Book One

Introductory Chapter

Of all the things that caught my attention during my time in the United States, nothing hit me harder than the sheer equality of social conditions. I quickly saw the enormous influence this single fact has on every aspect of society — shaping public opinion, setting the tone of the laws, giving new principles to those in power and new habits to those being governed. I soon realized this influence reaches far beyond politics and government. It creates opinions, generates feelings, drives the routines of everyday life, and reshapes whatever it doesn't directly produce. The deeper I went into my study of American society, the more I saw that this equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which everything else flows — the center of gravity around which all my observations kept circling back.

I then turned my attention to our own side of the Atlantic, and I thought I could see something similar happening. I noticed that equality of conditions is advancing day by day toward the same extreme limits it seems to have reached in the United States, and that the same democratic forces governing American communities are rapidly gaining power in Europe. That's what gave me the idea for this book.

Everyone can see that a great democratic revolution is sweeping through our world. But people disagree about what it means. Some see it as a fluke — an accident that might still be reversed. Others see it as unstoppable, because it is the most consistent, the most ancient, and the most enduring trend in all of history. Let me take you back seven hundred years to see what I mean.

Picture France around the eleventh century. The land was divided among a small number of families who owned the soil and ruled the people on it. The right to govern passed down through family inheritance, generation after generation. Force was the only way one person could exert power over another, and land was the only source of that power.

Then the Church established its political influence and began to exercise it. The clergy opened its ranks to everyone — poor and rich, peasant and lord. Equality entered the government through the Church. A person who would have spent his entire life in serfdom could take his place as a priest among the nobles — and frequently above the heads of kings.

As society grew more stable and complex, relationships between people became more complicated and numerous. This created a need for civil law, and legal professionals soon rose from their obscure courtrooms and dusty offices to take their place at the monarch's court, standing alongside feudal barons in their armor and finery. While kings bankrupted themselves with grand military campaigns and nobles drained their wealth through private wars, the common people were getting rich through trade. The influence of money began to make itself felt in affairs of state. Business opened a new road to power, and the financier rose to political influence — simultaneously courted and looked down upon. Gradually, the spread of education and a growing appetite for literature and art created new paths to success based on talent. Knowledge became a tool of governance, intelligence led to social power, and writers began playing a role in public affairs. The value placed on the privileges of birth declined in exact proportion to the new paths that opened up for advancement. In the eleventh century, nobility was priceless. By the thirteenth century, it could be bought. In 1270, it was granted as a title for the first time — and so equality was introduced into the government by the aristocracy itself.

Over the course of those seven hundred years, the nobles sometimes granted the people a share of political rights in order to resist the Crown or weaken their rivals. More often, the king let the common people taste a degree of power as a way of keeping the aristocracy in check. In France, the kings were always the most active and relentless levelers. When they were strong and ambitious, they worked tirelessly to raise the people to the level of the nobles. When they were cautious or weak, they simply allowed the people to rise above them. Some advanced democracy through their abilities, others through their failures. Louis XI and Louis XIV crushed every rank beneath the throne into the same subjection. Louis XV dragged himself and his entire court down into the dust.

Once land could be held outside the feudal system, and once personal wealth began to carry influence and power, every advance in trade or manufacturing became a new force for equality. From that point on, every new discovery, every new need it created, every new desire demanding satisfaction was a step toward leveling the playing field. The taste for luxury, the love of war, the power of fashion, and the deepest as well as the most shallow passions of the human heart all worked together to enrich the poor and impoverish the rich.

Once intellectual achievement became a source of strength and wealth, every addition to knowledge, every new truth, every fresh idea became a seed of power placed within the people's reach. Poetry, eloquence, memory, wit, imagination, depth of thought — all the gifts that Providence distributes without regard to birth — turned to democracy's advantage. Even when these gifts belonged to democracy's opponents, they still served its cause by highlighting the natural greatness of human beings. Democracy's conquests therefore advanced alongside those of civilization and knowledge, and literature became an arsenal where even the poorest and weakest could always find weapons ready to hand.

Look through the pages of our history and you'll barely find a single major event in those seven hundred years that didn't push things toward greater equality. The Crusades and the wars with England decimated the nobility and divided their estates. The rise of self-governing towns introduced democratic freedom into the heart of feudal monarchy. The invention of firearms made the peasant equal to the noble on the battlefield. The printing press opened the same intellectual resources to every social class. The postal system brought the same information to the poor person's cottage and the gates of the palace. Protestantism declared that all people are equally capable of finding the road to heaven. The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune, putting wealth and power within reach of the adventurous and the unknown.

If you examine France at fifty-year intervals starting from the eleventh century, you'll find the same pattern every time: a double revolution in the structure of society. The noble has gone down the social ladder, and the commoner has gone up. One descends as the other rises. Every half century brings them closer, and soon they'll meet.

This isn't unique to France. Wherever you look across the Western world, the same relentless revolution is unfolding. Every twist and turn of national life has worked in democracy's favor. Everyone has helped it along — those who intentionally worked for it and those who served it without knowing it, those who fought for it and those who declared themselves its enemies. All have been swept along the same current, all have labored toward the same end, some knowingly and some against their will. All have been unwitting instruments in the hands of God.

The gradual advance of equality is therefore a providential fact, and it has all the marks of a divine decree: it is universal, it is enduring, it constantly escapes human control, and every event and every person contributes to its progress. Would it really be wise, then, to think that a social force dating back this far could be stopped by one generation's efforts? Can anyone seriously believe that the democracy which destroyed feudalism and brought kings to their knees will back down before the middle class and the wealthy? Will it stop now that it's grown so strong and its opponents so weak?

No one can say exactly where we're headed, because we have no precedent to go by. Equality of conditions is more fully realized in the Western world today than it has ever been anywhere, at any time in history. The sheer scale of what has already happened makes it impossible to foresee what's still to come.

This entire book has been written under the weight of something like religious awe — an awe produced by contemplating a revolution so unstoppable that it has been advancing for centuries through every obstacle, and is still moving forward through the wreckage it has left behind. You don't need God to speak directly to recognize the clear signs of His will; we can read them in the regular course of nature and the steady direction of events. I know, without needing a special revelation, that the planets travel in the orbits traced by the Creator's hand. If the people of our time could be led by careful observation and honest reflection to recognize that the gradual and steady development of social equality is both the past and the future of their history, that single recognition would give this transformation the sacred character of a divine will. To try to stop democracy would then mean resisting the will of God, and nations would have no choice but to make the best of the social conditions Providence has given them.

The nations of our era present, to my mind, a deeply alarming picture. The force driving them forward is too strong to be stopped, but not yet so fast that it can't be steered. Their fate is still in their hands — but perhaps not for much longer.

The first duty of those who lead us today is to educate democracy: to rekindle its faith, if possible; to purify its values; to channel its energy; to replace its inexperience with practical knowledge; to help it understand its true interests instead of following its blind impulses; to adapt its government to the time and place; and to reshape it according to the circumstances and the people of the age. A new world demands a new political science.

But this is exactly what we think about least. We've been thrown into the middle of a rushing river, and we stubbornly stare back at the ruins on the shore we've left behind — while the current sweeps us backward toward the abyss.

In no European country has this great social revolution moved as fast as in France. But in France it has always been driven by chance. The nation's leaders never planned for its demands, and its victories were won without their consent — often without their knowledge. The most powerful, the most educated, and the most principled classes of the nation never tried to take hold of it and guide it. The people were left to their wild instincts, growing up like children raised in the streets, knowing nothing but society's vices and misery. Democracy seemed to not even exist — and then suddenly it seized supreme power. Everything was handed over to its whims. It was worshipped like an idol of strength. Then, once it was weakened by its own excesses, the lawmakers came up with the reckless plan of destroying its power entirely, rather than teaching it and correcting its faults. No one tried to make it fit to govern. Everyone was bent on keeping it out of the government.

The result is that the democratic revolution transformed only the material structure of society, without the accompanying changes in laws, ideas, customs, and social norms that would have made it beneficial. We got a democracy, but without the conditions that reduce its flaws and bring out its strengths. We can already see the problems it brings, but we have no idea of the benefits it might offer.

When the power of the monarchy, supported by the aristocracy, peacefully governed the nations of Europe, society had — even in the midst of its hardships — several advantages that are now hard to appreciate or even imagine. The power of a portion of the population was an impassable barrier against the tyranny of the ruler, and the monarch, who sensed the almost sacred status he held in the eyes of the public, had reason to use his power justly — the people's respect motivated restraint. The nobles, for all their elevation above the common people, couldn't help feeling a calm, paternalistic concern for their welfare — the way a shepherd feels toward his flock. Without considering the poor their equals, they watched over the fate of those whose well-being Providence had placed in their care. The people, never having imagined a social order different from their own, and never expecting to stand as equals with their rulers, accepted benefits from above without questioning the rights involved. They became attached to their lords when those lords were fair and merciful, and they submitted to their demands without resistance or servility — as if bowing to the inevitable will of God. Custom and social norms had created a kind of law even in the midst of violence, setting certain limits on oppression. Since the noble never imagined anyone would try to strip him of privileges he believed were rightfully his, and since the serf saw his own lower status as part of the natural order, it's easy to see how a kind of mutual goodwill could exist between two classes so differently placed by fate. There was inequality and suffering, certainly — but the souls of neither class were degraded.

Here is the key point: people are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience. They are corrupted by exercising power they believe to be illegitimate, and by obeying rules they consider unjust and oppressive.

On one side there was wealth, strength, and leisure, along with the refinements of luxury, elegance of taste, pleasures of wit, and devotion to art. On the other side there was hard labor and rough ignorance. But even among this uneducated mass, you could find fierce passions, generous impulses, deep religious conviction, and fierce independence. A society organized this way could claim stability, power, and — above all — glory.

But all of that has changed. Gradually the two classes have merged. The walls that once separated them have come down. Property is divided, power is shared, education spreads, and the abilities of all classes are equally developed. Society becomes democratic, and democracy peacefully takes hold of both institutions and social norms.

I can envision a society in which all people feel an equal attachment to laws they had a hand in creating — where the authority of the state is respected as necessary, even if not sacred, and loyalty to the head of government is not a passion but a calm, reasoned commitment. In such a society, every individual would possess rights they're confident of keeping, and a kind of self-assured mutual respect would develop between all classes — free of both arrogance and servility. The people, understanding their true interests, would accept that enjoying the benefits of society means meeting its obligations. In this kind of society, the voluntary associations of citizens could replace the individual efforts of the old nobility, and the community would be protected from both anarchy and oppression.

I'll admit it: in a democracy like the one I'm describing, society won't stand still. But the energy of the social body can be regulated and directed forward. There may be less splendor than in the halls of an aristocracy, but there will also be less misery. Pleasures may be less extravagant, but comfort will be more widespread. The sciences may be less brilliantly cultivated, but ignorance will be less common. Emotions may be less intense, but behavior will be more civilized. There will be more petty vices and fewer great crimes.

Without the fire of enthusiasm or burning faith, you can still get great sacrifices from citizens by appealing to their reason and their experience. Each person will see the necessity of joining with others to protect against their own vulnerability. And since they'll know that getting help means giving it, they'll quickly grasp that their personal interest is bound up with the interest of the community. The nation as a whole will be less brilliant, less glorious, and perhaps less powerful. But the majority of citizens will enjoy greater prosperity, and the people will be at peace — not because they've given up on improvement, but because they appreciate what they have. If not everything about this state of affairs is good, society will at least have claimed everything that is good about it. And having left behind the advantages of aristocracy once and for all, humanity would take full possession of all the benefits democracy can provide.

But here's the question: what have we actually put in place of those old institutions, ideas, and customs that we've abandoned?

The spell of royalty is broken, but it hasn't been replaced by the authority of law. The people have learned to despise all authority, but now fear extracts a larger tribute of obedience than respect and loyalty ever did.

We've destroyed the independent powers that could once stand up to tyranny on their own. But it's the government that has inherited the privileges stripped from families, organizations, and individuals. So the weakness of the entire community has replaced the influence of a small number of citizens — influence that was sometimes oppressive but often served as a check on power.

The division of property has narrowed the gap between rich and poor. But the closer they come to each other, the greater their mutual hatred — the more bitter the envy and the more intense the fear with which each side resists the other's claims to power. Neither class has any real sense of justice, and both see force as the only argument for the present and the only guarantee for the future.

The poor person has inherited his ancestors' prejudices without their faith, their ignorance without their virtues. He has adopted self-interest as the rule of his conduct without understanding the knowledge that should guide it, and his selfishness is as blind as his devotion once was.

If society is calm, it's not because it trusts in its strength and prosperity — it's because it knows how weak and fragile it is. A single shock could kill it. Everyone feels the sickness, but no one has the courage or energy to seek the cure. The desires, regrets, sorrows, and joys of the present produce nothing visible or lasting — like the passions of old men, which end in helplessness.

So we've given up whatever advantages the old order provided without gaining anything from our present condition. We've destroyed an aristocracy, and we seem content to sit among its ruins and admire the wreckage.

The intellectual world is in no better shape. French democracy, blocked in its course or abandoned to its uncontrolled passions, has knocked down everything in its path and shaken whatever it hasn't destroyed. Its takeover of society has not been gradual or peaceful — it has pushed forward constantly through chaos and conflict. In the heat of the struggle, each side is dragged beyond its own convictions by the excesses of the other, until people lose sight of what they're actually fighting for and use language that disguises their true feelings and hidden motives.

The result is the bizarre confusion we're now witnessing. I can't think of a moment in history more deserving of sorrow and pity than what's happening before our eyes. It's as if the natural link between what people believe and what they do has been severed — as if the connection between feelings and ideas that everyone has always recognized has been dissolved, and every law of moral consistency abolished.

You can find devout Christians among us — people whose minds are steeped in faith and the hope of eternal life — who eagerly champion human freedom as the source of all moral greatness. Christianity, which declares all people equal before God, should have no trouble recognizing all citizens as equal before the law. But through a strange combination of circumstances, religion has become entangled with the very institutions democracy is attacking. And so religion is frequently led to reject the equality it loves, and to condemn freedom — a cause it could sanctify through alliance — as though it were an enemy.

Beside these religious people, I see others whose eyes are fixed more on the earth than on heaven. They champion freedom not just as the source of the noblest virtues, but especially as the foundation of all practical benefits. They sincerely want to extend its reach and share its blessings with everyone. They should naturally want religion's support, since they must know that freedom can't be established without morality, and morality can't survive without faith. But they've seen religion standing on the other side, and they look no further. Some attack it openly; the rest are simply afraid to defend it.

In earlier ages, servility was championed by the corrupt and the craven, while people of independence and passion fought — often without hope — to save human freedom. But now you find people of high and generous character whose opinions contradict their own instincts, praising a submissiveness they've never experienced. Others speak in the name of freedom as if they could feel its power and majesty, loudly demanding rights for humanity that they themselves have always denied. There are decent, peaceful, talented, prosperous people who are natural leaders in their communities. Their love of country is genuine, and they'd make enormous sacrifices for it. But they confuse the abuses of civilization with its benefits, and in their minds the idea of anything new is inseparable from the idea of evil.

Not far from them is another group entirely — people who want to reduce humanity to nothing but material interests, who pursue what's useful without caring about what's right, who seek knowledge without faith and prosperity without virtue. They claim the title of champions of modern civilization, seizing a position they have no right to and from which their own unworthiness eventually expels them.

So where does that leave us? The religious are the enemies of freedom, and the friends of freedom attack religion. The noble-minded and high-born advocate submission, while the most servile minds preach independence. Honest, enlightened citizens oppose all progress, while people without patriotism or principles present themselves as apostles of civilization and enlightenment.

Has this always been humanity's fate? Have people always lived in a world like ours, where nothing holds together — where virtue exists without talent, and talent without honor; where love of order gets confused with a taste for oppression, and the sacred cause of freedom is mixed up with contempt for law; where conscience barely illuminates human actions, and nothing seems clearly forbidden or permitted, honorable or shameful, true or false?

I can't bring myself to believe that the Creator made human beings only to abandon them to this kind of endless intellectual misery. God has something calmer and more certain in store for the nations of the West. I don't claim to know His plans, but I won't stop believing in them just because I can't fully understand them. I'd rather doubt my own judgment than doubt His justice.

There is a country in the world where this great revolution seems to have nearly reached its natural limits — a country that has achieved it with ease and simplicity. Or rather, this country has arrived at the results of the democratic revolution we're going through without having to endure the revolution itself.

The settlers who established themselves on America's shores in the early seventeenth century separated the democratic principle from all the forces that had suppressed it in the old societies of Europe, and transplanted it in its pure form to the New World. There it was free to grow without restriction and to work its way into the laws by shaping the customs and habits of the country.

It seems beyond doubt to me that sooner or later we will arrive, like the Americans, at a nearly complete equality of social conditions. But I don't conclude from this that we'll necessarily draw the same political lessons or build the same institutions the Americans have built from a similar social foundation. I'm far from assuming they've found the only form of government a democracy can adopt. But the fact that the same underlying cause — equality — is at work in both countries is enough reason for us to take an enormous interest in understanding its effects in each.

So it's not merely to satisfy curiosity that I've studied America. My goal has been to find lessons we can use ourselves. Anyone who thinks I set out to write a celebration will see that wasn't my intention. And I haven't tried to argue for any particular form of government, because I believe absolute perfection is rarely found in any political system. I haven't even tried to settle whether this social revolution — which I believe is unstoppable — is ultimately good or bad for humanity. I've accepted it as a fact already accomplished, or on the verge of being accomplished. And from among the nations that have experienced it, I've chosen the one where its development has been the most peaceful and the most complete, in order to see its natural consequences clearly and, if possible, to figure out how to make it work for the best.

I'll be honest: in America, I saw more than America. I was looking for an image of democracy itself — its tendencies, its character, its prejudices, its passions — so I could learn what we have to fear or hope from its advance.

In the first part of this work, I've tried to show the direction democracy gives to American laws, leaving it almost entirely free to follow its instincts. I've examined the course it sets for the government and the influence it has on public affairs. I've tried to identify the problems it creates and the advantages it brings. I've looked at the safeguards Americans use to keep it in check, as well as the ones they've neglected. And I've tried to explain the conditions that allow it to govern society.

I don't know whether I've succeeded in conveying what I saw in America. But I'm certain that this has been my sincere aim, and that I have never, knowingly, shaped facts to fit ideas instead of shaping ideas to fit facts.

Whenever a point could be established from written documents, I've gone back to the original texts and the most authoritative and reliable sources. I've cited my references in the notes, and anyone can check them. Whenever the question involved an opinion, a political custom, or an observation about American life, I tried to consult the most knowledgeable people I could find. If the point was important or uncertain, I wasn't satisfied with a single source — I formed my judgment from multiple witnesses. Here the reader will have to take me at my word. I could often have cited names that are well known, or deserve to be, to support my claims. But I've deliberately avoided doing so. A foreign visitor frequently hears important truths by his host's fireside — truths the host might never share with a close friend. People confide in a guest precisely because he's passing through, and the brevity of a traveler's stay removes any fear of indiscretion. I carefully recorded every conversation of this kind as soon as it took place, but those notes will never leave my files. I would rather harm the impact of my arguments than add my name to the list of visitors who repay the generous hospitality they've received with embarrassment and regret.

I know that despite all my care, nothing will be easier than to criticize this book — if anyone bothers to. Readers who examine it closely will discover the fundamental idea connecting all its parts. But the range of subjects I've had to cover is enormous, and it won't be hard to set one isolated fact against the body of evidence I present, or one isolated idea against the larger argument I'm making. I hope to be read in the same spirit that guided my work — and that my book will be judged by the overall impression it leaves, just as I've formed my own judgments not on any single piece of evidence, but on the weight of it all taken together.

One more thing should be kept in mind: a writer who wants to be understood has to push every idea to its furthest logical conclusion, and sometimes to the very edge of what's false or impractical. In real life, you can bend the rules of logic. But in writing, you can't — and a person will find that almost as many difficulties come from inconsistency of language as usually come from inconsistency of action.

I'll close by pointing out what many readers will consider this book's main weakness. It was not written to promote any particular point of view. In writing it, I had no intention of serving or attacking any political party. I've tried not to see things differently from the parties, but to see further than they do. While they're focused on tomorrow, I've turned my thoughts to the future.

Chapter I: The Shape of North America

North America's two vast regions, one tilting toward the Arctic and the other toward the tropics — The Mississippi Valley — Evidence of ancient geological upheaval — The Atlantic coast where the English colonies took root — How North and South America looked utterly different when Europeans first arrived — The forests of North America — The prairies — The wandering Native tribes, their appearance, customs, and languages — Traces of a vanished civilization.

The Shape of North America

When you look at North America from above, certain broad patterns jump out immediately. There's a kind of grand order underlying the apparent chaos of landscapes — a simple but striking arrangement of land and water, mountains and valleys. The continent splits, almost evenly, into two enormous regions. The first is bounded to the north by the Arctic, and to the east and west by the Atlantic and Pacific. It narrows as it stretches southward, forming a rough triangle whose irregular sides finally converge below the Great Lakes of Canada. The second region picks up where the first leaves off and covers the rest of the continent. One slopes gently toward the Pole; the other toward the Equator.

The northern region descends toward the Arctic so gradually that it might as well be flat. Across this immense stretch of country there are no high mountains, no deep valleys. Rivers wander through it without any clear plan — great waterways merge, separate, and merge again, spreading into vast marshes where they lose all trace of their channels in a labyrinth of their own making. Eventually, after countless twists and turns, they empty into the Arctic seas. The Great Lakes that mark this region's boundary aren't hemmed in by hills and rocks the way most European lakes are. Their banks are flat, rising only a few feet above the waterline, so that each lake is essentially a vast bowl filled to the brim. The slightest shift in the earth's structure would send their waters rushing either toward the Pole or toward the tropics.

The southern region is far more varied and better suited for human habitation. Two long mountain chains run across it from end to end: the Alleghenies follow the shape of the Atlantic coast, while the Rockies run parallel to the Pacific. The space between these two ranges covers about 1,341,649 square miles — roughly six times the size of France. This vast territory, however, forms a single valley. One side descends gradually from the rounded summits of the Alleghenies; the other rises in an unbroken climb toward the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. At the bottom of this valley flows an immense river, gathering tributaries from the mountains on every side. The French settlers, homesick for their native land, once called it the St. Louis. The Native peoples, in their vivid way, named it the Father of Waters — the Mississippi.

The Mississippi rises just above the boundary between these two great regions, not far from the highest point of the plateau where they meet. Near the same spot, another river rises and flows north toward the Arctic seas. The Mississippi's early course is uncertain — it winds several times back toward the north before finally committing to its long, slow journey south. Sometimes gliding quietly along the clay bed nature carved for it, sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi travels some 2,500 miles before reaching the sea. At about 1,364 miles from its mouth, the river averages fifteen feet deep and can carry vessels of 300 tons for nearly 500 miles. Fifty-seven major navigable rivers feed into it, including the Missouri (which itself covers 2,500 miles), the Arkansas (1,300 miles), the Red River (1,000 miles), and four others ranging from 800 to 1,000 miles — the Illinois, the St. Peter's, the St. Francis, and the Moingona — along with countless smaller streams pouring in from every direction.

The Mississippi Valley seems designed by nature to be the bed of this mighty river, which, like some ancient god, dispenses both bounty and destruction along its course. Near the river's banks, nature is almost absurdly fertile. But the farther you move from the water, the more the land's vitality fades — the soil turns poor, and what plants survive look stunted and sickly. Nowhere on Earth has geological upheaval left more visible marks than in this valley. The whole landscape tells the story of water's power — both in what it creates and what it destroys. Ancient oceans deposited enormous layers of rich soil in the valley, leveling the ground as they receded. On the right bank of the river stretch immense plains, as smooth as if someone had rolled them flat. But as you approach the mountains, the terrain grows rougher and more barren. The ground is pierced in a thousand places by ancient rock formations that jut up like the bones of a skeleton with the flesh half consumed. The surface is covered with granite sand and huge irregular boulders, among which a few plants push through, giving the impression of a green field strewn with the ruins of some enormous building. These rocks and this sand turn out to be a perfect match for the material that makes up the arid, broken summits of the Rockies. The great floods that washed soil down to the valley floor also tore away chunks of the mountains themselves, which were battered against the neighboring cliffs and left scattered at their feet like wreckage.

The Mississippi Valley is, on the whole, the most magnificent dwelling place God ever prepared for humanity — and yet, at the time I write, it was still essentially a vast wilderness.

On the eastern side of the Alleghenies, between the mountains and the Atlantic, there lies a long strip of rock and sand that the sea appears to have left behind as it retreated. This strip averages about a hundred miles wide and runs roughly nine hundred miles long. The soil here resists farming at every turn, and the vegetation is sparse and monotonous.

Yet it was on this inhospitable coast that civilization in America first took hold. This narrow ribbon of difficult land was the cradle of the English colonies destined to become the United States. The center of power still remains here — while in the western backcountry, the true building blocks of the great nation that will one day control the continent were quietly gathering, almost in secret.

When Europeans first landed in the West Indies and then on the coast of South America, they thought they had stumbled into the mythical paradise poets had always sung about. The sea sparkled with phosphorescent light, and its waters were so extraordinarily clear that sailors could see straight to the ocean floor — corals and fish visible at depths of sixty fathoms, the ships seeming to float in midair. Scattered here and there were small islands perfumed with fragrant plants, like baskets of flowers drifting on the calm surface of the ocean. Everything in this enchanted region seemed designed to satisfy human desire or delight the senses. Nearly every tree was heavy with nourishing fruit, and those that bore no food dazzled the eye with the brilliance and variety of their colors. In groves of fragrant lemon trees, wild figs, flowering myrtles, acacias, and oleanders — all draped with climbing vines bursting with blossoms — flocks of birds unknown in Europe flashed their bright plumage of purple and blue, their songs mixing with the hum of a world teeming with life. But beneath this brilliant surface, death was hiding. The climate was so enervating that people, absorbed in immediate pleasure, stopped thinking about the future.

North America made an entirely different impression. Everything here was grave, serious, and solemn — as if this land had been created to be the domain of the mind, while the South belonged to the senses. A turbulent, foggy ocean beat against its shores. It was ringed by a belt of granite rock or wide stretches of sand. The woods were dark and somber, made up of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild olive trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt lay the deep shadows of the central forest, where the largest trees from both hemispheres grew side by side. Plane trees, catalpas, sugar maples, and Virginia poplars mingled their branches with oaks, beeches, and lindens. In these forests, as in Europe's old-growth woods, destruction was always at work. Dead vegetation piled on top of itself, but there were no human hands to clear it away, and decay couldn't keep pace with new growth. Climbing plants, grasses, and other greenery forced their way through the mass of dying trees, crept along their bending trunks, found nourishment in their rotting hollows, and pushed beneath their lifeless bark. Decay fed life, and the two were tangled together everywhere. The depths of these forests were dark and damp, a thousand streams wandering through them with no human hand to guide their course. You rarely found flowers, wild fruit, or birds in these shadows. The crash of a tree toppling with age, the roar of a waterfall, the bellow of a buffalo, and the howl of the wind — these were the only sounds that broke nature's silence.

East of the great river, the forests thinned and eventually disappeared. In their place stretched prairies of staggering size. Whether nature had simply never seeded these fertile plains with trees, or whether the forests had once stood here and been destroyed by human hands, is a question that neither oral tradition nor science has been able to answer.

These vast open spaces were not, however, empty of people. Wandering tribes had roamed these forest shadows and grassy prairies for centuries. From the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi Delta, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, these Native peoples shared certain family resemblances that pointed to a common origin. But they also stood apart from every other known group of people. They were neither white like the Europeans, nor yellow like most Asians, nor Black like Africans. Their skin was reddish-brown, their hair long and glossy, their lips thin, and their cheekbones high and prominent. The languages spoken by the North American tribes varied enormously in vocabulary, but they all followed the same underlying grammatical rules — rules that differed in striking ways from anything observed in other language families. Scholars have since noted physical and linguistic similarities between these Native peoples and certain nomadic groups in Asia — the Tungus, Manchus, Mongols, and Tartars — whose lands aren't far from the Bering Strait, suggesting that at some remote period they may have crossed into the empty continent of America. But this connection has never been conclusively established. The languages of the Americas seemed to be the product of entirely new patterns of thought, reflecting an intellectual effort that later generations would struggle to match.

The social organization of these tribes also differed sharply from anything in the Old World. They seemed to have grown and multiplied freely in the midst of their wilderness without contact with more technologically advanced societies. As a result, they showed none of the confused, contradictory ideas about right and wrong — none of the deep moral corruption — that you typically find among peoples who have tasted civilization and then fallen back into a rougher state. The Native American owed nothing to anyone but himself. His virtues, his flaws, and his prejudices were his own creation. He had grown up in the wild independence of his own nature.

In supposedly advanced countries, the poorest people are often crude and hostile — but not simply because they're poor and uneducated. It's because, being poor and uneducated, they live in constant contact with the rich and powerful. The daily sight of their own hard lot, set against the comfort and influence of those around them, breeds a toxic mix of anger and fear. The awareness of their own inferiority and dependence irritates them even as it humiliates them. You can see this state of mind in how they talk and act — at once defiant and submissive. The evidence is easy to find: the common people are ruder in aristocratic countries than elsewhere, ruder in wealthy cities than in the countryside. Wherever the rich and powerful gather, the weak and struggling feel crushed by the comparison. Unable to see any chance of achieving equality, they give in to despair and let themselves sink below the level of basic human dignity.

This corrosive effect of inequality was completely absent in Native life. The Native peoples, though they had little material wealth and no formal education, were equal and free. When Europeans first encountered them, the natives of North America had no concept of the value of riches and no interest in the comforts that come with material wealth. Yet there was nothing coarse about them. They practiced a habitual reserve and a kind of aristocratic courtesy. Gentle and hospitable in peacetime, though merciless in war beyond anything known in the history of human conflict, a Native warrior would let himself starve to death rather than turn away a stranger who knocked on his door at night — and yet could tear a prisoner's still-quivering limbs apart with his bare hands. The famous republics of ancient Greece and Rome never produced examples of more unshakable courage, more fierce pride, or more unyielding love of independence than could be found in the wild forests of the New World. As Thomas Jefferson recorded, among the Iroquois, when attacked by a superior force, the old men refused to flee or survive the destruction of their homeland, braving death like the ancient Romans when their city was sacked by the Gauls. No captured warrior ever begged for his life; on the contrary, prisoners would deliberately provoke their captors, seeking death through insult.

The Europeans made no great impression when they landed on North America's shores. Their arrival inspired neither envy nor fear. And why would it? What power could they hold over people like these? The Native American could live without material wants, suffer without complaint, and sing his death song at the stake. Like all members of the great human family, these peoples believed in a world beyond this one and worshipped, under different names, God the creator of the universe. Their ideas about the great spiritual truths were generally simple and clear.

Though I've been describing a people living in a state of nature, there's no doubt that another civilization — more advanced in every respect — had occupied these same lands before them.

A dim tradition among the tribes north of the Atlantic holds that they originally lived west of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the Ohio and throughout the central valley, you can still find earthen mounds built by human hands. Dig into the center of these mounds, and you'll typically find human bones, strange tools, weapons, and artifacts of all kinds — some made of metal, others designed for purposes no one alive can identify. The Native peoples of today can tell us nothing about this vanished civilization. Nor could the tribes living three hundred years ago, when America was first discovered, offer even enough information to build a theory. Oral tradition — that fragile but perpetually renewed record of the ancient world — sheds no light on the mystery. Yet it's an undeniable fact that thousands of people once lived in this part of the world. When they arrived, where they came from, what their story was, and how they vanished — no one can say.

How strange that entire nations have existed and then disappeared so completely from the earth that even their names are forgotten. Their languages are lost. Their glory has vanished like a sound without an echo. And yet perhaps not a single one failed to leave behind at least a tomb to mark its passing. The most enduring monument of human effort is the one that reminds us of our own insignificance.

Although the vast country I've been describing was home to many Native tribes, it could fairly be called one enormous wilderness at the time Europeans found it. The Native peoples occupied the land without possessing it in the European sense — it was through farming that people claimed the soil, and the original inhabitants of North America lived by hunting. Their fierce independence, their ungoverned passions, their flaws, and perhaps even more their fierce virtues, doomed them to inevitable destruction. Their decline began the day Europeans set foot on their shores. It has continued ever since, and we are now watching its final stages. They seem to have been placed by Providence among the riches of the New World to enjoy them for a season, and then to give them up. Those coastlines, so perfectly suited for commerce and industry; those broad, deep rivers; that inexhaustible Mississippi Valley; the entire continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the home of a great nation not yet born.

In this land, the great experiment would be attempted: civilized people would try to build society on entirely new foundations. Here, for the first time, ideas that had previously been dismissed as impossible would be put into practice — creating something the world had never seen before.

Chapter II: The Origins of the Anglo-Americans

Why understanding a nation's origins is essential for understanding its laws and society — America is the only country where the birth of a great people can be clearly observed — What the early colonists had in common, and how they differed — A point about all Europeans who settled in the New World — The colonization of Virginia — The colonization of New England — The original character of New England's first settlers — Their arrival — Their first laws — Their social contract — A penal code borrowed from the Hebrew Bible — Religious fervor — Republican spirit — The deep connection between the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.

The Origins of the Anglo-Americans, and Why They Matter

After a person is born, their early years are spent in the haze of childhood — its pleasures and struggles. As they grow up, the world takes notice. They enter society, interact with others, and people begin to study them. Most observers assume that the seeds of a person's adult character — their virtues and vices — are planted during these formative years. But I believe this is a serious mistake. You have to go further back. You have to watch the infant in its mother's arms. You have to see the first images the outside world casts on the dark mirror of the child's mind, the first things it witnesses, the first words that awaken its sleeping powers of thought. You need to be there for its earliest efforts if you want to understand the biases, habits, and passions that will govern its life. In a sense, the entire person is already visible in the cradle.

The same is true of nations. Every nation bears some mark of its origins. The circumstances that surrounded its birth and contributed to its rise shape its entire existence. If we could go back to the very beginning — to a nation's earliest elements and oldest records — I'm convinced we would discover the root causes of its prejudices, habits, ruling passions, and everything we call "national character." We'd find explanations for customs that seem out of step with current norms, for laws that clash with established principles, and for those stray, contradictory opinions you sometimes encounter in a society — like fragments of broken chains dangling from the ceiling of an old building, supporting nothing. This kind of investigation might even explain the fate of certain nations that seem carried along by some invisible force toward ends they themselves can't see. But until now, the raw materials for this kind of research have been scarce. The spirit of inquiry only arrives in a nation's later days, and by the time a people finally looks back at its origins, time has already clouded the picture — or ignorance and pride have dressed it up with myths.

America is the only country where it has been possible to watch the natural, peaceful growth of a society from its very beginning, and where the influence of a nation's origins on its future development is clearly visible. When the peoples of Europe arrived in the New World, their national characters were already fully formed. Each had a distinctive identity. And because they had already reached the stage of civilization where people are inclined to study themselves, they left us a faithful record of their opinions, customs, and laws. The people of the sixteenth century are almost as well known to us as our own contemporaries. America, then, puts on full display the patterns that the ignorance or roughness of earlier ages hid from view. We live close enough to the founding of the American states to know the raw materials in detail, and far enough away to begin judging the results. We seem destined to see further into the course of human events than any previous generation. Providence has handed us a torch our ancestors never had, and allowed us to identify fundamental causes in history that the darkness of the past concealed from them. If we carefully study America's social and political condition in light of its history, we will become absolutely convinced that there is not a single opinion, custom, law — I might even say not a single event — on record that the nation's origins cannot explain. Readers of this book will find the seed of everything that follows in this chapter, and the key to nearly the entire work.

The emigrants who arrived at different times to settle the territory now covered by the American Union differed from each other in many ways. They had different goals and governed themselves on different principles. But they also had certain important things in common, and they all found themselves in a similar situation. The bond of language is perhaps the strongest and most enduring tie among people. All of these emigrants spoke the same language. They were all offshoots of the same nation. Born in a country that had been rocked for centuries by factional struggle — where every political party had been forced at one point or another to seek protection under the law — their political education had been forged in that rough school. They understood the concepts of rights and genuine freedom better than most of their European contemporaries. By the time of the first emigrations, the parish system — that fertile seed of free institutions — was already deeply rooted in English life. And with it, the principle of popular sovereignty had already been planted at the heart of the Tudor monarchy.

The religious conflicts that were tearing apart the Christian world were raging at the time. England had thrown itself into the Reformation with reckless intensity. The national character, which had always been steady and thoughtful, became argumentative and austere. The general level of knowledge rose through intellectual debate, and people's thinking deepened. While religion was the subject everyone argued about, public morals were reformed in the process. All of these national traits are more or less visible in the character of the settlers who crossed the Atlantic to make a new home.

One more observation — and we'll come back to this point later — applies not just to the English but to the French, the Spanish, and every European group that established itself in the New World. All of these European colonies contained the seeds, if not the full development, of a complete democracy. Two factors produced this result. First, it's fair to say that the emigrants generally left their home countries with no sense of being superior to one another. The happy and powerful don't go into exile. There are no surer guarantees of equality than poverty and hardship. It did happen, on several occasions, that people of rank were driven to America by political and religious conflict. Laws were passed to create a hierarchy of social classes. But it quickly became clear that the American soil was hostile to a landed aristocracy. Taming that stubborn land required the constant, dedicated effort of the owner himself. And once the ground was prepared, its yield wasn't enough to support both a landlord and a tenant farmer. So the land naturally broke up into small plots, each worked by the person who owned it. Land is the foundation of aristocracy — aristocracy clings to the soil that supports it. It isn't just privileges or birth that create an aristocratic class; it's landed property passed down from generation to generation. A country may have enormous fortunes and crushing poverty, but unless those fortunes are tied to the land, you don't have an aristocracy — you just have the rich and the poor.

