American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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Several causes may be assigned to this phenomenon. It is impossible,
notwithstanding the most strenuous exertions, to raise the intelligence
of the people above a certain level. Whatever may be the facilities of
acquiring information, whatever may be the profusion of easy methods and
of cheap science, the human mind can never be instructed and educated
without devoting a considerable space of time to those objects.

The greater or the lesser possibility of subsisting without labor is
therefore the necessary boundary of intellectual improvement. This
boundary is more remote in some countries, and more restricted in
others; but it must exist somewhere as long as the people is constrained
to work in order to procure the means of physical subsistence, that is
to say, as long as it retains its popular character. It is therefore
quite as difficult to imagine a state in which all the citizens should
be very well-informed, as a state in which they should all be wealthy;
these two difficulties may be looked upon as correlative. It may very
readily be admitted that the mass of the citizens are sincerely disposed
to promote the welfare of their country; nay more, it may even be
allowed that the lower classes are less apt to be swayed by
considerations of personal interest than the higher orders; but it is
always more or less impossible for them to discern the best means of
attaining the end, which they desire with sincerity. Long and patient
observation, joined to a multitude of different notions, is required to
form a just estimate of the character of a single individual; and can it
be supposed that the vulgar have the power of succeeding in an inquiry
which misleads the penetration of genius itself? The people has neither
the time nor the means which are essential to the prosecution of an
investigation of this kind; its conclusions are hastily formed from a
superficial inspection of the more prominent features of a question.
Hence it often assents to the clamor of a mountebank, who knows the
secret of stimulating its tastes; while its truest friends frequently
fail in their exertions.

Moreover, the democracy is not only deficient in that soundness of
judgment which is necessary to select men really deserving of its
confidence, but it has neither the desire nor the inclination to find
them out. It cannot be denied that democratic institutions have a very
strong tendency to promote the feeling of envy in the human heart; not
so much because they afford to every one the means of rising to the
level of any of his fellow-citizens, as because those means perpetually
disappoint the persons who employ them. Democratic institutions awaken
and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy.
This complete equality eludes the grasp of the people at the very moment
when it thinks to hold it fast, and "flies," as Pascal says, "with
eternal flight;" the people is excited in the pursuit of an advantage,
which is the more precious because it is not sufficiently remote to be
unknown, or sufficiently near to be enjoyed. The lower orders are
agitated by the chance of success, they are irritated by its
uncertainty; and they pass from the enthusiasm of pursuit to the
exhaustion of ill-success, and lastly to the acrimony of disappointment.
Whatever transcends their own limits appears to be an obstacle to their
desires, and there is no kind of superiority, however legitimate it may
be, which is not irksome in their sight.

It has been supposed that the secret instinct, which leads the lower
orders to remove their superiors as much as possible from the direction
of public affairs, is peculiar to France. This, however, is an error;
the propensity to which I allude is not inherent in any particular
nation, but in democratic institutions in general; and although it may
have been heightened by peculiar political circumstances, it owes its
origin to a higher cause.

In the United States, the people is not disposed to hate the superior
class of society; but it is not very favorably inclined toward them, and
it carefully excludes them from the exercise of authority. It does not
entertain any dread of distinguished talents, but it is rarely
captivated by them; and it awards its approbation very sparingly to such
as have risen without the popular support.

While the natural propensities of democracy induce the people to reject
the most distinguished citizens as its rulers, these individuals are no
less apt to retire from a political career, in which it is almost
impossible to retain their independence, or to advance without degrading
themselves. This opinion has been very candidly set forth by Chancellor
Kent, who says, in speaking with great eulogium of that part of the
constitution which empowers the executive to nominate the judges: "It is
indeed probable that the men who are best fitted to discharge the duties
of this high office would have too much reserve in their manners, and
too much austerity in their principles, for them to be returned by the
majority at an election where universal suffrage is adopted." Such were
the opinions which were printed without contradiction in America in the
year 1830.

I hold it to be sufficiently demonstrated, that universal suffrage is by
no means a guarantee of the wisdom of the popular choice; and that
whatever its advantages may be, this is not one of them.

* * * * *

CAUSES WHICH MAY PARTLY CORRECT THESE TENDENCIES OF THE DEMOCRACY.

Contrary Effects produced on Peoples as well as on individuals by great
Dangers.--Why so many distinguished Men stood at the Head of Affairs in
America fifty Years ago.--Influence which the intelligence and the
Manners of the People exercise upon its choice.--Example of New
England.--States of the Southwest--Influence of certain Laws upon the
Choice of the People.--Election by an elected Body.--Its Effects upon
the Composition of the Senate.

