Democracy in America (Volume One)
by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 ~ 1859)
Translated by: George Lawrence
In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont,
two Frenchman, traveled to the United States on a government project
to study the penal system. The visit also resulted in one of
the most comprehensive early accounts of the United States with
regards to the nature and character of democracy. The work was
published in two parts, the first was primarily concerned with the
political structure (1835), and the second, which concerned itself
with the effects of democracy on the society in general.
Following are the parts of the book I found most interesting. Bold highlights and items within parenthesis are mine (rhm):
Table
of Contents
Author’s
Introduction
Physical
Configuration of North America
Concerning
Their Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the
Anglo-Americans
Social
State of the Anglo-Americans
The
Need to Study What Happens in the States Before Discussing the
Government of the Union
Judicial
Power in the United States and Its Effect on Political Society
The
Federal Constitution
Why
It Can Be Said That the People Govern in the United States
Parties
in the United States
Freedom
of the Press in the United States
The
Three Races That Inhabit the United States
Conclusion
(Book One)
Influence
of Democracy on Intellectual Movements
Literary
Characteristics of Democratic Centuries
Modifications
of the English Language
Poetic
Inspiration
Influence
of Democracy on the Sentiments of Americans
On
the Use Which the Americans Make of Associations in Civil Life
How
the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Properly
Understood to Religion
The
Taste for Physical Comfort in America
Particular
Effects of the Love of Physical Pleasures in Democratic Times
Why
Some Americans Display Enthusiastic Forms of Spirituality
Why
the Americans Are Often So Restless in the Midst of Their
Prosperity
Why
in Ages of Equality and Skepticism It Is Important to Set Distant
Goals for Human Endeavor
Why
American Consider All Honest Callings Honorable
What
Gives Almost All Americans a Preference for Industrial Callings
How
an Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry
How
Mores Become More Gentle as Social Conditions Become More Equal
How
Democracy Leads to Ease and Simplicity in the Ordinary Relations
Between Americans
Why
the Americans Are so Hard to Offend in Their Own Country and So
Easily Offended in Ours
Consequences
Deriving from the Three Preceding Chapters
How
Democracy Modifies the Relations Between Master and Servant
How
Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise the Rents and
Shorten the Terms of Leases
Influence
of Democracy on Wages
Influence
of Democracy on the Family
Education
of Girls in the United States
The
Young Woman as a Wife
How
Equality Helps to Maintain Good Morals in America
How
the American Views the Equality of the Sexes
How
Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Small
Private Circles
Some
Reflections on American Manners
On
the Gravity of the Americans and Why It Often Does Not Prevent Their
Doing Ill-Considered Things
Why
American National Pride Has a More Restless and Quarrelsome
Character Than That of the English
How
the Aspect of Society in the United States Is at Once Agitated and
Monotonous
Concerning
Honor in the United States and Democratic Societies
Why
There Are So Many Men of Ambition in the United States but So Few
Lofty Ambitions
Concerning
Place-Hunting in Some Democratic Countries
Why
Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
Why
Democratic Peoples Naturally Want Peace but Democratic Armies War
Which
is the Most Warlike and Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies
What
Makes Democratic Armies Weaker Than Others at the Beginning of a
Campaign but More Formidable in Prolonged Warfare
Of
Discipline in Democratic Armies
Some
Considerations Concerning War in Democratic Societies.
On
the Influence of Democratic Ideas and Feelings On Political
Society
General
Tendencies in Democracies
Author’s
Introduction
(Aristocracy)… the political power of the clergy began
to take shape and soon to extend. The ranks of the clergy were
open to all, poor or rich, commoner or noble; through the church,
equality began to insinuate itself into the heart of government, and
a man who would have vegetated as a serf in eternal servitude could,
as a priest, take his place among the nobles and often take
precedence over kings.
(Aristocracy) As soon as citizens began to hold land
otherwise than by feudal tenure, and the newly discovered
possibilities of person property could also lead to influence and
power, every invention in the arts and every improvement in
trade and industry created fresh elements tending toward the equality
of men… The taste for luxury, the love of war, the dominion of
fashion, all the most superficial and profound passions of the
human heart, seemed to work together to impoverish the rich and
enrich the poor.
(Aristocracy) Society is tranquil, but the reason for
that is not that it knows its strength and its good fortune, but
rather it thinks itself weak and feeble; it fears that a single
effort may cost its life; each man feels what is wrong, but none has
the courage or energy needed to seek something better; men have
desires, regrets, sorrows, and joys which produce no visible or
durable result, like old men’s passions ending in impotence.
Physical
Configuration of North America
… death in some
way helped life forward, as face to face they seemed to wish to
mingle and confuse their functions.
(Aristocracy) Where there are such rich and powerful
men, the poor and weak feel themselves weighed down by their
inferiority; seeing no prospect of regaining equality, they quite
give up hope for themselves and allow themselves to fall below the
proper dignity of mankind.
(Democracy) But their is no such
vexatious contrast in savage life; the Indians, all poor and all
ignorant, are also all equal and free.
The Indian knew how to live without wants, to suffer
without complaint, and to die singing. In common, too, with all
other members of the great human family, these savages believed in
the existence of a better world, and under different names worshiped
God, Creator of the universe. Their conceptions of the great
intellectual truths were in general simple and philosophical.
It is a strange thing that peoples should have so
completely vanished from the earth, that even the memory of their
name is lost; their languages are forgotten and their glory has
vanished like a sound without an echo; but I doubt that there is any
which has not left some tomb as a memorial of its passage. So,
of all man’s work, the most durable is that which best records his
nothingness and his misery.
Concerning
Their Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the
Anglo-Americans
Immigrants to New England brought with them wonderful
elements of order and morality.
No necessity forced them to leave their country… they
tore themselves away from home comforts in obedience to a purely
intellectual craving; in facing the inevitable suffering of exile
they hoped for the triumph of an idea.
(Religious Freedom)
The Puritans sought a land so barbarous
and neglected by the world that there at last they might be able to
live in their own way and pray to God in freedom
(Aristocracy) The English government watched untroubled
the departure of so many emigrants, glad to see the seeds of discord
and of fresh revolutions dispersed afar. Indeed it did
everything to encourage it and seemed to have no anxiety about the
fate of those who sought refuge from its harsh laws on American
soil. It seemed to consider New England as a land given over to
the fantasy of dreamers, where innovators should be allowed to try
out experiments in freedom.
In America one may say that the local community was
organized before the county, the county before the state, and the
state before the Union… In New England, local communities had taken
complete and definite shape as early as 1650.
(English Law Influences Anglo-American Law)
The civil and criminal procedure of the
Americans relies on two modes of action only, committal or bail.
The first step in any lawsuit is to get bail from the defendant or,
if he refuses that, to put him in prison; only after that is the
validity of the title or charge discussed. Clearly such a
procedure is hard on the poor and favors the rich only.
A poor man cannot always raise bail even in a civil
case, and if he has to wait in prison for the hearing of the matter,
his enforced idleness soon reduces him to destitution.
But, if it
is a civil suit, the rich man never has to go to prison, and, more
important, if he has committed a crime, he can easily escape the
proper punishment, for having given bail, he disappears. So as
far as he is concerned, the law actually imposes no penalty worse
than a fine. What could be more aristocratic than such
legislation?
The surface of American society is covered with a layer
of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old
aristocratic colors breaking through.
