion of the privileges of society, and a very humble notion of the rights of individuals;
they are ready to admit that the interests of the former are everything, and those of the latter
nothing. They are willing to acknowledge that the power which represents the community has
far more information and wisdom than any of the members of that community; and that it is
the duty, as well as the right, of that power to guide as well as govern each private citizen.
If we closely scrutinize our contemporaries, and penetrate to the root of their political
opinions, we shall detect some of the notions which I have just pointed out, and we shall
perhaps be surprised to find so much accordance between men who are so often at variance.
The Americans hold, that in every State the supreme power ought to emanate from the
people; but when once that power is constituted, they can conceive, as it were, no limits to it,
and they are ready to admit that it has the right to do whatever it pleases. They have not the
 484

slightest notion of peculiar privileges granted to cities, families, or persons: their minds
appear never to have foreseen that it might be possible not to apply with strict uniformity the
same laws to every part, and to all the inhabitants. These same opinions are more and more
diffused in Europe; they even insinuate themselves amongst those nations which most
vehemently reject the principle of the sovereignty of the people. Such nations assign a
different origin to the supreme power, but they ascribe to that power the same characteristics.
Amongst them all, the idea of intermediate powers is weakened and obliterated: the idea of
rights inherent in certain individuals is rapidly disappearing from the minds of men; the idea
of the omnipotence and sole authority of society at large rises to fill its place. These ideas
take root and spread in proportion as social conditions become more equal, and men more
alike; they are engendered by equality, and in turn they hasten the progress of equality.
In France, where the revolution of which I am speaking has gone further than in any other
European country, these opinions have got complete hold of the public mind. If we listen
attentively to the language of the various parties in France, we shall find that there is not one
which has not adopted them. Most of these parties censure the conduct of the government,
but they all hold that the government ought perpetually to act and interfere in everything that
is done. Even those which are most at variance are nevertheless agreed upon this head. The
unity, the ubiquity, the omnipotence of the supreme power, and the uniformity of its rules,
constitute the principal characteristics of all the political systems which have been put
forward in our age. They recur even in the wildest visions of political regeneration: the
human mind pursues them in its dreams. If these notions spontaneously arise in the minds of
private individuals, they suggest themselves still more forcibly to the minds of princes.
Whilst the ancient fabric of European society is altered and dissolved, sovereigns acquire new
conceptions of their opportunities and their duties; they learn for the first time that the central
power which they represent may and ought to administer by its own agency, and on a
uniform plan, all the concerns of the whole community. This opinion, which, I will venture to
say, was never conceived before our time by the monarchs of Europe, now sinks deeply into
the minds of kings, and abides there amidst all the agitation of more unsettled thoughts.
Our contemporaries are therefore much less divided than is commonly supposed; they are
constantly disputing as to the hands in which supremacy is to be vested, but they readily
agree upon the duties and the rights of that supremacy. The notion they all form of
government is that of a sole, simple, providential, and creative power. All secondary opinions
in politics are unsettled; this one remains fixed, invariable, and consistent. It is adopted by
statesmen and political philosophers; it is eagerly laid hold of by the multitude; those who
govern and those who are governed agree to pursue it with equal ardor: it is the foremost
notion of their minds, it seems inborn. It originates therefore in no caprice of the human
intellect, but it is a necessary condition of the present state of mankind.
 485

III. That The Sentiments Of Democratic Nations

Accord With Their Opinions In Leading Them To
Concentrate Political Power

If it be true that, in ages of equality, men readily adopt the notion of a great central power, it
cannot be doubted on the other hand that their habits and sentiments predispose them to
recognize such a power and to give it their support. This may be demonstrated in a few
words, as the greater part of the reasons, to which the fact may be attributed, have been
previously stated. 339 As the men who inhabit democratic countries have no superiors, no
inferiors, and no habitual or necessary partners in their undertakings, they readily fall back
upon themselves and consider themselves as beings apart. I had occasion to point this out at
considerable length in treating of individualism. Hence such men can never, without an
effort, tear themselves from their private affairs to engage in public business; their natural
bias leads them to abandon the latter to the sole visible and permanent representative of the
interests of the community, that is to say, to the State. Not only are they naturally wanting in
a taste for public business, but they have frequently no time to attend to it. Private life is so
busy in democratic periods, so excited, so full of wishes and of work, that hardly any energy
or leisure remains to each individual for public life. I am the last man to contend that these
propensities are unconquerable, since my chief object in writing this book has been to combat
them. I only maintain that at the present day a secret power is fostering them in the human
heart, and that if they are not checked they will wholly overgrow it.
I have also had occasion to show how the increasing love of well-being, and the fluctuating
character of property, cause democratic nations to dread all violent disturbance. The love of
public tranquillity is frequently the only passion which these nations retain, and it becomes
more active and powerful amongst them in proportion as all other passions droop and die.
This naturally disposes the members of the community constantly to give or to surrender
additional rights to the central power, which alone seems to be interested in defending them
by the same means that it uses to defend itself. As in ages of equality no man is compelled to
lend his assistance to his fellow-men, and none has any right to expect much support from
them, everyone is at once independent and powerless. These two conditions, which must
never be either separately considered or confounded together, inspire the citizen of a
democratic country with very contrary propensities. His independence fills him with self-
reliance and pride amongst his equals; his debility makes him feel from time to time the want
of some outward assistance, which he cannot expect from any of them, because they are all
impotent and unsympathizing. In this predicament he naturally turns his eyes to that imposing
power which alone rises above the level of universal depression. Of that power his wants and
especially his desires continually remind him, until he ultimately views it as the sole and
necessary support of his own weakness. 340 This may more completely explain what

339
See Appendix W.
340
In democratic communities nothing but the central power has any stability in its position or any permanence
in its undertakings. All the members of society are in ceaseless stir and transformation. Now it is in the nature of
all governments to seek constantly to enlarge their sphere of action; hence it is almost impossible that such a
government should not ultimately succeed, because it acts with a fixed principle and a constant will, upon men,
whose position, whose notions, and whose desires are in continual vacillation. It frequently happens that the
members of the community promote the influence of the central power without intending it. Democratic ages are
periods of experiment, innovation, and adventure. At such times there are always a multitude of men engaged in
 486

frequently takes place in democratic countries, where the very men who are so impatient of
superiors patiently submit to a master, exhibiting at once their pride and their servility.
The hatred which men bear to privilege increases in proportion as privileges become more
scarce and less considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most fiercely at
the very time when they have least fuel. I have already given the reason of this phenomenon.
When all conditions are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye; whereas the
slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of general uniformity: the more complete is this
uniformity, the more insupportable does the sight of such a difference become. Hence it is
natural that the love of equality should constantly increase together with equality itself, and
that it should grow by what it feeds upon. This never-dying, ever-kindling hatred, which sets
a democratic people against the smallest privileges, is peculiarly favorable to the gradual
concentration of all political rights in the hands of the representative of the State alone. The
sovereign, being necessarily and incontestably above all the citizens, excites not their envy,
and each of them thinks that he strips his equals of the prerogative which he concedes to the
crown. The man of a democratic age is extremely reluctant to obey his neighbor who is his
equal; he refuses to acknowledge in such a person ability superior to his own; he mistrusts his
justice, and is jealous of his power; he fears and he contemns him; and he loves continually to
remind him of the common dependence in which both of them stand to the same master.
Every central power which follows its natural tendencies courts and encourages the principle
of equality; for equality singularly facilitates, extends, and secures the influence of a central
power.
In like manner it may be said that every central government worships uniformity: uniformity
relieves it from inquiry into an infinite number of small details which must be attended to if
rules were to be adapted to men, instead of indiscriminately subjecting men to rules: thus the
government likes what the citizens like, and naturally hates what they hate. These common
sentiments, which, in democratic nations, constantly unite the sovereign and every member of
the community in one and the same conviction, establish a secret and lasting sympathy
between them. The faults of the government are pardoned for the sake of its tastes; public
confidence is only reluctantly withdrawn in the midst even of its excesses and its errors, and
it is restored at the first call. Democratic nations often hate those in whose hands the central
power is vested; but they always love that power itself.
Thus, by two separate paths, I have reached the same conclusion. I have shown that the
principle of equality suggests to men the notion of a sole, uniform, and strong government: I
have now shown that the principle of equality imparts to them a taste for it. To governments
of this kind the nations of our age are therefore tending. They are drawn thither by the natural
inclination of mind and heart; and in order to reach that result, it is enough that they do not
check themselves in their course. I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are
opening upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be the produce of
artificial contrivance; that centralization will be the natural form of government. 341

difficult or novel undertakings, which they follow alone, without caring for their fellowmen. Such persons may
be ready to admit, as a general principle, that the public authority ought not to interfere in private concerns; but,
by an exception to that rule, each of them craves for its assistance in the particular concern on which he is
engaged, and seeks to draw upon the influence of the government for his own benefit, though he would restrict it
on all other occasions. If a large number of men apply this particular exception to a great variety of different
purposes, the sphere of the central power extends insensibly in all directions, although each of them wishes it to
be circumscribed. Thus a democratic government increases its power simply by the fact of its permanence. Time
is on its side; every incident befriends it; the passions of individuals unconsciously promote it; and it may be
asserted, that the older a democratic community is, the more centralized will its government become.
341
See Appendix X.
 487

IV. Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes

Which Either Lead A People To Complete
Centralization Of Government, Or Which Divert
Them From It

If all democratic nations are instinctively led to the centralization of government, they tend to
this result in an unequal manner. This depends on the particular circumstances which may
promote or prevent the natural consequences of that state of society—circumstances which
are exceedingly numerous; but I shall only advert to a few of them. Amongst men who have
lived free long before they became equal, the tendencies derived from free institutions
combat, to a certain extent, the propensities superinduced by the principle of equality; and
although the central power may increase its privileges amongst such a people, the private
members of such a community will never entirely forfeit their independence. But when the
equality of conditions grows up amongst a people which has never known, or has long ceased
to know, what freedom is (and such is the case upon the Continent of Europe), as the former
habits of the nation are suddenly combined, by some sort of natural attraction, with the novel
habits and principles engendered by the state of society, all powers seem spontaneously to
rush to the centre. These powers accumulate there with astonishing rapidity, and the State
instantly attains the utmost limits of its strength, whilst private persons allow themselves to
sink as suddenly to the lowest degree of weakness.
The English who emigrated three hundred years ago to found a democratic commonwealth on
the shores of the New World, had all learned to take a part in public affairs in their mother-
country; they were conversant with trial by jury; they were accustomed to liberty of speech
and of the press—to personal freedom, to the notion of rights and the practice of asserting
them. They carried with them to America these free institutions and manly customs, and these
institutions preserved them against the encroachments of the State. Thus amongst the
Americans it is freedom which is old—equality is of comparatively modern date. The reverse
is occurring in Europe, where equality, introduced by absolute power and under the rule of
kings, was already infused into the habits of nations long before freedom had entered into
their conceptions.
I have said that amongst democratic nations the notion of government naturally presents itself
to the mind under the form of a sole and central power, and that the notion of intermediate
powers is not familiar to them. This is peculiarly applicable to the democratic nations which
have witnessed the triumph of the principle of equality by means of a violent revolution. As
the classes which managed local affairs have been suddenly swept away by the storm, and as
the confused mass which remains has as yet neither the organization nor the habits which fit
it to assume the administration of these same affairs, the State alone seems capable of taking
upon itself all the details of government, and centralization becomes, as it were, the
unavoidable state of the country. Napoleon deserves neither praise nor censure for having
centred in his own hands almost all the administrative power of France; for, after the abrupt
disappearance of the nobility and the higher rank of the middle classes, these powers
devolved on him of course: it would have been almost as difficult for him to reject as to
assume them. But no necessity of this kind has ever been felt by the Americans, who, having
passed through no revolution, and having governed themselves from the first, never had to
call upon the State to act for a time as their guardian. Thus the progress of centralization
 488

amongst a democratic people depends not only on the progress of equality, but on the manner
in which this equality has been established.
At the commencement of a great democratic revolution, when hostilities have but just broken
out between the different classes of society, the people endeavors to centralize the public
administration in the hands of the government, in order to wrest the management of local
affairs from the aristocracy. Towards the close of such a revolution, on the contrary, it is
usually the conquered aristocracy that endeavors to make over the management of all affairs
to the State, because such an aristocracy dreads the tyranny of a people which has become its
equal, and not unfrequently its master. Thus it is not always the same class of the community
which strives to increase the prerogative of the government; but as long as the democratic
revolution lasts there is always one class in the nation, powerful in numbers or in wealth,
which is induced, by peculiar passions or interests, to centralize the public administration,
independently of that hatred of being governed by one’s neighbor, which is a general and
permanent feeling amongst democratic nations. It may be remarked, that at the present day
the lower orders in England are striving with all their might to destroy local independence,
and to transfer the administration from all points of the circumference to the centre; whereas
the higher classes are endeavoring to retain this administration within its ancient boundaries. I
venture to predict that a time will come when the very reverse will happen.
These observations explain why the supreme power is always stronger, and private
individuals weaker, amongst a democratic people which has passed through a long and
arduous struggle to reach a state of equality than amongst a democratic community in which
the citizens have been equal from the first. The example of the Americans completely
demonstrates the fact. The inhabitants of the United States were never divided by any
privileges; they have never known the mutual relation of master and inferior, and as they
neither dread nor hate each other, they have never known the necessity of calling in the
supreme power to manage their affairs. The lot of the Americans is singular: they have
derived from the aristocracy of England the notion of private rights and the taste for local
freedom; and they have been able to retain both the one and the other, because they have had
no aristocracy to combat.
If at all times education enables men to defend their independence, this is most especially true
in democratic ages. When all men are alike, it is easy to found a sole and all-powerful
government, by the aid of mere instinct. But men require much intelligence, knowledge, and
art to organize and to maintain secondary powers under similar circumstances, and to create
amidst the independence and individual weakness of the citizens such free associations as
may be in a condition to struggle against tyranny without destroying public order.
Hence the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase amongst
democratic nations, not only in the same proportion as their equality, but in the same
proportion as their ignorance. It is true, that in ages of imperfect civilization the government
is frequently as wanting in the knowledge required to impose a despotism upon the people as
the people are wanting in the knowledge required to shake it off; but the effect is not the same
on both sides. However rude a democratic people may be, the central power which rules it is
never completely devoid of cultivation, because it readily draws to its own uses what little
cultivation is to be found in the country, and, if necessary, may seek assistance elsewhere.
Hence, amongst a nation which is ignorant as well as democratic, an amazing difference
cannot fail speedily to arise between the intellectual capacity of the ruler and that of each of
his subjects. This completes the easy concentration of all power in his hands: the
administrative function of the State is perpetually extended, because the State alone is
competent to administer the affairs of the country. Aristocratic nations, however
 489

