 The national broadcasting company in conjunction with the Fund for Adult Education presents Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. In an age of equality, faith in public opinion becomes a kind of religion, and the majority is its ministering prophet. Opinion is more than ever mistress of the world. There is here matter for profound reflection to those who look on freedom of thought as a holy thing and who hate not only the tyrant but tyranny itself. For myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but little to know who oppresses me, and I am not the more disposed to pass beneath the yoke because it is held out to me by a million men. The tyranny of the majority. A study in American freedom, item nine in the series Democracy in America, prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University under the direction of George Proast, American historian. A series designed to bring to life the America of the 1830s as recorded by Alexis de Tocqueville and so to illuminate the image of democracy itself. A study in American freedom, the tyranny of the majority. My friend, Beaumont and I visited America in 1831. We watched many things together. We saw for ourselves the principles of democracy and equality and everywhere we went, we were welcome. Now, gentlemen, you've been over here how long? Several months. All right. How do you like America? Beaumont? Really, Doc? Speak frankly, gentlemen. This is a young country. We're just getting started. We want to know what visitors think of us. We don't see many foreigners here, you know, of the 13 million people in America. Only 400,000 are foreigners. Only about 25,000 a year come over and this is a big country. Well, I think America is a most remarkable country. A most remarkable country. That's what we like to hear on a stalk straight from the shoulder. A most remarkable country. Look, go on, sir. We admire the enormous progress you have made. Progress in what? Be frank. Don't hold anything back. In everything, in developing your cities, in taming the wilderness, you are a most industrious nation. And successful. And very successful. That's what we want to hear straight from the shoulder. Don't you think our women are wonderful? Superb. And as virtuous as they are beautiful. Mr Beaumont, it's a pleasure to talk to you. Have you read any American books? Yes. Beaumont. What do you think of them? Truthfully now? Truthfully. I think they are the right people. Do you think they're truthful? Mr Beaumont, our American authors are the finest in the world. I beg leave to define even your own phonemort. There's no difference possible. You're from France. You haven't had a chance to develop your taste likely. When you do, and I hope for your sake, it will be pretty soon, you'll recognize that American literature, like everything else American, is unequaled in the world. And if the disadvantages of your taste and upbringing don't permit you to appreciate America, she truly is. I then suggest gentlemen that you'll be happier and we'll be happier if you go back home where you came from. Dr Beaumont, what did I do? You spoke frankly Beaumont. He asked me too. Besides, I praised America extravagantly. Any criticism is too much. You see, an American takes part in everything that's done in his country, so he feels obliged to defend everything. You're not only attacking his country, you're attacking the man himself. It makes life embarrassing, this irritable patriotism. It's so odd because America is in many ways such a free country. A free country in which, lest anybody should be hurt by your remarks, you are not allowed to speak freely of private individuals, or of the state, of the citizens, or of the authorities, of public or of private undertakings. This is a country which lives under a tyranny. A tyranny? Tocqueville, are you serious? The tyranny of the majority. The tyranny of the majority, what do you mean? Do you remember the conversation we had in Boston with that gentleman who was the editor of the North American Review? Mr Jared Sparks. Our whole system from top to bottom is one of a vowed distrust of public men. Every art is used on principle to complicate machinery of electioneering, to scatter the conflicting motives so that every man shall act more or less as a check on his neighbor. We think every man is as good as his neighbor. We believe in individual judgment, individual conscience. But why? It comes from our very origin. We came here in the beginning, Republicans and religious enthusiasts. To establish the ideal commonwealth. Yes. The majority has all power then. Yes. The political dogma of this country is that the majority is always right. The majority may make mistakes in some matters, but on the whole it is always right. And there is no moral force superior to it. And do you consider this wise? In general, Mr Tocqueville, we find it very good to have adopted it. But I will admit that the theory does not always work in practice. It is incontestable that the people frequently conduct public business very badly. And occasionally the majority wishes to oppress the minority. Have you no protection against this? We have in the veto of the governor and above all in the power that the judges have to refuse to execute an unconstitutional law, a guarantee against the passions and the errors of the masses in an unlimited democracy. But these are only a small guarantee against the tyranny of the majority. In my opinion, Beaumont, when a citizen of a democratic country compares himself individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the equal of any one of them. But when he comes to survey the totality of his fellows and to place himself in contrast with so huge a body, he is instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance. The public therefore among a democratic people has a singular power, for it does not persuade others to its beliefs, but it imposes on them by a sort of enormous pressure of the mind of all upon the mind of each. That's what I mean by the tyranny of the majority. This is absurd, Tocqueville. Andrew Jackson says, one man with courage makes a majority. The whole foundation of America is based on opposition to tyranny. Remember the words of the Declaration of Independence. