 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Read by ML Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, June 2007. Democracy in America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville. Translated by Henry Reeve. Section 27. Chapter 16. Causes mitigating tyranny in the United States, Part 1. Chapter Summary. The national majority does not pretend to conduct all business. It is obliged to employ the town and county magistrates to execute its supreme decisions. I have already pointed out the distinction which is to be made between a centralized government and a centralized administration. The former exists in America, but the latter is nearly unknown there. If the directing power of the American communities had both these instruments of government at its disposable and united the habit of executing its own commands to the right of commanding, if, after having established general principles of government, it descended to the details of public business, and if, having regulated the great interest of the country, it could penetrate into the privacy of individual interests, freedom would soon be banished from the New World. But in the United States, the majority, which so frequently displays the tastes and the propendacies of a despot, is still destitute of the more perfect instruments of tyranny. In the American Republics, the activity of the central government has never as yet been extended beyond a limited number of objects sufficiently prominent to call forth its attention. The secondary fears of society have never been regulated by its authority, and nothing as hitherto to betrayed its desire of interfering in them. The majority is becoming more and more absolute, but it has not increased the prerogatives of the central government. Those great prerogatives have been confined to a certain sphere, and although the despotism of the majority may be galling upon one point, it cannot be said to extend to all. However, the predominant party in the nation may be carried away by its passions, however ardent it may be in the pursuit of its projects, but it cannot oblige all the citizens to comply with its desires in the same manner and at the same time throughout the country. When the central government, which represents that majority has issued a decree, it must entrust the execution of its will to agents over whom it frequently has no control and whom it cannot perpetually direct. The townships, municipal bodies, and counties may therefore be looked upon as concealed breakwaters, to check or part the tide of popular excitement. If an oppressive law were passed, the liberties of the people would still be protected by the means by which that law would be put into execution. The majority cannot descend to the details and, prens, as I will venture to style them and prens, the pluralities of an administrative tyranny. Nor do the people entertain that full consciousness of its authority which would prompt it to interfere in these matters. It knows the extent of its natural powers, but it is unacquainted with the increased resources which the art of government might furnish. This point deserves attention, for if a democratic republic similar to that of the United States were ever founded in a country where the power of a single individual had previously subsisted, and the effects of a centralized administration had sunk deep into the habits and laws of the people, I do not hesitate to assert that in that country a more insufferable despotism would prevail than any which now exists in the monarchical states of Europe, or indeed than any which could be found on this side of the confines of Asia. The profession of the law in the United States serves to counterpoise the democracy. Utility of discriminating the natural propensities of the members of the legal profession, these men called upon to act as a prominent part in the future society, in what manner the peculiar pursuits of lawyers give an aristocratic turn to their ideas. Accidental causes, which may check this tendencies, ease with which the aristocracy coalesces with legal men, use of lawyers to a despot, the profession of the law constitutes the only aristocratic element with which the natural elements of democracy will combine, peculiar causes, which tend to give an aristocratic turn of mind to the English and American lawyers, the aristocracy of America is on the bench and at the bar, influence of lawyers upon American society, their peculiar, magistral habits affect the legislature, the administration, and even the people. In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws we perceive that the authority they have entrusted to members of the legal profession and the influence which these individuals exercise in the government is the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy. This effect seems to me to result from a general cause which it is useful to investigate since it may produce analogous consequences elsewhere. The members of the legal profession have taken an important part in all the vicissitudes of political society in Europe during the last 500 years. At one time they have been the instruments of those who were invested with political authority and at another they have succeeded in converting political authorities to their instrument. In the Middle Ages they afforded a powerful support to the crown and since that period they have exerted themselves to the utmost to limit the royal prerogative. In England they have contracted a close alliance with the aristocracy. In France they have proved to be the most dangerous enemies of that class. It is my object to inquire whether, under all these circumstances, the members of the legal profession have been swayed by sudden and momentary impulses or whether they have been impelled by principles which are inherent in their pursuits and which will always recur in history. I am incited to this investigation by reflecting that this particular class of men will most likely play a prominent part in that order of things to which the events of our time are giving birth. Men who have more especially devoted themselves to legal pursuits derive from those occupations certain habits of order, a taste for formalities, and a kind of distinctive regard for the regular connection of ideas which naturally render them very hostile to the revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions of the multitude. The special information which lawyers derive from their studies ensures them a separate station in society and they constitute a sort of privileged body in the scale of intelligence. This notion of the superiority perpetually recursed them in the practice of their profession. They are the masters of a science which is necessary but which is not very generally known. They serve as arbiters between the citizens and the habit of directing the blind passions of parties in litigation to their purposes inspires them with a certain contempt for the judgment of the multitude. To this it may be added that they naturally constitute a body not by any previous understanding or by an agreement which directs them to a common end but the analogy of their studies and the uniformity of their proceedings connect their minds together as much as a common interest could combine their endeavors. A portion of the tastes and of the habits of the aristocracy may consequently be discovered in the characters of men in the profession of the law. They participate in the same instinctive love of order and of formalities and they entertain the same repugnance to the actions of the multitude and the same secret contempt of the government of the people. I do not mean to say that the natural propensities of lawyers are sufficiently strong to sway them irresistibly for they, like most other men, are governed by their private interests and the advantages of the moment. In a state of society in which the members of the legal profession are prevented from holding that rank in the political world which they enjoy in private life, we may rest assured that they will be the foremost agents of revolution. But it must then be inquired whether the cause which induces them to innovate and to destroy is accidental or whether it belongs to some lasting purpose which they entertain. It is true that lawyers mainly contributed to the overthrow of the French monarchy in 1789, but it remains to be seen whether they acted thus because they had studied the laws or because they were prohibited from cooperating in the work of legislation. 500 years ago the English nobles headed the people and spoke in its name. At the present time the aristocracy supports the throne and defends the royal prerogative. But aristocracy has, notwithstanding this, its peculiar instincts and propensities. We must be careful not to confound isolated members of a body with the body itself. In all free governments of whatever form they may be, members of the legal profession will be found at the head of all parties. The same remark is also applicable to the aristocracy for almost all the democratic convulsions which have annotated the world have been directed by nobles. A privileged body can never satisfy the ambition of all its members. It is always more talents and more passions to content and to employ than it can find places so that a considerable number of individuals are usually to be met with inclined to attack those very privileges which they find it impossible to turn to their own account. I do not then assert that all members of the legal profession are at all times the friends of order and the opponents of innovation, but merely that most of them usually are so. In a committee in which lawyers are allowed to occupy without opposition that high station which naturally belongs to them, their general spirit will be eminently conservative and anti-democratic. When an aristocracy excludes the leaders of that profession from its ranks, it excites enemies which are the more formidable to its security as they are independent of the nobility by their industrious pursuits and they feel themselves to be its equal and point of intelligence, although they enjoy less opulence and less power. But whenever an aristocracy consents to impart some of its privileges to these same individuals, the two classes coalesce very readily and assume as it were the consistency of a single order of family interests. I am, in like manner, inclined to believe that a monarch will always be able to convert legal practitioners into the most serviceable instruments of his authority. There is far greater affinity between this class of individuals and the executive power than there is between them and the people. Just as there is a greater natural affinity between the nobles and the monarch than between the nobles and the people, although the higher orders of society have occasionally resisted the prerogative of the crown in concert with the lower classes. Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other consideration and the best security of public order is authority. It must not be forgotten that, if they prize the free institutions of their country much, they nevertheless value the legality of those institutions far more. They are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power and provided that the legislature take upon itself to deprive men of their independence, they are not dissatisfied. I am, therefore, convinced that the prince who, in the presence of an encroaching democracy, said endeavor to impair the judicial authority in his dominions and to diminish the political influence of lawyers would commit a great mistake. He would let slip the substance of authority to grasp at the shadow. He would act more wisely in introducing men connected with the law into government and if he entrusted them with the conduct of a despotic power bearing some marks of violence, that power would most likely assume the external features of justice and of legality in their hands. The government of democracy is favorable to the political power of lawyers. For when the wealthy, the noble and the prince are excluded from the government, they are sure to occupy the highest stations in their own rack, as it were, since they are the only men of information and sagacity beyond the sphere of people who can be the object of the popular choice. If, then, they are led by their taste to combine with the aristocracy and to support the crown, they are naturally brought into contact with the people by their interests. They like the government of democracy without participating in its propensities without imitating its weaknesses, once they derive a two-fold authority from it and over it. The people in democratic states does not mistrust the members of the legal profession because it is well known that they are interested in serving the popular cause and it listens to them without irritation because it does not attribute to them any sinister designs. The object of lawyers is not indeed to overthrow the institutions of democracy, but they constantly endeavor to give it an impulse which diverts it from its real tendency by means which are far into its nature. Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, to the aristocracy by habit and by taste, and they may be looked upon as a natural bond and connecting link of the two great classes of society. The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element which can be amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of democracy and which can be advantageously and permanently combined with them. I am not unacquainted with the defects which are inherent in the character of that body of men, but without this admixture of lawyer-like sobriety with the democratic principle, I question whether democratic institutions could long be maintained, and I cannot believe that a republic could subsist at the present time if the influence of lawyers in the public business did not increase in proportion to the power of the people. This aristocratic character, which I hold to be common to the legal profession, is much more distinctly marked in the United States and in England than in any other country. This proceeds not only from the legal studies of the English and American lawyers, but from the nature of the legislation and the position which those persons occupy in the two countries. The English and the Americans have retained a law of precedence, that is to say, they continue to found their legal opinions and the decisions of their courts upon the opinions and the decisions of their forefathers. In the mind of an English or American lawyer, a taste and a reverence for what is old is almost always united to a love of regular and lawful proceedings. This predisposition has another effect upon the character of the legal profession and upon the general course of society. The English and American lawyers investigate what has been done. The French advocate inquires what should have been done. The former produces precedence, the latter reasons. A French observer is surprised to hear how often an English or an American lawyer quotes the opinions of others and how little he alludes to his own, while the reverse occurs in France. There, the most trifling litigation is never conducted without the introduction of an entire system of ideas, peculiar to the counsel employed, and the fundamental principles of the law are discussed in order to obtain a perch of land by the decision of the court. This abnegation of his own opinion and this implicit deference to the opinion of his forefathers, which are common to the English and American lawyer, this subjection of thought which he has obliged to profess necessarily give him more timid habits and more sluggish inclinations in England and America than in France. The French codes are often difficult to comprehension, but they can be read by everyone. Nothing, on the other hand, can be more impenetrable to the uninitiated than a legislation found upon precedence. The indispensable want of legal assistance which is felt in England and in the United States, and the high opinion which is generally entertained of the ability of the legal profession, tend to separate it more and more from the people and to place it in the distinct class. The French lawyer is simply a man extensively acquainted with the statutes of his country, but the English or American lawyer resembles the high refonce of Egypt, for, like them, he is the sole interpreter of an occult science. The station which lawyers occupy in England and America exercises no lesson influenced upon their habits and their opinions. The English aristocracy, which has taken care to attract to its fear whatever is at all analogous to itself, has conferred a high degree of importance and of authority upon the members of the legal profession. In English society, lawyers do not occupy the first rank, but they are contented with the station assigned to them. They constitute, as it were, the younger branch of the English aristocracy, and they are attached to their elder brothers, although they do not enjoy all their privileges. The English lawyers consequently mingle the taste and the ideas of the aristocratic circles in which they move with the aristocratic interests of their profession. And indeed the lawyer-like character which I am endeavouring to depict is most distinctly to be met within England. Their laws are esteemed not so much because they are good as because they are old, and if it be necessary to modify them in any respect, or to adapt them to changes which time operates in society, recourse is had to the most inconceivable contrivances in order to uphold the traditionary fabric, and to maintain that nothing has been done which does not square with the intentions and complete the labours of former generations. The very individuals who conduct these changes disclaim all intention of innovation, and they had rather resort to absurd expedience than plead guilty to so great a crime. This spirit apportains more especially to the English lawyers. They seem indifferent to the real meaning of what they treat, and they direct all their attention to the letter, seeming inclined to infringe the rules of common sense and of humanity rather than to swerve one title from the law. The English legislation may be compared to the stock of an old tree, upon which lawyers have engrafted the most various chutes, with the hope that, although their fruits may differ, their foliage at least will be confounded with the venerable trunk which supports them all. In America there are no nobles or men of letters, and the people as optimists trust the wealthy. Lawyers consequently form the highest political class and the most cultivated circle of society. They have therefore nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a conservative interest to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where I placed the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not composed of the rich or united together by no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar. The more we reflect upon all that occurs in the United States, the more shall we be persuaded that the lawyers has a body formed the most powerful, if not the only, counterpoise to the democratic element. In that country we perceive how eminently the legal profession is qualified by its powers and even by its defects to neutralize devices which are inherent in popular government. When the American people is intoxicated by passion or carried away by the impetuosity of its ideas, it is checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of its legal counselors, who secretly oppose their aristocratic propensities to its democratic instinct. Their superstitious attachment to what is antique to its love of novelty, their narrow views to its immense designs and their habitual procrastination to its ardent impatience. The courts of justice are the most visible organs by which the legal profession is enabled to control the democracy. The judge is a lawyer who, independently of the taste for regularity in order which he has contracted in the study of legislation, derives an additional love of stability from his own inalienable functions. His legal attainments have already raised him to a distinguished rank amongst his fellow citizens. His political power completes the distinction of his station and gives him the inclination's natural to privileged classes. Armed with the power of declaring the laws to be unconstitutional, American magistrate perpetually interferes in political affairs. He cannot force the people to make laws, but at least he can oblige not to disobey its own enactments or to act inconsistently with his own principles. I am aware that a secret tendency to diminish the judicial power exists in the United States and by most of the constitutions of the several states the government can, upon the demand of the two houses of the legislature, remove the judges from their station. By some other constitutions the member of the tribunals are elected and they are even subjected to frequent re-elections. I venture to predict that these innovations will sooner or later be attended with fatal consequences and that it will be found out at some future period that the attack which is made upon the judicial power has affected the Democratic Republic itself. It must not, however, be supposed that the legal spirit of which I have been speaking has been confined in the United States to the courts of justice. It extends far beyond them. As the lawyers constitute the only enlightened class which the public does not mistrust, they are naturally called upon to occupy most of the public stations. They fill the legislative assemblies and they conduct the administration. They consequently exercise a powerful influence upon the formation of the law and upon the execution. The lawyers are, however, obliged to yield to the current and public opinion, which is too strong for them to resist it, but it is easy to find inclinations in what their conduct would be if they were free to act as they chose. The Americans who have made such copious innovations in their political legislation have introduced very sparing alterations in their civil laws and that with great difficulty, although those laws are frequently repugnant to their social condition. The reason of this is that in matters of civil law the majority is obliged to defer to the authority of the legal profession and that the American lawyers are disinclined to innovate when they are left to their own choice. It is curious for a Frenchman accustomed to a very different state of things to hear the perpetual complaints which are made in the United States against the stationary propensities of legal men and their prejudices in favor of existing institutions. The influence of the legal habits which are common in America extend beyond the limits I have just pointed out. Scarcely any question arises in the United States which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate. Hence all parties are obliged to borrow the ideas and even the language, usual in judicial proceedings in their daily controversies. As most public men are or have been legal practitioners, they introduce the customs and technicalities of their profession into the affairs of the country. The jury extends this habit to all classes. The language of the law thus becomes, in some measure, a vulgar tongue. The spirit of the law which is produced in the schools and courts of justice gradually penetrates beyond their walls into the bosom of society where it descends to the lowest classes so that the whole people can track the habits and the tastes of the magistrate. The lawyers of the United States form a party which is but little feared and scarcely perceived which has no bad peculiar to itself which adapts itself with great flexibility to the exigencies of the time and accommodates itself to all the movements of the social body. But this party extends over the whole community and it penetrates into all classes of society. It acts upon the country imperceptibly but it finally fashions it to suit its purposes. End of Section 20 Chapter 16 Causes Mitigating Tyranny in the United States Part 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Read by ML Cohen, Cleveland, Ohio, June 2007 Democracy in America by Lexis de Tocqueville translated by Henry Reeve Chapter 16 Causes Mitigating Tyranny in the United States Part 2 Trial by Jury in the United States considered as a political institution Trial by Jury which is one of the instruments of the sovereignty of the people deserves to be compared with the other laws which establish that sovereignty. Composition of the jury of the United States Effective trial by jury upon the national character it educates the people, it tends to establish the authority of the magistrates and to extend the knowledge of law among the people. Since I have been led by my subject to recur to the administration of justice in the United States I will not pass over this point without averting to the institution of the jury. Trial by jury may be considered in two separate points of view as a judicial and as a political institution. If it entered into my present purpose to inquire how far trial by jury brains, more especially in civil cases close brains contributes to ensure the best administration of justice I admit that its utility might be contested. As the jury was first introduced at a time when society was in an uncivilized state and when courts of justice were merely called upon to decide on the evidence of facts it is not an easy task to adapt it to the wants of a highly civilized community when the mutual relations of men are multiplied to a surprising extent and have assumed the enlightened and intellectual character of the age. My present object is to consider the jury as a political institution and any other course would divert me from my subject. Of trial by jury considered as a judicial institution I shall here say but very few words. When the English adopted trial by jury they were semi-barberous people they are become in course of time one of the most enlightened nations of the earth and their attachment to this institution seems to have increased with their increasing cultivation. They soon spread beyond their insular boundaries to every corner of the habitable globe some have formed colonies, others independent states the mother country has maintained its monarchical constitution many of its offspring have founded powerful republics but wherever the English have been they have boasted of the privilege of trial by jury they have established it or hastened to re-establish it in all their settlements. A judicial institution which obtains the suffrages of a great people for so long a series of ages which is zealously renewed at every epoch of civilization in all climates of the earth and under every form of human government cannot be contrary to the spirit of justice. I turn however from this part of the subject. To look upon the jury as a mere judicial institution is to confine our attention