Democracy in America

Contents

1. I Introductory Chapter 36 min 13

   Tocqueville explains why he wrote the book. In America he found the “equality of conditions” to be the fact from which all others derive, and he sees the same equality advancing in Europe. Reviewing seven centuries of French history, he argues that commerce, learning, the Church, kings and inventions have all levelled ranks, so that democracy is a providential, irresistible fact. France has had the democratic revolution without the laws, ideas and mores that would make it beneficial. America, which reached equality without such a revolution, can show Europe what to hope and fear. He defends his sources and method and claims to serve no party.

2. I.1 Exterior Form of North America 21 min 17

   A survey of North America’s physical geography: the two great slopes of the continent, the Mississippi valley, the barren Atlantic coast where the English colonies began, and the contrast between the lush South and the grave forests of the North. Tocqueville then describes the Native peoples, whom he portrays as poor but equal and free, and the earthworks of an unknown earlier people. He concludes that the Indians “occupied without possessing” the land and were destined to give way, leaving the continent as the stage for a great experiment in building society on new foundations.

3. I.2 Origin of the Anglo-Americans, and Its Importance in Relation to Their Future Condition 47 min 57

   Tocqueville argues that a nation’s origins explain its later character, and that America is the one country where these can be observed. The English emigrants shared language, legal habits and a tradition of local liberty, and American land resisted any territorial aristocracy. Virginia, founded by gold-seekers and soon dependent on slavery, contrasts with New England, settled by educated Puritan families for religious ends. Through Morton’s chronicle, the Mayflower Compact, Connecticut’s code of 1650 and Winthrop’s speech on liberty, he finds harsh sectarian penal laws alongside advanced political liberty, and a union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of liberty. A last section traces English survivals such as bail.

4. I.3 Social Condition of the Anglo-Americans 22 min 12

   America’s social condition is essentially democratic. New England never had an aristocracy, and the Southern gentry was weak. The Revolution, and especially the abolition of primogeniture and entail, completed the levelling: equal inheritance divides estates and removes the family’s wish to keep them, so great landed families have almost vanished. Wealth circulates quickly; the West is democracy at its extreme; education is widespread but rarely advanced. Politically, such equality can lead either to the sovereignty of all or to the absolute power of one, since men may prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. The Anglo-Americans have so far chosen popular sovereignty.

5. I.4 The Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America 8 min 5

   The sovereignty of the people, concealed or abused elsewhere, is openly the governing principle in America. Nurtured in the colonial townships, it took over the states at the Revolution, while the law of inheritance broke local aristocratic influence. The higher classes yielded to secure popular favour, and electoral qualifications were steadily lowered, since each extension of the franchise creates pressure for the next. Today the people make laws directly or through representatives chosen by universal suffrage, and society governs itself.

6. I.5 Necessity of Examining the Condition of the States Before That of the Union at Large 1 h 31 min 60

   Before studying the Union, Tocqueville examines the states, starting with the New England township: its town meeting, its selectmen and many elected officers, its independence in local matters and its role as the state’s agent. Local self-government, he argues, creates public spirit and teaches liberty. Administration is divided among many elected officials and enforced by courts and fines rather than by a hierarchy. He outlines state legislatures and governors, distinguishes governmental from administrative centralization, and argues that America has the first without the second. Local liberty makes citizens active, and it is most necessary in democracies, which tend toward central despotism, as the French Revolution showed.

7. I.6 Judicial Power in the United States, and Its Influence on Political Society 20 min 9

   American judges keep the three traits of judicial power everywhere: they act only on a dispute, only in particular cases, and only when someone brings a case to them. Their great political power comes from one difference. Because the American constitution is a higher law, which ordinary legislation cannot change, judges may refuse to apply statutes that conflict with it. Since they do so only in private lawsuits, the power is real but shielded from party passion. A second section praises the American and English practice of prosecuting officials in the ordinary courts, contrasting France’s Article 75, which protects officials unless the Conseil d’État consents.

8. I.7 Political Jurisdiction in the United States 14 min 7

   Tocqueville compares the political trials of England and France, where an upper house can apply the whole criminal law to great offenders, with American impeachment. There the House accuses, the Senate judges, and the only penalty is removal and disqualification from office; criminal punishment is left to the ordinary courts. The American system looks mild, but he argues that because removal is easy to impose and offences are vaguely defined, impeachment may be the most formidable weapon ever given to a popular majority. He suggests that rising numbers of impeachments would show the republics degenerating.

9. I.8 The Federal Constitution 1 h 6 min 42

   A history and analysis of the Federal Constitution. After the weak Confederation, a convention presided over by Washington produced a government whose powers are enumerated, the states keeping the rest. Congress combines a Senate representing the states equally with a House apportioned by population. The President is elective, responsible and checked by the Senate, with a suspensive veto, and is far weaker than the constitutional King of France, largely because the country has no neighbours to fear. Tocqueville praises the electoral college but criticises re-eligibility, which makes the President court the majority, and the wholesale replacement of officials at each election.

10. I.8 Federal Courts 1 h 25 min 38

    The federal courts, headed by a Supreme Court of seven judges, enforce federal law on individuals rather than states, decide their own jurisdiction, and hear cases arising under the Constitution, including state laws that impair contracts. Tocqueville calls the Court the most powerful tribunal ever created, guardian of the Union’s peace. He judges the Federal Constitution superior to the state constitutions, and its central novelty, a government acting directly on citizens, a great invention. Federalism joins the freedom of small states to the strength of a large one, but it is complex and inherently weak, and it works in America chiefly because geography spares the Union great wars.

11. I.9 Why the People May Strictly Be Said to Govern in the United States 2 min 2

    A short transition opening the second part of the volume. Above all institutions stands the people, which elects legislators and executives, often annually, and supplies juries. The majority governs in its name, surrounded by parties seeking its support; the following chapters study those parties, the press and associations.

12. I.10 Parties in the United States 18 min 9

    Tocqueville distinguishes great parties, which fight over principles in times of upheaval, from small parties of interest and intrigue in quiet times. America has lost its great parties: the Federalists, who sought to limit popular power, governed briefly and gave the republic its Constitution before Jefferson’s Republicans triumphed in 1801. Now sectional interests, such as the tariff dispute between the manufacturing North and the agricultural South, threaten the Union, while politicians manufacture parties around doctrines. Beneath them all he finds aristocratic and democratic passions, as in Jackson’s war on the Bank. The wealthy withdraw from public life and privately despise democracy.