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing it variably the same object, invinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. But when an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for interest? To public opinion. Public opinion constitutes the majority. Then to the legislature. The legislature represents the majority and implicitly obeys it. Then to the executive. Appointed by the majority. All this is true, Tocqueville, but you do not allow for the spirit of the American people. This country is always on the watch for tyranny. At this very beginning, it was saluted by Thomas Paine for its contrast to the tyrannies of Europe. Oh ye that love mankind, ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant. Stand forth. Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom has been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her as a stranger and England has given her warning to depart. Oh receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind. How can you say that this country has submitted itself to a political tyranny? Everybody here says this is a free country. The customs of America are against tyranny, as Senator Gray told us in Boston. In a habit of treating all affairs by discussion and of proceeding in all affairs, even the smallest by means of majorities, that habit is harder to acquire than all the others. Yet it's the only one which makes governments really free. It's this 200-year-old habit which distinguishes New England not only from all the countries of Europe, but even from the other parts of America. When our children never go to their master to settle their differences, they regulate everything among themselves. I have no doubt that every man in Boston has a more truly parliamentary spirit and is more accustomed to public discussions than the majority of Europe's legislators. I still say thought and opinion are particularly under the power of the majority. As long as the majority is still undecided, discussion is carried on, but as soon as its decision is irrevocably pronounced, everyone is silent, and the opponents, as well as the friends of the major, unite in ascending to its propriety. I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. How can you say a thing like that? Like the publication of books, there is complete freedom of the press with no censorship of books. Boom! You are the one who complains about American literature. The quality, not the freedom. The two are connected. There can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion does not exist in America. For example. For example, in America, the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion. Within these barriers, an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them. Before making public his opinions, he thought he had sympathizers. Now it seems to him that he has none anymore, since he has revealed himself to everyone. There are those who blame him, criticize loudly, and those who think as he does, keep quiet and move away without courage. He yields that length, overcome by the daily effort which he has to make, and subsides into silence as if he fell to remorse for having spoken the truth. No writer, whatever his eminence, can escape paying the tribute of adulation to his fellow citizens. The majority lives in the perpetual utterance of self-appluse, and there are certain truths which the Americans can learn only from strangers, or from experience. But to do them credit, Beaumont, intelligent Americans are aware of this. Fisher aims, as said. In democracies, writers will be more afraid of the people than for them. And the greatest American author of the day, James Fanny-Mor Cooper. The tendency of democracies is in all things to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal. This circumstance, while it certainly serves to elevate the average qualities of a nation, renders the introduction of a high standard difficult. Thus do we find, in literature, the arts, architecture, and in all acquired knowledge, mediocrity in America to gravitate towards the common center in this as in other things, lending a value and estimation to mediocrity that are not elsewhere given. Mediocrity, yes. But Cooper says nothing about this despotism of yours. No, listen to him, Beaumont. The public is to be watched in this country as in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched. But Tocqueville, even while Fanny-Mor Cooper was saying that, the distinguished American historian, George Bancroft, was proclaiming the American faith. True political science does indeed venerate the masses. The people can discern right. Individuals claim the divine sanction of truth for the deceitful conceptions of their own fancies. The spirit of God breathes through the combined intelligence of the people. And many more Americans agree with George Bancroft than with Fanny-Mor Cooper. Beaumont, you are as bad as they are. This is exactly what I mean. In America, most people believe that the majority can do no wrong. And that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a number of men united than in a single individual. No, I cannot accept it. This