unenlightened they may be, never afford the same spectacle, because in them instruction is
nearly equally diffused between the monarch and the leading members of the community.
The pacha who now rules in Egypt found the population of that country composed of men
exceedingly ignorant and equal, and he has borrowed the science and ability of Europe to
govern that people. As the personal attainments of the sovereign are thus combined with the
ignorance and democratic weakness of his subjects, the utmost centralization has been
established without impediment, and the pacha has made the country his manufactory, and
the inhabitants his workmen.
I think that extreme centralization of government ultimately enervates society, and thus after
a length of time weakens the government itself; but I do not deny that a centralized social
power may be able to execute great undertakings with facility in a given time and on a
particular point. This is more especially true of war, in which success depends much more on
the means of transferring all the resources of a nation to one single point, than on the extent
of those resources. Hence it is chiefly in war that nations desire and frequently require to
increase the powers of the central government. All men of military genius are fond of
centralization, which increases their strength; and all men of centralizing genius are fond of
war, which compels nations to combine all their powers in the hands of the government. Thus
the democratic tendency which leads men unceasingly to multiply the privileges of the State,
and to circumscribe the rights of private persons, is much more rapid and constant amongst
those democratic nations which are exposed by their position to great and frequent wars, than
amongst all others.
I have shown how the dread of disturbance and the love of well-being insensibly lead
democratic nations to increase the functions of central government, as the only power which
appears to be intrinsically sufficiently strong, enlightened, and secure, to protect them from
anarchy. I would now add, that all the particular circumstances which tend to make the state
of a democratic community agitated and precarious, enhance this general propensity, and lead
private persons more and more to sacrifice their rights to their tranquility. A people is
therefore never so disposed to increase the functions of central government as at the close of
a long and bloody revolution, which, after having wrested property from the hands of its
former possessors, has shaken all belief, and filled the nation with fierce hatreds, conflicting
interests, and contending factions. The love of public tranquillity becomes at such times an
indiscriminating passion, and the members of the community are apt to conceive a most
inordinate devotion to order.
I have already examined several of the incidents which may concur to promote the
centralization of power, but the principal cause still remains to be noticed. The foremost of
the incidental causes which may draw the management of all affairs into the hands of the
ruler in democratic countries, is the origin of that ruler himself, and his own propensities.
Men who live in the ages of equality are naturally fond of central power, and are willing to
extend its privileges; but if it happens that this same power faithfully represents their own
interests, and exactly copies their own inclinations, the confidence they place in it knows no
bounds, and they think that whatever they bestow upon it is bestowed upon themselves.
The attraction of administrative powers to the centre will always be less easy and less rapid
under the reign of kings who are still in some way connected with the old aristocratic order,
than under new princes, the children of their own achievements, whose birth, prejudices,
propensities, and habits appear to bind them indissolubly to the cause of equality. I do not
mean that princes of aristocratic origin who live in democratic ages do not attempt to
centralize; I believe they apply themselves to that object as diligently as any others. For them,
the sole advantages of equality lie in that direction; but their opportunities are less great,
 490

because the community, instead of volunteering compliance with their desires, frequently
obeys them with reluctance. In democratic communities the rule is that centralization must
increase in proportion as the sovereign is less aristocratic. When an ancient race of kings
stands at the head of an aristocracy, as the natural prejudices of the sovereign perfectly accord
with the natural prejudices of the nobility, the vices inherent in aristocratic communities have
a free course, and meet with no corrective. The reverse is the case when the scion of a feudal
stock is placed at the head of a democratic people. The sovereign is constantly led, by his
education, his habits, and his associations, to adopt sentiments suggested by the inequality of
conditions, and the people tend as constantly, by their social condition, to those manners
which are engendered by equality. At such times it often happens that the citizens seek to
control the central power far less as a tyrannical than as an aristocratical power, and that they
persist in the firm defence of their independence, not only because they would remain free,
but especially because they are determined to remain equal. A revolution which overthrows
an ancient regal family, in order to place men of more recent growth at the head of a
democratic people, may temporarily weaken the central power; but however anarchical such
a revolution may appear at first, we need not hesitate to predict that its final and certain
consequence will be to extend and to secure the prerogatives of that power. The foremost or
indeed the sole condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme
power in a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it.
Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it
were to a single principle.
 491

V. That Amongst The European Nations Of Our

Time The Power Of Governments Is Increasing,
Although The Persons Who Govern Are Less Stable

On reflecting upon what has already been said, the reader will be startled and alarmed to find
that in Europe everything seems to conduce to the indefinite extension of the prerogatives of
government, and to render all that enjoyed the rights of private independence more weak,
more subordinate, and more precarious. The democratic nations of Europe have all the
general and permanent tendencies which urge the Americans to the centralization of
government, and they are moreover exposed to a number of secondary and incidental causes
with which the Americans are unacquainted. It would seem as if every step they make
towards equality brings them nearer to despotism. And indeed if we do but cast our looks
around, we shall be convinced that such is the fact. During the aristocratic ages which
preceded the present time, the sovereigns of Europe had been deprived of, or had
relinquished, many of the rights inherent in their power. Not a hundred years ago, amongst
the greater part of European nations, numerous private persons and corporations were
sufficiently independent to administer justice, to raise and maintain troops, to levy taxes, and
frequently even to make or interpret the law. The State has everywhere resumed to itself
alone these natural attributes of sovereign power; in all matters of government the State
tolerates no intermediate agent between itself and the people, and in general business it
directs the people by its own immediate influence. I am far from blaming this concentration
of power, I simply point it out.
At the same period a great number of secondary powers existed in Europe, which represented
local interests and administered local affairs. Most of these local authorities have already
disappeared; all are speedily tending to disappear, or to fall into the most complete
dependence. From one end of Europe to the other the privileges of the nobility, the liberties
of cities, and the powers of provincial bodies, are either destroyed or upon the verge of
destruction. Europe has endured, in the course of the last half-century, many revolutions and
counter-revolutions which have agitated it in opposite directions: but all these perturbations
resemble each other in one respect—they have all shaken or destroyed the secondary powers
of government. The local privileges which the French did not abolish in the countries they
conquered, have finally succumbed to the policy of the princes who conquered the French.
Those princes rejected all the innovations of the French Revolution except centralization: that
is the only principle they consented to receive from such a source. My object is to remark,
that all these various rights, which have been successively wrested, in our time, from classes,
corporations, and individuals, have not served to raise new secondary powers on a more
democratic basis, but have uniformly been concentrated in the hands of the sovereign.
Everywhere the State acquires more and more direct control over the humblest members of
the community, and a more exclusive power of governing each of them in his smallest
concerns. 342 Almost all the charitable establishments of Europe were formerly in the hands of

342
This gradual weakening of individuals in relation to society at large may be traced in a thousand ways. I shall
select from amongst these examples one derived from the law of wills. In aristocracies it is common to profess
the greatest reverence for the last testamentary dispositions of a man; this feeling sometimes even became
superstitious amongst the older nations of Europe: the power of the State, far from interfering with the caprices
of a dying man, gave full force to the very least of them, and insured to him a perpetual power. When all living
men are enfeebled, the will of the dead is less respected: it is circumscribed within a narrow range, beyond
 492

private persons or of corporations; they are now almost all dependent on the supreme
government, and in many countries are actually administered by that power. The State almost
exclusively undertakes to supply bread to the hungry, assistance and shelter to the sick, work
to the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of all kinds of misery. Education, as well as charity,
is become in most countries at the present day a national concern. The State receives, and
often takes, the child from the arms of the mother, to hand it over to official agents: the State
undertakes to train the heart and to instruct the mind of each generation. Uniformity prevails
in the courses of public instruction as in everything else; diversity, as well as freedom, is
disappearing day by day. Nor do I hesitate to affirm, that amongst almost all the Christian
nations of our days, Catholic as well as Protestant, religion is in danger of falling into the
hands of the government. Not that rulers are over-jealous of the right of settling points of
doctrine, but they get more and more hold upon the will of those by whom doctrines are
expounded; they deprive the clergy of their property, and pay them by salaries; they divert to
their own use the influence of the priesthood, they make them their own ministers—often
their own servants—and by this alliance with religion they reach the inner depths of the soul
of man. 343
But this is as yet only one side of the picture. The authority of government has not only
spread, as we have just seen, throughout the sphere of all existing powers, till that sphere can
no longer contain it, but it goes further, and invades the domain heretofore reserved to private
independence. A multitude of actions, which were formerly entirely beyond the control of the
public administration, have been subjected to that control in our time, and the number of
them is constantly increasing. Amongst aristocratic nations the supreme government usually
contented itself with managing and superintending the community in whatever directly and
ostensibly concerned the national honor; but in all other respects the people were left to work
out their own free will. Amongst these nations the government often seemed to forget that
there is a point at which the faults and the sufferings of private persons involve the general
prosperity, and that to prevent the ruin of a private individual must sometimes be a matter of
public importance. The democratic nations of our time lean to the opposite extreme. It is
evident that most of our rulers will not content themselves with governing the people
collectively: it would seem as if they thought themselves responsible for the actions and
private condition of their subjects—as if they had undertaken to guide and to instruct each of
them in the various incidents of life, and to secure their happiness quite independently of their
own consent. On the other hand private individuals grow more and more apt to look upon the
supreme power in the same light; they invoke its assistance in all their necessities, and they
fix their eyes upon the administration as their mentor or their guide.
I assert that there is no country in Europe in which the public administration has not become,
not only more centralized, but more inquisitive and more minute it everywhere interferes in
private concerns more than it did; it regulates more undertakings, and undertakings of a lesser
kind; and it gains a firmer footing every day about, above, and around all private persons, to
assist, to advise, and to coerce them. Formerly a sovereign lived upon the income of his

which it is annulled or checked by the supreme power of the laws. In the Middle Ages, testamentary power had,
so to speak, no limits: amongst the French at the present day, a man cannot distribute his fortune amongst his
children without the interference of the State; after having domineered over a whole life, the law insists upon
regulating the very last act of it.
343
In proportion as the duties of the central power are augmented, the number of public officers by whom that
power is represented must increase also. They form a nation in each nation; and as they share the stability of the
government, they more and more fill up the place of an aristocracy.
In almost every part of Europe the government rules in two ways; it rules one portion of the community by the
fear which they entertain of its agents, and the other by the hope they have of becoming its agents.
 493

lands, or the revenue of his taxes; this is no longer the case now that his wants have increased
as well as his power. Under the same circumstances which formerly compelled a prince to put
on a new tax, he now has recourse to a loan. Thus the State gradually becomes the debtor of
most of the wealthier members of the community, and centralizes the largest amounts of
capital in its own hands. Small capital is drawn into its keeping by another method. As men
are intermingled and conditions become more equal, the poor have more resources, more
education, and more desires; they conceive the notion of bettering their condition, and this
teaches them to save. These savings are daily producing an infinite number of small capitals,
the slow and gradual produce of labor, which are always increasing. But the greater part of
this money would be unproductive if it remained scattered in the hands of its owners. This
circumstance has given rise to a philanthropic institution, which will soon become, if I am not
mistaken, one of our most important political institutions. Some charitable persons conceived
the notion of collecting the savings of the poor and placing them out at interest. In some
countries these benevolent associations are still completely distinct from the State; but in
almost all they manifestly tend to identify themselves with the government; and in some of
them the government has superseded them, taking upon itself the enormous task of
centralizing in one place, and putting out at interest on its own responsibility, the daily
savings of many millions of the working classes. Thus the State draws to itself the wealth of
the rich by loans, and has the poor man’s mite at its disposal in the savings banks. The wealth
of the country is perpetually flowing around the government and passing through its hands;
the accumulation increases in the same proportion as the equality of conditions; for in a
democratic country the State alone inspires private individuals with confidence, because the
State alone appears to be endowed with strength and durability. 344 Thus the sovereign does
not confine himself to the management of the public treasury; he interferes in private money
matters; he is the superior, and often the master, of all the members of the community; and, in
addition to this, he assumes the part of their steward and paymaster.
The central power not only fulfils of itself the whole of the duties formerly discharged by
various authorities—extending those duties, and surpassing those authorities—but it performs
them with more alertness, strength, and independence than it displayed before. All the
governments of Europe have in our time singularly improved the science of administration:
they do more things, and they do everything with more order, more celerity, and at less
expense; they seem to be constantly enriched by all the experience of which they have
stripped private persons. From day to day the princes of Europe hold their subordinate
officers under stricter control, and they invent new methods for guiding them more closely,
and inspecting them with less trouble. Not content with managing everything by their agents,
they undertake to manage the conduct of their agents in everything; so that the public
administration not only depends upon one and the same power, but it is more and more
confined to one spot and concentrated in the same hands. The government centralizes its
agency whilst it increases its prerogative—hence a twofold increase of strength.
In examining the ancient constitution of the judicial power, amongst most European nations,
two things strike the mind—the independence of that power, and the extent of its functions.
Not only did the courts of justice decide almost all differences between private persons, but in
very many cases they acted as arbiters between private persons and the State. I do not here
allude to the political and administrative offices which courts of judicature had in some

344
On the one hand the taste for worldly welfare is perpetually increasing, and on the other the government gets
more and more complete possession of the sources of that welfare. Thus men are following two separate roads
to servitude: the taste for their own welfare withholds them from taking a part in the government, and their love
of that welfare places them in closer dependence upon those who govern.
 494

countries usurped, but the judicial office common to them all. In most of the countries of
Europe, there were, and there still are, many private rights, connected for the most part with
the general right of property, which stood under the protection of the courts of justice, and
which the State could not violate without their sanction. It was this semi-political power
which mainly distinguished the European courts of judicature from all others; for all nations
have had judges, but all have not invested their judges with the same privileges. Upon
examining what is now occurring amongst the democratic nations of Europe which are called
free, as well as amongst the others, it will be observed that new and more dependent courts
are everywhere springing up by the side of the old ones, for the express purpose of deciding,
by an extraordinary jurisdiction, such litigated matters as may arise between the government
and private persons. The elder judicial power retains its independence, but its jurisdiction is
narrowed; and there is a growing tendency to reduce it to be exclusively the arbiter between
private interests. The number of these special courts of justice is continually increasing, and
their functions increase likewise. Thus the government is more and more absolved from the
necessity of subjecting its policy and its rights to the sanction of another power. As judges
cannot be dispensed with, at least the State is to select them, and always to hold them under
its control; so that, between the government and private individuals, they place the effigy of
justice rather than justice itself. The State is not satisfied with drawing all concerns to itself,
but it acquires an ever-increasing power of deciding on them all without restriction and
without appeal. 345
There exists amongst the modern nations of Europe one great cause, independent of all those
which have already been pointed out, which perpetually contributes to extend the agency or
to strengthen the prerogative of the supreme power, though it has not been sufficiently
attended to: I mean the growth of manufactures, which is fostered by the progress of social
equality. Manufactures generally collect a multitude of men of the same spot, amongst whom
new and complex relations spring up. These men are exposed by their calling to great and
sudden alternations of plenty and want, during which public tranquillity is endangered. It may
also happen that these employments sacrifice the health, and even the life, of those who gain
by them, or of those who live by them. Thus the manufacturing classes require more
regulation, superintendence, and restraint than the other classes of society, and it is natural
that the powers of government should increase in the same proportion as those classes.
This is a truth of general application; what follows more especially concerns the nations of
Europe. In the centuries which preceded that in which we live, the aristocracy was in
possession of the soil, and was competent to defend it: landed property was therefore
surrounded by ample securities, and its possessors enjoyed great independence. This gave rise
to laws and customs which have been perpetuated, notwithstanding the subdivision of lands
and the ruin of the nobility; and, at the present time, landowners and agriculturists are still
those amongst the community who must easily escape from the control of the supreme
power. In these same aristocratic ages, in which all the sources of our history are to be traced,
personal property was of small importance, and those who possessed it were despised and
weak: the manufacturing class formed an exception in the midst of those aristocratic
communities; as it had no certain patronage, it was not outwardly protected, and was often
unable to protect itself.

345
A strange sophism has been made on this head in France. When a suit arises between the government and a
private person, it is not to be tried before an ordinary judge—in order, they say, not to mix the administrative
and the judicial powers; as if it were not to mix those powers, and to mix them in the most dangerous and
oppressive manner, to invest the government with the office of judging and administering at the same time.
 495

Hence a habit sprung up of considering manufacturing property as something of a peculiar

nature, not entitled to the same deference, and not worthy of the same securities as property
in general; and manufacturers were looked upon as a small class in the bulk of the people,
whose independence was of small importance, and who might with propriety be abandoned to
the disciplinary passions of princes. On glancing over the codes of the middle ages, one is
surprised to see, in those periods of personal independence, with what incessant royal
regulations manufactures were hampered, even in their smallest details: on this point
centralization was as active and as minute as it can ever be. Since that time a great revolution
has taken place in the world; manufacturing property, which was then only in the germ, has
spread till it covers Europe: the manufacturing class has been multiplied and enriched by the
remnants of all other ranks; it has grown and is still perpetually growing in number, in
importance, in wealth. Almost all those who do not belong to it are connected with it at least
on some one point; after having been an exception in society, it threatens to become the chief,
if not the only, class; nevertheless the notions and political precedents engendered by it of old
still cling about it. These notions and these precedents remain unchanged, because they are
old, and also because they happen to be in perfect accordance with the new notions and
general habits of our contemporaries. Manufacturing property then does not extend its rights
in the same ratio as its importance. The manufacturing classes do not become less dependent,
whilst they become more numerous; but, on the contrary, it would seem as if despotism
lurked within them, and naturally grew with their growth. 346 As a nation becomes more
engaged in manufactures, the want of roads, canals, harbors, and other works of a semi-public
nature, which facilitate the acquisition of wealth, is more strongly felt; and as a nation
becomes more democratic, private individuals are less able, and the State more able, to
execute works of such magnitude. I do not hesitate to assert that the manifest tendency of all
governments at the present time is to take upon themselves alone the execution of these
undertakings; by which means they daily hold in closer dependence the population which
they govern.
On the other hand, in proportion as the power of a State increases, and its necessities are
augmented, the State consumption of manufactured produce is always growing larger, and
these commodities are generally made in the arsenals or establishments of the government.
Thus, in every kingdom, the ruler becomes the principal manufacturer; he collects and retains
in his service a vast number of engineers, architects, mechanics, and handicraftsmen. Not
only is he the principal manufacturer, but he tends more and more to become the chief, or
rather the master of all other manufacturers. As private persons become more powerless by
becoming more equal, they can effect nothing in manufactures without combination; but the
government naturally seeks to place these combinations under its own control.

