Democracy in America

Tocqueville’s first explanation for the endurance of American democracy is geography: The capital is remote from many states and local life is more important to Americans. The country has yet to engage in any major wars. Americans were bequeathed the positive aspects of a Puritan heritage, especially education. Tocqueville then argues that the Native inhabitants of the continent left it undeveloped, a “wilderness land” for European settlers to conquer and develop (268). Americans are in perpetual motion: They leave Europe for the new continent and then find themselves as part of the continued push westward as American territory expands.

In this section Tocqueville introduces a concept that influences his analysis throughout the rest of the work. Mores, or moeurs in French, is his term for “the different notions that men possess, to the various opinions that are current in their midst, and to the sum of ideas of which the habits of the mind are formed” (275). When Tocqueville invokes mores, he usually refers to cultural values, norms, and topics on which a general consensus influences behavior.

Tocqueville expands on his notion of mores when he considers the advantages Americans enjoy. Specifically, federalism “permits the Union to enjoy the power of a great republic and the security of a small one” (274), while township government combined with strong legal traditions allow democracy to flourish without the tyranny of the majority leading to despotism. Christianity further limits any tendency toward radical revolution, as it makes it impossible to declare “everything is permitted in the interest of society” (280). Tocqueville approves of the American certainty that religious faith is essential to society, as he asks, “what makes a people master of itself if it has not submitted to God?” (282).

Tocqueville argues that American separation of church and state is what allows religion to flourish and the country itself to prosper. Tocqueville argues that hope of a future immortal life is inherent in all humans. But allying this impulse to government is a mistake, as political affinity requires embracing “maxims that are applicable only to certain peoples” (284). Political factions are fleeting, while religious belief should be enduring and not imperiled by close association with contemporary issues. American clergy, while separate from political power, have found that religion’s influence “is more lasting” for their decision (286). Christianity in Europe remains more associated with politics and is therefore weaker.

As he turns to cultural explanations for the endurance of American democracy, Tocqueville finds little to praise in American intellectuals. He declares confidently, “there are towns of the third order in Europe that publish more literary works each year than the twenty-four states of the Union taken together” (288). American society has few intellectual giants, but most of the population has a basic educational level. Most importantly, the country’s intellectual heritage is enlightened; maintaining it may be sufficient for the country’s future. Americans only become eloquent speaking of national politics and government. Tocqueville argues:

It is from participating in legislation that the American learns to know the laws, from governing that he instructs himself in the forms of government. The great work of society is accomplished daily before his eyes and so to speak in his hands (291).

In the end Tocqueville decides that “mores” are the determining factor for democracy’s flourishing (295). South America has similar geographic advantages but no democracy. Tocqueville further argues that “in America as among us, men are subject to the same imperfections and exposed to the same miseries” (297).

Tocqueville provides a long catalogue to explain the success of the American experiment:

It seemed to me that American legislators had come, not without success, to oppose the idea of rights to sentiments of envy; to the continuous movements of the political world, the immobility of religious morality; the experience of the people, to its theoretical ignorance, and its habit of business, to the enthusiasm of its desires (298).

In short, American democracy has not perfected humanity; rather, it has cultivated social, political, and cultural practices that transform some human weaknesses into strengths and mitigate the worst aspects of others. Tocqueville is encouraged by this and further attempts to encourage his fellow Europeans. He admits that Europe has lost the individual leadership of an aristocracy and in some respects the picture is bleak. This power vacuum of values has left Europeans with few choices, either “democratic freedom or the tyranny of the Caesars” (301).

Tocqueville rejects the idea that he merely wants to import the American model, averring, “My goal has been to show, by the example of America, that laws and above all mores can permit a democratic people to remain free” (302). He argues that this path will be difficult but it is necessary, as failing to embark upon it will result in a total loss of freedom.