All the British colonies shared a strong family resemblance at the time they were founded. From the very beginning, all of them seemed destined to develop not the aristocratic freedom of their mother country, but the freedom of the middle and lower classes — something the world had never seen in complete form.

Within this general uniformity, however, there were some striking differences that need to be pointed out. Two distinct branches can be identified in the Anglo-American family, and they have grown up side by side without ever fully blending: one in the South, the other in the North.

Virginia received the first English colony. The settlers arrived in 1607. At that time, the idea that gold and silver mines were the source of national wealth had an extraordinary grip on the European mind — a disastrous delusion that impoverished the nations that believed it and cost more lives in America than war and bad laws combined. The people sent to Virginia were gold seekers, adventurers without resources or principles, whose reckless, restless energy threatened the fragile colony and made its survival uncertain. According to the historian Stith, a large number of these early settlers were "unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees" — people better suited to pillaging than building.

Craftsmen and farmers arrived later, and while they were a more decent and orderly group, they were in no way above the level of England's lower classes. No grand vision, no coherent intellectual framework guided the founding of these settlements. The colony was barely established before slavery was introduced — around 1620, when a Dutch ship landed twenty enslaved Africans on the banks of the James River — and this was the single most important factor shaping the character, the laws, and all the future prospects of the South. Slavery, as I'll discuss in detail later, degrades labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness come ignorance and arrogance, luxury and misery. It deadens the powers of the mind and paralyzes human energy. The influence of slavery, combined with the English character, explains the customs and social conditions of the Southern states.

In the North, the same English foundation was shaped by an entirely different set of influences — and here I want to go into some detail. The two or three core ideas that form the basis of American social theory were first developed in the Northern English colonies, generally known as the New England states — the six states east of the Hudson: Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The principles of New England spread first to the neighboring states, then to more distant ones, and eventually permeated the entire nation. Today, their influence extends beyond America's borders across the whole Western Hemisphere. The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit on a hill: after warming everything nearby, it colors the distant horizon with its glow.

The founding of New England was something genuinely new, and everything about it was remarkable. Most colonies throughout history were first settled either by desperate, uneducated people driven out by poverty and bad behavior, or by speculators and adventurers hungry for profit. Some colonies can't even claim that much of an origin story — Saint-Domingue was founded by pirates, and England's criminal courts originally supplied Australia's population.

The settlers who established themselves on New England's shores were different. They all came from the more independent classes of English society. From the moment they arrived, they presented an extraordinary spectacle: a society with no lords and no commoners, no rich and no poor. Relative to their numbers, they possessed a greater concentration of education and intelligence than any European nation of the time. Every single one of them — without exception — had received a good education, and many were already known across Europe for their talents and learning. Other colonies had been founded by rootless adventurers. The New England emigrants brought with them the essential foundations of social order and morality — they arrived in the wilderness with their wives and children. But what set them apart most of all was the purpose of their journey. They hadn't been forced to leave by economic necessity. The social position they gave up was one worth keeping, and their livelihoods were secure. They didn't cross the Atlantic to get rich. What called them away from comfortable homes was purely intellectual: they were willing to face all the inevitable hardships of exile for the triumph of an idea.

These emigrants — or, as they rightly called themselves, the Pilgrims — belonged to the English sect whose strict principles had earned them the name Puritans. Puritanism was not simply a religious doctrine. In many respects, it aligned closely with the most thoroughgoing democratic and republican theories. This political dimension was precisely what had made it so threatening to the authorities. Persecuted by the English government and alienated by a society whose habits clashed with the rigor of their beliefs, the Puritans set out to find some remote, unsettled corner of the world where they could live according to their own convictions and worship God in freedom.

A few quotations from the period illuminate the spirit of these devout adventurers better than anything I could say about them. Nathaniel Morton, the historian of the settlement's first years, opens his account this way:

"Gentle Reader — I have for some time considered it my duty, especially as one of the immediate successors of those who had such great experience of God's many memorable demonstrations of goodness — namely, the first founders of this colony in New England — to commit to writing His gracious dealings on their behalf. We have many reasons for doing so, not least the command of Sacred Scripture: that what we have seen, and what our fathers have told us, we must not hide from our children, but show to future generations the praises of the Lord; that the seed of Abraham His servant, and the children of Jacob His chosen, may remember His marvelous works in the beginning and progress of the planting of New England — His wonders and the judgments of His mouth; how God brought a vine into this wilderness; how He cast out the heathen and planted it; how He made room for it and caused it to take deep root, and it filled the land. And not only this, but also that He has guided His people by His strength to His holy habitation and planted them in the mountain of His inheritance, in the enjoyment of the precious Gospel: so that God may have the glory that is most due to Him; and that some rays of glory may also reach the names of those blessed saints who were the chief instruments of this happy enterprise."

You can't read this opening without feeling a kind of involuntary religious awe. It breathes the very spirit of biblical antiquity. The author's sincerity amplifies his power of expression. The group that in his eyes was just a band of faithful Christians venturing across the sea appears to the reader as the seed of a great nation, carried by Providence to a shore that was waiting for them.

Morton continues with the story of the Pilgrims' departure:

"So they left that good and pleasant city of Leiden, which had been their home for over eleven years; but they knew they were pilgrims and strangers in this world, and they did not dwell on what they were leaving behind, but lifted their eyes to Heaven, their true country, where God had prepared a city for them, and in that thought they found peace. When they reached Delfshaven they found the ship and everything ready; and those friends who could not go with them followed them there, and many others came from Amsterdam to see them off and say their farewells. They spent one last night together, most of them with little sleep, but in friendly company and Christian conversation, with real expressions of true Christian love. The next day they went aboard, their friends with them, and truly it was a heartbreaking sight — that sad and sorrowful parting. The sighs and sobs and prayers that filled the air, the tears streaming from every eye, the piercing words they spoke to one another — even the Dutch strangers standing on the wharf as spectators could not hold back their tears. But the tide, which waits for no one, called them away. Their beloved Pastor fell to his knees, and they all knelt with him, and with tear-streaked faces he commended them to the Lord with the most fervent prayers and blessings; and then, with embraces and many tears, they said their goodbyes — which proved to be the last goodbye for many of them."

The emigrants numbered about 150, including women and children. They intended to establish a colony on the shores of the Hudson, but after being tossed about in the Atlantic for some time, they were forced to land on the barren coast of New England, at the site of what is now Plymouth. The rock where the Pilgrims stepped ashore is still pointed out to visitors today. Tocqueville himself noted that he had seen fragments of it carefully preserved in several American towns — a testament, he thought, to how all human power and greatness ultimately resides in the human soul. A stone that a few outcasts touched for a moment becomes famous, treasured by a great nation, its very dust kept as a relic. Meanwhile, the gates of a thousand palaces have crumbled into nothing.

"But before we pass on," Morton continues, "let the reader pause with me and seriously consider these poor people's condition, the better to marvel at God's goodness in preserving them: for having now crossed the vast ocean, with a sea of troubles ahead of them, they had no friends to welcome them, no inns to shelter or refresh them, no houses — much less towns — to turn to for help. And it was winter, and those who know the winters of that country know them to be harsh and violent, with cruel and fierce storms, dangerous even for traveling to familiar places, let alone searching unknown coasts. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? How many there were, they did not know: for wherever they turned their eyes — except upward to Heaven — they found little comfort in any outward thing. Summer being over, everything wore a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, presented a wild and savage appearance. If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean they had crossed, now standing as a great barrier separating them from all the civilized parts of the world."

Now, it would be a mistake to think the Puritans' faith was purely abstract, or that it ignored the practical business of building a society. As I've already noted, Puritanism was as much a political doctrine as a religious one. The moment these emigrants set foot on the barren coast Morton describes, their very first act was to organize themselves into a political community by signing the following agreement:

"In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are signed below, the loyal subjects of our sovereign Lord King James, having undertaken for the glory of God, the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and country, a voyage to establish the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia — do by these present articles, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and unite ourselves into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and for the advancement of the ends described above; and by virtue of this agreement do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most fitting and convenient for the general good of the Colony; to which we promise all due submission and obedience."

This was the Mayflower Compact, signed in 1620. It wasn't unique — the founders of Rhode Island in 1638, New Haven in 1637, Connecticut in 1639, and Providence in 1640 all began the same way, by drafting a social contract that every member agreed to.

From that point on, emigration accelerated. The religious and political upheavals that tore apart the British Empire during the entire reign of Charles I drove fresh waves of dissenters to American shores every year. In England, the stronghold of Puritanism was the middle class, and the middle class supplied the majority of emigrants. New England's population grew rapidly. While the rigid hierarchy of rank sorted the inhabitants of the mother country into fixed social classes, the colony continued to present the remarkable spectacle of a community that was uniform in all its parts. A democracy more complete than anything the ancient world had dreamed of sprang fully formed from the heart of an ancient feudal society.

Chapter II: Origin of the Anglo-Americans — Part II

The English government wasn't exactly heartbroken about losing these emigrants. Every dissenter who boarded a ship for America was one fewer source of discord and revolution at home. Far from trying to stop the exodus, the government actively encouraged it, going out of its way to ease the hardships faced by people fleeing the very laws England had imposed on them. New England was treated, in effect, as a dumping ground for dreamers and radicals — a place where utopian fantasies could play themselves out safely, an ocean away from the real business of governing.

The English colonies — and this is one of the key reasons for their success — always enjoyed more internal freedom and political independence than the colonies of other European powers. But nowhere was this principle of freedom applied more fully than in New England.

At the time, European nations generally agreed that any territory in the New World belonged to whichever country had discovered it first. By the end of the sixteenth century, nearly the entire coast of North America was claimed as a British possession. The English government used several different methods to settle these new territories. Sometimes the king appointed a governor of his own choosing, who ruled a section of the New World directly on behalf of the Crown — the same basic system other European nations used in their colonies. This was the case in New York. Sometimes the Crown granted tracts of land to an individual or a company; in those cases, all civil and political power landed in the hands of one person or a small group who, under the Crown's supervision, sold the land and governed the inhabitants. Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey all started this way. Finally, there was a third arrangement: a group of emigrants was allowed to form a political society under the mother country's protection and govern themselves however they saw fit, so long as they didn't violate English law. This system — by far the most favorable to freedom — was adopted only in New England.

In 1628, Charles I granted a charter of this kind to the emigrants forming the colony of Massachusetts. But in general, the colonies of New England didn't receive their charters until they were already well established. Plymouth, Providence, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were all founded without the cooperation — and almost without the knowledge — of the mother country. The settlers didn't wait for official permission from the imperial government, though they never denied its ultimate authority. They simply organized their own societies on their own terms. It wasn't until thirty or forty years later, under Charles II, that their existence was formally recognized by royal charter.

This makes it surprisingly hard, when studying the earliest records of New England, to find any clear connection between the emigrants and the land they came from. These settlers exercised the powers of a sovereign state: they appointed their own officials, made war and peace, enacted police regulations, and passed laws as if their only allegiance was to God. Nothing in these early records is more fascinating — or more instructive — than the legislation from this period. The solution to the great social problem that America now presents to the world can be found right there, in those earliest laws.

Among these documents, the code of laws enacted by the small state of Connecticut in 1650 deserves special attention. The Connecticut lawmakers begin with criminal law, and — remarkably — they borrow their provisions directly from the Bible. "Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord," the preamble declares, "shall surely be put to death." This is followed by ten or twelve similar provisions, copied word for word from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Blasphemy, witchcraft, adultery, and rape were all punishable by death; a son who struck his parents could face the same penalty. The harsh legal code of an ancient, tribal society was being applied by an educated, morally serious community. The result was predictable: the death penalty appeared on the books more often than in almost any other legal system, yet it was almost never actually carried out.

What the lawmakers cared about most, in this body of criminal law, was maintaining order and enforcing morality. They invaded the realm of private conscience at every turn — there was barely a sin that couldn't land you in front of a judge. Adultery and rape, as I mentioned, were capital offenses. Sex between unmarried people was also harshly punished: judges could impose fines, whippings, or — in a remarkable piece of judicial creativity — forced marriage. If the old court records of New Haven are to be believed, these kinds of prosecutions were far from rare. There's a sentence from May 1, 1660, in which a young woman was fined and publicly reprimanded for using improper language and allowing herself to be kissed. The 1650 Code is packed with similar preventive measures. It punishes laziness and drunkenness severely. Innkeepers were forbidden from serving more than a set amount of alcohol to any one customer. Plain old lying, when it could cause harm, was punishable by fine or flogging. In other places, these same lawmakers — who had fled Europe precisely because they were persecuted for their religious beliefs — made church attendance mandatory, imposed severe penalties on Christians who worshipped according to a different ritual, and in some cases prescribed death for religious dissenters. The law banished Anabaptists and Quakers; any Catholic priest who returned to Massachusetts after being expelled could face execution. Sometimes the lawmakers' zeal descended into outright absurdity: the same code includes a law banning the use of tobacco.

But here's the crucial thing to remember: these bizarre and oppressive laws were not imposed from above. They were freely voted on by the very people they governed. In fact, the community's actual customs and habits were even stricter than the laws. In 1649, a group in Boston formed a formal association to stamp out the sinful luxury of... long hair.

These excesses are embarrassing — they remind us that human nature has trouble holding onto what is true and just, and often swings from one extreme to another. But right alongside this harsh, narrow-minded religious legislation — born from the same fiery passions that persecution had kindled and that still burned among these settlers — you find a body of political law that, though written two hundred years ago, was still ahead of what most nations had achieved even in Tocqueville's own time. The fundamental principles that underpin modern constitutions — principles that were barely understood in Europe, and not fully established even in Great Britain during the seventeenth century — were already recognized and firmly embedded in the laws of New England: popular participation in government, the right of the people to vote on their own taxes, accountability of public officials, individual freedom, and trial by jury. All of these were established without debate or controversy. From these seeds grew consequences and applications that no European nation had yet dared to attempt.

In Connecticut, the electorate consisted — from the very beginning — of every citizen. This isn't surprising when you remember that these communities enjoyed near-perfect equality of wealth and an even greater uniformity of beliefs. In 1641, the General Assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared that the government was a democracy, with power vested in the body of free citizens, who alone had the right to make laws and oversee their enforcement. In Connecticut during this period, every executive official was elected, including the governor. Citizens over the age of sixteen were required to bear arms, forming a militia that chose its own officers and stood ready at all times to defend the community.

In Connecticut's laws, as in all the early laws of New England, you can see the seeds of something extraordinary: that spirit of township independence that remains the lifeblood of American freedom to this day. In most European nations, political life began at the top and was gradually — and imperfectly — extended downward to the rest of the population. In America, the process was reversed. The township was organized before the county, the county before the state, the state before the Union. In New England, townships were fully formed by 1650. The township became the nucleus around which local interests, passions, rights, and duties gathered and held fast. It gave people the chance to practice real, hands-on democratic politics. The colonies still recognized the supremacy of the mother country; monarchy was still technically the law of the land. But the republic was already alive and thriving in every township. Towns appointed their own officials, assessed and collected their own taxes. In the New England township, the principle of representative government wasn't even used — public business was debated and decided directly by a general assembly of citizens, just like in ancient Athens.

When you study these earliest American laws, you can't help but be struck by how sophisticated they are. These lawmakers had a remarkable grasp of political science and a surprisingly advanced theory of legislation. Their vision of a government's obligations to its citizens was clearly broader and more ambitious than what you'd find in Europe at the time. In the states of New England, the poor were provided for from the very beginning. Roads were maintained and official surveyors appointed to oversee them. Parishes kept registers recording public proceedings, births, deaths, and marriages. Clerks were designated to maintain these records. Officials managed unclaimed estates and arbitrated boundary disputes. Many other offices were created with the primary function of maintaining public order. The law attended to a thousand practical social needs that would go unaddressed in France for another two centuries.

But it's in education that the distinctive character of early American civilization stands out most clearly. "It being," says the law, "one chief project of Satan to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by persuading from the use of tongues, to the end that learning may not be buried in the graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors..." What follows are provisions establishing schools in every township and forcing the inhabitants, under threat of heavy fines, to fund them. More advanced schools were founded in the larger towns. Local authorities were required to enforce school attendance; parents who refused could be fined, and if they continued to resist, the government could step in, take custody of the child, and strip negligent parents of the natural rights they had misused so badly. Notice the logic embedded in that preamble: in America, religion was the road to knowledge, and obedience to divine law pointed the way toward civic freedom.

Now compare: if you take a snapshot of American society in 1650 and set it beside what was happening in Europe at the same time — especially on the Continent — the contrast is staggering. In early seventeenth-century Europe, absolute monarchy had triumphed everywhere, built on the ruins of the oligarchic and feudal freedoms of the Middle Ages. The concept of individual rights had never been more thoroughly trampled than during Europe's era of greatest literary and cultural brilliance. Political engagement among ordinary people had never been lower. The principles of genuine freedom had never been less widely understood. And at that very moment, those same principles — scorned or simply unknown across the European continent — were being proclaimed in the wilderness of the New World and embraced as the founding creed of a great future people. The boldest ideas ever conceived by human reason were being put into practice by a community so humble that no European statesman had bothered to notice it existed. A system of laws without precedent in human history was being improvised on the spot by the imagination of ordinary citizens. And within this obscure little democracy — which had produced no generals, no philosophers, no great authors — a man could stand up before a free people and deliver this remarkable definition of freedom.

The speech was given by John Winthrop, who had been accused of acting arbitrarily during his time as governor. After delivering it, he was acquitted by acclamation and re-elected governor for the rest of his life:

"Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of a corrupt nature which is effected both by men and beasts to do what they list, and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty 'sumus omnes deteriores': 'tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority; it is a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set over you will, in all administrations for your good, be quietly submitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and power of authority."

Everything I've described so far reveals the essential character of Anglo-American civilization. It was the product of two distinct forces that in other countries have often been at war with each other, but that in America were brilliantly fused together: the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom.

The settlers of New England were at once passionate believers and fearless innovators. However narrow their religious views, they were entirely free from political prejudice. This produced two tendencies — distinct but not contradictory — that you can trace through both the customs and the laws of the country.

You might expect that people who had sacrificed friends, family, and homeland for a religious conviction would be utterly absorbed in spiritual matters, indifferent to worldly concerns. Not at all. They pursued wealth, comfort, and political freedom with an energy that nearly matched the intensity of their devotion to God.

In the political realm, everything was up for grabs. They reshaped laws and institutions at will. They shattered the boundaries of the society they'd been born into. The ancient principles that had governed the world for centuries were cast aside. A straight path and an open horizon stretched before their restless curiosity — they could explore, experiment, and reimagine without limit. But at the border of the political world, they stopped. They set aside their boldest faculties, refused to doubt or innovate, and bowed before the sacred curtain of religious truth with a submission as complete as it was voluntary. In the moral world, everything was settled, classified, decided, and certain. In the political world, everything was unsettled, contested, and up for debate. In one sphere, passive — though freely chosen — obedience. In the other, an independence contemptuous of experience and jealous of authority.

These two tendencies, which seem so contradictory, were far from being in conflict. They advanced together and reinforced each other. Religion recognized that civil freedom offered a noble arena for human effort, that the political world was a field the Creator had prepared for the work of human intelligence. Secure in the freedom and influence it enjoyed within its own sphere, the religious impulse was never more firmly established than when it ruled in people's hearts without any support beyond its own intrinsic power. Religion was freedom's constant companion in all its struggles and triumphs — the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its authority. Morality's safeguard was religion, and morality was law's best foundation and freedom's surest guarantee.

Anomalies in Anglo-American Laws and Customs — and Why They Exist

Aristocratic survivals in the midst of a thorough democracy — Why they're there — The important distinction between what came from Puritanism and what came from England.

One important warning: don't push the conclusions from the previous sections too far. The social conditions, religious convictions, and customs of the first settlers unquestionably had an enormous influence on the destiny of their new country. But they weren't working from a blank slate. No one can completely escape the influence of the past. Whether they intended to or not, the colonists blended the habits and ideas they'd absorbed from their upbringing and national traditions with the new habits and ideas that were distinctly their own. To understand the Anglo-Americans of today, you have to distinguish carefully between what comes from their Puritan heritage and what comes from their English one.

You'll encounter laws and customs in the United States that clash sharply with everything around them — laws that seem to contradict the general spirit of American legislation, customs at odds with the overall tone of society. If the English colonies had been founded in some dark age, or if their origins had been lost to the fog of centuries, this puzzle would be impossible to solve.

Let me give just one example. American criminal and civil procedure relies on only two basic mechanisms: bail and imprisonment. The first thing a judge does is demand that the defendant post bail; if the defendant can't or won't, the judge locks them up. Only then does the court consider the actual charges. It's obvious that this system works against poor people and in favor of the wealthy. A poor person often can't come up with bail, even in a civil case, and if they're forced to wait for justice behind bars, they're quickly ruined. A wealthy person, on the other hand, can always avoid jail in civil matters — and can even dodge criminal punishment by skipping out on bail. In practice, every legal penalty reduces to a fine for the rich. You couldn't design a more aristocratic system if you tried. And yet in America, it's the poor who make the laws, and they generally write them to benefit themselves. How do you explain the contradiction? Easy: these laws are English. The Americans inherited them and kept them, even though they clash with everything else in their legal system and their basic principles.

After its habits, the thing a nation is slowest to change is its civil law. Civil law is understood mainly by lawyers, and lawyers have a professional interest in keeping it exactly as it is — whether it's good or bad — simply because they already know how it works. The general public barely knows civil law exists; people only encounter it when they're involved in a specific case and have trouble seeing the bigger pattern. They follow it without really thinking about it.

I've cited one example where I could easily have cited dozens. The surface of American society is coated, if you will, with a layer of democracy. But if you look closely, you can still see the old aristocratic colors showing through from underneath.

Chapter III: The Social Conditions of the Anglo-Americans

Chapter Overview

A society's social conditions are usually the product of circumstances, laws, or some combination of the two. But wherever those conditions exist, they're the source of almost all of a nation's laws, customs, and ideas. Whatever social conditions don't directly produce, they reshape. So if you want to understand a nation's laws and customs, you have to start with its social conditions.

The defining feature of American social conditions is their fundamentally democratic character.

The first settlers of New England and their equality — Aristocratic laws imported into the South — The Revolution and its aftermath — Changes to inheritance law and their effects — Democracy taken to its extreme in the new western states — Equality of education.

There are many important things to say about the social conditions of the Anglo-Americans, but one observation towers above all the rest: American social conditions are fundamentally democratic. This was true from the founding of the colonies, and it's even more true today. As I explained in the previous chapter, a remarkable equality existed among the settlers who landed on the shores of New England. The seeds of aristocracy were never planted in that part of the country. The only real influence anyone wielded came from intellect — people were accustomed to respecting certain names as symbols of knowledge and virtue. Some citizens did acquire a kind of power over their neighbors that might truly have been called aristocratic, if it could have been passed from father to son.

That was the situation east of the Hudson River. To the southwest of it, heading toward Florida, things were different. In most of the states south and west of the Hudson, wealthy English landowners had settled and brought with them aristocratic values and English inheritance laws. I've already explained why a powerful aristocracy could never really take root in America — but those reasons carried less weight south of the Hudson. In the South, one person with slaves could cultivate a vast amount of land, so wealthy plantation owners were common. But their influence wasn't truly aristocratic in the European sense. They held no legal privileges, and because their land was worked by enslaved people rather than tenant farmers, they had no dependents to create a patronage network. Still, these great landowners south of the Hudson did form a distinct upper class with its own ideas and tastes, and they became the center of political activity. This kind of aristocracy sympathized with ordinary people and easily adopted their passions and interests — but it was too weak and too short-lived to inspire either real devotion or real hatred. This was the class that led the insurrection in the South and produced the best leaders of the American Revolution.

During the Revolution, society was shaken to its core. The people, in whose name the struggle had been waged, developed a desire to exercise the power they'd won. Their democratic instincts were awakened. Having thrown off the yoke of the mother country, they aspired to independence of every kind. The influence of prominent individuals gradually faded, and custom and law worked together to produce the same result.

But it was inheritance law that delivered the final blow to inequality. I'm surprised that legal scholars, both ancient and modern, haven't paid more attention to the enormous influence of inheritance law on human affairs. These laws technically belong to the civil code, but they deserve to stand at the top of all political institutions. While political laws are merely the outward expression of a nation's condition, inheritance laws exert an incredible influence on its social fabric. And they operate with a steady, relentless consistency, shaping generations not yet born.

(When I say "inheritance law," I mean all the laws governing how property is distributed after its owner dies. Laws of entail fall into this category — they prevent owners from breaking up their estates before death, but only so the property passes intact to a single heir. The real purpose of entail is to control what happens to property after death; everything else is just a means to that end.)

Through inheritance laws, a person acquires a kind of supernatural power over the future fate of others. Once a lawmaker has set the rules of inheritance, he can sit back and watch. The machine, once set in motion, will run for centuries, advancing as if self-guided toward a predetermined goal. Frame the law one way, and it concentrates property and power in a few hands — its tendency is clearly aristocratic. Frame it the opposite way, and it works even faster: it divides, distributes, and scatters both property and power. Those who are alarmed by its rapid progress and despair of stopping it try to throw obstacles in its path. They fight against its effects with every tool they have. But the law gradually reduces or destroys every barrier, until through its relentless action the fortifications of inherited wealth are ground down to the fine, shifting sand on which democracy is built.

When inheritance law allows — or better yet, requires — the equal division of a parent's property among all children, it produces two kinds of effects that are worth distinguishing, even though they lead to the same outcome.

First, the direct, physical effect. Under a system of equal inheritance, every death triggers a kind of revolution in property. Not only do possessions change hands, but their very nature changes — they're carved into shares that get smaller and smaller with each generation. It follows that in countries with equal inheritance, property (especially land) tends to shrink perpetually. In practice, though, this effect takes time to become visible. If a family has only two children (and in a country as populated as France, the average is no more than three), those children, inheriting from both parents, won't necessarily be poorer than their mother or father.

But equal inheritance also works on people's minds, stirring up their desires and ambitions. These psychological effects are what really destroy great fortunes, especially large estates. In countries where the eldest son inherits everything, landed estates pass from generation to generation without being divided. Family identity becomes fused with the land. The family represents the estate; the estate represents the family. The family name, along with its origins, its glory, its power, and its virtues, is perpetuated in an enduring monument to the past and a guarantee of the future.

When the law requires equal division, this intimate bond between family identity and ancestral land is broken. The property ceases to represent the family, because after one or two generations it will inevitably be split up. It has a constant tendency to shrink and must eventually be scattered entirely. The children of a great landowner, if they're few in number or if luck is on their side, may hope to be as wealthy as their father — but not to own the same property he did. Their wealth will necessarily be made up of different elements.

Now, once you strip a landowner of the emotional attachment to his estate that comes from tradition, family pride, and a sense of legacy, you can be sure that sooner or later he'll sell it. There's a powerful financial incentive to do so: liquid capital earns higher returns than real estate and is more readily available to satisfy the desires of the moment.

Once great estates have been divided, they never come back together. A small landowner gets a better return on his land, proportionally, than a large one does — and so he sells it at a higher price per acre. (I don't mean the small farmer cultivates his land more skillfully, but he cultivates it with more effort and care, making up in labor what he lacks in expertise.) The same financial logic that drives the rich man to sell his estate works even more powerfully against him buying up small plots to reassemble a large one.

What we call "family pride" is often really an illusion of self-love. A person wants to perpetuate and immortalize himself, so to speak, through his great-grandchildren. Where this family spirit fades, individual selfishness fills the vacuum. When the idea of family becomes vague and uncertain, people think about their own immediate comfort. They'll provide for their children, and that's about it. Either they give up on the idea of perpetuating their family altogether, or they look for ways to do it that don't depend on holding onto a piece of land. In this way, equal inheritance not only makes it hard for families to keep their ancestral estates intact — it strips them of the desire to even try, and forces them, in a sense, to cooperate in their own dissolution.

Equal division works through two channels: by acting on property, it acts on people; by acting on people, it acts on property. Through these twin forces, the law strikes at the very root of landed wealth, rapidly scattering both families and fortunes.

(Land, being the most stable form of property, still attracts occasional wealthy buyers willing to sacrifice a large chunk of their income to secure it. But these are exceptions. The habitual preference for land ownership now exists only among the poor. The small landowner, with less worldly knowledge, less imagination, and fewer expensive tastes than the great one, is generally focused on expanding his holdings — and through inheritance, marriage, or the luck of commerce, he gradually finds the means to do so. This counterbalances the tendency to divide estates, but it isn't strong enough to create great territorial empires, and certainly not to keep them in the same family.)

We French of the nineteenth century, who witness the political and social upheavals that equal inheritance is producing every day, are hardly in a position to doubt its power. It's visible everywhere in our country — tearing down the walls of great houses and moving the boundary markers of fields. But although it has already accomplished a great deal in France, much remains to be done. Our memories, beliefs, and habits still present powerful obstacles to its progress.

In the United States, the work of destruction is nearly complete, and there we can study the results most clearly. English inheritance laws were abolished in almost all the states at the time of the Revolution. Entail was modified so it could no longer block the free movement of property. Once the first generation passed away, estates began to be broken up, and the process accelerated with each passing year. Now, after barely more than sixty years, the face of society is completely transformed. The great landowning families have almost all blended into the general population. In the state of New York, which once contained many such families, only two still keep their heads above the current — and they will soon disappear beneath it. The sons of these wealthy citizens have become merchants, lawyers, or doctors. Most have faded into obscurity. The last traces of hereditary rank and distinction have been wiped away. The law of equal inheritance has leveled everything.

I don't mean there's a shortage of rich people in the United States. In fact, I know of no country where the love of money has a stronger grip on people's hearts, or where deeper contempt is expressed for the idea of permanent equality of property. But wealth circulates with astonishing speed, and experience shows that it's rare to find two consecutive generations enjoying the full benefits of it.

This picture, which may seem exaggerated, still gives only a faint idea of what's happening in the new states of the West and Southwest. At the end of the last century, a few bold adventurers began pushing into the Mississippi Valley, and the mass of the population soon followed. Communities that had never been heard of sprang up from the wilderness. States that hadn't existed a few years before claimed their place in the Union. In these western settlements, you can see democracy taken to its absolute extreme. These states were founded in a hurry, almost by accident. Their inhabitants arrived only yesterday. Barely knowing one another, the nearest neighbors know nothing of each other's history. In this part of the continent, the population has never felt the influence of great names or great wealth — not even the natural aristocracy of learning and virtue. No one is there to wield the kind of respected authority that people willingly grant to someone who has spent a lifetime doing good before their eyes. The new western states are populated, but society, in the deeper sense, doesn't yet exist there.

It's not just fortunes that are equal in America — even education follows a similar pattern of uniformity. I don't believe there's a country in the world where, relative to the population, there are so few completely uneducated people and so few truly learned ones. Basic education is available to everyone; advanced education is available to almost no one. This makes perfect sense given what I've already described. Nearly all Americans are comfortably off, so they can all obtain the basics of knowledge.

But in America, comparatively few people are rich enough to live without working. Every profession requires an apprenticeship, which limits formal education to the early years of life. By fifteen, most Americans are launched into their careers, and their education ends at the age when ours in Europe is just beginning. Whatever they study after that is aimed at some practical, money-making purpose. They take up a subject as a business proposition, and the only branch they pursue is the one with an immediate practical application. In America, most rich people were once poor. Most of those who now enjoy leisure were consumed by work during their youth. By the time they might have developed a taste for learning, they had no time for it — and by the time they had the time, they'd lost the inclination.

So there's no class in America where a love of intellectual pursuits is passed down along with inherited wealth and leisure, and where the life of the mind is held in high regard. The desire for serious learning and the ability to pursue it are equally lacking.

A middle standard has been established in America for human knowledge. Everyone approaches it as closely as they can — some rising to meet it, others descending to it. The result is an enormous number of people who hold roughly the same ideas about religion, history, science, economics, law, and government. Intellectual gifts come directly from God, and no one can prevent their unequal distribution. But given the social conditions I've just described, it happens that although people's abilities vary widely — as the Creator no doubt intended — they all receive essentially the same kind of education.

In America, the aristocratic element has always been weak from birth. If it isn't entirely destroyed today, it's so thoroughly disabled that we can barely assign it any influence on the course of events. The democratic principle, by contrast, has gained so much strength through time, events, and legislation that it has become not just dominant but all-powerful. There's no family dynasty or corporate authority left, and even the influence of individual character rarely lasts.

America, then, presents the most extraordinary social phenomenon in the world. People there are more equal in wealth and intellect — or to put it another way, more equal in their strength — than in any other country on earth, or in any era that history has recorded.

Political Consequences of American Social Conditions

The political consequences of these social conditions are easy to predict. It's impossible to believe that equality won't eventually work its way into politics, just as it has into every other sphere of life. You can't imagine people remaining permanently unequal on one single point while being equal on everything else — eventually, they must become equal in all things. And I know of only two ways to establish equality in politics: either every citizen gets their rights, or no one does. For nations that have reached the same stage of social development as the Americans, it's very hard to find a middle ground between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one person. It would be foolish to deny that the social conditions I've been describing can lead to either outcome.

There is, in fact, a noble and legitimate passion for equality that drives people to want everyone to be powerful and respected. This passion tends to lift the humble to the level of the great. But there also exists in the human heart a twisted taste for equality, which pushes the weak to drag the powerful down to their own level. This debased version leads people to prefer equality in slavery over inequality with freedom. Not that democratic peoples naturally despise freedom — on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But freedom is not the chief and constant object of their desires. Equality is their idol. They'll make rapid, sudden efforts to seize freedom, and if they fail, they'll resign themselves to the disappointment. But nothing can satisfy them without equality, and rather than lose it, they would choose to die.

On the other hand, in a country where citizens are nearly equal, it becomes very difficult for them to defend their independence against the encroachments of power. No single individual is strong enough to fight effectively on their own, and only a united front can protect their freedom. But that kind of unity is not always easy to achieve.

From the same social conditions, then, nations can arrive at one of two very different political outcomes — both of which spring from the same cause.

The Anglo-Americans were the first people who, having faced this formidable choice, were fortunate enough to escape the grip of absolute power. Their circumstances, their origins, their intelligence, and above all their moral convictions allowed them to establish and maintain the sovereignty of the people.

Chapter IV: The Principle of Popular Sovereignty in America

Chapter Overview

Popular sovereignty dominates every aspect of American society — How the Americans applied this principle even before the Revolution — How the Revolution expanded it — The gradual and unstoppable extension of voting rights.

Any discussion of American political institutions has to start with the doctrine of popular sovereignty. The principle that the people are the ultimate source of power exists, to some degree, at the foundation of almost every human institution. But it usually stays hidden from view. It's obeyed without being acknowledged, and if it's ever dragged into the light for a moment, it's quickly shoved back into the shadows. "The will of the nation" is one of those phrases most shamelessly abused by the cunning and the despotic in every era. Some have claimed to see it in the bought-and-paid-for votes of a dictator's cronies. Others have found it in the ballots of a timid or self-interested minority. Some have even discovered it in the silence of a people — on the theory that submission implies consent.

In America, popular sovereignty is neither empty nor hidden, as it is in some other countries. It's embedded in the customs and proclaimed by the laws. It spreads freely, reaching its furthest consequences without any obstacle. If there's a country in the world where you can truly evaluate the doctrine of popular sovereignty — study it in practice, and weigh both its dangers and its benefits — that country is unquestionably America.

I've already noted that popular sovereignty was the founding principle of most of the British colonies in America. But it was far from exercising as much influence on government as it does now. Two obstacles — one external, one internal — held it back. It couldn't openly express itself in the laws of colonies that were still required to obey the mother country. So it had to spread in secret, gaining ground in the provincial assemblies and especially in the townships.

American society at the time wasn't ready to embrace popular sovereignty with all its consequences. The intellectual elite of New England and the wealthy landowners south of the Hudson (as I described in the previous chapter) exerted a kind of aristocratic influence that kept political power in the hands of a few. Public officials weren't universally elected, and not all citizens could vote. Voting rights were restricted everywhere — the property requirements were very low in the North but significantly higher in the South.

The American Revolution broke out, and the doctrine of popular sovereignty — which had been nurtured in the townships and local governments — took possession of the state. Every class enlisted in its cause. Battles were fought and victories won on its behalf, until it became the law of laws.

An equally rapid transformation was happening inside society itself, where inheritance law was completing the destruction of local aristocratic influence.

By the time these consequences of the laws and the Revolution were obvious to everyone, the democratic cause had won a permanent victory. All power was in its hands, and resistance was no longer possible. The upper classes submitted without protest and without a fight to what had become inevitable. The usual fate of falling powers awaited them: each member of the old elite pursued his own interests. Since they couldn't wrench power from a people they didn't hate enough to openly defy, their only goal was to win popular favor at any price. The most democratic laws were consequently voted for by the very people whose interests those laws undermined. And so, although the upper classes never deliberately stirred up the people's passions against their own order, they accelerated the triumph of the new system. By a remarkable twist, the democratic impulse turned out to be most irresistible in the very states where the aristocracy had been strongest. Maryland, which had been founded by men of rank, was the first state to adopt universal suffrage and introduce the most democratic forms of government.

Once a nation starts expanding voting rights, it's easy to predict the final destination: sooner or later, all restrictions will be abolished. This is one of the most ironclad rules in the history of society. The further voting rights are extended, the greater the pressure to extend them further. After each new concession, democracy grows stronger, and its demands grow with its strength. The frustration of those still excluded increases in direct proportion to the number of people who've been included. Eventually the exception becomes the rule, one concession follows another, and there's no stopping short of universal suffrage.