346
I shall quote a few facts in corroboration of this remark. Mines are the natural sources of manufacturing
wealth: as manufactures have grown up in Europe, as the produce of mines has become of more general
importance, and good mining more difficult from the subdivision of property which is a consequence of the
equality of conditions, most governments have asserted a right of owning the soil in which the mines lie, and of
inspecting the works; which has never been the case with any other kind of property. Thus mines, which were
private property, liable to the same obligations and sheltered by the same guarantees as all other landed
property, have fallen under the control of the State. The State either works them or farms them; the owners of
them are mere tenants, deriving their rights from the State; and, moreover, the State almost everywhere claims
the power of directing their operations: it lays down rules, enforces the adoption of particular methods, subjects
the mining adventurers to constant superintendence, and, if refractory, they are ousted by a government court of
justice, and the government transfers their contract to other hands; so that the government not only possesses the
mines, but has all the adventurers in its power. Nevertheless, as manufactures increase, the working of old mines
increases also; new ones are opened, the mining population extends and grows up; day by day governments
augment their subterranean dominions, and people them with their agents.
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It must be admitted that these collective beings, which are called combinations, are stronger
and more formidable than a private individual can ever be, and that they have less of the
responsibility of their own actions; whence it seems reasonable that they should not be
allowed to retain so great an independence of the supreme government as might be conceded
to a private individual.
Rulers are the more apt to follow this line of policy, as their own inclinations invite them to
it. Amongst democratic nations it is only by association that the resistance of the people to
the government can ever display itself: hence the latter always looks with ill-favor on those
associations which are not in its own power; and it is well worthy of remark, that amongst
democratic nations, the people themselves often entertain a secret feeling of fear and jealousy
against these very associations, which prevents the citizens from defending the institutions of
which they stand so much in need. The power and the duration of these small private bodies,
in the midst of the weakness and instability of the whole community, astonish and alarm the
people; and the free use which each association makes of its natural powers is almost
regarded as a dangerous privilege. All the associations which spring up in our age are,
moreover, new corporate powers, whose rights have not been sanctioned by time; they come
into existence at a time when the notion of private rights is weak, and when the power of
government is unbounded; hence it is not surprising that they lose their freedom at their birth.
Amongst all European nations there are some kinds of associations which cannot be formed
until the State has examined their by-laws, and authorized their existence. In several others,
attempts are made to extend this rule to all associations; the consequences of such a policy, if
it were successful, may easily be foreseen. If once the sovereign had a general right of
authorizing associations of all kinds upon certain conditions, he would not be long without
claiming the right of superintending and managing them, in order to prevent them from
departing from the rules laid down by himself. In this manner, the State, after having reduced
all who are desirous of forming associations into dependence, would proceed to reduce into
the same condition all who belong to associations already formed—that is to say, almost all
the men who are now in existence. Governments thus appropriate to themselves, and convert
to their own purposes, the greater part of this new power which manufacturing interests have
in our time brought into the world. Manufacturers govern us—they govern manufactures.
I attach so much importance to all that I have just been saying, that I am tormented by the
fear of having impaired my meaning in seeking to render it more clear. If the reader thinks
that the examples I have adduced to support my observations are insufficient or ill-chosen—if
he imagines that I have anywhere exaggerated the encroachments of the supreme power, and,
on the other hand, that I have underrated the extent of the sphere which still remains open to
the exertions of individual independence, I entreat him to lay down the book for a moment,
and to turn his mind to reflect for himself upon the subjects I have attempted to explain. Let
him attentively examine what is taking place in France and in other countries—let him
inquire of those about him—let him search himself, and I am much mistaken if he does not
arrive, without my guidance, and by other paths, at the point to which I have sought to lead
him. He will perceive that for the last half-century, centralization has everywhere been
growing up in a thousand different ways. Wars, revolutions, conquests, have served to
promote it: all men have labored to increase it. In the course of the same period, during which
men have succeeded each other with singular rapidity at the head of affairs, their notions,
interests, and passions have been infinitely diversified; but all have by some means or other
sought to centralize. This instinctive centralization has been the only settled point amidst the
extreme mutability of their lives and of their thoughts.
If the reader, after having investigated these details of human affairs, will seek to survey the
wide prospect as a whole, he will be struck by the result. On the one hand the most settled
 497

dynasties shaken or overthrown—the people everywhere escaping by violence from the sway
of their laws—abolishing or limiting the authority of their rulers or their princes—the nations,
which are not in open revolution, restless at least, and excited—all of them animated by the
same spirit of revolt: and on the other hand, at this very period of anarchy, and amongst these
untractable nations, the incessant increase of the prerogative of the supreme government,
becoming more centralized, more adventurous, more absolute, more extensive—the people
perpetually falling under the control of the public administration—led insensibly to surrender
to it some further portion of their individual independence, till the very men, who from time
to time upset a throne and trample on a race of kings, bend more and more obsequiously to
the slightest dictate of a clerk. Thus two contrary revolutions appear in our days to be going
on; the one continually weakening the supreme power, the other as continually strengthening
it: at no other period in our history has it appeared so weak or so strong. But upon a more
attentive examination of the state of the world, it appears that these two revolutions are
intimately connected together, that they originate in the same source, and that after having
followed a separate course, they lead men at last to the same result. I may venture once more
to repeat what I have already said or implied in several parts of this book: great care must be
taken not to confound the principle of equality itself with the revolution which finally
establishes that principle in the social condition and the laws of a nation: here lies the reason
of almost all the phenomena which occasion our astonishment. All the old political powers of
Europe, the greatest as well as the least, were founded in ages of aristocracy, and they more
or less represented or defended the principles of inequality and of privilege. To make the
novel wants and interests, which the growing principle of equality introduced, preponderate
in government, our contemporaries had to overturn or to coerce the established powers. This
led them to make revolutions, and breathed into many of them, that fierce love of disturbance
and independence, which all revolutions, whatever be their object, always engender. I do not
believe that there is a single country in Europe in which the progress of equality has not been
preceded or followed by some violent changes in the state of property and persons; and
almost all these changes have been attended with much anarchy and license, because they
have been made by the least civilized portion of the nation against that which is most
civilized. Hence proceeded the two-fold contrary tendencies which I have just pointed out. As
long as the democratic revolution was glowing with heat, the men who were bent upon the
destruction of old aristocratic powers hostile to that revolution, displayed a strong spirit of
independence; but as the victory or the principle of equality became more complete, they
gradually surrendered themselves to the propensities natural to that condition of equality, and
they strengthened and centralized their governments. They had sought to be free in order to
make themselves equal; but in proportion as equality was more established by the aid of
freedom, freedom itself was thereby rendered of more difficult attainment.
These two states of a nation have sometimes been contemporaneous: the last generation in
France showed how a people might organize a stupendous tyranny in the community, at the
very time when they were baffling the authority of the nobility and braving the power of all
kings—at once teaching the world the way to win freedom, and the way to lose it. In our days
men see that constituted powers are dilapidated on every side—they see all ancient authority
gasping away, all ancient barriers tottering to their fall, and the judgment of the wisest is
troubled at the sight: they attend only to the amazing revolution which is taking place before
their eyes, and they imagine that mankind is about to fall into perpetual anarchy: if they
looked to the final consequences of this revolution, their fears would perhaps assume a
different shape. For myself, I confess that I put no trust in the spirit of freedom which appears
to animate my contemporaries. I see well enough that the nations of this age are turbulent, but
I do not clearly perceive that they are liberal; and I fear lest, at the close of those
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perturbations which rock the base of thrones, the domination of sovereigns may prove more
powerful than it ever was before.
 499

VI. What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations

Have To Fear

I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar
to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism;
and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already been made by most of
our rulers, of the notions, the sentiments, and the wants engendered by this same social
condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their power. This led me to think that the
nations of Christendom would perhaps eventually undergo some sort of oppression like that
which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world. A more accurate examination of
the subject, and five years of further meditations, have not diminished my apprehensions, but
they have changed the object of them. No sovereign ever lived in former ages so absolute or
so powerful as to undertake to administer by his own agency, and without the assistance of
intermediate powers, all the parts of a great empire: none ever attempted to subject all his
subjects indiscriminately to strict uniformity of regulation, and personally to tutor and direct
every member of the community. The notion of such an undertaking never occurred to the
human mind; and if any man had conceived it, the want of information, the imperfection of
the administrative system, and above all, the natural obstacles caused by the inequality of
conditions, would speedily have checked the execution of so vast a design. When the Roman
emperors were at the height of their power, the different nations of the empire still preserved
manners and customs of great diversity; although they were subject to the same monarch,
most of the provinces were separately administered; they abounded in powerful and active
municipalities; and although the whole government of the empire was centred in the hands of
the emperor alone, and he always remained, upon occasions, the supreme arbiter in all
matters, yet the details of social life and private occupations lay for the most part beyond his
control. The emperors possessed, it is true, an immense and unchecked power, which allowed
them to gratify all their whimsical tastes, and to employ for that purpose the whole strength
of the State. They frequently abused that power arbitrarily to deprive their subjects of
property or of life: their tyranny was extremely onerous to the few, but it did not reach the
greater number; it was fixed to some few main objects, and neglected the rest; it was violent,
but its range was limited.
But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of
our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it
would degrade men without tormenting them. I do not question, that in an age of instruction
and equality like our own, sovereigns might more easily succeed in collecting all political
power into their own hands, and might interfere more habitually and decidedly within the
circle of private interests, than any sovereign of antiquity could ever do. But this same
principle of equality which facilitates despotism, tempers its rigor. We have seen how the
manners of society become more humane and gentle in proportion as men become more
equal and alike. When no member of the community has much power or much wealth,
tyranny is, as it were, without opportunities and a field of action. As all fortunes are scanty,
the passions of men are naturally circumscribed—their imagination limited, their pleasures
simple. This universal moderation moderates the sovereign himself, and checks within certain
limits the inordinate extent of his desires.
Independently of these reasons drawn from the nature of the state of society itself, I might
add many others arising from causes beyond my subject; but I shall keep within the limits I
have laid down to myself. Democratic governments may become violent and even cruel at
 500

certain periods of extreme effervescence or of great danger: but these crises will be rare and
brief. When I consider the petty passions of our contemporaries, the mildness of their
manners, the extent of their education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of their
morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which they almost all observe
in their vices no less than in their virtues, I have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in
their rulers, but rather guardians. 347 I think then that the species of oppression by which
democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world:
our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I am trying myself to
choose an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it,
but in vain; the old words “despotism” and “tyranny” are inappropriate: the thing itself is
new; and since I cannot name it, I must attempt to define it.
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first
thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike,
incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their
lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest—his children and
his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-
citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not—he touches them, but he feels them not; he
exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be
said at any rate to have lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and
tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over
their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the
authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it
seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people
should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a
government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that
happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates
their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent
of property, and subdivides their inheritances—what remains, but to spare them all the care of
thinking and all the trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free
agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range,
and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared
men for these things: it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them
as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp,
and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole
community. It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules,
minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters
cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent,
and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting:
such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it
compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be
nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the
shepherd. I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I
have just described, might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of
the outward forms of freedom; and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the
sovereignty of the people. Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting
passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either one

347
See Appendix Y.
 501

or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They
devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people. They
combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this gives them a
respite; they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen
their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings, because he sees
that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large that holds the end of his
chain. By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select
their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite
contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty
of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom
when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me:
the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the fact of extorted obedience.
I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind appears to me to be infinitely preferable
to one, which, after having concentrated all the powers of government, should vest them in
the hands of an irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all the forms which democratic
despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the worst. When the sovereign is
elective, or narrowly watched by a legislature which is really elective and independent, the
oppression which he exercises over individuals is sometimes greater, but it is always less
degrading; because every man, when he is oppressed and disarmed, may still imagine, that
whilst he yields obedience it is to himself he yields it, and that it is to one of his own
inclinations that all the rest give way. In like manner I can understand that when the
sovereign represents the nation, and is dependent upon the people, the rights and the power of
which every citizen is deprived, not only serve the head of the State, but the State itself; and
that private persons derive some return from the sacrifice of their independence which they
have made to the public. To create a representation of the people in every centralized country,
is therefore, to diminish the evil which extreme centralization may produce, but not to get rid
of it. I admit that by this means room is left for the intervention of individuals in the more
important affairs; but it is not the less suppressed in the smaller and more private ones. It
must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of
life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things
than in little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without possessing the other.
Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day, and is felt by the whole community
indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they
are led to surrender the exercise of their will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their
character enervated; whereas that obedience, which is exacted on a few important but rare
occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals, and throws the burden of it upon a
small number of men. It is in vain to summon a people, which has been rendered so
dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that
power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not
prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for
themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity. 348 I add that they will
soon become incapable of exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them. The
democratic nations which have introduced freedom into their political constitution, at the
very time when they were augmenting the despotism of their administrative constitution,
have been led into strange paradoxes. To manage those minor affairs in which good sense is
all that is wanted—the people are held to be unequal to the task, but when the government of
the country is at stake, the people are invested with immense powers; they are alternately

348
See Appendix Z.
 502

made the playthings of their ruler, and his masters—more than kings, and less than men.
After having exhausted all the different modes of election, without finding one to suit their
purpose, they are still amazed, and still bent on seeking further; as if the evil they remark did
not originate in the constitution of the country far more than in that of the electoral body. It is,
indeed, difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-
government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be
governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can
spring from the suffrages of a subservient people. A constitution, which should be republican
in its head and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts, has ever appeared to me to be a short-
lived monster. The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the people would speedily bring about
its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer
institutions, or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.
 503

