History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0096/00963.txt

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$Title{Democracy In America
Introductory Chapter}
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$Author{De Tocqueville, Alexis}
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$Date{1899}
$Log{See Title Page*0096301.scf
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Title:       Democracy In America
Book:        Volume I
Author:      De Tocqueville, Alexis
Date:        1899
Translation: Reeve, Henry

Introductory Chapter

[See Title Page]

     Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in
the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality
of conditions.  I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this
primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain
direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new
maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed.  I
speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the
political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less
empire over civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions,
engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies
whatever it does not produce.  The more I advanced in the study of American
society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the
fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central
point at which all my observations constantly terminated.

     I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that I
discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World presented
to me.  I observed that the equality of conditions is daily progressing
towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached in the United
States, and that the democracy which governs the American communities appears
to be rapidly rising into power in Europe.  I hence conceived the idea of the
book which is now before the reader.

     It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on
amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and consequences. To
some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such may still be checked; to
others it seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, the most
ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is to be found in history.  Let
us recollect the situation of France seven hundred years ago, when the
territory was divided amongst a small number of families, who were the owners
of the soil and the rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing
descended with the family inheritance from generation to generation; force was
the only means by which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole
source of power.  Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was
founded, and began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all
classes, to the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality
penetrated into the Government through the Church, and the being who as a serf
must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a priest in the
midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of kings.

     The different relations of men became more complicated and more numerous
as society gradually became more stable and more civilized.  Thence the want
of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal functionaries soon rose from
the obscurity of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to appear at the
court of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in their ermine and
their mail.  Whilst the kings were ruining themselves by their great
enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources by private wars, the
lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce.  The influence of money
began to be perceptible in State affairs.  The transactions of business opened
a new road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political
influence in which he was at once flattered and despised.  Gradually the
spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing taste for literature and
art, opened chances of success to talent; science became a means of
government, intelligence led to social power, and the man of letters took a
part in the affairs of the State.  The value attached to the privileges of
birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to
advancement.  In the eleventh century nobility was beyond all price; in the
thirteenth it might be purchased; it was conferred for the first time in 1270;
and equality was thus introduced into the Government by the aristocracy
itself.

     In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes happened that in
order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to diminish the power of their
rivals, the nobles granted a certain share of political rights to the people.
Or, more frequently, the king permitted the lower orders to enjoy a degree of
power, with the intention of repressing the aristocracy.  In France the kings
have always been the most active and the most constant of levellers.  When
they were strong and ambitious they spared no pains to raise the people to the
level of the nobles; when they were temperate or weak they allowed the people
to rise above themselves.  Some assisted the democracy by their talents,
others by their vices.  Louis XI and Louis XIV reduced every rank beneath the
throne to the same subjection; Louis XV descended, himself and all his Court,
into the dust.

     As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, and personal
property began in its turn to confer influence and power, every improvement
which was introduced in commerce or manufacture was a fresh element of the
equality of conditions.  Henceforward every new discovery, every new want
which it engendered, and every new desire which craved satisfaction, was a
step towards the universal level.  The taste for luxury, the love of war, the
sway of fashion, and the most superficial as well as the deepest passions of
the human heart, co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich.

     From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of
strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition to
science, every fresh truth, and every new idea as a germ of power placed
within the reach of the people.  Poetry, eloquence, and memory, the grace of
wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and all the gifts which
are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand, turned to the advantage of the
democracy; and even when they were in the possession of its adversaries they
still served its cause by throwing into relief the natural greatness of man;
its conquests spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge, and
literature became an arsenal where the poorest and the weakest could always
find weapons to their hand.

     In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a
single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not turned
to the advantage of equality.  The Crusades and the wars of the English
decimated the nobles and divided their possessions; the erection of
communities introduced an element of democratic liberty into the bosom of
feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized the villein and the
noble on the field of battle; printing opened the same resources to the minds
of all classes; the post was organized so as to bring the same information to
the door of the poor man's cottage and to the gate of the palace; and
Protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to
heaven.  The discovery of America offered a thousand new paths to fortune, and
placed riches and power within the reach of the adventurous and the obscure.
If we examine what has happened in France at intervals of fifty years,
beginning with the eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a
twofold revolution has taken place in the state of society.  The noble has
gone down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one descends
as the other rises.  Every half century brings them nearer to each other, and
they will very shortly meet.

     Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France.  Whithersoever we turn
our eyes we shall witness the same continual revolution throughout the whole
of Christendom.  The various occurrences of national existence have everywhere
turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have aided it by their
exertions: those who have intentionally labored in its cause, and those who
have served it unwittingly; those who have fought for it and those who have
declared themselves its opponents, have all been driven along in the same
track, have all labored to one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly; all
have been blind instruments in the hands of God.

     The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a
providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine
decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human
interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its progress.
Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social impulse which dates from so
far back can be checked by the efforts of a generation?  Is it credible that
the democracy which has annihilated the feudal system and vanquished kings
will respect the citizen and the capitalist?  Will it stop now that it has
grown so strong and its adversaries so weak?  None can say which way we are
going, for all terms of comparison are wanting: the equality of conditions is
more complete in the Christian countries of the present day than it has been
at any time or in any part of the world; so that the extent of what already
exists prevents us from foreseeing what may be yet to come.

     The whole book which is here offered to the public has been written under
the impression of a kind of religious dread produced in the author's mind by
the contemplation of so irresistible a revolution, which has advanced for
centuries in spite of such amazing obstacles, and which is still proceeding in
the midst of the ruins it has made.  It is not necessary that God himself
should speak in order to disclose to us the unquestionable signs of His will;
we can discern them in the habitual course of nature, and in the invariable
tendency of events: I know, without a special revelation, that the planets
move in the orbits traced by the Creator's finger.  If the men of our time
were led by attentive observation and by sincere reflection to acknowledge
that the gradual and progressive development of social equality is at once the
past and future of their history, this solitary truth would confer the sacred
character of a Divine decree upon the change.  To attempt to check democracy
would be in that case to resist the will of God; and the nations would then be
constrained to make the best of the social lot awarded to them by Providence.

     The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming
spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it cannot
be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided: their fate is
in their hands; yet a little while and it may be so no longer.  The first duty
which is at this time imposed upon those who direct our affairs is to educate
the democracy; to warm its faith, if that be possible; to purify its morals;
to direct its energies; to substitute a knowledge of business for its
inexperience, and an acquaintance with its true interests for its blind
propensities; to adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in
compliance with the occurrences and the actors of the age. A new science of
politics is indispensable to a new world.  This, however, is what we think of
least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we obstinately fix our eyes
on the ruins which may still be described upon the shore we have left, whilst
the current sweeps us along, and drives us backwards towards the gulf.

     In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which I have been
describing made such rapid progress as in France; but it has always been borne
on by chance.  The heads of the State have never had any forethought for its
exigencies, and its victories have been obtained without their consent or
without their knowledge.  The most powerful, the most intelligent, and the
most moral classes of the nation have never attempted to connect themselves
with it in order to guide it.  The people has consequently been abandoned to
its wild propensities, and it has grown up like those outcasts who receive
their education in the public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught but
the vices and wretchedness of society.  The existence of a democracy was
seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the supreme power.
Everything was then submitted to its caprices; it was worshipped as the idol
of strength; until, when it was enfeebled by its own excesses, the legislator
conceived the rash project of annihilating its power, instead of instructing
it and correcting its vices; no attempt was made to fit it to govern, but all
were bent on excluding it from the government.

     The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolution has been
effected only in the material parts of society, without that concomitant
change in laws, ideas, customs, and manners which was necessary to render such
a revolution beneficial.  We have gotten a democracy, but without the
conditions which lessen its vices and render its natural advantages more
prominent; and although we already perceive the evils it brings, we are
ignorant of the benefits it may confer.