Today, the principle of popular sovereignty has been developed in the United States to the fullest extent the imagination can conceive. It's free from the polite fictions that disguise it in other countries, and it takes whatever form the situation demands. Sometimes the people make laws directly, as in ancient Athens. Other times their representatives, chosen by universal suffrage, conduct the business of government in the people's name and under their near-constant supervision.

In some countries, a power exists that is essentially foreign to the society it governs, directing it and forcing it down a particular path. In others, the ruling force is split, partly inside and partly outside the ranks of the people. But nothing like that exists in the United States. There, society governs itself, for itself. All power resides within it. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single person who would dare to conceive — much less express — the idea of looking for authority anywhere else. The nation participates in making its laws by choosing its lawmakers, and in executing them by choosing the officers of the executive branch. You could almost say it governs itself directly, so limited and restricted is the role left to the administration, so careful are the authorities never to forget their popular origins and the power from which they derive.

Chapter V: Examining the States Before the Union

Why We Need to Look at the States Before the Federal Government

In the following pages, I intend to examine the form of government that Americans have built on the principle of popular sovereignty — its resources, its obstacles, its advantages, and its dangers. The first difficulty is the sheer complexity of the American constitutional system. It consists of two distinct social structures, connected and nested one inside the other: two governments, almost completely separate and independent. One handles the ordinary business of daily life and responds to the endless needs of a community. The other operates within defined boundaries, exercising authority only over matters of national interest. In short, there are twenty-four small sovereign nations whose union constitutes the body of the federal system. Trying to examine the Union before studying the states would be a recipe for confusion.

The federal government was the last piece to be put in place. In reality, it's nothing more than a modification or summary of the republican principles that were already in practice throughout the country before the federal government existed — and independently of it. Moreover, the federal government is the exception; state government is the rule. Any writer who tried to paint the big picture before explaining the details would inevitably fall into obscurity and repetition.

The great political principles that govern American society today originated and grew in the states. To understand the whole, you have to understand the parts first. The states that currently make up the Union all share the same basic institutional structure. Their political and administrative life revolves around three levels of organization, which you might compare to the different nerve centers that send signals through the human body: the township at the bottom, then the county, and finally the state. I'll examine each of these three divisions in turn.

The American System of Townships and Local Government

Why I begin with the township — Its existence in all nations — The difficulty of establishing and maintaining local self-government — Its importance — Why I've chosen the New England township system as my primary example.

There's a good reason I'm starting with the township. The village or township is the only form of association so perfectly natural that wherever people gather together, it seems to create itself.

The town — the smallest division of any community — necessarily exists in all nations, no matter what their laws and customs may be. People create monarchies and establish republics, but the first human association seems to have been formed by the hand of God. Yet even though the township is as old as humanity itself, its freedoms are no less rare and easily destroyed. A nation can always establish great legislative assemblies, because it always contains some number of people whose talents, if not their habits, fit them for the direction of public affairs. The township, by contrast, is made of rougher materials that are harder for lawmakers to shape. And here's the paradox: the difficulties of establishing local self-government actually increase as a society becomes more educated. A highly civilized community tends to scorn local independence, is disgusted by its frequent mistakes, and is ready to give up on the experiment before it's even been tried. Local freedoms are also the most vulnerable to encroachment by central power — townships can't fight back against a strong or ambitious national government on their own, and they can't defend their autonomy successfully unless it's woven into the habits of the people and supported by public opinion. Until local self-government becomes part of a nation's DNA, it can be easily destroyed, and it only becomes ingrained after a long existence in the laws. Local freedom is rarely created by design. It tends to emerge spontaneously, almost in secret, within societies that are still relatively rough around the edges. Only the steady action of laws and national habits, favorable circumstances, and above all time can consolidate it. No nation on the European continent has truly experienced its benefits.

And yet local assemblies of citizens are the strength of free nations. Town meetings are to freedom what elementary schools are to knowledge: they bring it within the people's reach and teach them how to use it and enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of local self-government, it cannot have the spirit of freedom. Passing passions, momentary interests, or lucky circumstances may create the outward forms of independence. But the authoritarian instinct that has been pushed aside will sooner or later inevitably resurface.

To explain the general principles behind the political organization of American counties and townships, I've chosen one of the New England states as my example. I'll examine how its system works, then step back for a broader view of the whole country. Townships and counties aren't organized identically across the Union, but the same principles have guided their formation everywhere. I believe those principles have been carried furthest in New England, which makes it the best place for a foreign observer to study them. New England's institutions form a complete and coherent system. They have the weight of tradition behind them, the support of the laws, and — even more importantly — the support of the community's customs and habits, over which they exercise an enormous influence. They deserve our attention from every angle.

The Boundaries of the Township

The New England township is a unit that falls between the French commune and the canton — roughly equivalent to an English town. Its average population is between two and three thousand (in 1830, Massachusetts had 305 townships and about 610,000 inhabitants, averaging around 2,000 per township). This means, on one hand, that the interests of its residents aren't likely to conflict, and on the other, that capable people can always be found among its citizens to manage its affairs.

Township Government in New England

The people as the source of all power, here as everywhere — Direct self-governance — No municipal corporation — Most authority vested in the selectmen — How the selectmen operate — The town meeting — The township's public officers — Mandatory and paid positions.

In the township, as everywhere else, the people are the only source of power. But at no other level of government do citizens exercise more direct influence. In America, the people are a sovereign whose demands push obedience to its absolute limits.

In New England, the majority acts through representatives when it comes to state business. But in the townships, where government is in direct contact with everyday life, the representative system isn't used. There's no municipal corporation. Instead, the voters, after choosing their officials, direct them in everything beyond simple, routine administrative tasks. (The rules are different in large towns, which generally have a mayor and a two-part city council — but this is an exception that requires a special act of the legislature. Small towns are sometimes subject to special arrangements too; in 1832, 104 townships in New York were governed this way.)

This system is so foreign to European customs that I need to give some concrete examples to make it clear.

Public duties in the township are extremely numerous and finely divided, as we'll see. But the largest share of administrative power is concentrated in the hands of a small group of elected officials called the selectmen. (Small townships have three; large ones have nine.) The state's general laws impose certain obligations on the selectmen that they can fulfill without authorization from the voters but can only neglect at their own legal risk. State law requires them, for instance, to compile the voter rolls for their township; if they fail to do so, they're guilty of a misdemeanor. In all matters determined by the town meeting, however, the selectmen simply carry out the will of the majority. They usually act on their own judgment, putting into practice principles that the majority has already approved. But if they want to change something or launch a new initiative, they have to go back to the source of their power. Say a new school needs to be built. The selectmen call a general meeting of the voters on a set day and at an appointed place. They lay out the situation, offer their opinion on how to handle it, estimate the likely cost, and suggest a location. The meeting deliberates on each of these points, approves the plan, selects the site, votes the tax, and entrusts the execution to the selectmen.

The selectmen alone have the right to call a town meeting, but they can be compelled to do so. If ten citizens want to bring a new proposal before the township, they can demand a general assembly of the inhabitants. The selectmen are obligated to comply, though they retain the right to preside over the meeting.

The selectmen are elected every year in April or May. At the same time, the town meeting chooses a number of other officials who are entrusted with important administrative functions. The assessors set the tax rates. The collectors gather the taxes. A constable keeps the peace, watches the streets, and ensures the laws are enforced. The town clerk records all votes, orders, grants, births, deaths, and marriages. The treasurer manages the funds. The overseer of the poor handles the difficult job of administering public assistance. Committee members oversee schools and public education. Road surveyors maintain the major and minor roads of the township. And the list goes on: parish commissioners audit the costs of public worship; various classes of inspectors direct citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers, haywards, chimney inspectors, fence viewers to maintain property boundaries, timber measurers, and sealers of weights and measures round out the roster.

There are nineteen principal officers in a township. Every inhabitant can be required to serve in these roles, under penalty of a fine. But almost all of the positions are paid, so that poorer citizens can participate without financial hardship. In general, the American system doesn't pay its officials a fixed salary. Every service has its price, and officials are compensated in proportion to what they've actually done.

The Life of the Township

Everyone as the best judge of their own interest — A corollary of popular sovereignty — How these principles play out in American townships — The New England township is sovereign in everything that concerns itself alone, and subordinate to the state in everything else — The relationship between township and state — In France, the central government lends its agents to the local community; in America, the reverse.

I've already observed that popular sovereignty governs the entire political system of the Anglo-Americans. Every page of this book will offer new examples of this principle. In nations that recognize popular sovereignty, every individual possesses an equal share of power and participates equally in government. Every individual is therefore assumed to be as well-informed, as virtuous, and as capable as any of their fellow citizens. A person obeys the government not because they're inferior to the officials who run it, or less capable of self-governance than their neighbor, but because they recognize the usefulness of associating with others — and because they know that no association can function without some form of regulation. When it comes to the mutual obligations of citizens, a person is a subject. But in everything that concerns only themselves, they are free and answerable to God alone. This gives rise to the principle that every person is the best and sole judge of their own private interest, and that society has no right to control someone's actions unless those actions harm the common good — or unless the common good requires their cooperation. This doctrine is universally accepted in the United States. I'll examine its broader influence on everyday life later; for now, I'm talking about local government.

The township, taken as a whole in relation to the national government, can be thought of as an individual to whom this principle applies. Local self-government is therefore a natural consequence of popular sovereignty in the United States. All American states recognize this to some degree, but circumstances have particularly favored its development in New England.

In this part of the country, political life began in the townships. You could almost say that each township originally formed an independent nation. When the kings of England asserted their authority, they were content to take control of the central government of the state. The townships of New England remained as they were. Although they're now subordinate to the state, they were originally barely dependent on it. And here's the crucial point: they weren't granted privileges by some higher authority. On the contrary, they surrendered a portion of their original independence to the state. The townships answer to the state only in matters I'd call social — things that concern all citizens. In everything that concerns only themselves, they are independent. Among the people of New England, I believe you wouldn't find a single person who'd admit that the state has any right to meddle in their local affairs. The towns of New England buy and sell, sue and are sued, raise or lower their taxes, without the slightest interference from state authorities.

They are required, however, to meet the demands of the larger community. If the state needs money, a town can't withhold its contribution. If the state is building a road, the township can't refuse to let it cross its territory. If the state enacts a police regulation, the town must enforce it. The state mandates a uniform system of public education, and every town is required to establish the schools the law prescribes. I'll later explain how townships are actually compelled to comply in these various cases; for now, I'm simply establishing that the obligation exists. But here's the key: the state government imposes these requirements only in principle. In practice, the township reasserts all its independent authority. Taxes are levied by the state but collected by the town. Schools are required by the state but built, funded, and run by the town. In France, the central government sends its agents to manage local affairs. In America, the township serves as the agent of the central government. This single fact shows the enormous difference between the two nations.

The Public Spirit of New England's Townships

How the New England township wins the loyalty of its residents — The difficulty of creating local civic spirit in Europe — How the rights and duties of the American township foster it — The American attachment to home — Expressions of civic spirit in New England — Its beneficial effects.

In America, local government doesn't merely exist — it's kept alive and sustained by civic spirit. The New England township has two qualities that never fail to capture people's attention and loyalty: independence and authority. Its sphere of action is small and limited, true. But within that sphere, it acts without restraint, and its independence gives it a genuine importance that its size and population alone might not guarantee.

Remember that people's loyalties generally follow power. Patriotism doesn't last in a conquered nation. The New Englander is attached to his township not just because he was born there, but because it's a self-governing community of which he is a member — one whose government earns and deserves the exercise of his judgment and skill. In Europe, the absence of local civic spirit is a constant lament among those in power. Everyone agrees there's no better guarantee of order and stability, and yet nothing is harder to create. If you make local governments powerful and independent, the national government might be weakened and domestic peace threatened. But without power and independence, a town may contain obedient subjects — it will never have active citizens.

Another important fact: the New England township is designed to inspire the warmest of human attachments without arousing dangerous political ambitions. County officials aren't elected, and their authority is quite limited. Even state government is only a second-tier community, whose quiet, unglamorous administration doesn't offer enough incentive to pull people away from their personal interests and into the upheaval of public affairs. The federal government confers power and prestige on those who run it, but these positions can never be held by many people. The presidency can only be reached late in life, and the other federal officials are generally people who have been favored by luck or have already distinguished themselves in some other field. Such positions can't be the everyday aspiration of most citizens. But the township provides an outlet for the desire for public respect, for the hunger for purposeful engagement, and for the taste for authority and influence — right in the midst of ordinary life. The passions that commonly cause turmoil in society take on a different character when they find an outlet so close to home and family.

In the American states, power has been dispersed with remarkable skill, specifically to engage the largest possible number of people in the common good. Beyond the voters who are periodically called into action, the political community is divided into countless officials, all of whom represent the same powerful whole in whose name they act. This system of local administration provides a constant source of engagement and purpose for a vast number of people.

The American approach of dividing local authority among many citizens doesn't hesitate to multiply the roles of town officers. In the United States, it's believed — and rightly so — that patriotism is a kind of devotion that's strengthened by practice. In this way, the township's activity is constantly visible; it shows itself every day in the fulfillment of some duty or the exercise of some right. A steady but gentle motion is kept up in society that energizes without disrupting it.

Americans are attached to their hometowns the way a mountain dweller clings to his hills — because the distinctive character of the country is more sharply defined there than anywhere else. Life in the townships of New England is generally a happy one. The government suits the people's tastes and was chosen by the people themselves. In the deep peace and general prosperity that reign in America, local political disputes are rare. The business of local government is manageable. The political education of the people was completed long ago — or rather, it was complete the moment they first set foot on this soil. In New England, there's no tradition of class distinction. No part of the community is tempted to oppress the rest. The abuses that may harm isolated individuals are forgotten in the general satisfaction that prevails. The government may be imperfect (and it would certainly be easy to point out its flaws), but the fact that it truly comes from the people it governs casts a kind of protective parental pride over its faults. Citizens have no other system to compare it to: England once governed the colonies as a whole, but the people were always sovereign in their townships — where self-rule is not merely an old tradition but the original condition.

The New Englander is attached to his township because it's independent and free. His participation in its affairs secures his loyalty. The well-being it provides earns his affection. Its welfare is the object of his ambition and his efforts. He takes part in every event that happens there. He practices the art of government in the small sphere within his reach. He accustoms himself to the processes that alone can ensure the steady advance of freedom. He absorbs their spirit. He develops a taste for order, comes to understand the balance of powers, and forms clear, practical ideas about the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

The Counties of New England

The division of American counties bears a considerable resemblance to the French arrondissement — an administrative district used to organize government services. The boundaries of counties are drawn somewhat arbitrarily, and the various communities within them have no necessary connection, no shared tradition, and no natural bond. Their purpose is simply to make the administration of justice more efficient.

A single township was too small to support its own court system. Each county therefore has a court of justice, a sheriff to enforce its decisions, and a prison for offenders. Certain needs are felt equally by all the townships in a county, so it makes sense to have a central authority to address them. In Massachusetts, this authority is vested in several officials appointed by the governor with the approval of his council (which is itself an elected body). The county officers have only a limited and occasional authority, applicable to specific, predetermined situations. The state and the townships handle all the real business of government. The county budget is drawn up by its officers but voted on by the legislature. There's no assembly that directly or indirectly represents the county. The county, strictly speaking, has no political existence of its own.

A dual tendency can be seen in American constitutions: lawmakers centralize legislative power while dispersing executive power. The New England township has an indestructible core of independence, but that kind of distinct identity could only be artificially imposed on the county, where it hasn't been felt to be necessary. All the townships together have only one collective representation, and that is the state — the center of national authority. Beyond the township and the state, there's nothing but the actions of private individuals.

Government Administration in New England

Why Americans don't seem to have a visible government — The European approach to freedom means stripping the state of some of its powers; the American approach means distributing those powers among many hands — Almost all administration confined to the township and divided among town officers — No visible administrative hierarchy, either in the township or above it — Why this works — How the state enforces township and county compliance with the law — Judicial power woven into administration — The consequences of making every official elected — The justice of the peace in New England — County oversight of township administration — The Court of Sessions — How the power of oversight is distributed like all other administrative functions — Financial incentives for enforcement.

Nothing strikes a European traveler in the United States more than the absence of what we would call "the Government" or "the Administration." Written laws exist in America, and you can see them being enforced every day. Everything is in motion, but the hand that sets the social machinery going is nowhere to be seen.

Still, every community needs some form of authority to function — without it, there's only chaos. This authority can be organized in different ways, but it has to exist somewhere.

There are two ways to limit the force of government authority. The first is to weaken the central power at its source — by forbidding society from acting in its own defense under certain circumstances. In Europe, this is generally what people mean by "establishing freedom." The second way doesn't strip society of any of its powers or paralyze its efforts. Instead, it distributes the exercise of those powers among many hands, multiplying the number of officials and giving each one only as much authority as they need to do their job. This distribution of power might lead to anarchy in some nations, but it isn't inherently chaotic. It makes authority less overwhelming and less dangerous, but it doesn't eliminate it.

The American Revolution was born of a mature and considered commitment to freedom, not a vague or confused craving for independence. It formed no alliance with the reckless passions of anarchy. On the contrary, it was marked by a deep attachment to law and order.

No one in the United States ever assumed that citizens of a free country have the right to do whatever they want. On the contrary, Americans imposed more varied social obligations on themselves than exist anywhere else. They never dreamed of attacking the principles of society or challenging its fundamental rights. What they did was divide the exercise of those rights, so that the office could be powerful while the individual officeholder remained humble — and so that the community could be both orderly and free. In no country in the world does the law speak with more absolute authority than in America, and in no country is the right to enforce it distributed among so many hands. The administrative system in the United States has nothing centralized or hierarchical about it, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed. The power exists, but its representative is invisible.

We've already seen that the independent townships of New England manage their own local affairs, and that town officials are the people most frequently responsible for enforcing state laws. Beyond its general legislation, the state sometimes issues police regulations. But more commonly, the townships and town officers, along with justices of the peace, handle the practical details of community life — adapting to local needs and issuing rules that concern public health, public order, and civic behavior. These local officials also respond, on their own initiative and without special authorization, to the unforeseen emergencies that inevitably arise in any community.

The result of all this is that in Massachusetts, administrative power is almost entirely concentrated in the township — but it's divided among a large number of individuals. In a French commune, there's really only one official: the mayor. In New England, as we've seen, there are nineteen. These nineteen officials don't generally answer to one another. The law carefully defines each one's sphere of responsibility, and within that sphere, they act with complete independence. Above the township, there's barely any trace of an administrative hierarchy. County officers occasionally overrule a township decision, but in general, county authorities have no right to interfere with township authorities except in matters that concern the county as a whole.

Township and county officials are required to report their actions to the state government in a very small number of specified situations. But the state doesn't have a representative whose job it is to publish police regulations, enforce the laws, maintain regular communication with local officials, inspect their work, direct their actions, or punish their mistakes. There's no central hub from which the spokes of administration radiate outward.

So what's the overall plan, and how does the state actually make counties and townships follow the rules? In the New England states, the legislature reaches into more areas of life than it does in France. The law penetrates to the very core of administration. It spells out the smallest details, prescribing both the principle and the method of carrying it out, and piles strict, precisely defined obligations on every local official. The result is that if all these local officials follow the law, every branch of society runs with remarkable uniformity. The problem, of course, is getting them to follow it.

In general, a society has only two ways to enforce its laws. It can give a superior official the power to direct and fire all the officials beneath him if they don't comply. Or it can authorize the courts to impose legal penalties on anyone who breaks the rules. But these two methods aren't always available.

The power to direct a government official assumes you can fire him if he disobeys and promote him if he does well. But an elected official can't be fired or promoted. Elected positions are untouchable until their term expires. An elected official has nothing to expect and nothing to fear from his constituents. And when every public office is filled by election, there can be no chain of command — because you can never vest the right to give orders and the right to enforce obedience in the same person. The power to issue a command can never be joined with the power to reward or punish.

Communities where local officials are elected are therefore forced to rely heavily on the courts as a tool of administration. This isn't obvious at first glance. People in power tend to see electing officials as one concession and making those officials answer to the courts as another — and they resist both equally. Since they're pressured harder to allow elections than to create judicial oversight, they typically grant elections but leave the elected official independent of the courts. But the second measure is the only thing that can possibly balance the first. An elected official who isn't subject to judicial review will, sooner or later, either evade all accountability or be destroyed. The courts are the only possible link between central authority and local administration — they alone can force an elected official to obey without violating the rights of the voters. Judicial power over government should expand in exact proportion to the expansion of elected offices. If these two institutions don't advance together, the state must fall into either anarchy or subjection.

It's long been observed that people trained in the law aren't naturally suited to administrative work. The Americans borrowed from the English an institution virtually unknown on the European continent: the justice of the peace. A justice of the peace is a kind of middle ground between the government official and the ordinary citizen, between an administrator and a judge. He's an educated person, though not necessarily trained in the law. His job is simply to enforce the basic regulations of society — a task where common sense and integrity matter more than legal expertise. The justice brings a certain respect for established procedures and public accountability to the administration, which makes him a terrible tool for tyranny. At the same time, he isn't blinded by the professional biases that can make career judges unfit for governing.

The Americans adopted the English system of justices of the peace but stripped it of its aristocratic character. In Massachusetts, the governor appoints a certain number of justices in every county to serve seven-year terms. He also designates three from the full body of justices to form what's called the Court of Sessions in each county. The justices play a personal role in public affairs: they sometimes exercise administrative functions alongside elected officials, and they sometimes serve as a tribunal where officials can prosecute uncooperative citizens — or where citizens can file complaints against abusive officials. But their most important role is in the Court of Sessions. This court meets twice a year in the county seat, and in Massachusetts it has the authority to enforce compliance from the majority of public officers. (Certain administrative violations go to ordinary courts instead — if a township refuses to fund its schools or appoint a school committee, for example, it faces heavy fines imposed by the Supreme Judicial Court or the Court of Common Pleas.)

It's important to note that the Court of Sessions in Massachusetts functions as both an administrative body and a judicial tribunal. The county is essentially an administrative unit. The Court of Sessions handles those relatively few matters that affect multiple townships or the county as a whole and can't be entrusted to any single town. For county business, the Court's duties are purely administrative, and when it occasionally uses judicial procedures in these cases, it's only to gather information or to provide accountability to the community it serves. But when matters involving township administration come before it, the Court always acts as a judicial body — and in a few cases, as a formal assembly.

The first challenge is getting compliance from an authority as independent as the township. As I've described, assessors are elected annually at town meetings to levy taxes. If a township tries to dodge its tax obligations by refusing to appoint assessors, the Court of Sessions imposes a heavy fine. That fine is levied on each resident, and the county sheriff — an officer of justice — carries out the order. This is how government authority in the United States operates behind the scenes: it's disguised in the forms of a judicial ruling, and at the same time reinforced by the almost irresistible power that people have always given to the formalities of law.

These procedures are straightforward enough when it comes to enforcing township compliance. The demands on a township are generally clear-cut — they involve a simple fact without complications, or a principle that doesn't need detailed application. But things get much harder when you need to enforce compliance not from the township itself, but from individual town officials. Every offense a public official might commit falls into one of these categories:

He may carry out the law without energy or enthusiasm;

He may neglect to carry out the law entirely;

He may do something the law forbids him to do.

Only the last two can actually be taken to court — you need a concrete, provable fact to build a legal case. So if the selectmen skip the required legal procedures during town elections, they can be fined. But when an official performs his duties without ability, or when he follows the letter of the law without any real effort or commitment, he's beyond the reach of the courts. The Court of Sessions, even when exercising its official authority, can't force him to do a better job. The fear of being voted out is the only check on this kind of half-hearted performance. And since the Court of Sessions doesn't appoint town officials, it can't remove those it didn't hire. On top of that, catching an official who's simply going through the motions would require constant surveillance, and the Court only meets twice a year — and only hears cases that are actually brought before it. The only real guarantee of energetic and competent service from public officials — when courts can't provide it — lies in the power of voters to throw them out. In France, this guarantee comes from the power of administrative superiors. In America, it comes from the principle of election.

To sum up what I've been describing: If a public officer in New England commits a crime while performing his duties, the ordinary courts handle the case. If he commits an administrative error, a purely administrative tribunal punishes him. And if the situation is urgent, a judge can step in and do the official's job for him. (For instance, if a township stubbornly refuses to appoint its assessors, the Court of Sessions appoints them, and these court-appointed officers carry the same legal authority as elected ones.) Finally, if the same individual is guilty of those intangible failures that no court can really address, he faces the voters every year at a tribunal from which there is no appeal — one that can strip him of his office and reduce him to obscurity overnight.

This system has real strengths, but it comes with a practical difficulty worth pointing out.

I've already noted that the Court of Sessions has no power to proactively inspect town officials. It can only intervene when a specific complaint is formally brought to its attention — and this is the delicate part of the whole system. The Americans of New England never established anything like a public prosecutor for the Court of Sessions, and you can see why it would have been difficult. If you'd appointed a prosecutor in each county seat without giving him agents in the individual townships, he wouldn't have known any more about what was happening locally than the Court of Sessions already did. But placing agents in each township would have concentrated in one person an enormously dangerous power — that of judicial administration. And besides, nothing of the kind existed in English law, from which the Americans drew their legal traditions.

So the Americans split the functions of investigation and prosecution, just as they divided all other government functions. Grand jurors are legally required to report all offenses committed in their county to their court. Serious crimes are officially prosecuted by the state. But more routine violations usually fall to the fiscal officer responsible for collecting the fine — the township treasurer, for example, handles the prosecution of administrative offenses that come to his attention.

But American law makes an even more powerful appeal: to the self-interest of ordinary citizens. This is a principle you encounter constantly when studying American law. American lawmakers are more inclined to credit people with intelligence than with virtue, and they rely heavily on personal self-interest to get the laws enforced. When someone is genuinely harmed by an administrative abuse, their own self-interest will naturally drive them to take legal action. But when a legal requirement serves the community's interests without directly affecting individuals, it's much harder to find someone willing to bring a case. And so, through a kind of unspoken agreement, laws can quietly fall out of use.

Pushed to this extreme by their own system, the Americans were forced to encourage informers by giving them a share of the penalty in certain cases — a somewhat degrading but effective solution. For instance, if town officials fail to supply the militia with necessary stores during an invasion or insurrection, the township faces a fine of $200 to $500. Since no one might bother to prosecute in such a case, the law allows any citizen to bring the charge and keeps half the fine as a reward. Private citizens are incentivized to go after negligent officials, and officials are similarly encouraged to pursue disobedient citizens.

The only administrative authority above the county officials is, properly speaking, the state government itself.

General Observations on American Administration

Differences between states in their administrative systems — Local government activity and quality decline as you move south — Official power grows while voter influence shrinks — Administration shifts from the township to the county — New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania — Principles applicable across the whole Union — Election of public officers and the inability to remove them before their terms expire — No hierarchy of ranks — The introduction of judicial tools into administration.

After examining the township and county government of New England in detail, let me step back and take a broader view of the rest of the country. Townships and local self-government exist in every state, but nowhere outside New England will you find townships quite like the ones I've described. The further south you go, the less active local government becomes. The number of officials, their functions, and the rights they exercise all decrease. The people have less direct influence on public affairs. Town meetings happen less often and cover fewer topics. Elected officials gain more power while voters lose theirs, and the spirit of local civic engagement grows weaker. These differences are noticeable in New York, quite pronounced in Pennsylvania, and become less dramatic as you head northwest — because most settlers in the northwestern states came from New England and brought their home-state habits with them. A township in Ohio is not all that different from a township in Massachusetts.

We've seen that in Massachusetts, the engine of public administration is the township. It's the center of civic interest and attachment. But this changes as you move to states where education is less widely spread and the township can offer fewer guarantees of wise, effective governance. As you leave New England, the township's importance gradually transfers to the county, which becomes the center of administration and the intermediary between the state government and the individual citizen. In Massachusetts, county business is handled by the Court of Sessions — a body whose members are appointed by the governor and his council. The county has no elected assembly of its own, and its budget is voted on by the state legislature. In the large states of New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, by contrast, each county's residents elect representatives who form a county assembly. This assembly has the power to tax residents to a certain extent, functioning in some ways like a real legislative body. At the same time, it exercises executive authority within the county, often directing township administration and keeping township powers on a much shorter leash than in Massachusetts.

These are the main differences between county and township administration across the states. If I wanted to get into the fine details, I'd have to go much further. But what I've already said is enough to show the general principles at work. These principles are applied differently in different places — their consequences vary — but they are always essentially the same. The laws differ, and their surface features change, but their underlying character stays constant. Even where townships and counties aren't organized in exactly the same way, they always rest on the same foundational principle: that everyone is the best judge of what concerns themselves alone, and the best person to address their own needs. The township and the county are therefore expected to manage their own affairs. The state governs, but it doesn't meddle in local administration. There are exceptions to this rule, but never a contradictory principle.

The first consequence of this approach is that all officials are either elected by the citizens or at least chosen from among them. Since every officer serves for a fixed term, it has been impossible to create a hierarchical chain of command. There are almost as many independent officials as there are functions, and executive power is scattered across a multitude of hands. This made it absolutely necessary to introduce judicial oversight of the administration and a system of financial penalties to keep local officials and their agencies in line with the law. This system exists from one end of the Union to the other. The power to punish official misconduct — or to step in when officials fail to act in urgent situations — hasn't been assigned to the same judges in every state. But the Americans all drew from a common source when they adopted the institution of justices of the peace. Although it exists everywhere, it isn't used in exactly the same way. Justices of the peace participate in township and county administration across the country, either as public officers or as judges of minor offenses. In most states, however, more serious public offenses are handled by the regular courts.

The election of public officers, the inability to remove them before their terms expire, the absence of any hierarchy of authority, and the use of judicial oversight over local administration — these are the universal features of the American system, from Maine to Florida. In some states — New York being the most advanced in this direction — you can see the beginnings of centralized administration. In New York, officers of the state government exercise a degree of inspection and control over local officials. (For instance, the state controls public education through the Board of Regents, appointed by the legislature. The governor and lieutenant governor sit on the board. The Regents visit colleges and academies annually and report to the legislature. Their oversight has real teeth: colleges need a charter that can only be granted on the Regents' recommendation, and the state distributes education funding through them.) In other cases, state officials serve as a court of appeal for local decisions. New York also relies less on judicial penalties as an administrative tool and concentrates the power to prosecute official misconduct in fewer hands. The same tendency appears faintly in a few other states. But in general, the defining characteristic of American administration is its intense local independence.

The State Government

I've described the townships and local administration. Now I need to address the state itself. This is ground I can cover quickly without risk of confusion, since everything I need to say is written down in the various state constitutions, which are readily available. These constitutions rest on a simple, rational theory. Their basic forms have been adopted by all constitutional nations and are well known to us. A brief summary will be enough here; I'll offer my assessment afterward.

The Legislative Branch

The legislature divided into two chambers — The Senate — The House of Representatives — The different roles of each body.

The legislative power of the state is held by two assemblies. The first is usually called the Senate. The Senate is primarily a legislative body, but it sometimes takes on executive and judicial functions as well. Depending on the state constitution, it participates in government in several ways, but its most common executive role is in the appointment of public officials. It exercises judicial power when it tries certain political offenses, and in some states, when it decides certain civil cases. The Senate is always small in number.

The other branch of the legislature — usually called the House of Representatives — has no share in the executive branch and exercises judicial power only insofar as it can impeach public officials before the Senate. Members of both chambers are nearly always elected under the same conditions, by the same voters, and in the same manner. The only real difference is that senators generally serve longer terms than representatives. Representatives rarely hold office for more than a year; senators typically serve two or three years. By giving senators longer terms and staggering their elections so they're not all replaced at once, the law ensures there's always a core of experienced legislators in the body — people already familiar with public business who can guide the newer members.

When the Americans divided their legislature into two chambers, they had no intention of making one hereditary and the other elected, one aristocratic and the other democratic. Their goal was not to create a fortress of institutional power in one house while the other channeled the passions and interests of the people. The real benefits of a bicameral legislature are simpler: it divides legislative power, creating a check on political assemblies, and it provides a second body that can review and revise legislation.

Time and experience eventually proved to Americans that even if these were the only advantages, dividing the legislature was still essential. Pennsylvania was the only state that initially tried a single legislative chamber. Benjamin Franklin himself was so carried away by the logical implications of popular sovereignty that he supported the idea. But the Pennsylvanians were quickly forced to change course and create a second house. The principle of a divided legislature was settled for good — and its necessity can now be considered a proven fact. This idea was barely known to the ancient republics, was introduced to the world almost by accident (like so many other great truths), and was misunderstood by several modern nations. Today, it has become an axiom of political science.

The Executive Branch

The office of the governor — His relationship to the legislature — His rights and duties — His dependence on the people.

The governor represents the executive power of the state, though he exercises only a portion of it. As the state's chief executive, he serves as the official moderator and adviser to the legislature. He has a veto — or at least a suspensive power — that lets him slow or halt legislative action. He presents the state's needs to the legislature and recommends ways to address them. He is the natural executor of its decisions in all matters of statewide concern. (In practice, it isn't always the governor who carries out the legislature's plans. The legislature often names special agents to supervise the execution of specific measures.) When the legislature is not in session, the governor is responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary to protect the state against sudden crises and unforeseen dangers. He commands the state's entire military force — the militia and the armed services. When the authority of the law is openly defied, the governor puts himself at the head of the state's armed forces to crush resistance and restore order.

Beyond this, the governor plays almost no role in township or county administration, except indirectly through his power to appoint justices of the peace — appointments he cannot revoke. The governor is elected, usually for only a one- or two-year term, so he remains tightly dependent on the majority that put him in office.

The Political Effects of Local Self-Government

An essential distinction: centralizing the government versus centralizing local administration — American local administration is not centralized, but the national government is highly centralized — Some drawbacks of the American approach — Administrative advantages of this system — The power behind the government is less polished, less professional, and less sophisticated than in Europe, but far more powerful — Political advantages of this system — In America, the interests of the country are kept in view everywhere — The support the community gives to the government — Local institutions are most necessary where social conditions are most democratic — Why.

"Centralization" has become an everyday word, but most people use it without much precision. In fact, there are two very different kinds of centralization that need to be carefully distinguished. Certain interests are shared by all parts of a nation — passing general laws and managing foreign policy, for example. Other interests are specific to particular places — the business of individual townships, for instance. When the power that directs these shared national interests is concentrated in a single place or in the same set of hands, you have centralized government. When the power over local, particular interests is similarly concentrated, you have centralized administration.

These two kinds of centralization sometimes overlap, but they can be separated. A centralized government gains immense power when it's combined with centralized administration. Together, they train people to set their own will completely aside — to submit not just on a single point or a single occasion, but in every area of life, all the time. This combination doesn't just compel obedience through force; it shapes the habits of daily life and molds each individual, first alone and then collectively.

These two forms of centralization attract and reinforce each other, but they aren't inseparable. It's impossible to imagine a more completely centralized government than that of France under Louis XIV — the same man made the laws, interpreted them, and represented France at home and abroad. "The State is myself" was no idle boast. Yet the actual administration of government was much less centralized under Louis XIV than it is in France today.

In England, the centralization of government is carried to a high degree. The state acts with the focused energy of a single person, and by an act of will it sets enormous forces in motion. I believe that no nation can be secure or prosperous without a strong, centralized government. But I'm equally convinced that centralized administration saps the vitality of the nations that endure it, steadily draining their public spirit. Such an administration may be able to concentrate all available resources at a given moment on a single point. It may win a battle in an hour of crisis. But it gradually weakens the muscles of the nation over time. It can produce the transient greatness of a single ruler, but it cannot sustain the lasting prosperity of a people.

When people say a state "can't act" because it lacks a central point, pay careful attention: what's actually missing is centralized government, not centralized administration. The German empire, for example, could never bring all its power to bear — but the reason was that the state couldn't enforce obedience to its general laws, because its member states always claimed the right (or found the means) to refuse cooperation with the common authority, even on matters affecting the entire population. In other words, the problem was a lack of centralized government. The same is true of the Middle Ages: feudal society was chaotic not because local administration was decentralized, but because the control of general interests was fragmented among a thousand different hands. The absence of a central government kept European nations from advancing in any coherent direction.

In the United States, there is no centralized administration and no hierarchy of dependent officials. Local autonomy has been pushed to levels that no European nation could tolerate, and it has even caused some real problems in America. But the centralization of government is thorough. The national power is more concentrated than it has ever been in the old nations of Europe. There is only one legislature in each state, and only one source of political authority. District assemblies and county courts have generally not been multiplied, precisely to prevent them from overstepping their administrative roles and interfering with the government. In America, the state legislature is supreme. Nothing can block its authority — not privileges, not local immunities, not personal influence, not even the force of reason itself, since the legislature represents the majority, and the majority claims to be the sole voice of reason. Its own will is the only limit on its power. Beside it, and under its direct control, stands the executive, whose job is to force the disobedient to submit. The only sign of weakness lies in certain practical details. The American republics have no standing armies to intimidate discontented minorities — but since no minority has ever been pushed to the point of open warfare, the need for a permanent army hasn't been felt. (The Civil War of 1860-65 would brutally disprove this assumption — the North alone called two and a half million men to arms. But to America's credit, this army dissolved nearly as fast as it was raised.) The state typically uses local officials — township and county officers — to deal with citizens. In New England, for example, the assessor sets the tax rate, the collector receives the taxes, the town treasurer forwards them to the state treasury, and disputes go to the ordinary courts. This method of collecting taxes is slow and inconvenient, and it would be a constant headache for a government with large financial needs. But the central government, organized as it is in America, could always adopt faster and more efficient methods whenever the need arises.

