American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all
differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his Creator;
but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to
man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner; but all the
sects preach the same moral law in the name of God. If it be of the
slightest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should
be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life
to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion,
the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to
its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the United States are
comprised within the great unity of christianity, and Christian morality
is everywhere the same.

It may be believed without unfairness, that a certain number of
Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than from
conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious,
and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in
the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no
greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature,
than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most
enlightened and free nation of the earth.

I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in general,
without even excepting those who do not admit religious liberty, are all
in favor of civil freedom; but they do not support any particular
political system. They keep aloof from parties, and from public affairs.
In the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the
laws, and upon the details of public opinion; but it directs the manners
of the community, and by regulating domestic life, it regulates the
state.

I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is
observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance, from
religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man from the
numberless temptations of fortune; nor can it check that passion for
gain which every incident of his life contributes to arouse; but its
influence over the mind of women is supreme, and women are the
protectors of morals. There is certainly no country in the world where
the tie of marriage is so much respected as in America, or where
conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated. In Europe
almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of
domestic life. To despise the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of
home, is to contract a taste for excesses, a restlessness of heart, and
the evil of fluctuating desires. Agitated by the tumultuous passions
which frequently disturb his dwelling, the European is galled by the
obedience which the legislative powers of the state exact. But when the
American retires from the turmoil of public life to the bosom of his
family, he finds in it the image of order and of peace. There his
pleasures are simple and natural, his joys are innocent and calm; and as
he finds that an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he
accustoms himself without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as
his tastes. While the European endeavors to forget his domestic troubles
by agitating society, the American derives from his own home that love
of order, which he afterward carries with him into public affairs.

In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the
manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people. Among the
Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess the doctrines of
Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and others who do the same
because they are afraid to be suspected of unbelief. Christianity,
therefore, reigns without any obstacle, by universal consent; the
consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle of the
moral world is fixed and determinate, although the political world is
abandoned to the debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind
is never left to wander across a boundless field; and, whatever may be
its pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers which it
cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain primal and
immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest conceptions of human
device are subjected to certain forms which retard and stop their
completion.

The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights, is
circumspect and undecided; its impulses are checked, and its works
unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political society, and
are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity of the people and the
durability of the institutions it has established. Nature and
circumstances concurred to make the inhabitants of the United States
bold men, as is sufficiently attested by the enterprising spirit with
which they seek for fortune. If the minds of the Americans were free
from all trammels, they would very shortly become the most daring
innovators and the most implacable disputants in the world. But the
revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect
for Christian morality and equity, which does not easily permit them to
violate the laws that oppose their designs; nor would they find it easy
to surmount the scruples of their partisans, even if they were able to
get over their own. Hitherto no one, in the United States, has dared to
advance the maxim, that everything is permissible with a view to the
interests of society; an impious adage, which seems to have been
invented in an age of freedom, to shelter all the tyrants of future
ages. Thus while the law permits the Americans to do what they please,
religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what
is rash and unjust.

Religion in America takes no direct part in the government of society,
but it must nevertheless be regarded as the foremost of the political
institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for
freedom, it facilitates the use of free institutions. Indeed, it is in
this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States
themselves look upon religious belief. I do not know whether all the
Americans have a sincere faith in their religion; for who can search the
human heart? but I am certain that they hold it to be indispensable to
the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion is not peculiar
to a class of citizens or to a party, but it belongs to the whole
nation, and to every rank of society.

In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect, this may
not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from supporting him;
but if he attacks all the sects together, every one abandons him, and he
remains alone.

While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the
assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York), declared that he
did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the
soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the
witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the court in what
he was about to say.[201] The newspapers related the fact without any
farther comment.

The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so
intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive
the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring
from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul
rather than to live.