VII. Continuation Of The Preceding Chapters

I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and despotic government amongst a people
in which the conditions of society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that if such a
government were once established amongst such a people, it would not only oppress men, but
would eventually strip each of them of several of the highest qualities of humanity.
Despotism therefore appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic ages. I should have
loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship
it. On the other hand, I am persuaded that all who shall attempt, in the ages upon which we
are entering, to base freedom upon aristocratic privilege, will fail—that all who shall attempt
to draw and to retain authority within a single class, will fail. At the present day no ruler is
skilful or strong enough to found a despotism, by re-establishing permanent distinctions of
rank amongst his subjects: no legislator is wise or powerful enough to preserve free
institutions, if he does not take equality for his first principle and his watchword. All those of
our contemporaries who would establish or secure the independence and the dignity of their
fellow-men, must show themselves the friends of equality; and the only worthy means of
showing themselves as such, is to be so: upon this depends the success of their holy
enterprise. Thus the question is not how to reconstruct aristocratic society, but how to make
liberty proceed out of that democratic state of society in which God has placed us.
These two truths appear to me simple, clear, and fertile in consequences; and they naturally
lead me to consider what kind of free government can be established amongst a people in
which social conditions are equal. It results from the very constitution of democratic nations
and from their necessities, that the power of government amongst them must be more
uniform, more centralized, more extensive, more searching, and more efficient than in other
countries. Society at large is naturally stronger and more active, individuals more subordinate
and weak; the former does more, the latter less; and this is inevitably the case. It is not
therefore to be expected that the range of private independence will ever be as extensive in
democratic as in aristocratic countries—nor is this to be desired; for, amongst aristocratic
nations, the mass is often sacrificed to the individual, and the prosperity of the greater
number to the greatness of the few. It is both necessary and desirable that the government of a
democratic people should be active and powerful: and our object should not be to render it
weak or indolent, but solely to prevent it from abusing its aptitude and its strength.
The circumstance which most contributed to secure the independence of private persons in
aristocratic ages, was, that the supreme power did not affect to take upon itself alone the
government and administration of the community; those functions were necessarily partially
left to the members of the aristocracy: so that as the supreme power was always divided, it
never weighed with its whole weight and in the same manner on each individual. Not only
did the government not perform everything by its immediate agency; but as most of the
agents who discharged its duties derived their power not from the State, but from the
circumstance of their birth, they were not perpetually under its control. The government
could not make or unmake them in an instant, at pleasure, nor bend them in strict uniformity
to its slightest caprice—this was an additional guarantee of private independence. I readily
admit that recourse cannot be had to the same means at the present time: but I discover
certain democratic expedients which may be substituted for them. Instead of vesting in the
government alone all the administrative powers of which corporations and nobles have been
deprived, a portion of them may be entrusted to secondary public bodies, temporarily
 504

composed of private citizens: thus the liberty of private persons will be more secure, and their
equality will not be diminished.
The Americans, who care less for words than the French, still designate by the name of
“county” the largest of their administrative districts: but the duties of the count or lord-
lieutenant are in part performed by a provincial assembly. At a period of equality like our
own it would be unjust and unreasonable to institute hereditary officers; but there is nothing
to prevent us from substituting elective public officers to a certain extent. Election is a
democratic expedient which insures the independence of the public officer in relation to the
government, as much and even more than hereditary rank can insure it amongst aristocratic
nations. Aristocratic countries abound in wealthy and influential persons who are competent
to provide for themselves, and who cannot be easily or secretly oppressed: such persons
restrain a government within general habits of moderation and reserve. I am very well aware
that democratic countries contain no such persons naturally; but something analogous to them
may be created by artificial means. I firmly believe that an aristocracy cannot again be
founded in the world; but I think that private citizens, by combining together, may constitute
bodies of great wealth, influence, and strength, corresponding to the persons of an
aristocracy. By this means many of the greatest political advantages of aristocracy would be
obtained without its injustice or its dangers. An association for political, commercial, or
manufacturing purposes, or even for those of science and literature, is a powerful and
enlightened member of the community, which cannot be disposed of at pleasure, or oppressed
without remonstrance; and which, by defending its own rights against the encroachments of
the government, saves the common liberties of the country.
In periods of aristocracy every man is always bound so closely to many of his fellow-citizens,
that he cannot be assailed without their coming to his assistance. In ages of equality every
man naturally stands alone; he has no hereditary friends whose co-operation he may
demand—no class upon whose sympathy he may rely: he is easily got rid of, and he is
trampled on with impunity. At the present time, an oppressed member of the community has
therefore only one method of self-defence—he may appeal to the whole nation; and if the
whole nation is deaf to his complaint, he may appeal to mankind: the only means he has of
making this appeal is by the press. Thus the liberty of the press is infinitely more valuable
amongst democratic nations than amongst all others; it is the only cure for the evils which
equality may produce. Equality sets men apart and weakens them; but the press places a
powerful weapon within every man’s reach, which the weakest and loneliest of them all may
use. Equality deprives a man of the support of his connections; but the press enables him to
summon all his fellow-countrymen and all his fellow-men to his assistance. Printing has
accelerated the progress of equality, and it is also one of its best correctives.
I think that men living in aristocracies may, strictly speaking, do without the liberty of the
press: but such is not the case with those who live in democratic countries. To protect their
personal independence I trust not to great political assemblies, to parliamentary privilege, or
to the assertion of popular sovereignty. All these things may, to a certain extent, be reconciled
with personal servitude—but that servitude cannot be complete if the press is free: the press
is the chiefest democratic instrument of freedom.
Something analogous may be said of the judicial power. It is a part of the essence of judicial
power to attend to private interests, and to fix itself with predilection on minute objects
submitted to its observation; another essential quality of judicial power is never to volunteer
its assistance to the oppressed, but always to be at the disposal of the humblest of those who
solicit it; their complaint, however feeble they may themselves be, will force itself upon the
ear of justice and claim redress, for this is inherent in the very constitution of the courts of
 505

justice. A power of this kind is therefore peculiarly adapted to the wants of freedom, at a time
when the eye and finger of the government are constantly intruding into the minutest details
of human actions, and when private persons are at once too weak to protect themselves, and
too much isolated for them to reckon upon the assistance of their fellows. The strength of the
courts of law has ever been the greatest security which can be offered to personal
independence; but this is more especially the case in democratic ages: private rights and
interests are in constant danger, if the judicial power does not grow more extensive and more
strong to keep pace with the growing equality of conditions.
Equality awakens in men several propensities extremely dangerous to freedom, to which the
attention of the legislator ought constantly to be directed. I shall only remind the reader of the
most important amongst them. Men living in democratic ages do not readily comprehend the
utility of forms: they feel an instinctive contempt for them—I have elsewhere shown for what
reasons. Forms excite their contempt and often their hatred; as they commonly aspire to none
but easy and present gratifications, they rush onwards to the object of their desires, and the
slightest delay exasperates them. This same temper, carried with them into political life,
renders them hostile to forms, which perpetually retard or arrest them in some of their
projects. Yet this objection which the men of democracies make to forms is the very thing
which renders forms so useful to freedom; for their chief merit is to serve as a barrier
between the strong and the weak, the ruler and the people, to retard the one, and give the
other time to look about him. Forms become more necessary in proportion as the government
becomes more active and more powerful, whilst private persons are becoming more indolent
and more feeble. Thus democratic nations naturally stand more in need of forms than other
nations, and they naturally respect them less. This deserves most serious attention. Nothing is
more pitiful than the arrogant disdain of most of our contemporaries for questions of form;
for the smallest questions of form have acquired in our time an importance which they never
had before: many of the greatest interests of mankind depend upon them. I think that if the
statesmen of aristocratic ages could sometimes contemn forms with impunity, and frequently
rise above them, the statesmen to whom the government of nations is now confided ought to
treat the very least among them with respect, and not neglect them without imperious
necessity. In aristocracies the observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they ought
to be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.
Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic nations and extremely
dangerous, is that which leads them ta despise and undervalue the rights of private persons.
The attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they display for it, is
generally proportioned to its importance, or to the length of time during which they have
enjoyed it. The rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly of small
importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious—the consequence is that they are
often sacrificed without regret, and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens
that at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men conceive a natural
contempt for the rights of private persons, the rights of society at large are naturally extended
and consolidated: in other words, men become less attached to private rights at the very time
at which it would be most necessary to retain and to defend what little remains of them. It is
therefore most especially in the present democratic ages, that the true friends of the liberty
and the greatness of man ought constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of
government from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the general execution
of its designs. At such times no citizen is so obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him
to be oppressed—no private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with
impunity to the caprices of a government. The reason is plain:—if the private right of an
individual is violated at a time when the human mind is fully impressed with the importance
 506

and the sanctity of such rights, the injury done is confined to the individual whose right is
infringed; but to violate such a right, at the present day, is deeply to corrupt the manners of
the nation and to put the whole community in jeopardy, because the very notion of this kind
of right constantly tends amongst us to be impaired and lost.
There are certain habits, certain notions, and certain vices which are peculiar to a state of
revolution, and which a protracted revolution cannot fail to engender and to propagate,
whatever be, in other respects, its character, its purpose, and the scene on which it takes
place. When any nation has, within a short space of time, repeatedly varied its rulers, its
opinions, and its laws, the men of whom it is composed eventually contract a taste for
change, and grow accustomed to see all changes effected by sudden violence. Thus they
naturally conceive a contempt for forms which daily prove ineffectual; and they do not
support without impatience the dominion of rules which they have so often seen infringed. As
the ordinary notions of equity and morality no longer suffice to explain and justify all the
innovations daily begotten by a revolution, the principle of public utility is called in, the
doctrine of political necessity is conjured up, and men accustom themselves to sacrifice
private interests without scruple, and to trample on the rights of individuals in order more
speedily to accomplish any public purpose.
These habits and notions, which I shall call revolutionary, because all revolutions produce
them, occur in aristocracies just as much as amongst democratic nations; but amongst the
former they are often less powerful and always less lasting, because there they meet with
habits, notions, defects, and impediments, which counteract them: they consequently
disappear as soon as the revolution is terminated, and the nation reverts to its former political
courses. This is not always the case in democratic countries, in which it is ever to be feared
that revolutionary tendencies, becoming more gentle and more regular, without entirely
disappearing from society, will be gradually transformed into habits of subjection to the
administrative authority of the government. I know of no countries in which revolutions re
more dangerous than in democratic countries; because, independently of the accidental and
transient evils which must always attend them, they may always create some evils which are
permanent and unending. I believe that there are such things as justifiable resistance and
legitimate rebellion: I do not therefore assert, as an absolute proposition, that the men of
democratic ages ought never to make revolutions; but I think that they have especial reason to
hesitate before they embark in them, and that it is far better to endure many grievances in
their present condition than to have recourse to so perilous a remedy.
I shall conclude by one general idea, which comprises not only all the particular ideas which
have been expressed in the present chapter, but also most of those which it is the object of
this book to treat of. In the ages of aristocracy which preceded our own, there were private
persons of great power, and a social authority of extreme weakness. The outline of society
itself was not easily discernible, and constantly confounded with the different powers by
which the community was ruled. The principal efforts of the men of those times were
required to strengthen, aggrandize, and secure the supreme power; and on the other hand, to
circumscribe individual independence within narrower limits, and to subject private interests
to the interests of the public. Other perils and other cares await the men of our age. Amongst
the greater part of modern nations, the government, whatever may be its origin, its
constitution, or its name, has become almost omnipotent, and private persons are falling,
more and more, into the lowest stage of weakness and dependence. In olden society
everything was different; unity and uniformity were nowhere to be met with. In modern
society everything threatens to become so much alike, that the peculiar characteristics of each
individual will soon be entirely lost in the general aspect of the world. Our forefathers were
ever prone to make an improper use of the notion, that private rights ought to be respected;
 507

and we are naturally prone on the other hand to exaggerate the idea that the interest of a
private individual ought always to bend to the interest of the many. The political world is
metamorphosed: new remedies must henceforth be sought for new disorders. To lay down
extensive, but distinct and settled limits, to the action of the government; to confer certain
rights on private persons, and to secure to them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights; to
enable individual man to maintain whatever independence, strength, and original power he
still possesses; to raise him by the side of society at large, and uphold him in that position—
these appear to me the main objects of legislators in the ages upon which we are now
entering. It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use men in order to make
things great; I wish that they would try a little more to make great men; that they would set
less value on the work, and more upon the workman; that they would never forget that a
nation cannot long remain strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak, and
that no form or combination of social polity has yet been devised, to make an energetic
people out of a community of pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.
I trace amongst our contemporaries two contrary notions which are equally injurious. One set
of men can perceive nothing in the principle of equality but the anarchical tendencies which it
engenders: they dread their own free agency—they fear themselves. Other thinkers, less
numerous but more enlightened, take a different view: besides that track which starts from
the principle of equality to terminate in anarchy, they have at last discovered the road which
seems to lead men to inevitable servitude. They shape their souls beforehand to this necessary
condition; and, despairing of remaining free, they already do obeisance in their hearts to the
master who is soon to appear. The former abandon freedom, because they think it dangerous;
the latter, because they hold it to be impossible. If I had entertained the latter conviction, I
should not have written this book, but I should have confined myself to deploring in secret
the destiny of mankind. I have sought to point out the dangers to which the principle of
equality exposes the independence of man, because I firmly believe that these dangers are the
most formidable, as well as the least foreseen, of all those which futurity holds in store: but I
do not think that they are insurmountable. The men who live in the democratic ages upon
which we are entering have naturally a taste for independence: they are naturally impatient of
regulation, and they are wearied by the permanence even of the condition they themselves
prefer. They are fond of power; but they are prone to despise and hate those who wield it, and
they easily elude its grasp by their own mobility and insignificance. These propensities will
always manifest themselves, because they originate in the groundwork of society, which will
undergo no change: for a long time they will prevent the establishment of any despotism, and
they will furnish fresh weapons to each succeeding generation which shall struggle in favor
of the liberty of mankind. Let us then look forward to the future with that salutary fear which
makes men keep watch and ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which
depresses and enervates the heart.
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VIII. General Survey Of The Subject

Before I close forever the theme that has detained me so long, I would fain take a parting
survey of all the various characteristics of modern society, and appreciate at last the general
influence to be exercised by the principle of equality upon the fate of mankind; but I am
stopped by the difficulty of the task, and in presence of so great an object my sight is
troubled, and my reason fails. The society of the modern world which I have sought to
delineate, and which I seek to judge, has but just come into existence. Time has not yet
shaped it into perfect form: the great revolution by which it has been created is not yet over:
and amidst the occurrences of our time, it is almost impossible to discern what will pass away
with the revolution itself, and what will survive its close. The world which is rising into
existence is still half encumbered by the remains of the world which is waning into decay;
and amidst the vast perplexity of human affairs, none can say how much of ancient
institutions and former manners will remain, or how much will completely disappear.
Although the revolution which is taking place in the social condition, the laws, the opinions,
and the feelings of men, is still very far from being terminated, yet its results already admit of
no comparison with anything that the world has ever before witnessed. I go back from age to
age up to the remotest antiquity; but I find no parallel to what is occurring before my eyes: as
the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
Nevertheless, in the midst of a prospect so wide, so novel and so confused, some of the more
prominent characteristics may already be discerned and pointed out. The good things and the
evils of life are more equally distributed in the world: great wealth tends to disappear, the
number of small fortunes to increase; desires and gratifications are multiplied, but
extraordinary prosperity and irremediable penury are alike unknown. The sentiment of
ambition is universal, but the scope of ambition is seldom vast. Each individual stands apart
in solitary weakness; but society at large is active, provident, and powerful: the performances
of private persons are insignificant, those of the State immense. There is little energy of
character; but manners are mild, and laws humane. If there be few instances of exalted
heroism or of virtues of the highest, brightest, and purest temper, men’s habits are regular,
violence is rare, and cruelty almost unknown. Human existence becomes longer, and property
more secure: life is not adorned with brilliant trophies, but it is extremely easy and tranquil.
Few pleasures are either very refined or very coarse; and highly polished manners are as
uncommon as great brutality of tastes. Neither men of great learning, nor extremely ignorant
communities, are to be met with; genius becomes more rare, information more diffused. The
human mind is impelled by the small efforts of all mankind combined together, not by the
strenuous activity of certain men. There is less perfection, but more abundance, in all the
productions of the arts. The ties of race, of rank, and of country are relaxed; the great bond of
humanity is strengthened. If I endeavor to find out the most general and the most prominent
of all these different characteristics, I shall have occasion to perceive, that what is taking
place in men’s fortunes manifests itself under a thousand other forms. Almost all extremes
are softened or blunted: all that was most prominent is superseded by some mean term, at
once less lofty and less low, less brilliant and less obscure, than what before existed in the
world.
When I survey this countless multitude of beings, shaped in each other’s likeness, amidst
whom nothing rises and nothing falls, the sight of such universal uniformity saddens and
chills me, and I am tempted to regret that state of society which has ceased to be. When the
world was full of men of great importance and extreme insignificance, of great wealth and
extreme poverty, of great learning and extreme ignorance, I turned aside from the latter to fix
 509