The lack of centralized administration will not, as many have claimed, destroy the American republics. Far from being too loosely organized, I would argue that American governments are actually too centralized. The legislatures steadily encroach on executive authority, and their tendency — like that of the French Convention during the Revolution — is to absorb all power into themselves. The social power keeps changing hands because it's subordinate to the people's will, and the people are too often caught up in the consciousness of their own strength to remember the value of wisdom and foresight. The danger comes from too much vigor, not too little. The likely cause of eventual destruction is not weakness but excess.

Decentralized local administration does produce some clear drawbacks. The Americans seem to me to have gone too far in isolating local government, because maintaining order — even in secondary affairs — is a matter of national importance. Since the state has no officials of its own stationed throughout its territory to deliver a unified directive, it rarely even attempts to issue general regulations. The absence of these regulations is deeply felt, and Europeans notice it immediately. The surface disorder leads a visitor to imagine that American society is in a state of anarchy — an impression that doesn't correct itself until they look more closely. Certain projects that matter to the whole state simply can't be carried out because there's no national administration to manage them. Left to the efforts of individual towns or counties under temporary elected officials, they either produce no results or nothing that lasts.

Defenders of centralization in Europe love to argue that the government can manage local affairs better than the citizens can manage them for themselves. This may be true when the central power is well-informed and the local communities are ignorant — when it's alert and they're slow, when it's used to acting and they're used to obeying. And clearly, this dynamic intensifies the more centralized things become: the government gets more capable while the people get more helpless. But I reject this argument when the people are as educated, as aware of their interests, and as accustomed to thinking about them as the Americans are. I'm convinced that in such cases, the collective energy of engaged citizens will always serve the public good more effectively than government authority.

I know it's hard to wake up a passive population and give it the drive and knowledge it lacks. And I'm well aware that it can be an uphill battle to convince people to get involved in their own affairs. It would frequently be easier to get them interested in the petty intrigues of court politics than in repairing their own roads. But whenever a central government tries to replace the judgment of the people most directly affected, I suspect it's either fooling itself or trying to fool them. No matter how competent or well-intentioned a central authority may be, it can never grasp all the details of a great nation's existence. That kind of comprehensive attention is beyond human capacity. When it tries to build and operate so many intricate mechanisms itself, it must either settle for mediocre results or exhaust itself in futile effort.

Centralization is admittedly good at one thing: imposing a uniform appearance on the external behavior of people — a surface regularity we can't help but admire, regardless of what's actually being accomplished. It's like those worshippers who venerate the statue while forgetting the god it represents. Centralization brings admirable regularity to routine operations. It polices the smallest disorder and suppresses the pettiest offense. It keeps society in a holding pattern — safe from both improvement and decline — and maintains a sleepy precision that administrators celebrate as proof of perfect order. (Tocqueville pointed to China as the most complete example of what thoroughgoing centralized administration produces: peace without happiness, industry without progress, stability without strength, and public order without public morality. The condition of society is always tolerable, never excellent.) In short, centralization excels at prevention, not action. Its strength fails the moment society needs to be moved forward or shaken up. And when the cooperation of ordinary citizens becomes necessary, the secret of its weakness is exposed. Even when it calls on citizens for help, it demands that they act only as much as the government wants and only in the way the government prescribes. They're supposed to handle the details without daring to shape the system — to work in the dark without questioning the results. These are not the conditions under which you win people's willing cooperation. Human beings need to act freely and take responsibility for what they do. Otherwise — and this is just how people are wired — they'd rather be passive spectators than cogs in someone else's machine.

It's undeniable that Americans sometimes miss the kind of uniform regulations that control every aspect of life in France. You do encounter striking examples of social neglect, and occasionally you see disgraceful problems standing in jarring contrast to the general level of civilization. Projects that require sustained attention and rigorous follow-through often get abandoned partway, because in America — as everywhere else — people are prone to sudden bursts of enthusiasm followed by loss of interest. A European accustomed to finding a government official ready to intervene in everything will struggle with the complexity of American local administration. In general, the small details of public order that make life comfortable are neglected in America. But the essential guarantees of life in society are as strong as anywhere else. In America, the power behind the government is less polished, less educated, and less sophisticated than in Europe — but it is a hundred times more powerful. In no country on earth do citizens put so much effort into the common good. I know of no people that has built as many schools, created houses of worship better suited to their communities' needs, or maintained their roads in better condition. Don't look to the United States for uniformity of design, meticulous attention to detail, or the perfection of an elegant bureaucracy. But you will find the unmistakable signs of a power that — if somewhat rough around the edges — is at least robust, and of a national life that is full of accidents, yes, but also full of energy and effort.

Even if I granted that American towns and counties would be better managed by a distant authority they'd never laid eyes on — even if I admitted that the country would be safer and society's resources better deployed under a single, centralized administration — the political advantages Americans gain from their system would still win me over. It does me little good that a vigilant government protects the peace of my daily pleasures and constantly shields me from danger — if that same government is the absolute master of my freedom and my life, and if it monopolizes so much of the nation's energy that when it weakens, everything weakens; when it sleeps, everything sleeps; when it dies, the state itself must die.

In some European countries, the people are like tenants who don't really care about the place they live. The biggest changes happen without their involvement and — unless they happen to hear about it — without their knowledge. Citizens are indifferent to the condition of their village, the state of their streets, the upkeep of their church. They see all of it as belonging to someone else — some powerful stranger they call "the Government." They hold what amounts to a life lease on these possessions, with no sense of ownership and no interest in improvement. This detachment goes so far that when their own safety or their children's safety is threatened, instead of trying to deal with the danger themselves, they fold their arms and wait for the nation to come rescue them. And yet the very same person who has so completely surrendered his own agency has no natural inclination to obey. He cringes before the most petty bureaucrat, but he defies the law with the spirit of a conquered enemy the moment the threat of enforcement is removed. He swings endlessly between submission and defiance. When a nation reaches this point, it must either change its customs and laws or die. The source of public virtue has dried up. You may still find subjects in such a country, but citizens are extinct. Communities like these are easy prey for foreign conquest. And if they don't disappear from the face of the earth, it's only because they're surrounded by nations just as weak or weaker — and because some instinctive attachment to their country, some vague pride in its name or fading memory of its former glory, is still just enough to motivate self-preservation.

Don't be misled by the heroic efforts that certain peoples have made defending countries they didn't really belong to — you'll usually find that religion was the driving force. The permanence, the glory, and the prosperity of the nation had become articles of faith, and in defending their homeland they were defending their Holy City. The Ottoman Turks never took any real part in governing their own society, but they accomplished extraordinary feats as long as the sultan's victories were the triumphs of Islam. Today they are in rapid decline, because their religion is fading and only despotism remains. Montesquieu attributed a special power to absolute authority, but I think he gave despotism too much credit. On close examination, you'll find that religion, not fear, has always been the real source of any long-lived authoritarian regime's success. Whatever efforts you make, no true and lasting power among people can be built on anything other than the free and willing union of their hearts. Patriotism and religion are the only two forces in the world that can permanently direct an entire political community toward a single purpose.

Laws alone cannot rekindle a dead faith. But laws can make people care about the fate of their country. Through this kind of influence, the instinct of patriotism — which never entirely leaves the human heart — can be guided, revived, and connected to the thoughts, passions, and daily habits of life until it becomes a durable and rational commitment.

And don't say the time for this experiment has passed. Nations don't age the way people do. Every new generation is a new people, ready to be shaped by the lawmaker.

What I admire most about America is not the administrative effects of local self-government but the political effects. In the United States, the interests of the country are genuinely kept in view everywhere. They're a matter of real concern to the entire Union. Every citizen feels as personally invested in them as if they were his own. He takes pride in his nation's glory. He boasts of its success, believing he had a hand in it. He shares in the general prosperity because he benefits from it. His feeling toward the state resembles what he feels toward his family — and it's through a kind of enlightened self-interest that he cares about the welfare of his country.

A European submits to a government official because that official represents a superior force. An American submits because that official represents a right. In America, you could say that no one obeys a person — only justice and law. If the average citizen's self-regard is sometimes inflated, it is at least healthy. He has an unshakable confidence in his own abilities, which he sees as more than sufficient. When a private individual conceives a project — however closely tied to the public good — he never thinks of asking the government for help. He announces his plan, offers to carry it out himself, recruits the help of other citizens, and fights his way past every obstacle. He may often be less effective than the state would have been. But in the long run, the sum of all these private efforts far exceeds anything the government could have accomplished.

Because the government is accessible to the citizens — because it is, in a sense, their own creation — it inspires neither jealousy nor resentment. Because its resources are limited, everyone understands they can't rely on it alone. So when the government does step in, it's not abandoned to act by itself the way it is in Europe. People don't assume that the state's involvement relieves them of their own responsibilities. On the contrary, they're ready to guide and support it. This combination of individual effort and public authority frequently accomplishes what even the most energetic centralized administration could never achieve.

Let me give one example from my own experience. In America, the tools available for catching criminals are minimal. There is no state police, and passports are unheard of. The criminal justice apparatus can't compare to France's — there are fewer investigators and prosecutors, and prisoner interrogations are swift and oral. Yet in no country does crime more rarely go unpunished. The reason is that everyone sees themselves as having a stake in producing evidence and catching the offender. During my time in the United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of citizen committees to pursue and prosecute a man who had committed a serious crime in a certain county. In Europe, a criminal is a wretched figure struggling against the machinery of justice while the public merely watches. In America, he is regarded as an enemy of the human race, and all of society is against him.

I believe local self-government is valuable to all nations, but nowhere does it seem more essential than in a democracy. In an aristocratic society, order can be maintained alongside freedom, because the rulers have so much at stake that maintaining order is their top priority. An aristocracy also protects the people from the worst abuses of despotism, because it always has an organized power capable of resisting a tyrant. But a democracy without local institutions has no defense against these dangers. How can a population unused to freedom in small things learn to exercise it wisely in great ones? What resistance can be mounted against tyranny in a country where every individual is powerless and citizens share no common bond? Those who fear the chaos of mob rule and those who fear absolute power should both want local institutions to grow stronger.

I'm also convinced that democratic nations are the ones most likely to fall under the yoke of centralized administration. Several reasons explain this, among them the following: democratic nations constantly tend to concentrate all governmental power in the hands of the one authority that directly represents the people — because beyond the people themselves, there is nothing visible but a mass of equal individuals blending together. Once this single power already holds all the attributes of government, it can hardly resist the temptation to reach into the details of local administration. And an opportunity to do so always presents itself eventually, as it did in France. During the French Revolution, two opposing impulses were at work — and they must not be confused. One favored freedom; the other favored despotism. Under the old monarchy, the king was the sole maker of laws, and below him you could still make out the half-destroyed remnants of local institutions. These institutions were incoherent, poorly organized, and often absurd. In aristocratic hands, they had sometimes been tools of oppression. The Revolution attacked both the monarchy and these local institutions at the same time, lumping together despotic power and the checks on that power in the same undiscriminating hatred. Its impulse was to tear everything down and centralize everything at once. This double character of the French Revolution has been cleverly exploited by the friends of absolute power ever since. Can you really accuse them of working for despotism when they're defending centralized administration — one of the Revolution's own great innovations? In this way, you can be popular and hostile to the people's rights at the same time. You can be the secret slave of tyranny while loudly professing your love of freedom.

I have visited the two countries where local self-government has been most fully developed, and I have listened to the views of people across the political spectrum in both. In America, I met people who privately wanted to destroy the country's democratic institutions. In England, I found people who openly attacked the aristocracy. But I never met a single person in either country who didn't consider local independence a great good. In both nations, I heard a thousand different explanations for the country's problems, but local government was never among them. I heard citizens credit their nation's strength and prosperity to countless different causes, but they always ranked the advantages of local institutions first. Am I supposed to believe that people who naturally disagree about everything — religion, politics, everything — are all wrong on this one point, the one they deal with every day? The only nations that dismiss the value of local self-government are those that have the least of it. In other words, the only people who criticize the institution are those who have never experienced it.

Chapter VI: Judicial Power in the United States

The Americans have kept the universal features of judicial power found in all nations — but they've turned it into a formidable political force. How they did this — What makes the American judicial system different from every other — Why American judges have the power to declare laws unconstitutional — How they use this power — The safeguards built in to prevent its abuse.

Judicial Power and Its Influence on American Political Life

I've set aside a separate chapter for the judicial branch because its political importance is too great to be treated as a passing reference. Other countries besides America have formed confederations. Republics haven't existed only in the New World. Representative government has been adopted across several European nations. But I'm not aware of any country on earth that has ever organized its judiciary the way the Americans have.

The American judicial system is the institution a foreign visitor has the hardest time grasping. He hears judges invoked in political controversies every day, and he naturally assumes that American judges must be important political figures. But when he examines the courts themselves, they look perfectly ordinary — no different from courts anywhere else. The judges seem to stumble into public affairs by accident, yet somehow that accident keeps recurring.

When the old Parliament of Paris issued a public remonstrance, or refused to register a royal edict, or summoned a corrupt official to its chambers, its political power as a judicial body was obvious. Nothing like that happens in the United States. The Americans have preserved all the standard features of judicial authority and have carefully limited its operation to the normal scope of a court's work.

The first universal characteristic of judicial power is its role as arbitrator. Courts only get involved when rights are disputed — you need an actual case before a judge can rule. As long as a law goes unchallenged, the courts have no reason to weigh in on it, and the judiciary can exist virtually unnoticed. When a judge rules on a law as it applies to a specific case, he is stretching his usual duties somewhat — but he hasn't left his proper sphere, since he has to interpret the law in order to decide the case. However, if he pronounces on a law without any case before him, he clearly crosses into the legislature's territory.

The second characteristic is that courts rule on specific cases, not on general principles. If a judge, in deciding a particular dispute, effectively dismantles a general principle by rejecting everything that flows from it, he's still acting within the normal limits of judicial work. But if he attacks a general principle directly, without any specific case in view, he steps outside the boundaries that every nation has drawn around judicial authority. He may be exercising a more important — perhaps even more useful — kind of influence, but he is no longer acting as a judge.

The third characteristic is that the judiciary doesn't act on its own initiative. It has to be set in motion by someone else. By its very nature, judicial power is passive — it needs a case to produce a result. When called on to punish a crime, it punishes the criminal. When asked to redress a wrong, it provides the remedy. When an act needs interpretation, it interprets. But it doesn't go looking for criminals, hunting for wrongs, or investigating evidence on its own. A judge who opened proceedings of his own accord and appointed himself the censor of legislation would be doing violence to the essentially passive nature of his office.

The Americans have kept all three of these characteristics. An American judge can only issue a ruling when an actual lawsuit has been filed. He deals only with specific cases. He can't act until someone formally brings the matter to his court. His position is therefore identical to that of any judge in any other country.

And yet he wields immense political power.

How? If his authority and methods are the same as every other judge's, where does this extraordinary power come from? The answer lies in one simple fact: the Americans have given their judges the right to base their decisions on the Constitution rather than on ordinary legislation. In other words, they've left judges free to refuse to enforce any law that appears to them to be unconstitutional.

I know that courts in other countries have claimed this same right — but claimed it unsuccessfully. In America, it's universally accepted. Not a single party, not a single individual, challenges it. This can only be understood by looking at the principles behind the American constitutional system.

In France, the constitution is — or at least is supposed to be — permanent and unchangeable. The prevailing theory is that no authority has the right to alter any part of it. In England, Parliament has the acknowledged power to modify the constitution, so the constitution is in a state of perpetual change — meaning that, in a real sense, it doesn't exist as a fixed document. Parliament is simultaneously a legislature and a constitutional convention. American political theory is both simpler and more rational. The American constitution is not treated as immutable, the way the French constitution is, nor can it be changed by ordinary legislation, as in England. It stands as an independent document that, because it represents the will of the entire people, is just as binding on the lawmakers as it is on any private citizen. But it can be changed by the people through predetermined procedures and established rules. (The fifth article of the original Constitution provides the process: amendments must be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.) The American constitution can evolve, but as long as it exists, it is the supreme source of all authority and the ultimate expression of the nation's will.

It's easy to see how these differences affect the role of the courts in each country. If French courts were allowed to ignore laws on the grounds that they violate the constitution, then the supreme power in France would effectively belong to the judges — since they alone would have the right to interpret a constitution that no other authority can change. The judges would replace the nation itself, exercising as absolute a control over society as the inherent limitations of judicial power would allow. Admittedly, since French judges can't strike down laws as unconstitutional, the power to change the constitution is in effect given to the legislature, because no legal barrier stands in its way. But it's still better to entrust the power of constitutional change to lawmakers who, however imperfectly, represent the will of the people — rather than to judges who represent no one but themselves.

It would be even more absurd to give English judges the right to resist Parliament's decisions, since Parliament both makes the laws and makes the constitution. A law passed by the three branches of the English state can never, by definition, be unconstitutional. But neither of these objections applies to America.

In the United States, the Constitution governs the lawmaker just as much as the ordinary citizen. It is the first of all laws, and no statute can override it. It's therefore only right that the courts should obey the Constitution over any ordinary law. This principle is essential to judicial power: choosing which legal obligation takes priority is the natural right — indeed, the duty — of every judge.

In France, the constitution is also technically the highest law, and judges have the same theoretical right to base their decisions on it. But if they actually did so, they would inevitably encroach on a right more sacred than their own — the rights of the society in whose name they act. The national interest clearly outweighs any individual judge's prerogatives. In America, where the people can always bring their judges back into line by amending the Constitution, this danger doesn't exist. On this point, political logic and practical logic converge perfectly, and both the people and the judges keep their rightful powers intact.

Whenever a law that a judge considers unconstitutional is argued before an American court, the judge can refuse to apply it. This power is unique to American judges, and it is the source of their enormous political influence. Very few laws can escape the judiciary's scrutiny for long, because very few laws don't harm someone's interests — and anyone who's harmed can challenge the law in court. But from the moment a judge refuses to apply a law in a given case, that law loses some of its moral authority. The people whose interests it damages learn that there are ways to get around it. Similar lawsuits multiply, and the law gradually becomes a dead letter. At that point, one of two things must happen: the people amend the Constitution, or the legislature repeals the law.

The political power Americans have entrusted to their courts is therefore immense. But its dangers are greatly reduced by one crucial limitation: judges can only challenge a law through a court case, not through abstract declarations. If judges had been empowered to attack laws on theoretical grounds — if they could have launched offensives or issued sweeping pronouncements about legislation in general — they would have become major political players. As the champion or the enemy of one party or another, they would have drawn the entire nation's partisan passions into the courtroom.

But when a judge challenges a law as it applies to some particular dispute in an ordinary proceeding, the significance of the challenge is partly hidden from public view. The decision affects one individual's interests. The law may be weakened, but it isn't abolished. Its moral force may diminish, but its legal authority isn't immediately suspended, and only repeated judicial challenges can finally destroy it. This is the key insight: by tying judicial review to individual lawsuits and private interests, the system protects legislation from reckless attacks and from the daily assaults of partisan politics. A law's flaws only come to light when their real-world consequences are felt, and there is always a concrete, tangible harm at the foundation of every legal challenge.

I believe the American approach is the most favorable to both freedom and public order. If judges could attack the legislature openly and directly, they would sometimes be too intimidated to resist — and at other times, partisan fervor would push them to fight the legislature at every turn. Laws would be challenged when the power behind them was weak, and obeyed when it was strong. They'd be contested precisely when they should be respected, and respected precisely when they could most easily be turned into tools of oppression.

The American judge, by contrast, is drawn into the political arena despite himself. He only examines the law because he must examine a case. The political question he's asked to resolve is tied to the interests of the parties before him, and he can't refuse to decide it without abandoning the duties of his office. He fulfills his responsibilities as a citizen by carrying out the specific obligations of his profession.

It's true that under this system, judicial review can't extend to every law without exception. Some laws may never give rise to the kind of concrete dispute that constitutes a lawsuit, and even when a challenge is theoretically possible, no one may bother to bring it. The Americans have often felt this limitation. But they've deliberately chosen to leave the remedy incomplete rather than give it an effectiveness that could, in some cases, prove dangerous.

Within these limits, the power of American courts to declare a law unconstitutional is one of the most formidable barriers ever devised against the tyranny of legislative assemblies.

Other Powers of American Judges

All citizens have the right to bring public officials before the ordinary courts — How they use this right — Article 75 of the French Constitution of Year VIII — The Americans and the English cannot even comprehend such a provision.

In a free country like America, it seems perfectly natural that every citizen should have the right to bring a government official before the courts, and that every judge should have the power to punish official misconduct. The idea that courts can hold executive officers accountable when they break the law is so obvious it hardly seems worth mentioning as a special privilege. And I don't think that government is weakened in America by this practice of making all public officers answerable to the judiciary. The Americans seem, on the contrary, to have strengthened respect for public authority through this mechanism — officials in power are that much more careful not to provoke public opinion.

I was struck by how few political trials take place in the United States, but it wasn't hard to figure out why. A lawsuit — any lawsuit — is a difficult and expensive undertaking. It's easy to attack a public figure in a newspaper, but the grounds for an actual legal action have to be serious. You need a real injury before anyone will bother to sue a government official, and officials know this, so they take care not to create grounds for prosecution.

This has nothing to do with America's republican form of government — the same pattern holds in England. Both nations refuse to treat the impeachment of top officials as a sufficient guarantee of governmental integrity. Instead, they rely on the possibility of small-scale, everyday prosecutions that are within reach of any citizen — believing this is a better safeguard for freedom than those grand, dramatic judicial proceedings that are rarely invoked until it's already too late.

In the Middle Ages, when it was extremely difficult to catch criminals, judges inflicted the most horrific punishments on the few they managed to arrest — which did nothing to reduce the crime rate. Since then, we've discovered that when justice is more certain and less brutal, it's also more effective. The English and the Americans apply the same logic to official misconduct: tyranny and oppression are to be treated like any other crime — make the penalty reasonable and make conviction easy.

During the eighth year of the French Republic, a constitution was drafted containing the following clause: "Article 75. All government agents below the rank of minister may be prosecuted for offenses related to their official duties only by authority of a decree from the Council of State; in which case, the prosecution takes place before the ordinary courts." This clause survived the constitution it was written into, and it's still in force today — despite the country's justified outrage. I've always had enormous difficulty explaining what it means to English or American audiences. They immediately assumed the Council of State must be some kind of supreme judicial body sitting at the center of the kingdom, exercising a preliminary — and somewhat tyrannical — jurisdiction over political cases.

But when I explained that the Council of State was not a court at all, in any normal sense of the word, but an administrative council made up of people who served at the pleasure of the king — so that the king, after ordering one of his servants (called a Prefect) to commit an injustice, had the power to order another of his servants (called a Councillor of State) to prevent the first from being punished — when I laid out the fact that a citizen who has been wronged by the government is required to ask the government's permission to seek justice — they refused to believe me. They accused me of lying, or at the very least of not understanding the system.

Before the Revolution, a French Parliament would sometimes issue warrants against government officials who had committed offenses, and occasionally the Crown would step in to quash the proceedings — imposing its absolute and despotic will. It's painful to realize how much further we have fallen since then. What used to require an act of naked force is now accomplished under the cover of law and with the sanction of legal procedure.

Chapter VII: Political Trials in the United States

What political jurisdiction means — How it works in France, England, and the United States — In America, political courts can only judge public officials — They usually remove officials from office rather than impose criminal penalties — Despite its apparent mildness, political jurisdiction in the United States is one of the majority's most powerful tools — and perhaps because of that mildness, not in spite of it.

Political Trials in the United States

By "political jurisdiction," I mean the temporary power to render legal judgments that a political body — rather than a regular court — is given.

In an absolute government, there's no need for special trial procedures. The prince who orders a prosecution is also the supreme authority over the courts and everything else. The mere idea of his power is enough to keep people in line. His only real worry is that the outward appearance of justice might be neglected, damaging his reputation for legitimacy. But in most free countries, where no majority can dominate the courts the way an absolute monarch can, the power to judge certain cases has occasionally been handed to the people's elected representatives. The thinking is that it's better to temporarily blur the line between legislative and judicial functions than to violate the essential principle that the government must be able to hold its own officials accountable.

England, France, and the United States have all established this kind of political jurisdiction by law, and it's fascinating to see how differently these three nations have applied the same basic principle. In England and France, the House of Lords and the Chambre des Pairs serve as the highest criminal courts of their respective nations. They don't routinely try all political offenses, but they have the authority to do so. In both countries, the lower house has the right to impeach officials before the upper house. The only real difference is scope: in England, the House of Commons can impeach anyone it wants before the Lords, while in France the Deputies could only bring charges against ministers of the Crown.

In both countries, the upper house can apply the full range of existing criminal penalties to those it convicts.

In the United States, as in Europe, one branch of the legislature brings the charges and the other renders the verdict. The House of Representatives impeaches; the Senate tries. But the Senate can only try people whom the House sends to it, and those people must be public officials. So the Senate's jurisdiction is narrower than that of France's upper house, while the House of Representatives' power to impeach is broader than that of France's Deputies. But here's the critical difference between Europe and America: in Europe, political tribunals can impose any punishment in the criminal code. In America, once they've stripped the offender of his office and declared him ineligible to hold public office in the future, their jurisdiction ends — and the ordinary courts take over from there.

Take this example: Suppose the President of the United States commits treason. The House of Representatives impeaches him, and the Senate removes him from office. After that, he must be tried by a regular jury, which alone has the power to take away his freedom or his life. This perfectly illustrates the point.

The political trials established in European law are designed to punish great offenders, regardless of their birth, rank, or power. To achieve this, all the powers of regular courts are temporarily transferred to a political assembly. The lawmakers become judges. They're called upon to evaluate the evidence, identify the crime, and impose the punishment. And because they're exercising full judicial authority, the law requires them to follow all the formalities and duties of a court. When a public official is impeached before an English or French political tribunal and found guilty, the verdict automatically strips him of his office and may bar him from holding office in the future. But this removal from office is a consequence of the criminal sentence, not the sentence itself. In Europe, a political tribunal's verdict is essentially a judicial judgment, not an administrative action.

In the United States, the opposite is true. Even though the Senate's decision looks judicial in form — senators must follow courtroom procedures and formalities — and even though it's judicial in the sense that the Senate generally needs a recognized legal offense as the basis for its verdict, the purpose of the whole proceeding is purely administrative. If the American framers had wanted to give a political body real judicial power, they wouldn't have limited its reach to public officials. After all, the most dangerous enemies of the state might hold no office at all — and this is especially true in republics, where party influence is the real source of power, and where a leader's strength often grows precisely because he holds no official position.

If the framers had wanted to give society a way to punish political crimes with severe penalties, as ordinary courts do, they would have given political tribunals the full range of criminal law. But the weapon they provided is deliberately incomplete — it can never reach the most dangerous offenders, because people who aim to overthrow the entire system aren't likely to lose sleep over being barred from office.

The real purpose of political jurisdiction in the United States is to strip an abusive official of power and prevent him from getting it back. This is clearly an administrative action dressed up in the formalities of a judicial proceeding. The Americans created a hybrid system: they surrounded the act of removing a public official with the safeguards of a political trial, while stripping all political convictions of their harshest penalties. Once you understand this, everything else falls into place. You can immediately see why the American constitutions subject all civilian officials to the Senate's jurisdiction while exempting the military, whose crimes are potentially far more dangerous. In the civilian government, none of the officials can simply be fired at will; some hold positions that are essentially permanent, and others are elected for fixed terms that can't be cut short. So the only way to remove them is through a trial. But military officers serve at the pleasure of the commander in chief, who is himself a civilian official. A conviction against him is effectively a blow against all of them.

If we compare the American and European systems, the differences in their effects are just as striking. In France and England, political jurisdiction is seen as an emergency measure, a last resort to save society from extraordinary dangers. And there's no denying that these European tribunals, as currently designed, tend to threaten the balance of power and endanger the freedoms and even the lives of citizens. American political jurisdiction, by contrast, is only indirectly hostile to the balance of power. It can't threaten anyone's life, and it doesn't hang over the heads of the entire population the way it does in Europe — only those who accepted the risk by taking office are exposed to its reach. At the same time, it's both less intimidating and less powerful. The American framers didn't see it as a remedy for society's worst crises, but as an ordinary tool of governance. In this sense, it probably has more real influence on American society than its European counterpart does on European society.

But don't be misled by the apparent gentleness of American law on this point. First, consider that in the United States the body that renders the verdict is made up of the same elements, and subject to the same political pressures, as the body that brings the charges. This alignment gives an almost unstoppable force to partisan fury. If American political judges can't impose penalties as severe as European ones, there's also far less chance they'll acquit the accused. The conviction may be milder, but it's far more certain.

The main goal of political tribunals in Europe is to punish the offender. The goal in America is to strip him of his power. A political conviction in the United States is essentially a preventive measure. And this means there's no reason to hold the judges to the precise definitions of criminal law. The result is alarming: political offenses are defined with breathtaking vagueness in American law. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says: "The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Many state constitutions are even vaguer. Massachusetts says public officers "shall be impeached for misconduct or maladministration." Virginia declares that all civil officers who offend against the state through maladministration, corruption, or "other high crimes" may be impeached by the House of Delegates. Some state constitutions don't even specify particular offenses at all, leaving public officials exposed to essentially unlimited accountability.

But here's the paradox — and I'll state it boldly: it's precisely the mildness of American law that makes it so formidable. In Europe, removal from office and the ban on future service are consequences of the criminal punishment; in America, they are the punishment. The result is that European political tribunals have powers they're afraid to use, and the fear of punishing too harshly prevents them from punishing at all. In America, nobody hesitates to impose a penalty that doesn't make anyone flinch. Sentencing a political opponent to death in order to remove him from power — everyone would condemn that as a monstrous assassination. But declaring that opponent unfit to hold power, stripping him of it, and leaving him physically unharmed? That can be seen as the fair outcome of a political struggle.

Yet this sentence, which is so easy to hand down, is devastating to most of those who receive it. Hardened criminals might shrug off its intangible force, but ordinary offenders will dread it — a conviction that destroys their standing in the world, stains their reputation, and condemns them to a humiliating irrelevance worse than death.

The influence that political jurisdiction exerts on American society may not look intimidating, but it's immense precisely because of that. It doesn't directly coerce anyone, but it makes the majority's power over officeholders virtually absolute. It doesn't give lawmakers unlimited authority to deploy in some great crisis; instead, it provides a moderate, steady influence that's always available. The power may be smaller, but it's far easier to use — and far easier to abuse.

By preventing political tribunals from imposing criminal punishments, the Americans seem to have dodged the worst consequences of legislative tyranny — but not tyranny itself. I'm not sure that political jurisdiction, as it exists in the United States, isn't the most formidable weapon ever placed in the hands of a popular majority.

When the American republics begin to decline, it will be easy to confirm this observation — just watch whether the number of political impeachments starts to rise. The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868, which his political opponents pursued solely as a way to force him out of office — since no one could seriously argue he was guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, and he was in fact acquitted and kept his position — is a striking confirmation of exactly this point.

Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution

So far, I've been looking at each state as a separate entity — explaining how the people govern themselves and the tools they use to do it. But all these states, however independent they may be, are required in certain cases to submit to the supreme authority of the Union. It's time now to examine that authority separately, and to take a close look at the Federal Constitution.

The origins of the first Union — Its weakness — Congress appeals to the people's power to create a new framework — Two years pass between this appeal and the adoption of the new Constitution.

History of the Federal Constitution

The thirteen colonies that simultaneously threw off British rule toward the end of the eighteenth century shared the same religion, the same language, the same customs, and nearly the same laws. They were fighting a common enemy, and those bonds were strong enough to unite them into a single nation. But each colony had enjoyed its own separate existence and its own government, and the local interests and habits that grew out of this arrangement resisted the kind of tight, intimate union that would have swallowed each colony's individual identity into the whole. Two opposing forces emerged: one pushing the Americans to unite, the other pulling them apart.

As long as the war against the mother country lasted, necessity kept the principle of union alive. The laws that held the confederation together were flawed, but the common bond survived despite those imperfections. The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1778 and not ratified by all the states until 1781, created a framework that barely held. But the moment peace arrived, the flaws of that system became impossible to ignore, and the nation seemed to dissolve overnight. Each colony became an independent republic and claimed absolute sovereignty. The federal government, crippled by its own constitution and no longer held together by a shared threat, watched helplessly as the great nations of Europe insulted its flag. It could barely maintain order against Native American tribes on the frontier, and it struggled even to pay the interest on the debt from the Revolutionary War. It was already on the brink of collapse when it officially declared its inability to govern and appealed to the sovereign authority of the people to create something new. Congress made this declaration on February 21, 1787.

If America ever reached — however briefly — the heights of glory that its citizens love to imagine, it was at that extraordinary moment when the national government voluntarily surrendered its power. Every era has produced peoples who fought heroically for their independence, and the American effort to throw off British rule has been considerably exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by three thousand miles of ocean and backed by a powerful ally in France, American success owed more to geography than to the valor of their armies or the patriotism of their citizens. It would be absurd to compare the American Revolution to the wars of the French Revolution, or the efforts of the Americans to those of the French, who were attacked by all of Europe without credit and without allies, yet managed to throw a twentieth of their population into battle, carry the torch of revolution beyond their borders, and smother its flames at home — all at the same time.

But what was truly new in the history of nations was this: a great people, calmly and deliberately, looked at itself in the mirror when its own legislature told them the machinery of government had stopped working. They carefully assessed the damage. And then they patiently waited two full years until a remedy was found — a remedy they voluntarily adopted without spilling a single drop of blood or wringing a single tear from anyone. When the inadequacy of the first constitution became clear, America had the double advantage of the calm that follows revolutionary fervor and the presence of the extraordinary leaders who had carried the revolution to success. The convention that took on the task of writing the second constitution was small — just fifty-five members — but George Washington was its president, and among its delegates were some of the finest minds and noblest characters the New World had ever produced, including Madison, Hamilton, and the two Morrises. After long and careful deliberation, this national commission offered the people a body of fundamental laws that still governs the Union today. All the states adopted it in turn. The new constitution wasn't ratified by state legislatures but by special conventions — representatives elected by the people for this sole purpose, who debated it at length before approving it. The new federal government began operating in 1789, after a two-year transition. America's revolution ended just as France's was beginning.

How authority is divided between the federal government and the states — State government is the rule; federal government is the exception.

Summary of the Federal Constitution

The first challenge facing the Americans was complicated and far from easy to solve. The goal was to divide authority between two levels of government so that each state could continue managing its own internal affairs while the nation as a whole — represented by the Union — could act as a unified body to address the people's common needs. It was impossible to determine in advance, with any precision, exactly how much authority each government should have, just as it's impossible to foresee every situation a nation will face.

The obligations and powers of the federal government were relatively simple and easy to define, because the Union had been created specifically to handle the nation's shared needs. But the states' responsibilities were complicated and wide-ranging, because state governments had reached into every detail of daily life. So the framers carefully listed the federal government's powers, and everything not on that list was declared to belong to the states. State government remained the rule; federal government became the exception.

But the framers knew that in practice, disputes would inevitably arise over the exact boundaries of federal authority. And it would be dangerous to leave those disputes to ordinary state courts, which were created by and answerable to the states themselves. So a high federal court was created — the Supreme Court — whose job, among other things, was to maintain the balance of power between the two rival governments.

As the Federalist Papers put it: "The powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the internal order and prosperity of the State." I'll be quoting the Federalist Papers often in this work. When the bill that would become the Constitution was submitted to the people for approval and the debates were still raging, three men who had already begun to build the reputations they would later enjoy — John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison — joined forces to explain the advantages of the proposed system to the nation. They published a series of essays that now form a complete treatise on the Constitution. They called it The Federalist — a name the work has kept. It's an excellent book that every student of politics in any country should know, even though it deals specifically with America.

The power to declare war, make peace, and levy taxes belongs to the federal government — What parts of domestic policy it controls — In some ways, the federal government is more centralized than the French monarchy was.

Powers of the Federal Government

A nation's foreign relations are like those of a private individual — they can't be managed effectively without a single person or body in charge. So the exclusive right to make war and peace, negotiate treaties, raise armies, and build a navy was given to the Union. A central government was less urgently needed for domestic affairs, but there were certain matters that only a national authority could handle effectively. The Union was given control over the monetary system, the postal service, and the major roads connecting different parts of the country. Each state's independence within its own sphere was formally recognized. But the federal government was also authorized to intervene in the states' internal affairs in a few specific, predetermined cases where an abuse of state independence might threaten the security of the entire Union. So while the states kept the power to change their own laws as they saw fit, they were forbidden from passing retroactive laws or creating titles of nobility. And since the federal government needed to be able to meet its obligations, it was given an unlimited power to levy taxes.

When you examine the balance of power established by the Federal Constitution — noting what sovereignty was reserved to the states on one hand, and what authority the Union claimed on the other — it's clear that the framers had remarkably precise ideas about the nature of centralized government. The United States is not only a republic but a federation. Yet in some respects, the national government was more centralized than several European monarchies were at the time the Constitution was written. Consider two examples.

In pre-revolutionary France, thirteen supreme courts had the right to interpret the law without appeal, and certain provinces — the pays d'etats — could refuse to pay a tax levied by the king who represented the nation. In the Union, there is one court to interpret the law, just as there is one legislature to make it, and a tax approved by the people's representatives is binding on all citizens. On these two essential points, the Union exercised more central authority than the French monarchy ever did — even though the Union was merely a collection of federated republics.

In Spain, certain provinces had the right to set up their own customs duties — a power that, by its very nature, belongs to the national government. In America, only Congress has the right to regulate trade between the states. On this point, the federal government is more centralized than the kingdom of Spain was. Now, the French or Spanish Crown could always use force to get what the constitution denied it, so the practical result was often the same. But I'm discussing constitutional theory here, not raw power.

How authority within the federal government is organized — The legislative, executive, and judicial powers.