13. I.11 Liberty of the Press in the United States 24 min 8

    Tocqueville values the liberty of the press more for the evils it prevents than for its benefits: every attempt at partial control leads to despotism, and censorship is absurd where the people is sovereign. The American press is violent and personal, yet its influence is weaker than in France, because it is decentralised, numerous, filled with advertisements, and run by men of little standing. Collectively it is the second power after the people. A free press also makes opinions more tenacious, since men cling to beliefs they chose freely, and in an age of doubt they hold to their interests.

14. I.12 Political Associations in the United States 22 min 8

    Americans form associations for every purpose, from removing an obstruction in the road to fighting intemperance. Political association has three degrees: shared opinion, public meetings, and elected conventions that act like a government within the government, as in the anti-tariff Convention of 1831. Unlimited freedom of association is dangerous but in America serves as a check on the tyranny of the majority, replacing the aristocracy as a barrier to despotism, and it prevents secret societies. American associations are peaceful and persuasive because universal suffrage leaves no doubt where the majority lies; European ones are military, centralised and violent.

15. I.13 Government of the Democracy in America 1 h 35 min 46

    A long survey of how American democracy actually governs. Universal suffrage does not choose the ablest men: envy, haste and the pursuit of wealth keep talent out of the House, though indirect election fills the Senate with it. Frequent elections make laws unstable; officials are plain, paid and given wide discretion; records are scarcely kept. Democratic government is not cheap, since the poor majority votes spending on itself. Its corruption is cruder and more contagious than aristocratic vice. Democracies struggle to sustain war, to accept present sacrifice, and to conduct foreign policy, where Washington’s neutrality held popular passion in check.

16. I.14 What the Real Advantages Are Which American Society Derives from the Government of the Democracy 46 min 16

    Tocqueville weighs democracy’s advantages. Its laws are clumsy, but they aim at the welfare of the greatest number, and its officials, however mediocre, have no lasting interest against the majority, unlike even England’s liberal aristocracy. Participation gives Americans a reflective patriotism based on interest, a respect for rights grounded in owning property and exercising political rights, and obedience to laws they regard as their own. Ceaseless political activity educates citizens and stimulates commerce. If the aim of society is general comfort rather than glory, democracy is the surest means to it.

17. I.15 Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United States, and Its Consequences 41 min 19

    The chapter that coined the modern idea of the “tyranny of the majority”. American constitutions concentrate power in annually elected legislatures, while electors bind their delegates, so the majority’s will is irresistible and laws and policy change constantly. Tocqueville insists that justice limits every sovereign and that a majority can oppress like a king. In America no institution offers redress, and majority opinion silences dissent more effectively than any inquisition, stunting literature and public character. If the republic falls, it will be through minorities driven to force, as Hamilton and Jefferson also feared.

18. I.16 Causes Which Mitigate the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States 41 min 18

    What restrains the majority? First, decentralised administration: the national will must be executed by local officials it does not control. Second, the legal profession, whose taste for order, precedent and form makes it America’s true aristocracy, sitting on the bench and at the bar, checking legislation through judicial review and spreading legal habits of thought through society. Third, the jury, especially in civil cases, which Tocqueville treats as a political institution: an expression of popular sovereignty that also educates citizens and extends the authority of judges.

19. I.17 Principal Causes Which Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States 1 h 52 min 45

    Tocqueville gathers the causes that sustain the American democratic republic under three heads. Its situation helps: no powerful neighbours, no dominant capital, and a vast continent whose free land drains off ambition and discontent. Its laws help: federalism, township institutions and the courts. But mores matter most, and religion above all: separated from the state, Christianity restrains the imagination and supports free institutions. Practical political education does the rest. Comparing Spanish America, Mexico and the American West, he ranks mores above laws and laws above geography, and warns France that it must choose between democratic liberty and a new despotism.

20. I.18 The Present and Probable Future Condition of the Three Races Which Inhabit the Territory of the United States 50 min 46

    Tocqueville turns to subjects “American without being democratic”: the three races and the future of the Union. He contrasts the enslaved Black population with Native peoples whose independence has become their ruin. The fur trade, retreating game and settlers drive the tribes west; he describes the Choctaws crossing the frozen Mississippi in 1831. The Cherokees and Creeks took up farming, writing and constitutional government, yet the Southern states and the federal government press them toward removal. He quotes the Cherokees’ petition and concludes, with bitter irony, that the Americans destroy the Indians legally and “with more respect for the laws of humanity.”

21. I.18 Situation of the Black Population in the United States, and Dangers with Which Its Presence Threatens the Whites 1 h 5 min 38

    Modern slavery, Tocqueville argues, is harder to end than ancient slavery because it is fused with colour: prejudice survives emancipation and is fiercest in the free North. The North abolished slavery in the interest of whites, because free labour proved more productive, as the contrast between Ohio and Kentucky shows, and sold its slaves southward. In the Deep South, climate, staple crops and a Black majority make abolition dangerous to whites, who therefore harden the system and forbid slaves to read. Liberia cannot absorb the growing Black population, and he foresees a terrible conflict between the races, especially if the Union dissolves.

22. I.18 What Are the Chances in Favor of the Duration of the American Union, and What Dangers Threaten It 1 h 24 min 67

    Tocqueville asks whether the Union will last. Because the States handle the affairs that touch daily life, loyalty and real power lie with them, and the federal government survives only by their consent. Common interests, shared opinions and the absence of natural barriers hold the Union together; the danger lies in the different characters slavery has bred in North and South and in rapid, uneven growth that shifts power westward and leaves the South resentful. Using internal improvements, Indian policy, the public lands, the Bank War, the tariff and nullification, he argues that the federal power is steadily weakening under Jackson.

23. I.18 Of the Republican Institutions of the United States, and What Their Chances of Duration Are 36 min 17

    Tocqueville separates the Union, which he calls an accident, from republican government, which he sees as rooted in American laws, habits and the sovereignty of the people. If the republic fell it would more likely give way to despotism than to an aristocracy, which no free people has ever created for itself. A second section explains American commercial success by the daring and versatility of American traders rather than by natural advantages, and predicts that the United States will become the commercial agent of South America and the first maritime power in the world.