When a state is threatened by serious dangers, the people frequently
succeed in selecting the citizens who are the most able to save it. It
has been observed that man rarely retains his customary level in
presence of very critical circumstances; he rises above, or he sinks
below, his usual condition, and the same thing occurs in nations at
large. Extreme perils sometimes quench the energy of a people instead of
stimulating it; they excite without directing its passions; and instead
of clearing, they confuse its powers of perception. The Jews deluged the
smoking ruins of their temples with the carnage of the remnant of their
host. But it is more common, both in the case of nations and in that of
individuals, to find extraordinary virtues arising from the very
imminence of the danger. Great characters are then thrown into relief,
as the edifices which are concealed by the gloom of night, are
illuminated by the glare of a conflagration. At those dangerous times
genius no longer abstains from presenting itself in the arena; and the
people, alarmed by the perils of its situation, buries its envious
passions in a short oblivion. Great names may then be drawn from the urn
of an election.

I have already observed that the American statesmen of the present day
are very inferior to those who stood at the head of affairs fifty years
ago. This is as much a consequence of the circumstances, as of the laws
of the country. When America was struggling in the high cause of
independence to throw off the yoke of another country, and when it was
about to usher a new nation into the world, the spirits of its
inhabitants were roused to the height which their great efforts
required. In this general excitement, the most distinguished men were
ready to forestall the wants of the community, and the people clung to
them for support, and placed them at its head. But events of this
magnitude are rare; and it is from an inspection of the ordinary course
of affairs that our judgment must be formed.

If passing occurrences sometimes act as checks upon the passions of
democracy, the intelligence and the manners of the community exercise an
influence which is not less powerful, and far more permanent. This is
extremely perceptible in the United States.

In New England the education and the liberties of the communities were
engendered by the moral and religious principles of their founders.
Where society has acquired a sufficient degree of stability to enable it
to hold certain maxims and to retain fixed habits, the lower orders are
accustomed to respect intellectual superiority, and to submit to it
without complaint, although they set at naught all those privileges
which wealth and birth have introduced among mankind. The democracy in
New England consequently makes a more judicious choice than it does
elsewhere.

But as we descend toward the south, to those states in which the
constitution of society is more modern and less strong, where
instruction is less general, and where the principles of morality, of
religion, and of liberty, are less happily combined, we perceive that
the talents and the virtues of those who are in authority become more
and more rare.

Lastly, when we arrive at the new southwestern states, in which the
constitution of society dates but from yesterday, and presents an
agglomeration of adventurers and speculators, we are amazed at the
persons who are invested with public authority, and we are led to ask by
what force, independent of the legislation and of the men who direct it,
the state can be protected, and society be made to flourish.

There are certain laws of a democratic nature which contribute,
nevertheless, to correct, in some measure, the dangerous tendencies of
democracy. On entering the house of representatives at Washington, one
is struck by the vulgar demeanor of that great assembly. The eye
frequently does not discover a man of celebrity within its walls. Its
members are almost all obscure individuals, whose names present no
associations to the mind: they are mostly village-lawyers, men in trade,
or even persons belonging to the lower classes of society. In a country
in which education is very general, it is said that the representatives
of the people do not always know how to write correctly.

At a few yards distance from this spot is the door of the senate, which
contains within a small space a large proportion of the celebrated men
of America. Scarcely an individual is to be perceived in it who does not
recall the idea of an active and illustrious career: the senate is
composed of eloquent advocates, distinguished generals, wise
magistrates, and statesmen of note, whose language would at all times do
honor to the most remarkable parliamentary debates of Europe.

What then is the cause of this strange contrast, and why are the most
able citizens to be found in one assembly rather than in the other? Why
is the former body remarkable for its vulgarity and its poverty of
talent, while the latter seems to enjoy a monopoly of intelligence and
of sound judgment? Both of these assemblies emanate from the people;
both of them are chosen by universal suffrage; and no voice has hitherto
been heard to assert, in America, that the senate is hostile to the
interests of the people. From what cause, then, does so startling a
difference arise? The only reason which appears to me adequately to
account for it is, that the house of representatives is elected by the
populace directly, and that of the senate is elected by elected bodies.
The whole body of the citizens names the legislature of each state, and
the federal constitution converts these legislatures into so many
electoral bodies, which return the members of the senate. The senators
are elected by an indirect application of universal suffrage; for the
legislatures which name them are not aristocratic or privileged bodies
which exercise the electoral franchise in their own right; but they are
chosen by the totality of the citizens; they are generally elected every
year, and new members may constantly be chosen, who will employ their
electoral rights in conformity with the wishes of the public. But this
transmission of the popular authority through an assembly of chosen men,
operates an important change in it, by refining its discretion and
improving the forms which it adopts. Men who are chosen in this manner,
accurately represent the majority of the nation which governs them; but
they represent the elevated thoughts which are current in the community,
the generous propensities which prompt its nobler actions, rather than
the petty passions which disturb, or the vices which disgrace it.

