No great society can be durable, except in so far as authority is
established in it. We may easily imagine a case, however, in which the
authority may be temporarily thrown into the shade; when a great nation
is in search of political and social forms suited to its wants, when
it is obliged to pass from trial to trial, to feel its way, and turn
itself successively to different points; when, beside, its separation
from the rest of the world guaranties its independence, and frees it
from the necessity of organising itself under the apprehension of
assaults from abroad, it is then permitted, it is even necessary, that
it should provide for the greatest possible freedom of motion, and that
it should cast off all unnecessary and unprofitable restraints. But
then a society without a fixed order and political ties, is an anomaly,
a passing phenomenon. The social bonds of opinion and religion, the
only ones which exist here, cannot supply the want of political ties,
unless they are straightened to such a degree as to become despotic.
Besides, when large towns like New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore,
have once grown up, and there is a numerous floating population, which
opinion and religion cannot watch closely, manners and belief have need
of the firm support of the laws.
The serious character and frequent occurrence of disorders in the
American Union, at the present time, prove that the period has come,
when it will be necessary for authority to be organised. There are
interests in the South, for example, which are filled with alarm, and
which for want of legal protection, protect themselves, right or wrong,
in a brutal manner, and feel the necessity of a power upon which they
can rely for safety. In the Middle Class of the cities of the North,
there is a population enervated or rather refined by wealth, which
is no longer ready to exercise that portion of self-government that
consists in the suppression of violence by force, and in the democracy,
there is a restless and turbulent element which force alone can hold in
check. These two classes, which are peculiar to the North, and whose
numbers daily increase, will soon be unable to live with each other,
without the intervention of power.
Authority has two bases, upon which, to stand firm, it must be
supported, like man upon two feet; these are unity or centralisation,
and the distinction of ranks. The corresponding bases of liberty are
equality, and independence. The spirit of unity or centralisation is
already beginning to appear in several of the United States. (See
_Letter XXIX._).
It is not strictly correct to say that the Americans have renounced
the principle of authority; for they have from the beginning adopted
the principle of the sovereignty of the people. It is true that they
understood it, at first, negatively; that is as a simple denial of
authority in the European sense, or of military power founded on
conquest; but when the doctrine of equality had once secured to
the democracy the superiority over the Middle Class, the democracy
gradually took upon itself the exercise of that sovereignty, for its
own interest, well or ill understood, at the dictation of its passions
good or bad; here, then, was power in the fullest extent of the word,
here was a dictatorate: not indeed permanent and steady, but showing
itself by starts and at intervals. For the most of the time it may
be said to have slumbered, and left the field free to the spirit of
individuality; it has roused itself occasionally only to strike a
decisive blow, and to sink back again into its slumbers; but however
irregular may have been its action, still here has been power, and
power legal in its character and bold in its operations, and gradually
extending their sphere.
The New England States, which are the incarnation of the spirit of
division and individualism, have advanced little in this direction.
The old Southern States, although they have more of the spirit of
centralisation, have also shown themselves timid in this matter. The
Middle States, and particularly New York, have made the greatest
progress; those of the West, and particularly of the Northwest, seem
disposed to imitate them.
This centripetal power has operated in two ways; negatively, in setting
limits, and sometimes narrow ones, to the independence of personal
action, whether exercised singly by individuals or collectively by
companies. It has, for example, reduced the privileges of incorporated
companies in general, and the railroad and banking companies in
particular, or rather it has assumed to itself to be omnipotent
in regard to them; at this moment, the democracy in the North is
raising the hue and cry after all companies. It has imposed various
restrictions upon commerce, such for instance, as the inspection laws
relative to exported produce. Positively, it has interfered with the
private transactions of individuals, and suspended or annulled them;
thus in the West, _ex post facto_ laws have been passed in favour of
debtors; or the courts which refused to yield, have been abolished
in a body, as in Kentucky; or monopolies have been created and sold
for the profit of the State, as in New Jersey. Within a few years
other measures of a more fundamental and comprehensive nature have
been adopted, and the centralisation of the schools, the means of
communication, and the banks, the three institutions of the most
vital importance in a society devoted to industry, has already been
commenced. Thus the germ of a vigourous central authority, which will
embrace all the ruling interests of the country, is already beginning
to sprout. In this respect the North and the South, the East and the
West, with the exception of New England, which is held back by its
spirit of subdivision,[DU] seem to be unanimous.
