American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

A >> Alexis de Tocqueville et al >> American Institutions and Their Influence

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49

As early as the year 1820, South Carolina declared, in a petition to
Congress, that the tariff was "unconstitutional, oppressive, and
unjust." And the states of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama,
and Mississippi, subsequently remonstrated against it with more or less
vigor. But Congress, far from lending an ear to these complaints, raised
the scale of tariff duties in the years 1824 and 1828, and recognized
anew the principle on which it was founded. A doctrine was then
proclaimed, or rather revived, in the south, which took the name of
nullification.

I have shown in the proper place that the object of the federal
constitution was not to form a league, but to create a national
government. The Americans of the United States form a sole and undivided
people, in all the cases which are specified by that constitution; and
upon these points the will of the nation is expressed, as it is in all
constitutional nations, by the voice of the majority. When the majority
has pronounced its decision, it is the duty of the minority to submit.
Such is the sound legal doctrine, and the only one which agrees with the
text of the constitution, and the known intention of those who framed
it.

The partisans of nullification in the south maintain, on the contrary,
that the intention of the Americans in uniting was not to reduce
themselves to the condition of one and the same people; that they meant
to constitute a league of independent states; and that each state,
consequently, retains its entire sovereignty, if not _de facto_, at
least _de jure_; and has the right of putting its own construction upon
the laws of congress, and of suspending their execution within the
limits of its own territory, if they are held to be unconstitutional or
unjust.

The entire doctrine of nullification is comprised in a sentence uttered
by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that party in the south, before
the senate of the United States, in the year 1833: "The constitution is
a compact to which the states were parties in their sovereign capacity;
now, whenever a contract is entered into by parties which acknowledge no
tribunal above their authority to decide in the last resort, each of
them has a right to judge for himself in relation to the nature, extent,
and obligations of the instrument." It is evident that a similar
doctrine destroys the very basis of the federal constitution, and brings
back all the evils of the old confederation, from which the Americans
were supposed to have had a safe deliverance.

When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its
remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to
the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in its former system; and at
length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the citizens of South
Carolina[286] named a national [state] convention, to consult upon the
extraordinary measures which they were called upon to take; and on the
24th November of the same year, this convention promulgated a law, under
the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of the tariff,
forbade the levy of the imposts which that law commands, and refused to
recognize the appeal which might be made to the federal courts of
law.[287] This decree was only to be put into execution in the ensuing
month of February, and it was intimated, that if Congress modified the
tariff before that period, South Carolina might be induced to proceed no
farther with her menaces; and a vague desire was afterward expressed of
submitting the question to an extraordinary assembly of all the
confederate states.

In the meantime South Carolina armed her militia, and prepared for war.
But congress, which had slighted its suppliant subjects, listened to
their complaints as soon as they were found to have taken up arms.[288]
A law was passed, by which the tariff duties were to be progressively
reduced for ten years, until they were brought so low as not to exceed
the amount of supplies necessary to the government.[289] Thus congress
completely abandoned the principle of the tariff; and substituted a mere
fiscal impost for a system of protective duties.[290] The government of
the Union, in order to conceal its defeat, had recourse to an expedient
which is very much in vogue with feeble governments. It yielded the
point _de facto_, but it remained inflexible upon the principles in
question; and while congress was altering the tariff law, it passed
another bill, by which the president was invested with extraordinary
powers, enabling him to overcome by force a resistance which was then no
longer to be apprehended.

But South Carolina did not consent to leave the Union in the enjoyment
of these scanty trophies of success: the same national [state]
convention which annulled the tariff bill, met again, and accepted the
proffered concession: but at the same time it declared its unabated
perseverance in the doctrine of nullification; and to prove what it
said, it annulled the law investing the president with extraordinary
powers, although it was very certain that the clauses of that law would
never be carried into effect.

Almost all the controversies of which I have been speaking have taken
place under the presidency of General Jackson; and it cannot be denied
that in the question of the tariff he has supported the claims of the
Union with vigor and with skill. I am however of opinion that the
conduct of the individual who now represents the federal government, may
be reckoned as one of the dangers which threaten its continuance.