Tocqueville argues that the “races” of North America are the superior Europeans and inferior Native tribes and enslaved black people. Tocqueville is not especially sympathetic to slavery. He exclaims, “Oppression has with one blow taken from the descendants of the Africans almost all the privileges of humanity!” (304). He argues that enslaved people have no real agency or consciousness, so freedom is not something they are prepared for should it occur: “Needs are masters that must be combated, and he has been taught only to submit and to obey”(304). He also does not particularly approve of the consequences of Native peoples being conquered, as “European tyranny has rendered them more disordered and less civilized than they already were” (305). Tocqueville insists on defining both groups only in contrast to Europeans and what they cannot be: “The Negro would like to intermingle with the European, and he cannot. The Indian could up to a certain point succeed at it, but he disdains the attempt” (306).

Tocqueville portrays Native peoples as dependent on white settlers for their survival, forced into “miseries” as wild animals disappear with European settlement and they are removed from their sovereign territories. He further describes the US government’s established practice of duping Native peoples out of their land, which makes them “condemned to perish” (312). This is partly a problem of population size and resources, but Tocqueville also argues that Native peoples are incapable of “civilization,” which he equates entirely with European farming practices (313). Tocqueville argues that civilizing missions imposed by force rarely succeed. Tocqueville notes that while the Spanish harmed native people with military force, Americans resort to broken treaties and land deprivation.

While Tocqueville considers Native peoples pitiable, he argues that the country’s black population will be a “cause of the present troubles and future dangers of the Union” due to the institution of slavery, which Tocqueville regards as “evil” (326). Tocqueville argues that abolition of slavery does not change the inhumanity of enslaved people and the entire race of black Americans: “This is not yet all: this man who was born in baseness; this stranger, whom servitude introduced among us, we hardly recognize in him the general features of humanity” (327-28). Tocqueville argues that while aristocracy is hard to eradicate, racial differences are innate and would not be changed with ending slavery. While he can “perceive slavery receding; the prejudice to which it has given birth is unmoving” (329). Tocqueville points out that racial prejudice remains strong in the North and black voting rights are still not supported. In essence, “in the United States the prejudice that repels Negroes seems to grow as Negroes cease to be slaves, and inequality is engraved in mores in the same measure as it is effaced in the laws” (330).

Tocqueville also argues that slavery has negative economic consequences. He argues that Ohio, which does not have slavery, is more prosperous than Kentucky. He insists, “in reality the slave has cost more than the free man and his work has been less productive” (332).Tocqueville argues that Ohioans are perpetually industrious, while those in Kentucky scorn “not only work but all the undertakings that work makes successful” (333). This, for Tocqueville, explains why the North has a more developed industrial capacity. Emancipation will also be more difficult in the South, as tobacco and sugar are easier to cultivate with enslaved labor, and because white people will never tolerate real black freedom or racial integration.

Tocqueville sees few solutions to this. He notes that it would be impossible for the entire black population of the United States to be sent back to Africa. He sees “only two manners of acting for the white race that inhabits those regions: free the Negroes and mingle them with it; remain isolated from them and hold them in slavery for the longest possible time” (346). Even as Southerners recognize slavery is wrong, they see “the near impossibility of destroying it” (346). In discussing both slavery and the situation of Native peoples, Tocqueville is unhappy with some of the consequences of white supremacy but generally accepts ideas of distinct races and divisions that should exist between them.

Tocqueville then turns to other possible threats to the integrity of the United States and whether it will survive. Tocqueville argues that the national projects in the United States are useful, but the state has more influence in everyday life:

The Union assures the independence and greatness of the nation, things that do not immediately touch particular persons. The state maintains freedom, regulates rights, guarantees the fortune, secures the life, the whole future of each citizen (351).

States are more established, have long traditions, and families are established there. There, “[p]atriotism has […] remained in the state and has not so to speak passed to the Union” (352).

Tocqueville argues that it would be difficult for the Union to stop any state from exiting its structures. The main things holding the country together are common interests and practical desires to remain united; commerce is freer between equal states than it would be between separate nations. In particular, the South and West need a maritime and commercial power in the North to ensure markets for their products and protection for their ports. Similarly, the Union protects the South from the specter of its enslaved population overwhelming it, and the West relies on communication with other regions to understand its situation.