If any danger is to be feared in the Northern States, during the coming
period, it is not the absence, but the excess of power that is to be
apprehended. Whilst the democracy in these States retains its jealousy
of the military, it appears to be regardless of the accumulation of
power in the hands of the legislators. It refuses to appeal to arms,
even for the suppression of the most brutal violence; but it is willing
to use or abuse the omnipotence of the popular representation, and it
would not hesitate, in case it should be provoked by circumstances, to
exercise it in the most tyrannical manner. A representative government
loses the character of a compromise between the different social
interests, and degenerates into an instrument of despotism in the hands
of the multitude. In America, it had its origin in the concessions
of the Middle Class to the democracy. At present the positions are
reversed; the Middle Class now stands in need of concessions and does
not seem likely to get them.
Instead of the physical tortures of the Inquisition, this despotism, if
it gains strength and stability, would practice the most cruel moral
tortures, it would have its Procustes' bed for intellect and wealth;
its level for genius. Under pretence of equality it would establish
the most fatal uniformity. As it would be successively exercised by
the changing favourites of the multitude, it would be eminently fickle
and capricious; ever calling in question and unsettling all that was
established,[DV] it would end by palsying the spirit of enterprise,
which has created the prosperity of the country.
In the Southern States, the white democracy has a pedestal in slavery.
In order to realise its own elevation, it is not obliged to be
continually engaged in lowering the superiour classes; it exercises
its authority on what is beneath, and thinks less of attacking what is
over it. In the South, society is divided into masters and slaves; the
distinction of higher and lower class is there of secondary importance,
particularly at the present time, when the alarming state of their
relations with the blacks, obliges all whites to act in concert. In
the South, moreover, slavery will soon oblige the local governments to
maintain an armed police, which, while it keeps down the slaves, will
also serve to prevent the repetition of excesses, by which this section
of the union has recently been sullied, and the imitation of those
outrages on private property and public order, of which the North has,
of late, so frequently been the theatre.
Centralisation is one half of authority; distinction of ranks,
the other half, cannot be easily supplied in the United States,
particularly in the North, where, however, it is necessary that some
institution should give stability and strength to authority. There are
two sorts of aristocracy; aristocracy of birth, and aristocracy of
talents. I do not now speak of the aristocracy of money, for this has
no chance of establishing itself, and can acquire influence only by
being merged in one of the two others.
All great societies which have existed up to this time, have
established with more or less solidity, one or the other of these
aristocracies, or, to speak more correctly, both. An aristocracy
of talents existed even in the bosom of the Egyptian and Hindoo
castes; but Christianity first distinctly established an order of
classification founded on intellect, not only in each nation, but
throughout the Catholic Church; the Roman Catholic clergy was
organised on this principle. It could not be otherwise; the unity of
God and of the human race was an article of faith; for the Christian
there was only one God, the father of all men, before whom all
distinctions of birth were as nothing.
But by the side of this aristocracy of intellect, all nations which
have reached a lofty political elevation, and founded durable empires,
have had an aristocracy of birth, a civil and military nobility. Among
some not very numerous peoples of antiquity, the nobility was composed
of all free citizens, who were inferior in numbers to the slaves. Such
were the republics of Greece, whose political superiority, however,
was of short duration. Such were the Arabs, among whom there were
rayas, Christians, and Jews, below the faithful. The nations which have
had most weight in the balance of European civilisation, have been
differently constituted; above the free citizens, they had a hereditary
privileged class. Such was Rome; such is England; in the same way the
empire of Islam was not solidly or firmly fixed, until a handful of
Turks was placed over the Arabs, as a privileged class.
