American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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Amid these lukewarm partisans and ardent antagonists, a small number of
believers exist, who are ready to brave all obstacles, and to scorn all
dangers in defence of their faith. They have done violence to human
weakness, in order to rise superior to public opinion. Excited by the
effort they have made, they scarcely know where to stop; and as they
know that the first use which the French made, of independence, was to
attack religion, they look upon their contemporaries with dread, and
they recoil in alarm from the liberty which their fellow-citizens are
seeking to obtain. As unbelief appears to them to be a novelty, they
comprise all that is new in one indiscriminate animosity. They are at
war with their age and country, and they look upon every opinion which
is put forth there as the necessary enemy of the faith.

Such is not the natural state of men with regard to religion at the
present day; and some extraordinary or incidental cause must be at work
in France, to prevent the human mind from following its original
propensities, and to drive it beyond the limits at which it ought
naturally to stop.

I am intimately convinced that this extraordinary and incidental cause
is the close connexion of politics and religion. The unbelievers of
Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents, rather than
as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the
opinion of a party, much more than as an error of belief; and they
reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the
Divinity, than because they are the allies of authority.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately united to the powers of the
earth. Those powers are now in decay, and it is, as it were, buried
under their ruins. The living body of religion has been bound down to
the dead corpse of superannuated polity; cut the bonds which restrain
it, and that which is alive will rise once more. I know not what could
restore the Christian church of Europe to the energy of its earlier
days; that power belongs to God alone; but it may be the effect of human
policy to leave the faith in all the full exercise of the strength which
it still retains.

* * * * *

HOW THE INSTRUCTION, THE HABITS, AND THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE
AMERICANS PROMOTE THE SUCCESS OF THEIR DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS.

What is to be understood by the instruction of the American People.--The
human Mind is more superficially instructed in the United States than in
Europe.--No one completely uninstructed.--Reason of this Rapidity with
which Opinions are diffused even in the uncultivated States of the
West.--Practical Experience more serviceable to the Americans than
Book-learning.

I have but little to add to what I have already said, concerning the
influence which the instruction and the habits of the Americans exercise
upon the maintenance of their political institutions.

America has hitherto produced very few writers of distinction; it
possesses no great historians, and not a single eminent poet. The
inhabitants of that country look upon what are properly styled literary
pursuits with a kind of disapprobation; and there are towns of very
second rate importance in Europe, in which more literary works are
annually published, than in the twenty-four states of the Union put
together. The spirit of the Americans is averse to general ideas; and it
does not seek theoretical discoveries. Neither politics nor manufactures
direct them to these occupations; and although new laws are perpetually
enacted in the United States, no great writers have hitherto inquired
into the principles of their legislation. The Americans have lawyers and
commentators, but no jurists; and they furnish examples rather than
lessons to the world. The same observation applies to the mechanical
arts. In America, the inventions of Europe are adopted with sagacity;
they are perfected, and adapted with admirable skill to the wants of the
country. Manufactures exist, but the science of manufacture is not
cultivated; and they have good workmen, but very few inventors. Fulton
was obliged to proffer his services to foreign nations for a long time
before he was able to devote them to his own country.

[The remark that in America "there are very good workmen but very few
inventors," will excite surprise in this country. The inventive
character of Fulton he seems to admit, but would apparently deprive us
of the credit of his name, by the remark that he was obliged to proffer
his services to foreign nations for a long time. He might have added,
that those proffers were disregarded and neglected, and that it was
finally in his own country that he found the aid necessary to put in
execution his great project. If there be patronage extended by the
citizens of the United States to any one thing in preference to another,
it is to the results of inventive genius. Surely Franklin, Rittenhouse,
and Perkins, have been heard of by our author; and he must have heard
something of that wonderful invention, the cotton-gin of Whitney, and of
the machines for making cards to comb wool. The original machines of
Fulton for the application of steam have been constantly improving, so
that there is scarcely a vestige of them remaining. But to sum up the
whole in one word, can it be possible that our author did not visit the
patent office at Washington? Whatever may be said of the _utility_ of
nine-tenths of the inventions of which the descriptions and models are
there deposited, no one who has ever seen that depository, or who has
read a description of its contents, can doubt that they furnish the most
incontestible evidence of extraordinary inventive genius--a genius that
has excited the astonishment of other European travellers.--_American
Editor_.]

The observer who is desirous of forming an opinion on the state of
instruction among the Anglo-Americans, must consider the same object
from two different points of view. If he only singles out the learned,
he will be astonished to find how rare they are; but if he counts the
ignorant, the American people will appear to be the most enlightened
community in the world. The whole population, as I observed in another
place, is situated between these two extremes.

