American Institutions and Their Influence by Alexis de Tocqueville et al

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Some of our European politicians expect to see an aristocracy arise in
America, and they already predict the exact period at which it will be
able to assume the reins of government. I have previously observed, and
I repeat my assertion, that the present tendency of American society
appears to me to become more and more democratic. Nevertheless, I do not
assert that the Americans will not, at some future time, restrict the
circle of political rights in their country, or confiscate those rights
to the advantage of a single individual; but I cannot imagine that they
will ever bestow the exclusive exercise of them upon a privileged class
of citizens, or, in other words, that they will ever found an
aristocracy.

An aristocratic body is composed of a certain number of citizens, who,
without being very far removed from the mass of the people, are,
nevertheless, permanently stationed above it: a body which it is easy to
touch, and difficult to strike; with which the people are in daily
contact, but with which they can never combine. Nothing can be imagined
more contrary to nature and to the secret propensities of the human
heart, than a subjection of this kind; and men, who are left to follow
their own bent, will always prefer the arbitrary power of a king to the
regular administration of an aristocracy. Aristocratic institutions
cannot subsist without laying down the inequality of men as a
fundamental principle, as a part and parcel of the legislation,
affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects that
of society; but these things are so repugnant to natural equity that
they can only be extorted from men by constraint.

I do not think a single people can be quoted, since human society began
to exist, which has, by its own free will and by its own exertions,
created an aristocracy within its own bosom. All the aristocracies of
the middle ages were founded by military conquest: the conqueror was the
noble, the vanquished became the serf. Inequality was then imposed by
force; and after it had been introduced into the manners of the country,
it maintained its own authority, and was sanctioned by the legislation.
Communities have existed which were aristocratic from their earliest
origin, owing to circumstances anterior to that event, and which became
more democratic in each succeeding age. Such was the destiny of the
Romans, and of the Barbarians after them. But a people, having taken its
rise in civilisation and democracy, which should gradually establish an
inequality of conditions until it arrived at inviolable privileges and
exclusive castes, would be a novelty in the world; and nothing intimates
that America is likely to furnish so singular an example.

* * * * *

REFLECTIONS ON THE CAUSES OF THE COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY OF THE UNITED
STATES.

The Americans destined by Nature to be a great maritime People.--Extent
of their Coasts.--Depth of their Ports.--Size of their Rivers.--The
commercial Superiority of the Anglo-Saxons less attributable, however,
to physical Circumstances than to moral and intellectual Causes.--Reason
of this Opinion.--Future Destiny of the Anglo-Americans as a commercial
Nation.--The Dissolution of the Union would not check the maritime Vigor
of the States.--Reason of this.--Anglo-Americans will naturally supply
the Wants of the inhabitants of South America.--They will become, like
the English, the Factors of a great portion of the World.

The coast of the United States, from the bay of Fundy to the Sabine
river in the gulf of Mexico, is more than two thousand miles in extent.
These shores form an unbroken line, and they are all subject to the same
government. No nation in the world possesses vaster, deeper, or more
secure ports for shipping than the Americans.

The inhabitants of the United States constitute a great civilized
people, which fortune has placed in the midst of an uncultivated
country, at a distance of three thousand miles from the central point of
civilisation. America consequently stands in daily need of European
trade. The Americans will, no doubt, ultimately succeed in producing or
manufacturing at home most of the articles which they require; but the
two continents can never be independent of each other, so numerous are
the natural ties which exist between their wants, their ideas, their
habits, and their manners.

The Union produces peculiar commodities which are now become necessary
to us, but which cannot be cultivated, or can only be raised at an
enormous expense, upon the soil of Europe. The Americans only consume a
small portion of this produce, and they are willing to sell us the rest.
Europe is therefore the market of America, as America is the market of
Europe; and maritime commerce is no less necessary to enable the
inhabitants of the United States to transport their raw materials to the
ports of Europe, than it is to enable us to supply them with our
manufactured produce. The United States were therefore necessarily
reduced to the alternative of increasing the business of other maritime
nations to a great extent, if they had themselves declined to enter into
commerce, as the Spaniards of Mexico have hitherto done; or, in the
second place, of becoming one of the first trading powers of the globe.