to a very narrow view of it. For however great its influence may be upon the decision of the law courts that influence is very subordinate to the powerful effects which it produces on the destinies of the community at large. The jury is above all a political institution and it must be regarded in this light in order to be duly appreciated. By the jury I mean a certain number of citizens chosen indiscriminately and invested with the temporary right of judging. Trial by jury as applied to the repression of crime appears to me to introduce an eminently republican element into the government upon the following grounds. The institution of the jury may be aristocratic or democratic according to the class of society from which the jurors are selected but it always preserves its republican character in as much as it places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed or of a portion of the governed instead of leaving it under the authority of the government. Force is never more than a transient element of success and after force comes the notion of right. A government which should only be able to crush its enemies upon the feel of battle would very soon be destroyed. The true sanction of political laws is to be found in penal legislation and if that sanction be wanting the law will sooner or later lose its cogency. He who punishes infractions of the law is therefore the real master of society. Now the institution of the jury raises the people itself or at least the class of citizens to the bents of judicial authority. The institution of the jury consequently invests the people or that class of citizens with the direction of society. In England the jury is returned from the aristocratic portion of the nation. The aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws and punishes all infractions of the laws. Everything is established upon a consistent footing and England may with truth be said to constitute an aristocratic republic. In the United States the same system is applied to the whole people every American citizen is qualified to be an elector, a jury and is eligible to office. The system of the jury as it is understood in America appears to me to be as direct and as extreme a consequence of the sovereignty of the people as universal suffrage. These institutions are two instruments of equal power which combine to the supremacy of the majority. All the sovereigns who have chosen to govern by their own authority and direct society instead of obeying its directions have destroyed or enfeebled the institution of the jury. The monarchs of the House of Tudors sent to prison jurors who refused to convict and Napoleon caused them to be returned by his agents. However clear most of these truths may seem to be they do not command universal assent and in France at least the institution of trial by jury is still very imperfectly understood. If the question arises as to the proper qualification of the jurors it is confined to a discussion of the intelligence and knowledge of the citizens who may be returned as if the jury were merely a judicial institution. This appears to me to be the least part of the subject. The jury is preeminently a political institution. It must be regarded as one form of the sovereignty of the people. When that sovereignty is repudiated it must be rejected or it must be adapted to the laws by which that sovereignty is established. The jury is that portion of a nation to which the execution of the laws is entrusted as the House of Parliament constitute that part of the nation which makes the laws and in order that society may be governed with consistency and uniformity the list of citizens qualified to serve on juries must increase and diminish with the list of electors. This I hold to be the point of view most worthy of the attention of the legislator and all that remains is merely accessory. I am so entirely convinced that the jury is preeminently a political institution that I still consider it in this light when it is applied to civil causes. Laws are always unstable unless they are founded upon the manners of a nation. Manners are the only durable and resisting power in the people. When a jury is reserved for criminal offenses the people only witnesses its occasional action in certain particular cases. The ordinary course of life goes on without its interference and it is considered as an instrument but not as the only instrument of obtaining justice. This is true of Fortiori when the jury is only applied to certain criminal causes. When, on the contrary, the influence of the jury is extended to civil causes its application is constantly palpable it affects all the interests of the community everyone cooperates in its work it thus penetrates into all the usages of life it fascinates the human mind to its peculiar forms and is gradually associated with the idea of justice itself. The institution of the jury, if confined to criminal causes, is always in danger but when once it is introduced into civil proceedings it defies the aggressions of time and of man. If it had been as easy to remove the jury from the manners as from the laws of England it would have perished under Henry VIII and Elizabeth and the civil jury did in reality at that period save the liberties of the country. In whatever manner the jury be applied it cannot fail to exercise a powerful influence upon the national character but this influence is prodigiously increased when it is introduced into civil causes. The jury, and more especially the jury in civil cases serves to communicate the spirit of the judges to the minds of all the citizens and this spirit with the habits which attend to it is the soundest preparation for free institutions. It imbues all classes with the respect for the thing judged and with the notion of right. If these two elements be removed the love of independence is reduced to a mere destructive passion. It teaches men to practice equity every man learns to judge his neighbor as he would himself be judged and this is especially true of the jury in civil causes for whilst the number of people who have reason to apprehend a criminal prosecution is small everyone is liable to have a civil action brought against him. The jury teaches every man not to recoil before the responsibility of his own actions and impresses him with that manly confidence without which political virtue cannot exist. It invests each citizen with a kind of majesty makes them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge towards society and the part which they take in the government. By obliging men to turn their attention to affairs which are not exclusively their own it rubs off that individual egotism which is the rust of society. The jury contributes most powerfully to form the judgment and to increase the natural intelligence of the people and this is in my opinion its greatest advantage. It may be regarded as a gratuitous public school ever open in which every jury learns to exercise his rights enters into daily communication with the most learned and enlightened members of the upper classes and becomes practically acquainted with the laws of his country which are brought within the reach of his capacity by the efforts of the bar the advice of the judge and even by the passion of the parties. I think that the practical intelligence and political good sense of Americans are mainly attributable to the long use which they have made of the jury and civil causes. I do not know where the jury is useful to those who are in litigation but I am certain it is highly beneficial to those who decide the litigation and I look upon it as one of the most efficacious means for the education of the people which society can employ. What I have hitherto said applies to all nations but the remark I am now about to make is peculiar to the Americans and to democratic peoples. I have already observed that in democracies the members of the legal profession and the magistrates constitute the only aristocratic body which can check the irregularities of the people. This aristocracy is invested with no physical power but it exercises its conservative influence upon the minds of men and the most abundant source of its authority is the institution of the civil jury. In criminal causes when society is armed against a single individual the jury is apt to look upon the judge as the passive instrument of social power and to mistrust his advice. Moreover, criminal causes are entirely founded upon the evidence of facts which common sense can readily appreciate. Upon this ground the judge and the jury are equal. Such however is not the case in civil causes. Then the judge appears as a disinterested arbiter between the conflicting passions of the parties the jurors look up to him with confidence and listen to him with respect for in this instance their intelligence is completely under control of his learning. It is the judge who sums up the various arguments with which their memory has been wearied out and who guides them through the devious course of the proceedings. He points their attention to the exact question of fact which they are called upon to solve and he puts the answer to the question of law into their mouths. His influence upon their verdict is almost unlimited. If I am called upon to explain why I am but little moved by the arguments derived from the ignorance of the juror on civil causes I reply that in these proceedings whenever the question to be solved is not a mere question of fact the jury has only the semblance of a judicial body. The jury sanctions the decision of the judge they by authority of society which they represent and he by that of the reason and of law. In England and in America the judges exercise an influence upon criminal trials which the French judges have never possessed. The reason of this difference may easily be discovered. The English and American magistrates establish their authority in civil causes and only transferred afterwards to tribunals of another kind where that authority was not acquired. In some cases, parents and they are frequently the most important ones and parents the American judges have the right of deciding causes alone. Upon these occasions they are accidentally placed in the position which the French judges habitually occupy but they are invested with far more power than the latter. They are still surrounded by the reminiscence of the jury and their judgment has almost as much authority as the voice of the community at large represented by that institution. Their influence extends beyond the limits of the courts in the recreations of private life as well as in the turmoil of public business abroad and in the legislative assemblies the American judge is constantly surrounded by men who are accustomed to regard his intelligence as superior to their own and after having exercised his power in the decision of causes he continues to influence the habits of thought and the characters of the individuals who took part in his judgment. The jury then which seems to restrict the rights of the magistracy does in reality consolidate its power and in no country are the judges so powerful as there where the people partakes their privileges. It is more especially by means of the jury and civil causes that the American magistrates imbue all classes of society with the spirit of their profession. Thus the jury which is the most energetic means of making the people rule is also the most efficacious means of teaching it to rule well End of Democracy in America Part 1 Chapter 16 Causes Mitigating Tyranny in the United States Part 2 Chapter 17 Principal Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic Part 1 Principal Causes Which Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States A Democratic Republic subsists in the United States and the principal object of this book has been to account for the fact of its existence. Several of the causes which contribute to maintain the institutions of America have been involuntarily passed by or only hinted at as I was born along by my subject. Others I have been unable to discuss and those on which I have dwelt most are, as it were, buried in the details of the former parts of this work. I think therefore that before I proceed to speak of the future I cannot do better than collect within a small compass the reasons which best explain the present. In this retrospective chapter I shall be succinct for I shall take care to remind the reader very summarily of what he already knows and I shall only select the most prominent of those facts which I have not yet pointed out. All the causes which contribute to the maintenance of the Democratic Republic in the United States are reducible to three heads. One, the peculiar and accidental situation in which Providence has placed the Americans. Two, the laws. Three, the manners and customs of the people. Accidental or providential causes which contribute to the maintenance of the Democratic Republic in the United States the Union has no neighbors. No metropolis. The Americans have had the chances of birth in their favor. America an empty country. How this circumstance contributes powerfully to the maintenance of the Democratic Republic in America. How the American wilds are peopled. Avidity of the Anglo-Americans in taking possession of the solitudes of the New World. Influence of physical prosperity upon the political opinions of the Americans. A thousand circumstances independent of the will of man to facilitate the maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States. Some