I have known of societies formed by the Americans to send out ministers
of the gospel into the new western states, to found schools and churches
there, lest religion should be suffered to die away in those remote
settlements, and the rising states be less fitted to enjoy free
institutions than the people from which they emanated. I met with
wealthy New Englanders who abandoned the country in which they were
born, in order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of freedom on
the banks of the Missouri or in the prairies of Illinois. Thus religious
zeal is perpetually stimulated in the United States by the duties of
patriotism. These men do not act from an exclusive consideration of the
promises of a future life; eternity is only one motive of their devotion
to the cause; and if you converse with these missionaries of Christian
civilisation, you will be surprised to find how much value they set upon
the goods of this world, and that you meet with a politician where you
expected to find a priest. They will tell you that "all the American
republics are collectively involved with each other; if the republics of
the west were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot, the
republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of the
Atlantic ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our interest
that the new states should be religious, in order to maintain our
liberties."

Such are the opinions of the Americans; and if any hold that the
religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most amiss in America,
and that the only element wanting to the freedom and happiness of the
human race is to believe in some blind cosmogony, or to assert with
Cabanis the secretion of thought by the brain, I can only reply, that
those who hold this language have never been in America, and that they
have never seen a religious or a free nation. When they return from
their expedition, we shall hear what they have to say.

There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions as a
temporary means of power, of wealth and distinction; men who are the
_condottieri_ of liberty, and who fight for their own advantage,
whatever be the colors they wear: it is not to these that I address
myself. But there are others who look forward to the republican form of
government as a tranquil and lasting state, toward which modern society
is daily impelled by the ideas and manners of the time, and who
sincerely desire to prepare men to be free. When these men attack
religious opinions, they obey the dictates of their passions to the
prejudice of their interests. Despotism may govern without faith, but
liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which
they set forth in glowing colors, than in the monarchy which they
attack; and it is more needed in democratic republics than in any
others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the
moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is
relaxed? and what can be done with a people which is its own master, if
it be not submissive to the Divinity?

* * * * *

PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH RENDER RELIGION POWERFUL IN AMERICA.

Care taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the State.--The
Laws, public Opinion, and even the Exertions of the Clergy concur to
promote this end.--Influence of Religion upon the Mind, in the United
States, attributable to this Cause.--Reason of this.--What is the
natural State of Men with regard to Religion at the present time.--What
are the peculiar and incidental Causes which prevent Men, in certain
Countries, from arriving at this State.

The philosophers of the eighteenth century explained the gradual decay
of religious faith in a very simple manner. Religious zeal, said they,
must necessarily fail, the more generally liberty is established and
knowledge diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no means in accordance
with their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose
unbelief is only equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, while
in America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world
fulfils all the outward duties of religion with fervor.

Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the
country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I
stayed there, the more did I perceive the great political consequences
resulting from this state of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In
France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of
freedom pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in
America I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned
in common over the same country. My desire to discover the causes of
this phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it, I
questioned the members of all the different sects; and I more especially
sought the society of the clergy, who are the depositaries of the
different persuasions, and who are more especially interested in their
duration. As a member of the Roman catholic church I was more
particularly brought into contact with several of its priests, with whom
I became intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my
astonishment and I explained my doubts: I found that they differed upon
matters of detail alone; and that they mainly attributed the peaceable
dominion of religion in their country, to the separation of church and
state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America, I did
not meet with a single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who
was not of the same opinion upon this point.

This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done, the
station which the American clergy occupy in political society. I learned
with surprise that they fill no public appointments;[202] not one of
them is to be met with in the administration, and they are not even
represented in the legislative assemblies. In several states[203] the
law excludes them from political life; public opinion in all. And when I
came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of the clergy, I found that
most of its members seemed to retire of their own accord from the
exercise of power, and that they made it the pride of their profession
to abstain from politics.