24. I Conclusion 15 min 13

    Surveying the whole, Tocqueville predicts that the Anglo-Americans will fill North America from the Arctic to the tropics and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. France has lost its American empire, Lower Canada and Texas are being absorbed, and neither laws, war nor revolution can stop a growth that has continued since colonial times. He foresees 150 million people of one language and similar condition. The volume ends with the famous comparison of the Americans and the Russians, two rising nations, one advancing by freedom and the other by servitude, each destined to sway half the globe.

25. II Author’s Preface to the Second Part 5 min 3

    In the preface to the second part (1840), Tocqueville explains that the democratic social state has transformed civil society as well as politics, and that this volume studies its effects on ideas, feelings and manners. He warns readers not to suppose he thinks equality the only cause of modern developments. His frequent severity toward democracy, he says, comes from a friend who accepts it as inevitable and wishes to point out its dangers, and he claims to have written without flattering any French party.

26. II.1.1 Philosophical Method Among the Americans 13 min 5

    Americans have no philosophical school, yet all share one method: to judge for themselves, distrust tradition and forms, and seek the reason of things in their own understanding. This is Descartes’s method, adopted not from books but from an equal social condition. Tocqueville traces its spread in Europe from the Reformation to the eighteenth-century philosophers, and explains why Americans apply it less than the French: religion, inherited from their founders, is accepted without discussion, and they have had no democratic revolution to dissolve their beliefs.

27. II.1.2 Of the Principal Source of Belief Among Democratic Nations 11 min 4

    No society can exist without beliefs accepted on trust, and no individual could live by testing everything himself. The question is therefore where intellectual authority lies in a democracy. Equality destroys faith in particular persons and classes but increases confidence in the public, whose opinion presses on each mind with enormous force. Tocqueville warns that this may confine independent thought more narrowly than ever, so that democracy would merely give servitude a new dress, the yoke held out by a million arms.

28. II.1.3 Why the Americans Display More Readiness and More Taste for General Ideas than Their Forefathers, the English 13 min 3

    General ideas are a sign of the mind’s weakness as well as its reach. Tocqueville argues that equality makes people generalise: where men are alike, thoughts about one apply to all, while aristocracies see only particular classes, as ancient thinkers could not conceive the common freedom of slaves and masters. Busy democratic citizens also like general ideas because they promise quick results with little study. This explains why the French generalise more than the Americans, and the Americans more than the aristocratic English.

29. II.1.4 Why the Americans Have Never Been so Eager as the French for General Ideas in Political Matters 3 min 1

    Americans generalise less than the French in politics because they have always governed themselves. The French, a democratic society without political experience, could only speculate about government, which bred the abstract politics of the Revolution. Practical participation in public affairs corrects the democratic taste for sweeping theories.

30. II.1.5 Of the Manner in Which Religion in the United States Avails Itself of Democratic Tendencies 23 min 7

    Religious belief, Tocqueville argues on human grounds, is the most useful form of dogmatic belief, giving fixed answers about God and duty that few can work out for themselves and countering the isolation and materialism equality encourages. To survive in democratic ages, religions should keep to spiritual matters, limit outward forms, avoid fighting the love of well-being and respect majority opinion where faith allows. American clergy of all churches, including Catholics, follow these rules, which explains religion’s strength there.

31. II.1.6 Of the Progress of Roman Catholicism in the United States 3 min 2

    Tocqueville explains why Catholicism gains ground in the most democratic country. Equality inclines people either to reject religious authority altogether or, if they accept it, to want it single and uniform. He predicts that believers in democratic ages will divide into those who abandon Christianity and those who return to Rome.

32. II.1.7 Of the Cause of a Leaning to Pantheism Amongst Democratic Nations 3 min 2

    Pantheism is spreading in German philosophy and French literature, Tocqueville argues, because equality makes individuals feel small and alike and turns the mind towards unity. A doctrine that merges God, the universe and humanity into one Being suits democratic minds, and he urges resistance to it in the name of human greatness.

33. II.1.8 The Principle of Equality Suggests to the Americans the Idea of the Indefinite Perfectibility of Man 5 min 2

    Equality gives the old idea of human improvement a new form: indefinite perfectibility. Aristocratic societies admit improvement but only within fixed limits, and their legislators write eternal laws. In a mobile society where fortunes constantly rise and fall, people come to believe progress has no end. An American sailor explains that ships are built to last only a few years because navigation improves so fast.

34. II.1.9 The Example of the Americans Does Not Prove That a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and No Taste for Science, Literature, or Art 14 min 4

    American weakness in science, literature and art, Tocqueville argues, comes from particular causes (Puritan origins, commerce, an open continent, reliance on English culture), not from democracy itself. A society equal but ignorant and unfree would indeed stagnate. But in an enlightened, free democracy natural inequality produces many people with wealth and leisure, the taste for knowledge spreads downward, and the number cultivating the mind becomes immense. Along the way he dismisses the Saint-Simonian scheme of distribution by capacity.

35. II.1.10 Why the Americans Are More Addicted to Practical than to Theoretical Science 19 min 4

    Democratic peoples favour applied over theoretical science. Their restless pursuit of gain leaves little room for meditation, and they value discoveries that save labour or increase comfort. Aristocracies, like Archimedes in Plutarch, despise application; democracies risk forgetting principles. Tocqueville urges governments to support pure science, warning, with the example of a supposedly stagnant China, that civilisation can die from within by mechanically applying methods no longer understood.

36. II.1.11 Of the Spirit in Which the Americans Cultivate the Arts 13 min 4

    In aristocracies craftsmen working for a few fastidious customers aim at perfection; in democracies, where many want more than they can afford, artisans make cheap, imperfect goods in quantity. Watches, imitation diamonds and the painted-wood “marble” villas near New York illustrate the shift. Fine arts multiply but shrink, prefer the pretty to the great, and turn from the ideal to the exact imitation of bodies and everyday life.