of these peculiarities are known. The others may easily be pointed out but I shall confine myself to the most prominent amongst them. The Americans have no neighbors and consequently they have no great wars or financial crises or inroads or conquests to dread. They require neither great taxes nor great armies nor great generals. And they have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more formidable to republics than all these evils combined. Namely military glory. It is impossible to deny the inconceivable influence which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation. General Jackson whom the Americans have twice elected to the head of their government is a man of a violent temper and mediocre talents. No one circumstance in the whole course of his career ever proved that he is qualified to govern a free people. And indeed the majority of the enlightened classes of the Union has always been opposed to him. But he was raised to the presidency and has been maintained in that lofty station solely by the recollection of a victory which he gained twenty years ago under the walls of New Orleans. A victory which was, however, a very ordinary achievement and which could only be remembered in a country where battles are rare. Now the people which is thus carried away by the illusions of glory is unquestionably the most cold and calculating, the most unmilitary if I may use the expression, and the most prosaic of all the peoples of the earth. America has no great capital city whose influence is directly or indirectly felt over the whole extent of the country which I hold to be one of the first causes of the maintenance of republican institutions in the United States. In cities men cannot be prevented from concerting together, from awakening a mutual excitement which prompts sudden and passionate resolutions. Cities may be looked upon as large assemblies of which all the inhabitants are members. Their populace exercises a prodigious influence upon the magistrates and frequently executes its own wishes without their intervention. To subject the provinces to the metropolis is therefore not only to place the destiny of the empire in the hands of a portion of the community, which may be reprobated as unjust, but to place it in the hands of a populace acting under its own impulses which must be avoided as dangerous. The preponderance of capital cities is therefore a serious blow upon the representative system, and it exposes modern republics the same defect as the republics of antiquity, which all perished from not having been acquainted with that form of government. It would be easy for me to adduce a great number of secondary causes which have contributed to establish, and which concur to maintain, the democratic republic of the United States. But I discern two principal circumstances amongst these favorable elements which I hasten to point out. I have already observed that the origin of the American settlements may be looked upon as the first and most efficacious cause to which the present prosperity of the United States may be attributed. The Americans had their chances of birth in their favor, and their forefathers imported that equality of conditions into the country once the democratic republic has very naturally taken its rise. Nor was this all they did. For besides this republican condition of society, the early settlers bequeathed to their descendants those customs, manners, and opinions which contribute most to the success of a republican form of government. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary circumstance, me thinks I see the destiny of America embodied in the first Puritan who landed on those shores, just as the human race was represented by the first man. The chief circumstance which has favored the establishment and the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is the nature of the territory which the American inhabit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equality and of freedom, but God himself gave them the means of remaining equal and free by placing them upon a boundless continent which is open to their exertions. General prosperity is favorable to the stability of all governments, but more particularly of a democratic constitution which depends upon the dispositions of the majority and more particularly of that portion of the community which is most exposed to the feel the pressure of want. When the people rules it must be rendered happy or it will overturn the state and misery is apt to stimulate it to those excesses to which ambition rouses kings. The physical causes independent of the laws which contribute to promote general prosperity are more numerous in America than they have ever been in any other country in the world at any other period of history. In the United States not only is legislation democratic, but nature herself favors the cause of the people. In what part of human tradition can be found anything at all similar to that which is occurring under our eyes in North America? The celebrated communities of antiquity were all founded in the midst of hostile nations, which they were obliged to subjugate before they could flourish in their place. Even the moderns have found in some parts of South America vast regions inhabited by people of inferior civilization, but which occupied and cultivated the soil. To found their new states it was necessary to extirpate or to subdue a numerous population until civilization has been made to blush for their success. But North America was only inhabited by wandering tribes who took no thought of the natural riches of the soil and that vast country was still, properly speaking, an empty continent, a desert land awaiting its inhabitants. Everything is extraordinary in America, the social condition of the inhabitants as well as the laws, but the soil upon which these institutions are founded is more extraordinary than all the rest. When man was first placed upon the earth by the creator, the earth was inexhaustible in its youth, but man was weak and ignorant, and when he had learned to explore the treasures which it contained, hosts of his fellow creatures covered its surface and he was obliged to earn an asylum for repose and for freedom by the sword. At that same period North America was discovered as if it had been kept in reserve by the deity and had just risen from beneath the waters of the deluge. That continent still presents, as it did in the primeval time, rivers which rise from never-failing sources, green and moist solitudes, and fields which the plow share of the husbandmen has never turned. In this state it is offered to man, not in the barbarous and isolated condition of the early ages, but to a being who is already in possession of the most potent secrets of the natural world, who is united to his fellow men and instructed by the experience of 50 centuries. At this very time 13 millions of civilized Europeans are peaceably spreading over those fertile plains, with whose resources and whose extent they are not yet themselves accurately acquainted. Three or four thousand soldiers drive the wandering races of the aborigines before them. These are followed by the pioneers who pierce the woods, scare off the beasts of prey, explore the courses of the indolent streams, and make ready the triumphal procession of civilization across the waste. The favorable influence of the temporal prosperity of America upon the institutions of that country has been so often described by others and adverted to by myself that I shall not enlarge upon it beyond the addition of a few facts. An erroneous notion is generally entertained that the deserts of America are peopled by European immigrants who annually disembark upon the coasts of the new world, whilst the American population increases and multiplies upon the soil which its forefathers tilled. The European settler, however, usually arrives in the United States without friends, and sometimes without resources. In order to subsist he has obliged the work for hire, and he rarely proceeds beyond that belt of industrious population which joins the ocean. The desert cannot be explored without capital or credit, and the body must be accustomed to the rigors of a new climate before it can be exposed to the chances of forest life. It is the Americans themselves who daily quit the spots which gave them birth to acquire extensive domains in a remote country. Thus the European leaves his cottage for the transatlantic shores, and the American, who is born on that very coast, plunges in his turn into the wilds of Central America. This double emigration is incessant. It begins in the remotest parts of Europe, it crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and it advances over the solitudes of the new world. Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon. Their language, their religion, their manners differ, their object is the same. The gifts of fortune are promised in the West, and to the West they bend their course. No event can be compared with this continuous removal of the human race, except perhaps those eruptions which preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Then, as well as now, generations of men were impelled forwards in the same direction to meet and struggle on the same spot, but the designs of Providence were not the same. Then, every newcomer was the harbinger of destruction and of death. Now, every adventurer brings with him the elements of prosperity and of life. The future still conceals from us the ulterior consequences of this emigration of the Americans towards the West, but we can readily apprehend its more immediate results. As a portion of the inhabitants annually leave the states in which they were born, the population of these states increases very slowly, although they have long been established. Thus, in Connecticut, which only contains 59 inhabitants to the square mile, the population has not increased by more than one quarter in 40 years, whilst that of England has been augmented by one third in the lapse of the same period. The European emigrants always lands, therefore, in a country which is but half full, and where hands are in request. He becomes a workman in easy circumstances. His son goes to seek his fortune in unpeopled regions, and he becomes a rich landowner. This former amasses the capital which the latter invests, and the stranger as well as the native is unacquainted with want. The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to division of property, but a cause which is more powerful than the laws prevents property from being divided to excess. This is very perceptible in the states which are beginning to be thickly peopled. Massachusetts is the most populous part of the Union, but it contains only 80 inhabitants to the square mile, which is much less than in France, where 162 are reckoned to the same extent of country. But in Massachusetts, estates are very rarely divided. The eldest son takes the land, and the others go to seek their fortunes in the desert. The law has abolished the rights of prima geniture, and circumstances have concurred to re-establish it under a form of which none can complain, and by which no just rights are impaired. A single fact will suffice to show the prodigious numbers of individuals who leave New England in this manner to settle themselves in the wilds. We were assured in 1830 that 36 of the members of Congress were born in the little state of Connecticut. The population of Connecticut, which constitutes only one 43rd part of that of the United States, thus furnished one eighth of the whole body of representatives. The states of Connecticut, however, only sends five delegates to Congress, and the 31 others sit for the New Western states. If these 31 individuals had remained in Connecticut, it is probable that instead of becoming rich landowners, they would have remained humble laborers, that they would have lived in obscurity without being able to rise into public life, and that, far from becoming useful members of the legislature, they might have been unruly citizens. These reflections do not escape the up-preservation of the Americans any more than of ourselves. It cannot be doubted, says Chancellor Kent and his treaties on American law, that the division of landed estates must produce great evils when it is carried to such excess as that each parcel of land is insufficient to support a family. But these disadvantages have never been felt in the United States, and many generations must elapse before they can be felt. The extent of our inhabited territory, the abundance of adjacent land, and the continual stream of emigration flowing from the shores of the Atlantic towards the interior of the country suffices yet, and will long suffice to prevent the parceling out of estates. It is difficult to describe the rapacity with which the American rushes forward to secure the immense booty which fortune proffers to him, and the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrows of the Indian and the distempers of the forest. He is unimpressed by the silence of the woods, the approach of beasts of prey do not disturb him, for he is goaded onwards by a passion more intense than the love of life. Before him lies a boundless continent, and he urges onwards as if time pressed, and he was afraid of finding no room for his exertions. I have spoken of the emigration from the older estates, but how shall I describe that which takes place from the more recent ones? Fifty years have scarcely