Social
State of the Anglo-Americans
It was the law of inheritance which caused the final
advance of equality.
Owing to the law of inheritance, the death of each owner
causes a revolution in property; not only do possessions change
hands, but their very nature is altered, as they are continually
broken up into smaller fractions.
(Democracy) The rule of equal shares does not affect
only the fate of property; it also affects the very soul of the
landowner, and brings his passions into play
(Aristocracy) In nations where the law of inheritance is
based on primogeniture, landed estates generally pass undivided from
one generation to another.
Once divided, great landed estates do not come
together again…
It is in the West that one can see democracy in its most
extreme form.
In America most rich men began by being poor…
A middling standard has been established in America
for all human knowledge. All minds come near to it, some by
raising and some by lowering their standards.
As a result one finds a vast multitude of people with
roughly the same ideas about religion, history, science, political
economy, legislation, and government.
(Freedom) There is indeed a
manly and legitimate passion for equality which rouses in all men a
desire to be strong and respected. This passion tends to
elevate the little man to the rank of the great. But the human
heart also nourishes a debased taste for equality which leads the
weak to want to drag the strong down to their level and which induces
men to prefer equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
It is not that peoples with a democratic social state naturally scorn
freedom; on the contrary, they have an instinctive taste for it.
But freedom is not the chief and continual
object of their desires; it is equality for which they feel an
eternal love…
Circumstances, origin, education, and above all mores
allowed them to establish and maintain the sovereignty of the people.
The
Need to Study What Happens in the States Before Discussing the
Government of the Union
The great political principles which now rule American
society were born and grew up in the state…
The township is the first in order, then the county, and
last the state.
In all matters concerning the duties of citizens toward
each other he is subordinate. Inall matters that concern
himself alone he remains the master; he is free and owes an account
of his actions to God alone.
Whereas with us (France) the central government lends
its agents to the commune, in America the township lends its agents
to the government.
The New England township combines two advantages which,
wherever they are found, keenly excite men’s interest; they are
independence and power.
…in general, men’s affections are drawn only in
directions where power exists.
…if you take power and independence from a
municipality, you may have docile subjects but you will not have
citizens.
The American system, which distributes local power among
so many citizens, is also not afraid to multiply municipal duties.
Americans rightly think that patriotism is a sort of religion
strengthened by practical service.
…strictly speaking, the county has no real political
existence.
In most American constitutions one notices a tendency to
divide up executive power but to concentrate legislative power.
…generally it is the townships and their officers who,
aided by the justices of the peace, and having regard to local need,
look after the details of social existence and promulgate the
regulations necessary for public health, good order, and morality of
the citizens.
Peoples who make use of elections to fill the secondary
grades in their government are bound greatly to rely on judicial
punishments as a weapon of administration.
To divide the legislative power and thus to slow down
the movement of the political assemblies and create an appeal
tribunal for the revision of laws were the only advantages resulting
from the actual Constitution of the United States with its two
chambers.
Judicial
Power in the United States and Its Effect on Political Society
The Americans have preserved these three distinctive
characteristics of judicial power. An American judge can
pronounce a decision only when there is litigation. He never
concerns himself with anything except a particular case, and to act
he must have cognizance of the matter.
America have given their judges the right to base their
decisions on the Constitution rather than on the laws. In other
words, they allow them not to apply laws which they consider
unconstitutional.
The American Constitution is not considered immutable,
as in France; it cannot be changed by the ordinary authorities of
society as in England. It is a thing apart; it represents the
will of the whole people and bids the legislators as well as plain
citizens, but it can be changed by the will of the people…
In America the Constitution rules both legislators and
simple citizens. It is therefore the primary law and cannot be
modified by a law. Hence it is right that the courts should
obey the Constitution rather than the laws.
If anyone invokes in an American court a law which the
judge considers contrary to the Constitution, he can refuse to apply
it.
As soon as a judge refuses to apply a law in a case, it
loses at once part of its moral force… Then one of two things
happens: either the people change the Constitution or the legislature
repeals the law.
By making justice both more sure and milder, it has also
been made more effective.
The
Federal Constitution
… a minority of the nation dominating the Senate could
completely paralyze the will of the majority represented in the other
house (Congress).
The object of the federal Constitution was not to
destroy the existence of the states but only to restrain them.
The Senate: The House of
Representatives has only legislative functions; its share in judicial
power is the right to impeach public officials. The Senate
shares in making the laws; it judges the political offenders brought
before it by the House of Representatives; it is also the great
executive council of the nation. Treaties concluded by the
President must be ratified by the Senate; his appointments are not
final till they have been approved by that body.
The President is always able to overcome any resistance
he can put up; but the suspensive veto at least forces it to go over
the ground again; the matter reconsidered, and this time it requires
a two-thirds majority to carry it.
In France the king forms a real part of sovereignty, for
the laws cannot exist if he refuses to sanction them and he is also
the executor of the laws.
The President is also the executor of the laws, but he
has no real part in making them, for by refusing his assent he cannot
prevent them existing.
The king of France is on an equal footing with the
legislature, which cannot act without him, nor can he without it.
Beside the legislature, the President is an inferior and
dependent power.
One loves or fears only that which exists a long time.
The President of the United States is answerable for his
acts. French law states that the person of the king is
inviolable.
So France and the United States, in spite of their
different constitutions, have this point in common, that, in
practice, public opinion is the dominant power.
(The Social Effect of Elections)
As the election draws near, intrigues grow more active and the
agitation is more lively and wider spread. The citizens divide
up into several camps, each of which takes its name from its
candidate. The whole nation gets into a feverish state, the
election is the daily them of comment in the newspapers and private
conversation, the object of every action and the subject of every
thought, and the sole interest for the moment.
It is true that as soon as the fortune has pronounced,
the ardor is dissipated, everything calms down, and the river which
momentarily overflowed its banks falls back to its bed. But was
in not astonishing that such a storm could have arisen?
Why It
Can Be Said That the People Govern in the United States
The people directly nominate their representatives and
generally choose them annually so as to hold them more completely
dependent.
The majority is chiefly composed of peaceful citizens
who by taste or interest sincerely desire the well-being of the
country. They are surrounded by the constant agitation of
parties seeking to draw them in and to enlist their support.
Parties
in the United States
Parties are an evil inherent in free governments, but
they do not always have the same character and the same instincts.
Great parties convulse society; small ones agitate it;
the former rend and the latter corrupt it; the first may sometimes
save it by overthrowing it, but the second always create unprofitable
trouble.
The party which wished to restrict popular power sought
especially to have its ideas applied in the federal Constitution,
from which it gained the name of Federal.
The other, which claimed
to be the exclusive lover of liberty, called itself Republican.
Freedom
of the Press in the United States
I love it more from considering the evils it prevents
than on account of the good it does.
The word of a strong-minded man which alone reaches to
the passions of a mute assembly has more power than the confused
cries of a thousand orators…
The sovereignty of the people and the freedom of the
press are therefore two entirely correlative things.
Among the twelve million people living in the territory
of the United States, there is not one single man who has dared to
suggest restricting the freedom of the press.
It is a simple and easy matter to start a paper; a few
subscribers are enough to cover expenses.
There is hardly a hamlet in America without its
newspaper.
The personal views expressed by journalists carry, so to
speak, no weight with the readers. What they look for in the
newspaper is knowledge of facts.