It is worthy of notice, that the last of the great societies which
have passed over the face of the earth, Christian society, or that
in which the aristocracy of intellect was first fully developed, is
also that in which aristocracy of birth has been most strongly marked.
The sons of Japhet, who gave the impulse and acted as leaders to this
movement of civilisation, brought with them from the North, a strong
spirit of family, with which their political systems have been deeply
impregnated; thus arose the most strictly hereditary nobility which has
ever been seen. Till that time the hereditary system had been applied
to caste; the Germans extended hereditary distinctions and functions
to family, with the additional restriction of primogeniture. What
before had been an exception in favour of royal families, they applied
to all noble families. This organisation, more or less modified, still
prevails in most of the European States. But yesterday, it seemed as
vigourous as ever in England. It is true that it has there conformed
itself to the spirit of the age, that it has become pliant and elastic,
opened its ranks to the aristocracy of intellect, and consecrated its
wealth and employed its privileges, not in gratifying its own caprices,
nor in satiating its passions, but in spreading all around it, the
net-work of a vast and beneficent patronage.
At the present day, there is a violent reaction against hereditary
distinctions and aristocracy of birth. On all points of the territory
occupied by the Western civilisation, the aristocracy of feudal origin
is battered down, here by the democracy, there by the Middle Class, and
elsewhere by royalty. In the general league against it, the emperor
of Russia gives his hand to the American democracy and the French
_bourgeoisie_, and the British democracy in the person of O'Connell, is
allied with the king of Prussia and the emperor of Austria.
Whatever opinion we may entertain of the present value of aristocracy
of birth, we are obliged to acknowledge, that, in the past, it has
rendered great services to the human race. But for the establishment
of the feudal system, the barbarian hordes would have continued to
drive over the face of Europe, tribe dashing against tribe, nation
hurled against nation. The principal distinction between the Germans
or Normans, and the followers of Attila or Genghis Khan, is that the
former had the instinct of organisation, as is manifested by their
conception of the feudal system, and the latter were destitute of it.
England is chiefly indebted to her aristocracy for her brilliant
success.[DW] I do not regret the past, for our share of glory is still
great, although France has been conquered by her rival in the field and
in the cabinet, and in every part of the world, in Europe, America, and
Asia. Yet I may be permitted to say, that if the French aristocracy
had triumphed in its struggle with Richelieu,[DX] the destinies of the
world might have been completely changed; and France, perhaps, would
then have played the part which has fallen to the lot of England.
The right of primogeniture, extended beyond the limits of the
aristocracy, ought not to be looked upon as a senseless imitation
of the customs of the nobility by vain commoners. Although it may
be difficult to defend this custom, on the ground of equity, yet it
has been one of the causes of the greatness of England. It is clear
that it is favourable to the accumulation of capital in few hands;
now capital is like man, powerful when united in masses, feeble when
divided. England is indebted to the law of primogeniture for an ever
swarming army of younger sons, eager to exercise their enterprise in
the colonies, and contented with their lot, whether because they
readily obtain assistance from the head of the family, or because
they are full of energy, and know that by industry they will obtain
wealth, or because they do not think that the world can be arranged on
a different system. Meanwhile, the elder sons have formed an opulent
metropolis, which has given ample aid to its distant possessions in all
emergencies, and has gradually gained the supremacy in Europe.
But it would be madness to think of repairing the broken walls of
feudalism, or to wish to copy, in France or the United States, the
English aristocracy, even with its mode of recruiting its ranks by
those distinguished for merit and services; these orders of things
have had their day. Yet all nations which aim to become or to remain
powerful, must have an aristocracy; that is to say, a body, which,
whether hereditary or not, may preserve and perpetuate traditions, give
system and stability to policy, and devote itself to the most difficult
of all arts, which every one at the present day thinks he knows without
having learned it, that of governing. A people without an aristocracy
may shine in letters and art; but its political glory must be as
transitory as a meteor.