The time may be already anticipated at which the American republics will
be obliged to introduce the plan of election by an elected body more
frequently into their system of representation, or they will incur no
small risk of perishing miserably among the shoals of democracy.

And here I have no scruple in confessing that I look upon this peculiar
system of election as the only means of bringing the exercise of
political power to the level of all classes of the people. Those
thinkers who regard this institution as the exclusive weapon of a party,
and those who fear, on the other hand, to make use of it, seem to me to
fall into as great an error in the one case as in the other.

* * * * *

INFLUENCE WHICH THE AMERICAN DEMOCRACY HAS EXERCISED ON THE LAWS
RELATING TO ELECTIONS.

When Elections are rare, they expose the State to a violent Crisis.--
When they are frequent, they keep up a degree of feverish Excitement.--
The Americans have preferred the second of these two Evils.--Mutability
of the Laws.--Opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson on this Subject.

When elections recur at long intervals, the state is exposed to violent
agitation every time they take place. Parties exert themselves to the
utmost in order to gain a prize which is so rarely within their reach;
and as the evil is almost irremediable for the candidates who fail, the
consequence of their disappointed ambition may prove most disastrous:
if, on the other hand, the legal struggle can be repeated within a short
space of time, the defeated parties take patience.

When elections occur frequently, this recurrence keeps society in a
perpetual state of feverish excitement, and imparts a continual
instability to public affairs.

Thus, on the one hand, the state is exposed to the perils of a
revolution, on the other, to perpetual mutability; the former system
threatens the very existence of the government, the latter is an
obstacle to all steady and consistent policy. The Americans have
preferred the second of these evils to the first; but they were led to
this conclusion by their instinct much more than by their reason; for a
taste for variety is one of the characteristic passions of democracy. An
extraordinary mutability has, by this means, been introduced into their
legislation.

Many of the Americans consider the instability of their laws as a
necessary consequence of a system whose general results are beneficial.
But no one in the United States affects to deny the fact of this
instability, or to contend that it is not a great evil.

Hamilton, after having demonstrated the utility of a power which might
prevent, or which might at least impede, the promulgation of bad laws,
adds: "It may perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws
includes that of preventing good ones, and may be used to the one
purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have but little
weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that
inconstancy and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish
in the character and genius of our government."--(Federalist, No. 73.)

And again, in No. 62 of the same work, he observes: "The facility and
excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments
are most liable.... The mischievous effects of the mutability in the
public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, would
fill a volume; every new election in the states is found to change one
half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a
change of opinions and of measures which forfeits the respect and
confidence of nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself, and
diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a political
system which betrays so many marks of infirmity."

Jefferson himself, the greatest democrat whom the democracy of America
has as yet produced, pointed out the same evils.

"The instability of our laws," he said in a letter to Madison, "is
really a very serious inconvenience. I think we ought to have obviated
it by deciding that a whole year should always be allowed to elapse
between the bringing in of a bill and the final passing of it. It should
afterward be discussed and put to the vote without the possibility of
making any alteration in it; and if the circumstances of the case
required a more speedy decision, the question should not be decided by a
simple majority, but by a majority of at least two thirds of both
houses."

* * * * *

PUBLIC OFFICERS UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRACY OF AMERICA.

Simple Exterior of the American public Officers.--No official
Costume.--All public Officers are remunerated.--Political Consequences
of this System.--No public Career exists in America.--Result of this.

Public officers in the United States are commingled with the crowd of
citizens; they have neither palaces, nor guards, nor ceremonial
costumes. This simple exterior of the persons in authority is connected,
not only with the peculiarities of the American character, but with the
fundamental principles of that society. In the estimation of the
democracy, a government is not a benefit, but a necessary evil. A
certain degree of power must be granted to public officers, for they
would be of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority
is by no means indispensable to the conduct of affairs; and it is
needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of the public. The public
officers themselves are well aware that they only enjoy the superiority
over their fellow citizens, which they derive from their authority, upon
condition of putting themselves on a level with the whole community by
their manners. A public officer in the United States is uniformly civil,
accessible to all the world, attentive to all requests, and obliging in
all his replies. I was pleased by these characteristics of a democratic
government; and I was struck by the manly independence of the citizens,
who respect the office more than the officer, and who are less attached
to the emblems of authority than to the man who bears them.

I am inclined to believe that the influence which costumes really
exercise, in an age like that in which we live, has been a good deal
exaggerated. I never perceived that a public officer in America was the
less respected while he was in the discharge of his duties because his
own merit was set off by no adventitious signs. On the other hand, it is
very doubtful whether a peculiar dress contributes to the respect which
public characters ought to have for their own position, at least when
they are not otherwise inclined to respect it. When a magistrate (and in
France such instances are not rare), indulges his trivial wit at the
expense of a prisoner, or derides a predicament in which a culprit is
placed, it would be well to deprive him of his robes of office, to see
whether he would recall some portion of the natural dignity of mankind
when he is reduced to the apparel of a private citizen.

