Republic—Part I
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 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 *a 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.
a
[ 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.]]
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.
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 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. *b
b
[ [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.]]
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. *c This is very perceptible in
the States which are beginning to be thickly peopled; Massachusetts is
the most populous part of the Union, but it contains only eighty
inhabitants to the square mile, which is 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.
c
[ In New England the estates are exceedingly small, but they are rarely
subjected to further division.]
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 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 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.
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.
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part II
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 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. *d 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.
d
[ [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.]]
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 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.
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 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. *e The newspapers related the fact without
any further comment.
e
[ 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.”]
The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive
the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not
spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in
the soul rather than to live.
I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out ministers
of the Gospel into the new Western States to found schools and churches
there, lest religion should be 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?
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part III
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; *f 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 *g
the law excludes them from political life, public opinion in all. And
when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of the clergy I found
that most of its members seemed to retire of their own accord from the
exercise of power, and that they made it the pride of their profession
to abstain from politics.
f
[ Unless this term be applied to the functions which many of them fill
in the schools. Almost all education is entrusted to the clergy.]
g
[ 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.]
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 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 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 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. Prodigious 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 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; *h 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.
h
[ [This cannot be said with truth of the country of Kent, Story, and
Wheaton.]]
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 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. *i
i
[ [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.”]]
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 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. *j I do not think
that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the most
enlightened and populous districts of France. *k 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.
j
[ 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.]]
k
[ 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.]
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
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.
Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
Republic—Part IV
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. *l 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.
l
[ 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.]
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. *m
m
[ [A remark which, since the great Civil War of 1861-65, ceases to be
applicable.]]
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 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?
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 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 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