 The National Broadcasting Company in conjunction with the Fund for Adult Education presents Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. Human societies, like people, become worthwhile only through their use of liberty. Providence has not created mankind entirely independent or entirely free. It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond which he cannot pass. But within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free. As it is with men, so it is with communities. The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal. But it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to freedom or servitude, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness. These precious premises. A study in political optimism, item 14 in the series Democracy in America, prepared by the Division of General Education of New York University under the direction of George Probst, 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 political optimism. These precious premises. Midnight. Midnight. December the 2nd, 1851. Twenty years after Tocqueville visited America. And this city, sleeping in the winter night, is Paris, still ancient and disordered. Her great squares and boulevards still unbuilt. But the man who is to build them is behind that lamplit window, working at his desk. He is short and unimpressive. He wears a large mustache and a small beard. He has a big nose and little eyes. He has a sort of immobility of features as he sits quietly with his head on one side. He has a good-natured smile, although one of his friends once caught him with a tiger-like expression that frightened her speechless, but never mind, he conquered himself in the instant and was kind again. Look at him carefully. Remember him well. He is the president of the Republic of France, and he is contriving schemes to appeal to the people of France to elect him their emperor in a thoroughly democratic plebiscite. The tendency to be elected emperor evidently runs in the family, for this man's name is Char-Louis-Napollion Bonaparte, and he is the nephew of the great Napoleon. The 2nd of December, the most glorious day in the history of Imperial France. On the 2nd of December, 1806, Napoleon the uncle won his greatest victory on the field of Austerlitz. His enemies were Austria and Russia. But Louis-Napollion the nephew is not without his victories, or on the 2nd of December 1851, Louis-Napollion has won his greatest victory, and his enemies were the laws and the liberty of France. Midnight in Paris, on the anniversary of Austerlitz. Leave the lighted window behind which President Louis-Napollion schemes for the imperial crown. Cross this still medieval city to this building, also showing some lights. Armed sentries outside show that there are valuables inside. These are the members of the Chamber of Deputies, the freely elected representatives of France. There behind that window is the Vice President of the Assembly of France, Alexis-Charles-Henry-Marie-Sclarelle-Conte-Tochville. But this great building, full of deputies, is not the legislative chamber. It is a jail. The deputies of France are in prison, and the President has put them there. All quiet. You're late. Did none of them make any fuss? No. These are the members of the Chamber of Deputies. But of deputies, they're not the kind of people that make a fuss in prison. They're above all that sort of thing. Someone down the corridor has got the candle-burning still. Oh, that one. That's Laconte-Tochville. He's the one that went to America and brought back a lot of American ideas about prisons, solitary cells. Well, I hope he likes it. Give him a taste of his own medicine. That'll teach him to plot against our government. See you tomorrow morning. Right. You shouldn't have any trouble. These aren't your ordinary jailbirds, remember? Good night. Good night. To us who come later, this is an old story, the coup d'etat, power in the hands of the saviour and liberator of the country. The elected representatives accused of plotting against the President, against the Constitution, against liberty, against anything you please, so long as the dictator gets his vote. For always, we have seen the plebiscites, the referendums, the spontaneous 99% votes, despotism purified by the trappings of democracy. Tochville looks across vast sleeping Paris and thinks of Louis-Napoléon, elected President, by 5.5 million votes to 1.5 million, and within a year to be elected Emperor Napoleon III by an even greater majority. Tochville stares at France, voting away her freedom, and remembers his words of a few years before. Nowadays, men have two conflicting passions. They want to be free, but they want to be led. They try to have both at once. They devise a government that is paternal and all-powerful, but it is elected by the people. This gives them a respite. After an election, they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. By this system, the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master and then fall back into it again. Oh, I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live, I am ready to worship it. Busy at his desk, Louis-Napoléon is thinking too, those honeyed words that we who come later have heard so many times in so many places, in so many languages, under flags and shirts of every imaginable color. In 1851, it's Louis-Napoléon's turn. People of France, I am your deputy and your leader. Make me your overlord and I will rule for your good and in your name. I do not need the leaders, but I must have the people. As the Emperor used to say, men who have changed the universe have never succeeded by converting the leaders, but always by influencing the masses. We have had in France in the last 40 years every form of anarchy and despotism, but never anything resembling a democratic republic. Well, we scarcely believe ourselves worthy of the freedom enjoyed by other nations. After all, political liberty is a food hard to digest, only the most robust constitutions can support it. But when it comes, even mixed with other institutions, it gives the whole social body a vigor and energy that surprise even those who are expecting the most from it. For after all, the sleeping city, the sleeping country, the world itself is not populated with either animals or angels, but men, a mixture of both. And Tocqueville is always prepared to take them not as they ought to be, but as they are. Men in general are neither very good nor very bad, but average. Since we haven't got angels, we cannot touch ourselves to nothing greater and more worthy of our devotion than our