37. II.1.12 Why the Americans Raise Some Monuments so Insignificant, and Others so Important 4 min 2

    The exception to democratic smallness: the state, which embodies everyone, inspires gigantic public works, such as the plan of Washington and the states’ vast undertakings. Tocqueville warns that such monuments prove nothing about a people’s happiness or strength, citing Cortés’s conquest of Mexico and Rome’s aqueducts.

38. II.1.13 Literary Characteristics of Democratic Ages 15 min 4

    American bookshops hold reprinted European textbooks, religious works and pamphlets; Americans read English literature and their writers imitate English models, so for now the only truly American authors are the journalists. Tocqueville then contrasts aristocratic literature, regulated, polished and traditional, with democratic literature, written quickly for a varied, busy public: bold, careless, striking. Transitional periods such as eighteenth-century France combine both, and literature generally reflects a nation’s social and political condition.

39. II.1.14 The Trade of Literature 2 min 1

    Democracy brings commerce into literature. Many undemanding readers make it possible to earn a fortune with a modest reputation, so the public treats authors as kings treat courtiers, enriching and despising them, and a crowd of hack writers appears beside the few great ones.

40. II.1.15 The Study of Greek and Latin Literature Peculiarly Useful in Democratic Communities 5 min 2

    Ancient republics were aristocracies resting on slavery: Athens had 20,000 citizens among 350,000 inhabitants, and books were scarce, so classical literature shows aristocratic care and polish. That makes it the right corrective for democratic writers. But most education in a democracy should be scientific, commercial and industrial; only a few good universities should train classical scholars, lest a classically educated population, unfit for productive work, disturb the state.

41. II.1.16 The Effect of Democracy on Language 17 min 2

    Democracy changes language. Constant change and the rule of the majority bring new words from business, party and the mechanical arts, borrowings from living languages, and, most dangerously, new meanings attached to old words. Class dialects fade into a common stock and stylistic hierarchies weaken. Above all, democratic languages multiply abstract and generic terms, like Tocqueville’s own personified “equality”, which shorten speech but obscure thought, like a box with a false bottom.

42. II.1.17 Of Some of the Sources of Poetry Amongst Democratic Nations 17 min 3

    Equality dries up the old sources of poetry: supernatural beings, the past, and exalted individuals. Descriptive nature poetry is only transitional. Democratic poetry will turn to the future, to the nation and to humanity as a whole, to Providence’s general plan, and above all to the inner life of man, as in Faust, Childe Harold, René and Jocelyn. Americans have no poets, but their image of themselves subduing a continent is a poetic idea.

43. II.1.18 Of the Inflated Style of American Writers and Orators 3 min 1

    Americans speak plainly about business but grow bombastic when they aim at poetry. Their minds move between petty private concerns and huge general ideas, so they expect astonishing images; writers indulge them, and Tocqueville fears democratic poetry will lose itself in the incoherent and the gigantic.

44. II.1.19 Some Observations on the Drama Amongst Democratic Nations 13 min 2

    The theatre is where literary revolutions first show, since audiences react without reflection and the pit has always influenced the boxes. Aristocratic drama, like Racine’s, observes learned rules and portrays people of rank; democratic audiences want their own age, varied conditions and strong emotion, and care little for rules, style or probability. Americans go little to the theatre, owing to Puritan tradition and settled manners, and even license performances.

45. II.1.20 Characteristics of Historians in Democratic Ages 10 min 1

    Aristocratic historians explain events by the acts of a few great individuals; democratic historians by general causes, and they link events into systems. Tocqueville grants that general causes matter more in democratic ages but rejects denying individual influence. He warns most strongly against the doctrine of historical necessity, which tells peoples they cannot change their fate, teaches obedience, and would paralyse modern society.

46. II.1.21 Of Parliamentary Eloquence in the United States 12 min 2

    Aristocratic assemblies follow leaders; in democracies members are independent and parties hard to control. An American representative owes his importance only to his seat and must please his constituents, who expect him to speak often and broadly, so Congress is full of rambling speeches sent home to the district. Yet democratic debate also has grandeur: speaking for the whole nation, orators appeal to general truths about mankind, as in the American Revolution and French debates.

47. II.2.1 Why Democratic Nations Show a More Ardent and Enduring Love of Equality than of Liberty 11 min 3

    Equality of conditions is the defining fact of democratic ages, and its love is their ruling passion. Freedom and equality differ: civil equality can coexist with despotism. Equality’s pleasures are immediate and daily, its dangers distant; liberty’s benefits are slow, its costs visible. In France absolute kings levelled ranks before freedom existed. Democratic peoples like freedom but are passionate for equality and will accept it even in slavery.

48. II.2.2 Of Individualism in Democratic Countries 5 min 4

    Tocqueville defines individualism, a new word, against egotism: a calm feeling that leads each person to withdraw with family and friends and leave society to itself. Aristocracy bound people in a chain of generations and dependence; democracy breaks the chain, makes people self-sufficient, makes them forget ancestors and descendants, and threatens to shut each one up in the solitude of their own heart.

49. II.2.3 Individualism Stronger at the Close of a Democratic Revolution than at Other Periods 3 min 1

    Individualism is strongest just after a democratic revolution, when newly independent citizens trust only themselves and old class hatreds survive: former superiors feel like aliens, and the newly raised keep them at a distance. Americans escaped this, being born equal rather than becoming so.

50. II.2.4 That the Americans Combat the Effects of Individualism by Free Institutions 10 min 2

    Despotism thrives on the isolation equality produces, so democracies need liberty most. Americans combat individualism with free institutions, especially local self-government, which constantly brings neighbours together over practical affairs. Elections teach mutual dependence; the rich keep easy manners with the poor; service becomes habit. Tocqueville concludes, against French opinion, that political freedom is the only effective remedy for the evils of equality.

51. II.2.5 Of the Use Which the Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life 12 min 4

    Americans form associations for every purpose: religion, education, charity, temperance, missions. Where aristocracies have powerful individuals, democracies of weak equals must combine voluntarily or relapse into barbarism. Tocqueville rejects the French answer of an ever-larger government, which would end up running industry and stifling ideas. Associations must take the place of the vanished aristocrats, and the art of association must grow as equality grows.