may sometimes be true, Tocqueville. Sometimes certainly, even perhaps usually, but certainly not always. And yet the idea that the majority has not only superior power, but superior intelligence governs even the minor incidents of social life. Matters have come to such a pass that a peaceable man can hardly venture to eat or drink or to go to bed or to get up to correct his children or to kiss his wife without obtaining the permission and direction of some society. Remember, Beaumont, how you discovered for yourself in Boston the iron rip of public opinion on the manners of society. Listen to that. Well, you know, she does her best. But how is it possible to enjoy such singing as this? There is neither simplicity nor taste, neither feeling nor execution in her performance. The Lord say, don't say that loud enough for other people to hear you. It would deprive you, Mr. Beaumont, of many an innocent pleasure you would perhaps otherwise enjoy during your stay in the city. Our elite never forgive a difference of opinion to one of their own clique. How much more then must a foreigner be on his guard? You'll forgive me. In society, this is a free country, sir. Every man may do or think what he pleases. Only, he must not let other people know it. You might just as well attack one of our fashionable preachers. This sort of tyranny I admit and the Americans admit it too? Or at least some of the Bostonians do. Our society takes it upon itself to punish political, moral and religious dissenters. But most of its wrath is spent upon the champions of democracy. That society is the means of seducing our unsophisticated country members of the legislature, making them believe that republicanism is only fit for back woodsmen is a fact too notorious to be mentioned. What man is there in this city that dares to be independent? At the risk of being considered bad company? We take it as an insult offered to our own joint judgment when a man stubbornly follows his own mind or we are accustomed to everything except seeing a man not influenced by the opinion of his neighbors. As you express it, sir, it seems remarkable. Remarkable. It's dangerous. Dangerous? But this does not apply in political life. Here you are protected. How? Because every man is entitled to one vote. My dear sir, you don't grasp the situation. We have frequent elections. That means the majority becomes jury, judge, legislator and governor. You dare not act as you please in your own house. You dare not educate your children in your own way. You dare not express a wish of your own, but what you have to dread to be exposed in public and have your name paraded in the newspapers. What we face is the despotism of the majority. I do not believe enough precautions have been taken in America to limit the power of the majority. A majority taken collectively is only an individual whose opinions and interests are opposed to those of another individual who is styled a minority. If a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another. The power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them. Are you saying, Tocqueville, that there is frequent use of tyranny in America now in the 1830s? No, but I maintain there is no sure barrier against it. I think the kind of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything that ever before existed in the world. You see, every man allows himself to be put in leading strings because he sees that it is the people at large who hold the end of the chain. Their body is willing to recognize the rights of the majority because they all hope at some time to become the majority. The majority in America, therefore, exercise a prodigious, actual authority and a power of opinion which is nearly as great. This state of things is dangerous for the future. And notice, Beaumont, the power of public opinion in the field of religion. The other day a tailor sold a suit of clothes to a sailor a few moments before he sailed, which was on a Sunday morning. The corporation of New York prosecuted the tailor for violating the Sabbath and he was convicted and sentenced to a fine greatly beyond his means to pay. A New York lawyer defended him with much eloquence but in vain. This lawyer's powerful speech, however, was not without effect for it raised him such a host of Presbyterian enemies as suffice to destroy his own practice. So was this all? His nephew was at the time preparing for the bar and soon after the above circumstance occurred, his certificates were presented and refused with this declaration. That no man of that name and family should be admitted. Remember what we were told by Father Power, the vicar of the Catholic Church in New York. I should say myself that very often men seem to act as if the worship of opinion was the established religion of the country. Not the worship of wealth. Oh, I'll admit that every man works for wealth in America and not quite every man does so in the old countries. All the same it doesn't seem to me that wealth is quite as important as an idol, a snare, a deception as this other thing. The worship of public opinion is the leading heresy around here, in my humble opinion. And the same thing was put from a different point of view by the physician we spoke to in Maryland, Dr. Stewart. Public opinion accomplishes with us what the inquisition was never able to do. I have seen, I have known, a multitude of young men who after receiving a scientific education thought they had discovered that the Christian religion was not true. Carried away by the fire of youth, they began to maintain this opinion openly. They became indignant, the intolerance of the zealous Christians and placed themselves in a position of open hostility. Well, some