     While the power of the Crown, supported by the aristocracy, peaceably
governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, in the midst of its
wretchedness, several different advantages which can now scarcely be
appreciated or conceived.  The power of a part of his subjects was an
insurmountable barrier to the tyranny of the prince; and the monarch, who felt
the almost divine character which he enjoyed in the eyes of the multitude,
derived a motive for the just use of his power from the respect which he
inspired.  High as they were placed above the people, the nobles could not but
take that calm and benevolent interest in its fate which the shepherd feels
towards his flock; and without acknowledging the poor as their equals, they
watched over the destiny of those whose welfare Providence had entrusted to
their care.  The people never having conceived the idea of a social condition
different from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever ranking with
its chiefs, received benefits from them without discussing their rights.  It
grew attached to them when they were clement and just, and it submitted
without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the inevitable
visitations of the arm of God.  Custom, and the manners of the time, had
moreover created a species of law in the midst of violence, and established
certain limits to oppression.  As the noble never suspected that anyone would
attempt to deprive him of the privileges which he believed to be legitimate,
and as the serf looked upon his own inferiority as a consequence of the
immutable order of nature, it is easy to imagine that a mutual exchange of
good-will took place between two classes so differently gifted by fate.
Inequality and wretchedness were then to be found in society; but the souls of
neither rank of men were degraded.  Men are not corrupted by the exercise of
power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power
which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they
consider to be usurped and oppressive.  On one side was wealth, strength, and
leisure, accompanied by the refinements of luxury, the elegance of taste, the
pleasures of wit, and the religion of art.  On the other was labor and a rude
ignorance; but in the midst of this coarse and ignorant multitude it was not
uncommon to meet with energetic passions, generous sentiments, profound
religious convictions, and independent virtues. The body of a State thus
organized might boast of its stability, its power, and, above all, of its
glory.

     But the scene is now changed, and gradually the two ranks mingle; the
divisions which once severed mankind are lowered, property is divided, power
is held in common, the light of intelligence spreads, and the capacities of
all classes are equally cultivated; the State becomes democratic, and the
empire of democracy is slowly and peaceably introduced into the institutions
and the manners of the nation.  I can conceive a society in which all men
would profess an equal attachment and respect for the laws of which they are
the common authors; in which the authority of the State would be respected as
necessary, though not as divine; and the loyalty of the subject to its chief
magistrate would not be a passion, but a quiet and rational persuasion. Every
individual being in the possession of rights which he is sure to retain, a
kind of manly reliance and reciprocal courtesy would arise between all
classes, alike removed from pride and meanness.  The people, well acquainted
with its true interests, would allow that in order to profit by the advantages
of society it is necessary to satisfy its demands.  In this state of things
the voluntary association of the citizens might supply the individual
exertions of the nobles, and the community would be alike protected from
anarchy and from oppression.

     I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society will not be
stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and directed
forwards; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an aristocracy, the
contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the pleasures of enjoyment may
be less excessive, but those of comfort will be more general; the sciences may
be less perfectly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common; the
impetuosity of the feelings will be repressed, and the habits of the nation
softened; there will be more vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of
enthusiasm and of an ardent faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the
members of a commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their
experience; each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his
fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if they are
to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that his personal
interest is identified with the interest of the community.  The nation, taken
as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less strong;
but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a greater degree of prosperity,
and the people will remain quiet, not because it despairs of amelioration, but
because it is conscious of the advantages of its condition.  If all the
consequences of this state of things were not good or useful, society would at
least have appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and
for ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would enter
into possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford.

     But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of those
institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our forefathers which we have
abandoned.  The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been succeeded by
the majesty of the laws; the people has learned to despise all authority, but
fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience than that which was formerly
paid by reverence and by love.

     I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings which were
able to cope with tyranny single-handed; but it is the Government that has
inherited the privileges of which families, corporations, and individuals have
been deprived; the weakness of the whole community has therefore succeeded
that influence of a small body of citizens, which, if it was sometimes
oppressive, was often conservative.  The division of property has lessened the
distance which separated the rich from the poor; but it would seem that the
nearer they draw to each other, the greater is their mutual hatred, and the
more vehement the envy and the dread with which they resist each other's
claims to power; the notion of Right is alike insensible to both classes, and
Force affords to both the only argument for the present, and the only
guarantee for the future.  The poor man retains the prejudices of his
forefathers without their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he
has adopted the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without
understanding the science which controls it, and his egotism is no less blind
than his devotedness was formerly.  If society is tranquil, it is not because
it relies upon its strength and its well-being, but because it knows its
weakness and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it its life; everybody
feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure; the
desires, the regret, the sorrows, and the joys of the time produce nothing
that is visible or permanent, like the passions of old men which terminate in
impotence.