my observation on the former alone, who gratified my sympathies. But I admit that this
gratification arose from my own weakness: it is because I am unable to see at once all that is
around me, that I am allowed thus to select and separate the objects of my predilection from
among so many others. Such is not the case with that almighty and eternal Being whose gaze
necessarily includes the whole of created things, and who surveys distinctly, though at once,
mankind and man. We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few,
but the greater well-being of all, which is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and
Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is to His eye advancement; what
afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more
just; and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive then to raise myself
to this point of the divine contemplation, and thence to view and to judge the concerns of
men.
No man, upon the earth, can as yet affirm absolutely and generally, that the new state of the
world is better than its former one; but it is already easy to perceive that this state is different.
Some vices and some virtues were so inherent in the constitution of an aristocratic nation, and
are so opposite to the character of a modern people, that they can never be infused into it;
some good tendencies and some bad propensities which were unknown to the former, are
natural to the latter; some ideas suggest themselves spontaneously to the imagination of the
one, which are utterly repugnant to the mind of the other. They are like two distinct orders of
human beings, each of which has its own merits and defects, its own advantages and its own
evils. Care must therefore be taken not to judge the state of society, which is now coming into
existence, by notions derived from a state of society which no longer exists; for as these
states of society are exceedingly different in their structure, they cannot be submitted to a just
or fair comparison. It would be scarcely more reasonable to require of our own
contemporaries the peculiar virtues which originated in the social condition of their
forefathers, since that social condition is itself fallen, and has drawn into one promiscuous
ruin the good and evil which belonged to it.
But as yet these things are imperfectly understood. I find that a great number of my
contemporaries undertake to make a certain selection from amongst the institutions, the
opinions, and the ideas which originated in the aristocratic constitution of society as it was: a
portion of these elements they would willingly relinquish, but they would keep the remainder
and transplant them into their new world. I apprehend that such men are wasting their time
and their strength in virtuous but unprofitable efforts. The object is not to retain the peculiar
advantages which the inequality of conditions bestows upon mankind, but to secure the new
benefits which equality may supply. We have not to seek to make ourselves like our
progenitors, but to strive to work out that species of greatness and happiness which is our
own. For myself, who now look back from this extreme limit of my task, and discover from
afar, but at once, the various objects which have attracted my more attentive investigation
upon my way, I am full of apprehensions and of hopes. I perceive mighty dangers which it is
possible to ward off—mighty evils which may be avoided or alleviated; and I cling with a
firmer hold to the belief, that for democratic nations to be virtuous and prosperous they
require but to will it. I am aware that many of my contemporaries maintain that nations are
never their own masters here below, and that they necessarily obey some insurmountable and
unintelligent power, arising from anterior events, from their race, or from the soil and climate
of their country. Such principles are false and cowardly; such principles can never produce
aught but feeble men and pusillanimous nations. Providence has not created mankind entirely
independent or entirely free. It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond
which he cannot pass; but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free: as it is
with man, so with communities. The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men
 510

from becoming equal; but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to
lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or to
wretchedness.
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Appendix To Part 1
Appendix A
For information concerning all the countries of the West which have not been visited by
Europeans, consult the account of two expeditions undertaken at the expense of Congress by
Major Long. This traveller particularly mentions, on the subject of the great American desert,
that a line may be drawn nearly parallel to the 20th degree of longitude 349 (meridian of
Washington), beginning from the Red River and ending at the River Platte. From this
imaginary line to the Rocky Mountains, which bound the valley of the Mississippi on the
west, lie immense plains, which are almost entirely covered with sand, incapable of
cultivation, or scattered over with masses of granite. In summer, these plains are quite
destitute of water, and nothing is to be seen on them but herds of buffaloes and wild horses.
Some hordes of Indians are also found there, but in no great numbers. Major Long was told
that in travelling northwards from the River Platte you find the same desert lying constantly
on the left; but he was unable to ascertain the truth of this report. However worthy of
confidence may be the narrative of Major Long, it must be remembered that he only passed
through the country of which he speaks, without deviating widely from the line which he had
traced out for his journey.
Appendix B
South America, in the region between the tropics, produces an incredible profusion of
climbing plants, of which the flora of the Antilles alone presents us with forty different
species. Among the most graceful of these shrubs is the passion-flower, which, according to
Descourtiz, grows with such luxuriance in the Antilles, as to climb trees by means of the
tendrils with which it is provided, and form moving bowers of rich and elegant festoons,
decorated with blue and purple flowers, and fragrant with perfume. The Mimosa scandens
(Acacia a grandes gousses) is a creeper of enormous and rapid growth, which climbs from
tree to tree, and sometimes covers more than half a league.
Appendix C
The languages which are spoken by the Indians of America, from the Pole to Cape Horn, are
said to be all formed upon the same model, and subject to the same grammatical rules;
whence it may fairly be concluded that all the Indian nations sprang from the same stock.
Each tribe of the American continent speaks a different dialect; but the number of languages,
properly so called, is very small, a fact which tends to prove that the nations of the New
World had not a very remote origin. Moreover, the languages of America have a great degree
of regularity, from which it seems probable that the tribes which employ them had not
undergone any great revolutions, or been incorporated voluntarily or by constraint, with
foreign nations. For it is generally the union of several languages into one which produces
grammatical irregularities. It is not long since the American languages, especially those of the
North, first attracted the serious attention of philologists, when the discovery was made that
this idiom of a barbarous people was the product of a complicated system of ideas and very
learned combinations. These languages were found to be very rich, and great pains had been
taken at their formation to render them agreeable to the ear. The grammatical system of the
Americans differs from all others in several points, but especially in the following:—Some

349
The 20th degree of longitude, according to the meridian of Washington, agrees very nearly with the 97th
degree on the meridian of Greenwich.
 512

nations of Europe, amongst others the Germans, have the power of combining at pleasure
different expressions, and thus giving a complex sense to certain words. The Indians have
given a most surprising extension to this power, so as to arrive at the means of connecting a
great number of ideas with a single term. This will be easily understood with the help of an
example quoted by Mr. Duponceau, in the “Memoirs of the Philosophical Society of
America”: A Delaware woman playing with a cat or a young dog, says this writer, is heard to
pronounce the word kuligatschis, which is thus composed: k is the sign of the second person,
and signifies “thou” or “thy”; uli is a part of the word wulit, which signifies “beautiful,”
“pretty”; gat is another fragment, of the word wichgat, which means “paw”; and, lastly, schis
is a diminutive giving the idea of smallness. Thus in one word the Indian woman has
expressed “Thy pretty little paw.” Take another example of the felicity with which the
savages of America have composed their words. A young man of Delaware is called pilape.
This word is formed from pilsit, “chaste,” “innocent”; and lenape, “man”; viz., “man in his
purity and innocence.” This facility of combining words is most remarkable in the strange
formation of their verbs. The most complex action is often expressed by a single verb, which
serves to convey all the shades of an idea by the modification of its construction. Those who
may wish to examine more in detail this subject, which I have only glanced at superficially,
should read:—
1. The correspondence of Mr. Duponceau and the Rev. Mr. Hecwelder relative to the Indian
languages, which is to be found in the first volume of the “Memoirs of the Philosophical
Society of America,” published at Philadelphia, 1819, by Abraham Small; vol. i. p. 356-464.
2. The “Grammar of the Delaware or the Lenape Language,” by Geiberger, and the preface of
Mr. Duponceau. All these are in the same collection, vol. iii.
3. An excellent account of these works, which is at the end of the sixth volume of the
American Encyclopaedia.
Appendix D
See in Charlevoix, vol. i. p. 235, the history of the first war which the French inhabitants of
Canada carried on, in 1610, against the Iroquois. The latter, armed with bows and arrows,
offered a desperate resistance to the French and their allies. Charlevoix is not a great painter,
yet he exhibits clearly enough, in this narrative, the contrast between the European manners
and those of savages, as well as the different way in which the two races of men understood
the sense of honor. When the French, says he, seized upon the beaver-skins which covered
the Indians who had fallen, the Hurons, their allies, were greatly offended at this proceeding;
but without hesitation they set to work in their usual manner, inflicting horrid cruelties upon
the prisoners, and devouring one of those who had been killed, which made the Frenchmen
shudder. The barbarians prided themselves upon a scrupulousness which they were surprised
at not finding in our nation, and could not understand that there was less to reprehend in the
stripping of dead bodies than in the devouring of their flesh like wild beasts. Charlevoix, in
another place (vol. i. p. 230), thus describes the first torture of which Champlain was an
eyewitness, and the return of the Hurons into their own village. Having proceeded about eight
leagues, says he, our allies halted; and having singled out one of their captives, they
reproached him with all the cruelties which he had practised upon the warriors of their nation
who had fallen into his hands, and told him that he might expect to be treated in like manner;
adding, that if he had any spirit he would prove it by singing. He immediately chanted forth
his death-song, and then his war-song, and all the songs he knew, “but in a very mournful
strain,” says Champlain, who was not then aware that all savage music has a melancholy
character. The tortures which succeeded, accompanied by all the horrors which we shall
mention hereafter, terrified the French, who made every effort to put a stop to them, but in
 513

vain. The following night, one of the Hurons having dreamt that they were pursued, the
retreat was changed to a real flight, and the savages never stopped until they were out of the
reach of danger. The moment they perceived the cabins of their own village, they cut
themselves long sticks, to which they fastened the scalps which had fallen to their share, and
carried them in triumph. At this sight, the women swam to the canoes, where they received
the bloody scalps from the hands of their husbands, and tied them round their necks. The
warriors offered one of these horrible trophies to Champlain; they also presented him with
some bows and arrows—the only spoils of the Iroquois which they had ventured to seize—
entreating him to show them to the King of France. Champlain lived a whole winter quite
alone among these barbarians, without being under any alarm for his person or property.
Appendix E
Although the Puritanical strictness which presided over the establishment of the English
colonies in America is now much relaxed, remarkable traces of it are still found in their
habits and their laws. In 1792, at the very time when the anti-Christian republic of France
began its ephemeral existence, the legislative body of Massachusetts promulgated the
following law, to compel the citizens to observe the Sabbath. We give the preamble and the
principal articles of this law, which is worthy of the reader’s attention: “Whereas,” says the
legislator, “the observation of the Sunday is an affair of public interest; inasmuch as it
produces a necessary suspension of labor, leads men to reflect upon the duties of life, and the
errors to which human nature is liable, and provides for the public and private worship of
God, the creator and governor of the universe, and for the performance of such acts of charity
as are the ornament and comfort of Christian societies:—Whereas irreligious or light-minded
persons, forgetting the duties which the Sabbath imposes, and the benefits which these duties
confer on society, are known to profane its sanctity, by following their pleasures or their
affairs; this way of acting being contrary to their own interest as Christians, and calculated to
annoy those who do not follow their example; being also of great injury to society at large, by
spreading a taste for dissipation and dissolute manners; Be it enacted and ordained by the
Governor, Council, and Representatives convened in General Court of Assembly, that all and
every person and persons shall on that day carefully apply themselves to the duties of religion
and piety, that no tradesman or labourer shall exercise his ordinary calling, and that no game
or recreation shall be used on the Lord’s Day, upon pain of forfeiting ten shillings.
“That no one shall travel on that day, or any part thereof, under pain of forfeiting twenty
shillings; that no vessel shall leave a harbour of the colony; that no persons shall keep outside
the meeting-house during the time of public worship, or profane the time by playing or
talking, on penalty of five shillings.
“Public-houses shall not entertain any other than strangers or lodgers, under penalty of five
shillings for every person found drinking and abiding therein.
“Any person in health, who, without sufficient reason, shall omit to worship God in public
during three months, shall be condemned to a fine of ten shillings.
“Any person guilty of misbehaviour in a place of public worship, shall be fined from five to
forty shillings.
“These laws are to be enforced by the tything-men of each township, who have authority to
visit public-houses on the Sunday. The innkeeper who shall refuse them admittance, shall be
fined forty shillings for such offence.
“The tything-men are to stop travellers, and require of them their reason for being on the road
on Sunday; anyone refusing to answer, shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding five
pounds sterling. If the reason given by the traveller be not deemed by the tything-man
 514

sufficient, he may bring the traveller before the justice of the peace of the district.” (Law of
March 8, 1792; General Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 410.)
On March 11, 1797, a new law increased the amount of fines, half of which was to be given
to the informer. (Same collection, vol. ii. p. 525.) On February 16, 1816, a new law
confirmed these same measures. (Same collection, vol. ii. p. 405.) Similar enactments exist in
the laws of the State of New York, revised in 1827 and 1828. (See Revised Statutes, Part I.
chapter 20, p. 675.) In these it is declared that no one is allowed on the Sabbath to sport, to
fish, to play at games, or to frequent houses where liquor is sold. No one can travel, except in
case of necessity. And this is not the only trace which the religious strictness and austere
manners of the first emigrants have left behind them in the American laws. In the Revised
Statutes of the State of New York, vol. i. p. 662, is the following clause:—
“Whoever shall win or lose in the space of twenty-four hours, by gaming or betting, the sum
of twenty-five dollars, shall be found guilty of a misdemeanour, and upon conviction shall be
condemned to pay a fine equal to at least five times the value of the sum lost or won; which
shall be paid to the inspector of the poor of the township. He that loses twenty-five dollars or
more may bring an action to recover them; and if he neglects to do so the inspector of the
poor may prosecute the winner, and oblige him to pay into the poor’s box both the sum he
has gained and three times as much besides.”
The laws we quote from are of recent date; but they are unintelligible without going back to
the very origin of the colonies. I have no doubt that in our days the penal part of these laws is
very rarely applied. Laws preserve their inflexibility, long after the manners of a nation have
yielded to the influence of time. It is still true, however, that nothing strikes a foreigner on his
arrival in America more forcibly than the regard paid to the Sabbath. There is one, in
particular, of the large American cities, in which all social movements begin to be suspended
even on Saturday evening. You traverse its streets at the hour at which you expect men in the
middle of life to be engaged in business, and young people in pleasure; and you meet with
solitude and silence. Not only have all ceased to work, but they appear to have ceased to
exist. Neither the movements of industry are heard, nor the accents of joy, nor even the
confused murmur which arises from the midst of a great city. Chains are hung across the
streets in the neighborhood of the churches; the half-closed shutters of the houses scarcely
admit a ray of sun into the dwellings of the citizens. Now and then you perceive a solitary
individual who glides silently along the deserted streets and lanes. Next day, at early dawn,
the rolling of carriages, the noise of hammers, the cries of the population, begin to make
themselves heard again. The city is awake. An eager crowd hastens towards the resort of
commerce and industry; everything around you bespeaks motion, bustle, hurry. A feverish
activity succeeds to the lethargic stupor of yesterday; you might almost suppose that they had
but one day to acquire wealth and to enjoy it.
Appendix F
It is unnecessary for me to say, that in the chapter which has just been read, I have not had the
intention of giving a history of America. My only object was to enable the reader to
appreciate the influence which the opinions and manners of the first emigrants had exercised
upon the fate of the different colonies, and of the Union in general. I have therefore confined
myself to the quotation of a few detached fragments. I do not know whether I am deceived,
but it appears to me that, by pursuing the path which I have merely pointed out, it would be
easy to present such pictures of the American republics as would not be unworthy the
attention of the public, and could not fail to suggest to the statesman matter for reflection. Not
being able to devote myself to this labor, I am anxious to render it easy to others; and, for this
 515