Federal Powers

Having settled the boundaries of federal authority, the next question was how to structure the government that would exercise it.

The legislature is divided into two chambers — How the two houses are formed differently — State independence shapes the Senate; popular sovereignty shapes the House — This arrangement only makes perfect sense in a young nation.

Legislative Powers

The blueprint that had been used for the individual state constitutions was followed in many ways when organizing the federal government. The federal legislature was divided into a Senate and a House of Representatives. A spirit of compromise dictated different principles for each chamber.

I've already described how two conflicting visions clashed during the creation of the Federal Constitution. One side wanted to turn the Union into a loose league of independent states — a kind of congress where each state's representatives would meet to discuss shared concerns. The other side wanted to unite all Americans into a single nation with a government that would act as the nation's sole representative within its defined sphere of authority. The practical consequences of these two theories were vastly different.

The question came down to this: Should this be a league, where each state — small or large — retains its full independence and enters the Union on a footing of perfect equality? Or should Americans be considered members of one nation, where the majority of all citizens makes the rules? Under the first system, the smallest state would have as much weight as the largest. Under the second, the smaller states could hardly accept without effectively surrendering their existence — they'd go from being equal partners to being insignificant fractions of a larger whole. But if the first approach would have given the small states too much power, the second would have wiped out their influence entirely. Under these circumstances, the framers did what people usually do when interests clash with logic: they found a middle ground, forcing together two systems that were theoretically irreconcilable.

State independence won out in the formation of the Senate; popular sovereignty prevailed in the composition of the House of Representatives. Each state was given two senators in Congress and a number of House members proportional to its population. The result is that a state like New York might have forty representatives but only two senators, while Delaware has two senators and just one representative. In the Senate, Delaware is equal to New York; in the House, New York has forty times Delaware's influence. This means a minority of the population, if it controls the Senate, can block the decisions of the majority as expressed in the House — which cuts against the whole spirit of constitutional government.

These facts reveal how rare and difficult it is to build a perfectly logical system of government. Over time, different interests develop and different principles take hold among the same people. When you try to write a general constitution, these conflicting interests and principles become natural obstacles to applying any political theory with perfect consistency. The only time you can achieve truly logical legislation is at the beginning of a nation's life. When we see a nation enjoying that advantage, we shouldn't rush to call it wise — we should remember that it's young.

When the Federal Constitution was written, only two major interests existed among the Americans: the interest of each state in maintaining its independence, and the interest of the entire people in uniting. A compromise between the two was inevitable.

That said, it's fair to acknowledge that this part of the Constitution hasn't produced the problems many feared. All the states were young and close neighbors. Their customs, ideas, and needs were similar enough that the differences in their size and population weren't enough to set their interests truly at odds. The small states have never banded together in the Senate to block the designs of the larger ones. And the legitimate expression of the will of a great people carries such irresistible authority that the Senate could offer only feeble resistance to a clear majority vote in the House of Representatives.

We should also remember that the American framers couldn't have merged these separate states into a single unified nation even if they'd wanted to. The purpose of the Federal Constitution wasn't to destroy the states' independence but to limit it. By recognizing the real authority of these state governments — authority that couldn't simply be taken away — the framers acknowledged from the start that they couldn't routinely use force to impose the majority's decisions. With that principle in mind, it made perfect sense to give the states a role in the federal machinery. It simply reflected the reality of a power that had to be accommodated, not crushed.

The Senate is chosen by state legislatures, the House by the people directly — The Senate serves six-year terms; the House, two-year terms — Each chamber has distinct functions.

How the Senate and House Differ

The Senate differs from the House not only in the principle it represents, but also in how its members are elected, how long they serve, and what they do. The House of Representatives is elected directly by the people; the Senate is chosen by each state's legislature — one body elected directly, the other elected by an elected body. House members serve two-year terms; senators serve six. The House's functions are purely legislative, except for its role in impeaching public officials. The Senate participates in making laws and also tries the political cases that the House brings before it. Beyond that, the Senate serves as the nation's great executive council: treaties negotiated by the President must be ratified by the Senate, and his appointments must receive the Senate's approval.

The President is elected and accountable — He is free to act within his own sphere, subject to the Senate's oversight but not its direction — His salary is set when he takes office — He has a suspensive veto.

The Executive Power

The American framers faced a difficult challenge: they needed to create an executive branch that was both dependent on the majority and strong enough to act freely within its own domain. Maintaining the republican form of government required that the head of the executive branch be subject to the will of the people.

The President is an elected official. His honor, his property, his freedom, and his life are all pledges to the people that he'll use his power responsibly. But he's not completely independent in exercising that power: the Senate oversees his dealings with foreign nations and his distribution of government appointments, so that he can neither be bribed nor use bribery himself. The framers understood that the executive branch would be unable to fulfill its duties with any dignity or effectiveness unless it had greater stability and strength than the state governors enjoyed.

The President serves a four-year term and can be reelected, giving him both the incentive and the time to pursue ambitious plans for the public good. He was made the sole representative of executive authority — the framers deliberately chose not to saddle him with a governing council, a dangerous arrangement that tends to both slow down government action and diffuse responsibility. The Senate can block certain presidential actions, but it can't force the President to do anything, and it plays no direct role in exercising executive power.

The legislature's influence on the executive branch can be direct, and the Americans took care to prevent that. But it can also be indirect. Legislatures that control an official's salary can encroach on his independence, and since they make the laws, they're always tempted to gradually claim some of the authority the Constitution gave to the executive. This tendency of legislatures to absorb executive power is a built-in flaw of republican government. The Americans couldn't eliminate this tendency, but they made it harder to act on. The President's salary is set when he takes office and locked in for his entire term. He also has a suspensive veto, which lets him block legislation that would erode the independence the Constitution guarantees him.

The struggle between the President and the legislature will always be an unequal one, because Congress can eventually overcome any resistance simply by persisting. But the veto forces Congress to reconsider, and if it insists, it needs a two-thirds majority. The veto is, in effect, an appeal to the people. Without it, the executive branch could be quietly overpowered; with it, the President can make his case and explain his reasoning publicly.

But if Congress can always get its way in the end, you might ask, what's the point? My answer is that in the constitution of every nation, whatever form it takes, there comes a point where the system must rely on the good sense and civic virtue of its citizens. That point is more visible and more obvious in a republic, while monarchies hide it more carefully — but it always exists. There is no country in the world where the laws can provide for everything, or where political institutions can substitute for common sense and public decency.

How the President compares to a constitutional monarch — The President's power is limited and partial; the French King's is comprehensive — The King is part of the legislature; the President merely executes the law — Despite these differences, France under its king resembled a republic more than the Union under its President resembled a monarchy.

The President vs. the King of France

The executive branch has such an important influence on the fate of nations that I want to pause here and explain more clearly what role it plays in America. To understand the President's position, it's useful to compare it with that of a constitutional king in Europe. In making this comparison, I'll ignore the outward trappings of power, which are more likely to deceive than to inform. When a monarchy is gradually transforming into a republic, the executive keeps the titles, ceremonies, pomp, and even the budget of royalty long after its real authority has evaporated. The English, after beheading one king and driving another from the throne, still knelt before their successors. Conversely, when a republic falls under the control of a single ruler, his manner remains simple and unassuming, as if his power weren't yet absolute. When the Roman emperors held unlimited power over the lives and fortunes of their subjects, people still called them "Caesar" in casual conversation, and they still dined informally at friends' houses. So we need to look beneath the surface.

Sovereignty in the United States is divided between the Union and the states; in France it's undivided and whole. This is the first and most important difference between the American President and the French King. In the United States, executive power is as limited and partial as the sovereignty it represents. In France, it's as comprehensive as the state itself. The Americans have a federal government; the French have a national one.

This isn't the only source of the President's relative weakness. The second is just as important. Sovereignty can be defined as the right to make laws. In France, the King genuinely exercised a share of sovereign power: no law took effect without his approval, and he was responsible for executing everything the legislature enacted. The President also executes the laws, but he doesn't truly participate in creating them — his refusal to sign a bill doesn't kill it. He's the agent of sovereign power, not a co-author. But the King of France didn't just share in the sovereign power of lawmaking; he also helped choose the legislature that wielded the other portion. He had the right to appoint the members of one chamber and to dissolve the other whenever he pleased. The President of the United States has no role in forming the legislative body and cannot dissolve any part of it. The King had the same right as the chambers to propose legislation — a right the President doesn't possess. The King was represented in each chamber by his ministers, who explained his intentions, argued for his positions, and defended the government's principles. The President and his cabinet are shut out of Congress entirely; his influence and opinions can penetrate that body only indirectly. The King of France stood on equal footing with the legislature — it couldn't act without him any more than he could act without it. The President exercises an authority that is subordinate to and dependent on the legislature.

Even in the exercise of executive power itself — the area where the President's position most closely resembles the French King's — the President operates at a disadvantage. The King's authority, first of all, has the advantage of permanence, and permanence is one of the chief sources of strength. Nothing is feared or respected unless it's likely to endure. The President is elected for four years; the King held his throne for life by hereditary right. In exercising executive power, the President is constantly subjected to jealous scrutiny. He may negotiate a treaty, but he can't finalize it. He may nominate a public official, but he can't actually appoint one without Senate approval. The King of France was absolute within his constitutional sphere. The President is personally accountable for his actions; the King's person was declared inviolable.

And yet, public opinion rules them both. This power is less formally defined and less explicitly recognized by law in France than in America, but it exists just as surely. In America, public opinion works through elections and legislation. In France, it worked through revolutions. Despite the vast differences between these two systems, public opinion is the ultimate authority in both countries. The fundamental principle underlying the government — an essentially republican principle — is the same in both, even if its consequences play out differently and its reach varies. This leads me to a conclusion that may surprise: France under its King was actually closer to a republic than the American Union under its President is to a monarchy.

I've only touched on the main points of comparison here. If I went into the details, the contrast would be even sharper. I've noted that the President's authority operates only within a partial sovereignty, while the King's was undivided. I could go further and show that the French King's power actually exceeded even its broad constitutional boundaries, reaching into every corner of private life. One striking example: the enormous number of government officials who owed their appointments to the Crown. This number had grown beyond all previous limits — 138,000 appointments, each one representing a piece of the King's power, and costing the state 200 million francs a year. The President of the United States doesn't have the exclusive right to make government appointments, and the total number under his control barely exceeded 12,000. The King of France had eleven times as many positions to hand out as the President, even though France's population was only about double that of the United States.

The President has few opportunities to use his broad prerogatives — The army is tiny; the navy is small — America has no threatening neighbors — The President's weakness comes from circumstances, not just from the Constitution.

When Circumstances Shape Executive Power

If the executive branch is weaker in America than it was in France, the cause has more to do with circumstances than with the law.

A nation's executive power is tested primarily in foreign affairs. If the Union's survival were constantly threatened, if its core interests collided daily with those of other powerful nations, the presidency would naturally grow more important in proportion to what was expected and demanded of it. But the President of the United States commands an army of only six thousand men. He leads a navy of just a few ships. He manages the nation's foreign relations — but the United States is a country without threatening neighbors. Separated from the rest of the world by an ocean and still too young to compete for control of the seas, America has no enemies, and its interests rarely intersect with those of other nations.

The practical reality of a government can't be judged by its constitutional theory. The President possesses prerogatives that are almost royal on paper, but circumstances give him no opportunity to use them. The powers he can actually exercise are very limited. The law gives him enormous potential influence; reality prevents him from deploying it.

In France, the opposite was true. The royal government was constantly battling enormous challenges and exerting all its energy to overcome them. Its actual power grew with each crisis it managed and each great event it navigated, without any change to the constitution itself. If French law had made the executive as weak and constrained as it is in America, the Crown's real influence would soon have become even more dominant — because necessity would have demanded it.

Why the President doesn't need a congressional majority to stay in power — A European king who loses his parliament is in crisis; an American president who loses Congress barely notices — This proves the presidency is weak, not strong.

Why the President Can Govern Without a Congressional Majority

In Europe, it's an established principle that a constitutional monarch can't maintain a government that both houses of the legislature oppose. But several American Presidents have lost their majority in Congress without being forced out of office, and without causing any serious harm to the country. I've heard people cite this fact as proof of the executive branch's independence and power. A moment's thought will show the opposite: it's actually proof of its extreme weakness.

A European king needs the legislature's support because the duties the constitution assigns him are enormous. A constitutional king doesn't just execute the laws — the entire machinery of enforcement depends on him so completely that he can paralyze the government if he chooses to resist. He needs the legislature to make laws; the legislature needs him to carry them out. Neither can function without the other, and the whole system grinds to a halt the moment they disagree.

In America, the President can't prevent any law from passing, and he can't evade the obligation to enforce it. His enthusiastic cooperation is certainly useful, but it isn't essential to keeping the government running. All his important acts are directly or indirectly subject to legislative oversight, and on his own authority he can do very little. It's his weakness, not his strength, that allows him to remain in office while at odds with Congress. In Europe, harmony between the executive and the legislature is essential, because a collision between them is devastating. In America, harmony is nice but not necessary, because such a collision is impossible.

The risks of electing a head of state — These risks grow with the power of the office — Why the system works in America — Geography, habits, and a weak executive make it safe — What happens when an election approaches.

Election of the President

The dangers of electing the head of state have been amply demonstrated by both experience and history. My observations here apply to America specifically. These dangers grow in direct proportion to the power the office carries, and they vary according to the method of election and the circumstances of the voters. The strongest argument against electing a head of state is that it creates such a dazzling prize for personal ambition that when legitimate means fail, force may not be far behind.

The greater the executive's privileges, the greater the temptation. The more candidates' ambitions are inflamed, the more eagerly their supporters rally around them, hoping to share the spoils of power. The dangers of the elective system increase in exact proportion to the executive's influence over national affairs. Poland's repeated crises weren't caused by the elective system itself, but by the fact that the elected monarch was the ruler of a powerful kingdom. Before debating the abstract merits of electing leaders, we need to ask whether a country's geography, laws, customs, and character allow for a weak, dependent executive — because trying to make the head of state both powerful and elective is, in my view, trying to have two incompatible things at once.

If you want to turn hereditary monarchy into an elective system, the only approach I know of is to gradually shrink the office's powers and its sphere of action, and to accustom the people to living without its protection. But this is the last thing European republicans have in mind. Many of them hate tyranny because they've personally suffered from it, so they attack the abuse of executive power without realizing how closely it's connected to the extent of executive power itself.

Until now, no one has risked their life and reputation to become President of the United States, because the office is temporary, limited, and subordinate. The prize isn't big enough to attract adventurers to such a desperate gamble. No candidate has been able to whip up dangerous levels of enthusiasm or passionate loyalty, for the simple reason that once he reaches the top, the President has very little power, wealth, or glory to distribute among his friends. His influence is too small for a faction's rise or fall to depend on putting one person in the White House.

The great advantage of hereditary monarchy is continuity. Because a royal family's private interests are permanently tied to the interests of the state, the executive never stops functioning — not for a single moment. The government may be run well or badly depending on the monarch's abilities, but at least someone is always running it. In elective systems, by contrast, the wheels of government slow down as election day approaches and for some time before it. Laws can streamline the process and elections can be organized so efficiently that the seat of power is never technically vacant. But a break inevitably occurs in the nation's mind.

As an election nears, the sitting President becomes consumed by the coming contest. His plans for the future become uncertain. He can't start anything new, and he pursues his existing projects with indifference, since someone else may end up finishing them. "I am so near the time of my retirement from office," President Jefferson wrote on January 21, 1809 — six weeks before the election — "that I feel no passion, I take no part, I express no sentiment. It appears to me just to leave to my successor the commencement of those measures which he will have to prosecute, and for which he will be responsible."

Meanwhile, the entire nation's attention focuses on a single point. Everyone watches the gradual unfolding of this momentous event. The broader the executive's influence, the more constant its action needs to be, and the more dangerous this period of suspended animation becomes. A nation accustomed to a powerful executive — or worse, one that depends on the administrative protection of a strong central government — would be thrown into chaos by this kind of election. In the United States, the government's operations can slow down without disaster, precisely because the government is weak to begin with. The period during which President Buchanan remained in office after Abraham Lincoln's election — from November 1860 to March 1861 — was the very interval that allowed the seceding Southern states to complete their preparations for the Civil War, while the federal government stood paralyzed. No greater disaster could befall a nation.

One of the chief problems with electing the head of state is that it always introduces a degree of instability into both domestic and foreign policy. But this drawback is less serious when the elected leader's actual power is small. In ancient Rome, the Consuls were replaced every year, but the principles of government stayed constant because the real directing authority belonged to the Senate, a permanent body. If Europe adopted the elective system, most monarchical states would see their entire direction change with every election. In America, the President has some influence on policy, but he doesn't drive it. Real power belongs to the people's representatives. The country's political direction depends on the nation as a whole, not on the President alone. So the elective system doesn't seriously threaten the stability of American government. But instability is such an inherent vice of the elective system that it still makes itself felt, even within the President's narrow sphere of authority.

The Americans decided that the head of the executive branch, who bears full responsibility for his duties, should have the right to choose his own subordinates and remove them at will. The legislature watches the President's conduct more than it directs it. The result is that with every new election, the fate of every federal appointee hangs in the balance. President John Quincy Adams, when he took office, fired the majority of his predecessor's appointees. And I'm not aware that Andrew Jackson allowed a single removable official in the federal service to keep his job past the first year of his presidency. People sometimes complain that in Europe's constitutional monarchies, even low-level government workers lose their positions when ministers change. But in elective systems, this problem is far worse. In a constitutional monarchy, new cabinets come and go rapidly, but the head of state stays the same, keeping reform within bounds — changes happen in the details rather than in the system's foundations. In America, replacing one system with another every four years amounts to a kind of revolution. As for the individuals caught up in this cycle, it should be said that their situation is less painful in America than elsewhere. It's easy enough to make an independent living in the United States that a fired government worker may lose comfort, but not the means of survival.

I noted at the beginning of this discussion that the dangers of electing the head of state depend heavily on the particular circumstances of the nation that adopts the system. No matter how limited the executive's domestic powers, foreign policy will always require a single, steady hand. The more precarious a nation's position, the more it needs consistent external leadership, and the more dangerous the elective system becomes.

American foreign policy is exceedingly simple: practically no country depends on them, and they need no other country's help. Their independence is never under threat. In their current circumstances, the executive's powers are limited as much by the facts on the ground as by the Constitution, and the President can shift his foreign policy without risking national disaster.

Whatever an executive's constitutional powers may be, the period just before and during an election should always be considered a national crisis — one that's dangerous in proportion to the country's internal troubles and external threats. Few European nations could avoid anarchy or conquest every time they had to choose a new sovereign. In America, society is sturdy enough to stand on its own. There's no pressure from foreign dangers, and a presidential election causes excitement, but not ruin.

The Electoral College — How the framers designed the election process — The role of the House of Representatives when no candidate wins a majority — Results of the twelve elections held under the Constitution.

How the President Is Elected

Beyond the risks inherent in any elective system, many additional problems can arise from the specific mechanics of the election — and the framers took careful precautions to avoid them. In societies where armed citizens gathered in a public square to choose their leader, you got all the dangers of the elective system plus the dangers of civil war. The Polish system, which let a single individual veto the choice of sovereign, practically invited assassination and guaranteed anarchy.

When you examine the political and social conditions of the United States, you're struck by how perfectly fortune and human effort aligned. The nation had two crucial advantages for internal peace: it was a new country, but inhabited by people with long experience in self-government. America had no hostile neighbors to fear, and the framers, taking full advantage of these favorable circumstances, deliberately created a weak, subordinate executive that could safely be made elective.

Their remaining task was to choose the least dangerous method of election, and the rules they designed correspond beautifully to the protections that geography and political culture already provided. The goal was to find a method that would faithfully express the people's choice while minimizing excitement and suspense. They accepted that a simple majority would be decisive, but the real challenge was achieving that majority without dangerous delays. A single candidate rarely wins the majority of votes in a large nation — and this problem is even worse in a federation, where local loyalties tend to dominate. The solution was to delegate the election to a smaller body of representatives — the Electoral College. Fewer voters meant a greater chance of reaching a clear decision, and it also improved the odds of a thoughtful choice.

The next question was whether these electors should be drawn from the regular legislature or from a body created specifically for this purpose. The Americans chose the latter. They believed that sitting legislators were poor vehicles for expressing the nation's will in choosing a president, since legislators are elected for extended terms and their constituents' views may have shifted. They also worried that empowering Congress to choose the president would expose its members to long campaigns of corruption and intrigue, whereas special electors would blend into the crowd until election day, appearing only to cast their votes and then dispersing.

So each state would name a certain number of electors — as many as its total congressional delegation — who would vote for President. And because the framers had studied what happened when a single assembly was given the power to choose a head of state (such assemblies tended to become hotbeds of passion and scheming, sometimes usurping authority they didn't have, with their protracted deliberations endangering the nation), they required all electors to vote on the same day without gathering in the same place. Each state's electors met separately and transmitted their individual votes — not just a summary result — to the central government.

This double election made a majority probable but not certain. It was possible that the electors would disagree just as much as the voters who chose them. In that case, three options existed: appoint new electors, have the existing ones vote again, or hand the decision to another body. The first two options risked dangerous delays and prolonged instability. So the third approach was adopted. If no candidate won a majority of electoral votes, the sealed ballots would be sent to the President of the Senate and opened before both houses of Congress. If no candidate had a majority, the House of Representatives would immediately choose the President — but only from among the top three vote-getters. In this case, each state delegation in the House would cast a single vote, regardless of population — so New York would have no more influence than Rhode Island. Citizens were first consulted as members of one national community; if they couldn't agree, the decision fell to the states, each casting an independent vote. This was one of those constitutional peculiarities that can only be explained by the collision of competing principles.

This fallback mechanism was designed to be rare and unpredictable. Even when it was triggered, the House was required to choose among candidates who had already demonstrated strong support. It was a clever solution that balanced respect for the popular will with speed, security, and national peace. But the House's decision wasn't guaranteed to come quickly either, since even that body might struggle to reach a majority. Still, by limiting the field to three candidates and putting the choice in the hands of an informed deliberative body, the framers smoothed away every obstacle that wasn't inherent to the elective system itself. Thomas Jefferson, in 1801, wasn't elected until the thirty-sixth ballot.

In the forty-four years since the Constitution was adopted, the United States had chosen a President twelve times. Ten of those elections were decided by the Electoral College. The House of Representatives exercised its backup role only twice: first in 1801, when Jefferson was elected, and again in 1825, when John Quincy Adams won.

A presidential election is a national crisis — Why — The passions it unleashes — The sitting President's anxiety — The calm that follows the storm.

The Crisis of a Presidential Election

I've shown what circumstances allowed the United States to adopt the elective system, and what precautions the framers took to limit its dangers. Americans are accustomed to elections of every kind, and experience has taught them just how much excitement a society can absorb without breaking. The country's vast size and scattered population make clashes between parties less likely and less dangerous than they would be elsewhere. So far, the political circumstances surrounding presidential elections have never truly threatened the nation.

And yet, a presidential election in the United States should still be understood as a national crisis. The President's direct influence on government may be modest, but the choice of who holds the office matters to every citizen collectively, even if each one individually has little at stake. An interest that may seem trivial on its own takes on enormous significance when it's shared by everyone. The President may have fewer rewards to distribute than European monarchs, but the positions at his disposal are numerous enough to give several thousand people a direct or indirect stake in his election. Political parties in the United States rally around individual candidates to give their ideas a concrete, recognizable form — the candidate's name becomes the symbol and embodiment of their principles. Parties fight hard to win the presidency, not so much because they expect the winner to implement their agenda, but because a decisive majority proves the strength of the movement behind it.

For months before the election, it becomes the country's all-consuming obsession. Political passions intensify. Every manufactured emotion that can be conjured in a peaceful, prosperous nation is stirred up and brought into the open. The President, meanwhile, is consumed by self-preservation. He stops governing for the nation's benefit and starts governing for his own reelection. He panders to the majority and, instead of restraining its worst impulses as his duty requires, he often indulges them. As election day approaches, the activity of political operatives and the agitation of the public escalate. Citizens divide into hostile camps, each flying the banner of its favored candidate. The whole nation burns with feverish excitement. The election dominates every newspaper, every private conversation, every thought and action, every waking moment. The instant the result is decided, this fever breaks. The river of public passion, which had nearly burst its banks, sinks back to its normal level — though who can help but marvel at the forces that produced the storm?

It's worth noting that the calm doesn't always return so smoothly. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the signal for civil war.

Re-election of the President

When the head of the executive branch can be re-elected, the state itself becomes a breeding ground for intrigue and corruption. The desire for re-election becomes the president's overriding goal. The unique disadvantage of the American system. The natural flaw of democracy is that it bends all authority to the majority's passing whims — and presidential re-election makes that flaw worse.

Should the framers have allowed presidential re-election? At first glance, it seems obviously wrong to prevent it. We all know how much one gifted leader's talents and character can mean to an entire nation in times of crisis. A ban on re-election would strip citizens of their best guarantee of national prosperity and security. And it would create a strange contradiction: excluding a leader from power at the very moment he's proven he knows how to use it.

But if these arguments are powerful, the arguments against re-election may be even stronger. Intrigue and corruption are natural weaknesses of any government chosen by election. But when the head of state can run again, these problems become enormous — threatening the very survival of the country. When an ordinary candidate schemes his way toward office, his scheming can only reach so far. But when the sitting head of government enters the race, he harnesses the full power of the state for his own purposes. In the first case, one person with limited resources is playing the game. In the second, the government itself — with all its vast influence — is hard at work on backroom deals and political manipulation. A private citizen using dirty tactics to win power can only harm the public indirectly. But when the head of the executive enters the fight, governing becomes a secondary concern. Winning the next election comes first. Every law he signs, every negotiation he conducts, becomes just another campaign tactic. Government positions become rewards for services rendered not to the nation, but to the president personally. And the government's influence, even when it's not directly harming the country, is no longer serving the people it was created to serve.

It's impossible to watch American politics without seeing that the desire for re-election is the president's overriding goal. His entire administration, down to the most routine decisions, is aimed at that objective. As election day approaches, his personal interest completely displaces his interest in the public good. The principle of re-eligibility makes the corrupt influence of elected government even more pervasive and destructive.

In America, this influence has a particularly damaging effect on the foundations of national life. Every form of government seems to carry some flaw built into its nature, and the genius of a lawmaker is shown in how he defends against it. A country can survive the effects of many bad laws, and the damage they cause is often exaggerated. But a law that encourages the growth of the rot already at the core of the system will eventually prove fatal, even if its harmful effects aren't immediately visible.

The fatal flaw of absolute monarchies lies in the excessive and unreasonable expansion of royal power. Any measure that removes the constitutional checks on that power is fundamentally destructive, even if its immediate consequences seem harmless. By the same logic, in countries governed democratically — where the people are constantly pulling all authority toward themselves — any law that speeds up or intensifies this process attacks the very foundation of the government.

The greatest proof of the American framers' wisdom is that they clearly understood this truth and had the courage to act on it. They recognized that some authority above the people was necessary — independent enough to resist the crowd's momentary impulses and most dangerous demands, but still ultimately accountable to the majority's settled convictions. To achieve this, they concentrated the entire executive power in one person. They gave the president broad authority and armed him with the veto to push back against the legislature's overreach.

But by introducing re-election, they partly undermined their own design. They made the president far less inclined to use the great power they'd given him. A president who couldn't run again would still be accountable to the people — his responsibility wouldn't shrink. But the people's approval wouldn't be so essential to him that he'd have to chase it by indulging their every desire. A president who can be re-elected (and this is especially true in an era when political integrity is declining and truly great leaders are rare) becomes a tool in the hands of the majority. He adopts its likes and hatreds, rushes to anticipate its wishes, yields to its demands before they're even made, and instead of leading the people — as the Constitution intended — he follows wherever they point. And so, in the effort to keep one talented individual available for public service, that talent has been rendered almost useless. In trying to reserve a solution for extraordinary emergencies, the country has been exposed to everyday dangers.

Federal Courts

The political importance of the judiciary in the United States. The difficulty of this subject. The value of judicial power in federal systems. What kind of courts the Union needed. The necessity of creating separate federal courts. How the national judiciary was organized. The Supreme Court — and what makes it different from any court the world has seen.

I've examined the legislative and executive powers of the Union, and the judicial power is what remains. But I have to be honest with the reader: this is the part I find most daunting. The American judiciary has an enormous influence on the country, and it deserves a prominent place in any discussion of American political institutions. But I can't explain how the courts exercise their political power without getting into some technical details about their structure and procedures. And I'm not sure how to handle those details without boring the reader with naturally dry material — or becoming obscure by trying to be too brief. If people accustomed to general-interest reading find me too long-winded, lawyers may complain I'm too concise. These are unavoidable pitfalls of the subject, and especially of the specific issues I'm about to address.

The hardest problem wasn't designing the federal Constitution — it was finding a way to enforce its laws. Governments generally have only two tools for overcoming resistance from the people they govern: physical force and the moral authority that comes from court decisions.

A government whose only tool for compelling obedience is armed force is already on the brink of collapse. One of two things will happen. If it's a cautious, moderate government, it will hold off on using violence until the very last moment, turning a blind eye to widespread disobedience — and the country will gradually slide into anarchy. If it's bold and aggressive, it will reach for physical force constantly, and it will quickly degenerate into a military dictatorship. Either way — whether it acts or doesn't — the result is equally damaging to the community.

The great purpose of justice is to replace the idea of violence with the idea of law — to put a legal barrier between the government's power and the use of physical force. The moral authority that courts carry in the eyes of the public is astonishing: it clings even to the mere formalities of justice, giving real weight to what is essentially the shadow of the law. This moral force of the courts makes physical force rarely necessary and frequently substitutes for it altogether. But when force does become unavoidable, its power is doubled by its association with law.

A federal government needs the support of a strong judiciary more than any other kind of government, because it is naturally weak and faces powerful opposition. Federal laws are the ones that most need courts to enforce them, yet historically they have least often had them. The reason is simple: most earlier confederations were formed by independent states that had no real intention of obeying the central government. They cheerfully granted the federal executive the right to issue commands while carefully reserving for themselves the right not to comply.

The Union therefore needed a national judiciary to compel citizens to obey its laws and to defend those laws against attack. The question was: which courts? Should the Union use the courts already operating in each state, or was it necessary to create entirely new federal courts? It's easy to show that state courts couldn't serve the Union's purposes. The separation of judicial power from the rest of government certainly protects individual freedom. But for the nation to function, the different branches of government need to share the same origins, operate on the same principles, and work within the same framework — they need to be consistent and connected. No one, I imagine, has ever suggested that crimes committed in France should be tried by foreign judges to ensure impartiality. But the Americans are one people when it comes to their federal government, while at the same time they've allowed various political entities to exist within that people — entities that are dependent on the national government in some matters and independent in all the rest, with distinct origins, their own governing principles, and their own ways of handling their affairs. Letting the enforcement of federal laws fall to courts created by these separate political bodies would be like handing the nation's justice over to foreign judges. In fact, it would be worse: each state is not just foreign to the Union in some sense — it is in perpetual competition with it, since whatever authority the Union loses is automatically gained by the states. Enforcing federal law through state courts would mean handing national justice not just to foreign judges, but to biased ones.

Beyond the character of state courts, their sheer number made them unsuitable for national purposes. When the Constitution was written, there were already thirteen courts of final appeal in the United States. (By Tocqueville's time, there were twenty-four.) Imagining that a nation could survive when its fundamental laws are subjected to twenty-four different interpretations at the same time defies both reason and experience.

The American framers therefore agreed to create a separate federal judiciary to apply the laws of the Union and settle questions of national interest. All federal judicial power was concentrated in a single institution — the Supreme Court of the United States. To handle the workload, lower courts were created beneath it, empowered to decide minor cases without appeal and more significant ones with the right of appeal to the Supreme Court. The justices of the Supreme Court are appointed not by the people or the legislature, but by the president with the advice of the Senate. To keep the justices independent, their positions were made permanent, and their salaries, once set, could not be reduced by Congress. The Union was divided into districts, each with a resident federal judge presiding over a "District Court." Supreme Court justices also traveled annually to different parts of the country to hear major cases on location in what were called "Circuit Courts." The most important cases eventually made their way to the Supreme Court itself, which held a formal session once a year.

Establishing the principle of a federal judiciary was straightforward enough. The real difficulties multiplied when it came time to define how far that judiciary's authority should reach.

Determining the Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts

The difficulty of drawing boundary lines between different courts in a federal system. The federal courts won the right to determine their own jurisdiction. How this restricts state sovereignty. The states' independence is limited both by the laws and by the interpretation of the laws. The danger to states is more apparent than real.

Since the Constitution recognized two distinct powers coexisting side by side — each represented by its own system of courts — no amount of careful line-drawing could prevent frequent collisions between them. The question immediately arose: who decides which court has authority when their jurisdictions overlap?

In a country with a single unified government, when two courts argue over their respective authority, you can always find a third court to settle the dispute — and this works because questions of court jurisdiction have no connection to national sovereignty. But it was impossible to create a neutral arbiter between the Union's highest court and a state's highest court without that arbiter belonging to one side or the other. Somebody had to be given the power to decide its own case. Granting that power to the state courts would have destroyed federal sovereignty in practice after establishing it in theory, because the state courts' interpretation of the Constitution would soon hand back to the states all the independence the Constitution had taken away. The whole point of creating federal courts was to prevent state courts from deciding national questions on their own terms and to build a uniform body of law for interpreting federal legislation. That purpose would have been defeated if state courts could take back, in their separate capacities, the authority they were supposed to hand over to federal courts. The Supreme Court was therefore given the right to settle all questions of jurisdiction.

This was a serious blow to state independence. The states found themselves constrained not only by the written laws, but by the interpretation of those laws — not only by known limits, but by uncertain ones; not only by clear rules, but by rules that could shift. The Constitution did lay down the precise boundaries of federal authority. But whenever a state challenges those boundaries, a federal court makes the final call. Still, the real-world danger to state independence is less serious than it appears. As we'll see later, the actual strength of the country resides far more in state governments than in the federal government. Federal judges are well aware of the relative weakness of the power they represent, and they are more inclined to step back from cases that are rightfully theirs than to claim jurisdiction they don't legally possess.

Types of Federal Jurisdiction

The basis of federal jurisdiction: the subject matter and the parties involved. Cases involving ambassadors. Cases involving the Union itself. Cases involving different states. Who tries them. Cases arising from federal law — why they belong in federal courts. Cases involving contracts — and the consequences of this arrangement.

Having established the method for determining federal court jurisdiction, the framers defined which cases belong there. They established a dual principle: certain parties must always be brought before federal courts, regardless of the subject matter, and certain subject matters must always go to federal courts, regardless of who the parties are. These two criteria became the foundation of federal jurisdiction.

Ambassadors represent nations on friendly terms with the United States, and whatever concerns them concerns the whole Union to some degree. When an ambassador is a party to a lawsuit, the case affects the welfare of the nation, and a federal court is the natural venue.

The Union itself can be a party in legal proceedings. Obviously, it would make no sense to bring such cases before a court representing a different sovereign power. These cases belong in federal courts.

When two parties from two different states are involved in a dispute, the case shouldn't go to a court in either state. The safest solution is a neutral tribunal like the federal courts, which neither party can suspect of bias — the most natural and most reliable remedy.

When the two parties aren't private individuals but states themselves, the case takes on national importance. Even the most trivial legal dispute between states can be said to affect the peace of the entire Union. (The Constitution also gave the federal courts jurisdiction over suits between a state and citizens of another state. The famous case of Chisholm v. Georgia established that this included suits brought against states, not just by them. The ruling alarmed the states so much that a constitutional amendment — the Eleventh Amendment — was passed to strip that power away for suits brought against a state.)

The nature of the case also frequently determines jurisdiction. All questions involving maritime commerce naturally fall under federal authority. Almost all maritime issues are connected to international law and directly affect the Union's relations with foreign powers. Moreover, since the sea doesn't fall within any particular state's territory, only national courts can hear cases arising from maritime affairs.

The Constitution gathers under one heading nearly all the cases that by their very nature belong in federal courts. The rule it lays down is simple but carries an entire system of ideas within it: the judicial power of the Supreme Court extends to all cases arising under the laws of the United States.

Two examples illustrate this clearly. The Constitution prohibits states from making laws about the value and circulation of money. If a state passes such a law and affected parties refuse to comply because it violates the Constitution, the case goes to a federal court — because it arises under the laws of the United States. Similarly, if disputes arise over the collection of import duties passed by Congress, the federal court decides — because it involves the interpretation of a federal law.

This rule flows directly from the fundamental principles of the Constitution. The Union, as created in 1789, has limited sovereignty — but within those limits, it was designed to function as a single unified nation. Once you accept that premise, the conclusion follows naturally: if the United States constitutes one people within the bounds of its Constitution, it must have all the rights that belong to any other nation. And it has always been accepted, since the origins of organized society, that every nation has the right to have its own courts decide questions about the enforcement of its own laws. To this, some respond that the Union exists as a nation only in some respects and is a nonentity in all the rest. But the answer is clear: in those areas where it does exist as a nation, the Union possesses all the rights of full sovereignty. The only question is which areas those are. And once that question is answered — as we've already shown it was, through the rules for determining federal jurisdiction — no further doubt can arise. As soon as a case is established as federal, the natural consequence is that it falls within the jurisdiction of a federal court.

Whenever federal laws are attacked or invoked for protection, the federal courts step in. The jurisdiction of the federal courts therefore expands and contracts in exact proportion to the sovereignty of the Union itself. The framers of 1789 had a principal aim: to divide sovereign authority into two parts. They placed the control of all general interests in the Union and the control of all particular interests in the states. Their chief concern was arming the federal government with enough power to resist the states' encroachments within its designated sphere. The states, in turn, were granted independence within certain limits and were shielded from the central government's inspection and control. I've already noted that this principle wasn't always held sacred, since some laws that seem to belong entirely to a state's own sphere are prohibited by the Constitution. When a state passes such a law, citizens harmed by it can appeal to the federal courts.

