ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE WAS A FRENCH ARISTOCRAT,POLITICIAN,HISTORIAN,
HE'VE TRAVELLED TO THE UNITED STATES IN 1831.HE WAS BEST KNOWN FOR HIS
WORKS DEMOCRACY IN USA.HE BELIEVED THAT DEMOCRACY REPRESENTED THE WAVE
OF THE FUTURE.
Individualism was an inherent part of establishing a new life in
America. Tocqueville, while traveling through the dense woods in
Michigan, in 1831, came across a pioneer and his family, making the
“first step toward civilization in the wilds.”The pioneer and his
family formed a “little world” of their own, an “ark of civilization
lost in a sea of leaves. A hundred paces away the everlasting forest
spread its shade, and solitude began again.” The pioneer had left behind
in Old Europe parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and
cousins, everyone to impede his freedom and independence.
Democracy was achieved by such a long, arduous and heroic struggle that
it can feel embarrassing even shameful to feel a little disappointed
by it. We know that at key historical moments people have made profound
sacrifices so that we can, every now and then, place a cross next to
the name of a candidate on a ballot sheet. For generations across large
parts of the world democracy was a secret, desperate hope. But today,
we’re likely to go through periods of feeling irritated and bored by our
democratically-elected politicians. We’re disappointed by the parties
and sceptical that elections make a difference. And yet not to
support democracy, to be frankly against democracy, is not a possible
attitude either. We appear to be utterly committed to democracy and yet
constantly disappointed and frustrated by it.. 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.Alexis
de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy in America’ is a ground breaking study on
the nature of modern democracy. The two volumes combine to present a
picture of the benefits and dangers of democratic systems, taking the
United States as a basis but making conclusions that are universally applicable.Alexis
de Tocqueville was a young French aristocrat who visited the United
States in 1831 and 1832, ostensibly to study the American penitentiary
system. After traveling across the country and conducting more than two
hundred interviews with Americans of
all classes, he returned to France to meditate on what he had seen and
heard. He then recorded his reflections in two volumes, the first
published in 1835 and the second five years later.When, in 1831,
Alexis de Tocqueville came to study Democracy in
America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the working of our system
had been made, and it had been proved, by many crucial tests, to be a
government of “liberty regulated by law,” with such results in the
development of strength, in population, wealth, and military and
commercial power, as no age had ever witnessed.De Tocqueville had a
special inquiry to prosecute, in his visit to
America, in which his generous and faithful soul and the powers of his
great intellect were engaged in the patriotic effort to secure to the
people of France the blessings that Democracy in America had ordained
and established throughout nearly the entire Western Hemisphere. He had
read the story of the French Revolution, much of which had been recently
written in the blood of men and women of great distinction who were his
progenitors; and had witnessed the agitations and terrors of the
Restoration and of the Second Republic, fruitful in crime and sacrifice,
and barren of any good to mankind.He had just witnessed the spread of
republican government through all
the vast continental possessions of Spain in America, and the loss of
her great colonies. He had seen that these revolutions were accomplished
almost without the shedding of blood, and he was filled with anxiety to
learn the causes that had placed republican government, in France, in
such contrast with Democracy in America.De Tocqueville was scarcely
thirty years old when he began his
studies of Democracy in America. It was a bold effort for one who had no
special training in government, or in the study of political economy,
but he had the example of Lafayette in establishing the military
foundation of these liberties, and of Washington, Jefferson, Madison,
and Hamilton, all of whom were young men, in building upon the
Independence of the United States that wisest and best plan of general
government that was ever devised for a free people.He found that the
American people, through their chosen