The Anglo-Americans have always displayed a very decided taste for the
sea. The declaration of independence broke the commercial restrictions
which united them to England, and gave a fresh and powerful stimulus to
their maritime genius. Ever since that time, the shipping of the Union
has increased in almost the same rapid proportion as the number of its
inhabitants. The Americans themselves now transport to their own shores
nine-tenths of the European produce which they consume.[291] And they
also bring three-quarters of the exports of the New World to the
European consumer.[292] The ships of the United States fill the docks of
Havre and of Liverpool; while the number of English and French vessels
which are to be seen at New York is comparatively small.[293]

Thus, not only does the American merchant face competition in his own
country, but he even supports that of foreign nations in their own ports
with success. This is readily explained by the fact that the vessels of
the United States can cross the seas at a cheaper rate than any other
vessels in the world. As long as the mercantile shipping of the United
States preserves this superiority, it will not only retain what it has
acquired, but it will constantly increase in prosperity.

It is difficult to say for what reason the Americans can trade at a
lower rate than other nations; and one is at first led to attribute this
circumstance to the physical or natural advantages which are within
their reach; but this supposition is erroneous. The American vessels
cost almost as much to build as our own[294]; they are not better built,
and they generally last for a shorter time. The pay of the American
sailor is more considerable than the pay on board European ships; which
is proved by the great number of Europeans who are to be met with in the
merchant vessels of the United States. But I am of opinion that the true
cause of their superiority must not be sought for in physical
advantages, but that it is wholly attributable to their moral and
intellectual qualities.

The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the
campaigns of the revolution the French introduced a new system of
tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals, and
very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe. They
undertook (what had never been before attempted) to make shift without a
number of things which had always been held to be indispensable in
warfare; they required novel exertions on the part of their troops,
which no civilized nations had ever thought of; they achieved great
actions in an incredibly short space of time: and they risked human life
without hesitation, to obtain the object in view. The French had less
money and fewer men than their enemies; their resources were infinitely
inferior; nevertheless they were constantly victorious, until their
adversaries chose to imitate their example.

The Americans have introduced a similar system into their commercial
speculations; and they do for cheapness what the French did for
conquest. The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail
when the weather is favorable; if an unforeseen accident befalls him, he
puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvass; and when the
whitening billows intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and
takes an observation of the sun. But the American neglects these
precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the midst of
tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to the
wind; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have
sustained from the storm; and when he at last approaches the term of his
voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port.
The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so
rapidly. And as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they
can perform it at a cheaper rate.

The European touches several times at different ports in the course of a
long voyage; he loses a good deal of precious time in making the harbor,
or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave it; and he pays daily dues
to be allowed to remain there. The American starts from Boston to go to
purchase tea in China: he arrives at Canton, stays there a few days and
then returns. In less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire
circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It is true
that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk brackish water,
and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with
the sea, with disease, and with the tedium of monotony; but, upon his
return, he can sell a pound of his tea for a halfpenny less than the
English merchant, and his purpose is accomplished.

I cannot better explain my meaning than by saying that the Americans
affect a sort of heroism in their manner of trading. But the European
merchant will always find it very difficult to imitate his American
competitor, who, in adopting the system which I have just described,
follows not only a calculation of his gain, but an impulse of his
nature.

The inhabitants of the United States are subject to all the wants and
all the desires which result from an advanced stage of civilisation; but
as they are not surrounded by a community admirably adapted, like that
of Europe, to satisfy their wants, they are often obliged to procure for
themselves the various articles which education and habit have rendered
necessaries. In America it sometimes happens that the same individual
tills his field, builds his dwelling, contrives his tools, makes his
shoes, and weaves the coarse stuff of which his dress is composed. This
circumstance is prejudicial to the excellence of the work: but it
powerfully contributes to awaken the intelligence of the workman.
Nothing tends to materialise man, and to deprive his work of the
faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division of labor. In a
country like America, where men devoted to special occupations are rare,
a long apprenticeship cannot be required from any one who embraces a
profession. The Americans therefore change their means of gaining a
livelihood very readily; and they suit their occupations to the
exigencies of the moment, in the manner most profitable to themselves.
Men are to be met with who have successively been barristers, farmers,
merchants, ministers of the gospel, and physicians. If the American be
less perfect in each craft than the European, at least there is scarcely
any trade with which he is utterly unacquainted. His capacity is more
general, and the circle of his intelligence is enlarged.

The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the axioms of
their profession; they escape from all the prejudices of their present
station; they are not more attached to one line of operation than to
another; they are not more prone to employ an old method than a new one;
they have no rooted habits, and they easily shake off the influence
which the habits of other nations might exercise upon their minds, from
a conviction that their country is unlike any other, and that its
situation is without a precedent in the world. America is a land of
wonders, in which everything is in constant motion, and every movement
seems an improvement. The idea of novelty is there indissolubly
connected with the idea of melioration. No natural boundary seems to be
set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done is only what he has
not yet attempted to do.