purpose, I subjoin a short catalogue and analysis of the works which seem to me the most
important to consult.
At the head of the general documents which it would be advantageous to examine I place the
work entitled “An Historical Collection of State Papers, and other authentic Documents,
intended as Materials for a History of the United States of America,” by Ebenezer Hasard.
The first volume of this compilation, which was printed at Philadelphia in 1792, contains a
literal copy of all the charters granted by the Crown of England to the emigrants, as well as
the principal acts of the colonial governments, during the commencement of their existence.
Amongst other authentic documents, we here find a great many relating to the affairs of New
England and Virginia during this period. The second volume is almost entirely devoted to the
acts of the Confederation of 1643. This federal compact, which was entered into by the
colonies of New England with the view of resisting the Indians, was the first instance of
union afforded by the Anglo-Americans. There were besides many other confederations of
the same nature, before the famous one of 1776, which brought about the independence of the
colonies.
Each colony has, besides, its own historic monuments, some of which are extremely curious;
beginning with Virginia, the State which was first peopled. The earliest historian of Virginia
was its founder, Captain John Smith. Captain Smith has left us an octavo volume, entitled
“The generall Historie of Virginia and New England, by Captain John Smith, sometymes
Governor in those Countryes, and Admirall of New England”; printed at London in 1627.
The work is adorned with curious maps and engravings of the time when it appeared; the
narrative extends from the year 1584 to 1626. Smith’s work is highly and deservedly
esteemed. The author was one of the most celebrated adventurers of a period of remarkable
adventure; his book breathes that ardor for discovery, that spirit of enterprise, which
characterized the men of his time, when the manners of chivalry were united to zeal for
commerce, and made subservient to the acquisition of wealth. But Captain Smith is most
remarkable for uniting to the virtues which characterized his contemporaries several qualities
to which they were generally strangers; his style is simple and concise, his narratives bear the
stamp of truth, and his descriptions are free from false ornament. This author throws most
valuable light upon the state and condition of the Indians at the time when North America
was first discovered.
The second historian to consult is Beverley, who commences his narrative with the year
1585, and ends it with 1700. The first part of his book contains historical documents, properly
so called, relative to the infancy of the colony. The second affords a most curious picture of
the state of the Indians at this remote period. The third conveys very clear ideas concerning
the manners, social conditions, laws, and political customs of the Virginians in the author’s
lifetime. Beverley was a native of Virginia, which occasions him to say at the beginning of
his book, that he entreats his readers not to exercise their critical severity upon it, since,
having been born in the Indies, he does not aspire to purity of language. Notwithstanding this
colonial modesty, the author shows throughout his book the impatience with which he
endures the supremacy of the mother-country. In this work of Beverley are also found
numerous traces of that spirit of civil liberty which animated the English colonies of America
at the time when he wrote. He also shows the dissensions which existed among them, and
retarded their independence. Beverley detests his Catholic neighbors of Maryland even more
than he hates the English government: his style is simple, his narrative interesting, and
apparently trustworthy.
I saw in America another work which ought to be consulted, entitled “The History of
Virginia,” by William Stith. This book affords some curious details, but I thought it long and
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diffuse. The most ancient as well as the best document to be consulted on the history of
Carolina, is a work in small quarto, entitled “The History of Carolina,” by John Lawson,
printed at London in 1718. This work contains, in the first part, a journey of discovery in the
west of Carolina; the account of which, given in the form of a journal, is in general confused
and superficial; but it contains a very striking description of the mortality caused among the
savages of that time both by the smallpox and the immoderate use of brandy; with a curious
picture of the corruption of manners prevalent amongst them, which was increased by the
presence of Europeans. The second part of Lawson’s book is taken up with a description of
the physical condition of Carolina, and its productions. In the third part, the author gives an
interesting account of the manners, customs, and government of the Indians at that period.
There is a good deal of talent and originality in this part of the work. Lawson concludes his
history with a copy of the charter granted to the Carolinas in the reign of Charles II. The
general tone of this work is light, and often licentious, forming a perfect contrast to the
solemn style of the works published at the same period in New England. Lawson’s history is
extremely scarce in America, and cannot be procured in Europe. There is, however, a copy of
it in the Royal Library at Paris.
From the southern extremity of the United States, I pass at once to the northern limit; as the
intermediate space was not peopled till a later period. I must first point out a very curious
compilation, entitled “Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society,” printed for the
first time at Boston in 1792, and reprinted in 1806. The collection of which I speak, and
which is continued to the present day, contains a great number of very valuable documents
relating to the history of the different States in New England. Among them are letters which
have never been published, and authentic pieces which had been buried in provincial
archives. The whole work of Gookin, concerning the Indians, is inserted there.
I have mentioned several times in the chapter to which this note relates, the work of
Nathaniel Norton entitled “New England’s Memorial”; sufficiently, perhaps, to prove that it
deserves the attention of those who would be conversant with the history of New England.
This book is in octavo, and was reprinted at Boston in 1826.
The most valuable and important authority which exists upon the history of New England, is
the work of the Rev. Cotton Mather, entitled “Magnalia Christi Americana, or the
Ecclesiastical History of New England, 1620-1698, 2 vols. 8vo, reprinted at Hartford, United
States, in 1820.” 350 The author divided his work into seven books. The first presents the
history of the events which prepared and brought about the establishment of New England.
The second contains the lives of the first governors and chief magistrates who presided over
the country. The third is devoted to the lives and labors of the evangelical ministers who,
during the same period, had the care of souls. In the fourth the author relates the institution
and progress of the University of Cambridge (Massachusetts). In the fifth he describes the
principles and the discipline of the Church of New England. The sixth is taken up in retracing
certain facts, which, in the opinion of Mather, prove the merciful interposition of Providence
in behalf of the inhabitants of New England. Lastly, in the seventh, the author gives an
account of the heresies and the troubles to which the Church of New England was exposed.
Cotton Mather was an evangelical minister who was born at Boston, and passed his life there.
His narratives are distinguished by the same ardor and religious zeal which led to the
foundation of the colonies of New England. Traces of bad taste sometimes occur in his
manner of writing; but he interests, because he is full of enthusiasm. He is often intolerant,

350
A folio edition of this work was published in London in 1702.
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still oftener credulous, but he never betrays an intention to deceive. Sometimes his book
contains fine passages, and true and profound reflections, such as the following:—
“Before the arrival of the Puritans,” says he (vol. i. chap. iv.), “there were more than a few
attempts of the English to people and improve the parts of New England which were to the
northward of New Plymouth; but the designs of those attempts being aimed no higher than
the advancement of some worldly interests, a constant series of disasters has confounded
them, until there was a plantation erected upon the nobler designs of Christianity: and that
plantation though it has had more adversaries than perhaps any one upon earth, yet, having
obtained help from God, it continues to this day.” Mather occasionally relieves the austerity
of his descriptions with images full of tender feeling: after having spoken of an English lady
whose religious ardor had brought her to America with her husband, and who soon after sank
under the fatigues and privations of exile, he adds, “As for her virtuous husband, Isaac
Johnson,
He tried
To live without her, liked it not, and dyed.”
Mather’s work gives an admirable picture of the time and country which he describes. In his
account of the motives which led the Puritans to seek an asylum beyond seas, he says:—”The
God of Heaven served, as it were, a summons upon the spirits of his people in the English
nation, stirring up the spirits of thousands which never saw the faces of each other, with a
most unanimous inclination to leave all the pleasant accommodations of their native country,
and go over a terrible ocean, into a more terrible desert, for the pure enjoyment of all his
ordinances. It is now reasonable that, before we pass any further, the reasons of his
undertaking should be more exactly made known unto posterity, especially unto the posterity
of those that were the undertakers, lest they come at length to forget and neglect the true
interest of New England. Wherefore I shall now transcribe some of them from a manuscript,
wherein they were then tendered unto consideration:
“General Considerations for the Plantation of New England
“First, It will be a service unto the Church of great consequence, to carry the Gospel unto
those parts of the world, and raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist, which the
Jesuits labour to rear up in all parts of the world.
“Secondly, All other Churches of Europe have been brought under desolations; and it may be
feared that the like judgments are coming upon us; and who knows but God hath provided
this place to be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general destruction?
“Thirdly, The land grows weary of her inhabitants, insomuch that man, which is the most
precious of all creatures, is here more vile and base than the earth he treads upon; children,
neighbours, and friends, especially the poor, are counted the greatest burdens, which, if things
were right, would be the chiefest of earthly blessings.
“Fourthly, We are grown to that intemperance in all excess of riot, as no mean estate almost
will suffice a man to keep sail with his equals, and he that fails in it must live in scorn and
contempt: hence it comes to pass, that all arts and trades are carried in that deceitful manner
and unrighteous course, as it is almost impossible for a good upright man to maintain his
constant charge and live comfortably in them.
“Fifthly, The schools of learning and religion are so corrupted, as (besides the unsupportable
charge of education) most children, even the best, wittiest, and of the fairest hopes, are
perverted, corrupted, and utterly overthrown by the multitude of evil examples and licentious
behaviours in these seminaries.
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“Sixthly, The whole earth is the Lord’s garden, and he hath given it to the sons of Adam, to
be tilled and improved by them: why, then, should we stand starving here for places of
habitation, and in the meantime suffer whole countries, as profitable for the use of man, to lie
waste without any improvement?
“Seventhly, What can be a better or nobler work, and more worthy of a Christian, than to
erect and support a reformed particular Church in its infancy, and unite our forces with such a
company of faithful people, as by timely assistance may grow stronger and prosper; but for
want of it, may be put to great hazards, if not be wholly ruined?
“Eighthly, If any such as are known to be godly, and live in wealth and prosperity here, shall
forsake all this to join with this reformed Church, and with it run the hazard of an hard and
mean condition, it will be an example of great use, both for the removing of scandal and to
give more life unto the faith of God’s people in their prayers for the plantation, and also to
encourage others to join the more willingly in it.”
Further on, when he declares the principles of the Church of New England with respect to
morals, Mather inveighs with violence against the custom of drinking healths at table, which
he denounces as a pagan and abominable practice. He proscribes with the same rigor all
ornaments for the hair used by the female sex, as well as their custom of having the arms and
neck uncovered. In another part of his work he relates several instances of witchcraft which
had alarmed New England. It is plain that the visible action of the devil in the affairs of this
world appeared to him an incontestable and evident fact.
This work of Cotton Mather displays, in many places, the spirit of civil liberty and political
independence which characterized the times in which he lived. Their principles respecting
government are discoverable at every page. Thus, for instance, the inhabitants of
Massachusetts, in the year 1630, ten years after the foundation of Plymouth, are found to
have devoted Pound 400 sterling to the establishment of the University of Cambridge. In
passing from the general documents relative to the history of New England to those which
describe the several States comprised within its limits, I ought first to notice “The History of
the Colony of Massachusetts,” by Hutchinson, Lieutenant-Governor of the Massachusetts
Province, 2 vols. 8vo. The history of Hutchinson, which I have several times quoted in the
chapter to which this note relates, commences in the year 1628, and ends in 1750.
Throughout the work there is a striking air of truth and the greatest simplicity of style: it is
full of minute details. The best history to consult concerning Connecticut is that of Benjamin
Trumbull, entitled “A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ecclesiastical,” 1630-
1764, 2 vols. 8vo, printed in 1818 at New Haven. This history contains a clear and calm
account of all the events which happened in Connecticut during the period given in the title.
The author drew from the best sources, and his narrative bears the stamp of truth. All that he
says of the early days of Connecticut is extremely curious. See especially the Constitution of
1639, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 100; and also the Penal Laws of Connecticut, vol. i. ch. vii. p. 123.
“The History of New Hampshire,” by Jeremy Belknap, is a work held in merited estimation.
It was printed at Boston in 1792, in 2 vols. 8vo. The third chapter of the first volume is
particularly worthy of attention for the valuable details it affords on the political and religious
principles of the Puritans, on the causes of their emigration, and on their laws. The following
curious quotation is given from a sermon delivered in 1663:—”It concerneth New England
always to remember that they are a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade. The
profession of the purity of doctrine, worship, and discipline, is written upon her forehead. Let
merchants, and such as are increasing cent. per cent., remember this, that worldly gain was
not the end and design of the people of New England, but religion. And if any man among us
make religion as twelve, and the world as thirteen, such an one hath not the spirit of a true
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New Englishman.” The reader of Belknap will find in his work more general ideas, and more
strength of thought, than are to be met with in the American historians even to the present
day.
Among the Central States which deserve our attention for their remote origin, New York and
Pennsylvania are the foremost. The best history we have of the former is entitled “A History
of New York,” by William Smith, printed at London in 1757. Smith gives us important
details of the wars between the French and English in America. His is the best account of the
famous confederation of the Iroquois.
With respect to Pennsylvania, I cannot do better than point out the work of Proud, entitled
“The History of Pennsylvania, from the original Institution and Settlement of that Province,
under the first Proprietor and Governor, William Penn, in 1681, till after the year 1742,” by
Robert Proud, 2 vols. 8vo, printed at Philadelphia in 1797. This work is deserving of the
especial attention of the reader; it contains a mass of curious documents concerning Penn, the
doctrine of the Quakers, and the character, manners, and customs of the first inhabitants of
Pennsylvania. I need not add that among the most important documents relating to this State
are the works of Penn himself, and those of Franklin.
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Appendix to Part 2
Appendix G
We read in Jefferson’s “Memoirs” as follows:—
“At the time of the first settlement of the English in Virginia, when land was to be had for
little or nothing, some provident persons having obtained large grants of it, and being
desirous of maintaining the splendor of their families, entailed their property upon their
descendants. The transmission of these estates from generation to generation, to men who
bore the same name, had the effect of raising up a distinct class of families, who, possessing
by law the privilege of perpetuating their wealth, formed by these means a sort of patrician
order, distinguished by the grandeur and luxury of their establishments. From this order it
was that the King usually chose his councillors of state.” 351
In the United States, the principal clauses of the English law respecting descent have been
universally rejected. The first rule that we follow, says Mr. Kent, touching inheritance, is the
following:—If a man dies intestate, his property goes to his heirs in a direct line. If he has but
one heir or heiress, he or she succeeds to the whole. If there are several heirs of the same
degree, they divide the inheritance equally amongst them, without distinction of sex. This
rule was prescribed for the first time in the State of New York by a statute of February 23,
1786. (See Revised Statutes, vol. iii. Appendix, p. 48.) It has since then been adopted in the
Revised Statutes of the same State. At the present day this law holds good throughout the
whole of the United States, with the exception of the State of Vermont, where the male heir
inherits a double portion. (Kent’s “Commentaries,” vol. iv. p. 370.) Mr. Kent, in the same
work, vol. iv. p. 1-22, gives a historical account of American legislation on the subject of
entail: by this we learn that, previous to the Revolution, the colonies followed the English law
of entail. Estates tail were abolished in Virginia in 1776, on a motion of Mr. Jefferson. They
were suppressed in New York in 1786, and have since been abolished in North Carolina,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Missouri. In Vermont, Indiana, Illinois, South Carolina,
and Louisiana, entail was never introduced. Those States which thought proper to preserve
the English law of entail, modified it in such a way as to deprive it of its most aristocratic
tendencies. “Our general principles on the subject of government,” says Mr. Kent, “tend to
favor the free circulation of property.”
It cannot fail to strike the French reader who studies the law of inheritance, that on these
questions the French legislation is infinitely more democratic even than the American. The
American law makes an equal division of the father’s property, but only in the case of his will
not being known; “for every man,” says the law, “in the State of New York (Revised Statutes,
vol. iii. Appendix, p. 51), has entire liberty, power, and authority, to dispose of his property
by will, to leave it entire, or divided in favor of any persons he chooses as his heirs, provided
he do not leave it to a political body or any corporation.” The French law obliges the testator
to divide his property equally, or nearly so, among his heirs. Most of the American republics
still admit of entails, under certain restrictions; but the French law prohibits entail in all cases.
If the social condition of the Americans is more democratic than that of the French, the laws
of the latter are the most democratic of the two. This may be explained more easily than at

351
This passage is extracted and translated from M. Conseil’s work upon the life of Jefferson, entitled
“Melanges Politiques et Philosophiques de Jefferson.”
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first appears to be the case. In France, democracy is still occupied in the work of destruction;
in America, it reigns quietly over the ruins it has made.
Appendix H
Summary Of The Qualifications Of Voters In The United States As They Existed In 1832
All the States agree in granting the right of voting at the age of twenty-one. In all of them it is
necessary to have resided for a certain time in the district where the vote is given. This period
varies from three months to two years.
As to the qualification: in the State of Massachusetts it is necessary to have an income of
Pound 3 or a capital of Pound 60. In Rhode Island, a man must possess landed property to the
amount of $133.
In Connecticut, he must have a property which gives an income of $17. A year of service in
the militia also gives the elective privilege.
In New Jersey, an elector must have a property of Pound 50 a year.
In South Carolina and Maryland, the elector must possess fifty acres of land.
In Tennessee, he must possess some property.
In the States of Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, the
only necessary qualification for voting is that of paying the taxes; and in most of the States, to
serve in the militia is equivalent to the payment of taxes. In Maine and New Hampshire any
man can vote who is not on the pauper list.
Lastly, in the States of Missouri, Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Indiana, Kentucky, and
Vermont, the conditions of voting have no reference to the property of the elector.
I believe there is no other State besides that of North Carolina in which different conditions
are applied to the voting for the Senate and the electing the House of Representatives. The
electors of the former, in this case, should possess in property fifty acres of land; to vote for
the latter, nothing more is required than to pay taxes.
Appendix I
The small number of custom-house officers employed in the United States, compared with
the extent of the coast, renders smuggling very easy; notwithstanding which, it is less
practised than elsewhere, because everybody endeavors to repress it. In America there is no
police for the prevention of fires, and such accidents are more frequent than in Europe; but in
general they are more speedily extinguished, because the surrounding population is prompt in
lending assistance.
Appendix K
It is incorrect to assert that centralization was produced by the French Revolution; the
revolution brought it to perfection, but did not create it. The mania for centralization and
government regulations dates from the time when jurists began to take a share in the
government, in the time of Philippele-Bel; ever since which period they have been on the
increase. In the year 1775, M. de Malesherbes, speaking in the name of the Cour des Aides,
said to Louis XIV:— 352