A democracy may, however, allow a certain show of magisterial pomp, and
clothe its officers in silks and gold, without seriously compromising
its principles. Privileges of this kind are transitory; they belong to
the place, and are distinct from the individual: but if public officers
are not uniformly remunerated by the state, the public charges must be
intrusted to men of opulence and independence, who constitute the basis
of an aristocracy; and if the people still retains its right of
election, that election can only be made from a certain class of
citizens.

When a democratic republic renders offices which had formerly been
remunerated, gratuitous, it may safely be believed that that state is
advancing to monarchical institutions; and when a monarchy begins to
remunerate such officers as had hitherto been unpaid, it is a sure sign
that it is approaching toward a despotic or a republican form of
government. The substitution of paid for unpaid functionaries is of
itself, in my opinion, sufficient to constitute a serious revolution.

I look upon the entire absence of gratuitous functionaries in America as
one of the most prominent signs of the absolute dominion which democracy
exercises in that country. All public services, of whatsoever nature
they may be, are paid; so that every one has not merely a right, but
also the means of performing them. Although, in democratic states, all
the citizens are qualified to occupy stations in the government, all are
not tempted to try for them. The number and the capacities of the
candidates are more apt to restrict the choice of electors than the
conditions of the candidateship.

In nations in which the principle of election extends to every place in
the state, no political career can, properly speaking, be said to exist.
Men are promoted as if by chance to the rank which they enjoy, and they
are by no means sure of retaining it. The consequence is that in
tranquil times public functions offer but few lures to ambition. In the
United States the persons who engage in the perplexities of political
life are individuals of very moderate pretensions. The pursuit of wealth
generally diverts men of great talents and of great passions from the
pursuit of power; and it very frequently happens that a man does not
undertake to direct the fortune of the state until he has discovered his
incompetence to conduct his own affairs. The vast number of very
ordinary men who occupy public stations is quite as attributable to
these causes as to the bad choice of the democracy. In the United
States, I am not sure that the people would return the men of superior
abilities who might solicit its support, but it is certain that men of
this description do not come forward.

* * * * *

ARBITRARY POWER OF MAGISTRATES[164] UNDER THE RULE OF AMERICAN
DEMOCRACY.

For what Reason the arbitrary Power of Magistrates is greater in
absolute Monarchies and in democratic Republics that it is in limited
Monarchies.--Arbitrary Power of the Magistrates in New England.

In two different kinds of government the magistrates exercise a
considerable degree of arbitrary power; namely, under the absolute
government of a single individual, and under that of a democracy.

This identical result proceeds from causes which are nearly analogous.

In despotic states the fortune of no citizen is secure; and public
officers are not more safe than private individuals. The sovereign, who
has under his control the lives, the property, and sometimes the honor
of the men whom he employs, does not scruple to allow them a great
latitude of action, because he is convinced that they will not use it to
his prejudice. In despotic states the sovereign is so attached to the
exercise of his power, that he dislikes the constraint even of his own
regulations; and he is well pleased that his agents should follow a
somewhat fortuitous line of conduct, provided he be certain that their
actions will never counteract his desires.

In democracies, as the majority has every year the right of depriving
the officers whom it has appointed of their power, it has no reason to
fear abuse of their authority. As the people is always able to signify
its wishes to those who conduct the government, it prefers leaving them
to make their own exertions, to prescribing an invariable rule of
conduct which would at once fetter their activity and the popular
authority.

It may even be observed, on attentive consideration, that under the rule
of a democracy the arbitrary power of the magistrate must be still
greater than in despotic states. In the latter, the sovereign has the
power of punishing all the faults with which he becomes acquainted, but
it would be vain for him to hope to become acquainted with all those
which are committed. In the former the sovereign power is not only
supreme, but it is universally present. The American functionaries are,
in point of fact, much more independent in the sphere of action which
the law traces out for them, than any public officer in Europe. Very
frequently the object which they are to accomplish is simply pointed out
to them, and the choice of the means is left to their own discretion.

In New England, for instance, the selectmen of each township are bound
to draw up the list of persons who are to serve on the jury; the only
rule which is laid down to guide them in their choice is that they are
to select citizens possessing the elective franchise and enjoying a fair
reputation.[165] In France the lives and liberties of the subjects would
be thought to be in danger, if a public officer of any kind was
intrusted with so formidable a right. In New England, the same
magistrates are empowered to post the names of habitual drunkards in
public houses, and to prohibit the inhabitants of a town from supplying
them with liquor.[166] A censorial power of this excessive kind would be
revolting to the population of the most absolute monarchies; here,
however, it is submitted to without difficulty.