American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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The laws of the United States are extremely favorable to the division of
property; but a cause which is more powerful than the laws prevents
property from being divided to excess.[200] 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 fortune in the desert. The law has abolished the right of
primogeniture, but 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 number of individuals
who leave New England, in this manner, to settle themselves in the
wilds. We were assured in 1830, that thirty-six of the members of
congress were born in the little state of Connecticut. The population of
Connecticut, which constitutes only one forty-third part of that of the
United States, thus furnished one-eighth of the whole body of
representatives. The state of Connecticut, however, only sends five
delegates to congress; and the thirty-one others sit for the new western
states. If these thirty-one 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 observation of the Americans any
more than of ourselves. "It cannot be doubted," says Chancellor Kent in
his Treatise on American Law, "that the division of landed estates must
produce great evils when it is carried to such excess 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 toward the interior of the
country, suffice as yet, and will long suffice, to prevent the
parcelling 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. In
the pursuit he fearlessly braves the arrow of the Indian and the
distempers of the forest; he is unimpressed by the silence of the woods;
the approach of beasts of prey does not disturb him; for he is goaded
onward by a passion more intense than the love of life. Before him lies
a boundless continent, and he urges onward as if time pressed, and he
was afraid of finding no room for his exertions. I have spoken of the
emigration from the older states, 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
savannahs of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. These men left their first
country to improve their condition; they quit their resting-place to
meliorate 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. Emigration 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 emotions 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
traveller 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 man. In these abandoned fields, and over those ruins of a
day, the primeval forest soon scatters a fresh vegetation; the beasts
resume the haunts which were once their own; and 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 shore of a lake, which was
embosomed with forests coeval with the world. A small island, covered
with woods, whose thick foliage concealed its banks, rose from the
centre 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 up on the sand, which tempted me to visit the islet
that had at first attracted my attention, and in a few minutes I set
foot upon its banks. The whole island formed one of those delicious
solitudes of the New World, which almost lead 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 hoarse 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,
so completely did nature seem to be left to her own caprices; but when I
reached the centre 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 an European had undoubtedly been led to seek a
refuge in this retreat. Yet what changes had taken place in the scene of
his labors! The logs which he had hastily hewn to build himself a shed
had sprouted afresh; the very props were intertwined with living
verdure, 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 in 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, "Are ruins, then, already here?"

In Europe we are wont to look upon a restless disposition, an unbounded
desire of riches, and an excessive love of independence, as propensities
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
attachment which men feel to the place of their birth, are looked upon
as great guarantees of the tranquillity 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 calamities
incident to old nations. In Canada the most enlightened, patriotic, and
humane inhabitants, make extraordinary efforts to render the people
dissatisfied with those 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 the 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 dull 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, while
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 men 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 waste lands of the New
World, and busied 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 an especial value upon a
regular conduct, which is the foundation of a solid business; they
prefer the good sense which amasses large fortunes, to that enterprising
spirit which frequently dissipates them; general ideas alarm their
minds, 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 among strangers that this truth is perceptible. Most
of the European emigrants to the New World carry with them that wild
love of independence and of change, which our calamities are apt to
engender. I sometimes met with Europeans, in the United States, who had
been obliged to leave their own 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 leveller 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 established among men, of obedience to established laws, of the
influence of good morals in commonwealths, and of the support which
religious opinions give to order and to freedom; he even went so far as
to quote an evangelical authority in corroboration of one of his
political tenets.

I listened, and marvelled 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 turn to my
advantage, furnish me with that decisive argument which was before
wanting.

[The sentence beginning "I was poor, I become rich," &c, struck the
editor, on perusal, as obscure, if not contradictory. The original seems
more explicit, and justice to the author seems to require that it should
be presented to the reader. "J'étais pauvre, me voici riche; du moins,
si le bien-être, en agissant sur ma conduite, laissait mon jugement en
liberté! Mais non, mes opinions sont en effet changées avec ma fortune,
et, dans l'événement heureux dont je profite, j'ai réellement découvert
la raison déterminante qui jusque-là m'avait manqué."--_American
Editor_.]

The influence of prosperity acts still more freely upon the American
than upon strangers. The American has always seen the connexion 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.

* * * * *

INFLUENCE OF THE LAWS UPON THE MAINTENANCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN
THE UNITED STATES.

Three principal Causes of the Maintenance of the democratic Republic.--
Federal Constitutions.--Municipal Institutions.--Judicial Power.

The principal 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 enabled 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
_mores_; for I apply it not only to manners, in their proper sense of
what constitutes the 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 AMONG THE
AMERICANS.

North America peopled by Men who professed 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 he believes to await him in heaven.

The greatest part of British America was peopled 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 sect contributed powerfully to
the establishment of a democracy and a republic; and from the earliest
settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an
alliance which has never been dissolved.

About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a catholic population into
the United States; on the other hand, the catholics of America made
proselytes, and at the present moment more than a million of Christians,
professing the truths of the church of Rome, are to be met with in the
Union. These catholics are faithful to the observances 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 cause by
which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon reflection.

I think that the catholic religion has erroneously been looked upon as
the 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 rises 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 the 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 compromises
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 said 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 make his place among 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 side 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 it is found that no class of
men are more naturally disposed than 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 tenets 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 to them the free exercise of their own 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 left 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 holds the same
language; their opinions are consonant to the laws, and the human
intellect flows onward in one sole 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 Poles, 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, while he spoke in the following
terms:--

"Almighty God! the God of armies! Thou who didst 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 hast 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 rights
which we defended with our blood. Thou, who didst create man in the
likeness of the same image, let no tyranny mar thy work, and establish
inequality upon the earth. Almighty God! do thou watch over the destiny
of the Poles, 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 beheld 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, that 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 of the earth. Almighty
God, hear our supplications this day. Save the Poles, 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.