In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human
knowledge; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the evidences of his
religion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its
constitution. In the states of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is
extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these
things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.

When I compare the Greek and Roman republics with these American states;
the manuscript libraries of the former, and their rude population, with
the innumerable journals and the enlightened people of the latter; when
I remember all the attempts which are made to judge the modern republics
by the assistance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen
in our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted to
burn my books, in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a
condition of society.

What I have said of New England must not, however, be applied
indiscriminately to the whole Union: as we advance towards the west or
the south, the instruction of the people diminishes. In the states which
are adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain number of individuals may
be found, as in our own countries, who are devoid of the rudiments of
instruction. But there is not a single district in the United States
sunk in complete ignorance; and for a very simple reason; the peoples of
Europe started from the darkness of a barbarous condition to advance
toward the light of civilisation; their progress has been unequal; some
of them have improved apace, while others have loitered in their course,
and some have stopped, and are still sleeping upon the way.

Such has not been the case in the United States. The Anglo-Americans
settled in a state of civilisation, upon that territory which their
descendants occupy; they had not to begin to learn, and it was
sufficient not to forget. Now the children of these same Americans are
the persons who, year by year, transport their dwellings into the wilds:
and with their dwellings their acquired information and their esteem for
knowledge. Education has taught them the utility of instruction, and has
enabled them to transmit that instruction to their posterity. In the
United States society has no infancy, but it is born in man's estate.

The Americans never use the word "peasant," because they have no idea of
the peculiar class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote
ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager,
have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with
the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an
early stage of civilisation. At the extreme borders of the confederate
states, upon the confines of society and of the wilderness, a population
of bold adventurers have taken up their abode, who pierce the solitudes
of the American woods, and seek a country there, in order to escape that
poverty which awaited them in their native provinces. As soon as the
pioneer arrives upon the spot which is to serve him for a retreat, he
fells a few trees and builds a log-house. Nothing can offer a more
miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings. The traveller who
approaches one of them toward night-fall, sees the flicker of the
hearth-flame through the chinks in the walls; and at night, if the wind
rises, he hears the roof of boughs shake to and fro in the midst of the
great forest trees. Who would not suppose that this poor hut is the
asylum of rudeness and ignorance? Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn
between the pioneer and the dwelling which shelters him. Everything
about him is primitive and unformed, but he is himself the result of the
labor and the experience of eighteen centuries. He wears the dress, and
he speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past,
curious of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is,
in short, a highly civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit
the back-woods, and who penetrates into the wilds of a New World with
the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.

It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which public
opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts.[204] I do not think
that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the most
enlightened and populous districts of France.[205] It cannot be doubted
that in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully
contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and such must
always be the case, I believe, where instruction, which awakens the
understanding, is not separated from moral education which amends the
heart. But I by no means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still farther
from thinking, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be
instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write. True
information is mainly derived from experience, and if the Americans had
not been gradually accustomed to govern themselves, their book-learning
would not assist them much at the present day.

I have lived a great deal with the people in the United States, and I
cannot express how much I admire their experience and their good sense.
An American should never be allowed to speak of Europe; for he will then
probably display a vast deal of presumption and very foolish pride. He
will take up with those crude and vague notions which are so useful to
the ignorant all over the world. But if you question him respecting his
own country, the cloud which dimmed his intelligence will immediately
disperse; his language will become as clear and as precise as his
thoughts. He will inform you what his rights are, and by what means he
exercises them; he will be able to point out the customs which obtain in
the political world. You will find that he is well acquainted with the
rules of the administration, and that he is familiar with the mechanism
of the laws. The citizen of the United States does not acquire his
practical science and his positive notions from books; the instruction
he has acquired may have prepared him for receiving those ideas, but it
did not furnish them. The American learns to know the laws by
participating in the act of legislation; and he takes a lesson in the
forms of government, from governing. The great work of society is ever
going on beneath his eyes, and, as it were, under his hands.

In the United States politics are the end and aim of education; in
Europe its principal object is to fit men for private life. The
interference of the citizens in public affairs is too rare an occurrence
for it to be anticipated beforehand. Upon casting a glance over society
in the two hemispheres, these differences are indicated even by its
external aspect.