     We have, then, abandoned whatever advantages the old state of things
afforded, without receiving any compensation from our present condition; we
have destroyed an aristocracy, and we seem inclined to survey its ruins with
complacency, and to fix our abode in the midst of them.

     The phenomena which the intellectual world presents are not less
deplorable.  The democracy of France, checked in its course or abandoned to
its lawless passions, has overthrown whatever crossed its path, and has shaken
all that it has not destroyed.  Its empire on society has not been gradually
introduced or peaceably established, but it has constantly advanced in the
midst of disorder and the agitation of a conflict.  In the heat of the
struggle each partisan is hurried beyond the limits of his opinions by the
opinions and the excesses of his opponents, until he loses sight of the end of
his exertions, and holds a language which disguises his real sentiments or
secret instincts.  Hence arises the strange confusion which we are witnessing.
I cannot recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of sorrow and of
pity than the scenes which are happening under our eyes; it is as if the
natural bond which unites the opinions of man to his tastes and his actions to
his principles was now broken; the sympathy which has always been acknowledged
between the feelings and the ideas of mankind appears to be dissolved, and all
the laws of moral analogy to be dissolved, and all the laws of moral analogy
to be abolished.

     Zealous Christians may be found amongst us whose minds are nurtured in
the love and knowledge of a future life, and who readily espouse the cause of
human liberty as the source of all moral greatness.  Christianity, which has
declared that all men are equal in the sight of God, will not refuse to
acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the eye of the law.  But, by a
singular concourse of events, religion is entangled in those institutions
which democracy assails, and it is not unfrequently brought to reject the
equality it loves, and to curse that cause of liberty as a foe which it might
hallow by its alliance.

     By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are
turned to the earth more than to Heaven; they are the partisans of liberty,
not only as the source of the noblest virtues, but more especially as the root
of all solid advantages; and they sincerely desire to extend its sway, and to
impart its blessings to mankind.  It is natural that they should hasten to
invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be
established without morality, nor morality without faith; but they have seen
religion in the ranks of their adversaries, and they inquire no further; some
of them attack it openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it.

     In former ages slavery has been advocated by the venal and
slavish-minded, whilst the independent and the warm-hearted were struggling
without hope to save the liberties of mankind.  But men of high and generous
characters are now to be met with, whose opinions are at variance with their
inclinations, and who praise that servility which they have themselves never
known.  Others, on the contrary, speak in the name of liberty, as if they were
able to feel its sanctity and its majesty, and loudly claim for humanity those
rights which they have always disowned.  There are virtuous and peaceful
individuals whose pure morality, quiet habits, affluence, and talents fit them
to be the leaders of the surrounding population; their love of their country
is sincere, and they are prepared to make the greatest sacrifices to its
welfare, but they confound the abuses of civilization with its benefits, and
the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds from that of novelty.

     Not far from this class is another party, whose object is to materialize
mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what is just, to
acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from virtue; assuming
the title of the champions of modern civilization, and placing themselves in a
station which they usurp with insolence, and from which they are driven by
their own unworthiness.  Where are we then?  The religionists are the enemies
of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and
the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach
independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress,
whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of
civilization and of intelligence.  Has such been the fate of the centuries
which have preceded our own?  and has man always inhabited a world like the
present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and
genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for
oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a contempt of law; where the
light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to
be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?  I
cannot, however, believe that the Creator made man to leave him in an endless
struggle with the intellectual miseries which surround us: God destines a
calmer and a more certain future to the communities of Europe; I am
unacquainted with His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them
because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity than
His justice.