The
Three Races That Inhabit the United States
(I) Indians
(B) Blacks
(W) Whites
(I) Once men have taken to the idle, adventurous life
of hunting, they feel an almost insurmountable distaste for the
constant and regular labor demanded by agriculture.
Instead of giving the barbarians (the Indians) the
tastes and habits of a civilized life, they themselves (the French)
often became passionately attached to the savage life.
(I) When the side that has the physical force has
intellectual superiority too, it is rare for the conquered to become
civilized; they either withdraw or are destroyed.
Living in freedom in the forest, the North American
Indian was wretched but felt himself inferior to no man; as soon as
he want to penetrate the social hierarchy of white men, he can only
occupy the lowest rank therein.
(I) There is something in the adventurous life of a
hunting people which seizes the heart of man and carries him away in
spite of reason and experience.
Tanner’s Memoirs (a European
who lived among the Indians for 30 years) – He tells us of tribes
without a chief, families without a nation, isolated men, the wrecks
of powerful tribes, wandering at random through the ice and snow and
desolate solitude of Canada. Hunger and cold are their
companions, and every day seems likely to be their last. Among
such men mores have lost their sway, and traditions are powerless.
Men become more and more barbarous. Tanner shares all these
affliction; he knows his European origin; it is not force that keeps
him away from the white men… he knows that any day that he wished
to go back to civilized life he could easily do so, and he stays for
thirty years in the wilderness. When he does in the end return
to civilized society, he confesses that the existence whose
afflictions he has described has secret charms which he cannot
define.
(I) Traditions have not lost their sway over him, and
his taste for hunting is not extinguished. The savage joys he
once felt in the depths of the forest float back into his troubled
imagination with enhanced colors.
(B) The most formidable
evil threatening the future of the United States is the presence of
the blacks on their soil.
In antiquity the slave was
of the same race as his master and was often his superior in
education and enlightenment. Only freedom kept them apart; freedom
once granted, they mingled easily.
No African came in
freedom to the shores of the New World; consequently all those found
there now are slaves of freedmen. The Negro transmits to his
descendants at birth the external mark of his ignominy.
The law can abolish servitude, but only God can obliterate its
traces.
Slavery is in retreat, but
the prejudice from which it arose is immovable.
Race prejudice seems
stronger in those states that have abolished slavery than in those
where it still exists.
So the Negro is free, but
he cannot share the rights, pleasures, labors, griefs, or even the
tomb of him whose equal he has been declared; there is nowhere where
he can meet him neither in life nor in death.
In the United States the
prejudice rejecting the Negroes seems to increase in proportion to
their emancipation.
In the United States
people abolish slavery for the sake not of the Negroes but of the
white men.
The population of those
provinces that had practically no slaves increased in numbers,
wealth, and well-being more rapidly than those who had slaves.
In general, the colony
that had no slaves was more populous and prosperous than the one
where slavery was in force.
The farther they went
(West), the clearer it became that slavery, so cruel to the slave,
was fatal to the master.
The Ohio River divides
North from South; No slavery from slavery; Prosperity from Poverty
The free laborer is paid,
but he works faster than the slave, and the speed with which the work
is done is a matter of great economic importance.
(The True Cost of
Slavery ) The white man sells his assistance,
but it is bought nonly when needed; the black can claim no money for
his services, but he must be fed the whole time; he must be supported
in old age as well as in the vigor of his years, in his useless
childhood as well as his productive youth, and in sickness as well as
in health.
The influence of slavery
extends even further, penetrating the master’s soul and giving a
particular turn to his ideas and tastes.
On both banks of the Ohio
live people with characters by nature enterprising and energetic, but
these common characteristics are turned to different use on one side
and the other.
(Northerners)
The white man on the right bank, forced to live by his own
endeavors, has made material well-being of the main object of his
existence; as he lives in a country offering inexhaustible resources
to his industry and continual inducements to activity, his eagerness
to possess things goes beyond the ordinary limits of human cupidity
tormented by a longing for wealth, he boldly follows every path to
fortune that is open to him; he is equally prepared to turn in to a
sailor, pioneer, artisan, or cultivator, facing the labors or dangers
of these various ways of life with an even constancy there is
something wonderful in his resourcefulness and a sort of heroism in
his greed for gain.
(Southerners)
The American on the left bank scorns not only work itself but also
enterprises in which work is necessary to success; living in idle
ease, he has the tastes of idle men; money has lost some of its value
in his eyes; he is less interested in wealth than in excitement and
pleasure and expends in that direction the energy which his neighbor
puts to other use; he is passionately fond of hunting and war; he
enjoys all the most strenuous forms of bodily exercise; he is
accustomed to the use of weapons and from childhood has been ready to
risk his life in a single combat. Slavery therefore not only
prevents the white men from making their fortunes but even diverts
them from wishing to do so.
Almost all those in the
most southern states who have gone in for commercial undertakings and
try to make a profit out of slavery have come from the North.
… almost all the marked
differences in character between northerners and southerners have
their roots in slavery.
When primogeniture was the
rule in the South, each family was represented by a rich man with
neither need nor taste to work; the other members of his family,
excluded by law from the common inheritance, lived around him like
parasitic plants sharing the same way of life… In the South of the
United States the whole white race formed an aristocratic body having
at its head a certain number of privileged persons whose wealth was
permanent and leisure hereditary.
As soon as primogeniture
was abolished, fortunes began to diminish, and all of the families in
the country were simultaneously reduced to a state in which work
became necessary to existence… So the stigma against work begins
by common consent to be forgotten; there are more poor people, and
the poor have been able to set about earning their livings without
blushing about it. Thus one of the most immediate effects of the
equal sharing of inheritances has been to create a class of free
laborers. As soon as the free worker begins to compete with the
slave, the latter’s inferiority begins to be felt, and the very
basis of slavery, namely, the master’s interest is attacked.
There is a great
difference between white and black mortality rates in the states in
which slavery has been abolished: from 1820 to 1831 only 1 white in
42 died, whereas the figure for blacks was 1 in 20. The mortality
rate wasn’t nearly so high among Negro slaves.
As soon as servitude is
destroyed, the need for free laborers is felt, and a crowd of bold
adventurers presses thither from all parts of the country; they come
to take advantage of the new opportunities for industry opening
before them. The land is divided up among them; a white family
settles on each bit and takes possession. Consequently European
emigration is directed toward the free states.
Soon the present
proportion between the races will be reversed. Then the Negroes will
be no more than unlucky remnants, a poor little wandering tribe lost
amid the huge nation that is master of the land.
The farther south one
goes, the stronger is the prejudice glorifying idleness. In the
states nearest the tropics, not one white man works.
Having freed the sons of
their slaves, the Europeans in the South would soon be forced to
extend that benefit to the whole black race.
In the North…, as soon
as slavery is abolished, and even from the moment when it begins to
look likely that abolition is coming sometime, a double movement sets
in: the slaves quit the country, being transported South; whites from
the North and immigrants from Europe flow in to replace them.
What gave the white man
his strength in times of slavery would expose him to a thousand
dangers once slavery is abolished.
…there are only two
possibilities for the future: the Negroes and the whites must either
mingle or they must be apart.
…there are very few
mulattoes in the United States; they have no strength by themselves.
The white man in the
United States is proud of his race and proud of himself.
The southern American has
two active passions which will always lead him to isolate himself: he
is afraid of resembling the Negro, once his slave, and he is afraid
of falling below the level of his white neighbor.