Federal jurisdiction therefore extends not only to cases arising under Union laws, but also to cases arising under state laws that violate the Constitution. States are prohibited from passing ex post facto criminal laws — and anyone convicted under such a law can appeal to the federal judiciary. States are also prohibited from passing laws that impair the obligation of contracts. If a citizen believes a state law violates a contract obligation, he can refuse to obey it and appeal to the federal courts. (In federal law, the concept of a "contract" is interpreted broadly. A grant made by a state to a private individual, once accepted, is a contract that can't be revoked by a future law. A charter granted by a state to a corporation is equally binding. This constitutional provision therefore protects a large share of acquired rights — though not all of them, since property held without a contractual basis has other protections.) The landmark Dartmouth College case illustrated this principle: New Hampshire had tried to rewrite the college's colonial charter and transfer control to new trustees. The Supreme Court held that the original charter was a contract under the Constitution, and the state's act was void.

This provision strikes me as the most significant incursion into state independence. The powers granted to the federal government for obvious national purposes are clear and easy to understand. But the powers implied by the contracts clause are neither clearly defined nor easy to pin down. Since a vast number of state laws can potentially affect the obligations of contracts, this clause provides an easy opening for federal authority to expand its reach.

How Federal Courts Operate

The natural weakness of judicial power in federal systems. Lawmakers should aim to bring individual citizens, not states, before federal courts. How the Americans pulled this off. Direct prosecution of individuals in federal courts. Indirect action against states that violate federal law. Supreme Court rulings weaken unconstitutional state laws but don't formally destroy them.

I've shown what powers the federal courts have. It's equally important to understand how they use those powers. In countries where sovereignty is undivided, the courts carry irresistible authority because they represent the entire nation standing against a single individual — the full force of power reinforcing the idea of right. But this isn't always the case in countries where sovereignty is divided. There, the judiciary often finds itself opposing not just a lone individual but a substantial fraction of the nation, and both its moral authority and its physical strength are diminished as a result. In federal systems, the power of the judge naturally shrinks while the power of the parties appearing before the court grows. The lawmaker's goal in any confederation must therefore be to position the courts the way they stand in unified nations — to make the federal judiciary represent the whole nation while reducing the party in the case to just an individual with a private interest.

Every government, whatever its form, needs the tools to compel its people to meet their obligations and to protect itself against resistance. In this regard, the Constitution of the United States achieved a masterstroke: it arranged for the federal courts to deal with people as individuals, not as members of states. Since the Union had been declared to be one people within its constitutional limits, the government created by that Constitution was naturally given all the powers of a national government — chief among them the right to issue orders directly to individual citizens. When the Union levies a tax, for example, it doesn't bill the state of Massachusetts. It bills every citizen of Massachusetts according to their share. The Supreme Court, empowered to enforce this federal law, directs its authority not against a defiant state but against the individual taxpayer. Like any other nation's judicial system, it acts against persons, not political bodies. And here's the key insight: the Union gets to choose its opponent — and since that opponent is just one person, the contest is inherently lopsided.

But things get more complicated when the federal government isn't the one bringing the case. The Constitution recognizes the states' power to make laws, and a state law may sometimes conflict with federal authority. In such cases, a collision is unavoidable, and the challenge is finding the least dangerous way to resolve it.

You might think the Union could simply haul the offending state before a federal court, which would strike down the law. That would be the most direct approach. But it would put the judiciary in open confrontation with a state, and the Americans wisely wanted to avoid that whenever possible. Their solution was more elegant. Americans take it as given that virtually any new law will harm some private individual's interests. Federal lawmakers seized on this fact: when a state law conflicts with the Union's authority, the affected individuals become the vehicle for challenging it, and the Supreme Court steps in to protect their rights.

Here's a concrete example. Suppose a state sells a piece of its territory to a company. A year later, the state passes a new law transferring that same territory to someone else — violating the constitutional provision that prohibits laws impairing the obligation of contracts. When the buyer under the second law tries to take possession, the original buyer files suit in federal court and has the second claim declared invalid. In practice, the federal judiciary is challenging a state's sovereign act. But it's doing so indirectly, through a specific case involving specific parties. It attacks the law through its consequences, not its principles. It weakens the unconstitutional law rather than formally destroying it.

There was one final scenario to consider: a state suing another state. Each state functions as a legal entity with its own civil rights, capable of suing or being sued. When one state brings a case against another, the Union isn't contesting a state law — it's simply hearing a dispute between two parties. The case is like any other lawsuit, except that the parties happen to be sovereign states. And this is precisely where the danger I mentioned earlier is hardest to avoid. The fundamental weakness of all federal systems is that they create powerful parties within the nation that can obstruct the free course of justice.

The Supreme Court's Place Among the Great Powers of Government

No nation has ever created a judicial power as formidable as the Americans have. The extent of its authority. Its political influence. The peace and the very survival of the Union depend on the wisdom of seven federal judges.

Once you examine the Supreme Court's structure and the full range of its powers in detail, you realize that no people has ever created a more imposing judicial body. The Supreme Court stands at the head of all known courts, both in the nature of its authority and in the scope of the parties who come before it.

In every civilized country in Europe, governments have always deeply resisted allowing cases to which they're a party to be decided through the ordinary course of justice. This resistance naturally reaches its peak in absolute monarchies. On the other hand, the authority of the courts has expanded alongside the growth of the people's freedom. But no European nation has ever gone so far as to declare that all legal disputes, regardless of origin, can be decided by ordinary judges.

In America, this theory has been put into practice. The Supreme Court is the nation's sole judicial tribunal. Its authority extends to all cases arising under laws and treaties made by the executive and legislative branches, to all admiralty and maritime cases, and broadly to everything touching the law of nations. Its constitution is fundamentally judicial, but its role is almost entirely political. Its sole purpose is to enforce the laws of the Union, and the Union regulates only the relations between the government and its citizens and between the nation and foreign powers. Relations among citizens themselves are governed almost entirely by the states.

A second — and even more striking — source of the Court's extraordinary power: in Europe, courts are called upon to settle disputes between private individuals. But the Supreme Court summons sovereign powers to its bar. When the clerk of the court steps forward and simply announces, "The State of New York versus the State of Ohio," you can feel that this is no ordinary tribunal. When you consider that one of those parties represents a million people and the other two million, you begin to grasp the weight of responsibility resting on the seven judges whose decision will satisfy or disappoint so many of their fellow citizens.

The peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the Union rest in the hands of these seven judges. Without their active involvement, the Constitution would be a dead letter. The executive turns to them for protection against the legislature's overreach. The legislature asks them to check the executive's ambitions. They defend the Union against defiant states and the states against the Union's excessive claims. They protect the public interest against private interests and the enduring principles of order against the passing fads of democratic opinion. Their power is enormous, but it is clothed in the authority of public opinion. They are the all-powerful guardians of a people that respects law — but they would be powerless against popular neglect or popular contempt. The force of public opinion is the most unmanageable power there is: its exact limits can't be defined, and it's as dangerous to overstep them as to fall short.

Federal judges must be more than good citizens with legal knowledge and integrity. They must be statesmen — politicians who can read the signs of the times, who aren't afraid to confront the obstacles they can overcome and who know when to step aside from the forces they can't.

The president may make mistakes without causing irreparable harm. Congress may decide badly without destroying the Union, because the voters who elected them can always change course by changing their representatives. But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of foolish or corrupt individuals, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.

The real source of this danger, however, isn't the way the Court is set up — it lies in the very nature of federal government. I've already shown that federal systems need an especially strong judiciary because independent powers with the ability to resist the central government are naturally more formidable there. But the more a power needs to be strengthened, the more independent and expansive it must be made — and the greater the dangers its misuse can create. The root of the problem isn't the design of the judicial power itself but the nature of federal systems that make such power necessary.

Why the Federal Constitution Is Superior to State Constitutions

How the federal and state constitutions compare. The federal Constitution's superiority comes from the wisdom of its framers. The federal legislature is less dependent on the people than state legislatures. The executive is more independent within its sphere. The judiciary is less subject to majority pressure. Practical consequences. The dangers built into democratic government were avoided by the federal framers and magnified by state lawmakers.

The federal Constitution differs fundamentally from the state constitutions in its goals, but the means it uses are strikingly similar. The governments serve different purposes, but their structures are the same. This makes it useful to compare them.

In my view, the federal Constitution is superior to all the state constitutions, for several reasons.

The federal Constitution was written later than most state constitutions, so it could benefit from experience. But this is only a secondary explanation for its quality. Eleven new states joined the Union after the federal Constitution was adopted, and these newer states generally exaggerated the flaws of the earlier state constitutions rather than correcting them.

The real reason for the federal Constitution's superiority lies in the character of the people who wrote it. The Confederation was on the verge of collapse when the Constitution was drafted. Ruin seemed imminent. In that emergency, the people chose the citizens who had earned the deepest respect rather than the ones who were merely popular. Nearly all the delegates were distinguished for their intelligence, but even more for their patriotism. They had been shaped by a time when the spirit of freedom was hardened through constant struggle against a powerful authority. When that struggle ended, while the public's inflamed passions continued to fight dangers that no longer existed, these men stopped and took a calmer, more penetrating look at the country they'd won. They understood that the war for independence was truly over, and that the only remaining threats to America came from the misuse of the very freedom it had won. They had the courage to say what they believed, because they were driven by a sincere love of freedom. And they dared to propose limits on that freedom, because they were absolutely opposed to its destruction.

Alexander Hamilton, one of the Constitution's principal architects, expressed this philosophy in Federalist No. 71: "There are some who would regard the servile pliancy of the Executive to a prevailing current, either in the community or in the Legislature, as its best recommendation. But such men entertain very crude notions, as well of the purposes for which government was instituted as of the true means by which the public happiness may be promoted. The Republican principle demands that the deliberative sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they entrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests... When occasions present themselves in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection."

Most state constitutions set one-year terms for the lower house and two-year terms for the senate, keeping legislators tightly and constantly tethered to the passing wishes of their constituents. The framers of the federal Constitution believed this excessive dependence altered the fundamental nature of representative government: it placed not just authority but actual governance in the hands of the people. They lengthened the terms of office to give representatives room to exercise their own judgment.

The federal Constitution, like the state constitutions, divided the legislature into two chambers. But in the states, both chambers were composed of the same kinds of people, elected the same way. The result was that the passions and impulses of the public were expressed just as rapidly and energetically in one chamber as the other, and laws were made with all the haste and violence that implies. The federal Constitution changed this. Both houses still originate from the people's choice, but the eligibility requirements and election methods differ. Even if one branch represents the same interests as the other, it represents a higher degree of wisdom and deliberation. Senators had to be older, and the Senate was chosen by an elected body of limited size.

Democracies naturally tend to concentrate all power in the legislature, since it's the branch that flows most directly from the people. The legislature absorbs the majority's dominant influence and is naturally drawn to monopolize every form of power. This concentration is simultaneously harmful to good administration and favorable to the tyranny of the majority. State lawmakers frequently gave in to this democratic impulse. The federal framers consistently and courageously resisted it.

In the states, the governor is technically equal to the legislature but is really nothing more than its passive instrument. He has no real independence, since his term expires in a year. The legislature can render him useless by assigning law enforcement to its own committees, or strip his authority by cutting his salary. The federal Constitution, by contrast, vests all the privileges and responsibilities of executive power in one person. The president serves a four-year term. His salary can't be changed during that term. He's supported by a body of appointed officials and armed with a suspensive veto. In short, every effort was made to give the executive a strong, independent position within its constitutional limits.

In every state, the judiciary remains the branch most independent of the legislature. Even so, state legislatures have kept the power to set judges' salaries, which inevitably subjects them to legislative influence. In some states, judges serve only temporary appointments, which strips them of much of their power and freedom. In others, the legislative and judicial functions are blurred: the New York Senate, for example, serves as the state's highest court in certain cases. The federal Constitution takes a fundamentally different approach. It carefully insulates the judiciary from all outside pressure. Federal judges serve for life, and their salaries can never be reduced.

The practical results of these differences are easy to see. Any careful observer will notice that the federal government conducts its business incomparably better than any individual state. Federal governance is more fair and more measured. Its plans reflect greater wisdom. Its projects are more durable and more skillfully designed. Its actions are carried out with more energy and consistency.

Let me sum up the substance of this section in a few words. Democracies face two dangers: first, that the legislature becomes completely subservient to the voters' every whim; and second, that all governmental power gets concentrated in the legislature. State lawmakers have encouraged both of these tendencies. The federal framers have resisted them with every tool at their disposal.

What Makes the American Federal Constitution Different from All Other Federal Constitutions

The American Union looks like other confederations, but its effects are completely different. The reason for this. The distinctions between the Union and all previous confederations. The American government is not really a federal government — it's an incomplete national government.

The United States is not the first or only example of a confederation. Switzerland, the old German Empire, and the Dutch Republic were all confederations in one form or another. A political scientist studying their constitutions would be surprised to find that the powers they granted to their central governments are remarkably similar to those the American Constitution grants to the federal government. All of them gave the central authority the same rights to make peace and war, raise money and troops, and provide for national defense and common interests. Yet the federal governments of all those nations were notoriously weak and ineffective, while the American federal government has always been vigorous and energetic. The first American Confederation — under the Articles of Confederation — collapsed from its own weakness, even though it actually had broader formal powers than the current federal government. The present Constitution contains certain principles that don't immediately catch the eye but make all the difference.

This Constitution, which at first glance might be confused with the older federations, actually rests on a completely new theory — what can fairly be called a great invention in modern political science. In every previous confederation, the member states agreed to obey the central government's commands but reserved for themselves the right to enforce (or not enforce) those commands within their own borders. The American states that united in 1789 agreed to something fundamentally different: the federal government would not only make the laws but enforce them directly. In both cases, the right is the same. But the execution of that right is different — and that single change produced the most far-reaching consequences.

In every previous confederation, the central government asked the member states for what it needed. If the demand was burdensome, powerful states simply defied it by force; weak states quietly ignored it and claimed inability. The result was always the same: either the strongest member state seized the federal authority and ruled all the others in its name (as Philip of Macedon did with the Greek city-states, as Holland dominated the Dutch Republic, and as Austria and Prussia dominated the German Confederation), or the federal government was abandoned by the states it depended on, and the union dissolved into anarchy.

In America, the subjects of the Union are not states but individual citizens. The national government levies a tax not on the state of Massachusetts but on each person living in Massachusetts. All previous confederations governed communities. The American Union governs individuals. Its force is not borrowed from the states — it is self-generated. It has its own civil servants, its own military officers, its own army, and its own courts. Of course, local pride, popular passions, and state-level prejudices all work to diminish the authority of a federal government structured this way and make resistance to its orders easier. But the relative weakness that comes with shared sovereignty is a flaw built into every federal system. The American difference is that each state has fewer opportunities and fewer temptations to defy the Union. And any such defiance can't happen without openly violating federal law, interrupting the ordinary course of justice, and making a bold declaration of revolt — a decisive step that people hesitate to take.

In all previous confederations, federal authority generated more conflict than power, because it multiplied the nation's claims without giving it the tools to enforce them. This is why earlier federal governments were almost always weaker in practice the more ambitious they were on paper. That's not the case in the American Union. Just as in an ordinary national government, the federal government has the means to enforce everything it has the right to demand.

Human understanding invents new things more easily than new words, and so we're often stuck using imprecise and inadequate language. When several nations form a permanent league with a supreme authority that acts on each member state as a whole — even though it lacks the direct power of a national government — we call this a "federal" government. But then a different arrangement emerges: several peoples fuse into a single nation for certain common purposes while remaining separate for everything else. The central power in this case acts directly on the individuals it governs, rules, and judges, just like a national government — but in a more limited sphere. Here the term "federal government" clearly no longer applies. What we really have is an incomplete national government. A new form of government has been invented, but the word for it doesn't yet exist.

The lack of this new form of confederation is what doomed earlier unions to civil war, subjection, or stagnation. The peoples who formed those leagues were either too shortsighted to recognize the solution or too timid to apply it. The first American Confederation died of the same disease.

But the Americans who formed the current Constitution had advantages their predecessors lacked. They had long been part of a single empire before winning independence, so they hadn't developed the deep-rooted prejudices and habits that typically resist the expansion of federal authority. They were more advanced in political knowledge than any other people of their time, and that knowledge was remarkably evenly distributed among them. The passions that usually obstruct federal power were relatively mild, and they were held in check by the wisdom of the nation's most respected citizens. The Americans applied the remedy with prudent firmness as soon as they recognized the disease. They rewrote their laws, and they saved their country.

The Advantages of the Federal System in General, and Its Special Value in America

The happiness and freedom of small nations. The power of great nations. Great empires and the growth of civilization. Strength as the first condition of national prosperity. The federal system's goal: combining the best features of both small and large nations. The advantages the United States gains from this system. The law adapts to the needs of the people — the people don't have to conform to the demands of the law. Energy, improvement, love of freedom, and the enjoyment of it in American communities. National patriotism as a distillation of local patriotism. Ideas and commerce circulate freely across the entire territory. The Union is as happy and free as a small nation, and as respected as a great empire.

In small nations, the scrutiny of society reaches into every corner, and the spirit of improvement enters into the smallest details. Since a small nation's ambition is naturally checked by its limited power, the efforts and resources of its citizens are channeled inward — toward the community's own well-being — rather than evaporating in the pursuit of glory. Individual desires are modest, because extraordinary talent is rarely found in a small population. Wealth is distributed more evenly, daily life is more uniform, and social habits are orderly and simple. If you measure the overall level of well-being and education, you'll generally find that small nations have more people living comfortably, a denser population, and a more peaceful society than great empires.

When tyranny takes root in a small nation, it is more oppressive than anywhere else. It operates within a narrow circle, so every point within that circle feels its direct impact. Unable to pursue grand ambitions, it compensates through violent and relentless interference in every detail of daily life. It leaves the political arena — where it properly belongs — and meddles with domestic arrangements. It dictates tastes as well as actions, and it governs families as well as the state. But this kind of invasion is rare. Freedom is the natural condition of small communities. The government offers too few prizes to attract serious ambition, and private individuals have too few resources to seize power on their own. And if a tyrant does manage to take control, the citizens can overthrow him through a collective effort without much difficulty.

Small nations have therefore always been the cradle of political freedom. And the fact that many of them lost their freedom by expanding their territories proves that their liberty was more a product of their size than of their people's character.

History offers no example of a great nation maintaining republican government for a long stretch of time. This has led many to conclude that such a thing is impossible. For my part, I think it's foolish for human beings — who are constantly deceived by the most obvious realities and perpetually surprised by the most familiar events — to try to set limits on what's possible or to judge the future with such certainty. But it can be said with confidence that a large republic will always face far greater dangers than a small one.

All the passions most fatal to republican government grow stronger as a nation's territory expands, while the virtues that sustain it don't grow at the same rate. Ambition increases with the power of the state. Partisan intensity rises with the stakes of political conflict. But devotion to the common good — the most reliable check on destructive passions — isn't any stronger in a large republic than in a small one. In fact, it could easily be shown that it's weaker and less genuine. The arrogance of wealth, the desperation of poverty, bloated capital cities, collapsing moral standards, crude selfishness, and a bewildering tangle of competing interests — these are the dangers that almost inevitably accompany the growth of a nation. Several of these problems actually help monarchies survive, since a monarchy's strength comes from the government itself, not from the community. A king's power grows with the nation's prosperity. But a republic's only defense against these dangers is the support of the majority — and that support doesn't grow proportionally in a larger republic. The tools of attack multiply in number and influence, while the power of resistance stays the same or even shrinks, because the people's interests and loyalties become more diverse as the population grows, making it harder and harder to form a united majority.

There's another factor worth noting: the intensity of human passions increases not only with the importance of the goals being pursued but with the number of people feeling them simultaneously. Everyone has noticed that their emotions in a sympathizing crowd are far greater than what they'd feel alone. In great republics, the force of political passion is irresistible — not only because it aims at enormous targets, but because millions of people feel it and amplify it at the same time.

So as a general rule, nothing is more hostile to human well-being and freedom than vast empires. But it's important to recognize the distinct advantages of great nations as well. In large states, the very intensity that makes the desire for power dangerous also makes the love of glory more prominent. Citizens of great nations see the applause of a vast public as a reward worthy of their efforts. If we ask why great nations contribute more powerfully to human progress than small states, the answer lies in the rapid circulation of ideas and in the great cities that serve as intellectual hubs — centers where the light of human genius is concentrated and amplified. We should also note that most important discoveries require a level of national resources that small governments simply can't provide. In great nations, the government thinks on a larger scale, is less trapped in routine and precedent, and is freer from the narrow selfishness of local prejudice. Its plans are conceived with more talent and executed with more boldness.

In peacetime, the well-being of small nations is undoubtedly more widespread and more complete. But they suffer more acutely from the disasters of war than great empires, whose vast frontiers can keep the fighting far from the bulk of the population for long stretches of time.

But in this matter, as in many others, the argument from necessity overrides all others. If only small nations existed, I have no doubt humanity would be happier and freer. But the existence of great nations is unavoidable.

This introduces physical strength as a basic condition of national well-being. It does a people little good to be prosperous and free if it's constantly exposed to invasion or subjugation. Its factories and trade routes mean nothing if another nation controls the seas and dictates terms in every market. Small nations are often poor not because they are small, but because they are weak. Great empires prosper not because they are great, but because they are strong. Physical strength is therefore one of the first conditions of national happiness — and even of national survival. This is why, unless very unusual circumstances intervene, small nations eventually end up absorbed by larger ones, either by force or by their own consent. And I can think of few spectacles more heartbreaking than a people unable either to defend itself or to maintain its independence.

The federal system was created precisely to combine the advantages that come from being small with those that come from being large. A single look at the United States is enough to see the benefits it has produced.

In great centralized nations, the lawmaker has to impose a uniformity on the laws that doesn't always suit the diversity of local customs and conditions. Since the central government can't account for special cases, it can only work from general principles — and the population is forced to conform to the demands of the legislation, because the legislation can't adapt to the needs of the population. This is a constant source of trouble and hardship. Federations don't have this problem. Congress handles the major questions of national policy, while all the details of administration are left to the state legislatures. It's hard to overstate how much this division of authority contributes to the well-being of each state in the Union. In these smaller communities — never driven by the ambitions of empire or the burdens of self-defense — all public authority and private energy are focused on internal improvement. Each state government, in constant close contact with its citizens, learns about their needs as they arise. New projects are proposed every year, debated in town meetings and state legislatures, and publicized through the press to stimulate the enthusiasm and engagement of the citizens. This spirit of improvement is constantly alive in the American states without disturbing their peace. The ambition for power gives way to the less dramatic but safer love of comfort. Americans widely believe that the survival of republican government in the New World depends on the survival of the federal system — and they often attribute the political troubles of the new South American nations to the mistake of building huge centralized republics instead of divided, federated ones.

There is no question that the love of republican government and the habits of self-governance in the United States were born in the townships and state assemblies. In a small state like Connecticut, where building a canal or laying a road is a major political question, where there's no army to maintain and no wars to wage, and where there isn't enough wealth or prestige to lavish on political leaders, no form of government is more natural or more appropriate than a republic. But it's this same republican spirit — these customs and habits of a free people — that is nurtured in the individual states and then applied to the country at large. National patriotism is, in a sense, nothing more than the sum of all the local patriotisms. Every citizen of the United States pours his attachment to his own little republic into the common reservoir of American identity. In defending the Union, he is defending the growing prosperity of his own community, the right to manage its affairs, and the hope of seeing improvements adopted that serve his own interests. These are the kinds of motivations that move people more powerfully than abstract appeals to national interest or national glory.

At the same time, if the temperament and customs of the American people make them well suited for a great republic, the federal system has smoothed the obstacles they would otherwise face. The American confederation has none of the usual disadvantages that come from packing large numbers of people under a single government. The Union is a great republic in territory, but the limited scope of its responsibilities makes it function more like a small state. Its actions are important but infrequent. Since the Union's sovereignty is limited and incomplete, it doesn't spark the insatiable hunger for fame and power that has destroyed so many great republics. There is no single dominant capital, no colossal concentrations of wealth, no crushing poverty, and no sudden revolutions. Political passion, instead of sweeping across the country like a flood, spends its force against the individual interests and local concerns of each state.

Yet goods and ideas circulate through the Union as freely as in a country with a single unified people. Nothing stifles the spirit of enterprise. The government draws on the talents and knowledge of everyone willing to serve it. Deep peace prevails within its borders, like that at the heart of some great empire. Abroad, it ranks among the most powerful nations on earth. Two thousand miles of coastline are open to the world's commerce. Its flag is respected in the most distant seas. The Union is as happy and as free as a small nation, and as glorious and as strong as a great one.

Why the Federal System Doesn't Work for Every Country, and How the Americans Made It Work for Theirs

Every federal system has built-in flaws that the best lawmakers can only mitigate, not eliminate. The federal system is inherently complex. It demands a constant exercise of judgment from ordinary citizens. The Americans' practical political knowledge. The relative weakness of the federal government — another built-in flaw. The states appear weaker than the Union but are actually stronger. Why. Natural bonds must exist between confederated peoples in addition to legal ones. What those bonds are among the Americans. Maine and Georgia, separated by a thousand miles, are more naturally united than Normandy and Brittany. War is the greatest danger to confederations — proved even by America's example. The Union has no great wars to fear. Why. The dangers Europeans would face if they adopted the American federal model.

When a lawmaker succeeds, after years of effort, in exercising even an indirect influence on a nation's destiny, people celebrate his genius. But in reality, the geography he can't change, the social conditions that arose without his help, the customs and opinions he can't trace to their source, and the national origins he didn't choose all exert such an overwhelming influence on the course of society that even the most brilliant legislator is eventually carried along by the current, despite all his resistance. He's like the captain of a ship: he can steer the vessel, but he can't rebuild its hull, summon the winds, or calm the waves beneath him.

I've shown the advantages the Americans get from their federal system. Now it's time to explain the circumstances that made that system possible, because its benefits aren't available to every nation. The incidental flaws of federalism — those that come from specific laws — can be fixed by skillful legislators. But there are deeper flaws built into the system itself that can't be corrected by the nations that adopt it. Those nations must therefore find the strength to endure the natural imperfections of their government.

The most obvious weakness of any federal system is its complexity. Two sovereignties necessarily coexist. A lawmaker can simplify and balance their interaction by carefully defining each one's sphere of authority, but he can't merge them into one or prevent them from colliding at certain points. The federal system therefore rests on a theory that is inherently complicated and demands that ordinary citizens exercise considerable political judgment on a daily basis.

A principle must be simple to be widely understood. A false idea that is clear and precise will always attract more followers than a true principle that is complex or obscure. This is why political parties — like small communities within the larger nation — invariably rally around some symbol or slogan that only roughly represents their real goals and methods, but without which they couldn't function. Governments built on a single principle or a single easily grasped feeling may not be the best, but they are unquestionably the strongest and the most durable.

When you examine the Constitution of the United States — the most perfect federal constitution ever written — you can't help being struck by the extraordinary level of political knowledge and good judgment it assumes in the people it governs. The federal government depends entirely on legal fictions. The Union is an abstract entity that exists only in people's minds, whose boundaries can only be perceived through reason and understanding.

Even after you grasp the general theory, countless practical difficulties remain. The sovereignty of the Union is so intertwined with that of the states that it's impossible to tell them apart at first glance. The whole structure is artificial and conventional. It would be poorly suited to a people unaccustomed to governing themselves, or to a society where political understanding hasn't reached ordinary citizens. I have never been more impressed by the practical good sense of the Americans than in the ingenious ways they navigate the difficulties created by their federal system. I hardly ever met an ordinary American citizen who couldn't distinguish, with surprising ease, between the obligations created by federal law and those created by state law — or who, after sorting out which matters belong to the Union and which to the state legislature, couldn't identify the exact boundary between federal and state court jurisdiction.

The Constitution of the United States is like one of those brilliant inventions that bring wealth and fame to their creators but are useless in anyone else's hands. Mexico provides the proof. The Mexicans wanted a federal system and took the American Constitution as their model, copying it with considerable accuracy. But while they borrowed the letter of the law, they couldn't create or import the spirit that gives it life. They stumbled from one crisis to the next, caught between their dual governments. State sovereignty and federal sovereignty constantly overstepped their boundaries and collided. To this day, Mexico has alternated between anarchy and military dictatorship.

The second and most dangerous flaw of the federal system — one I believe is truly inherent — is the relative weakness of the central government. The principle underlying every confederation is divided sovereignty. A lawmaker can make this division less visible; he can even hide it from public view for a time. But he can't make it disappear, and a divided sovereignty will always be less powerful than an undivided one. As I've shown, the Americans displayed remarkable ingenuity in restricting the federal government's power to the narrow limits of a confederation while giving it the appearance — and to some extent the actual force — of a national government. The framers succeeded in reducing the natural danger of confederations, but they couldn't eliminate it entirely.

The American government doesn't issue orders to the states — it sends its commands directly to individual citizens, compelling them to comply as isolated individuals. But if a federal law clashes with the interests and prejudices of an entire state, every citizen of that state might see himself as having a personal stake in the case of the single individual who refuses to obey. If all the citizens of a state are injured in the same way at the same time by the federal government, the Union would find it futile to try to subdue them one by one. They would instinctively band together in a common defense, and they would already have an organization ready-made — the share of sovereignty their state allows them to enjoy. Legal fiction would give way to reality, and an organized section of the territory would challenge the central authority. (This is precisely what happened during the Civil War, when the southern states rebelled. General Lee himself held that his primary allegiance was owed not to the Union but to Virginia.) The same principle applies to federal court jurisdiction. If the federal courts violated an important state law in a private case, the real contest wouldn't be between a citizen and the court — it would be between an aggrieved state and the Union.

Only a naive observer would think that legal fictions can prevent people from finding ways to pursue their passions through whatever openings remain. The American framers may have made collisions between the two sovereignties less likely, but they didn't eliminate the underlying cause. And it may even be said that they couldn't guarantee the federal government would prevail in such a crisis. The Union has money and troops, but the people's hearts and loyalties belong to their states. The sovereignty of the Union is an abstraction — connected to few things people can see and touch. The sovereignty of the states is immediately felt, easily understood, and constantly present in daily life. If the Union is a creation of recent history, the states are as old as the people themselves. The Union's sovereignty is artificial. The states' sovereignty is natural, drawing its power from the simple, instinctive authority of a parent. The national government touches only a few of the most important aspects of society; it represents a vast but distant country and evokes a patriotism that is vague and unfocused. But the state controls each citizen at every hour and in every circumstance. It protects his property, his freedom, and his life. When you consider the traditions, customs, prejudices, and deep personal attachments that tie people to their state, you can hardly doubt that this closer power — interwoven with everything that makes love of home instinctive in the human heart — has the advantage.

Since lawmakers can't prevent the dangerous collisions that inevitably occur between the two sovereignties in a federal system, their primary goal must be to discourage the member states from fighting and to foster conditions that promote peace. The federal compact can't last unless the states that form it share enough common interests to make their mutual dependence feel natural and the burden of shared government light. The system requires favorable circumstances added to the influence of good laws. Every people that has ever formed a lasting confederation has been held together by common interests that served as the intellectual bonds of their union.

But beyond shared interests, shared feelings and principles matter too. A certain uniformity of culture is no less necessary for the survival of a confederation than a uniformity of interests among its member states. In Switzerland, the gap between the Canton of Uri and the Canton of Vaud was like the difference between the fifteenth century and the nineteenth. Switzerland has never truly had a functioning federal government. The union between these cantons existed only on the map, and any attempt by a central authority to impose uniform laws on the whole territory would have exposed their incompatibility immediately.

One of the most powerful factors supporting the American federal government is that the states share not just similar interests but a common origin, a common language, and — crucially — the same level of civilization. This almost always makes union feasible. I don't know of any European nation, no matter how small, that shows less internal diversity than the American people — who occupy a territory half the size of Europe. The distance from Maine to Georgia is about a thousand miles, but the cultural gap between Maine and Georgia is smaller than the gap between Normandy and Brittany. Maine and Georgia, sitting at opposite ends of a vast country, are more naturally suited to form a confederation than Normandy and Brittany, which are separated only by a bridge.

The country's geography reinforced the advantages that the framers drew from the people's customs and habits. This is the main reason the federal system was both adopted and sustained.

The most important event in any nation's history is the outbreak of war. In wartime, a people must fight with the energy of a single person against foreign threats to its very survival. A government's skill, the community's good judgment, and people's natural love of country may be enough to maintain peace at home and promote internal prosperity. But a great war demands more numerous and more painful sacrifices, and it's naive to think large numbers of people will make those sacrifices voluntarily. Every nation that has endured a long and serious war has been forced to strengthen the power of its government. Those that failed to do so were conquered. A prolonged war almost always leaves a nation with a bleak choice: ruin through defeat or despotism through victory. War therefore exposes the weaknesses of a government in the starkest possible way — and I've shown that weakness is the built-in flaw of federal governments.

The federal system lacks not only centralized administration but a properly organized central government — a constant source of weakness when the nation faces countries governed by a single unified authority. The Constitution of the United States, which gives the central government more real power than most federations, still suffers from this problem. An example illustrates the point.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to call up the state militias to enforce federal law, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. Another provision makes the president commander-in-chief of the militia. During the War of 1812, President Madison ordered the northern state militias to march to the frontier. Connecticut and Massachusetts, whose interests were being harmed by the war, refused. They argued that the Constitution only authorized calling up the militia in cases of insurrection or invasion — and that neither was happening. They further argued that while the Constitution gave the Union the right to call up the militia, it reserved to the states the right to appoint their officers. Therefore, they claimed, no federal officer except the president in person could command the militia — and in this case, the troops were being ordered to join an army led by someone else. These absurd and destructive arguments received the backing not just of both states' governors and legislatures but of their courts as well. The federal government was forced to recruit its troops elsewhere. (During the earlier period under the Articles of Confederation, things had been even worse. Even with the Revolution inspiring national enthusiasm and Washington serving as the beloved leader of the cause, Congress could barely scrape together any resources at all. Troops and supplies were perpetually lacking, the best-laid plans collapsed in execution, and the Union was saved less by its own strength than by the weakness of its enemies.)

The only thing that protects the American Union, with all the relative perfection of its laws, from the dissolution that a major war would bring is the fact that it's unlikely to face one. Situated at the center of an immense continent offering boundless room for human industry, the Union is almost as isolated from the world as if it were surrounded by ocean. Canada has only about a million inhabitants, divided between two rival peoples, its territory hemmed in by a brutal climate that shuts down its ports for six months of the year. From Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, there are only scattered indigenous communities, retreating and dying as they go, before a force of just six thousand soldiers. To the south, Mexico might one day pose a serious threat. But for the foreseeable future, Mexico's underdeveloped society, its moral disorder, and its extreme poverty will keep it from ranking among the world's powers. (War did break out between the United States and Mexico in 1846, ending in American conquest of a vast territory including California.) As for the European powers — they are simply too far away to be a serious threat.

The great advantage of the United States is not that its federal Constitution allows it to wage great wars, but that its geographic position makes such wars extremely unlikely.

No one appreciates the advantages of the federal system more than I do. I consider it one of the most favorable arrangements for human prosperity and freedom ever devised. I envy the nations that have been able to adopt it. But I can't believe that any confederation could hold its own in a long, evenly matched contest against a nation of similar strength with a centralized government. A people that divided its sovereignty into fragments in the face of Europe's great military monarchies would, in my judgment, be giving up its power — and perhaps its very existence and its name. But that is the wonderful position of the New World: its people have no enemy but themselves. To be happy and to be free, they need only seek the gifts of prosperity and the knowledge of freedom.

Chapter IX: Why the People Truly Govern in the United States

So far, I've examined the institutions of the United States and reviewed its laws. I've described the present state of American political society. But above all these institutions and beyond all these features, there exists a sovereign power that can destroy or reshape any of them at will — the power of the people. What remains is to show how this power actually works: its tendencies and its passions, the hidden forces that slow it down, speed it up, or steer its course, the effects of its boundless authority, and the destiny that probably lies ahead for it.

In America, the people choose both the legislature and the executive branch, and they supply the jurors who punish violations of the law. American institutions are democratic not only in their principles but in all their practical consequences. The people elect their representatives directly, and for the most part annually, to make sure those representatives stay dependent on the voters. The people are therefore the real driving force. And although the government is technically representative, nothing durable stands between the opinions, prejudices, interests, and even the passions of the public and their constant influence on society. In the United States, the majority governs in the name of the people, as it does in every country where the people are supreme. This majority is mostly made up of peaceful citizens who sincerely want their country to do well — whether out of genuine concern or simple self-interest. But they are surrounded by the constant agitation of parties, which compete for their support and try to use it for their own purposes.

Chapter X: Parties in the United States

The key distinction between parties — Parties that function like rival nations versus actual political parties — The difference between great parties and small parties — The eras that produce each — Their characteristics — America once had great parties — They no longer exist — Federalists — Republicans — The defeat of the Federalists — The difficulty of creating parties in the United States — How people try anyway — The aristocratic or democratic streak found in every party — General Jackson's fight against the Bank.

Parties in the United States

An important distinction needs to be made between different kinds of parties. Some countries are so large that the different populations within them have genuinely contradictory interests, even though they live under the same government. In these cases, the different groups are really more like separate nations than political parties. If civil war breaks out, it's a struggle between rival peoples, not between rival factions within a single state.