representatives who were instructed by their wisdom and experience and
were supported by their virtues – cultivated, purified and ennobled by
self-reliance and the love of God – had matured, in the excellent wisdom
of their counsels, a new plan of government, which embraced every
security for their liberties and equal rights and privileges to all in
the pursuit of happiness. He came as an honest and impartial student and
his great commentary, like those of Paul, was written for the benefit
of all nations and people and in vindication of truths that will stand
for their deliverance from monarchical rule, while time shall last.A
French aristocrat of the purest strain of blood and of the most
honorable lineage, whose family influence was coveted by crowned heads;
who had no quarrel with the rulers of the nation, and was secure against
want by his inherited estates; was moved by the agitations that
compelled France to attempt to grasp suddenly the liberties and
happiness we had gained in our revolution and, by his devout love of
France, to search out and subject to the test of reason the basic
principles of free government that had been embodied in our
Constitution. This was the mission of De Tocqueville, and no mission was
ever more honorably or justly conducted, or concluded with greater
eclat, or better results for the welfare of mankind.His researches were
logical and exhaustive. They included every phase
of every question that then seemed to be apposite to the great inquiry
he was making.The judgment of all who have studied his commentaries
seems to have
been unanimous, that his talents and learning were fully equal to his
task. He began with the physical geography of this country, and examined
the characteristics of the people, of all races and conditions, their
social and religious sentiments, their education and tastes; their
industries, their commerce, their local governments, their passions and
prejudices, and their ethics and literature; leaving nothing unnoticed
that might afford an argument to prove that our plan and form of
government was or was not adapted especially to a peculiar people, or
that it would be impracticable in any different country, or among any
different people.The pride and comfort that the American people enjoy in
the great
commentaries of De Tocqueville are far removed from the selfish
adulation that comes from a great and singular success. It is the
consciousness of victory over a false theory of government which has
afflicted mankind for many ages, that gives joy to the true American, as
it did to De Tocqueville in his great triumph. The Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Danes,
Italians, Greeks, Poles, Ukrainians, and Hungarians who emigrated to
America seemingly had nothing in common with the original Anglo-Saxon
colonists or between themselves, but surprisingly what bound all
inhabitants of America together were three common values materialism,
equality, and individualism.Except for an exceeding small number of
individuals, the 37 million immigrants to America from 1850 to 1929 did
not seek religious freedom or the absence of political oppression to
write poetry. These immigrants, like my parents, Romanian gypsies, born
in a Transylvanian village and raised in thatched-roofed houses with
dirt floors, sought economic well-being, and in this regard were not
different from the colonists described by Tocqueville. “The wonders of
inanimate nature leave them [the colonists] cold, and, one may almost
say, they do not see the marvelous forests surrounding them until they
begin to fall beneath the ax. What they see is something different. The
American people see themselves marching through wildernesses, drying up
marshes, diverting rivers, peopling the wilds, and subduing nature.”
The New World was seen as a source of unlimited wealth; a view that
persisted for at least a century, when Europeans, Latin Americans, and
Asians told themselves that “in America, the streets are paved with
gold.”
The County Election' painted in 1852 gives a good idea as to how
election day looked like at mid-century. At the time not all elections
were held on the same day in November.The American democratic system in progress. The story takes
place in a small Midwestern town in the mid-nineteenth century, when the
rituals of voting were still taking shape, particularly on the
frontier. In The County Election, Bingham presents a raucous voting
party as an enactment of democracy, bringing together a variety of
residents in a rural community to make decisions for the common good.