were obliged to leave the country or to vegetate there miserably. The others, feeling that the struggle was unequal, were constrained to return outwardly into the ways of religion or at least keep their mouths shut. The number of those thus beaten by public opinion is very considerable. Ah, Derry's always the escape to the west. Remember the song we heard in the Michigan Territory? And there's the land of blue laws where deacons cut their hair or fear their locks and tenets will not exactly square when beer that works on Sunday, a penalty must pay while all is free and easy in Michigan. Come go with me and settle in Michigan. Yeah, yeah, in Michigan. But in Pennsylvania, I said, explain to me how it happens that in a state founded by Quakers and celebrated for its toleration, free Negroes are not allowed to exercise civil rights. They pay taxes. Is it not fair that they should vote? You insult us, Mr. Tocqueville, if you imagine that our legislators could have committed so gross an act of injustice and intolerance. Then the Negroes possess the right of voting in this country. Without a doubt, sir. How comes it then that at the polling booth this morning I did not perceive a single Negro? Well, sir, that's certainly not the fault of the law. The Negroes have an undisputed right of voting, but they voluntarily abstain from making their appearance. A very pretty piece of modesty on their part. Why, the truth is, sir, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they're afraid of being maltreated. What? In this country, sir, the law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority without the support of the majority. But in this case, the majority entertains very strong prejudices against the Negroes. And the government officials are unable to protect them in the exercise of their legal rights. Then the majority glimpsed the right not only of making the laws, but of breaking the laws it has itself made. I see. As Jefferson says, the inquisition of public opinion overwhelms in practice the freedom asserted in theory by the laws. And Ralph Waldo Emerson. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. The virtue in most request is conformity. Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. Nothing is ultimately sacred, but the integrity of your own mind. These are not the views of strangers and foreigners. They are the views of the Americans themselves. But talk real, the Americans resist this tyranny of the majority by voluntary associations. That's true. Just think of all those associations we have found here and the reformers we have met. They fight for minority views and personal rights. And the majority is sometimes defeated by energetic minority agitation. No, the feeling in America is not that the will of the majority is a tyranny. In general, Americans agree with George Bancroft. The best government rests on the people and not on the fume, on the free development of public opinion and not on authority. Because God has conferred the gifts of mind upon every member of the human race. Truth is not to be ascertained by the impulses of an individual. Truth emerges from the contradictions of personal opinions. Truth acknowledges neither the solitary mind nor the separate faction as its oracle, but owns as its only faithful interpreter the dictates of pure reason itself, proclaimed by the general voice of mankind. Thus, the opinion which we respect is indeed not the opinion of one or of a few, but the sagacity of the many. In an age of equality, the majority always commands belief. Faith in the majority is itself a kind of religion. But although I fear the tyranny of the majority in America and although I warn against it, I remain hopeful. Despotism seems to me particularly to be dreaded in democratic times. I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times. But in a time in which we live, I am ready to worship it. But the men who live in democratic ages have naturally a taste for independence. They are naturally impatient of regulation. For a long time, these feelings should prevent the establishment of any despotism. And they will furnish fresh weapons to each succeeding generation that struggles in favor of the liberty of mankind. Let us then look forward to the future, not with that faint and idle terror which depresses and enervates the heart, but with that salutary fear that makes men keep watch and ward for freedom. You have just heard the tyranny of the majority, a study in American freedom, item nine in a series based on Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. This series, presented by the National Broadcasting Company, was prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University under the direction of George Probst, American historian, produced in the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by Andrew Allen, script by Lister Sinclair, music by Lucio Agostini. This series, Democracy in America, is made possible by a grant from the Fund for Adult Education as part of a general course of study of the nature of American society. These new Tocqueville study materials, including Tocqueville's two volume work, an album of the recordings, the text of the dramatizations, a newly published book, The Happy Republic, containing writings from the 1830s, and a discussion and reading guide may be obtained from the American Foundation for Continuing Education at a reasonable charge for information right to American Foundation for Continuing Education, Post Office Box 749, Chicago Nightie, Illinois. Now this is Ben Grower inviting you to listen next week to Common Sense and Moonshine, item 10 on Democracy in America. Keep an ear to the world around you. Tune to NBC Radio.