Some persons in Europe have formed an opinion of the possible influence
of General Jackson upon the affairs of his country, which appears highly
extravagant to those who have seen more of the subject. We have been
told that General Jackson has won sundry battles, that he is an
energetic man, prone by nature and by habit to the use of force,
covetous of power, and a despot by taste. All this may perhaps be true;
but the inferences which have been drawn from these truths are
exceedingly erroneous. It has been imagined that General Jackson is bent
on establishing a dictatorship in America, on introducing a military
spirit, and on giving a degree of influence to the central authority
which cannot but be dangerous to provincial liberties. But in America,
the time for similar undertakings, and the age for men of this kind, is
not yet come; if General Jackson had entertained a hope of exercising
his authority in this manner, he would infallibly have forfeited his
political station, and compromised his life; accordingly he has not been
so imprudent as to make any such attempt.

Far from wishing to extend the federal power, the president belongs to
the party which is desirous of limiting that power to the bare and
precise letter of the constitution, and which never puts a construction
upon that act, favorable to the government of the Union; far from
standing forth as the champion of centralization, General Jackson is the
agent of all the jealousies of the states; and he was placed in the
lofty station he occupies, by the passions of the people which are most
opposed to the central government. It is by perpetually flattering these
passions, that he maintains his station and his popularity. General
Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its
propensities, and its demands; say rather, that he anticipates and
forestalls them.

Whenever the governments of the states come into collision with that of
the Union, the president is generally the first to question his own
rights: he almost always outstrips the legislature; and when the extent
of the federal power is controverted he takes part, as it were, against
himself; he conceals his official interests, and extinguishes his own
natural inclinations. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile to
the Union; for when the majority decided against the claims of the
partisans of nullification, he put himself at its head, asserted the
doctrines which the nation held, distinctly and energetically, and was
the first to recommend forcible measures; but General Jackson appears to
me, if I may use the American expressions, to be a federalist by taste,
and a republican by calculation.

General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority but when he
feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the
pursuit of the objects which the community approves, or of those which
it does not look upon with a jealous eye. He is supported by a power
with which his predecessors were unacquainted; and he tramples on his
personal enemies wherever they cross his path, with a facility which no
former president ever enjoyed; he takes upon himself the responsibility
of measures which no one, before him, would have ventured to attempt; he
even treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to
insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of congress, and frequently
neglects to reply to that powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes
treats his master roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetually
increases; but that of the President declines: in his hands the federal
government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his
successor.

I am strangely mistaken if the federal government of the United States
be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from public
affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more. It is
naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to strength.
On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively sense of
independence, and a more decided attachment to provincial government, in
the states. The Union is to subsist, but to subsist as a shadow; it is
to be strong in certain cases, and weak in all others; in time of
warfare, it is to be able to concentrate all the forces of the nation
and all the resources of the country in its hands; and in time of peace
its existence is to be scarcely perceptible: as if this alternate
debility and vigor were natural or possible.

I do not foresee anything for the present which may be able to check
this general impulse of public opinion: the causes in which it
originated do not cease to operate with the same effect. The change will
therefore go on, and it may be predicted that, unless some extraordinary
event occurs, the government of the Union will grow weaker and weaker
every day.

I think, however, that the period is still remote, at which the federal
power will be entirely extinguished by its inability to protect itself
and to maintain peace in the country. The Union is sanctioned by the
manners and desires of the people; its results are palpable, its
benefits visible. When it is perceived that the weakness of the federal
government compromises the existence of the Union, I do not doubt that a
reaction will take place with a view to increase its strength.

The government of the United States is, of all the federal governments
which have hitherto been established, the one which is most naturally
destined to act. As long as it is only indirectly assailed by the
interpretation of its laws, and as long as its substance is not
seriously altered, a change of opinion, an internal crisis, or a war,
may restore all the vigor which it requires. The point which I have been
most anxious to put in a clear light is simply this; many people,
especially in France, imagine that a change of opinion is going on in
the United States, which is favorable to a centralization of power in
the hands of the president and the congress. I hold that a contrary
tendency may be distinctly observed. So far is the federal government
from acquiring strength, and from threatening the sovereignty of the
states, as it grows older, that I maintain it to be growing weaker and
weaker, and that the sovereignty of the Union alone is in danger. Such
are the facts which the present time discloses. The future conceals the
final result of this tendency, and the events which may check, retard,
or accelerate, the changes I have described; but I do not affect to be
able to remove the veil which hides them from our sight.

* * * * *

OF THE REPUBLICAN INSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND WHAT THEIR
CHANCES OF DURATION ARE.

The Union is Accidental.--The Republican Institutions have more prospect
of Permanence.--A Republic for the Present the Natural State of the
Anglo-Americans.--Reason of this.--In order to destroy it, all Laws must
be changed at the same time, and a great alteration take place in
Manners.--Difficulties experienced by the Americans in creating an
Aristocracy.