Tocqueville
believed that democracy represented the wave of the future, and he
admired a great deal of how it functioned in the United States, but he
found cause for concern as well. As he wrote in the introduction to
volume II, “Since I am firmly of the
opinion that the democratic revolution to which we are witness is an
irresistible fact, and one that it would be neither desirable nor wise
to oppose, some readers may be surprised to discover how often I find
occasion in the book to be quite severely critical.” It is best, then,
to think of Tocqueville as a sympathetic critic of American democracy,
and that is how he wanted his readers at the time to perceive him. And
so when American readers rushed to buy Democracy in America in
translation, they found more than a few observations that were less than
flattering. An example would be Tocqueville’s chapter on “Parties in
the United States” in volume I, part II. The author began by defining
two categories of political parties. “Great parties” are those that
“dedicate themselves more to principles than to consequences” and to
ideas more than specific leaders. “Such parties generally have nobler
features, more generous passions, more genuine convictions, and a
franker, bolder manner than others.”When De Tocqueville wrote, we had lived less than fifty years under
our Constitution. In that time no great national commotion had occurred
that tested its strength, or its power of resistance to internal strife,
such as had converted his beloved France into fields of slaughter torn
by tempests of wrath.He had a strong conviction that no government could be ordained that
could resist these internal forces, when, they are directed to its
destruction by bad men, or unreasoning mobs, and many then believed, as
some yet believe, that our government is unequal to such pressure, when
the assault is thoroughly desperate.Had De Tocqueville lived to examine the history of the United States
from 1860 to 1870, his misgivings as to this power of self- preservation
would, probably, have been cleared off. He would have seen that, at the
end of the most destructive civil war that ever occurred, when
animosities of the bitterest sort had banished all good feeling from the
hearts of our people, the States of the American Union, still in
complete organization and equipped with all their official entourage,
aligned themselves in their places and took up the powers and duties of
local government in perfect order and without embarrassment. This would
have dispelled his apprehensions, if he had any, about the power of the
United States to withstand the severest shocks of civil war. Could he
have traced the further course of events until they open the portals of
the twentieth century, he would have cast away his fears of our ability
to restore peace, order, and prosperity, in the face of any
difficulties, and would have rejoiced to find in the Constitution of the
United States the remedy that is provided for the healing of the
nation.De Tocqueville examined, with the care that is worthy the importance
of the subject, the nature and value of the system of “local
self-government,” as we style this most important feature of our plan,
and (as has often happened) when this or any subject has become a matter
of anxious concern, his treatment of the questions is found to have
been masterly and his preconceptions almost prophetic.In his introductory chapter, M. De Tocqueville says: “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.” He referred, doubtless, to social and political conditions
among the people of the white race, who are described as “We, the
people,” in the opening sentence of the Constitution. The last three
amendments of the Constitution have so changed this, that those who were
then negro slaves are clothed with the rights of citizenship, including
the right of suffrage. This was a political party movement, intended to
be radical and revolutionary, but it will, ultimately, react because it
has not the sanction of public opinion.If M. De Tocqueville could now search for a law that would negative
this provision in its effect upon social equality, he would fail to find
it. But he would find it in the unwritten law of the natural aversion
of the races. He would find it in public opinion, which is the vital
force in every law in a free government. This is a subject that our
Constitution failed to regulate, because it was not contemplated by its
authors. It is a question that will settle itself, without serious
difficulty. The equality in the suffrage, thus guaranteed to the negro
race, alone – for it was not intended to include other colored races
creates a new phase of political conditions that M. De Tocqueville could
not foresee. Yet, in his commendation of the local town and county
governments, he applauds and sustains that elementary feature of our
political organization which, in the end, will render harmless this wide
departure from the original plan and purpose of American Democracy.
“Local Self-Government,” independent of general control, except for
general purposes, is the root and origin of all free republican
government, and is the antagonist of all great political combinations
that threaten the rights of minorities. It is the public opinion formed
in the independent expressions of towns and other small civil districts
that is the real conservatism of free government. It is equally the
enemy of that dangerous evil, the corruption of the ballot-box, from
which it is now apprehended that one of our greatest troubles is to
arise.The voter is selected, under our laws, because he has certain
physical qualifications age and sex. His disqualifications, when any
are imposed, relate to his education or property, and to the fact that
he has not been convicted of crime. Of all men he should be most
directly amenable to public opinion.The test of moral character and devotion to the duties of good
citizenship are ignored in the laws, because the courts can seldom deal
with such questions in a uniform and satisfactory way, under rules that
apply alike to all. Thus the voter, selected by law to represent himself
and four other non-voting citizens, is often a person who is unfit for
any public duty or trust. In a town government, having a small area of
jurisdiction, where the voice of the majority of qualified voters is
conclusive, the fitness of the person who is to exercise that high
representative privilege can be determined by his neighbors and
acquaintances, and, in the great majority of cases, it will be decided
honestly and for the good of the country. In such meetings, there is
always a spirit of loyalty to the State, because that is loyalty to the
people, and a reverence for God that gives weight to the duties and
responsibilities of citizenship.M. De Tocqueville found in these minor local jurisdictions the
theoretical conservatism which, in the aggregate, is the safest reliance
of the State. So we have found them, in practice, the true protectors
of the purity of the ballot, without which all free government will
degenerate into absolutism.In the future of the Republic, we must encounter many difficult and
dangerous situations, but the principles established in the Constitution
and the check upon hasty or inconsiderate legislation, and upon
executive action, and the supreme arbitrament of the courts, will be
found sufficient for the safety of personal rights, and for the safety
of the government, and the prophetic outlook of M. De Tocqueville will
be fully realized through the influence of Democracy in America. Each
succeeding generation of Americans will find in the pure and impartial
reflections of De Tocqueville a new source of pride in our institutions
of government, and sound reasons for patriotic effort to preserve them
and to inculcate their teachings. They have mastered the power of
monarchical rule in the American Hemisphere, freeing religion from all
shackles, and will spread, by a quiet but resistless influence, through
the islands of the seas to other lands, where the appeals of De
Tocqueville for human rights and liberties have already inspired the
souls of the people.The
rise of democracy did not by itself explain the decline of respect for
intellect. The partisan conflicts of the 1790s did as much damage.