If I absolutely had to
make some guess about the future, I should say that in the probable
course of things, the abolition of slavery in the South would
increase the repugnance felt by the white population toward the
Negroes.
The more or less distant
but inevitable danger of a conflict between the blacks and the whites
of the South of the Union is a nightmare constantly haunting the
American imagination.
The Negro race will never
again leave the American continent, to which the passions and vices
of Europe brought it…
For the masters in the
North slavery was a commercial and industrial question; in the South
it is a question of life and death.
… in considering the
South I see only two alternatives for the white people living there:
to free the Negroes and to mingle with them or to remain isolated
from them and keep them as long as possible in slavery.
The Americans in the
South, who do not think that at any time the Negroes can mingle with
them, have forbidden teaching them to read or write under severe
penalties. Not wishing to raise them to their own level, they keep
them as close to beasts as possible.
To give a man liberty but
to leave him in ignominious misery… only leads to a future slave
rebellion.
They have opened their
ranks to their slaves, but when they tried to come in, they drove
them out again with ignominy.
(Ignominious: Deserving or
causing public disgrace or shame. Humiliating, undignified,
embarrassing)
Whatever efforts the
Americans of the South make to maintain slavery, they will not
forever succeed. … Either the slave or the master will put an end
to it. In either case great misfortunes are to be anticipated.
(Southerners) … the
southerner is a haughty, hasty, irascible man, ardent in his desires
and impatient of obstacles; but he is easy to discourage if he cannot
triumph in his first effort.
(Northerners) … He is
patient, calculating, tolerant, slow to act, but persevering in his
designs.
(South) … The
southerner loves greatness, luxury, renown, excitement, enjoyment,
and, above all, idleness; nothing forces him to make an effort in
order to live, and having no necessary work, he slumbers, not even
attempting anything useful.
(North) … men are
absorbed in just those material cares which the southerner scorns.
From infancy he has been fighting against poverty, and he places
comfort above every other enjoyment of mind or heart. Concentration
on the trivial details of life suffocates his imagination, and his
ideas are comparatively few and generalized but practical, clear, and
precise.
The southerner is more
spontaneous, witty, open, generous, intellectual, and brilliant.
The northerner is more
active, has more common sense, and is better informed and more
skillful.
I cannot express my
thoughts better than by saying that the Americans put something
heroic into their way of trading.
Though the American may be
less skilled than a European in each particular craft, there is
hardly any skill to which he is a complete stranger.
The American lives in a
land of wonders; everything around him is in constant movement, and
every movement seems an advance… Nowhere does he see a limit
placed by nature to human endeavor; in his eyes something which does
not exist is just something that has not been tried yet.
For an American the whole
of life is treated like a game of chance, a time of revolution, or
the day of a battle.
Choose any American at
random, and he should be a man of burning desire, enterprising,
adventurous, and, above all, an innovator.
This same spirit applied
to maritime commerce makes the American cross the sea faster and sell
his goods cheaper than any other trader in the whole world.
(Latin America) The
Spaniards and the Portuguese founded great colonies in South America,
which have since become empires. Civil war and despotism are now
desolating these huge countries. The movement of population is
stopping, and the few men who live there, absorbed by the cares of
defending themselves, hardly feel the need to better their lot.
… it is clearly just a
question of time the South Americans will form flourishing and
enlightened nations… (Are we still waiting?)
Low cost is the supreme
law of trade.
I cannot help believing
that one day they (Americans) will be the leading naval power on the
globe. They are born to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer
the world.
Conclusion
(Book One)
The lands of the New World
belong to the first man to occupy them, and dominion is the prize in
that race.
… the English in America
occupy the most temperate and inhabitable zone in the continent.
Whatever the future may
hold in store, it cannot deprive the Americans of their climate,
their inland seas, their great rivers, or the fertility of their
soil.
At a period when we may
call near, for we are speaking of the life of nations, the
Anglo-Americans alone will cover the whole of the immense area
between the polar ice and the tropics, extending from the Atlantic to
the Pacific coast.
There are now two great
nations in the world which, starting from different points, seem to
be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the
Anglo-Americans.
America’s conquest s are
made with the plowshare, Russia’s with the sword.
Democracy in America (Volume Two)
by Alexis de
Tocqueville (1805 ~ 1859)
Influence
of Democracy on Intellectual Movements
To escape from imposed systems, the yoke of habit, family maxims,
class prejudices, and to a certain extent national prejudices as
well; to treat tradition as valuable for information only and to
accept existing facts as no more than a useful sketch to show how
things could be done differently and better; to seek them by
themselves and in themselves for the only reason for things, looking
to results without getting entangled in the means toward them and
looking through forms to the basis of things – such are the
principal characteristics of what I would call the American
philosophical method.
There is a general distaste for accepting any man’s word as
proof of anything.
… they are ready to deny anything they cannot understand.
It was religion that gave birth to the English colonies in
America.
Literary
Characteristics of Democratic Centuries
Almost all important English books are republished in the United
States.
… in democracies a writer may hope to gain moderate renown and
great wealth cheaply… he does not need to be admired; it is
enough if people have a taste for his worth.
A democratic public often treats its authors much as kings usually
behave toward their courtiers: it enriches them and despises them.
Modifications
of the English Language
… continual restlessness of a democracy leads to endless change
of language as of all else.
Democratic peoples have this passion for generic terms and
abstract words because such phrases broaden the scope of thought and
allow the mind to include much in few words.
An abstract word is like a box with a false bottom; you may put
in it what ideas you please and take them out again unobserved.
Poetic
Inspiration
It is… not the poet’s function to portray reality but to
beautify it and offer the mind some loftier image.
Influence
of Democracy on the Sentiments of Americans
No man is different from his fellow, and nobody can wield
tyrannical power; men will be perfectly free because they are
entirely equal, and they will be perfectly equal because they are
entirely free. Democratic peoples are tending toward that
ideal.
On
the Use Which the Americans Make of Associations in Civil Life
The most democratic country in the world now is that in which men
have in our time carried to the highest perfection the art of
pursuing in common the objects of common desires and have applied
this new technique to the greatest number of purposes.
In aristocratic societies men have no need to unite for action,
since they are held firmly together.
How
the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Properly Understood
to Religion
The philosophers who teach this doctrine tell men that to be happy
in life they must watch their passions and be careful to restrain
their excesses, that lasting happiness cannot be won except at the
cost of a thousand ephemeral pleasures, and finally, that one must
continually master oneself in order to serve oneself better.
The founders of almost all religions have used very much the same
language.
…Christianity also teaches that we must do good to our fellows
for love of God. That is a sublime utterance; man’s mind
filled with understanding of God’s thoughts, he sees that order is
God’s plan, in freedom labors for this great design, ever
sacrificing his private interests for this wondrous ordering of all
that is, and expecting no other reward than the joy of contemplating
it.
…interest is the chief means used by religions themselves to
guide men…
“If we make a mistake by thinking the Christian religion
true,” Pascal has said, “we have no great thing to lose.
But if we make a mistake by thinking it false, how dreadful is our
case.”
The
Taste for Physical Comfort in America
That which most vividly stirs the human heart is certainly not the
quiet possession of something precious but rather the imperfectly
satisfied desire to have it and the continual fear of losing it
again.
In nations where an aristocracy dominates society, the people
finally get used to their poverty just as the rich do to their
opulence.