The dismemberment of the Union, by the introduction of war into the
heart of those states which are now confederate, with standing armies, a
dictatorship, and a heavy taxation, might eventually compromise the fate
of the republican institutions. But we ought not to confound the future
prospects of the republic with those of the Union. The Union is an
accident, which will last only so long as circumstances are favorable to
its existence; but a republican form of government seems to me to be the
natural state of the Americans; which nothing but the continued action
of hostile causes, always acting in the same direction, could change
into a monarchy. The Union exists principally in the law which formed
it; one revolution, one change in public opinion, might destroy it for
ever; but the republic has a much deeper foundation to rest upon.

What is understood by republican government in the United States, is the
slow and quiet action of society upon itself. It is a regular state of
things really founded upon the enlightened will of the people. It is a
conciliatory government under which resolutions are allowed time to
ripen, and in which they are deliberately discussed, and executed with
mature judgment. The republicans in the United States set a high value
upon morality, respect religious belief, and acknowledge the existence
of rights. They profess to think that a people ought to be moral,
religious, and temperate, in proportion as it is free. What is called
the republic in the United States, is the tranquil rule of the majority,
which, after having had time to examine itself, and to give proof of its
existence, is the common source of all the powers of the state. But the
power of the majority is not of itself unlimited. In the moral world
humanity, justice, and reason, enjoy an undisputed supremacy; in the
political world vested rights are treated with no less deference. The
majority recognizes these two barriers; and if it now and then overstep
them, it is because, like individuals, it has passions, and like them,
it is prone to do what is wrong, while it discerns what is right.

But the demagogues of Europe have made strange discoveries. A republic
is not, according to them, the rule of the majority, as has hitherto
been taught, but the rule of those who are strenuous partisans of the
majority. It is not the people who preponderates in this kind of
government, but those who best know what is for the good of the people.
A happy distinction, which allows men to act in the name of nations
without consulting them, and to claim their gratitude while their rights
are spurned. A republican government, moreover, is the only one which
claims the right of doing whatever it chooses, and despising what men
have hitherto respected, from the highest moral obligations to the
vulgar rules of common sense. It had been supposed, until our time, that
despotism was odious, under whatever form it appeared. But it is a
discovery of modern days that there are such things as legitimate
tyranny and holy injustice, provided they are exercised in the name of
the people.

The ideas which the Americans have adopted respecting the republican
form of government, render it easy for them to live under it, and ensure
its duration. If, in their country, this form be often practically bad,
at least it is theoretically good; and, in the end, the people always
acts in conformity with it.

It was impossible, at the foundation of the states, and it would still
be difficult, to establish a central administration in America. The
inhabitants are dispersed over too great a space, and separated by too
many natural obstacles, for one man to undertake to direct the details
of their existence. America is therefore pre-eminently the country of
provincial and municipal government. To this cause, which was plainly
felt by all the Europeans of the New World, the Anglo-Americans added
several others peculiar to themselves.

At the time of the settlement of the North American colonies, municipal
liberty had already penetrated into the laws as well as the manners of
the English, and the emigrants adopted it, not only as a necessary
thing, but as a benefit which they knew how to appreciate. We have
already seen the manner in which the colonies were founded: every
province, and almost every district, was peopled separately by men who
were strangers to each other, or who associated with very different
purposes. The English settlers in the United States, therefore, early
perceived that they were divided into a great number of small and
distinct communities which belonged to no common centre; and that it was
needful for each of these little communities to take care of its own
affairs, since there did not appear to be any central authority which
was naturally bound and easily enabled to provide for them. Thus, the
nature of the country, the manner in which the British colonies were
founded, the habits of the first emigrants, in short everything, united
to promote, in an extra-ordinary degree, municipal and provincial
liberties.

In the United States, therefore, the mass of the institutions of the
country is essentially republican; and in order permanently to destroy
the laws which form the basis of the republic, it would be necessary to
abolish all the laws at once. At the present day, it would be even more
difficult for a party to succeed in founding a monarchy in the United
States, than for a set of men to proclaim that France should
henceforward be a republic. Royalty would not find a system of
legislation prepared for it beforehand; and a monarchy would then exist,
really surrounded by republican institutions. The monarchical principle
would likewise have great difficulty in penetrating into the manners of
the Americans.