This perpetual change which goes on in the United States, these frequent
vicissitudes of fortune, accompanied by such unforeseen fluctuations in
private and in public wealth, serve to keep the minds of the citizens in
a perpetual state of feverish agitation, which admirably invigorates
their exertions, and keeps them in a state of excitement above the
ordinary level of mankind. The whole life of an American is passed like
a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis or a battle. As the same causes
are continually in operation throughout the country, they ultimately
impart an irresistible impulse to the national character. The American,
taken as a chance specimen of his countrymen, must then be a man of
singular warmth in his desires, enterprising, fond of adventure, and
above all of innovation. The same bent is manifest in all that he does;
he introduces it into his political laws, his religious doctrines, his
theories of social economy, and his domestic occupations; he bears it
with him in the depth of the backwoods, as well as in the business of
the city. It is the same passion, applied to maritime commerce, which
makes him the cheapest and the quickest trader in the world.

As long as the sailors of the United States retain these inspiriting
advantages, and the practical superiority which they derive from them,
they will not only continue to supply the wants of the producers and
consumers of their own country, but they will tend more and more to
become, like the English, the factors of all other peoples.[295] This
prediction has already begun to be realized; we perceive that the
American traders are introducing themselves as intermediate agents in
the commerce of several European nations;[296] and America will offer a
still wider field to their enterprise.

The great colonies which were founded in South America by the Spaniards
and the Portuguese have since become empires. Civil war and oppression
now lay waste those extensive regions. Population does not increase, and
the thinly-scattered inhabitants are too much absorbed in the cares of
self-defence even to attempt any melioration of their condition. Such,
however, will not always be the case. Europe has succeeded by her own
efforts in piercing the gloom of the middle ages; South America has the
same Christian laws and Christian manners as we have; she contains all
the germs of civilisation which have grown amid the nations of Europe or
their offsets, added to the advantages to be derived from our example;
why then should she always remain uncivilized? It is clear that the
question is simply one of time; at some future period, which may be more
or less remote, the inhabitants of South America will constitute
flourishing and enlightened nations.

But when the Spaniards and Portuguese of South America begin to feel the
wants common to all civilized nations, they will still be unable to
satisfy those wants for themselves; as the youngest children of
civilisation, they must perforce admit the superiority of their elder
brethren. They will be agriculturists long before they succeed in
manufactures or commerce, and they will require the mediation of
strangers to exchange their produce beyond seas for those articles for
which a demand will begin to be felt.

It is unquestionable that the Americans of the north will one day supply
the wants of the Americans of the south. Nature has placed them in
contiguity; and has furnished the former with every means of knowing and
appreciating those demands, of establishing a permanent connexion with
those states, and of gradually filling their markets. The merchant of
the United States could only forfeit these natural advantages if he were
very inferior to the merchant of Europe; to whom he is, on the contrary,
superior in several respects. The Americans of the United States already
exercise a very considerable moral influence upon all the people of the
New World. They are the source of intelligence, and all the nations
which inhabit the same continent are already accustomed to consider them
as the most enlightened, the most powerful, and the most wealthy members
of the great American family. All eyes are therefore turned toward the
Union; and the states of which that body is composed are the models
which the other communities try to imitate to the best of their power:
it is from the United states that they borrow their political principles
and their laws.

The Americans of the United States stand in precisely the same position
with regard to the peoples of South America as their fathers, the
English, occupy with regard to the Italians, the Spaniards, the
Portuguese, and all those nations of Europe, which receive their
articles of daily consumption from England, because they are less
advanced in civilisation and trade. England is at this time the natural
emporium of almost all the nations which are within its reach; the
American Union will perform the same part in the other hemisphere; and
every community which is founded, or which prospers in the New World, is
founded and prospers to the advantage of the Anglo-Americans.

If the Union were to be dissolved, the commerce of the states which now
compose it, would undoubtedly be checked for a time; but this
consequence would be less perceptible than is generally supposed. It is
evident that whatever may happen, the commercial states will remain
united. They are all contiguous to each other; they have identically the
same opinions, interests, and manners, and they are alone competent to
form a very great maritime power. Even if the south of the Union were to
become independent of the north, it would still require the service of
those states. I have already observed that the south is not a commercial
country, and nothing intimates that it is likely to become so. The
Americans of the south of the United States will therefore be obliged,
for a long time to come, to have recourse to strangers to export their
produce, and to supply them with the commodities which are requisite to
satisfy their wants. But the northern states are undoubtedly able to act
as their intermediate agents cheaper than any other merchants. They will
therefore retain that employment, for cheapness is the sovereign law of
commerce. National claims and national prejudices cannot resist the
influence of cheapness. Nothing can be more virulent than the hatred
which exists between the Americans of the United States and the English.
But, notwithstanding these inimical feelings, the Americans derive the
greater part of their manufactured commodities from England, because
England supplies them at a cheaper rate than any other nation. Thus the
increasing prosperity of America turns, notwithstanding the grudges of
the Americans, to the advantage of British manufactures.