52. II.2.6 Of the Relation Between Public Associations and Newspapers 8 min 3

    Newspapers are indispensable to associations in a democracy: they reach scattered, insignificant individuals, bring together those who share an aim, and keep them in contact. Their number depends less on cheapness or press freedom than on decentralised administration, which obliges Americans to cooperate locally every day. Each newspaper represents an association of readers, and the press grows more powerful as conditions grow more equal.

53. II.2.7 Connection of Civil and Political Associations 13 min 3

    Political and civil associations reinforce each other. Political associations, costing no money, are free schools where citizens learn to combine, and they carry the skill into business. Governments that ban political associations while encouraging civil ones get few of either. Tocqueville concludes that political association is less dangerous than supposed, though he repeats volume one’s reservation that it may sometimes have to be limited, at a price.

54. II.2.8 The Americans Combat Individualism by the Principle of Interest Rightly Understood 9 min 4

    Aristocracies preached self-sacrifice; Americans teach that virtue is useful, the doctrine of “interest rightly understood”. Tocqueville judges it not lofty but clear and sure: it produces no heroes but disciplines many people in regularity, moderation and foresight, and it is the best moral theory for democratic times. Since self-interest will rule, what matters is how it is understood, so democracies must educate.

55. II.2.9 That the Americans Apply the Principle of Interest Rightly Understood to Religious Matters 5 min 3

    Tocqueville asks whether the morality of enlightened self-interest is compatible with religion, and argues that it leads towards faith. A person trained to sacrifice present pleasure for lasting advantage finds religious discipline easy, and may reason, with Pascal, that belief is the wiser bet. He doubts that interest is the only motive of the devout, but thinks it is the means religions use to govern most people. American believers seem brought to the altar by the head rather than the heart, and their preachers speak more about prosperity and freedom in this world than about the next.

56. II.2.10 Of the Taste for Physical Well-Being in America 6 min 1

    Americans are generally devoted to physical well-being, and Europe is moving the same way. Tocqueville explains why. Aristocrats who never knew want enjoy comfort without thinking about it, and a fixed peasantry does not hope for it. When ranks are mixed and property divided, many small and insecure fortunes appear, and their holders constantly pursue comforts they fear losing. The love of material well-being is therefore essentially a passion of the middle classes, which spreads from them both upward and downward until it becomes the dominant taste of the nation.

57. II.2.11 Peculiar Effects of the Love of Physical Gratifications in Democratic Ages 6 min 1

    The democratic love of comfort does not produce the splendid debauchery of declining aristocracies. Its aims are modest: a little more land, a better house, an easier life. Even the rich share these tastes. Such desires favour order, regular morals and industry, and can coexist with religion. Tocqueville’s complaint is that equality absorbs people wholly in permitted pleasures. The danger is a “virtuous materialism” that does not corrupt the soul but quietly weakens it.

58. II.2.12 Causes of Fanatical Enthusiasm in Some Americans 4 min 1

    Amid general worldliness, Americans sometimes burst into religious enthusiasm: wandering preachers, multi-day camp meetings on the frontier, strange new sects, and what Tocqueville calls common religious insanity. He sees no contradiction. The longing for the infinite is rooted in human nature, and a society confined to material pursuits provokes a violent reaction in some souls, as Roman luxury, he suggests, peopled the hermit deserts of Egypt.

59. II.2.13 Causes of the Restless Spirit of Americans in the Midst of Their Prosperity 9 min 4

    Americans, the freest and most fortunate of people, seem anxious and restless. They sell houses before finishing them, change professions and homes, and travel huge distances on their holidays. Tocqueville traces this to the taste for physical comfort, which makes life’s brevity a spur, and to equality. Equality opens every career but also universal competition, so desires outrun means. Because no equality ever satisfies, the slightest remaining differences become intolerable. Hence a melancholy amid abundance, shown in France by suicide and in America, reportedly, by insanity.

60. II.2.14 Taste for Physical Gratifications United in America to Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs 8 min 1

    Freedom and productive industry go together, especially in democratic ages, when commerce depends on association. But a people whose taste for comfort outruns its political experience may neglect public duties as a waste of time. An ambitious man who guarantees order and prosperity can then seize power, since such people will give up freedom at the first disturbance. A nation that asks only for order is already a slave at heart. Americans have so far escaped this danger because they see freedom as the best safeguard of their welfare.

61. II.2.15 That Religious Belief Sometimes Turns the Thoughts of the Americans to Immaterial Pleasures 12 min 3

    The American Sunday, with church and Scripture, briefly lifts the citizen out of commerce. Tocqueville argues that democratic legislators must deliberately cultivate spiritual beliefs to counter the democratic taste for material pleasure. He denounces the materialist philosophers as dangerous to democracy and prefers even belief in transmigration to the belief that the soul is nothing. Religion must be preserved, but he rejects state religion and clerical politics. The only means governments have is to act as if they themselves believed.

62. II.2.16 That Excessive Care of Worldly Welfare May Impair That Welfare 2 min 1

    Body and soul cannot be separated. Humans share their appetites with animals but surpass them because reason discovers new ways to satisfy those wants. Whatever raises the soul makes it better at material tasks too, so a people that cared only for material things would gradually lose the art of producing them.

63. II.2.17 That in Times Marked by Equality of Conditions and Sceptical Opinions, It Is Important to Remove to a Distance the Objects of Human Actions 7 min 1

    Religious ages accustomed people to pursue distant aims and restrain passing desires. Scepticism shortens horizons, and democratic instability makes it worse by encouraging dreams of sudden fortunes. Philosophers and rulers must therefore keep long-term goals before the public. Governments should banish chance and favouritism from public life and show that wealth, fame and power reward sustained effort. Teaching people to plan for the future in this world may even, by a roundabout route, lead them back to faith.

64. II.2.18 That Amongst the Americans All Honest Callings Are Honorable 4 min 2

    In a democracy without hereditary wealth, everyone works or has worked, so labour is held in honour. Rich Americans feel obliged to have an occupation, and some go to Europe to be idle. Aristocracies despised work done for profit and kept the ideas of labour and gain apart, while democracies openly unite them. Since every profession is paid, the President included, none is high or low: every honest calling is honourable.