I know not if I allow myself to be deceived by my admiration for the
past, although I do not conceal from myself how much of tyranny has
been exercised over the great mass of mankind. But I cannot bring
myself to believe, that the hereditary principle, or, in more general
terms, the sentiment of family, should be entirely excluded from the
aristocratical part of the new social order, which, although yet
wrapped in uncertainty and mystery, is now struggling into existence
on both sides of the Atlantic. The sentiment of family is not becoming
extinct. Like all other social institutions, the constitution of the
family has undergone various changes, since the beginning of the
historical period. In the earlier times, every thing was swallowed
up in the father, and the individuality--the rights, privileges, and
duties--of the wife and children was the successive growth of ages; but
through all these changes, the family sentiment has gained, rather than
lost. If this progressive movement is not violently checked, the new
institutions with which our civilisation is now big, must give a place
in the political system to the family sentiment, and it is not easy
to conceive how this can be done, without a certain infusion of the
hereditary principle.
It may be objected, that, in the United States, the family sentiment
is much weaker, than it is in Europe. But we must not confound what is
merely accidental and temporary, with the permanent acquisitions of
civilisation. The temporary weakness of the family sentiment was one
of the necessary results of the general dispersion of individuals, by
which the colonisation of America has been accomplished; the effect
must cease with the cessation of the temporary cause which produced it,
that is, with the interruption of emigration to the West. As soon as
they have got their growth, the Yankees, whose spirit now predominates
in the Union, quit the paternal roof never to see it again, as
naturally and with as little emotion, as young birds desert forever
their native nest as soon as they are fledged; but the predominance of
the Yankees, at least, as they now are, does not seem to me destined to
be perpetual; I do not see in them the ultimate and permanent type of
the American.
Even amongst the Yankees themselves the family sentiment has maintained
a strong hold, by means of the bible, the sanctity and strictness of
the marriage tie, the ample powers left to the father in disposing of
his property.
Within the three last centuries, the moveable elements have shot up
with a wonderful vigour in western civilisation. Manufactures and the
press, the organ of philosophy and profane learning, have destroyed
the balance between the opposing forces of innovation and conservation,
whose equilibrium is necessary to constitute order. These two new
powers, whose tendency is to reform every thing, have gained the
advantage over the old powers of society, and trampled down the twofold
aristocracy of birth and talents, the clergy and the nobility. Must we,
then, conclude that these two aristocracies, or even either of them,
are stone dead; or must we not rather admit that order, that is to say,
the equipoise of the innovating and the conservative powers, cannot
subsist, unless authority is reconstructed in its ancient strength,
without, however, retaining the brutal traits of its former character?
Is not this a reason that the hierarchy should be established at
least as firmly as in past times? Although it need not borrow from
the past the unyielding, unelastic, and absolute features of the old
aristocracies. And is there any principle of stability and solidity,
comparable to that of hereditary transmission? One may be permitted, or
rather is obliged, to doubt it.
Systems of great stability have, doubtless, been organised without
hereditary succession. The Catholic hierarchy offers the most complete
example of this fact; it has now stood eighteen hundred years. But
in order to produce this result, it was necessary to root out the
sentiment of family from the bosoms of its members, by binding them to
celibacy; and to substitute for the natural principle of stability,
that of hereditary succession, a merely artificial principle, that
of rigourous discipline, and passive obedience,--or in other words,
stability has here been obtained at the sacrifice of liberty.
The two powers of commerce and the press are eminently fluctuating
and unquiet, only because they are not yet regularly organised.