elapsed since that of Ohio was founded. The greater part of its inhabitants were not born within its confines. Its capital has only been built thirty years, and its territory is still covered by an immense extent of uncultivated fields. Nevertheless, the population of Ohio is already proceeding westward, and most of the settlers who descend to the fertile savannas of Illinois are citizens to Ohio. These men left their first country to improve their condition. They quit their resting place to ameliorate it still more. Fortune awaits them everywhere, but happiness they cannot attain. The desire of prosperity has become an ardent and restless passion in their minds which grows by what it gains. They early broke the ties which bound them to their natal earth, and they have contracted no fresh ones on their way. Immigration was at first necessary to them as a means of subsistence, and it soon becomes a sort of game of chance which they pursue for the emotion as it excites as much as for the gain it procures. Sometimes the progress of man is so rapid that the desert reappears behind him. The woods stoop to give him a passage and spring up again when he has passed. It is not uncommon in crossing the new states of the west to meet with deserted dwellings in the midst of the wilds. The traveler frequently discovers the vestiges of a log-house in the most solitary retreats, which bear witness to the power, and no less to the inconstancy of the man. In these abandoned fields and over these ruins of a day, the permeable forest soon scatters a fresh vegetation, and beasts resume the haunts which were once their own. In nature covers the traces of man's path with branches and with flowers, which obliterate his evanescent track. I remember that, in crossing one of the woodland districts which still cover the state of New York, I reached the shores of a lake and bosomed in forests co-evil with the world. A small island covered with woods whose thick foliage concealed its banks rose from the center of the waters. Upon the shores of the lake no object attested the presence of man except a column of smoke, which might be seen on the horizon rising from the tops of the trees to the clouds, and seeming to hang from heaven rather than to be mounting to the sky. An Indian shallop was hauled upon the sand, which tempted me to visit the islet that at first attracted my attention, and in a few minutes I set afoot at banks. The whole island formed one of those delicious solitudes of the New World which almost led civilized man to regret the haunts of the savage. A luxuriant vegetation bore witness to the incomparable fruitfulness of the soil. The deep silence which is common to the wilds of North America was only broken by the horse-cooing of the wood-pigeon and the tapping of the woodpecker upon the bark of trees. I was far from supposing that this spot had ever been inhabited. Soaks completely did nature seem to be left to her own caprices, but when I reached the center of the isle I thought that I discovered some traces of man. I then proceeded to examine the surrounding objects with care, and I soon perceived that a European had undoubtedly been led to seek a refuge in this retreat. Yet what changes had taken place in the scenes of his labors? The logs which he had hastily spewned to build himself a shed had sprouted afresh. The very props were intertwined with living for jure, and his cabin was transformed into a bower. In the midst of these shrubs a few stones were to be seen, blackened with fire and sprinkled with thin ashes. Here the hearth had no doubt been, and the chimney and falling had covered it with rubbish. I stood for some time in silent admiration of the exuberance of nature and the littleness of man, and when I was obliged to leave that enchanting solitude I exclaimed with melancholy, our ruins then already here. In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an unbounded desire of riches, and an excessive love and independence, as propensity is very formidable to society. Yet these are the very elements which ensure a long and peaceful duration to the republics of America. Without these unquiet passions the population would collect in certain spots, and would soon be subject to wants like those of the old world, which it is difficult to satisfy. For such is the present good fortune of the new world that the vices of its inhabitants are scarcely less favorable to society than their virtues. These circumstances exercise a great influence on the estimation in which human actions are held in the two hemispheres. The Americans frequently term what we should call cupidity a laudable industry, and they blame as faint-heartedness what we consider to be the virtue of moderate desires. In France simple tastes, orderly manners, domestic affections, and the attachments which men feel to the place of their birth are looked upon as great guarantees of the tranquility and happiness of the state, but in America nothing seems to be more prejudicial to society than these virtues. The French Canadians, who have faithfully preserved the traditions of their pristine manners, are already embarrassed for room upon their small territory, and this little community, which has so recently begun to exist, will shortly be a prey to the calamity's incident to old nations. In Canada the most enlightened, patriotic, and humane inhabitants make extraordinary efforts to render the people dissatisfied with these simple enjoyments which still content it. There the seductions of wealth are vaunted with as much zeal as the charms of an honest but limited income in the old world, and more exertions are made to excite the passions of the citizens there than to calm them elsewhere. If we listen to their eulogies, we shall hear that nothing is more praiseworthy than to exchange the pure and homely pleasures which even the poor man tastes in his own country for the full delights of prosperity under a foreign sky, to leave the patrimonial hearth and the turf beneath which his forefathers sleep, in short to abandon the living and the dead in quest of fortune. At the present time America presents a field for human effort far more extensive than any sum of labor which can be applied to work it. In America too much knowledge cannot be diffused. For all knowledge, whilst it may serve him who possesses it, turns also to the advantage of those who are without it. New wants are not to be feared since they can be satisfied without difficulty. The growth of human passions need not be dreaded since all passions may find an easy and a legitimate object, nor can man be put in possession of too much freedom since they are scarcely ever tempted to misuse their liberties. The American republics of the present day are like companies of adventurers formed to explore in common the wastelands of the new world, embizzied in a flourishing trade. The passions which agitate the Americans most deeply are not their political but their commercial passions. Or, to speak more correctly, they introduce the habits they contract in business into their political life. They love order, without which affairs do not prosper, and they set in a special value upon a regular conduct, which is the foundation of a solid business. They prefer the good sense which amasses large fortunes to the enterprising spirit which frequently dissipates them. General ideas alarm their mind, which are accustomed to positive calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than theory. It is in America that one learns to understand the influence which physical prosperity exercises over political actions, and even over opinions which ought to acknowledge no sway but that of reason, and it is more especially amongst strangers that this truth is perceptible. Most of the European immigrants to the new world carry with them that wild love of independence, and of change which our calamities are so apt to engender. I sometimes met with the Europeans in the United States who had been obliged to leave their country on account of their political opinions. They all astonished me by the language they held, but one of them surprised me more than all the rest. As I was crossing one of the most remote districts of Pennsylvania I was benighted, and obliged to beg for hospitality at the gate of a wealthy planter, who was a Frenchman by birth. He bade me sit down beside his fire, and we began to talk with that freedom which befits persons who meet in the backwoods two thousand leagues from their native country. I was aware that my host had been a great leveler and an ardent demagogue forty years ago, and that his name was not unknown to fame. I was therefore not a little surprised to hear him discuss the rights of property as an economist or a landowner might have done. He spoke of the necessary gradations which fortune establishes amongst men, of obedience to established laws, of the influence of good morals and common-wells, and of the support which religious opinions give to order and to freedom. He even went too far as to quote an evangelical authority and corroboration of one of his political tenets. I listened, and marveled at the feebleness of human reason. A proposition is true or false, but no art can prove it to be one or the other, in the midst of the uncertainties of science and the conflicting lessons of experience, until a new incident disperses the clouds of doubt. I was poor, I become rich, and I am not to expect that prosperity will act upon my conduct and leave my judgment free. My opinions change with my fortune and the happy circumstances which I turned to my advantage furnish me with that decisive argument which was before wanting. The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the American than upon strangers. The American has always been the connection of public order and public prosperity, intimately united as they are, go on before his eyes. He does not conceive that one can subsist without the other. He has therefore nothing to forget, nor has he, like so many Europeans, to unlearn the lessons of his early education. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Anna Christensen. Democracy in America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reef. Chapter 17, Principle Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic, Part 2 Influence of the Laws Upon the Maintenance of the Democratic Republic in the United States Three Principle Causes of the Maintenance of the Democratic Republic Federal Constitutions, Municipal Institutions, Judicial Power The principle aim of this book has been to make known the laws of the United States. If this purpose has been accomplished, the reader is already unable to judge for himself which are the laws that really tend to maintain the Democratic Republic and which endanger its existence. If I have not succeeded in explaining this in the whole course of my work, I cannot hope to do so within the limits of a single chapter. It is not my intention to retrace the path I have already pursued, and a very few lines will suffice to recapitulate what I have previously explained. Three circumstances seem to me to contribute most powerfully to the maintenance of the Democratic Republic in the United States. The first is that federal form of government which the Americans have adopted and which enables the Union to combine the power of a great empire with the security of a small state. The second consists in those municipal institutions which limit the despotism of the majority and at the same time impart a taste for freedom and a knowledge of the art of being free to the people. The third is to be met with in the constitution of the judicial power. I have shown in what manner the courts of justice serve to repress the excesses of democracy and how they check and direct the impulses of the majority without stopping its activity. Influence of manners upon the maintenance of the Democratic Republic in the United States I have previously remarked that the manners of the people may be considered as one of the general causes to which the maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States is attributable. I here use the word manners with the meaning which the ancients attached to the word morays, for I apply it not only to manners in their proper sense of what constitutes a character of social intercourse, but I extend it to the various notions and opinions current among men and to the mass of those ideas which constitute their character of mind. I comprise, therefore, under this term the whole moral and intellectual condition of a people. My intention is not to draw a picture of American manners, but simply to point out such features of them as are favorable to the maintenance of political institutions. Religion considered as a political institution which powerfully contributes to the maintenance of the Democratic Republic amongst the Americans. North America people by men who profess a Democratic and Republican Christianity. Arrival of the Catholics. For what reason the Catholics form the most Democratic and the most Republican class at the present time? Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political opinion which is connected with it by affinity. If the human mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform principle, and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth with the state which he believes to await him in heaven. The greatest part of British America was people by men who, after having shaken off the authority of the Pope, acknowledged no other religious supremacy. They brought with them into the new world a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe than by styling it a Democratic and Republican religion. This set contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democracy and a republic, and from the earliest settlement of the immigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved. About 50 years ago, Ireland began to pour a Catholic population into the United States. On the other hand, the Catholics in America made proselytites, and at the present moment more than a million of Christians professing the truths of the Church of Rome are to be found within the Union. The Catholics are faithful to the observance of their religion. They are fervent and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines. Nevertheless, they constitute the most Republican and the most Democratic class of citizens, which exists in the United States. And although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the causes by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon reflection. I think that the Catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as a natural enemy of democracy. Among the various sects of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be one of those which are most favorable to the equality of conditions. In the Catholic Church, the religious community is composed of only two elements, the priest and the people. The priest alone arises above the rank of his flock, and all below him are equal. On doctrinal points, the Catholic faith places all human capacities upon the same level. It subjects the wise and ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details of the same creed. It imposes the same observances upon the rich and needy. It inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and the weak. It listens to no compromise with mortal man, but reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar, even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not prepare them for inequality. But the contrary may be set of Protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent, more than to render them equal. Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy. If the sovereign be removed, all the other classes of society are more equal than they are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the Catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the governing powers of society, and to take his place amongst the civil gradations of men. This religious influence has sometimes been used to secure the interests of that political state of things to which he belonged. At other times, Catholics have taken the sight of aristocracy from a spirit of religion. But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the government, as is the case in the United States, than is found that no class of men are more naturally disposed in the Catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions into the political world. If then, the Catholic citizens of the United States are not forcibly led by the nature of their tenants to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are not necessarily opposed to them. And their social position, as well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these opinions. Most of the Catholics are poor, and they have no chance of taking a part in the government unless it be open to all the citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights must be respected in order to ensure them the free exercise of their privileges. These two causes induce them, unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines, which they would perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and preponderant. The Catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to oppose this political tendency, but it seeks rather to justify its results. The priests in America have divided the intellectual world into two parts. In the one, they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which command their assent. In the other, they leave those truths which they believe to have been freely lived open to the researches of political inquiry. Thus the Catholics of the United States are at the same time the most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens. It may be asserted that in the United States, no religious doctrine displays the slightest hostility to democratic and republican institutions. The clergy of all the different sects hold the same language, their opinions are consonant to the laws, and the human intellect flows onward in one soul current. I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the Union when I was invited to attend a public meeting which had been called for the purpose of assisting the polls and of sending them supplies of arms and money. I found two or three thousand persons collected in a vast hall which had been prepared to receive them. In a short time a priest in his ecclesiastical robes advanced to the front of the hustings. The spectators rose and stood uncovered. We'll see spoke in the following terms. Almighty God, the God of armies, thou who did strengthen the hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when they were fighting for the sacred rights of national independence. Thou who didst make them triumph over a hateful oppression and has granted to our people the benefits of liberty and peace. Turn, O Lord, a favorable eye upon the other hemisphere, pitifully look down upon that heroic nation which is even now struggling as we did in the former time, and for the same wretch which we defended with our blood. Thou who didst create man in the likeness of the same image, let not tyranny mar thy work and establish inequality upon the earth. Almighty God, do thou watch over the destiny of the polls and render them worthy to be free. May thy wisdom direct their councils and may thy strength sustain their arms. Shed forth thy terror over their enemies, scatter the powers which take counsel against them, and vouchsafe that the injustice which the world has witnessed for fifty years be not consummated in our time. O Lord, who holdest alike the hearts of nations and of men in thy powerful hand, raise up allies to the sacred cause of right, arouse the French nation from the apathy in which its rulers retain it, let it go forth again to fight for the liberties of the world. Lord, turn not thou thy face from us, and grant that we may always be the most religious as well as the freest people upon the earth. Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. Save the polls we beseech thee in the name of thy well-beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation of men. Amen. The whole meeting responded, Amen, with devotion. Indirect influence of religious opinions upon political society in the United States. Christian morality common to all sects. Influence of religion upon the manners of the Americans. Respect for the marriage tie. In what manner religion confines the imagination of the Americans within certain limits and checks the passion of innovation. Opinion of the Americans on the political utility of religion. Their exertions to extend and secure its predominance. I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon politics is in the United States, but its indirect influence appears to me to be still more considerable, and it never instructs the Americans more fully in the art of being free than when it says nothing of freedom. The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the deity in its own peculiar manner, but all the sects preach the same moral law in the name of God. If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear, and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same. It may be believed without unfairness that a certain number of Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship from habit more than from conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common. But there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America. And there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth. I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in general, without even accepting those who do not admit religious liberty, are all in favor of civil freedom. But they do not support any particular political system. They keep aloof from parties and from public affairs. In the United States, religion exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of public opinion. But it directs the manners of the community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the state. I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is observable in the United States arises in the first instance from religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man from the numberless temptations of fortune, nor can it check that passion for gain which every incident of his life contributes to a rise. But its influence over the mind of women is supreme, and women are the protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe, almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple and natural. His joys are innocent and calm. And as he finds that an orderly life is a surest path to happiness, he accustoms himself without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as his tastes. Whilst the European endeavors to forget his domestic troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his own home that love of order which he afterwards carries with him into public affairs. In the United States, the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people. Amongst the Anglo-Americans there are some who profess the doctrines of Christianity from a sheer belief in them, and others who do the same because they are afraid to be suspected of unbelief. Christianity therefore reigns without any obstacle by universal consent. The consequence is, as I have observed before, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate, although the political world is abandoned to the debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind is never left to wander across a boundless field, and whatever may be its pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers which it cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain primal and immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest conceptions of human device are subjected to certain forms which retard and stop their completion. The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights, is circumspect and undecided, its impulses are checked, and its works unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political society and are singularly favorable both to the tranquility of the people and to the durability of the institutions it has established. Nature and circumstances concurred to make the inhabitants of the United States bold men, as is sufficiently attested by the enterprising spirit with which they seek for fortune. If the mind of the Americans were free from all tremors, they would very shortly become the most daring innovators and the most implacable disputants in the world. But the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess a sensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not easily permit them to violate the laws that oppose their designs, nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their partisans, even if they were able to get over their own. Hitherto, no one in the United States has dared to advance the maxim, that everything is permissible with a view to the interests of society. An impious adage which seems to have been invented in an age of freedom to shelter all the tyrants of future ages. Thus, whilst the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving and forbids them to commit what is rash or unjust. Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society, but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country. For if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere faith in their religion, for who can search the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of Republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation and to every rank of society. In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect from supporting him. But if he attacks all the sects together, everyone abandons him and he remains alone. Whilst I was in America, a witness who happened to be called the S-sizes of the county of Chester, state of New York, declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the court in what he was about to say. The newspapers related the fact without any further comment. The Americans combine the notion of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other. And with them, this conviction does not spring from that barren, traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live. I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out ministers of the gospel into the new western states to found schools and churches there. Lest religion should be suffered to die away in those remote settlements and the rising states be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than the people from which they emanated. I met with wealthy New Englanders who abandoned the country in which they were born in order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of freedom on the banks of the Missouri or in the prairies of Illinois. Thus religious zeal is perpetually stimulated in the United States by the duties of patriotism. These men do not act from an exclusive consideration of the promise of a future life. Eternity is only one motive of their devotion to the cause. And if you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to find how much value they set upon the goods of this world and that you meet with a politician where you expected to find a priest. They will tell you that all the American republics are collectively involved with each other. If the republics of the west were to fall into anarchy or to be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean will be in great peril. It is therefore our interest that the new state should be religious in order to maintain our liberties. Such are the opinions of the Americans and of any hold that the religious spirit which I admired is the very thing most have missed in America and that the only element wanting to the freedom and happiness of the human race is to believe in some blind cosmogony or to assert with Cabanus the secretion of thought by the brain. I can only reply that those who hold this language have never been in America and that they have never seen a religious or a free nation. When they return from their expedition, we shall hear what they have to say. There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions as a temporary means of power, of wealth and distinction. Men who are the condotery of liberty and who fight for their own advantage would ever be the colors they wear. It is not to these that I address myself. But there are others who look forward to the republican form of government as a tranquil and lasting state towards which modern society is daily impelled by the ideas and manners of the time and who sincerely desire to prepare men to be free. When these men attack religious opinions, they obey the dictates of their passions to the prejudice of their interests. Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack, and it is more needed in democratic republics than in any others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people which is its own master if it be not submissive to the divinity? End of Chapter 17, Part 2 Chapter 17, Part 3 of Democracy in America, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Anna Simon Democracy in America, Volume 1 Chapter 17, Principle Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic, Part 3 Principle Causes which render religion powerful in America, care taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the State, the laws, public opinion, and even the exertions of the clergy concurred to promote this end, influence of religion upon the mind in the United States attributable to this cause. Reason of this, what is the natural state of man with regard to religion at the present time? What are the peculiar and incidental causes which prevent man in certain countries from arriving at this state? The philosophers of the 18th century explained the gradual decay of religious faith in a very simple manner. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily fail, the more generally liberty is established and knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no means in accordance with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief is only equaled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfills all the outward duties of religious fervor. Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention, and the longer I stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state of things to which I was unaccustomed. In France, I'd almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom pursuing causes diametrically opposed to each other. But in America, I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it, I questioned the members of all the different sects, and I more especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the different persuasions and who are more especially interested in their duration. As a member of the Roman Catholic Church, I was more particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men, I expressed my astonishment, and I explained my doubts. I found that they differed upon matters of detail alone, and that they mainly attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America, I did not meet with a single individual of the clergy or of the lady, who was not of the same opinion upon this point. This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done, the station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned with surprise that they filled no public appointments. Not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies. In several states, the law excludes them from political life, public opinion in all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of the clergy, I found that most of its members seemed to retire of their own accord from the exercise of power, and that they made it the pride of their profession to abstain from politics. I heard them invade against ambition and deceit, and the whatever political opinions these vices might chance to look. But I learned from their discourses that men are not guilty in the eye of God for any opinions concerning political government, which they may profess with sincerity any more than they are for their mistakes in building a house or in driving a ferro. I perceived that these ministers of the Gospel eschewed all parties with the anxiety attendant upon personal interest. These facts convinced me that what I had been told was true, and it then became my object to investigate their causes, and to inquire how it happened that the real authority of religion was increased by a state of things which diminished its apparent force. These causes did not long escape my researches. The short space of three school years can never content the imagination of man, nor can the imperfect joys of this world satisfy his heart. Man alone of all created beings displays a natural contempt of existence, and yet a boundless desire to exist. He scorns life, but he dreads annihilation. These different feelings incessantly urge his soul to the contemplation of a future state, and religion directs his musings thither. Religion then is simply another form of hope, and it is no less natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect and a sort of violent distortion of their true natures. But they are invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments, for unbelief is an accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. If we only consider religious institutions in a purely human point of view, they may be said to derive an inexhaustible element of strength from man himself, since they belong to one of the constituent principles of human nature. I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this influence which originates in itself by the artificial power of the laws and by the support of those temporal institutions which direct society. Religions, intimately united to the governments of the earth, have been known to exercise a sovereign authority derived from the twofold source of terror and of faith. But when a religion contracts an alliance of this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare, and in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which has rightfully its own. When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion. But when it connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over a few and forfeits the hope of reigning over all. As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of mankind. But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the world, it may be constrained to defend allies whom its interests and not the principle of love have given to it. Or to repel those antagonists, men who are still attached to its own spirit, however opposed they may be to the powers to which it is allied. The church cannot share the temporal power of the state without being the object of a portion of that animosity which the letter excites. The political powers which seem to be most firmly established have frequently no better guarantee for their duration than the opinions of a generation, the interests of the time or the life of an individual. A law may modify that social condition which seems to be most fixed and determinate, and with the social condition everything else must change. The powers of society are more or less fugitive. Like the years which we spend upon the earth, they succeed each other with rapidity, like the fleeting cares of life, and no government has ever yet been founded upon an invariable disposition of the human heart or upon an imperishable interest. As long as a religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities and passions which are found to occur under the same forms at all the different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time, or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when religion clings to the interests of the world, it becomes almost as fragile a thing as the powers of earth. It is the only one of them all which can hope for immortality, but if it be connected with their ephemeral authority, it shares their fortunes and may fall with those transient passions which supported them for a day. The alliance which religion contracts with political powers must needs be onerous to itself, since it does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them its assistance it may be exposed to decay. The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is not always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be imperishable. In others the existence of society appears to be more precarious than a life of man. Some constitutions plunge the citizens into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish excitement. When governments appear to be so strong and laws so stable, men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue from a union of church and state. When governments display so much weakness and laws so much inconstancy, the danger is self-evident, but it is no longer possible to avoid it. To be effectual, measures must be taken to discover its approach. In proportion, as a nation assumes a democratic condition of society and as communities display democratic propensities, it becomes more and more dangerous to connect religion with political institutions. For the time is coming when authority will be bandied from hand to hand, when political theories will succeed each other, and when men, laws and constitutions will disappear or be modified from day to day. And this, not for a season only, but unceasingly. Agitation and mutability are inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just as stagnation and inertness are the law of absolute monarchies. If the Americans, who changed the head of the government once in four years, who elect new legislators every two years and renew the provincial officers every twelve months. If the Americans, who have abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not placed religion beyond their reach where it could abide in the ebb and flow of human opinions, where would that respect which belongs to it be paid amidst the struggles of faction? And what would become of its immortality in the midst of perpetual decay? The American clergy were the first to perceive this truth and to act in conformity with it. They saw that they must renounce their religious influence if they were to strive for political power, and they chose to give up the support of the state rather than to share its vicissitudes. In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at certain periods in the history of certain peoples, but its influence is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own resources, but of those none can deprive it. It circles limited to certain principles, but those principles are entirely its own, and under its undisputed control. On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of the absence of religious faith, and inquiring the means of restoring to religion some remnant of its pristine authority. It seems to me that we must first attentively consider what ought to be the natural state of man with regard to religion at the present time, and when we know what we have to hope and to fear, we may discern the end to which our efforts ought to be directed. The two great dangers which threaten the existence of religions are schism and indifference. In ages of fervent devotion, men sometimes abandon their religion, but they only shake it off in order to adopt another. Their faith changes the objects to which it is directed, but it suffers no decline. The old religion then excites enthusiastic attachment or bitter enmity in either party. Some leave it with anger, others cling to it with increased devotedness, and although persuasions differ, irreligion is unknown. Such, however, is not the case when a religious belief is secretly undermined by doctrines which may be termed negative, since they deny the truth of one religion without affirming that of any other. Prodigious revolutions then take place in the human mind without the apparent cooperation of the passions of man, and almost without his knowledge. Men lose the objects of their fondest hopes as if through forgetfulness. They are carried away by an imperceptible current which they have not the courage to stem, which they follow with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love, and to a skepticism that plunges them into despair. In ages which answer to this description, men desert their religious opinions from lukewarmness rather than from dislike. They do not reject them, but the