But when citizens disagree about matters that affect the whole country equally — for instance, the principles on which the government should be run — that's when you get real political parties. Parties are a necessary evil in free societies, but they don't always have the same character or the same tendencies.

At certain moments, a nation may be crushed by such unbearable problems that it decides to overhaul its entire political system. At other times, the crisis runs even deeper and the very existence of society itself is in question. These are the times of great revolutions — and great parties. But between these eras of upheaval and confusion, there are quieter periods when human society seems to pause and catch its breath. This pause is only an illusion, of course. Time doesn't stop for nations any more than it stops for individuals. Everyone is moving toward a destination they can't quite see. We only imagine them standing still when their progress is too slow for us to notice — the way someone walking steadily looks motionless to someone sprinting past.

Be that as it may, there are certain eras when change happens so slowly and imperceptibly that people come to believe their current situation is permanent. The human mind, convinced it's standing on solid ground, stops looking beyond its own horizon. These are the times of small parties and petty scheming.

What I call great parties are those that care more about principles than about their specific consequences — about broad ideas rather than particular cases, about ideology rather than personalities. These parties tend to have nobler characters, more generous passions, more genuine convictions, and bolder, more open behavior than the smaller kind. In great parties, private interest — which always plays a leading role in political passions — is more carefully hidden beneath the banner of the public good. It may even be hidden from the very people it's driving forward.

Small parties, on the other hand, generally lack any real political faith. Because they aren't animated by any grand purpose, their selfishness is openly displayed in everything they do. They burn with a manufactured enthusiasm. Their language is fierce, but their actions are timid and indecisive. The tools they use are as shabby as the goals they pursue. That's why, when a calm period follows a violent revolution, the great leaders seem to vanish from the scene and the powers of the human mind seem to go into hiding. Society is shaken by great parties; by small ones, it is merely agitated. Great parties tear it apart; small ones degrade it. If the former sometimes save society through a healthy upheaval, the latter invariably disturb it to no good end.

America has already lost the great parties that once divided the nation. American happiness may have increased considerably as a result, but its moral seriousness has suffered from their disappearance. When the War of Independence ended and the foundations of the new government were being laid, the nation split along two lines of opinion — two opinions as old as human civilization itself, found in every era and under every name that free communities have ever used. One side wanted to limit the power of the people; the other wanted to extend it without limit. The clash between these two views never reached the level of violence in America that it has often reached elsewhere. Both parties actually agreed on the most fundamental points. Neither one had to tear down an existing social order or overthrow an established constitution to win. And neither side threatened the private interests of large numbers of people. What was at stake were moral principles of the highest order — the love of equality and the love of independence — and those were powerful enough to kindle intense passions.

The party that wanted to limit the power of the people focused its efforts especially on the federal Constitution, which gave it the name Federalist. The other party, which claimed to be more exclusively devoted to the cause of freedom, called itself Republican. America is a country built on democracy, and the Federalists were always in the minority. But they had on their side nearly all the extraordinary individuals who had emerged from the War of Independence, and their moral authority was enormous. Circumstances also worked in their favor. The collapse of the old Confederation had left the public terrified of anarchy, and the Federalists took full advantage of this mood — temporary though it was. For ten or twelve years, they led the nation. They managed to put some of their principles into practice, though not all — the opposing current was growing stronger by the day. In 1801, the Republicans took control of the government. Thomas Jefferson was elected president, and he amplified the influence of their party with the weight of his fame, the power of his intellect, and his enormous popularity.

The Federalists had held power through artificial means, and their resources were always temporary. They had risen to prominence through the personal virtues and talents of their leaders, not through deep popular support. When the Republicans reached that same height, their opponents were crushed by total defeat. An overwhelming majority turned against the losing party, and the Federalists suddenly found themselves in such a tiny minority that they gave up all hope for the future. From that moment on, the Republican — or Democratic — party marched from victory to victory until it achieved total dominance. (It's worth noting that the meaning of these party names eventually reversed: the Republicans of Tocqueville's era became the forerunners of the modern Democratic Party, while the principles of the old Federalists eventually found a home in the modern Republican Party.) The Federalists, recognizing they were beaten beyond recovery and isolated in the midst of the nation, split in two: some joined the victorious Republicans, while others abandoned their party's rallying point and its name entirely. Many years have now passed since the Federalists ceased to exist as a party.

In my view, the Federalists' rise to power was one of the most fortunate developments in the formation of the American Union. They pushed back against the inevitable tendencies of their time and their country. Whether their specific theories were good or bad, they had the fatal flaw of being inapplicable to the society they claimed to govern. What happened under Jefferson would have happened sooner or later regardless. But the Federalist government gave the young republic precious time to stabilize — and then to withstand the rapid spread of the very ideas they had fought against. A considerable number of their principles ended up woven into the political beliefs of their opponents. And the federal Constitution, which still stands today, is a lasting monument to their patriotism and their wisdom.

So at the present time, there are no great political parties in the United States. There are factions that threaten the future stability of the Union, but none that challenge the current form of government or the direction of society. The factions that endanger the Union aren't based on abstract principles but on material interests. These interests, spread across the vast territory of such an enormous country, function more like rival nations than political parties. Recently, for example, the North fought for protective tariffs while the South championed free trade — simply because the North is a manufacturing region and the South is agricultural, and the policies that helped one hurt the other.

In the absence of great parties, the United States is full of minor disagreements, and public opinion splinters into a thousand tiny variations on questions that barely matter. The effort people put into creating parties is remarkable — and at the moment, it's no easy job. In the United States, there's no religious hostility, because every religion is respected and no single denomination dominates. There's no class resentment, because the people are everything and no one can challenge their authority. And there's no widespread poverty to fuel unrest, because the country's vast physical resources give everyone an opportunity to succeed through hard work alone. Still, ambitious people have an interest in creating parties, since it's hard to remove someone from power simply on the grounds that you want their job. The real skill of political operators, then, lies in the art of party-building. A political hopeful in the United States starts by figuring out what his own interests are and which other interests can be bundled together with them. Then he scouts around for some principle or doctrine that can serve as the banner for this new coalition — adopting it to win followers and build his reputation, the way a king's official seal used to be stamped on books it authorized but had nothing to do with. Once all these preparations are complete, the new party is launched into the political arena.

To a foreigner, all the domestic quarrels in America seem bewilderingly trivial at first. You can't decide whether to pity a nation that takes such petty disputes so seriously, or to envy the happiness that allows it to afford such luxuries. But when you start examining the hidden impulses driving American factions, you quickly see that most of them are connected, one way or another, to one of the two fundamental divisions that have always existed in free societies. The deeper you dig into these parties, the more clearly you see that one side is working to limit popular power and the other to expand it. I'm not saying that the stated goal — or even the hidden goal — of American parties is to promote aristocracy or democracy as such. But I am saying that aristocratic or democratic instincts can be detected at the root of every party. Even though they escape a surface-level glance, they are the driving force and the very soul of every faction in the United States.

Here's a recent example. When President Jackson attacked the Bank of the United States, the country erupted and parties formed: the educated and well-off rallied around the Bank, while ordinary people rallied around the President. But don't assume the public had formed any kind of informed opinion on a question that baffles even the most experienced policymakers. The Bank was a large, independent institution, and the American people — accustomed to making and unmaking whatever they please — were startled to encounter something that resisted their will. In a society of constant flux, the public was irritated by such a permanent fixture, and they attacked it just to see whether it could be shaken and brought to heel — like every other institution in the country.

Remnants of the Aristocratic Party in the United States

The hidden opposition of the wealthy to democracy — Their retreat from public life — Their taste for exclusive, private pleasures and domestic luxury — Their simplicity in public — Their calculated friendliness toward ordinary people.

It sometimes happens in a nation with competing viewpoints that the balance between parties collapses, and one side gains an overwhelming advantage — crushing its opponents, seizing all the resources of society, and bending everything to its purposes. The losing side gives up hope and hides its frustration behind silence and apathy. The nation appears to be governed by a single idea, and the dominant party takes credit for restoring peace and unity. But this apparent consensus is just a mask for deep divisions and constant, simmering opposition.

This is exactly what happened in America. When the democratic party gained the upper hand, it took exclusive control of public affairs. From that point on, the laws and customs of society were shaped to fit its desires. Today, the wealthier classes have been so completely pushed out of political life that wealth, far from being a ticket to power, is actually an obstacle to it. Rich Americans have abandoned the political arena — not because they don't care, but because they're unwilling to fight a battle they'll almost certainly lose against the poorest of their fellow citizens. They concentrate all their pleasures behind closed doors, where they maintain a social rank they could never claim in public. They've built a private society within the larger one — a world with its own tastes and its own entertainments. They accept this state of affairs as a problem without a cure, but they're careful not to let on that it bothers them. You'll even hear them praising the joys of republican government and the advantages of democratic institutions when they're out in public. After all, the thing people are second most inclined to do, right after hating their enemies, is flattering them.

Take that wealthy citizen over there — as desperate to hide his fortune as a Jewish merchant in the Middle Ages. His clothes are plain, his manner unassuming. But step inside his home and it glitters with luxury. Only a handful of carefully chosen guests — people he proudly calls his equals — are allowed into this sanctuary. No European aristocrat is more jealous of his private pleasures or more protective of the little advantages his privileged status gives him. But this same man crosses town every day to a dingy office in the business district, where anyone who wants can walk in and talk to him. If he runs into his shoemaker on the street, they stop and chat. The two citizens discuss the affairs of state in which they share an equal stake, and they shake hands before they part.

But beneath this performed enthusiasm and these carefully deferential gestures toward the dominant power, it's easy to see that wealthy Americans genuinely dislike the democratic institutions of their country. The public is simultaneously the object of their contempt and their fear. If poor governance ever pushes America toward a revolutionary crisis, and if monarchical institutions ever become a realistic possibility in the United States, the truth of what I'm saying will become obvious.

The two main weapons parties use to win are the press and political associations.

Chapter XI: Freedom of the Press in the United States

The difficulty of restricting press freedom — Why certain nations have special reasons to value it — Press freedom as the natural consequence of popular sovereignty, as Americans understand it — The violent language of American newspapers — The tendencies of the press, illustrated by the United States — American views on using the courts to punish press abuses — Why the press is less powerful in America than in France.

Freedom of the Press in the United States

The influence of a free press doesn't stop at political opinions. It reaches into every area of life and reshapes customs as much as laws. Later in this work, I'll try to measure the effect press freedom has had on American civic life and trace how it has shaped the ideas, character, and feelings of the American people. But for now, I want to focus on its effects in the political world alone.

I'll admit that I don't have an absolute, unconditional love for freedom of the press — the kind of devotion that things supremely good by nature tend to inspire. I value it more for the evils it prevents than for the benefits it directly produces.

If someone could point to a stable middle ground between complete independence and total suppression of public expression, I might be tempted to embrace it. But the difficulty is finding that middle ground. Suppose you want to crack down on irresponsible publishing and restore some decency to public debate. You could start by putting offenders on trial before a jury. But if the jury acquits, then what was one person's opinion suddenly becomes the opinion of the whole country. You've simultaneously gone too far and not far enough. So you go further and bring the case before a permanent court of judges. But even there, the case has to be heard before it can be decided — and the very ideas no book would have dared to state openly now get broadcast through the courtroom proceedings. What was vaguely hinted at in a single publication is now repeated in a hundred others. Language is just the shell of a thought, not the thought itself. Courts can condemn the words, but the meaning and spirit behind them are too slippery for any legal authority to grasp. You've still done too much to turn back and too little to achieve your goal, so you press on. If you establish censorship of the printed word, people will simply speak instead — and you've only made the problem worse. The power of ideas doesn't work like physical force. It doesn't depend on how many agents carry it. A handful of voices can be more powerful than a crowd. The words of one strong-minded person, cutting through the passions of a packed audience, carry more weight than the shouting of a thousand mediocre orators. If free speech is permitted in any public place, the effect is the same as if it were permitted everywhere. So you have to destroy freedom of speech along with freedom of the press — and that is the logical endpoint of your efforts. You started out trying to rein in the abuses of freedom, and you've ended up at the feet of a tyrant. You've traveled from the extreme of independence to the extreme of submission without finding a single defensible resting place along the way.

Certain nations have particular reasons to value press freedom beyond the general arguments I've just laid out. In some countries that claim to be free, any government official can break the law with impunity because the people he wrongs have no way to bring him before a court. In those countries, a free press is not just one safeguard among many — it is the only safeguard of freedom and security the citizens have. If the rulers of such nations tried to abolish press independence, the people would be justified in responding: Give us the right to prosecute your crimes in ordinary courts, and maybe then we'll consider giving up our right to appeal to the court of public opinion.

In countries where popular sovereignty is the guiding principle, press censorship is not just dangerous — it's absurd. Once you acknowledge that every citizen has the right to participate in governing society, you have to assume that every citizen is capable of evaluating different opinions and drawing conclusions from different facts. Freedom of the press and popular sovereignty are therefore two sides of the same coin, just as press censorship and universal suffrage are fundamentally incompatible and cannot coexist for long in the same nation. Not a single one of the twelve million people living in the United States has yet dared to propose any restriction on press freedom. The first newspaper I picked up when I arrived in America contained the following passage:

"In all this affair, Jackson's language has been that of a heartless tyrant, obsessed only with preserving his own power. Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too. Intrigue is his element, and intrigue will be his undoing, stripping him of his power. He governs through corruption, and his corrupt practices will bring him shame and ruin. His conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless, lawless gambler. He won for a while, but the hour of reckoning is coming, and he'll be forced to give back his winnings, throw away his loaded dice, and spend his remaining days in some backwater, where he can curse his own madness at his leisure — because repentance is a virtue his heart will probably never know."

Many people in France assume that the viciousness of the press springs from the country's unstable social conditions, its political turmoil, and the general sense of crisis that hangs over everything. They conclude that once society settles down, the press will calm down too. I think those factors explain why the press has gained such extraordinary power over the nation, but they don't have much to do with the actual tone of its language. The press seems to me to be driven by passions and impulses that exist independently of the circumstances it operates in — and America's situation confirms this view.

America is perhaps the country in the entire world with the fewest seeds of revolution at this moment. Yet its press is no less destructive in its principles than the French press, and it displays the same violence without the same reasons for outrage. In America, as in France, the press is a strange and singular power — such an odd mixture of good and evil that it is simultaneously indispensable to the survival of freedom and nearly incompatible with the maintenance of public order. Its power is certainly much greater in France than in the United States, even though prosecutions against the press are far rarer in America. The reason is straightforward: Americans, having adopted the principle of popular sovereignty, apply it with perfect consistency. They never intended to create a permanent, unchangeable political order out of institutions that shift and evolve daily. There's nothing criminal, in their view, about attacking existing laws — as long as you don't violently break them. Moreover, they believe courts are powerless against press abuses, because the subtlety of human language perpetually escapes the precision of legal analysis, and offenses of this kind slip through the fingers of anyone trying to catch them. They argue that to regulate the press effectively, you'd need a court that was not only devoted to the existing order but also capable of overriding public opinion — a court that could conduct its proceedings in secret, issue rulings without explanation, and punish intentions even more than words. Whoever had the power to create and maintain such a court wouldn't bother prosecuting the press — because he'd already be the supreme ruler of everything. He could dispose of writers as easily as their writings. On this question, then, there's no middle ground between total submission and complete license. To enjoy the enormous benefits that press freedom provides, you have to accept the inevitable problems it creates. Hoping for the first while avoiding the second is one of those fantasies that nations fall for in their weaker moments, when they're exhausted from conflict and try to combine contradictory principles on the same foundation.

The relatively modest influence of American newspapers can be traced to several factors.

The freedom to write, like all other freedoms, is most dangerous when it's new. A people unaccustomed to participating in public affairs puts blind faith in the first voice that catches its attention. But Americans have enjoyed this freedom since the earliest colonial settlements. Beyond that, the press can't manufacture human passions from scratch — it can only fan them where they already exist. In America, politics are discussed with energy and variety, but they rarely stir the deep passions that erupt when the fundamental interests of some part of the population are genuinely threatened. And in the United States, those interests are in remarkably good shape. A single glance at a French newspaper next to an American one makes the difference between the two nations obvious. In France, advertising takes up very little space and actual news is limited — most of the paper is devoted to political argument. In America, three-quarters of the enormous broadsheet spread before the reader is filled with advertisements. The rest is mostly news items or trivial stories. Only occasionally do you stumble on one of those passionate editorials that French journalists serve up to their readers every day.

Experience has shown — and the smallest as well as the greatest despots have intuitively understood — that the power of any force increases the more it is centralized. In France, the press is doubly centralized: almost all its power is concentrated in one city and in relatively few hands. The influence of a press organized this way, in a nation already prone to skepticism, is virtually unlimited. It's an enemy a government may reach a temporary truce with, but can never resist for long.

Neither kind of centralization exists in America. The United States has no single dominant capital. Information and power are spread across the country. Instead of radiating outward from one point, they crisscross in every direction. Americans have established no central control over public expression, just as they have no central control over business. This is partly a matter of circumstances no one planned. But it's also a matter of law: there are no printing licenses in the United States, no financial guarantees required of editors as in France, and no stamp tax as in France and formerly in England. The result is that nothing is easier than starting a newspaper, and a small number of subscribers is enough to keep one running.

The number of newspapers and periodicals published in the United States is almost beyond belief. The most knowledgeable Americans attribute the press's relatively limited influence to this very abundance, and it has become an accepted principle of American political thinking that the only way to neutralize the power of newspapers is to multiply them endlessly. I'm amazed this self-evident truth hasn't been more widely recognized in Europe. It makes sense that people who want to use the press to launch revolutions would prefer to concentrate it in a few powerful outlets. But it's baffling that defenders of the established order — the natural supporters of the law — would try to weaken the press by concentrating it too. The governments of Europe seem to treat the press with the courtesy of medieval knights: they're eager to arm it with the very weapon of centralized power they've found so useful themselves, as if trying to make their opponent as formidable as possible for the glory of the fight.

In America, there's hardly a town that doesn't have its own newspaper. You can easily imagine that this vast army of publications has no discipline and no unified strategy. Each one fights under its own banner. The political newspapers of the United States all line up for or against the administration, but they attack and defend in a thousand different ways. They can never generate those massive currents of opinion that sweep away the strongest obstacles. This fragmentation of press influence produces several other notable consequences. Since newspapers are so easy to launch, huge numbers of people get involved in running them. But the intense competition makes it impossible to earn much money, so the most talented and distinguished members of society rarely go into journalism. Even if newspapers were profitable, there simply wouldn't be enough skilled writers to staff them all. American journalists typically occupy a very humble social position. Their education is limited and their perspective is narrow. The will of the majority is the most powerful law in the land, and it creates certain habits that define each class of society — dictating the manners of the royal court as well as the manners of the courtroom. The hallmark of the French journalist is a violent but often eloquent and elevated style of political commentary, with only occasional departures from this standard. The hallmark of the American journalist is a blunt, crude appeal to the passions of the public. He routinely abandons political analysis to attack the character of individuals, tracking them into their private lives and exposing every weakness and mistake.

Nothing is more regrettable than this abuse of the power of thought. I'll have occasion later to discuss how newspapers have influenced the taste and moral standards of the American people, but for now I'm concerned only with the political world. It's undeniable that this extreme license of the press has an indirect effect of reinforcing public order. People who already hold high public standing are afraid to write for the newspapers, and this deprives them of the most powerful tool they could use to stir up popular passions for their own benefit. (The only time prominent figures write for the papers is when they want to address the public in their own name — for instance, to refute slander or correct a misrepresentation of their views.)

The personal opinions of editors carry absolutely no weight with the public. The only value of a newspaper is that it delivers facts. A journalist can only advance his own agenda by distorting or selectively presenting those facts.

But even though the press is limited to these methods, its influence in America is immense. It is the force that drives political life through every district of that enormous territory. Its eye is constantly scanning for the hidden machinery behind political maneuvering, and it drags the leaders of all parties before the tribunal of public opinion. It rallies the interests of the community around certain principles and drafts the platform that factions adopt. It provides a means for parties to communicate — to hear each other and address each other without ever being in the same room. When a large number of newspapers take the same line, their combined influence becomes irresistible. Public opinion, assailed relentlessly from the same direction, eventually gives way. In the United States, each individual newspaper has little authority on its own. But the power of the press as a whole is second only to the power of the people themselves.

The opinions formed in the United States under conditions of press freedom are frequently more deeply rooted than those established elsewhere under the authority of a censor.

In the United States, democracy constantly brings new people into public affairs, so government policies rarely follow any strict pattern of consistency or order. But the general principles of the government are more stable, and the prevailing opinions of society are generally more lasting than in many other countries. Once Americans have adopted an idea — whether well-founded or not — nothing is harder than to shake them loose from it. The same stubbornness of opinion has been observed in England, where for the past century there has been greater freedom of thought and more unshakable prejudices than in any other country in Europe. I attribute this seemingly paradoxical result to what might seem like an unlikely cause: freedom of the press. Nations that enjoy this freedom cling to their opinions partly out of pride and partly out of conviction. They hold them because they believe they're right, and because they freely chose them. They defend them not only because they're true, but because they're their own. Several other factors contribute to the same effect.

A brilliant thinker once said that "ignorance lies at both ends of knowledge." It might be more accurate to say that absolute certainty lies at both ends, with doubt in the middle. The human mind moves through three stages, one after another. First, a person believes without questioning — accepting ideas on faith. Then doubt sets in, as inquiry raises objections. But often, after working through those doubts, they arrive at belief again — this time not grasping at a truth that's shadowy and uncertain, but seeing it clearly and moving forward by its light. (Though one might wonder whether this rational, hard-won conviction ever inspires the same passion and devotion as the original unquestioning belief.)

When press freedom operates on people in the first stage — unquestioning believers — it doesn't immediately shake their habit of blind faith, but it constantly shifts what they blindly believe in. The human mind continues to focus on a single point on the intellectual horizon, but that point keeps moving. These are the conditions that produce sudden revolutions and the disasters that inevitably follow when a nation abruptly adopts unrestricted press freedom.

But the circle of new ideas is quickly exhausted. Experience tests them, and the doubt and uncertainty they produce become universal. We can be sure that most people will either believe without knowing why, or won't know what to believe at all. Very few will ever reach that state of rational, independent conviction that genuine knowledge can sustain against all attacks of doubt.

It has been observed that during times of intense religious enthusiasm, people sometimes change their beliefs — while during times of widespread skepticism, everyone holds tight to their own. The same pattern plays out in politics under press freedom. In countries where every theory of political science has been challenged in turn, citizens who've adopted one position cling to it — not so much because they're confident it's the best, but because they're not convinced any other is better. In our present age, people are rarely willing to die for their opinions, but they're also rarely willing to change them. There are fewer martyrs — and fewer converts.

There's an even stronger reason. When no abstract ideas feel certain, people fall back on the instincts and material interests of their particular situation — which are naturally more tangible and more durable than any ideology in the world.

Whether aristocracy or democracy is better suited to govern a country isn't a simple question. But this much is certain: democracy bothers one segment of the population, and aristocracy oppresses another. Reduce the question to its simplest terms — a struggle between wealth and poverty — and the tendency of each side becomes obvious without any need for further debate.

Chapter XII: Political Associations in the United States

How Americans use the right of association in everyday life — Three kinds of political associations — How Americans apply the representative system to associations — The dangers this poses to the state — The great Convention of 1831 on the tariff — The legislative character of this Convention — Why the unrestricted right of association is less dangerous in the United States than elsewhere — Why it may actually be necessary — The usefulness of associations in a democratic society.

Political Associations in the United States

In no country in the world has the principle of association been used more effectively, or applied more freely to a wider range of purposes, than in America. Beyond the permanent associations established by law — townships, cities, and counties — a vast number of others are created and sustained entirely by private citizens.

Americans are taught from earliest childhood to rely on their own efforts when dealing with life's problems. They look at government authority with suspicion and unease, and they only call on it when they absolutely can't manage without it. You can see this habit even in their schools, where children play games governed by rules they've made up themselves and punish offenses they've defined on their own. The same spirit runs through every aspect of social life. If there's an obstruction in the road and traffic is blocked, the neighbors immediately form an impromptu deliberative body. This informal assembly produces an executive authority that fixes the problem before anyone has thought to appeal to any higher power. If a public celebration is being planned, a group forms to organize and oversee the festivities. Associations spring up to fight moral evils and reduce alcoholism. In the United States, people form associations to promote public safety, commerce, industry, morality, and religion. There is no goal that the collective effort of determined individuals considers beyond reach.

I'll have occasion later to explore the broader social effects of this impulse to associate. For now, I want to focus on its role in the political world. Once the right of association is established, citizens can use it in several different ways.

At its most basic, an association is simply the public declaration by a group of individuals that they share certain beliefs, along with their commitment to promote those beliefs through their own efforts. Used this way, the right of association is closely related to the freedom to publish. But an organized association wields more authority than the press. When an opinion is represented by a formal group, it takes on a more precise and explicit form. The group counts its supporters and ties their interests to its cause. In return, those supporters get to know one another, and their enthusiasm grows with their numbers. An association channels minds that might otherwise scatter in a hundred directions and focuses them forcefully toward a single goal.

The second level of the right of association is the power to meet. When an association is allowed to set up centers of activity at key locations around the country, its reach expands and its influence grows. People have the chance to see each other face to face. Plans of action come together more easily, and opinions are defended with a warmth and energy that the written word can never match.

Finally, at the third level, supporters of a shared position can organize themselves into electoral bodies and choose delegates to represent them in a central assembly. This is, properly speaking, the application of the representative system to a political party.

So at the first stage, people who share an opinion form an association held together by a purely intellectual bond. At the second stage, small assemblies form that represent just a fraction of the party. And at the third stage, they effectively constitute a separate nation within the nation — a government within the government. Their delegates, like the actual elected representatives of the majority, represent the full collective force of their party. They enjoy a certain degree of the prestige and moral authority that belongs to the chosen representatives of the people. They don't have the power to make laws, of course. But they do have the power to attack existing laws and to draft the legislation they hope to see adopted in the future.

Imagine a nation that's not fully accustomed to the practice of freedom, or one that's in the grip of intense political passions. Now place alongside its legislative majority a deliberating minority that confines itself to debating future laws. It's hard not to conclude that public peace is in serious danger. There's an enormous difference between proving that one law is better than another and proving that the first should actually replace the second. But the popular imagination has a way of ignoring that distinction — a distinction perfectly clear to careful thinkers. It sometimes happens that a nation is split into two nearly equal camps, each claiming to represent the majority. If you then establish a power right next to the actual governing authority — one that wields almost as much moral force — can anyone really believe it will be content to talk without acting? Or that it will always respect the theoretical boundary between associations that are meant to shape opinion and those that make law?

The more I consider the consequences of press independence, the more convinced I become that it is the chief and, you might say, the foundational element of freedom in the modern world. A nation determined to remain free is therefore right to insist on complete press freedom. But the unrestricted right of political association isn't quite the same thing. It is at once less necessary and more dangerous than press freedom. A nation can set limits on it without losing its self-governing character — and may sometimes need to do so in order to preserve its own authority.

In America, the right of political association is unlimited. Let me offer an example that shows just how far this goes.

The tariff question — protectionism versus free trade — generated an enormous burst of partisan energy in America. The tariff wasn't just an intellectual debate; it directly affected powerful economic interests in different parts of the country. The North attributed much of its prosperity to the tariff system, while the South blamed it for all its hardships. For a long time, the tariff was the single greatest source of political conflict in the Union.

In 1831, when the dispute was at its most intense, a private citizen in Massachusetts used the newspapers to propose that all opponents of the tariff send delegates to Philadelphia to coordinate a strategy for promoting free trade. This proposal spread from Maine to New Orleans in a matter of days, powered by the printing press. Opponents of the tariff embraced it enthusiastically. Meetings were held across the country, and delegates were chosen. Most were well-known figures, and some were quite prominent. South Carolina alone — which would later take up arms over the same issue — sent sixty-three delegates. On October 1, 1831, this assembly — which, following American custom, called itself a Convention — met in Philadelphia with more than two hundred members. Its proceedings were public and immediately took on a legislative character. The delegates debated the scope of Congress's powers, the theories behind free trade, and the specific provisions of the tariff, one by one. After ten days of deliberation, the Convention dissolved, having published an address to the American people in which it declared:

First, that Congress did not have the constitutional right to impose a tariff, and that the existing tariff was unconstitutional.

Second, that prohibiting free trade was harmful to the interests of all nations, and to the American people in particular.

It has to be acknowledged that the unrestricted right of political association has not, so far, produced in the United States the disastrous consequences you might expect it to cause elsewhere. The right of association was imported from England and has existed in America from the beginning, so exercising it is now woven into the customs and habits of the people. Today, the right of association has become a necessary safeguard against the tyranny of the majority. In the United States, once a party becomes dominant, it seizes control of everything: its supporters fill every public office and command all the resources of the government. The most capable members of the opposing side, unable to overcome the barriers that shut them out of power, need some way to establish an independent base and set the moral authority of the minority against the physical power of the majority. This is a dangerous remedy used to counter an even more dangerous disease.

The absolute power of the majority strikes me as such an extreme threat to American democracy that the risky countermeasure used to restrain it seems, on balance, more helpful than harmful. And here I want to make a point that echoes something I said earlier about local self-government: there is no country where associations are more necessary — to prevent either the tyranny of a faction or the arbitrary power of a single ruler — than one with a democratic system. In aristocratic nations, the nobility and the wealthy are themselves natural associations that serve as checks on the abuse of power. In countries where these built-in checks don't exist, if private citizens can't create artificial, temporary substitutes for them, then I see no lasting protection against the most crushing tyranny. A great nation could be oppressed by a tiny faction, or by a single individual, with no one to stop it.

A great political Convention — and there are Conventions for every purpose imaginable — may frequently be a necessary measure. But it is always a serious event, even in America, and one that thoughtful patriots never anticipate without some alarm. This was clearly the case with the Convention of 1831. The most distinguished members of the assembly devoted their efforts to moderating its language and keeping the discussion within certain bounds. The Convention of 1831 probably exercised a significant influence on the minds of those pushing for resistance, and it helped prepare them for the open revolt against the Union's trade laws that erupted in 1832.

It's undeniable that the unrestricted right of political association is the freedom a people takes the longest to learn how to use. If it doesn't plunge the nation into anarchy, it constantly raises the odds of that outcome. But on one crucial point, this dangerous freedom provides a safeguard against a different kind of threat: in countries where associations are free, there are no secret societies. In America, there are countless factions, but no conspiracies.

Different Ways the Right of Association Is Understood in Europe and in the United States — Different Uses to Which It Is Put.

The most natural right a person has, after the right to act for themselves, is the right to combine their efforts with those of others and to act together. I'm therefore inclined to conclude that the right of association is nearly as fundamental as the right to personal freedom. No lawmaker can attack it without undermining the very foundations of society. Yet if the freedom to associate is a rich source of prosperity in some nations, it can be twisted into something destructive in others, and what gives life in one place can bring chaos in another. A comparison between how associations operate in countries where they're handled responsibly and countries where freedom has degenerated into license might be useful to both governments and political parties.

Most Europeans think of an association the way they think of a weapon — something to be hastily assembled and immediately tested in battle. A group forms to debate, but the thought of impending action dominates the minds of everyone involved. It's really an army. The time spent talking is just time spent counting your strength and building your courage before the march against the enemy. Legal methods may occur to the members as possible tactics, but never as the only ones.

In the United States, the approach is completely different. American citizens who find themselves in the minority form associations with two goals: first, to demonstrate their numbers and thereby weaken the moral authority of the majority; and second, to refine their arguments through competition and discover the most persuasive case they can make — because they always hold out hope of eventually winning over the other side and wielding power themselves. Political associations in the United States are therefore peaceful in their aims and strictly legal in their methods. They claim with perfect honesty that they seek nothing but success through lawful means.

The difference between Americans and Europeans on this point has several causes. In Europe, many parties are so fundamentally opposed to the majority that they can never hope to win its support. At the same time, they believe themselves strong enough to fight. When such a party forms an association, its goal is not to persuade but to do battle. In America, individuals who hold views sharply opposed to the majority pose no real threat to its power, and all other parties believe they can eventually win the majority to their side. The right of association becomes dangerous in direct proportion to the impossibility of a party ever gaining majority support. In a country like the United States, where differences of opinion are really just differences of shade, the right of association can remain unrestricted without serious consequences. The inexperience of many European nations in the practice of freedom leads them to see the right of association as nothing more than a weapon for attacking the government. The first impulse of a party — like the first impulse of an individual — once it becomes aware of its own strength, is toward violence. The idea of persuasion comes later, and only through experience. The English, deeply divided though they are, rarely abuse the right of association because they've had so long to practice it. In France, the passion for conflict is so intense that there's no venture too reckless, no cause too destructive, that someone won't consider it an honor to champion it at the risk of his life.

But perhaps the most powerful factor moderating the excesses of political association in the United States is universal suffrage. In countries with universal suffrage, the majority is never in doubt, because neither party can pretend to represent the citizens who didn't vote. Associations formed under these conditions know perfectly well — as does the nation at large — that they do not represent the majority. This awareness is inseparable from their very existence; if they did represent the dominant power, they would change the law instead of petitioning for its reform. The moral authority of the government they oppose is greatly strengthened by this fact, while their own power is considerably weakened.

In Europe, few associations fail to claim — or genuinely believe — that they represent the majority. This conviction or pretense enormously amplifies their power and does just as much to make their actions seem legitimate. Violence can start to look excusable when it's dressed up as the defense of oppressed rights. And so, in the vast labyrinth of human institutions, extreme freedom sometimes corrects the abuses of license, and extreme democracy sometimes neutralizes the dangers of democratic government. In Europe, associations see themselves as something like the legislative and executive councils of a people unable to speak for itself. In America, where they represent only a minority, they argue and they petition.

The methods European associations use match the goals they pursue. Since their primary aim is to act rather than to debate — to fight rather than to persuade — they naturally adopt an organizational structure that looks less like a civic body and more like a military unit. They centralize command as much as possible and place the power of the entire party in the hands of a very small number of leaders.

The members of these organizations follow orders like soldiers on duty. They practice what amounts to blind obedience — or rather, by joining together they immediately surrender their individual judgment and free will. The tyrannical control these groups exercise over their own members is often far more oppressive than the authority of the government they're fighting against. This severely undermines their moral standing and costs them the public sympathy that always attaches to a genuine struggle between the oppressed and their oppressors. A person who agrees, under certain circumstances, to obey his fellow citizens with servility — who hands over not just his actions but his opinions to their control — has no claim to be called a free citizen.

Americans have also created organizational structures for their associations, but these are invariably borrowed from the structures of democratic government. Individual independence is formally recognized. The members of the association all move in the same general direction — just as citizens of the broader community do — but they're not required to follow the same path. No one gives up the use of their own reason or their free will. Instead, everyone applies their reason and their will to the benefit of a common purpose.

Chapter XIII: Government of the Democracy in America — Part I

I'm well aware that this part of my subject is a minefield. Almost everything I'm about to say will rub someone the wrong way, clashing with the feelings of one party or another back home. But I'm going to speak my mind with complete openness.

In Europe, we struggle to judge democracy's true character and deeper tendencies, because two conflicting principles are at war with each other. We can't tell what to attribute to the principles themselves and what to blame on the passions they unleash. In America, though, that's not the case. The people rules without any obstacle — it has no threats to fear and no grievances to avenge. Democracy follows its own natural instincts; its course is organic and its activity is unconstrained. The United States therefore offers the best possible laboratory for studying democracy's real character. And no nation has a greater stake in this inquiry than France, which is being driven blindly forward by an irresistible daily impulse toward a state of affairs that may turn out to be either authoritarian or republican — but will certainly be democratic.

Universal Suffrage

I've already noted that universal suffrage has been adopted in every state of the Union. It therefore operates among very different populations occupying very different positions on the social ladder. I've had the chance to observe its effects in different regions, and among groups of people who are practically strangers to one another in language, religion, and way of life — in Louisiana as well as in New England, in Georgia and in Canada. I've found that universal suffrage in America produces neither all the good nor all the evil consequences that Europeans attribute to it. Its actual effects are very different from what people usually assume.

The People's Choice, and the Instinctive Preferences of American Democracy

In the United States, the most capable people are rarely placed in charge of public affairs. Why this happens. The envy that the common people in France feel toward the upper classes is not a uniquely French trait, but a purely democratic one. Why the most distinguished Americans frequently withdraw from public life.

Many Europeans like to believe — without saying it — or to say — without believing it — that one of the great advantages of universal suffrage is that it puts public affairs in the hands of people who deserve the public's trust. They'll admit that the people can't govern directly, but they insist that the public always sincerely wants what's best for the nation, and that it instinctively picks leaders who share those good intentions and are most fit to wield power. I have to confess that what I observed in America doesn't match these opinions at all. When I arrived in the United States, I was struck by how much talent existed among ordinary citizens and how little among the heads of government. It's a well-established fact that the most capable people in the United States today are very rarely placed at the head of affairs. And this has become increasingly true as democracy has expanded beyond all its former limits. The caliber of American statesmen has clearly declined over the past fifty years.

Several causes explain this phenomenon. No matter how hard you try, you can't raise the intelligence of an entire population above a certain level. However widely you spread access to information, however many cheap and easy methods of learning you create, the human mind still requires a significant investment of time to become truly educated.

The extent to which people can afford to live without working therefore sets the natural boundary of intellectual development. That boundary is wider in some countries and narrower in others, but it has to exist somewhere — as long as ordinary people must work to earn a living, meaning as long as they remain ordinary people. It's therefore just as hard to imagine a nation where every citizen is highly educated as one where every citizen is wealthy; these two difficulties are linked. I'll readily grant that the mass of citizens sincerely want what's best for their country. I'll even concede that ordinary people are less likely to be driven by narrow self-interest than the upper classes. But it's always more or less impossible for them to identify the best means of achieving the goals they sincerely desire. Sizing up a single individual's character takes long, patient observation combined with many different perspectives — so can we really expect ordinary people to succeed at an inquiry that baffles even genius? The people have neither the time nor the means for this kind of investigation. They form their conclusions hastily, based on a superficial glance at the most obvious features of a question. This is why they often rally behind a showman who knows how to play to their tastes, while their truest friends frequently fail to win their support.