In societies of that sort (Aristocracies) the poor are driven to
dwell in imagination on the next world…
In America I never met a citizen too poor to cast a glance of hope
and envy toward the pleasure of the rich.
Love of comfort has become the dominant national taste.
The main current of human passions running in that directions sweeps
everything along with it.
Particular
Effects of the Love of Physical Pleasures in Democratic Times
When members of an aristocratic society thus turn exclusively to
sensual pleasures they usually force into that one direction all the
energy accumulated by long experience of power.
Wealthy men living in democracies therefore think more of
satisfying their slightest needs than seeking extraordinary
delights. They indulge in a quantity of little wants but do
not let themselves give rein to any great disorderly passion.
It may even, not infrequently, combine with a type of religious
morality; people want to do as well as possible in this world without
giving up their chances in the next.
Why
Some Americans Display Enthusiastic Forms of Spirituality
The soul has needs which must be satisfied. Whatever pains
are taken to distract it from itself, it soon grows bored, restless,
and anxious amid the pleasures of the senses.
Why
the Americans Are Often So Restless in the Midst of Their Prosperity
Inhabitants (in the Old World) are mostly very ignorant and
very poor; they take no part in the affairs of government, and often
governments oppress them. But yet they seem serene and often
have a jovial disposition.
In America (the New World) I have seen the freest and best
educated of men in circumstances the happiest to be found in the
world, yet it seemed to me that a cloud habitually hung on their
brow, and they seemed serious and almost sad even in their pleasures.
The chief reason for this is that the former do not give a
moment’s thought to the ills they endure, whereas the latter never
stop thinking of the good things they have not got.
Americans cleave (adhere) to the things of this world as if
assured that they will never die, and yet are in such a rush to
snatch any that come within their reach, as if expecting to stop
living before they have relished them. They clutch everything
but hold nothing fast, and so lose grip as they hurry after some new
delight.
A man who has set his heart on nothing but the good things of this
world is always in a hurry, for he has only a limited time in which
to find them, get them, and enjoy them. Remembrance of the
shortness of life continually goads him on. Apart
from the goods he has, he thinks of a thousand others which death
will prevent him from tasting if he does not hurry. This
thought fills him with distress, fear, and regret and keeps his mind
continually in agitation, so that he is always changing his plans and
his abode.
One will … find people continually changing path for fear of
missing the shortest cut leading to happiness.
The constant strife between the desires inspired by equality and
the means it supplies to satisfy them harasses and wearies the mind.
When inequality is the general rule in a society, the greatest
inequalities attract no attention… Hence the more equal men are,
the more insatiable will be their longing for equality.
Among democratic peoples men easily obtain a certain equality, but
they will never get the sort of equality they long for.
That is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting
inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance, and of that
disgust with life sometimes gripping them in calm and easy
circumstances.
Materialism – Democracy favors the taste for physical
pleasures. This taste, if it becomes excessive, soon disposes
men to believe that nothing but matter exists. Materialism, in
its turn, spurs them on to such delights with mad impetuosity.
Such is the vicious circle into which democratic nations are driven.
Why
in Ages of Equality and Skepticism It Is Important to Set Distant
Goals for Human Endeavor
… they learn by imperceptible degrees to repress a crowd of
petty passing desires in order to ultimately best to satisfy the one
great permanent longing which obsesses them.
… they do not shift from day to day , chasing some new object of
desire, but have settled designs which they never tire of pursuing.
That is why religious nations have often accomplished such lasting
achievements. For in thinking of the other world, they had
found out the great secret of success in this.
As soon as they have lost the way of relying chiefly on distant
hopes, they are naturally led to want to satisfy their least desires
at once…
… it is only be resisting a thousand daily petty urges that
the fundamental anxious longing for happiness can by satisfied.
Why
American Consider All Honest Callings Honorable
Among democratic peoples… work is the necessary, natural, and
honest condition of all men.
…many rich Americans come to Europe; there they find the relics
of aristocratic societies in which leisure is still honorable.
In the United States professions are more or less unpleasant, more
or less lucrative, but they are never high or low. Every honest
profession is honorable.
What
Gives Almost All Americans a Preference for Industrial Callings
To cultivate the ground promises an almost certain reward for his
efforts, but a slow one.
Democracy therefore not only multiplies the number of workers but
also leads men to adopt one type of work rather than another.
It gives them a distaste for agriculture and it directs them into
trade and industry.
In democratic countries, no matter how rich a man is, he is
almost always dissatisfied with his fortune… so most
wealthy men in democracies are dreaming of ways to increase their
riches, and naturally their eyes turn to trade and industry. (Donald
Trump)
In democracies nothing has brighter luster than commerce; it
attracts the attention of the public and fills the imagination of the
crowd; all passionate energies are directed that way.
… great fortunes found in a democracy are almost always of a
commercial origin…
The Americans arrived but yesterday in the land where they live,
and they have already turned the whole order of nature upside down to
their profit.
As they are all more or less engaged in industry, at the least
shock given to business activity all private fortunes are in jeopardy
at the same time and the state is shaken.
How
an Aristocracy May Be Created by Industry
When a workman is constantly and exclusively engaged in making one
object, he ends by performing this work with singular dexterity…
Every day he becomes more adroit and less industrious, and one may
say that in his case the man is degraded as the workman improves.
… at the same time that industrial science constantly lowers the
standing of the working class, it raises that of the masters.
So there is no resemblance between master and workman, and daily
they become more different. There is no connection except that
between the first and the last links in a long chain. Each
occupies a place made for him, from which he does not move. One
is in a state of constant, narrow, and necessary dependence on the
other and seems to have been born to obey, as the other was to
command.
What is this, if not an aristocracy?
How
Mores Become More Gentle as Social Conditions Become More Equal
There is no misery so deep, nor happiness so pure, that it can
touch our minds and move our hearts, unless we are shown ourselves
under a different guise.
… society obtains what humanity by itself would not win.
North America is, I think, the only country on earth which has not
taken the life of a single citizen for political offenses during the
last fifty years.
… the same man who is full of humanity toward his fellows when
they are also his equals becomes insensible to their sorrows when
there is no more equality. It is therefore to this equality
that we must attribute his gentleness, even more than to his
civilization and education.
How
Democracy Leads to Ease and Simplicity in the Ordinary Relations
Between Americans
(In England) … not being able to judge at the first sight the
social position of the people he meets, he prudently avoids contact
with them. He is afraid that some slight service rendered may
draw him into an unsuitable friendship.
(In USA) their manner is … natural, frank, and open. One
sees that there is practically nothing that they either hope or fear
from each other…
In a foreign land two Americans are friends at once for the simple
reason that they are Americans. There is no prejudice to hold
them back, and their common fatherland draws them together. For
two Englishmen the same blood is not enough; they must also have the
same rank to bring them together.
… English reserve is due much more to the constitution of the
country than of the citizens.
Why
the Americans Are so Hard to Offend in Their Own Country and So
Easily Offended in Ours
Scorning no man on account of his status, it does not occur to him
that anyone scorns him for that reason, and unless the insult is
clearly seen, he does not think that anyone wants to offend him.
I have often noticed in the United States that it is not at all
easy to make a man understand that his presence is unwelcome.