own kind. And therefore, there is but one great goal that merits the efforts of man, that is the good of humanity. Those who do not trust the human race think differently, and we who come later know their denunciations so well. They are all traitors but me. I am the only man you can trust. I tell you so myself. The new despotism born of democracy must have its votes. Everything must be done legally. Everything must be sanctioned by a vote, a plebiscite, a referendum. Then the road is clear. We who come later recognize the now familiar picture of the strong man pretending to be led by the people. Well, sir, I saw your light still burning. Yes, I have been writing. Well, we've got no orders to stop you doing that. I hope not. If you behave yourselves, I shouldn't be surprised if you gentlemen are not let out again tomorrow. The president just wants to teach you a lesson, you know. Louis Napoléon wants to teach all of us a lesson. You're the one that visited America, aren't you? Michel de Comte de Tauqueville? Yes, I visited America 20 years ago. Louis Napoléon went to America, too. I know. Just after I was there. I wonder if he thought the same as you did. Evidently not. Louis Napoléon wishes to govern us all himself. But I saw how America presents for the solution of this great question of freedom some very precious premises. They have faith in human perfectability. Each man regards himself as interested in public security and in the functioning of the laws. Instead of counting on the police, he counts only on himself. In America, public force is everywhere, but it never shows itself. The republic is everywhere, in the streets as well as in the Congress. That seems hard to believe. It is hard to believe, I assure you, how the American people keeps itself in order through the single conviction that its only safeguard against itself lies in itself. Is this the sort of thing you deputies were trying to suggest for us? Not at all. The simple and logical institutions of America would not suit a great nation like this, which needs a strong internal government and a fixed foreign policy. A people to be republican must be poised, religious and very enlightened. American democracy demands of the people who adopt it a long practice in freedom and a massive true enlightenment that is only acquired rarely and after a long time. All the same, it's a fine thing. And I am very sorry that the moral and physical constitution of man forbids him to obtain it everywhere and for always. Do you want this sort of democracy in France? Alas, in France there is more genius than common sense and more heroism than virtue. I'm afraid American democracy is not easy to transplant. So far, it has combined equality and liberty. And these two things do not always go together. Well, Louis-Napoleon, sir America, and evidently he didn't like it. I'm tired of all this talk about democracy and liberty. I want to see a strong government and the country great again. I'd like to see a second empire. Louis-Napoleon will give us back authority. He'll give us back national morality. Give us back authority? Can you believe for a moment that to use the means that have been used and to do what has been done will give us back authority? Don't you see that he's destroying all authority except his own? Do you believe that you can give back morality by giving the world the most luring example of trickery, violence and perjury? Triumphing in the acclamation rested by fear from the educated and respectable people? He doesn't make me afraid either. He doesn't make me afraid either, but he's trying to. That is why we are getting a little taste of jail and national morality. Do you think that will be established by violating all the laws? On the side of the country's best men in prison vans? Simply for the crime of having been faithful to their commissions and to the laws of their country? I see you deputies in prison, but you aren't the country's best men. You elected us. You chose us. If we are not, the fault is yours. You blame the voters. I blame the deputies. You wait and see who we vote for next, Michel Aconte de Tocqueville. It will be Louis-Napoleon, the second empire. Good night, sir. And consider yourself very lucky to get off with nothing but a warning. It is hopeless. The French peasant has never understood the working of free institutions. Perhaps I should go and do exile. Perhaps back to America, where I first saw equality and democracy at work. America. Twenty years ago, I set foot on those far-off shores. Even then, I foresaw democracy for the whole world. Equality without limits. I knew that France would stomach it very badly, but I was sure we would be pushed into it. All the efforts to halt it were only temporary. The progress of equality is a fact which a government can regulate. Yes, but it cannot stop. And many Frenchmen want absolute equality under one man, which is not liberty, nor it may be democracy. Another visitor at this time of night. Good night, sir. Or rather, good morning. Good morning, Monsieur Laconte de Tocqueville. May I have the honor? I am a captain in the army. I am in charge of the garrison. I am ordered to ask if there is anything you need. Only liberty. Liberty. I think you will be released tomorrow. One day is not much hardship. One day? Will the assembly ever meet again under Louis-Napoleon? I hope not. You hope not? France is tired of Tocque. We need a strong man. You know, Monsieur Laconte, I was a drummer boy at Austerlitz under the emperor. Liberty has poisoned the world. I want to see our country great. I want glory. Do you not fear despotism? No. Even despots don't deny the value of liberty, but they want to keep it all to themselves. They say the rest of us are unworthy of it. Perhaps we are. Perhaps. But the difference between a despot and myself is not in our opinion of liberty, but in our judgment of mankind. We have equality and democracy. When we have glory as well, there will be no further chatter about liberty. Even you, Monsieur Laconte, will be content. You will have order and peace instead. No, sir. I shall always love liberty. And I am not one of those who are ready to sell free will and our laws for the sake of sleeping safely in their beds. There are enough of them already. But I dare to prophesy that they will never accomplish anything great or durable. I long to see liberty in all the political institutions of my country. But at the same time, I respect justice. I love order and law. I have so deep and so reasonable an attachment for morality and religious beliefs that I cannot but believe that