I heard them inveigh against ambition and deceit, under whatever
political opinions these vices might chance to lurk; but I learned from
their discourses that men are not guilty in the eye of God for any
opinions concerning political government, which they may profess with
sincerity, any more than they are for their mistakes in building a house
or in driving a furrow. I perceived that these ministers of the gospel
eschewed all parties, with the anxiety attendant upon personal interest.
These facts convinced me that what I had been told was true; and it then
became my object to investigate their causes, and to inquire how it
happened that the real authority of religion was increased by a state of
things which diminished its apparent force: these causes did not long
escape my researches.

The short space of threescore years can never content the imagination of
man; nor can the imperfect joys of this world satisfy his heart. Man
alone, of all created beings, displays a natural contempt of existence,
and yet a boundless desire to exist; he scorns life, but he dreads
annihilation. These different feelings incessantly urge his soul to the
contemplation of a future state, and religion directs his musings
thither. Religion, then, is simply another form of hope; and it is no
less natural to the human heart than hope itself. Men cannot abandon
their religious faith without a kind of aberration of intellect, and a
sort of violent distortion of their true natures; but they are
invincibly brought back to more pious sentiments; for unbelief is an
accident, and faith is the only permanent state of mankind. If we only
consider religious institutions in a purely human point of view, they
may be said to derive an inexhaustible element of strength from man
himself, since they belong to one of the constituent principles of human
nature.

I am aware that at certain times religion may strengthen this influence,
which originates in itself, by the artificial power of the laws, and by
the support of those temporal institutions which direct society.
Religions, intimately united to the governments of the earth, have been
known to exercise a sovereign authority derived from the twofold source
of terror and of faith; but when a religion contracts an alliance of
this nature, I do not hesitate to affirm that it commits the same error,
as a man who should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in
obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority
which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds its empire upon the
desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to
universal dominion: but when it connects itself with a government, it
must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain
nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion
augments its authority over a few, and forfeits the hope of reigning
over all.

As long as a religion rests upon those sentiments which are the
consolation of all affliction, it may attract the affections of mankind.
But if it be mixed up with the bitter passions of the world, it may be
constrained to defend allies whom its interests, and not the principle
of love, have given to it; or to repel as antagonists men who are still
attached to its own spirit, however opposed they may be to the powers to
which it is allied. The church cannot share the temporal power of the
state, without being the object of a portion of that animosity which the
latter excites.

The political powers which seem to be most firmly established have
frequently no better guarantee for their duration, than the opinions of
a generation, the interests of the time, or the life of an individual. A
law may modify the social condition which seems to be most fixed and
determinate; and with the social condition everything else must change.
The powers of society are more or less fugitive, like the years which we
spend upon the earth; they succeed each other with rapidity like the
fleeting cares of life; and no government has ever yet been founded upon
an invariable disposition of the human heart, or upon an imperishable
interest.

As long as religion is sustained by those feelings, propensities, and
passions, which are found to occur under the same forms at all the
different periods of history, it may defy the efforts of time; or at
least it can only be destroyed by another religion. But when religion
clings to the interests of the world, it becomes almost as fragile a
thing as the powers of the earth. It is the only one of them all which
can hope for immortality; but if it be connected with their ephemeral
authority, it shares their fortunes, and may fall with those transient
passions which supported them for a day. The alliance which religion
contracts with political powers must needs be onerous to itself; since
it does not require their assistance to live, and by giving them its
assistance it may be exposed to decay.

The danger which I have just pointed out always exists, but it is not
always equally visible. In some ages governments seem to be
imperishable, in others the existence of society appears to be more
precarious than the life of man. Some constitutions plunge the citizens
into a lethargic somnolence, and others rouse them to feverish
excitement. When government appears to be so strong, and laws so stable,
men do not perceive the dangers which may accrue from a union of church
and state. When governments display so much inconstancy, the danger is
self-evident, but it is no longer possible to avoid it; to be effectual,
measures must be taken to discover its approach.

In proportion as a nation assumes a democratic condition of society, and
as communities display democratic propensities, it becomes more and more
dangerous to connect religion with political institutions; for the time
is coming when authority will be bandied from hand to hand, when
political theories will succeed each other, and when men, laws and
constitutions, will disappear or be modified from day to day, and this
not for a season only, but unceasingly. Agitation and mutability are
inherent in the nature of democratic republics, just as stagnation and
inertness are the law of absolute monarchies.