Reason shows and experience proves that no commercial prosperity can be
durable if it cannot be united, in case of need, to naval force. This
truth is as well understood in the United States as it can be anywhere
else: the Americans are already able to make their flag respected: in a
few years they will be able to make it feared. I am convinced that the
dismemberment of the Union would not have the effect of diminishing the
naval power of the Americans, but that it would powerfully contribute to
increase it. At the present time the commercial states are connected
with others which have not the same interests, and which frequently
yield an unwilling consent to the increase of a maritime power by which
they are only indirectly benefited. If, on the contrary, the commercial
states of the Union formed one independent nation, commerce would become
the foremost of their national interests; they would consequently be
willing to make very great sacrifices to protect their shipping, and
nothing would prevent them from pursuing their designs upon this point.

Nations, as well as men, almost always betray the most prominent
features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I
contemplate the ardor with which the Anglo-Americans prosecute
commercial enterprise, the advantages which befriend them, and the
success of their undertakings, I cannot refrain from believing that they
will one day become the first maritime power of the globe. They are born
to rule the seas, as the Romans were to conquer the world.

* * * * *

Notes:

[207] See the map. [Transcriber's Note: Map of North America.]

[208] The native of North America retains his opinions and the most
insignificant of his habits with a degree of tenacity which has no
parallel in history. For more than two hundred years the wandering
tribes of North America have had daily intercourse with the whites, and
they have never derived from them either a custom or an idea. Yet the
European have exercised a powerful influence over the savages: they have
made them more licentious, but not more European. In the summer of 1831,
I happened to be beyond Lake Michigan, at a place called Green Bay,
which serves as the extreme frontier between the United States and the
Indians on the northwestern side. Here I became acquainted with an
American officer, Major H., who, after talking to me at length on the
inflexibility of the Indian character, related the following fact: "I
formerly knew a young Indian," said he, "who had been educated at a
college in New England, where he had greatly distinguished himself, and
had acquired the external appearance of a member of civilized society.
When the war broke out between ourselves and the English, in 1810, I saw
this young man again; he was serving in our army at the head of the
warriors of his tribe; for the Indians were admitted among the ranks of
the Americans, upon condition that they would abstain from their
horrible custom of scalping their victims. On the evening of the battle
of ----, C. came and sat himself down by the fire of our bivouac. I
asked him what had been his fortune that day: he related his exploits;
and growing warm and animated by the recollection of them, he concluded
by suddenly opening the breast of his coat, saying, 'You must not betray
me--see here!' And I actually beheld," said the major, "between his body
and his shirt, the skin and hair of an English head still dripping with
gore."

[209] In the thirteen original states, there are only 6,273 Indians
remaining. (See Legislative Documents, 20th congress, No. 117, p. 90.)

[210] Messrs. Clarke and Cass, in their report to congress, the 4th
February, 1829, p. 23, expressed themselves thus: "The time when the
Indians generally could supply themselves with food and clothing,
without any of the articles of civilized life, has long since passed
away. The more remote tribes, beyond the Mississippi, who live where
immense herds of buffalo are yet to be found, and who follow those
animals in their periodical migrations, could more easily than any
others recur to the habits of their ancestors, and live without the
white man or any of his manufactures. But the buffalo is constantly
receding. The smaller animals--the bear, the deer, the beaver, the
otter, the muskrat, &c., principally minister to the comfort and support
of the Indians; and these cannot be taken without guns, ammunition, and
traps.

"Among the northwestern Indians particularly, the labor of supplying a
family with food is excessive. Day after day is spent by the hunter
without success, and during this interval his family must subsist upon
bark or roots, or perish. Want and misery are around them and among
them. Many die every winter from actual starvation."

The Indians will not live as Europeans live; and yet they can neither
subsist without them, nor exactly after the fashion of their fathers.
This is demonstrated by a fact which I likewise give upon official
authority. Some Indians of a tribe on the banks of Lake Superior had
killed a European; the American government interdicted all traffic with
the tribe to which the guilty parties belonged, until they were
delivered up to justice. This measure had the desired effect.

[211] "Five years ago," says Volney in his Tableaux des Etats Unis, p.
370, "in going from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, a territory which now forms
part of the State of Illinois, but which at the time I mention was
completely wild (1797), you could not cross a prairie without seeing
herds of from four to five hundred buffaloes. There are now none
remaining; they swam across the Mississippi to escape from the hunters,
and more particularly from the bells of the American cows."