They are susceptible of being modified, and of being restrained in
their innovating tendencies, so as to render the restoration of the
conservative force in all its vigour less necessary. The industrial
interest would certainly be less averse to the privileges of the lay
aristocracy, if it were permitted to participate in them, or if it
had its own peculiar prerogatives. Learning, of which the press is
the sword, would have showed less antipathy towards the spiritual
hierarchy, had not the latter repulsed and rejected it. It is not
impossible that we may be destined to witness a sort of industrial
nobility; it is even possible that we may come, by degrees, in the
course of time, to entertain the question of a more or less complete
monopoly of learning and the press under some form or another. Instead
of throwing down the aristocracy, we might give it additional strength
and stability, by connecting it with learning and industry, which would
then serve as its buttresses, instead of becoming the instruments of
its ruin. In such a system as this, the aristocracy would be less
compact and less exclusive; it would soar less loftily over the rest
of mankind; but it would cover more ground, it would gain in breadth
and length what it lost in height, and it would leave nothing beyond
the reach of its influence. Equality would probably gain by this
arrangement; but human independence would lose by it.
It would be idle to attempt to guess at the future forms which the
hierarchy may assume, to foresee the different interests of which
society will hereafter be composed, or to name beforehand the
institutions in which they will embody themselves. A multitude of
combinations, which no one can divine, are possible. Many will take
place, either successively in the same country, or simultaneously in
different countries. But two things appear to me to be certain: one of
these is, that new social phenomena of great magnitude are on the eve
of being exhibited, either in America or in Europe; and the other, that
the sentiment of family cannot be ultimately and absolutely erased
from the political catalogue.
For Europeans, the immediate and complete abolition of a hereditary
aristocracy seems to me beset with the greatest difficulties. The
nations of Western Europe have received their laws and usages from
the Germans and Romans, that is, from two stocks strongly impregnated
with the sentiment of family; there is not an inch of their soil,
a stone of their monuments, a line of their national songs, which
does not awaken this sentiment by recalling this twofold origin; it
seems, then, impossible that they should be ready to adopt at once a
political system, in which it was allowed no place nor consideration.
We may, however, be sure that the principle of hereditary succession
must henceforth be limited within certain bounds. The idea of
perpetuity, whether of punishment or of reward, is foreign from our
age, and will not, certainly, be more acceptable to future ages.
We live longer in the space of time than our fathers; the same
number of years, therefore, represents a much greater duration than
formerly. If the aristocratic investiture were to endure only for a
few generations, aristocracy would not cease to be the most coveted
of privileges and the most stable of institutions; while the jealousy
of the non-privileged classes would be less keen in regard to its
prerogatives, if the nobility bore upon its front the inscription;
"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
This, however, would not be enough; the aristocracy of birth requires a
spur. To exercise the most important functions, it is not enough that
one has taken the trouble to be born. There is something monstrous
in the privilege of the English peerage, of being legislators by
hereditary right. In the Middle Ages it was necessary to have gained
the spurs, before one could gird on the sword and raise the banner of
a knight. In Rome, birth made Patricians, but not Senators. Similar
restrictions would be useful in all countries; with a people like the
French and the Southern Europeans, they would be indispensable.
It is not easy to say whence a hereditary aristocracy in France is
to be derived, if we must really have one. A nucleus of old families
or of military men would be wanting, around which the new elements
might group themselves. Now, the old French nobility allowed itself
to be degraded to the state of menials under Louis XIV., and sunk
into the grossest debauchery under Louis XV.; the trials of exile
did nothing for those who escaped the revolutionary axe; when they
re-appeared amongst us, they had forgotten nothing, and learned
nothing. The infusion of the military aristocracy of the empire has
not regenerated it. Is the retirement to which the old nobility has
condemned itself since the revolution of 1830, a retreat, in which by
meditation and repentance it is to renew its youth, or is it not rather
a tomb, in which it has buried itself forever? Will the old soil be
heaved by earthquakes into new inequalities of surface? Have we among
our peasants some unknown scions of the slayers of Cæsar, or of the
children of Brennus, who will be revealed to the world by some mighty
convulsions? Or will some Tartar horde from the North, the great hive
of nations, put an end to our domestic quarrels, fix themselves in our
palaces, seize our most fertile fields, wed our noblest, richest, and
loveliest heiresses, and, sword in hand, proclaim to us; "The reign of
lawyers is over, ours is begun."