Americans also have a shared cultural consensus: They believe in democracy and are Christians. They are also optimists who believe in the flexibility of institutions, and endurance of democracy makes Americans confident:

all consider society as a body in progress; humanity as a changing picture, in which nothing is or ought to be fixed forever, and they admit that what seems good to them today can be replaced tomorrow by the better that is still hidden. I do not say that all these opinions are correct, but they are American. […] They see that up to now, democratic institutions have prospered among them, while they have failed in the rest of the world; they therefore have an immense opinion of themselves (359).

Population growth and territorial expansion will also test the American experiment. Tocqueville asks, “who can foresee the diverse changes that an impending future will give rise to in a country where each day creates cities and each five years, nations?” (362). He notes that the balance of power, resources, and population is gradually shifting westward as Americans seek new territory.

North-South rivalry will remain a problem. Tocqueville argues that slavery produces different cultures in the South and the North: “The one [Southern] has the tastes, prejudices, weaknesses, and greatness of all aristocracies. The other, the qualities and defects that characterize the middle class” (361). But this is ultimately less significant than a loss of Southern influence and economic prosperity, which would result in “distrust and envy toward those whom fortune favors” (366). This envy may erode desire to remain united, which Tocqueville previously noted was a major threat to federal unity.

Another scenario that might weaken the United States is the gradual erosion of federal authority. On one hand, newspapers, commerce, and letter-writing are adding to a sense of national unity and cultural commonality. But the centralizing impulses that produced the Constitution have not persisted: “From the moment that a strong government no longer seemed necessary, they again began to think it was a hindrance” (371). Tocqueville cites as his most recent examples the strong opposition to a national bank under Andrew Jackson and Southern efforts to resist federal tax law, specifically tariffs on imported goods. Tocqueville notes that while Andrew Jackson’s presidency has signified the ascendance of these forces, the “Union is [established] in mores, it is desired; its results are evident, its benefits visible,” and a military campaign would further restore its force (378).

Tocqueville then considers, as a separate question, whether the United States will continue to be a republic, a government that he identifies with a commitment to freedom. Republican rule rests on majority opinion, but Tocqueville argues that it has other important features: “Above it in the moral world are humanity, justice, and reason; in the political world, acquired rights” (379-80).

Tocqueville notes that in Europe, those who call themselves republicans are typically outside government but claim to speak for the nation. He terms this “a happy distinction that permits one to act in the name of nations without consulting them and to claim their recognition while riding roughshod over them” (380). He recognizes that there are those who can use ideas of rights to their own purposes.

In contrast, in the United States, established traditions of township and municipal government are fundamental and unchangeable structures of life, imported by English settlers based in their traditions and then put into practice. Tocqueville argues that no monarchy could truly succeed in this case and that republicanism is the essence of American life. He asserts:

Therefore the republic penetrates, if I can express myself so, the ideas, the opinions, and all the habits of the Americans at the same time as it establishes itself in their laws; and to come to change the laws, [the Americans] would have to come in a way to the point of wholly changing themselves (381).

Tocqueville also considers it unlikely Americans would ever establish an aristocracy, as this has never been chosen voluntarily and is usually established by force. Tocqueville also considers America’s status in the world as a commercial power, pointing out that robust trade with Europe is necessary to both parties. He argues that Americans are accustomed to learning a variety of trades, which equips them well for engaging in commerce and frequently changing careers.

To conclude, Tocqueville declares that the rise of America coincides with Britain’s greater success as an imperial power and France’s failure to maintain its presence there to the same degree. The continent’s English-speaking population has constantly increased and expanded westward. Americans enjoy the advantage of a “fertile wilderness” and a hospitable climate. While the continent’s specific political future is unclear, “[b]ad laws, revolutions, and anarchy cannot destroy among them the taste for well-being and the spirit of enterprise that seems to be the distinctive characteristic of their race” (394). Americans, then, are uniquely industrious and driven to seek prosperity. Tocqueville argues that in general, the continuation of democratic habits will ensure future inhabitants will continue to belong to an “analogous social state” (394). Tocqueville argues that America is expanding westward at the same time Russia is becoming a great power while remaining an autocratic state. He concludes that both countries, with their disparate political systems, will come to shape world events.