In Europe, we frequently introduce the ideas and the habits of private
life into public affairs; and as we pass at once from the domestic
circle to the government of the state, we may frequently be heard to
discuss the great interests of society in the same manner in which we
converse with our friends. The Americans, on the other hand, transfuse
the habits of public life into their manners in private; and in their
country the jury is introduced into the games of school-boys, and
parliamentary forms are observed in the order of a feast.

* * * * *

THE LAWS CONTRIBUTE MORE TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
IN THE UNITED STATES THAN THE PHYSICAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE COUNTRY, AND
THE MANNERS MORE THAN THE LAWS.

All the Nations of America have a democratic State of Society.--Yet
democratic Institutions subsist only among the Anglo-Americans.--The
Spaniards of South America, equally favored by physical Causes as the
Anglo-Americans, unable to maintain a democratic Republic.--Mexico,
which has adopted the Constitution of the United States, in the same
Predicament.--The Anglo-Americans of the West less able to maintain it
than those of the East.--Reason of these different Results.

I have remarked that the maintenance of democratic institutions in the
United States is attributable to the circumstances, the laws, and the
manners of that country.[206] Most Europeans are only acquainted with
the first of these three causes, and they are apt to give it a
preponderating importance which it does not really possess.

It is true that the Anglo-Americans settled in the New World in a state
of social equality; the low-born and the noble were not to be found
among them; and professional prejudices were always as entirely unknown
as the prejudices of birth. Thus, as the condition of society was
democratic, the empire of democracy was established without difficulty.
But this circumstance is by no means peculiar to the United States;
almost all the transatlantic colonies were founded by men equal among
themselves, or who became so by inhabiting them. In no one part of the
New World have Europeans been able to create an aristocracy.
Nevertheless democratic institutions prosper nowhere but in the United
States.

The American Union has no enemies to contend with; it stands in the
wilds like an island in the ocean. But the Spaniards of South America
were no less isolated by nature; yet their position has not relieved
them from the charge of standing armies. They make war upon each other
when they have no foreign enemies to oppose; and the Anglo-American
democracy is the only one which has hitherto been able to maintain
itself in peace.

The territory of the Union presents a boundless field to human activity,
and inexhaustible materials for industry and labor. The passion of
wealth takes the place of ambition, and the warmth of faction is
mitigated by a sense of prosperity. But in what portion of the globe
shall we meet with more fertile plains, with mightier rivers, or with
more unexplored and inexhaustible riches, than in South America?

Nevertheless South America has been unable to maintain democratic
institutions. If the welfare of nations depended on their being placed
in a remote position, with an unbounded space of habitable territory
before them, the Spaniards of South America would have no reason to
complain of their fate. And although they might enjoy less prosperity
than the inhabitants of the United States, their lot might still be such
as to excite the envy of some nations in Europe. There are, however, no
nations upon the face of the earth more miserable than those of South
America.

Thus, not only are physical causes inadequate to produce results
analogous to those which occur in North America, but they are unable to
raise the population of South America above the level of European
states, where they act in a contrary direction. Physical causes do not
therefore affect the destiny of nations so much as has been supposed.

I have met with men in New England who were on the point of leaving a
country, where they might have remained in easy circumstances, to go to
seek their fortunes in the wilds. Not far from that district I found a
French population in Canada, which was closely crowded on a narrow
territory, although the same wilds were at hand; and while the emigrant
from the United States purchased an extensive estate with the earnings
of a short term of labor, the Canadian paid as much for land as he would
have done in France. Nature offers the solitudes of the New World to
Europeans; but they are not always acquainted with the means of turning
her gifts to account. Other peoples of America have the same physical
conditions of prosperity as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws
and their manners; and these peoples are wretched. The laws and manners
of the Anglo-Americans are therefore that cause of their greatness which
is the object of my inquiry.

I am far from supposing that the American laws are preeminently good in
themselves; I do not hold them to be applicable to all democratic
peoples; and several of them seem to me to be dangerous, even in the
United States. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the American
legislation, taken collectively, is extremely well adapted to the genius
of the people and the nature of the country which it is intended to
govern. The American laws are therefore good, and to them must be
attributed a large portion of the success which attends the government
of democracy in America: but I do not believe them to be the principal
cause of that success; and if they seem to me to have more influence
upon the social happiness of the Americans than the nature of the
country, on the other hand there is reason to believe that their effect
is still inferior to that produced by the manners of the people.

The federal laws undoubtedly constitute the most important part of the
legislation of the United States. Mexico, which is not less fortunately
situated than the Anglo-American Union, has adopted these same laws, but
is unable to accustom itself to the government of democracy. Some other
cause is therefore at work independently of those physical circumstances
and peculiar laws which enable the democracy to rule in the United
States.