If the United States have also to constitute an aristocracy, and give
political existence to the sentiment of family, their future would be
yet more cloudy and uncertain than our own. The hereditary element of
aristocracy has always come from conquest, or, at least, has supported
itself, by alliance or compromise, by the sword of the conqueror.
How can there be a conquest in the United States? It is possible that
they may conquer Mexico, but they cannot be conquered by it. It cannot
be supposed that some red Alexander or Charlemagne from the distant
steppes of the West, heading the fierce tribes of the Pawnee braves,
and dragging in his victorious train swarms of revolted negroes, can
ever become the founder of a military dynasty and aristocracy. If the
Union should ever be dissolved, and the hardy sons of the West, pouring
down from the Alleghanies, should ever conquer the people of the North,
enervated by luxury and enfeebled by anarchy, and those of the South,
weakened by servile wars, still no germ of a hereditary aristocracy
would exist in such a conquest; for the victors and vanquished would
all be of the same family.
The Southern States, however, are already organised on the principle
of hereditary aristocracy. It is true that the privileged class is so
numerous, that, unless a privilege is established within a privilege,
they do not form an aristocracy properly so called; but the fear of a
rising of the blacks keeps the whites closely united and forces them to
submit to a vigourous organisation of authority at every sacrifice. The
relative situation of the whites and blacks admits of no hesitation.
It is evident that the establishment of a hierarchy possessing any
stability, would be the most difficult in the States without slaves,
and that the elevation of the sentiment of family to political
dominion, would there encounter the most vigourous resistance. In the
maritime States north of the Potomac, the difficulty would seem to be
insurmountable. These States contain large towns, with an extensive
commerce carried on by great houses, great factories in the English
style, powerful trading, financial, and manufacturing companies,
that is to say, the germs of an extreme inequality; yet their laws
consecrate a system of absolute equality, and the sovereign democracy
shows itself resolved to maintain it at all costs. Between these two
counteracting forces, a struggle is going on, and cases might be
imagined in which the contest may assume a terrible character. If any
cause were to interrupt the prosperity of these States; if, by means of
a separation, which, however, is daily becoming less and less probable,
the markets of the South were to be shut against their merchants and
manufacturers; if the sons of the farmers and their hired workmen could
no longer have access to the lands and growing cities of the West; if,
to crown their misery, a foreign war should blockade their harbours,
they would be exposed to the most frightful convulsions. The Northern
States, then, must remain indissolubly wedded to the Union of the
States, and firmly devoted to the policy of peace with the European
monarchies.
If, then, it were proved that there was an irresistible necessity
for a distinction of ranks in every society, and that the principle
of inheritance or sentiment of family must be one of the constituent
principles of a privileged class, which is requisite to form the apex
of the social pyramid, it must be acknowledged that the prospect of the
North is more dark and alarming than that of the South. By the exercise
of unyielding vigilance over the slaves, the South may continue to
maintain the outward forms of a regular social system. It would,
indeed, be a retrograde system, for it would be morally a copy of the
ancient order of society, which had its day before the advent of the
Christ, patched up with the improved material order of modern times; it
would be despotism, but an orderly, organised despotism, which after
all would be a less terrible scourge than the anarchy which threatens
the North.
Nevertheless, whatever may be the destiny of aristocracy and the
political fate of the family sentiment, I am loath to believe, that
all that energy and intelligence which I have witnessed in the Northern
States of the Anglo-American Union, can be swallowed up and lost. No
deductions of logic can force me to conclude, that a society, superiour
to any that has yet flourished in our ancient continent, will not,
one day, and that soon, exist in the fine regions on the east and the
west of the Alleghanies, around the wide basin of the great lakes, and
along the far-stretching banks of these mighty rivers. It cannot be
that a superiour race has transported its children to these shores to
devour each other. If, on the one side, American civilisation seems to
be exposed to formidable dangers, it presents itself in other points
of view, with strongly marked features of permanency and stability. If
great perils encompass its cradle, is it not the cradle of an infant
Hercules?