65. II.2.19 That Almost All the Americans Follow Industrial Callings 10 min 5

    Equality steers people away from slow agriculture towards commerce and manufactures, which promise quicker gains. The rich, shut out of political power, turn to trade, and everyone enjoys its element of chance. America has made astonishing progress: the second merchant fleet in the world, canals joining the Hudson to the Mississippi, the longest railways, and countless small enterprises. Farmers treat land itself as a speculation. But because everyone is in business together, every shock endangers all fortunes, and commercial panics are an endemic disease of democratic nations.

66. II.2.20 That Aristocracy May Be Engendered by Manufactures 9 min 6

    Tocqueville warns that manufacturing may bring aristocracy back by a side road. The division of labour makes the worker more skilful but narrower: a man who spends twenty years making pin-heads becomes fixed in his place. Large capital draws educated men into industry, so masters rise as workmen sink, until the relation resembles aristocracy. This manufacturing aristocracy is unlike the old one. The rich form no body and feel no obligation to the poor, whom they use and then abandon to public charity. It is harsh but limited, and democrats must watch it closely.

67. II.3.1 That Manners Are Softened as Social Conditions Become More Equal 12 min 6

    Opening Book III, on manners, Tocqueville argues that equality softens them. In aristocracies, sympathy stopped at the boundaries of caste. Madame de Sévigné could joke to her daughter about the brutal repression of the Breton revolt of 1675 because she could not imagine the suffering of commoners. When people are alike, imagination lets each feel another’s pain. American criminal justice is therefore mild, yet American masters remain unmoved by the cruelties inflicted on their slaves. Nations too become more humane towards one another as they grow alike.

68. II.3.2 That Democracy Renders the Habitual Intercourse of the Americans Simple and Easy 6 min 1

    Democracy makes everyday relations easy without binding people closely. Two Englishmen meeting abroad keep their distance because in England a moneyed aristocracy has replaced one of birth. Rank there can be acquired but is hard to read, so everyone fears being compromised by an unsuitable acquaintance. Americans, among whom birth never conferred privilege and wealth confers no rights, meet strangers frankly. Since the two peoples share origin, language and religion, the difference must come from their social condition.

69. II.3.3 Why the Americans Show so Little Sensitiveness in Their Own Country, and Are so Sensitive in Europe 9 min 1

    At home Americans are hard to offend, since uncertain rules of etiquette make men less polite but less quarrelsome, and political life brings all ranks together. In Europe the same American becomes touchy and punctilious. He cannot locate himself in a half-ruined hierarchy and fears being placed too low. He also boasts of equality at home while secretly wishing to be an exception, claiming noble ancestry and displaying his wealth abroad. Both behaviours come from the same democratic cause.

70. II.3.4 Consequences of the Three Preceding Chapters 4 min 1

    Natural compassion and easy relations make Americans quick to help one another, in accidents or misfortunes, even if their manners are cold. This does not contradict individualism. Equality makes people independent but also shows them their weakness, so a tacit covenant of mutual help arises among all citizens, as among members of one profession. Democracies rarely produce great self-sacrifice, but everyday good offices are constantly rendered.

71. II.3.5 How Democracy Affects the Relation of Masters and Servants 23 min 3

    Aristocratic servants formed a hereditary class, with their own servile honour, bound to masters’ families for generations and identifying with their greatness. Democratic service is a temporary contract between equals: within its terms one commands and one obeys, outside it both are citizens. Northern American servants, free Black people and some whites, illustrate this, while the slave South does not. The worst condition is the transition, as in France, when masters and servants are unsure of their positions. Such a household is a scene not of democracy but of revolution.

72. II.3.6 That Democratic Institutions and Manners Tend to Raise Rents and Shorten the Terms of Leases 7 min 2

    America has almost no tenant farmers, because land is cheap. In democratic societies generally, tenancy becomes a pure money contract between near-equals instead of a relation of respect and protection. Tocqueville attributes the great rise of European rents over the previous fifty years chiefly to democratic passions loosening the bond between landlord and tenant. Landlords who rejoice at higher incomes are exchanging power for money. Shorter leases, replacing the long leases of the Middle Ages, likewise reflect a democratic sense that nothing lasts.

73. II.3.7 Influence of Democracy on Wages 6 min 3

    As ranks level, workmen value themselves more and press for higher wages. With many small, divided employers and workers who own some resources, as French peasants with their plots of land do, wages tend slowly upward. Tocqueville calls this a general law of democracy. The great exception is large-scale manufacturing, where a few rich masters combine and fix wages, while numerous workers, unfit for other trades, cannot outlast a strike. Their dependence deserves the legislator’s special attention.

74. II.3.8 Influence of Democracy on Kindred 15 min 3

    Democracy transforms the family. In America paternal authority relaxes as sons approach manhood, without conflict, because aristocratic society governed through the father, whereas democratic law deals with each individual directly. The decline of tradition and the division of estates make father and son companions, and their relation becomes more intimate and affectionate. Brothers, equal in inheritance, are united by sympathy rather than interest. Democracy loosens social ties but tightens natural ones.

75. II.3.9 Education of Young Women in the United States 6 min 2

    Morals depend on women, so their condition matters politically. In Protestant, self-governing America, girls are given early independence and knowledge of the world rather than a cloistered upbringing. They are taught to defend their virtue by their own reason instead of by ignorance. France, by contrast, educates women in seclusion and then abandons them to a democratic society. Tocqueville grants that the American method may produce cold women rather than charming companions, but thinks a democratic education necessary.

76. II.3.10 The Young Woman in the Character of a Wife 6 min 2

    Marriage ends the American woman’s independence. A religious and commercial people demands strict domestic duty from wives, and public opinion confines them to the home. Yet she enters marriage knowingly and late, using the judgment her education gave her, and accepts its duties voluntarily. The same strength carries American women through the frequent reversals of fortune and the hardships of following their husbands to the frontier.

77. II.3.11 That the Equality of Conditions Contributes to the Maintenance of Good Morals in America 16 min 5

    Rejecting explanations of sexual morality by climate, Tocqueville credits equality with the strictness of American morals. Where rank does not separate men and women, couples can marry, so seduction and adultery lose their excuses. Marriages are chosen freely and based on shared tastes. Busy, practical lives leave little room for romantic passion. He admits that Europe, still in revolutionary upheaval, shows the opposite, but predicts that democracy will eventually improve morals there as well, as it already has among the chastened French aristocracy.