If the Americans, who change the head of the government once in four
years, who elect new legislators every two years, and renew the
provincial officers every twelvemonth; if the Americans, who have
abandoned the political world to the attempts of innovators, had not
placed religion beyond their reach, where could it abide in the ebb and
flow of human opinions? where would that respect which belongs to it be
paid, amid the struggles of faction? and what would become of its
immortality in the midst of perpetual decay? The American clergy were
the first to perceive this truth, and to act in conformity with it. They
saw that they must renounce their religious influence, if they were to
strive for political power; and they chose to give up the support of the
state, rather than to share in its vicissitudes.

In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at
certain periods in the history of certain peoples; but its influence is
more lasting. It restricts itself to its own resources, but of those
none can deprive it: its circle is limited to certain principles, but
those principles are entirely its own, and under its undisputed control.

On every side in Europe we hear voices complaining of the absence of
religious faith, and inquiring the means of restoring to religion some
remnant of its pristine authority. It seems to me that we must first
attentively consider what ought to be _the natural state_ of men with
regard to religion, at the present time; and when we know what we have
to hope and to fear, we may discern the end to which our efforts ought
to be directed.

The two great dangers which threaten the existence of religions are
schism and indifference. In ages of fervent devotion, men sometimes
abandon their religion, but they only shake it off in order to adopt
another. Their faith changes the objects to which it is directed, but it
suffers no decline. The old religion, then, excites enthusiastic
attachment or bitter enmity in either party; some leave it with anger,
others cling to it with increased devotedness, and although persuasions
differ, irreligion is unknown. Such, however, is not the case when a
religious belief is secretly undermined by doctrines which may be termed
negative, since they deny the truth of one religion without affirming
that of any other. Prodigious revolutions then take place in the human
mind, without the apparent co-operation of the passions of man, and
almost without his knowledge. Men lose the object of their fondest
hopes, as if through forgetfulness. They are carried away by an
imperceptible current which they have not the courage to stem, but which
they follow with regret, since it bears them from a faith they love, to
a scepticism that plunges them into despair.

In ages which answer to this description, men desert their religious
opinions from lukewarmness rather than from dislike; they do not reject
them, but the sentiments by which they were once fostered disappear. But
if the unbeliever does not admit religion to be true, he still considers
it useful. Regarding religious institutions in a human point of view, he
acknowledges their influence upon manners and legislation. He admits
that they may serve to make men live in peace with one another and to
prepare them gently for the hour of death. He regrets the faith which he
has lost; and as he is deprived of a treasure which he has learned to
estimate at its full value, he scruples to take it from those who still
possess it.

On the other hand, those who continue to believe, are not afraid openly
to avow their faith. They look upon those who do not share their
persuasion as more worthy of pity than of opposition; and they are
aware, that to acquire the esteem of the unbelieving, they are not
obliged to follow their example. They are hostile to no one in the
world; and as they do not consider the society in which they live as an
arena in which religion is bound to face its thousand deadly foes, they
love their contemporaries, while they condemn their weaknesses, and
lament their errors.

As those who do not believe, conceal their incredulity; and as those who
believe, display their faith, public opinion pronounces itself in favor
of religion: love, support, and honor, are bestowed upon it, and it is
only by searching the human soul, that we can detect the wounds which it
has received. The mass of mankind, who are never without the feeling of
religion, do not perceive anything at variance with the established
faith. The instinctive desire of a future life brings the crowd about
the altar, and opens the hearts of men to the precepts and consolations
of religion.

But this picture is not applicable to us; for there are men among us who
have ceased to believe in Christianity, without adopting any other
religion; others who are in the perplexities of doubt, and who already
affect not to believe; and others, again, who are afraid to avow that
Christian faith which they still cherish in secret.