352
See “Memoires pour servir a l’Histoire du Droit Public de la France en matiere d’impots,” p. 654, printed at
Brussels in 1779.
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“. . . Every corporation and every community of citizens retained the right of administering
its own affairs; a right which not only forms part of the primitive constitution of the kingdom,
but has a still higher origin; for it is the right of nature, and of reason. Nevertheless, your
subjects, Sire, have been deprived of it; and we cannot refrain from saying that in this respect
your government has fallen into puerile extremes. From the time when powerful ministers
made it a political principle to prevent the convocation of a national assembly, one
consequence has succeeded another, until the deliberations of the inhabitants of a village are
declared null when they have not been authorized by the Intendant. Of course, if the
community has an expensive undertaking to carry through, it must remain under the control
of the sub-delegate of the Intendant, and, consequently, follow the plan he proposes, employ
his favorite workmen, pay them according to his pleasure; and if an action at law is deemed
necessary, the Intendant’s permission must be obtained. The cause must be pleaded before
this first tribunal, previous to its being carried into a public court; and if the opinion of the
Intendant is opposed to that of the inhabitants, or if their adversary enjoys his favor, the
community is deprived of the power of defending its rights. Such are the means, Sire, which
have been exerted to extinguish the municipal spirit in France; and to stifle, if possible, the
opinions of the citizens. The nation may be said to lie under an interdict, and to be in
wardship under guardians.” What could be said more to the purpose at the present day, when
the Revolution has achieved what are called its victories in centralization?
In 1789, Jefferson wrote from Paris to one of his friends:—”There is no country where the
mania for over-governing has taken deeper root than in France, or been the source of greater
mischief.” (Letter to Madison, August 28, 1789.) The fact is, that for several centuries past
the central power of France has done everything it could to extend central administration; it
has acknowledged no other limits than its own strength. The central power to which the
Revolution gave birth made more rapid advances than any of its predecessors, because it was
stronger and wiser than they had been; Louis XIV committed the welfare of such
communities to the caprice of an intendant; Napoleon left them to that of the Minister. The
same principle governed both, though its consequences were more or less remote.
Appendix L
The immutability of the constitution of France is a necessary consequence of the laws of that
country. To begin with the most important of all the laws, that which decides the order of
succession to the throne; what can be more immutable in its principle than a political order
founded upon the natural succession of father to son? In 1814, Louis XVIII had established
the perpetual law of hereditary succession in favor of his own family. The individuals who
regulated the consequences of the Revolution of 1830 followed his example; they merely
established the perpetuity of the law in favor of another family. In this respect they imitated
the Chancellor Meaupou, who, when he erected the new Parliament upon the ruins of the old,
took care to declare in the same ordinance that the rights of the new magistrates should be as
inalienable as those of their predecessors had been. The laws of 1830, like those of 1814,
point out no way of changing the constitution: and it is evident that the ordinary means of
legislation are insufficient for this purpose. As the King, the Peers, and the Deputies, all
derive their authority from the constitution, these three powers united cannot alter a law by
virtue of which alone they govern. Out of the pale of the constitution they are nothing: where,
when, could they take their stand to effect a change in its provisions? The alternative is clear:
either their efforts are powerless against the charter, which continues to exist in spite of them,
in which case they only reign in the name of the charter; or they succeed in changing the
charter, and then, the law by which they existed being annulled, they themselves cease to
exist. By destroying the charter, they destroy themselves. This is much more evident in the
laws of 1830 than in those of 1814. In 1814, the royal prerogative took its stand above and
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beyond the constitution; but in 1830, it was avowedly created by, and dependent on, the
constitution. A part, therefore, of the French constitution is immutable, because it is united to
the destiny of a family; and the body of the constitution is equally immutable, because there
appear to be no legal means of changing it. These remarks are not applicable to England. That
country having no written constitution, who can assert when its constitution is changed?
Appendix M
The most esteemed authors who have written upon the English Constitution agree with each
other in establishing the omnipotence of the Parliament. Delolme says: “It is a fundamental
principle with the English lawyers, that Parliament can do everything except making a
woman a man, or a man a woman.” Blackstone expresses himself more in detail, if not more
energetically, than Delolme, in the following terms:—”The power and jurisdiction of
Parliament, says Sir Edward Coke (4 Inst. 36), ‘is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot
be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds.’ And of this High Court, he
adds, may be truly said, ‘Si antiquitatem spectes, est vetustissima; si dignitatem, est
honoratissima; si jurisdictionem, est capacissima.’ It hath sovereign and uncontrollable
authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving,
and expounding of laws, concerning matters of all possible denominations; ecclesiastical or
temporal; civil, military, maritime, or criminal; this being the place where that absolute
despotic power which must, in all governments, reside somewhere, is intrusted by the
constitution of these kingdoms. All mischiefs and grievances, operations and remedies, that
transcend the ordinary course of the laws, are within the reach of this extraordinary tribunal.
It can regulate or new-model the succession to the Crown; as was done in the reign of Henry
VIII and William III. It can alter the established religion of the land; as was done in a variety
of instances in the reigns of King Henry VIII and his three children. It can change and create
afresh even the constitution of the kingdom, and of parliaments themselves; as was done by
the Act of Union and the several statutes for triennial and septennial elections. It can, in short,
do everything that is not naturally impossible to be done; and, therefore some have not
scrupled to call its power, by a figure rather too bold, the omnipotence of Parliament.”
Appendix N
There is no question upon which the American constitutions agree more fully than upon that
of political jurisdiction. All the constitutions which take cognizance of this matter, give to the
House of Delegates the exclusive right of impeachment; excepting only the constitution of
North Carolina, which grants the same privilege to grand juries. (Article 23.) Almost all the
constitutions give the exclusive right of pronouncing sentence to the Senate, or to the
Assembly which occupies its place.
The only punishments which the political tribunals can inflict are removal, or the interdiction
of public functions for the future. There is no other constitution but that of Virginia (p. 152),
which enables them to inflict every kind of punishment. The crimes which are subject to
political jurisdiction are, in the federal constitution (Section 4, Art. 1); in that of Indiana (Art.
3, paragraphs 23 and 24); of New York (Art. 5); of Delaware (Art. 5), high treason, bribery,
and other high crimes or offences. In the Constitution of Massachusetts (Chap. I, Section 2);
that of North Carolina (Art. 23); of Virginia (p. 252), misconduct and maladministration. In
the constitution of New Hampshire (p. 105), corruption, intrigue, and maladministration. In
Vermont (Chap. 2, Art. 24), maladministration. In South Carolina (Art. 5); Kentucky (Art. 5);
Tennessee (Art. 4); Ohio (Art. 1, 23, 24); Louisiana (Art. 5); Mississippi (Art. 5); Alabama
(Art. 6); Pennsylvania (Art. 4), crimes committed in the non-performance of official duties.
In the States of Illinois, Georgia, Maine, and Connecticut, no particular offences are
specified.
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Appendix O
It is true that the powers of Europe may carry on maritime wars with the Union; but there is
always greater facility and less danger in supporting a maritime than a continental war.
Maritime warfare only requires one species of effort. A commercial people which consents to
furnish its government with the necessary funds, is sure to possess a fleet. And it is far easier
to induce a nation to part with its money, almost unconsciously, than to reconcile it to
sacrifices of men and personal efforts. Moreover, defeat by sea rarely compromises the
existence or independence of the people which endures it. As for continental wars, it is
evident that the nations of Europe cannot be formidable in this way to the American Union. It
would be very difficult to transport and maintain in America more than 25,000 soldiers; an
army which may be considered to represent a nation of about 2,000,000 of men. The most
populous nation of Europe contending in this way against the Union, is in the position of a
nation of 2,000,000 of inhabitants at war with one of 12,000,000. Add to this, that America
has all its resources within reach, whilst the European is at 4,000 miles distance from his; and
that the immensity of the American continent would of itself present an insurmountable
obstacle to its conquest.
Appendix P
The first American journal appeared in April, 1704, and was published at Boston. See
“Collection of the Historical Society of Massachusetts,” vol. vi. p. 66. It would be a mistake
to suppose that the periodical press has always been entirely free in the American colonies:
an attempt was made to establish something analogous to a censorship and preliminary
security. Consult the Legislative Documents of Massachusetts of January 14, 1722. The
Committee appointed by the General Assembly (the legislative body of the province) for the
purpose of examining into circumstances connected with a paper entitled “The New England
Courier,” expresses its opinion that “the tendency of the said journal is to turn religion into
derision and bring it into contempt; that it mentions the sacred writers in a profane and
irreligious manner; that it puts malicious interpretations upon the conduct of the ministers of
the Gospel; and that the Government of his Majesty is insulted, and the peace and tranquillity
of the province disturbed by the said journal. The Committee is consequently of opinion that
the printer and publisher, James Franklin, should be forbidden to print and publish the said
journal or any other work in future, without having previously submitted it to the Secretary of
the province; and that the justices of the peace for the county of Suffolk should be
commissioned to require bail of the said James Franklin for his good conduct during the
ensuing year.” The suggestion of the Committee was adopted and passed into a law, but the
effect of it was null, for the journal eluded the prohibition by putting the name of Benjamin
Franklin instead of James Franklin at the bottom of its columns, and this manoeuvre was
supported by public opinion.
Appendix Q
The Federal Constitution has introduced the jury into the tribunals of the Union in the same
way as the States had introduced it into their own several courts; but as it has not established
any fixed rules for the choice of jurors, the federal courts select them from the ordinary jury
list which each State makes for itself. The laws of the States must therefore be examined for
the theory of the formation of juries. See Story’s “Commentaries on the Constitution,” B. iii.
chap. 38, p. 654-659; Sergeant’s “Constitutional Law,” p. 165. See also the Federal Laws of
the years 1789, 1800, and 1802, upon the subject. For the purpose of thoroughly
understanding the American principles with respect to the formation of juries, I examined the
laws of States at a distance from one another, and the following observations were the result
of my inquiries. In America, all the citizens who exercise the elective franchise have the right
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of serving upon a jury. The great State of New York, however, has made a slight difference
between the two privileges, but in a spirit quite contrary to that of the laws of France; for in
the State of New York there are fewer persons eligible as jurymen than there are electors. It
may be said in general that the right of forming part of a jury, like the right of electing
representatives, is open to all the citizens: the exercise of this right, however, is not put
indiscriminately into any hands. Every year a body of municipal or county magistrates—
called “selectmen” in New England, “supervisors” in New York, “trustees” in Ohio, and
“sheriffs of the parish” in Louisiana—choose for each county a certain number of citizens
who have the right of serving as jurymen, and who are supposed to be capable of exercising
their functions. These magistrates, being themselves elective, excite no distrust; their powers,
like those of most republican magistrates, are very extensive and very arbitrary, and they
frequently make use of them to remove unworthy or incompetent jurymen. The names of the
jurymen thus chosen are transmitted to the County Court; and the jury who have to decide
any affair are drawn by lot from the whole list of names. The Americans have contrived in
every way to make the common people eligible to the jury, and to render the service as little
onerous as possible. The sessions are held in the chief town of every county, and the jury are
indemnified for their attendance either by the State or the parties concerned. They receive in
general a dollar per day, besides their travelling expenses. In America, the being placed upon
the jury is looked upon as a burden, but it is a burden which is very supportable. See
Brevard’s “Digest of the Public Statute Law of South Carolina,” vol. i. pp. 446 and 454, vol.
ii. pp. 218 and 338; “The General Laws of Massachusetts, revised and published by authority
of the Legislature,” vol. ii. pp. 187 and 331; “The Revised Statutes of the State of New
York,” vol. ii. pp. 411, 643, 717, 720; “The Statute Law of the State of Tennessee,” vol. i. p.
209; “Acts of the State of Ohio,” pp. 95 and 210; and “Digeste general des Actes de la
Legislature de la Louisiane.”
Appendix R
If we attentively examine the constitution of the jury as introduced into civil proceedings in
England, we shall readily perceive that the jurors are under the immediate control of the
judge. It is true that the verdict of the jury, in civil as well as in criminal cases, comprises the
question of fact and the question of right in the same reply; thus—a house is claimed by Peter
as having been purchased by him: this is the fact to be decided. The defendant puts in a plea
of incompetency on the part of the vendor: this is the legal question to be resolved. But the
jury do not enjoy the same character of infallibility in civil cases, according to the practice of
the English courts, as they do in criminal cases. The judge may refuse to receive the verdict;
and even after the first trial has taken place, a second or new trial may be awarded by the
Court. See Blackstone’s “Commentaries,” book iii. ch. 24.
Appendix S
I find in my travelling journal a passage which may serve to convey a more complete notion
of the trials to which the women of America, who consent to follow their husbands into the
wilds, are often subjected. This description has nothing to recommend it to the reader but its
strict accuracy:
“. . . From time to time we come to fresh clearings; all these places are alike; I shall describe
the one at which we have halted to-night, for it will serve to remind me of all the others.
“The bell which the pioneers hang round the necks of their cattle, in order to find them again
in the woods, announced our approach to a clearing, when we were yet a long way off; and
we soon afterwards heard the stroke of the hatchet, hewing down the trees of the forest. As
we came nearer, traces of destruction marked the presence of civilized man; the road was
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strewn with shattered boughs; trunks of trees, half consumed by fire, or cleft by the wedge,
were still standing in the track we were following. We continued to proceed till we reached a
wood in which all the trees seemed to have been suddenly struck dead; in the height of
summer their boughs were as leafless as in winter; and upon closer examination we found
that a deep circle had been cut round the bark, which, by stopping the circulation of the sap,
soon kills the tree. We were informed that this is commonly the first thing a pioneer does; as
he cannot in the first year cut down all the trees which cover his new parcel of land, he sows
Indian corn under their branches, and puts the trees to death in order to prevent them from
injuring his crop. Beyond this field, at present imperfectly traced out, we suddenly came upon
the cabin of its owner, situated in the centre of a plot of ground more carefully cultivated than
the rest, but where man was still waging unequal warfare with the forest; there the trees were
cut down, but their roots were not removed, and the trunks still encumbered the ground which
they so recently shaded. Around these dry blocks, wheat, suckers of trees, and plants of every
kind, grow and intertwine in all the luxuriance of wild, untutored nature. Amidst this
vigorous and various vegetation stands the house of the pioneer, or, as they call it, the log
house. Like the ground about it, this rustic dwelling bore marks of recent and hasty labor; its
length seemed not to exceed thirty feet, its height fifteen; the walls as well as the roof were
formed of rough trunks of trees, between which a little moss and clay had been inserted to
keep out the cold and rain.
“As night was coming on, we determined to ask the master of the log house for a lodging. At
the sound of our footsteps, the children who were playing amongst the scattered branches
sprang up and ran towards the house, as if they were frightened at the sight of man; whilst
two large dogs, almost wild, with ears erect and outstretched nose, came growling out of their
hut, to cover the retreat of their young masters. The pioneer himself made his appearance at
the door of his dwelling; he looked at us with a rapid and inquisitive glance, made a sign to
the dogs to go into the house, and set them the example, without betraying either curiosity or
apprehension at our arrival.
“We entered the log house: the inside is quite unlike that of the cottages of the peasantry of
Europe: it contains more than is superfluous, less than is necessary. A single window with a
muslin blind; on a hearth of trodden clay an immense fire, which lights the whole structure;
above the hearth a good rifle, a deer’s skin, and plumes of eagles’ feathers; on the right hand
of the chimney a map of the United States, raised and shaken by the wind through the
crannies in the wall; near the map, upon a shelf formed of a roughly hewn plank, a few
volumes of books—a Bible, the six first books of Milton, and two of Shakespeare’s plays;
along the wall, trunks instead of closets; in the centre of the room a rude table, with legs of
green wood, and with the bark still upon them, looking as if they grew out of the ground on
which they stood; but on this table a tea-pot of British ware, silver spoons, cracked tea-cups,
and some newspapers.
“The master of this dwelling has the strong angular features and lank limbs peculiar to the
native of New England. It is evident that this man was not born in the solitude in which we
have met with him: his physical constitution suffices to show that his earlier years were spent
in the midst of civilized society, and that he belongs to that restless, calculating, and
adventurous race of men, who do with the utmost coolness things only to be accounted for by
the ardor of the passions, and who endure the life of savages for a time, in order to conquer
and civilize the backwoods.
“When the pioneer perceived that we were crossing his threshold, he came to meet us and
shake hands, as is their custom; but his face was quite unmoved; he opened the conversation
by inquiring what was going on in the world; and when his curiosity was satisfied, he held his
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peace, as if he were tired by the noise and importunity of mankind. When we questioned him
in our turn, he gave us all the information we required; he then attended sedulously, but
without eagerness, to our personal wants. Whilst he was engaged in providing thus kindly for
us, how came it that in spit of ourselves we felt our gratitude die upon our lips? It is that our
host whilst he performs the duties of hospitality, seems to be obeying an irksome necessity of
his condition: he treats it as a duty imposed upon him by his situation, not as a pleasure. By
the side of the hearth sits a woman with a baby on her lap: she nods to us without disturbing
herself. Like the pioneer, this woman is in the prime of life; her appearance would seem
superior to her condition, and her apparel even betrays a lingering taste for dress; but her
delicate limbs appear shrunken, her features are drawn in, her eye is mild and melancholy;
her whole physiognomy bears marks of a degree of religious resignation, a deep quiet of all
passions, and some sort of natural and tranquil firmness, ready to meet all the ills of life,
without fearing and without braving them. Her children cluster about her, full of health,
turbulence, and energy: they are true children of the wilderness; their mother watches them
from time to time with mingled melancholy and joy: to look at their strength and her languor,
one might imagine that the life she has given them has exhausted her own, and still she
regrets not what they have cost her. The house inhabited by these emigrants has no internal
partition or loft. In the one chamber of which it consists, the whole family is gathered for the
night. The dwelling is itself a little world—an ark of civilization amidst an ocean of foliage: a
hundred steps beyond it the primeval forest spreads its shades, and solitude resumes its
sway.”
Appendix T
It is not the equality of conditions which makes men immoral and irreligious; but when men,
being equal, are at the same time immoral and irreligious, the effects of immorality and
irreligion easily manifest themselves outwardly, because men have but little influence upon
each other, and no class exists which can undertake to keep society in order. Equality of
conditions never engenders profligacy of morals, but it sometimes allows that profligacy to
show itself.
Appendix U
Setting aside all those who do not think at all, and those who dare not say what they think, the
immense majority of the Americans will still be found to appear satisfied with the political
institutions by which they are governed; and, I believe, really to be so. I look upon this state
of public opinion as an indication, but not as a demonstration, of the absolute excellence of
American laws. The pride of a nation, the gratification of certain ruling passions by the law, a
concourse of circumstances, defects which escape notice, and more than all the rest, the
influence of a majority which shuts the mouth of all cavillers, may long perpetuate the
delusions of a people as well as those of a man. Look at England throughout the eighteenth
century. No nation was ever more prodigal of self-applause, no people was ever more self-
satisfied; then every part of its constitution was right—everything, even to its most obvious
defects, was irreproachable: at the present day a vast number of Englishmen seem to have
nothing better to do than to prove that this constitution was faulty in many respects. Which
was right?—the English people of the last century, or the English people of the present day?
The same thing has occurred in France. It is certain that during the reign of Louis XIV the
great bulk of the nation was devotedly attached to the form of government which, at that
time, governed the community. But it is a vast error to suppose that there was anything
degraded in the character of the French of that age. There might be some sort of servitude in
France at that time, but assuredly there was no servile spirit among the people. The writers of
that age felt a species of genuine enthusiasm in extolling the power of their king; and there
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was no peasant so obscure in his hovel as not to take a pride in the glory of his sovereign, and
to die cheerfully with the cry “Vive le Roi!” upon his lips. These very same forms of loyalty
are now odious to the French people. Which are wrong?—the French of the age of Louis
XIV, or their descendants of the present day?
Our judgment of the laws of a people must not then be founded Future Condition Of Three
Races In The United States exclusively upon its inclinations, since those inclinations change
from age to age; but upon more elevated principles and a more general experience. The love
which a people may show for its law proves only this:—that we should not be in too great a
hurry to change them.
Appendix V
In the chapter to which this note relates I have pointed out one source of danger: I am now
about to point out another kind of peril, more rare indeed, but far more formidable if it were
ever to make its appearance. If the love of physical gratification and the taste for well-being,
which are naturally suggested to men by a state of equality, were to get entire possession of
the mind of a democratic people, and to fill it completely, the manners of the nation would
become so totally opposed to military tastes, that perhaps even the army would eventually
acquire a love of peace, in spite of the peculiar interest which leads it to desire war. Living in
the midst of a state of general relaxation, the troops would ultimately think it better to rise
without efforts, by the slow but commodious advancement of a peace establishment, than to
purchase more rapid promotion at the cost of all the toils and privations of the field. With
these feelings, they would take up arms without enthusiasm, and use them without energy;
they would allow themselves to be led to meet the foe, instead of marching to attack him. It
must not be supposed that this pacific state of the army would render it adverse to
revolutions; for revolutions, and especially military revolutions, which are generally very
rapid, are attended indeed with great dangers, but not with protracted toil; they gratify
ambition at less cost than war; life only is at stake, and the men of democracies care less for
their lives than for their comforts. Nothing is more dangerous for the freedom and the
tranquillity of a people than an army afraid of war, because, as such an army no longer seeks
to maintain its importance and its influence on the field of battle, it seeks to assert them
elsewhere. Thus it might happen that the men of whom a democratic army consists should
lose the interests of citizens without acquiring the virtues of soldiers; and that the army
should cease to be fit for war without ceasing to be turbulent. I shall here repeat what I have
said in the text: the remedy for these dangers is not to be found in the army, but in the
country: a democratic people which has preserved the manliness of its character will never be
at a loss for military prowess in its soldiers.
Appendix W
Men connect the greatness of their idea of unity with means, God with ends: hence this idea
of greatness, as men conceive it, leads us into infinite littleness. To compel all men to follow
the same course towards the same object is a human notion;—to introduce infinite variety of
action, but so combined that all these acts lead by a multitude of different courses to the
accomplishment of one great design, is a conception of the Deity. The human idea of unity is
almost always barren; the divine idea pregnant with abundant results. Men think they
manifest their greatness by simplifying the means they use; but it is the purpose of God which
is simple—his means are infinitely varied.
Appendix X
A democratic people is not only led by its own tastes to centralize its government, but the
passions of all the men by whom it is governed constantly urge it in the same direction. It
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may easily be foreseen that almost all the able and ambitious members of a democratic
community will labor without 2 ceasing to extend the powers of government, because they all
hope at some time or other to wield those powers. It is a waste of time to attempt to prove to
them that extreme centralization may be injurious to the State, since they are centralizing for
their own benefit. Amongst the public men of democracies there are hardly any but men of
great disinterestedness or extreme mediocrity who seek to oppose the centralization of
government: the former are scarce, the latter powerless.
Appendix Y
I have often asked myself what would happen if, amidst the relaxation of democratic
manners, and as a consequence of the restless spirit of the army, a military government were
ever to be founded amongst any of the nations of the present age. I think that even such a
government would not differ very much from the outline I have drawn in the chapter to which
this note belongs, and that it would retain none of the fierce characteristics of a military
oligarchy. I am persuaded that, in such a case, a sort of fusion would take place between the
habits of official men and those of the military service. The administration would assume
something of a military character, and the army some of the usages of the civil
administration. The result would be a regular, clear, exact, and absolute system of
government; the people would become the reflection of the army, and the community be
drilled like a garrison.
Appendix Z
It cannot be absolutely or generally affirmed that the greatest danger of the present age is
license or tyranny, anarchy or despotism. Both are equally to be feared; and the one may as
easily proceed as the other from the selfsame cause, namely, that “general apathy,” which is
the consequence of what I have termed “individualism”: it is because this apathy exists, that
the executive government, having mustered a few troops, is able to commit acts of oppression
one day, and the next day a party, which has mustered some thirty men in its ranks, can also
commit acts of oppression. Neither one nor the other can found anything to last; and the
causes which enable them to succeed easily, prevent them from succeeding long: they rise
because nothing opposes them, and they sink because nothing supports them. The proper
object therefore of our most strenuous resistance, is far less either anarchy or despotism than
the apathy which may almost indifferently beget either the one or the other.
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Constitution Of The United States Of America