people will see plainly in me a liberal of a new kind and will not confuse me with the majority of Democrats of our day. Are you too good even for your own party, Monsieur Laconte? No, Captain. But I know that the upper classes are distrustful of liberty. The lower classes inclined to license. That is France. I saw the glory of Austerlitz. Louis Napoleon acted yesterday on the anniversary of Austerlitz. That is enough for me. That is all the liberty I need. Frankly, I don't understand why you have this exaggerated affection for what is after all only a convenience. Possibly you acquired it in America. The love of liberty? It was because I love liberty that I went to America to see if it would be destroyed by democracy and equality. And your conclusion? Not necessarily. Then perhaps you love liberty because you have read too many books. Captain, many men have loved liberty. Still, you have asked a good question and I have often asked myself what is the source of that passion for political freedom which in all ages has been the fruitful mother of the greatest things which mankind has achieved? It's evident you see that when nations are badly run they readily conceive the wish to govern themselves. But a love of independence which only springs up under the influence of the evils produced by despotism is never lasting. Why not? It passes away with the accident that gives rise to it. What seems to be the love of freedom is only the hatred of a master. Men love freedom because they think it will bring them advantages. It is very true in the long run that freedom always brings to those who know how to keep it ease, comfort and even wealth. But there are times at which it disturbs for a season the possession of those blessings. There are other times when despotism alone can confer their enjoyment, even though it may be passing. Then let us have despotism. The world does not frighten me. Some even call the emperor despot. But don't you feel a love of liberty for herself alone? This is what I am trying to say. Freedom has native charms, independent of her gifts. What? The pleasure, the very great pleasure of speaking, acting and breathing without restraint and of no master but God and the law. He who seeks in freedom anything but herself is only fit to serve. You follow nothing but our words. And many have done so. There are whole nations who have pursued freedom through every sort of peril and hardship. They didn't love her for her material gifts. They regard freedom herself as a gift so precious and so necessary that no other could console them for the loss of that which consoles them for the loss of everything else. In your case, Monsieur Lecombe, your taste for freedom is undisciplined and unwise and unpatriotic. I do not understand it. Thank God for Louis Napoléon. Well, Captain, I can't explain further if you really don't feel the sentiment. The love of freedom enters of its own accord into the large hearts God has prepared to receive it. It fills them. It enraptures them. But to minds which have never felt it, it is past finding hours. I am glad I have never felt it. I am an autocrat and whom I can rely to the follies and uncertainties of freedom. You remind me once again, Captain, that it is very easy to establish a despotism when the conditions of society are equal. And I think that if such a government is established, it will not only oppress men, but strip them of the highest quality of humanity. If there is nothing I can do for you within the terms of my duty, I bid you good night. Good morning, Captain. It is a winter night, but the day will be breaking soon enough. I will not despair. All these people who trust in strong men, who trust in these special despots that democracy brings forth, all these people treat other people as if they were overgrown children, very degenerate and very ill-educated. I think that people today have been badly brought up, but the remedy is to bring them up better. We can't do something with our fellow men today through unable appeal to their decency and common sense, in short, by treating them as human beings. I may be wrong, but I follow my principles and I delight to follow them. Human societies, like people, become worthwhile only through their use of liberty. No. I shall not believe that this human race, which is at the head of all visible creation, has become that bastardized flock of sheep that some think it is and that nothing remains but to deliver it without future and without hope to a small number of shepherds who, after all, are not better animals than we, the human sheep, and who indeed are often worse. I have less confidence in the prophets of gloom than in the goodness and the justice of God. It would seem as if the rulers of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great. I wish that they would try a little more to make great men, that they would set less value on the work and more upon the workman. I am full of apprehensions and hopes, but I cling with a firmer hold to the belief that for democratic nations to be virtuous and prosperous, they require but to will it. I am aware that many people maintain that nations are never their own masters here below and that they obey with absolute necessity some insurmountable and unintelligible power arising from previous events, from their own race, or from the soil and climate of their country. Such principles are false and cowardly. Such principles can never produce anything but feeble men and faint-hearted nations. Providence has not created mankind entirely independent or entirely free. It is true that around every man a fatal circle is traced beyond which she cannot pass. But within the wide verge of that circle she is powerful and free. As it is with men, so it is with communities. The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal but it depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to lead them to freedom or servitude, to knowledge or barbarism, to prosperity or wretchedness. You have just heard these precious premises, a study in political optimism, item 14, the final in the 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 de Tocqueville study materials, including de Tocqueville's two-volume work, an album of the recordings, a recently 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, write to American Foundation for Continuing Education, Post Office Box 749, Chicago 90, Illinois. This is Ben Grower. Tonight's program brings to a close and is a presentation of the NBC Radio Network. This is NBC, the largest single source of news and information in the free world.