An American is constantly talking about the wonderful equality
prevailing in the United States. As far as his country is
concerned, he loudly proclaims his pride in this, but he has a secret
anxiety about its bearing on himself…
Consequences
Deriving from the Three Preceding Chapters
When men feel a natural compassion for the suffering of others,
when they are brought together in easy and frequent intercourse and
no susceptibilities keep them apart, it is easy to understand that
they will give each other mutual support when needed.
The Americans always cold in manner and often coarse, are hardly
ever insensitive, and though they may be in no hurry to volunteer
services, yet they do not refuse them.
How
Democracy Modifies the Relations Between Master and Servant
In aristocracies the servant occupies a subordinate position from
which he cannot escape; close to him stands another man with a higher
rank which he cannot lose. On the one side, obscurity, poverty,
and obedience forever; on the other, fame, wealth, and power to
command forever. Their lots are always different and always
close, and the link between them is as lasting as life itself.
When conditions are almost equal, men are continually changing
places… Those who give the orders are no more permanent than
those who obey.
(In USA) the servant may at any time become the master, and he
wants to do so. So the servant is not a different type of man
from the master.
In aristocracies servant and master see each other only
occasionally, and often they talk only through an intermediary.
Yet they usually stand firmly by each other.
In democracies servant and master are very close; their bodies
constantly touch, but their souls remain apart; they have occupations
together, but they hardly ever have common interests.
How
Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise the Rents and Shorten
the Terms of Leases
In aristocracies rents are not paid in money only, but also by
respect, attachment, and service. In democracies money only is
paid.
In the Middle Ages almost all land was leased in perpetuity, or at
least for very long terms.
… at that time people thought of families as immortal,
conditions seemed fixed forever, and the whole of society appeared so
stable that no one imagined that anything could ever stir within it.
In times of equality thoughts take quite a different turn…
In such a mental climate landlord and tenant too feel a sort of
instinctive terror of long-term obligations… in ages of
democracy all things are unstable, but the most unstable of all is
the human heart.
Influence
of Democracy on Wages
… a slow, progressive rise in wages is one of the general laws
characteristic of democratic societies. As conditions become
more equal, wages rise; and as wages rise, conditions become more
equal.
… Aristocracy, chased out of political society, has taken refuge
in some parts of the world of industry.
… once men have adopted this calling (industry), they cannot, as
we have seen, get out of it, for they soon develop habits of body and
mind which render them unsuited to any other work.
They have long been impoverished by oppression, and increasing
poverty makes them easier to oppress.
Influence
of Democracy on the Family
… as the young American begins to approach man’s estate, the
reins of filial obedience are daily slackened. Master of his
thoughts, he soon becomes responsible for his own behavior. In
America there is in truth no adolescence. At the close of
boyhood he is a man and begins to trace his own path.
(Aristocracy) When men are more concerned with memories of
what has been than with what is, and when they are much more anxious
to know what heir ancestors thought than to think for themselves, the
father is the natural and necessary link between the past and the
present, the link where these two chains meet and join. In
aristocracies, therefore, the father is not only the political head
of the family but also the instrument of tradition, the interpreter
of custom, and the arbiter of mores. He is heard with
deference, he is addressed always with respect, and the affection
felt for him is ever mingled with fear.
(Democracy) When the state of society turns to democracy and
men adopt the general principle that it is good and right to judge
everything for oneself, taking former beliefs as providing
information but not rules, paternal opinions come to have less power
over the sons, just as his legal power is less too… Perhaps
the division of patrimonies which follows from democracy does more
than all the rest to alter the relations between father and children.
… the relations between father and sons become more intimate and
gentle; there is less of rule and authority, often more of
confidence and affection, and it would seem that the natural bond
grows tighter as the social link loosens.
(Aristocracy) A perusal of the family correspondence
surviving from aristocratic ages is enough to illustrate the
difference between the two social states in this respect. The
style is always correct, ceremonious, rigid, and cold, so the natural
warmth of heart can hardly be felt through the words.
In an aristocratic society… all positions are defined…
Democracy overthrows or lowers all these barriers.
So the various members of the aristocratic family are closely
linked together; their interests are connected and their minds are in
accord, but their hearts are seldom in harmony.
Democracy too draws brothers together, but in a different way…
in a democracy… inheritance is divided, but their hearts are
free to unite.
Democracy loosens social ties, but it tightens natural ones.
At the same time as it separates citizens, it brings kindred closer
together.
Education
of Girls in the United States
In almost all Protestant nations girls are much more in control of
their own behavior than among Catholic ones.
Seldom does an American girl, whatever her age, suffer from
shyness or childish ignorance.
… education has its dangers;… it tends to develop judgment at
the cost of imagination and to make women chaste and cold rather than
tender and loving companions of men. Society may thus be more
peaceful and better ordered, but the charms of private life are often
less.
The
Young Woman as a Wife
… in America inexorable public opinion carefully keeps woman
within the little sphere of domestic interests and duties and will
not let her go beyond them.
American women only marry when their minds are experienced and
mature, whereas elsewhere women usually only begin to mature when
they are married.
In no country of the world are private fortunes more usable than
in the United States. It is not exceptional for one man in
his lifetime to work up through every stage from poverty to opulence
and then come down again.
In America the wife is still the same person that she was as a
girl; her part in life has changed, and her ways are different, but
the spirit is the same.
How
Equality Helps to Maintain Good Morals in America
… there is hardly a way of persuading a girl that you love her
when you are perfectly free to marry her but will not do so.
The same cause which renders fidelity more obligatory also renders
it easier.
When each (a man and a woman) chooses his companion for himself
without any external interference or even prompting, it is usually
nothing but similar tastes and thoughts that bring a man and a woman
together, and these similarities hold and keep them by each other’s
side.
When a man and a woman wish to come together in spite of the
inequalities of an aristocratic social system, they have immense
obstacles to overcome.
Almost all the men in a democracy either enter politics or
practice some calling, whereas limited incomes oblige the wives to
stay at home and watch in person very closely over the details of
domestic economy.
The disturbed and constantly harassed life which equality makes
men lead not only diverts their attention from lovemaking by
depriving them of leisure for its pursuit but also turns them away by
a more secret but more certain path.
No men are less dreamers than the citizens of democracy; one
hardly finds any who care to let themselves indulge in such leisurely
and solitary moods of contemplation as generally precede and produce
the great agitations of the heart.
How
the American Views the Equality of the Sexes
In democratic equality… progress consists not in making
dissimilar creatures do roughly the same things but in giving both a
chance to do their job as well as possible.
In the United States men seldom compliment women, but they daily
show how much they esteem them.
American legislators, who have made almost ever article in the
criminal code less harsh, punish rape by death; and no other crime is
judged with the same inexorable severity by public opinion.
I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and
growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the
superiority of their women.
How
Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Small
Private Circles
In aristocracies men are separated by high immovable barriers.
In democracies they are divided by a lot of almost invisible little
threads, which are continually getting broken and moved from place to
place.
Some
Reflections on American Manners
True dignity in manners consists in always taking one’s proper
place, not too high and not too low.
Nothing does democracy more harm than its outward forms of
behavior; many who could tolerated its vices cannot put up with its
manners.
… democracy imposes no particular manners, but in a sense
prevents them from having manners at all.
… nothing is more lasting than the manners of an aristocratic
class.
Not only are democratic peoples unable to have aristocratic
manners, but they cannot even conceive or desire them.