We The People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America:
Article I
Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members of
chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each States
shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State
Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty-five
Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected,
be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be
included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined
by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to service for a Term
of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other Persons. The actual
Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the
United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall
by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty
Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration
shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts,
eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New
Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina
five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority
thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have
the sole Power of Impeachment.
Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed
of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each
Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be
divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class
shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the expiration of
the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the expiration of the sixth Year, so that one-third
may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise,
during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary
Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.
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No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been
nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant
of that State for which he shall be chosen.
The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no
Vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall choose their other Officers, and also a
President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the
Office of President of the United States.
The Senate shall have the sole power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose,
they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the
Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of
two-thirds of the Members present. Judgment in cases of Impeachment shall not extend
further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of
Honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be
liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment according to Law.
Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for
Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but
the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places
of choosing Senators.
The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the
first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.
Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns
and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to
do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to
compel the Attendance of Absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as
each House may provide.
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly
Behaviour, and, with a Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same,
excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the
Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one-fifth of those present, be
entered on the Journal.
Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other,
adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses
shall be sitting.
Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation
for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States.
They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from
Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and
returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be
questioned in any other Place.
No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed
to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or
the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding
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any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his
Continuance in Office.
Section 7. All Bills for Raising Revenue shall originate in the House of
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before
it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall
sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have
originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider
it. If after such Reconsideration two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall
be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be
reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all
such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names
of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House
respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays
excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like manner
as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which
Case it shall not be a Law.
Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of
Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented
to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved
by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and
House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the case of a
Bill.
Section 8. The Congress shall have Power to lay and collect Taxes,
Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and
general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform
throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the
Indian Tribes;
To establish an Uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of
Bankruptcies throughout the United States; To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and
of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United
States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors
and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and
Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures
on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer
Term than two years;
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To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces.
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress
Insurrections and repel Invasions.
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part
of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States
respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia
according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding
ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress
become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over
all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall
be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, Dock-Yards, and other needful
Buildings;—And To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the
Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior
to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such
Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of
Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed. No Capitation, or other direct Tax
shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be
taken.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
No preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one
State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to
enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of Appropriations made by
Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public
Money shall be published from time to time.
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office
of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any
present, Emolument, Office, or Title of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign
State.
Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or
Confederation; grant Letters of Marque or Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make
any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder,
ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of
Nobility.
No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or
Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws: and the
net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports shall be for the
 534

Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the Revision
and Control of the Congress.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or
Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or
with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger
as will not admit of delay.
Article II
Section 1. The Executive Power shall be vested in a President of the
United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and,
together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same Term, be elected as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of
Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may
be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of
Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
[The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of
whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they
shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which
List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the
United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the
Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes
shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President,
if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be
more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal number of Votes, then the House
of Representatives shall immediately choose by Ballot one of them for President; and if no
Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like
Manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the Votes shall be taken by
States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall
consist of a Member or Members from two-thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the
States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the
Person having the greatest number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice-President. But if
there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them
by Ballot the Vice-President.] 353
The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they
shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the
Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any
person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years,
and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
In case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation or Inability
to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-
president, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death,
Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what Officer

353
This clause is superseded by Article XII, Amendments.
 535

shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be
removed, or a President shall be elected.
The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall
neither be increased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected,
and he shall not receive within that period any other Emolument from the United States, or
any of them.
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or
Affirmation:—”I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of
President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and
defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual
Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer
in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their
respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences
against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties,
provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with
the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and
Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose
Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law:
but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think
proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.
The President shall have Power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of
the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.
Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information
of the state of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall
judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or
either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of
Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive
Ambassadors and other Public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully
executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.
Section 4. The President, Vice-President and all civil Officers of the
United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of,
Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article III
Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in
one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain
and establish. The Judges, both of the Supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices
during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a
Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all cases, in Law and
Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or
which shall be made, under their Authority;—to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other
 536

public Ministers and Consuls;—to all cases of Admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to
Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;—to Controversies between two or
more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different
States,—between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States,
and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a
State shall be Party, the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases
before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and
Fact, with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.
The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial
shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not
committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by
Law have directed.
Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in
levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No
person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same
overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of
Treason shall work Corruption of Blood or Forfeiture except during the life of the person
attainted.
Article IV
Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the
Public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may
by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be
proved, and the Effect thereof.
Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States. A person charged in any State
with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another
State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.
No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into
another, shall, in consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such
Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or
Labour may be due.
Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union;
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any
State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent
of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations
respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any
particular State.
Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this
 537

Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;
and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be
convened) against domestic Violence.
Article V
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose
Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of
the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case,
shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the
Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof,
as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that
no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight
shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article;
and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Article VI
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution,
shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance
thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound
thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State
Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the
several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this Constitution; but no
religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the
United States.
Article VII
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the Establishment of
this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of
September in the Year of Our Lord One thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven and of the
Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In witness whereof We have
hereunto subscribed our Names,
Geo. Washington
Presidt. and deputy from Virginia.
New Hampshire
John Langdon
Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts
Nathaniel Gorham
Rufus King
Connecticut
Wm. Saml. Johnson
Roger Sherman
 538

New York
Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey
Wil. Livingston.
David Brearley.
Wm. Paterson.
Jona. Dayton
Pennsylvania
B Franklin
Thomas Mifflin
Robt. Morris.
Geo. Clymer
Thos. Fitzsimons
Jared Ingersoll
James Wilson
Gouv. Morris
Delaware
Geo. Read
Gunning Bedford Jun
John Dickinson
Richard Bassett
Jaco. Broom
Maryland
James McHenry
Dan of St Thos. Jenifer
Danl. Carroll
Virginia
John Blair—
James Madison Jr.
North Carolina
Wm. Blount
Richd. Dobbs Spaight
Hu. Williamson
South Carolina
J. Rutledge
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
Charles Pinckney
Peirce Butler.
Georgia
William Few
Abr. Baldwin
Attest. William Jackson, Secretary
The Word ‘the,’ being interlined between the seventh and eighth Lines of the first Page, The
word ‘Thirty’ being partly written on an Erasure in the fifteenth Line of the first Page, The
Words ‘is tried’ being interlined between the thirty-second and thirty-third Lines of the first
 539

Page, and the Word ‘the’ being interlined between the forty-third and forty-fourth Lines of
the second page.
[Note by the Department of State.—The foregoing explanation in the original instrument is
placed on the left of the paragraph beginning with the words, ‘Done in Convention,’ and
therefore precedes the signatures. The interlined and rewritten words, mentioned in it, are in
this edition printed in their proper places in the text.]
 540

Bill Of Rights
In addition to, and amendment of, the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed
by Congress and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the Fifth Article
of the original Constitution
Article I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Article II
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Article III
No Soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the Owner,
nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Article IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but
upon probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Article V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a
presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces,
or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person
be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any Criminal Case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public
use, without just compensation.
Article VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by
an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and
cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory
process for obtaining witnesses in his favour, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his
defence.
Article VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right
of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined
in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Article VIII
 541

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual
punishments inflicted.
Article IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people.
Article X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Article XI
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or
equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another
State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
Article XII
The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-
President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves;
they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President; and in distinct ballots the
person voted for as Vice-President; and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for
as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for
each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government
of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;—The President of the Senate
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and
the votes shall then be counted;—The person having the greatest number of votes for
President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of
Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the
highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of
Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the
President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one
vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of
Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon
them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as
President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President. The
person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if
such a number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person
have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the
Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of
Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person
constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President
of the United States.
Article XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any
place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
 542

Article XIV
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their
respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President
and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and
Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the
male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis
of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male
citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such
State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President

and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any
State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the
United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of
any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection
or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress
may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including
debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume
or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations
and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
provisions of this article.
Article XV
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by
the United States or by any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of
servitude.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
THE END
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