Another still more striking proof may be adduced. Almost all the
inhabitants of the territory of the Union are the descendants of a
common stock; they speak the same language, they worship God in the same
manner, they are affected by the same physical causes, and they obey the
same laws. Whence, then, do their characteristic differences arise? Why,
in the eastern states of the Union, does the republican government
display vigor and regularity, and proceed with mature deliberation?
Whence does it derive the wisdom and durability which mark its acts,
while in the western states, on the contrary, society seems to be ruled
by the powers of chance? There, public business is conducted with an
irregularity, and a passionate and feverish excitement, which does not
announce a long or sure duration.

I am no longer comparing the Anglo-American states to foreign nations;
but I am contrasting them with each other, and endeavoring to discover
why they are so unlike. The arguments which are derived from the nature
of the country and the difference of legislation, are here all set
aside. Recourse must be had to some other cause; and what other cause
can there be except the manners of the people?

It is in the eastern states that the Anglo-Americans have been longest
accustomed to the government of democracy, and that they have adopted
the habits and conceived the notions most favorable to its maintenance.
Democracy has gradually penetrated into their customs, their opinions,
and the forms of social intercourse; it is to be found in all the
details of daily life equally as in the laws. In the eastern states the
instruction and practical education of the people have been most
perfected, and religion has been most thoroughly amalgamated with
liberty. Now these habits, opinions, customs, and convictions, are
precisely the constituent elements of that which I have denominated
manners.

In the western states, on the contrary, a portion of the same advantages
is still wanting. Many of the Americans of the west were born in the
woods, and they mix the ideas and the customs of savage life with the
civilisation of their parents. Their passions are more intense; their
religious morality less authoritative; and their convictions are less
secure. The inhabitants exercise no sort of control over their
fellow-citizens, for they are scarcely acquainted with each other. The
nations of the west display, to a certain extent, the inexperience and
the rude habits of a people in its infancy; for although they are
composed of old elements, their assemblage is of recent date.

The manners of the Americans of the United States are, then, the real
cause which renders that people the only one of the American nations
that is able to support a democratic government; and it is the influence
of manners which produces the different degrees of order and of
prosperity, that may be distinguished in the several Anglo-American
democracies. Thus the effect which the geographical position of a
country may have upon the duration of democratic institutions is
exaggerated in Europe. Too much importance is attributed to legislation,
too little to manners. These three great causes serve, no doubt, to
regulate and direct the American democracy; but if they were to be
classed in their proper order, I should say that the physical
circumstances are less efficient than the laws, and the laws very
subordinate to the manners of the people. I am convinced that the most
advantageous situation and the best possible laws cannot maintain a
constitution in spite of the manners of a country: while the latter may
turn the most unfavorable positions and the worst laws to some
advantage. The importance of manners is a common truth to which study
and experience incessantly direct our attention. It may be regarded as a
central point in the range of human observation, and the common
termination of all inquiry. So seriously do I insist upon this head,
that if I have hitherto failed in making the reader feel the important
influence which I attribute to the practical experience, the habits, the
opinions, in short, to the manners of the Americans, upon the
maintenance of their institutions, I have failed in the principal object
of my work.

* * * * *

WHETHER LAWS AND MANNERS ARE SUFFICIENT TO MAINTAIN DEMOCRATIC
INSTITUTIONS IN OTHER COUNTRIES BESIDE AMERICA.

The Anglo-Americans, if transported into Europe, would be obliged to
modify their Laws.--Distinction to be made between democratic
Institutions and American Institutions.--Democratic Laws may be
conceived better than, or at least different from, those which the
American Democracy has adopted.--The Example of America only proves that
it is possible to regulate Democracy by the assistance of Manners and
Legislation.

I have asserted that the success of democratic institutions in the
United States is more intimately connected with the laws themselves, and
the manners of the people, than with the nature of the country. But does
it follow that the same causes would of themselves produce the same
results, if they were put into operation elsewhere; and if the country
is no adequate substitute for laws and manners, can laws and manners in
their turn prove a substitute for a country? It will readily be
understood that the necessary elements of a reply to this question are
wanting: other peoples are to be found in the New World beside the
Anglo-Americans, and as these peoples are affected by the same physical
circumstances as the latter, they may fairly be compared together. But
there are no nations out of America which have adopted the same laws and
manners, being destitute of the physical advantages peculiar to the
Anglo-Americans. No standard of comparison therefore exists, and we can
only hazard an opinion upon this subject.