On
the Gravity of the Americans and Why It Often Does Not Prevent Their
Doing Ill-Considered Things
In aristocratic societies the people freely let themselves go in
bursts of tumultuous, boisterous gaiety, which at once makes them
forget all the wretchedness of their lives. But in democracies
people to not at all like to feel violently drawn out of themselves.
Instead of dancing gaily in the public square as many people of
the same social status in Europe still delight to do, an American may
prefer to spend his leisure hours quietly drinking in his own house.
Americans imagine that to appear dignified they must remain
solemn.
All free peoples are serious-minded because they are habitually
preoccupied with some dangerous or difficult project.
In democracies mien never stay still; a thousand chance
circumstances constantly make them move from place to place.
In aristocracies every man has but one sole aim which he
constantly pursues.
In a democracy: He does everything in a hurry, is always satisfied
with “more for less,” and never stops for more than one moment to
consider each thing he does.
He hardly has the time, and soon loses the taste, for going deeply
into anything.
Why
American National Pride Has a More Restless and Quarrelsome Character
Than That of the English
Their vanity is not only greedy but also restless and jealous.
It makes endless demands and gives nothing. It is both
mendicant and querulous.
USA: One cannot imagine a more obnoxious or boastful form of
patriotism.
England: If he concedes nothing to other nations, he demands
nothing from them… His pride needs no nourishment, living on
itself.
In democracies, with their constant ebb and flow of prosperity,
men have almost always acquired the advantages they possess
recently. For that reason they take infinite pleasure in
vaunting them… and as at any moment these advantages may slip
from them, they are in constant alarm and anxiety to show that they
have them still.
How
the Aspect of Society in the United States Is at Once Agitated and
Monotonous
In aristocracies each man is pretty firmly fixed in his sphere…
but in democracies, contrariwise, all men are alike and do roughly
the same things.
American society appears animated because men and things are
constantly changing; it is monotonous because all these changes are
alike.
Men living in democratic times have many passions, but most of
these culminate in love of wealth or derive from it.
When the prestige attached to what is old has vanished, men are no
longer distinguished or hardly distinguished, by birth, standing, or
profession.
In aristocratic nations money is the key to the satisfaction of
but few of the vast array of possible desires; in democracies it is
the key to them all.
Love of money is either the chief or a secondary motive at the
bottom of everything the Americans do.
The constant recurrence of the same passion is monotonous.
Love of money chiefly turns men to industry.
Variety is disappearing from the human race; the same ways of
behaving, thinking, and feeling are found in every corner of the
world.
Concerning
Honor in the United States and Democratic Societies
Honor in times of the zenith of its power, directs men’s wills
more than their beliefs.
It is a permanent and universal interest of mankind that men
should not kill each other; but the particular and momentary interest
of a nation or class may in certain cases make homicide excusable or
even honorable.
The feudal aristocracy was born of war and for war; it won its
power by force of arms and maintained it thereby.
In feudal societies, the whole of public order depended on a
feeling of loyalty to the actual person of the lord.
To clear, cultivate, and transform the huge and uninhabited
continent with their domain, the Americans need the everyday support
of an energetic passion; that passion can only be the love of wealth.
However hard he (the American) tries, he will always be
surrounded by more good things than he can grasp.
Industry appears as a vast lottery in which a few men daily
lose but in which the state constantly profits. Such a people
is bound to look with favor on boldness in industry and to honor it.
All those vices which tend to impair the purity of morals and the
stability of marriage are treated in America with a severity unknown
in the rest of the world.
In America I have sometimes met rich young men temperamentally
opposed to any uncomfortable effort and yet forced to enter a
profession. Their characters and their wealth would have
allowed them to stay idle, but public opinion imperiously forbade
that and had to be obeyed. But among European nations where an
aristocracy is still struggling against the current that carries it
away, I have often met men whose needs and inclinations constantly
goaded them to action, who yet remained idle so as not to lose the
esteem of their equals, and who found boredom and discomfort easier
to face than work.
It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give
rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it
grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.
Why
There Are So Many Men of Ambition in the United States but So Few
Lofty Ambitions
Every American is eaten up with longings to rise, but hardly
any of them seem to entertain very great hopes or to aim very high.
Every revolution increases men’s ambition, and that is
particularly true of a revolution which overthrows an aristocracy.
The taste for huge fortunes persists, though such fortunes in fact
become rare, and on all sides there are those who eat out their
hearts in secret, consumed by inordinate and frustrated ambition.
Although high ambitions swell while conditions are in process of
equalization, that characteristic is lost when equality is a fact.
In democracy ambition is both eager and constant, but in
general it does not look very high. For the most part life is
spent in eagerly coveting small prizes within reach.
They strain their faculties to the utmost to achieve paltry
results, and this quickly and inevitably limits their range of vision
and circumscribes their powers.
Great and rapid promotion is rare in a well-established
democracy.
No law limits their horizon, but they do so for themselves.
They are much more in love with success than with glory.
What they most desire is power.
It would seem that their only object in rising to supreme power
was to gratify trivial and course appetites more easily.
I therefore thing that the leaders of the new societies
would do wrong if they tried to send the citizens to sleep in a state
of happiness too uniform and peaceful, but that they should
sometimes give them difficult and dangerous problems to face, to
rouse ambition and give it a field of action.
Concerning
Place-Hunting in Some Democratic Countries
Universal and uncontrolled desire for official appointments is a
great social evil, that it undermines every citizen’s sense of
independence and spreads a venal and servile temper throughout the
nation.
Of all the peoples in the world, a nation of place-hunters is the
hardest to restrain and direct.
There is always a danger that it will eventually overthrow the
constitution and give new shape to the state simply for the purpose
of cleaning out the present officeholders. (Venezuelan
Constitutional Assembly, Nov 2018)
Why
Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
The same causes which make the citizens independent of each other
daily prompt new and restless longings and constantly goad them on.
(Democracy strives for stability within a changing and dynamic
environment)
Not only do men in democracies feel no natural inclination for
revolutions, but they are afraid of them.
Men whose comfortable existence is equally far from wealth and
poverty set immense value on their possessions.
The majority of citizens in a democracy do not see clearly what
they could gain by a revolution, but they constantly see a thousand
ways in which they could lose by one.
Violent political passions have little hold on men whose whole
thoughts are bent on the pursuit of well-being.
No man can struggle with advantage against the spirit of his age
and country, and however powerful a man may be, it is hard for him to
make his contemporaries share feelings and ideas which run counter to
the general run of their hopes and desires. It is therefore a
mistake to suppose that once equality has become something
long-established and undisputed, molding manners to its taste, men
will easily allow themselves to be thrown into danger by some rash
leader of bold innovator. (Chavez was an exception to this rule)
They love change, but they are afraid of revolutions.
In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or
more alert than in the United States.
In democratic societies it is only small minorities who desire
revolutions, but the minorities may bring them about.
I would add that once they have gained education and experience,
they will not allow them to occur. (Smart people don’t start
revolutions)
Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity
seems almost unmoved (in USA).
It must, I think, be rare in a democracy for a man suddenly to
conceive a system of ideas far different from those accepted by his
contemporaries.
It is very difficult to make the inhabitants of democracies
listen when one is not talking about themselves. They do not
hear what is said to them because they are always very preoccupied
with what they are doing.
There are few men of leisure in democracies.
Men are so busy acting that they have little time to think.
They are not only busy, but passionately interested in their
business.
The fire they put into their work prevents their being fired by
ideas.