78. II.3.12 How the Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes 10 min 5

    Equality will raise women, but Tocqueville rejects the European idea of making the sexes alike. Americans divide men’s and women’s duties as manufacturers divide labour: women manage the home and never conduct business, politics or heavy labour. Marital authority is accepted, he claims, willingly. American men respect women’s understanding and moral freedom, punish seducers and rapists severely, and regard the sexes as of equal worth. He concludes that he would attribute American prosperity chiefly to the superiority of its women.

79. II.3.13 That the Principle of Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Number of Small Private Circles 5 min 1

    Equality does not make people live in common. Americans who mix freely in politics and the courts withdraw into small private circles for social life. Aristocratic classes were like closed chambers, inside which members lived together. In democracies, where everyone could be merged into the mass, people invent countless small, shifting distinctions to keep themselves apart. Pride always seeks some inequality in its own favour.

80. II.3.14 Some Reflections on American Manners 10 min 1

    Manners reflect the social state. Aristocrats, secure in rank, could have dignified manners. Democratic manners, shaped by petty private concerns and uncertain stations, lack dignity and polish but are neither brutal nor mean, and they are more sincere. English mockers of American manners are usually middle-class people mocking their own image. Aristocratic manners vanish without trace once their class falls, and though they could hide mean hearts, Tocqueville regrets their passing.

81. II.3.15 Of the Gravity of the Americans, and Why It Does Not Prevent Them from Often Committing Inconsiderate Actions 8 min 2

    Tocqueville explains why Americans seem graver than even the English. Pride makes ordinary citizens guard their dignity, and in a free democracy everyone is absorbed in serious matters, either public affairs or making money; the gay, careless pleasures of peoples under despotism or mild monarchy have no place. Yet the same Americans often act rashly. They live amid constant movement and publicity, attempt many things at once without proper training, and are content with “pretty well.” Grave because their condition gives them serious occupations, they are inconsiderate because they give each too little attention; inattention is the great democratic vice.

82. II.3.16 Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Restless and Captious than That of the English 6 min 3

    Americans, Tocqueville finds, demand praise from foreigners incessantly and resent the slightest criticism, while the English enjoy their country’s merits with disdainful calm. He explains the contrast socially. An aristocracy’s pride rests on great, inherited, uncontested privileges, so it has no need to display them, and the rest of the nation imitates its reserve. Where conditions are nearly equal, small advantages matter, are recently won and easily lost, and must constantly be shown off. Democrats transfer this anxious private vanity to the nation; courtiers competing for passing favours behave in the same way.

83. II.3.17 That the Aspect of Society in the United States Is at Once Excited and Monotonous 5 min 3

    American society looks endlessly changeful but soon becomes monotonous, because all its changes are alike. In aristocracies everyone stays in place but people differ deeply; in democracies people are alike and their fortunes rise and fall in the same patterns. Most democratic passions lead to or come from the love of wealth, because money buys the cooperation of independent individuals and is the only distinction left once birth and rank count for little. The pursuit of wealth through business imposes regular, uniform habits. Tocqueville extends the point to all modern nations, which grow alike as caste and local peculiarities fade.

84. II.3.18 Of Honor in the United States and in Democratic Communities 33 min 10

    A long theoretical chapter on honour: the special code of praise and blame that a nation or class develops from its particular needs, alongside humanity’s general morality. Feudal honour exalted courage, loyalty to one’s lord and contempt for gain because the nobility lived by and for war. American honour prizes the quiet commercial virtues, tolerates the love of wealth and even bankruptcy, demands chastity as a support of orderly domestic life, honours the courage of enterprise and condemns idleness. Because democracies lack separate castes, their codes of honour are fewer, vaguer and weaker, and would vanish if all peoples became alike.

85. II.3.19 Why so Many Ambitious Men and so Little Lofty Ambition Are to Be Found in the United States 16 min 3

    Americans are universally ambitious but seldom aim high. Revolutions that destroy an aristocracy unleash boundless ambition, but once equality is settled, modest resources, exhausting effort to improve them, and slow, uniform rules of advancement narrow men’s aims; China’s examinations show the extreme. When great ambition does appear in democracies it has a revolutionary, lawless character and cares for power and present success rather than lasting fame. Tocqueville fears mediocrity more than boldness and concludes that his contemporaries need more pride, not more humility.

86. II.3.20 The Trade of Place-Hunting in Certain Democratic Countries 5 min 3

    In America, ambitious men turn to commerce, industry or pioneering and ask the state only to leave them alone; in much of Europe they seek public office. Where business is weak and the state is centralised and rich in salaried posts, place-hunting becomes the commonest trade. Tocqueville calls it a social evil that breeds servility and unproductive activity, and warns governments that encourage it that the number of offices is limited while the number of applicants grows without limit, producing a permanently discontented people ready to overturn the state.

87. II.3.21 Why Great Revolutions Will Become More Rare 33 min 6

    Against the common view that equality breeds perpetual revolution, Tocqueville argues the opposite. Revolutions arise from inequality, the struggle of poor and rich; a settled democracy has a large class of anxious small proprietors who fear losing what they have, and commerce teaches compromise. Americans change laws constantly but dread revolution; the one exception would be a revolution caused by slavery and race. Opinions, too, are hard to change, since equals trust no single authority and the weight of majority opinion silences dissent. His deeper fear is stagnation: a society so attached to comfort that humanity stops advancing.

88. II.3.22 Why Democratic Nations Are Naturally Desirous of Peace, and Democratic Armies of War 18 min 4

    The causes that make democratic peoples fear revolution also make them love peace, yet democratic armies long for war. In aristocracies officers are nobles whose social rank does not depend on promotion; in democracies every soldier may become an officer, rank is everything, and in peacetime promotion by seniority is painfully slow, so war is wanted to create vacancies. Since the best citizens shun a profession held in little honour, armies become restless and a threat of military revolution. War enlarges a people’s spirit but always centralises power and endangers liberty; the true remedy lies in free, orderly citizens.