In the United States, the sovereignty of the people is not an isolated
doctrine bearing no relation to the prevailing manners and ideas of the
people: it may, on the contrary, be regarded as the last link of a chain
of opinions which binds the whole Anglo-American world. That Providence
has given to every human being the degree of reason necessary to direct
himself in the affairs which interest him exclusively; such is the grand
maxim upon which civil and political society rests in the United States.
The father of a family applies it to his children; the master to his
servants; the township to its officers; the province to its townships;
the state to the provinces; the Union to the states; and when extended
to the nation, it becomes the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people.

Thus, in the United States, the fundamental principle of the republic is
the same which governs the greater part of human actions; republican
notions insinuate themselves into all the ideas, opinions, and habits of
the Americans, while they are formally recognized by the legislation:
and before this legislation can be altered, the whole community must
undergo very serious changes. In the United States, even the religion of
most of the citizens is republican, since it submits the truths of the
other world to private judgment: as in politics the care of its temporal
interests is abandoned to the good sense of the people. Thus every man
is allowed freely to take that road which he thinks will lead him to
heaven; just as the law permits every citizen to have the right of
choosing his government.

It is evident that nothing but a long series of events, all having the
same tendency, can substitute for this combination of laws, opinions,
and manners, a mass of opposite opinions, manners and laws.

If republican principles are to perish in America, they can only yield
after a laborious social process, often interrupted, and as often
resumed; they will have many apparent revivals, and will not become
totally extinct until an entirely new people shall have succeeded to
that which now exists. Now, it must be admitted that there is no symptom
or presage of the approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more
striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind
of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws
are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a
people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short
space of time, a completely new form of government. Such apprehensions
are, however, premature; the instability which affects political
institutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: the
first, which modifies secondary laws, is not incompatible with a very
settled state of society; the other shakes the very foundations of the
constitution, and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation;
this species of instability is always followed by troubles and
revolutions, and the nation which suffers under it, is in a state of
violent transition.

Experience shows that these two kinds of legislative instability have no
necessary connexion; for they have been found united or separate,
according to times and circumstances. The first is common in the United
States, but not the second: the Americans often change their laws, but
the foundation of the constitution is respected.

In our days the republican principle rules in America, as the
monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French of that
period were not only friends of the monarchy, but they thought it
impossible to put anything in its place; they received it as we receive
the rays of the sun and the return of the seasons. Among them the royal
power had neither advocates nor opponents. In like manner does the
republican government exist in America, without contention or
opposition; without proofs and arguments, by a tacit agreement, a sort
of _consensus universalis_. It is, however, my opinion, that, by
changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants
of the United States compromise the future stability of their
government.

It may be apprehended that men, perpetually thwarted in their designs by
the mutability of legislation, will learn to look upon republican
institutions as an inconvenient form of society; the evil resulting from
the instability of the secondary enactments, might then raise a doubt as
to the nature of the fundamental principles of the constitution, and
indirectly bring about a revolution; but this epoch is still very
remote.

[It has been objected by an American review, that our author is mistaken
in charging our laws with instability, and in answer to the charge, the
permanence of our fundamental political institutions has been contrasted
with the revolutions in France. But the objection proceeds upon a
mistake of the author's meaning, which at this page is very clearly
expressed. He refers to the instability which modifies _secondary laws_,
and not to that which shakes the foundations of the constitution. The
distinction is equally sound and philosophic, and those in the least
acquainted with the history of our legislation, must bear witness to the
truth of the author's remarks. The frequent revisions of the statutes of
the states rendered necessary by the multitude, variety, and often the
contradiction of the enactments, furnish abundant evidence of this
instability.--_American Editor_.]

It may, however, be foreseen, even now, that when the Americans lose
their republican institutions, they will speedily arrive at a despotic
government, without a long interval of limited monarchy. Montesquieu
remarked, that nothing is more absolute than the authority of a prince
who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers which had
fearlessly been intrusted to an elected magistrate are then transferred
to an hereditary sovereign. This is true in general, but it is more
peculiarly applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States,
the magistrates are not elected by a particular class of citizens, but
by the majority of the nation; they are the immediate representatives of
the passions of the multitude; and as they are wholly dependent upon its
pleasure, they excite neither hatred nor fear: hence, as I have already
shown, very little care has been taken to limit their influence, and
they are left in possession of a vast deal of arbitrary power. This
state of things has engendered habits which would outlive itself; the
American magistrate would retain his power, but he would cease to be
responsible for the exercise of it; and it is impossible to say what
bounds could then be set to tyranny.