Alleging conspiracies to aid revolutionary France, designs to undermine
Christianity, and plots to restore monarchical
government, members of the founding generation employed any rhetorical
strategy, however indecent or dishonest, to discredit their rivals.
Although few were immune, Thomas Jefferson was the first serious victim
of the comprehensive assault on intellect. When, in 1796, it appeared
that Jefferson had positioned himself to succeed George Washington,
William Loughton Smith, a Federalist congressman from South Carolina,
published a pamphlet denouncing Jefferson’s qualifications for office.
Smith lamented that Jefferson was a philosopher with a skeptical and
speculative mind, which had rendered him an atheist who possessed
neither faith nor morals. As an even more damning criticism, Smith
asserted that Jefferson was a poser, not a genuine philosopher at all.
His learning was sophistical, inferior, and debased. As a consequence,
his mind displayed “a want of steadiness, a constitutional indecision
and versatility, visionary, wild, and speculative systems, and various
other defective features.” As president, Jefferson was almost certain to
be abstract and theoretical, timid and arbitrary, impractical and
frivolous, indecisive yet doctrinaire, hardly the qualities of mind or
character to inspire confidence in a head of state. “I am ready to
admit,” conceded another Federalist critic, “that he is distinguished
for shewy talents, for theoretic learning, and for elegance of his
written style.” Jefferson’s abilities better suited him for a
professorship than for the presidency.The campaign against Jefferson, in
conjunction with the Alien and Sedition Acts that targeted dissidents
and foreigners, revealed that the patrician Federalists had abandoned
their commitment to tolerance and freedom. That occurrence alone
justified, or at least helped to explain, the popular rejection of the
Federalist Party after 1800. At the same time, the advocates of
democracy compiled an equally uninspiring record. By the 1820s, the
democratic movement was lapsing into a rabid populism that was
antagonistic to the scholar, the man of letters, and the gentleman.
Lauding the virtues of the common man, democratic populists were
apprehensive about the intentions of the propertied and cultivated to
dominate government. In time, what had originated as prudent anxiety
devolved into a suspicion of learning itself. As early as 1788, Amos
Singletary, a delegate to the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention,
had objected that.The Ways in Which America is a Democracy and the Ways in Which America is a Republic.One
reason people get confused about whether America is a Republic or
Democracy is because the U.S. has a complex mixed-government with many
democratic and republican feature.
When French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville surveyed the United States,
he made an observation that would make any American newsperson swoon
for the good old days of 1831. “Nothing is easier than to set up a
newspaper,” he wrote “as a small number of subscribers suffices to defray the expenses.” Eerily, Tocqueville’s worst fear about what awaited American life in the
future seems fulfilled. He predicted that a blind commitment to
equality would result in an America where “an innumerable multitude of
men, all equal and alike, constantly circling around in pursuit of the
petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each of
them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest.
Mankind, for him, consists in his children and his personal friends. As
for the rest of his fellow citizens, they are near enough, but he does
not notice them. He touches them but feels nothing. He exists in himself and for himself.