     There is a country in the world where the great revolution which I am
speaking of seems nearly to have reached its natural limits; it has been
effected with ease and simplicity, say rather that this country has attained
the consequences of the democratic revolution which we are undergoing without
having experienced the revolution itself.  The emigrants who fixed themselves
on the shores of America in the beginning of the seventeenth century severed
the democratic principle from all the principles which repressed it in the old
communities of Europe, and transplanted it unalloyed to the New World. It has
there been allowed to spread in perfect freedom, and to put forth its
consequences in the laws by influencing the manners of the country.

     It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive,
like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions.  But I do
not conclude from this that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw the same
political consequences which the Americans have derived from a similar social
organization.  I am far from supposing that they have chosen the only form of
government which a democracy may adopt; but the identity of the efficient
cause of laws and manners in the two countries is sufficient to account for
the immense interest we have in becoming acquainted with its effects in each
of them.

     It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have
examined America; my wish has been to find instruction by which we may
ourselves profit.  Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write a
panegyric will perceive that such was not my design; nor has it been my object
to advocate any form of government in particular, for I am of opinion that
absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any legislation; I have not even
affected to discuss whether the social revolution, which I believe to be
irresistible, is advantageous or prejudicial to mankind; I have acknowledged
this revolution as a fact already accomplished or on the eve of its
accomplishment; and I have selected the nation, from amongst those which have
undergone it, in which its development has been the most peaceful and the most
complete, in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be
possible, to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered profitable. I
confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of
democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and
its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope from its
progress.

     In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the tendency
given to the laws by the democracy of America, which is abandoned almost
without restraint to its instinctive propensities, and to exhibit the course
it prescribes to the Government and the influence it exercises on affairs. I
have sought to discover the evils and the advantages which it produces. I have
examined the precautions used by the Americans to direct it, as well as those
which they have not adopted, and I have undertaken to point out the causes
which enable it to govern society.  I do not know whether I have succeeded in
making known what I saw in America, but I am certain that such has been my
sincere desire, and that I have never, knowingly, moulded facts to ideas,
instead of ideas to facts.

     Whenever a point could be established by the aid of written documents, I
have had recourse to the original text, and to the most authentic and approved
works.  I have cited my authorities in the notes, and anyone may refer to
them.  Whenever an opinion, a political custom, or a remark on the manners of
the country was concerned, I endeavored to consult the most enlightened men I
met with.  If the point in question was important or doubtful, I was not
satisfied with one testimony, but I formed my opinion on the evidence of
several witnesses.  Here the reader must necessarily believeme upon my word.
I could frequently have quoted names which are either known to him, or which
deserve to be so, in proof of what I advance; but I have carefully abstained
from this practice.  A stranger frequently hears important truths at the
fire-side of his host, which the latter would perhaps conceal from the ear of
friendship; he consoles himself with his guest for the silence to which he is
restricted, and the shortness of the traveller's stay takes away all fear of
his indiscretion.  I carefully noted every conversation of this nature as soon
as it occurred, but these notes will never leave my writing-case; I had rather
injure the success of my statements than add my name to the list of those
strangers who repay the generous hospitality they have received by subsequent
chagrin and annoyance.

     I am aware that, notwithstanding my care, nothing will be easier than to
criticise this book, if anyone ever chooses to criticise it.  Those readers
who may examine it closely will discover the fundamental idea which connects
the several parts together.  But the diversity of the subjects I have had to
treat is exceedingly great, and it will not be difficult to oppose an isolated
fact to the body of facts which I quote, or an isolated idea to the body of
ideas I put forth.  I hope to be read in the spirit which has guided my
labors, and that my book may be judged by the general impression it leaves, as
I have formed my own judgment not on any single reason, but upon the mass of
evidence.  It must not be forgotten that the author who wishes to be
understood is obliged to push all his ideas to their utmost theoretical
consequences, and often to the verge of what is false or impracticable; for if
it be necessary sometimes to quit the rules of logic in active life, such is
not the case in discourse, and a man finds that almost as many difficulties
spring from inconsistency of language as usually arise from inconsistency of
conduct.

     I conclude by pointing out myself what many readers will consider the
principal defect of the work.  This book is written to favor no particular
views, and in composing it I have entertained no designs of serving or
attacking any party; I have undertaken not to see differently, but to look
further than parties, and whilst they are busied for the morrow I have turned
my thoughts to the Future.