It is an arduous undertaking to excite the enthusiasm of a
democratic nation for any theory which does not have a visible,
direct, and immediate bearing on the occupations of their daily
lives.
Enthusiasm is what makes men’s minds leap of the beaten
track.
(Aristocracy) Under a caste system generation follows
generation without a change in man’s position; while some have
nothing more to desire, the rest have nothing better to hope.
The imagination slumbers in the stillness of this universal silence,
and the mere idea of movement doesn’t come to men’s minds.
(Democracy) When classes have been abolished and conditions
have become almost equal, men are constantly on the move, but each
individual is isolated, on his own, and weak. For all the vast
difference between these two states, they are alike in one respect,
namely, that great intellectual revolutions become very rare.
Whenever conditions are equal, public opinion brings immense
weight to bear on every individual. It surrounds, directs, and
oppresses him. The basic constitution of society has more to do
with this than any political laws. The more alike men are, the
weaker each feels in the face of all.
It will always be very difficult for a man to believe what the
mass rejects and to profess what it condemns. (rhm)
While equality leads men to make changes it also prompts them to
have interests which require stability for their satisfaction; it
both drives them on and holds them back; it goads them on and keeps
their feet on the ground; it kindles their desires and limits their
powers.
The prospect really does frighten me that they may finally become
so engrossed in a cowardly love of immediate pleasures that their
interest in their own future and in that of their descendants may
vanish, and that they will prefer tamely to follow the course of
their destiny rather than make a sudden energetic effort to set
things right.
Why
Democratic Peoples Naturally Want Peace but Democratic Armies War
Among civilized nations warlike passions become rarer and less
active as social conditions get nearer to equality.
In aristocratic armies, the soldier’s ambition has very narrow
limits
In aristocracies, as an officer, it is not his principal aim to
acquire property, reputation, or power, for he enjoys those
advantages on his own account without any need to leave home.
Desire for promotion is almost universal in democratic armies; it
is eager, tenacious, and continual. The desire for promotion is
greater and the opportunities for it are fewer than elsewhere.
Ambitions minds in a democratic army ardently long for war,
because war makes vacancies available and at last allows violations
of the rule of seniority, which is the one privilege natural to
democracy.
Of all armies, those which long for war most ardently are the
democratic ones.
Although their interests and inclinations naturally incline
democracies to peace, their armies exercise a constant pull toward
war and revolution.
I do not wish to speak ill of war; war almost always widens a
nation’s mental horizons and raises its heart. In some cases
it may be the only factor which can prevent the exaggerated growth of
certain inclinations naturally produced by equality and be the
antidote needed for certain inveterate diseases to which democratic
societies are liable.
Armies are much more impatient of peace when once they have tasted
war.
There are two things which will always be difficult for a
democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.
All those who seek to destroy the freedom of he democratic
nations must know that war is the shortest means to accomplish this.
Nothing is gained in a democracy by increasing the army, because
the number of men of ambition increases in exact proportion with the
growth of the army itself.
Which
is the Most Warlike and Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies
Men living in times of democracy seldom choose a soldier’s
life.
A democratic government can do pretty well what it likes, provided
that its orders apply to all and at the same moment.
The least warlike and least revolutionary part of a democratic
army will always be its leaders.
The non-commissioned officer want war; he always want it at any
cost.
What
Makes Democratic Armies Weaker Than Others at the Beginning of a
Campaign but More Formidable in Prolonged Warfare
Not only does a long peace fill democratic armies with aging
officers, but it often gives even those who are still in the
vigor of their years the instincts of old men.
When the officers of a democratic army have no taste for war or
military ambition, nothing is left.
Those same democratic nations which are so hard to drag onto the
battlefield sometimes perform prodigious feats once one has succeeded
in putting arms into their hands.
Equality allows every man to be ambitious, and death provides
chances for every ambition.
While their interests and tastes divert the citizens of a
democracy from war, their habits and their spirit fit them for
success in it.
An aristocratic people which, fighting against a democracy, does
not succeed in bring it to ruin in the first campaigns always runs a
great risk of being defeated by it.
Of
Discipline in Democratic Armies
Military discipline is only a more perfect form of social
servitude.
The discipline of an aristocratic army is apt to relax in wartime,
for it is based on habit, and war upsets habits. But in a
democratic army discipline is strengthened in face of the enemy, for
each soldier sees very clearly that to conquer he must be silent and
obey.
Some Considerations
Concerning War in Democratic Societies.
So wars become rarer, but when they do come about, they spread
over a vaster field. (Example: WWI and WWII)
In aristocratic ages even those who are naturally alike strive to
create imaginary differences between them, in democratic ages even
those who are not alike are bent on becoming so and copy each other,
so strongly is the mind of every man always carried away by the
general impulse of mankind.
When men are all alike, they are all weak.
In ages of equality armies seem to increase in size proportion as
the military spirit declines.
One can compare war in an aristocratic country to war in the
mountains. The defeated can always find a new position in which
to rally and hold firm.
(Regarding Civil Wars) Those who in such countries seek to effect
a revolution by force of arms have no other recourse but suddenly to
seize the whole machinery of government as it stand, and that can
better be done by a coup d’ etat than by a war, for as soon as there
is a regular war, the party representing the state is almost always
sure to win.
On
the Influence of Democratic Ideas and Feelings On Political Society
As conditions become more equal among people, individuals seem of
less and society of greater importance.
Despotism is particularly to be feared in ages of democracy.
(Despotism: Exercise of power in a cruel way)
All those who try to concentrate and maintain authority in the
hands of one class only will fail.
It is both necessary and desirable that the central power of a
democratic people should be both active and strong.
It would seem that sovereigns now only seek to do great things
with men. I wish that they would try a little more to make men
great, that they should attach less importance to the work and more
to the workman. No one has yet devised a form of society or a
political combination which can make a people energetic when it is
composed of citizens who are flabby and feeble.
I have sought to expose the perils with which equality threatens
human freedom because I firmly believe that those dangers are both
the most formidable and the least foreseen of those which the future
has in store.
General
Tendencies in Democracies
I find that good things and evil in the world are fairly evenly
distributed. Great wealth tends to disappear and the number of
small fortunes to increase; desires and pleasures are multiplied, but
extraordinary prosperity and irremediable penury are alike unknown.
Everyone feels some ambition, but few have ambitions on a vast
scale. Each individual is isolated and weak, but society is
active, provident, and strong; private persons achieve insignificant
things but the state immense ones.
Men tend to live longer, and their property is more secure.
Life is not very glamorous, but extremely comfortable and peaceful.
Genius becomes rarer but education more common.
In the works of man there is less perfection but greater
abundance.
Almost all salient characteristics are obliterated to make room
for something average, less high and less low, less brilliant and
less dim, than what the world had before.
The sight of such universal uniformity saddens and chills me.
The greater well-being of all, is most pleasing in the sight of
the Creator and Preserver of men. What seems to me decay is
thus His eyes progress; what pains me is acceptable to Him.
The task is no longer to preserve the particular advantages which
inequality of conditions had procured for men, but to secure those
new benefits which equality may supply.
I am ever increasingly confirmed in my belief that for democratic
nations to be virtuous and prosperous, it is enough if they will to
be so.
The nations of our day cannot prevent conditions of equality from
spreading in their midst. But it depends upon themselves
whether inequality is to lead to servitude or freedom, knowledge or
barbarism, prosperity or wretchedness.