sentiments by which they were once fostered disappear. But if the unbeliever does not admit religion to be true, he still considers it useful. Regarding religious institutions in a human point of view, he acknowledges their influence upon manners and legislation. He admits that they may serve to make men live in peace with one another, and to prepare them gently for the hour of death. He regrets the faith which he has lost, and as he is deprived of a treasure which he has learned to estimate at its full value, he scruples to take it from those who still possess it. On the other hand, those who continue to believe are not afraid openly to avow their faith. They look upon those who do not share their persuasion as more worthy of pity than of opposition, and they are aware that to acquire the esteem of the unbelieving they are not obliged to follow their example. They are hostile to no one in the world, and as they do not consider the society in which they live as an arena in which religion is bound to face its thousand deadly foes, they love their contemporaries whilst they condemn their weaknesses and lament their errors. As those who do not believe conceal their incredulity, and as those who believe display their faith, public opinion pronounces itself in favour of religion. Love, support and honour are bestowed upon it, and it is only by searching the human soul that we can detect the wounds which it has received. The mass of mankind who are never without the feeling of religion do not perceive anything at variance with the established faith. The instinctive desire of our future life brings the crowd before the altar and opens the hearts of men to the precepts and consolations of religion. But this picture is not applicable to us, for there are men amongst us who have ceased to believe in Christianity without adopting any other religion, others who are in the perplexities of doubt and who already affect not to believe, and others again who are afraid to avow that Christian faith which they still cherish in secret. Amidst these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists, a small number of believers exist who are ready to brave all obstacles and to scorn all dangers in defence of their faith. They have done violence to human weakness in order to rise superior to public opinion. Excited by the effort they have made, they scarcely knew where to stop, and as they know that the first use which the French made of independence was to attack religion, they look upon their contemporaries with dread, and they recoil in alarm from the liberty which their fellow citizens are seeking to obtain. As unbelief appears to them to be a novelty, they comprise all that is new in one indiscriminate animosity. They are at war with their age and country, and they look upon every opinion which is put forth there as the necessary enemy of the faith. Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion at the present day, and some extraordinary or incidental cause must be at work in France to prevent the human mind from following its original propensities and to drive it beyond the limits at which it ought naturally to stop. I am intimately convinced that this extraordinary and incidental cause is the close connection of politics and religion. The unbelievers of Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries. They hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a party much more than as an error of belief, and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the divinity than because they are the allies of authority. In Europe Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decay and it is, as it were, buried under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to the dead corpse of superannuated polity, cut by the bonds which restrain it and that which is alive will rise once more. I know not what could restore the Christian Church of Europe to the energy of its earlier days. That power belongs to God alone, but it may be the effect of human policy to leave the faith in the full exercise with the strength which it still retains. How the instruction, the habits and the practical experience of the Americans promote the success of their democratic institutions? What is to be understood by the instruction of the American people? The human mind more superficially instructed in the United States than Europe. No one completely uninstructed. Reason of this. Rapidity with which opinions are diffused even in the uncultivated states of the West. Practical experience more serviceable to the Americans than book learning. I have but little to add to what I have already said concerning the influence which the instruction and the habits of the Americans exercise upon the maintenance of their political institutions. America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinction. It possesses no great historians and not a single eminent poet. The inhabitants of that country look upon what are properly styled literary pursuits with a kind of disapprobation. And there are towns of very second rate importance in Europe in which more literary works are annually published than in the 24 states of the Union put together. The spirit of the Americans is averse to general ideas and it does not seek theoretical discoveries. Neither politics nor manufacturers direct them to these occupations and although new laws are perpetually enacted in the United States no great writers have hitherto inquired into the general principles of their legislation. The Americans have lawyers and commentators but no jurists and they furnish examples rather than lessons to the world. The same observation applies to the mechanical arts. In America the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagacity. They are perfected and adapted with admirable skill to the ones of the country. Manufacturers exist but the science of manufacture is not cultivated and they have good workmen but very few inventors. Fulton was obliged to proffer his services to foreign nations for a long time before he was able to devote them to his own country. The observer whose desires are forming an opinion on the state of instruction amongst the Anglo-Americans must consider the same object from two different points of view. If he only singles out the learned he will be astonished to find how rare they are. But if he counts the ignorant the American people will appear to be the most enlightened community in the world. The whole population as I observed in another place is situated between these two extremes. In New England every citizen receives the elementary notions of human knowledge. He is moreover taught the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history of his country and the leading features of its constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon. When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American states the manuscript libraries of the former and their rude population with the innumerable journals and the enlightened people of the letter. When I remember all the attempts which are made to judge the modern republics by the assistance of those of antiquity and to infer what will happen in our time from what took place 2,000 years ago I am tempted to burn my books in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a condition of society. What I have said of New England must not however be applied indistinctly to the whole union as we advance towards the west of the south the instruction of the people diminishes. In the states which are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico a certain number of individuals may be found as in our own countries who are devoid of the rudiments of instruction but there is not a single district in the United States sunk in complete ignorance and for a very simple reason. The peoples of Europe started from the darkness of a barbarous condition to advance towards the light of civilization. Their progress has been unequal. Some of them have improved the pace whilst others have loitered in their cause and some have stopped and are still sleeping upon the way. Such has not been the case in the United States. The Anglo-Americans settled in a state of civilization upon that territory which their descendants occupy. They had not to begin to learn and it was sufficient for them not to forget. Now the children of these same Americans are the persons who year by year transport their dwellings into the wilds and with their dwellings they are acquired information and they are esteemed for knowledge. Education has taught them the utility of instruction and has enabled them to transmit that instruction to their posterity. In the United States society has no infancy but it is born in men's estate. The Americans never use the word peasant because they have no idea of the peculiar class which that term denotes. The ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved amongst them and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the cause habits and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization. At the extreme borders of the Confederate States upon the confines of society and of the wilderness a population of bold adventurers have taken up their abode who pierce the solitudes of the American woods and seek a country there in order to escape that poverty which awaited them in their native provinces. As soon as the pioneer arrives upon the spot which is to serve him for a retreat he fells a few trees and builds a log house. Nothing can offer a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveler who approaches one of them towards Nightfall sees the flicker of the hearth flame through the chinks in the walls and at night if the wind rises hears the roof of boughs shake to and fro in the midst of their great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this poor hut is the asylum of rudeness and ignorance? Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneer and the dwelling which shelters him. Everything about him is primitive and informed but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of 18 centuries. He wears the dress and he speaks the language of cities. He is acquainted with the past, curious of the future and ready for argument upon the present. He is, in short, a highly civilized being who consents for a time to inhabit the backwoods and who penetrates into the wilds of the new world with a Bible, an axe and a file of newspapers. It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which public opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts. I do not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the most enlightened and populous districts of France. It cannot be doubted that in the United States the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic and such must always be the case I believe where instruction which awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart. But I by no means exaggerate this benefit and I am still further from thinking as so many people do think in Europe that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write. True information is mainly derived from experience and if the Americans had not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves their book learning would not assist them much at the present day. I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States and I cannot express how much I admire their experience and their good sense. An American should never be allowed to speak of Europe for he will then probably display a vast deal of presumption and very foolish pride. He will take up with those crude and vague notions which are so useful to the ignorant all over the world. But if you question him respecting his own country the cloud which dimmed his intelligence will immediately disperse. His language will become as clear and as precise as his thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are and by what means he exercises them. He will be able to point out the customs which obtain in the political world. You will find that he is well acquainted with the rules of the administration and that he is familiar with the mechanism of the laws. The citizen of the United States does not acquire his practical science and his positive notions from books. The instruction he has acquired may have prepared him for receiving those ideas but it did not furnish them. The American learns to know the laws by participating in the act of legislation and he takes a lesson in the forms of government from governing. The great work of society is ever going on beneath his eyes and as it were under his hands. In the United States politics are the end and aim of education. In Europe its principal object is to fit men for private life. The interference of the citizens in public affairs is too rare an occurrence for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a glance over society in the two hemispheres these differences are indicated even by its external aspect. In Europe we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of private life into public affairs and as we pass at once from the domestic circle to the government of the state we may frequently be heard to discuss the great interests of society in the same manner in which we converse with our friends. The Americans on the other hand transfuse the habits of public life into their manners in private and in their country the jury is introduced into the games of schoolboys and parliamentary forms are observed in the order of a feast. End of chapter 17 part 3