89. II.3.23 Which Is the Most Warlike and Most Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies? 10 min 3

    Democratic nations come to rely on compulsory, universal military service, so most soldiers pass briefly through the army and remain civilians at heart; they carry the nation’s spirit into the ranks and are its most orderly element. Officers, who owe everything to the army, may desire war, but having risen far they become cautious. The most dangerous class is the non-commissioned officers: committed for life, insecure, close to promotion yet never sure of it, they want war and, failing war, revolution.

90. II.3.24 Causes Which Render Democratic Armies Weaker than Other Armies at the Outset of a Campaign, and More Formidable in Protracted Warfare 11 min 3

    A democratic army is weak at the start of a war after a long peace: talented men have avoided the profession, seniority has filled the upper ranks with old men, and officers have acquired the comfortable habits of civilian life. But protracted war works in its favour. When war ruins private business, the nation’s energies turn to arms, able young men pour into the army, old officers are removed, and great generals emerge. The democratic love of chance and sudden gain makes good soldiers, so an aristocracy that does not win quickly risks defeat.

91. II.3.25 Of Discipline in Democratic Armies 4 min 1

    It is a mistake to think equality destroys discipline. Aristocratic discipline extends social servitude into the army and produces blind, mechanical obedience. Democratic discipline is less exact but rests on the soldier’s reason and will, and it tightens in the face of danger. The citizen armies of Greece and Rome, where generals and soldiers talked as near equals, conquered the world.

92. II.3.26 Some Considerations on War in Democratic Communities 13 min 8

    As equality spreads across Europe, nations grow alike, trade binds their interests, and wars become rarer but more general. Since one soldier is now as good as another, numbers decide battles, small states must merge or follow larger ones, and centralised states raise ever larger armies. Democratic countries mobilise easily but collapse once the capital falls, as Napoleon’s capital-to-capital campaigns showed; citizens with property and no political power have little reason to resist. Only freedom can counter the passion for well-being. Civil wars, Tocqueville concludes, will be rare and short unless the army itself divides.

93. II.4.1 That Equality Naturally Gives Men a Taste for Free Institutions 3 min 1

    Opening the final book on the political effects of democratic ideas, Tocqueville notes that equality gives men a taste for independence and free institutions, which the timid fear as a road to anarchy. He argues that anarchy is the lesser danger. Equality also leads, by a slower and less visible road, to servitude, and this is the tendency he sets out to expose. He values the democratic instinct for independence precisely as the remedy for that danger.

94. II.4.2 That the Notions of Democratic Nations on Government Are Naturally Favorable to the Concentration of Power 8 min 2

    People in democratic ages naturally conceive of government as a single central power applying uniform laws to all, and lose the aristocratic idea of intermediate powers and special privileges. As individuals feel small and society great, they accept that the state should guide as well as govern each citizen. Americans set no limits to a power once it derives from the people, and the same ideas spread through Europe, among all French parties and among kings. Contemporaries dispute who should hold power but agree that it should be sole, uniform and all-embracing.

95. II.4.3 That the Sentiments of Democratic Nations Accord with Their Opinions in Leading Them to Concentrate Political Power 7 min 4

    Democratic sentiments reinforce these opinions. Isolated, busy individuals leave public affairs to the state; the love of tranquillity leads them to surrender rights to it; and, independent yet weak, they look to it for the help their equals cannot give. Hatred of privilege grows as privileges shrink, and men prefer to concede power to a sovereign above everyone rather than to a neighbour. Governments in turn love equality and uniformity. Tocqueville concludes that centralisation will be the natural form of democratic government, and local liberty the product of art.

96. II.4.4 Of Certain Peculiar and Accidental Causes Which Either Lead a People to Complete Centralization of Government, or Which Divert Them from It 15 min 3

    How far centralisation goes depends on circumstances. Peoples who were free before they became equal, like the Americans, keep habits of self-government; where equality came under absolute kings or through violent revolution, as on the Continent, power rushes to the centre, as it did under Napoleon. Ignorance, frequent wars, the exhaustion that follows a bloody revolution, and above all a ruler who comes from the people and appears to love equality all hasten it. Muhammad Ali’s Egypt shows an enlightened despot ruling an ignorant, equal population.

97. II.4.5 That Amongst the European Nations of Our Time the Power of Governments Is Increasing, Although the Persons Who Govern Are Less Stable 29 min 10

    Across Europe the state is absorbing the powers once held by nobles, towns, provinces and corporations, and invading private life: charity, education, religion, savings and credit, public works, and the regulation of manufacturing, whose workers need supervision and whose associations governments seek to control. New administrative courts shield the state from ordinary judges. Tocqueville asks readers to verify this from their own experience: amid repeated revolutions, the one constant has been centralisation. Revolutions against old powers and the growth of administrative power spring from the same democratic source.

98. II.4.6 What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear 15 min 6

    Tocqueville’s most famous chapter describes the new despotism democracy may produce. Unlike ancient tyranny, which was violent but limited, it would be mild, extensive and minute: an immense, tutelary power providing for the comfort of isolated individuals absorbed in petty pleasures, keeping them in perpetual childhood and covering society with a network of small rules. Such servitude can coexist with the forms of popular sovereignty, as people console themselves by electing their guardians. Centralised administration under an elected head is better than unchecked despotism, but Tocqueville doubts that such a hybrid can last.

99. II.4.7 Continuation of the Preceding Chapters 23 min 4

    Equality cannot be reversed, so freedom must be built on it. Tocqueville proposes democratic substitutes for aristocratic checks on power: elected local bodies, voluntary associations acting like artificial aristocrats, a free press as the isolated citizen’s weapon, strong courts, respect for legal forms, and vigilance over individual rights. He warns that revolutions in democracies leave lasting habits of submission. The legislator’s task is to fix clear limits to government and strengthen individuals; fear of the future should be watchful, not despairing.

100. II.4.8 General Survey of the Subject 10 min 3

     In a closing survey Tocqueville lists the traits of the new society: wealth and misery moderated, universal but modest ambition, weak individuals and a powerful state, mild manners, diffused knowledge, little genius and more abundance. The uniformity saddens him, but he concludes that from God’s viewpoint equality, less elevated but more just, is better. The new society cannot be judged by aristocratic standards. Rejecting fatalism, he insists that nations cannot prevent equality, but can decide whether it leads to freedom or servitude.