What's more, democracy isn't only bad at picking the right leaders — it doesn't really want to find them in the first place. Democratic institutions have a powerful tendency to foster envy in the human heart. Not so much because they give everyone the chance to rise to the level of their fellow citizens, but because those chances constantly disappoint the people who pursue them. Democratic institutions awaken and feed a passion for equality that they can never fully satisfy. Complete equality slips from the people's grasp at the very moment they think they've seized it — "flying," as Pascal says, "in eternal flight." The people are driven by the possibility of success, irritated by its uncertainty. They swing from the thrill of the chase to the exhaustion of failure, and finally to the bitterness of disappointment. Whatever rises above their own level looks like an obstacle to their desires, and no form of superiority, however legitimate, fails to irritate them.

Some have argued that this secret instinct — the one that leads ordinary people to push their betters away from public affairs — is peculiar to France. But that's wrong. This tendency doesn't belong to any particular nation. It belongs to democratic institutions in general. While specific political circumstances may have intensified it in France, its roots go deeper.

In the United States, the people don't hate the upper classes, but they aren't very favorably inclined toward them either. They carefully shut them out from positions of authority. Americans don't fear distinguished talent, but they're rarely captivated by it. They're stingy with their approval of anyone who has risen without popular support.

While democracy's natural tendencies push the people to reject the most distinguished citizens as leaders, those same citizens are equally inclined to withdraw from a political career where it's nearly impossible to maintain your independence or to advance without degrading yourself. Chancellor Kent stated this view quite candidly when he praised the part of the Constitution that gives the President the power to nominate judges: "It is indeed probable that the men who are best fitted to discharge the duties of this high office would have too much reserve in their manners, and too much austerity in their principles, for them to be returned by the majority at an election where universal suffrage is adopted." These were opinions published without contradiction in America in 1830!

I consider it sufficiently proven that universal suffrage is by no means a guarantee that the people will choose wisely. Whatever its other advantages may be, this isn't one of them.

Factors That Partially Correct These Democratic Tendencies

The opposite effects that great dangers produce on both nations and individuals. Why so many distinguished leaders stood at the head of American affairs fifty years ago. The influence that a community's education and customs have on its choices. New England as an example. The southwestern states. The influence of certain laws on the people's choices. Indirect election. Its effects on the composition of the Senate.

When a nation faces serious danger, the people often succeed in choosing the leaders most capable of saving it. People rarely stay at their normal level during a genuine crisis — they either rise above it or sink below. The same is true of nations. Extreme danger sometimes paralyzes a people's energy instead of stimulating it, whipping up emotions without giving them direction, confusing judgment instead of sharpening it. The Jews drenched the smoking ruins of their temple with the blood of their last defenders. But more often, in both nations and individuals, extraordinary virtues emerge from the very intensity of the danger. Great characters are thrown into relief, like buildings hidden by night that are suddenly lit up by the glow of a fire. At those dangerous moments, talented leaders no longer hold back from the arena. The people, alarmed by their perilous situation, bury their envious passions in a brief moment of forgetfulness. And great names emerge from the ballot box.

I've already noted that today's American statesmen are far inferior to those who led the country fifty years ago. This is as much a product of circumstances as of laws. When America was fighting in the noble cause of independence — struggling to throw off another nation's rule and bring a new country into the world — the spirits of its citizens rose to meet the greatness of the effort. In that atmosphere of general excitement, the most distinguished people stepped forward to meet the community's needs, and the people clung to them for support, placing them at its head. But events of that magnitude are rare, and we have to judge from the ordinary course of affairs.

If extraordinary events sometimes serve as a check on democracy's passions, the education and customs of a community exercise an influence that's no less powerful and far more lasting. This is extremely visible in the United States.

In New England, the education and freedoms of the communities were born from the moral and religious principles of their founders. Where a society has become stable enough to uphold certain principles and maintain settled habits, ordinary people are accustomed to respect intellectual ability and to defer to it without complaint — even as they reject all the privileges that wealth and birth have created among human beings. Democracy in New England therefore makes wiser choices than it does elsewhere.

But as we move south, into states where the structure of society is newer and less firmly rooted, where education is less widespread, and where the principles of morality, religion, and freedom are less successfully blended together, we can see that the talent and virtue of those in authority grow steadily rarer.

And when we reach the new southwestern states, where society was essentially created yesterday and is really just a collection of adventurers and speculators, we're amazed at the people who hold public authority. We find ourselves asking what force — independent of the laws and the leaders who administer them — could possibly protect the state and allow society to flourish.

There are, nevertheless, certain democratic laws that partially correct these dangerous tendencies. Walk into the House of Representatives in Washington, and you're struck by the crude character of that great assembly. You rarely spot a well-known figure within its walls. Its members are mostly obscure individuals whose names mean nothing — village lawyers, businessmen, even people from the lower rungs of society. In a country where education is very widespread, it's said that the people's representatives don't always know how to write correctly.

Just a few yards away is the door to the Senate, which packs into a small space a remarkable concentration of America's most distinguished citizens. Almost every member calls to mind an active and brilliant career. The Senate is composed of eloquent lawyers, distinguished generals, accomplished judges, and notable statesmen whose speeches would do honor to the finest parliamentary debates in Europe.

What explains this bizarre contrast? Why are the ablest citizens concentrated in one chamber rather than the other? Why is the first body notable for its mediocrity and lack of talent, while the second seems to hold a monopoly on intelligence and sound judgment? Both chambers come from the people. Both are chosen by universal suffrage. And no one in America has ever seriously argued that the Senate is hostile to the people's interests. What, then, accounts for such a striking difference? The only explanation that seems adequate to me is this: the House of Representatives is elected by the people directly, while the Senate is elected by elected bodies. The citizens of each state choose their state legislature, and the federal Constitution turns these legislatures into electoral colleges that select the senators. The senators are thus elected through an indirect application of universal suffrage. The state legislatures that choose them aren't aristocratic or privileged bodies exercising the vote as their own right — they're chosen by the whole body of citizens, generally elected every year, and new members can always be chosen who will cast their electoral votes in line with the public's wishes. But this transmission of the people's authority through an elected assembly produces an important transformation. It refines judgment and improves the quality of the choices made. The people chosen through this process accurately represent the majority that governs the nation. But they represent its higher aspirations — the impulses that drive its nobler actions — rather than the petty passions that disturb it or the vices that disgrace it.

The day may already be approaching when American republics will be forced to adopt indirect election more widely in their system of representation, or they'll run a serious risk of being wrecked on the shoals of democracy.

And here I'll freely confess that I see this system of indirect election as the only way to bring the exercise of political power within reach of every class of citizens. Those who view this institution as the exclusive weapon of one party, and those who fear to use it, seem to me equally mistaken.

The Influence of American Democracy on Election Laws

When elections are rare, they expose the nation to violent crises. When they're frequent, they keep up a constant state of feverish agitation. Americans have preferred the second of these two evils. The instability of laws. The opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson on this subject.

When elections happen at long intervals, the nation is exposed to violent upheaval every time they occur. Parties push themselves to the limit to seize a prize that's so rarely within reach. And since the loss is practically irreversible for the defeated candidates, the consequences of their frustrated ambition can be disastrous. But if the legal contest can be repeated within a short time, the losers are more willing to be patient. When elections happen frequently, however, their constant recurrence keeps society in a perpetual state of feverish excitement and imparts a continual instability to public affairs.

So the nation faces a choice between two dangers: on one hand, the risk of revolution; on the other, perpetual instability. The first threatens the very existence of the government; the second prevents any steady and consistent policy. Americans have preferred the second evil to the first. But they reached this conclusion more by instinct than by reason, since a taste for novelty is one of democracy's characteristic passions. The result has been extraordinary instability in their legislation. Many Americans view the constant flux of their laws as an inevitable consequence of a system whose overall results are beneficial. But no one in the United States pretends to deny this instability or claims it isn't a serious problem.

Hamilton, after demonstrating the value of a power that could prevent — or at least slow down — the passage of bad laws, added: "It might perhaps be said that the power of preventing bad laws includes that of preventing good ones, and may be used to the one purpose as well as to the other. But this objection will have little weight with those who can properly estimate the mischiefs of that inconstancy and mutability in the laws which form the greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments." And in Federalist No. 62, he observed: "The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable. . . . The mischievous effects of the mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members would fill a volume: every new election in the States is found to change one-half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions and of measures, which forfeits the respect and confidence of other nations, poisons the blessings of liberty itself, and diminishes the attachment and reverence of the people toward a political system which betrays so many marks of infirmity."

Jefferson himself — the greatest democrat that American democracy has yet produced — pointed out the same problems. "The instability of our laws," he wrote to Madison, "is really a very serious inconvenience. I think that we ought to have obviated it by deciding that a whole year should always be allowed to elapse between the bringing in of a bill and the final passing of it. It should afterward be discussed and put to the vote without the possibility of making any alteration in it; and if the circumstances of the case required a more speedy decision, the question should not be decided by a simple majority, but by a majority of at least two-thirds of both houses."

Public Officials Under American Democracy

The simple appearance of American public officials. No official costumes. All public officials are paid. The political consequences of this system. No real political career exists in America. The result of this.

Public officials in the United States blend in with the crowd of ordinary citizens. They have no palaces, no guards, no ceremonial robes. This plain appearance isn't just a quirk of the American character — it's connected to the fundamental principles of American society. In the eyes of democracy, government isn't a benefit but a necessary evil. Officials need a certain amount of power, since they'd be useless without it. But the outward trappings of authority are completely unnecessary for conducting public business, and they needlessly offend the public's sensibility. The officials themselves understand this perfectly well. They know they can only maintain their superiority over their fellow citizens on the condition that they put themselves on the same level as everyone else through their behavior. An American public official is consistently civil, accessible to everyone, attentive to every request, and helpful in his responses. I liked these features of democratic government. And I was struck by the sturdy independence of the citizens, who respect the office more than the officer, and care less about the symbols of authority than about the person who holds it.

I'm inclined to think the influence of official costumes has been greatly exaggerated, at least in our era. I never noticed that an American official was less respected while performing his duties because he had no special insignia to enhance his status. On the other hand, it's quite doubtful whether a distinctive uniform actually makes public officials respect their own position more — at least when they're not otherwise inclined to take it seriously. When a judge — and in France this happens more often than you'd think — cracks cheap jokes at a prisoner's expense or mocks a defendant's predicament, it might be useful to strip him of his judicial robes, to see whether he'd recover some basic human dignity when he's dressed like an ordinary citizen.

A democracy can certainly allow some degree of official pomp and dress its officers in silk and gold without seriously compromising its principles. Privileges of this kind are temporary — they belong to the position, not the person. But if public officials aren't consistently paid by the state, then public office must be entrusted to people of wealth and independence, who form the foundation of an aristocracy. And even if the people retain the right to vote, they can only choose from a limited class of citizens. When a democratic republic stops paying for offices that used to be salaried, you can bet the state is drifting toward monarchy. When a monarchy starts paying for offices that used to be unpaid, it's a sure sign the country is moving toward either authoritarianism or republicanism. The shift from unpaid to paid public service is, by itself, enough to constitute a serious revolution.

I see the complete absence of unpaid officials in America as one of the clearest signs of democracy's total dominance in that country. Every public service, of whatever kind, is paid. This means everyone has not just the right but the practical ability to serve. Although every citizen in a democratic state is qualified to hold government office, not everyone is tempted to try. The number and abilities of candidates do more to limit voters' choices than the qualifications required for the position itself.

In nations where the principle of election extends to every government post, no real political career can be said to exist. People are elevated to office almost by chance, and they have no certainty of keeping it. The result is that in peaceful times, public service offers few attractions to ambition. In the United States, the people who get involved in the tangled world of political life tend to be individuals of quite modest ambitions. The pursuit of wealth generally diverts people of great talent and great passion away from the pursuit of power. It very frequently happens that someone doesn't take on the direction of the state until he's already proven his inability to manage his own affairs. The large number of thoroughly ordinary people holding public office owes as much to these causes as to any bad judgment by the voters. In the United States, I'm not sure the people would elect leaders of superior ability even if they came forward — but it's certain that such people don't come forward.

The Discretionary Power of Officials Under American Democracy

Why officials have more discretionary power in absolute monarchies and democratic republics than in limited monarchies. The discretionary power of officials in New England.

In two very different kinds of government, officials exercise a considerable degree of discretionary power: under the absolute rule of a single individual, and under democracy. This similar result comes from closely related causes.

I use the word "officials" here in the broadest possible sense — referring to all officers entrusted with executing the laws.

In authoritarian states, no citizen's fortune is secure, and public officials are no safer than private individuals. The ruler, who holds power over the lives, property, and sometimes the honor of the people he employs, doesn't hesitate to give them wide latitude. He's confident they won't use it against him. An authoritarian ruler is so attached to the exercise of his power that he dislikes the constraints even of his own rules. He's perfectly happy to let his agents follow a somewhat unpredictable course of action, as long as he's sure they'll never act against his wishes.

In democracies, the majority has the right to strip its appointed officials of their power every year, so it has no reason to fear any abuse of authority. Since the people can always make its wishes known to those running the government, it prefers giving officials the freedom to figure things out for themselves rather than laying down rigid rules of conduct that would constrain both the officials' initiative and the people's own authority.

On closer inspection, the discretionary power of officials may actually be even greater in a democracy than in an authoritarian state. Under authoritarianism, the ruler has the power to punish every violation he discovers — but he can't possibly discover them all. In a democracy, the sovereign power is not only supreme but omnipresent. American officials are, in practice, far more independent within their designated sphere of action than any public officer in Europe. Very often, they're simply told what goal to accomplish, and the choice of how to get there is left entirely to their own judgment.

In New England, for example, the selectmen of each township are required to draw up the list of people eligible for jury duty. Their only guideline is that they must choose citizens who have the right to vote and who have a good reputation. In France, entrusting any public official with such an enormous power over people's lives and freedoms would be seen as dangerous. In New England, those same town officials are authorized to publicly post the names of habitual drunkards in taverns and to ban the town's residents from selling them liquor. A censorship power this extreme would be revolting to people living under the most absolute monarchies. Yet in New England, it's accepted without difficulty.

Nowhere has the law left more to the individual judgment of officials than in democratic republics — because this discretionary power carries no alarming consequences. It can even be said that officials' freedom of action increases as the right to vote expands and the length of their terms shrinks. This creates a major difficulty when converting a democratic republic into a monarchy. The official may no longer be elected, but he retains the rights and habits of an elected officer — which leads straight toward authoritarianism.

It's only in limited monarchies that the law both defines what public officers must do and monitors how they do it. The reason is easy to see. In limited monarchies, power is divided between the king and the people, and both have an interest in keeping officials in check. The king doesn't want to hand his officials over to the people's control, for fear they'd betray his interests. The people fear that officials wholly dependent on the crown might oppress their freedoms. Officials therefore can't be said to depend entirely on either one. The same logic that leads both king and people to want independent officials also creates the need for safeguards to prevent that independence from threatening the king's authority or the people's freedoms. So they agree on the necessity of confining officials to a predetermined course of action, and both have an interest in binding them with regulations they can't evade.

Chapter XIII: Government of the Democracy in America — Part II

Instability of the Administration in the United States

In America, the public acts of a community frequently leave fewer traces than a family's private affairs. Newspapers as the only historical record. How administrative instability harms the art of government.

The tenure of public officials in America is so brief, and they vanish so quickly into the country's ever-shifting population, that a community's public actions often leave fewer traces than the events of a private family. The public administration is, so to speak, oral and handed down by word of mouth. Very little is committed to writing, and what little there is gets blown away forever, like the Sibyl's prophetic leaves, by the slightest breeze.

The only historical records in the United States are newspapers. But if a single issue goes missing, the chain of time is broken, and the present is cut off from the past. I'm convinced that in fifty years it will be harder to collect reliable documents about the social conditions of Americans today than it is to find records from the administration of France during the Middle Ages. And if the United States were ever invaded by a foreign power, you'd have to consult the histories of other nations to learn anything about the people who once lived there.

This administrative instability has seeped into the habits of the people. It even seems to suit their general taste, and no one cares about what happened before their time. No systematic methods are followed, no archives are maintained, and no documents are assembled — even when it would be easy to do so. Where records do exist, little value is placed on them. I have among my own papers several original public documents that were simply given to me when I made inquiries about them. American society seems to live hand to mouth, like an army in the field.

And yet, administration is undeniably a science, and no science can advance if the discoveries and observations of successive generations aren't connected in the order they occurred. One person notices a fact; another develops an idea; one invents a method of execution; another turns a truth into a fixed principle. Humanity gathers the fruits of individual experience along the way and gradually builds the sciences. But the people who run the administration in America can rarely teach each other anything. When they take charge of public affairs, they bring only the general knowledge that's common throughout the community — nothing from their own experience in office. Democracy, pushed to its furthest limits, therefore damages the art of government. For this reason, it's better suited to a people already experienced in administration than to a nation that's new to public affairs.

This observation isn't limited to the science of administration. Although democratic government rests on a very simple and natural principle, it always presupposes a high degree of cultural development and education in society. At first glance, it might seem to belong to the earliest stages of civilization. But on closer examination, you realize it could only come last in the succession of human history.

Taxes and Public Spending Under American Democracy

In every community, citizens can be divided into three classes. The habits of each class when it controls public finances. Why public spending tends to increase when the people governs. Why democratic extravagance is less dangerous in America. Public spending under a democracy.

Before we can determine whether a democratic government is economical or not, we need a proper standard of comparison. The question would be easy if we were simply comparing a democratic republic to an absolute monarchy. Public spending would obviously be higher under democracy than under absolute rule — as it is in all free states compared to unfree ones. Authoritarianism ruins people by preventing them from producing wealth far more than by taking the wealth they've already produced. It dries up the source of riches while usually leaving existing property alone. Freedom, by contrast, generates far more benefits than it destroys. Nations with free institutions invariably find that their resources grow even faster than their taxes.

But my goal here is to compare free nations to each other, and to examine democracy's influence on a nation's finances.

Every community can be mentally divided into three distinct classes. The first consists of the wealthy. The second includes those in comfortable circumstances. The third is made up of those with little or no property, who live mainly by the work they perform for the two classes above them. The proportions of these three groups vary depending on the state of society, but the groups themselves can never be erased.

Each class will obviously influence public finances in its own characteristic way. If the wealthy exclusively control the legislature, they probably won't be tight-fisted with public funds. Taxes on a large fortune only reduce the surplus available for luxuries, and in practice they're barely felt. If the middle class makes the laws, it will certainly not be lavish with taxes, because nothing is more painful than a heavy tax levied on a modest income. Middle-class government strikes me as the most economical form of free government — though perhaps not the most enlightened, and certainly not the most generous.

Now suppose the legislative power is placed in the hands of the poorest class. Two powerful reasons suggest that spending will increase, not decrease. Since the great majority of those who make the laws own no property that can be taxed, all the money spent by the community appears to be spent for their benefit, at no cost to themselves. And those who do own a little property find ways to structure the taxes so they burden the rich and benefit the poor — although the rich can't take the same advantage when they control the government.

In countries where the poor hold exclusive power over lawmaking, don't expect great economy in public spending. That spending will always be large — either because the taxes don't fall on the people who levy them, or because they're structured to avoid falling on those people. (I should note that "poor" here is a relative term. Poor people in America would often look rich compared to the poor of Europe. But they can fairly be called poor in comparison to their more affluent fellow Americans.) In other words, democracy is the only form of government in which the power that imposes taxes escapes paying them.

You might object that the people's true interest is inseparably connected with the interest of the wealthier classes, since everyone suffers from harsh measures. But isn't it also in a king's true interest to make his subjects happy? And in the true interest of nobles to welcome worthy newcomers into their ranks? If long-term advantages could always overcome the passions and demands of the moment, there would never be such a thing as a tyrannical ruler or an exclusionary aristocracy.

You might also object that the poor are never the sole lawmakers. But I'd reply that wherever universal suffrage exists, the majority unquestionably controls the legislature. And if the poor always constitute the majority — which they do — then in countries with universal suffrage, they effectively hold sole legislative power. It's certain that in every nation in the world, the largest group has always consisted of those with no property or not enough property to free them from the need to work. Universal suffrage, therefore, in effect places the government of society in the hands of the poor.

The destructive influence that popular power can exercise on public finances was clearly visible in some of the democratic republics of the ancient world, where the public treasury was drained to support the poor or to fund games and theatrical spectacles for the masses. Admittedly, representative government was barely known back then, and today, popular passions play less of a direct role in public affairs. But it's reasonable to expect that elected representatives will eventually conform to their constituents' preferences, favoring their impulses as much as their interests.

Democratic extravagance is less dangerous, however, when the people as a whole owns some property. In that case, the contributions of the rich are less necessary, and it's harder to impose taxes that don't also hit the lower classes. Universal suffrage would therefore be less risky in France than in England, because in England, taxable property is concentrated in fewer hands. America, where the great majority of citizens have some wealth, is in an even more favorable position than France.

But there are additional reasons why public spending tends to rise in democratic countries. When an aristocracy governs, the people who run things are insulated by their social position from every kind of hardship. They're content with their lot — power and prestige are what they're after. Because they stand so far above the mass of citizens, they don't always clearly see how improving ordinary people's lives would redound to their own honor. They're not indifferent to the sufferings of the poor, but they can't feel those hardships as sharply as if they were experiencing them personally. As long as the people appear to accept their lot, the rulers are satisfied, and they ask nothing more from the government. An aristocracy is more focused on maintaining its influence than on improving its conditions.

When the people themselves hold supreme authority, it's a different story. Their constant awareness of their own hardships drives those in charge to seek endless improvements. A thousand different things are targeted for reform. The most trivial details are examined for possible upgrades. And the changes that cost the most money are the ones most eagerly pursued, since the goal is to improve the condition of the poor, who can't pay for these improvements themselves.

On top of this, all democratic communities are agitated by a vague restlessness and a kind of feverish impatience that produces a flood of innovations — almost all of which cost money.

In monarchies and aristocracies, the rulers' natural taste for power and prestige is amplified by ambition, which frequently drives them into very expensive projects. In democracies, where the rulers know real hardship, they can only be courted with measures that improve their material well-being — and those improvements require money. When a people begins to take stock of its own situation, it discovers a multitude of unmet needs it had never noticed before. Meeting those needs requires dipping into the public treasury. The result is that public spending increases as civilization advances, and taxes go up as the population becomes better informed.

The final reason democratic government tends to be more expensive than any other is that democracies don't always manage to control their spending, because they haven't mastered the art of economy. Since their plans change frequently and their agents change even more frequently, their projects are often poorly executed or left unfinished. In the first case, the state spends sums wildly out of proportion to the goal. In the second, the money is simply wasted.

Democratic Tendencies Regarding the Salaries of Public Officials

In democracies, those who set high salaries have no chance of benefiting from them. The tendency of American democracy to increase the salaries of lower-ranking officials and reduce those of higher-ranking ones. The reason for this. Comparison of public salaries in the United States and France.

There's a powerful reason why democracies tend to economize on the salaries of public officials. Since the number of citizens who pay these salaries is extremely large in democratic countries, and the number who can hope to collect them is comparatively small, cost-cutting has broad appeal. In aristocratic countries, by contrast, those who set high salaries almost always have a vague hope of benefiting from them. These positions look like an investment they're creating for themselves, or at least a resource for their children.

But a democratic state is most tight-fisted with its top officials. In America, the lower-level officers are paid much better, and the senior leaders of the administration much worse, than they are anywhere else.

These opposite effects come from the same cause: the people sets the salaries of public officials in both cases, and the pay scale is determined by the people's own sense of what's appropriate. They think it's fair that public servants should enjoy the same comfortable circumstances as the public itself. But when it comes to the salaries of the nation's top leaders, this principle breaks down, and only guesswork guides the popular decision. The poor have no real understanding of the needs that the upper classes feel. An amount that seems paltry to the rich appears enormous to someone whose wants don't extend beyond the necessities of life. In their estimation, the governor of a state, earning twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a year, is a very fortunate and enviable person. (The state of Ohio, with a million inhabitants, paid its governor only $1,200 a year.) Try to convince an ordinary person that the representative of a great nation ought to maintain some degree of splendor in the eyes of foreign countries, and he might agree with your reasoning. But when he thinks of his own modest home and the hard-earned fruits of his exhausting labor, he imagines all the things he could do with the salary you're calling insufficient, and he's startled — almost frightened — by such extraordinary wealth. Besides, lower-level public officials are essentially on the same footing as ordinary people, while the top officials are raised above them. The former may earn the public's sympathy; the latter begin to provoke its envy.

This pattern is clearly visible in the United States, where salaries seem to shrink as the authority of the officeholder grows.

Under aristocratic rule, the opposite frequently happens: top officials receive lavish salaries while the lower-ranking ones barely earn enough to live on. The reason is closely related to what I've just described. If a democracy can't imagine the pleasures of the rich or witness them without envy, an aristocracy is slow to understand — or more accurately, is completely unfamiliar with — the hardships of the poor. The poor person is not, properly speaking, the rich person's peer. In the aristocratic mind, the poor are practically a different species. An aristocracy therefore tends to care very little about the fate of its lower-ranking agents, and their salaries only go up when they refuse to work for such meager pay.

It's the stinginess of democracy toward its top officials that has encouraged the false impression that democratic government is more economical than it really is. Democracies barely give their leaders enough to live on comfortably. But enormous sums are spent to meet the needs and improve the lives of ordinary people. Tax money may be put to better use, but it isn't saved. In general, democracy gives generously to the community and sparingly to those who govern it. Aristocracies do the reverse: the state's money is spent for the benefit of the people at the top.

The Difficulty of Pinpointing What Makes American Government Economical

We're prone to frequent errors when researching the forces that shape the fate of nations, because nothing is harder than accurately assessing their true influence. One people is naturally impulsive and enthusiastic; another is sober and calculating. These differences originate in their physical makeup or in deeper causes we don't understand.

Some nations love parades and public festivities, and don't mind paying for an hour of expensive celebration. Others prefer quieter pleasures and seem almost embarrassed to be seen enjoying themselves. In some countries, the highest value is placed on the beauty of public buildings; in others, the products of art are treated with indifference, and anything unproductive is despised. In some nations, fame is the ruling passion; in others, money.

Independently of the laws, all these factors exert a powerful influence on a nation's finances. If Americans never spend public money on pageantry, it's not just because the people controls taxation — it's because the people takes no pleasure in public celebrations. If they reject ornament from their architecture and value only the practical and the useful, it's not just because they live under democratic institutions — it's because they're a commercial people. The habits of private life carry over into public life. We should be careful to distinguish the economy that comes from their institutions from the economy that comes naturally from their customs and culture.

Can We Compare American and French Public Spending?

Two things must be established to measure a nation's tax burden: the national wealth and the rate of taxation. The wealth and spending of France are not precisely known. Why the wealth and spending of the Union can't be precisely known either. The author's research into Pennsylvania's tax rates. General indicators that can reveal whether a nation's tax burden is appropriate. The results of this investigation for the Union.

Many recent attempts have been made in France to compare public spending in the two countries. All have failed, and a few words will explain why.

To measure a nation's tax burden, you need two pieces of information: first, how wealthy the nation is; and second, what portion of that wealth goes to the state. Showing the amount of taxation without showing the resources available to pay for it is a pointless exercise. It's not the spending itself that matters but its relationship to the revenue.

The same tax rate that a wealthy person can easily bear will reduce a poor person to misery. A nation's wealth consists of several elements: population is the first, real property the second, and personal property the third. Population can be determined without much difficulty. Among developed nations, it's easy to get an accurate census. But the other two elements are much harder to pin down. It's difficult to make an exact inventory of all the cultivated land in a country, along with its natural and improved value. It's even more impossible to estimate a nation's total personal property, which evades the most rigorous analysis through the sheer diversity and number of forms it can take. And in fact, even the most established nations of Europe, including those with the most centralized administrations, have never succeeded in determining the exact state of their wealth.

In America, no one has even tried. And how could they? Society hasn't yet settled into regular, stable habits. The national government doesn't have legions of agents it can deploy toward a single objective. Statistics aren't studied because no one can collect the necessary data or find time to analyze it. So the basic elements needed for the calculations that have been attempted in France simply don't exist in America. Neither country's relative wealth is known. France's property hasn't been accurately measured, and no means exist for computing America's.

For the sake of argument, then, I'll abandon this necessary part of the comparison and limit myself to calculating the actual amount of taxation, without investigating the relationship between taxation and revenue. But the reader will see that this doesn't make my task any easier.

It's beyond question that the central administration of France, with all its public officers at its disposal, could determine exactly how much in direct and indirect taxes is levied on citizens. But this investigation — which no private individual can undertake — hadn't been completed by the French government at that time, or at least its results hadn't been made public. We know the total cost of national government and the amount of departmental spending, but spending by local communities hasn't been calculated. The total public expenditure of France is therefore unknown.

If we turn to America, the difficulties multiply. The Union publishes an exact accounting of its spending. The twenty-four states provide similar reports on their revenues. But the spending of counties and townships is unknown.

The federal government can't force the state governments to provide this information, and even if the states wanted to cooperate, they probably wouldn't have the means. County and town officials aren't appointed by the state government and aren't under its control. It's entirely reasonable to assume that even if a state tried to collect these figures, its efforts would be undermined by the negligence of the local officials it would have to rely on. In fact, it's useless to ask what Americans might do to advance this inquiry, since they've done absolutely nothing so far. At this moment, there isn't a single person in America or Europe who can tell us what each citizen of the Union contributes annually to the public treasury.

We're forced to conclude, then, that it's no easier to compare the public spending of France and America than it is to compare their relative wealth. I'd go further and say that attempting such a comparison would be positively dangerous. When statistics aren't based on strictly accurate data, they mislead rather than guide. The mind is easily deceived by the false precision that prevails even in bad science, and it confidently embraces errors dressed up in the forms of mathematical truth.

Let's abandon the numerical approach, then, and look for a different kind of evidence. Without hard data, we can still form an opinion about whether a nation's tax burden is proportional to its real prosperity by looking at certain signs: whether the country appears to be flourishing; whether, after paying their taxes, the poor still have enough to live on and the rich still have enough to enjoy life; and whether both classes are content with their position — while still constantly working to improve it — so that industry never lacks capital and capital never sits idle. An observer who draws conclusions from these signs will undoubtedly be led to this conclusion: the average American contributes a much smaller share of his income to the state than the average French citizen. And the result could hardly be otherwise.

Part of France's national debt is the consequence of two foreign invasions — a catastrophe the Union has no reason to fear. A nation on the European continent is forced to maintain a large standing army; America's isolated position allows it to get by with only 6,000 soldiers. France has a fleet of 300 ships; the Americans have 52. How, then, can the people of the Union be asked to contribute as heavily as the people of France? No fair comparison can be drawn between the finances of two countries in such different situations.

We learn more by examining what actually happens inside the Union than by comparing it to France. Looking at the various republics that make up the confederation, I notice that their governments lack follow-through in their projects and exercise no steady oversight of the people they employ. From this I naturally conclude that they must often waste the people's money, or spend more of it than necessary. Great efforts are made, consistent with the democratic spirit of the society, to address the needs of ordinary people, to open pathways to power for their ambitions, and to spread knowledge and comfort among them. The poor are supported, enormous sums are devoted to public education each year, every form of service is paid for, and even the lowest-ranking officials are generously compensated. This kind of government strikes me as useful and rational, but I'm forced to admit that it's expensive.

Wherever the poor direct public affairs and control national resources, it seems inevitable that they'll increase public spending, since they benefit from it.

I therefore conclude — without resorting to unreliable calculations or hazardous comparisons — that the democratic government of the Americans is not a cheap government, as is sometimes claimed. And I have no hesitation in predicting that if the American people ever faces serious difficulties, its taxes will quickly rise to match those of most European aristocracies and monarchies. Events since Tocqueville's time have confirmed exactly this prediction.

Chapter XIII: Government of the Democracy in America — Part III

Corruption and Vice Among Democratic Leaders, and Their Effects on Public Morality

In aristocracies, rulers sometimes try to corrupt the people. In democracies, the rulers themselves are frequently corrupt. In the first case, their vices directly harm the morality of the people. In the second, their indirect influence is even more damaging.

We need to draw a distinction when aristocratic and democratic systems each accuse the other of breeding corruption. In aristocratic governments, the people at the top are wealthy and want only power. In democracies, politicians are often poor and have their own fortunes to build. The result is that in aristocratic states, rulers are rarely tempted by bribery and have little hunger for money, while in democracies, the opposite is true.

But in aristocracies, since those seeking power are already rich and the number of people who can help them rise is relatively small, government is essentially put up for auction. In democracies, by contrast, those who hunger for power are rarely wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is enormous. The number of people who could theoretically be bought may be just as large in a democracy, but buyers are hard to find — and besides, you'd have to buy so many people at once that the whole effort becomes pointless.

Many of the men who have served in French government over the past forty years have been accused of enriching themselves at the expense of the state or its allies — a charge rarely leveled at public figures under the old monarchy. But in France, the practice of bribing voters is almost unknown, while in England it is done openly and notoriously. In the United States, I never heard of anyone accused of spending their wealth to corrupt voters. But I often heard the honesty of public officials questioned, and even more often I heard their success attributed to low-level scheming and unethical behavior.

So if the leaders of an aristocracy sometimes try to corrupt the people, the leaders of a democracy are corrupt themselves. In the first case, public morality is attacked directly. In the second, the indirect influence on the people is even more dangerous.

Because the rulers of democratic nations are almost always under suspicion of dishonesty, they effectively lend the authority of government to the shady practices they're accused of. They set an example that discourages honest independence and encourages the quiet calculations of unscrupulous ambition. You might argue that corrupt passions exist at every level of society, that despicable characters sit on thrones and lead aristocracies too. But in my view, this objection doesn't carry much weight. The corruption of people who have risen to power from obscurity has a crude, vulgar quality that makes it contagious — it spreads to the masses. The corruption of the well-born, by contrast, has a kind of polished refinement that frequently prevents it from spreading beyond their circle.

Ordinary people can never penetrate the complicated maze of court intrigue, and they'll always have trouble detecting dishonesty hidden behind elegant manners, refined taste, and graceful language. But looting the public treasury and selling government favors? Those are arts that anyone can understand — and hope to practice themselves.

In reality, it's far less harmful to witness the corruption of the powerful than to witness the kind of corruption that leads to power. In a democracy, ordinary citizens watch someone from their own rank rise from obscurity to wealth and influence in just a few years. The spectacle provokes their surprise and their envy, and they start wondering how someone who was their equal yesterday became their ruler today. To attribute his rise to talent or virtue is unpleasant — because it means tacitly admitting that they themselves are less talented and less virtuous. So they're drawn instead — and often correctly — to blame his success on some flaw of character. And so a toxic combination takes shape in the public mind: corruption linked with power, unworthiness with success, usefulness with dishonor.

What a Democracy Can Accomplish

The Union has only had to fight for its survival once. There was enthusiasm at the start of the war, then indifference toward its end. The difficulty of establishing military conscription or naval impressment in America. Why democratic peoples are less capable of sustained effort than others.

Let me warn the reader here that I'm talking about a government that genuinely follows the real desires of the people — not one that merely rules in the people's name. Nothing is more irresistible than a tyrannical power that commands in the name of the people, because while it wields the moral authority that belongs to a majority decision, it acts with the speed and determination of a single individual.

It's hard to say what kind of effort a democratic government might be capable of in a national crisis. No great democratic republic has ever existed in the world before. (To call the oligarchy that ruled France in 1793 a republic would be an insult to republican government.) The United States provides the first real example.

The American Union has now lasted half a century, and its existence has only been challenged once — during the War of Independence. At the start of that long war, there was extraordinary enthusiasm for the national cause. (One of the most remarkable demonstrations was the Americans' decision to temporarily give up drinking tea. Anyone who knows how tightly people cling to their habits — sometimes more than to life itself — will appreciate the significance of this obscure but genuine sacrifice made by an entire nation.) But as the war dragged on, self-interest began to reassert itself. Money stopped flowing into the public treasury. Few recruits could be found for the army. The people wanted independence but had little appetite for the sacrifices needed to win it. As Hamilton wrote in the Federalist No. 12: "Tax laws have been multiplied in vain; new methods to enforce collection have been tried in vain; the public expectation has been uniformly disappointed and the treasuries of the states have remained empty."

The United States hasn't had to fight a serious war since then. To truly gauge the sacrifices a democratic nation can impose on itself, we would need to see the American people put half its entire income at the government's disposal, as England has done, or send a twentieth of its population into battle, as France has done.

In America, military conscription is unknown — men are recruited through enlistment bonuses. American attitudes and habits are so opposed to compulsory service that I doubt their laws will ever permit it. What the French call conscription is certainly the heaviest burden on that country's population, but how could a major land war be fought without it? The Americans haven't adopted the British practice of forced naval service either, and they have nothing like France's system of maritime conscription. Both the navy and the merchant fleet are staffed by volunteers. But it's hard to see how a country could fight a major naval war without resorting to one of these systems. The Union has fought with some distinction at sea, but it has never had a large fleet, and outfitting its small number of ships has always been enormously expensive.

I've heard American politicians admit that the Union will struggle to maintain its naval standing without adopting some form of forced service — but the difficulty lies in persuading the people, who hold supreme authority, to accept compulsory measures.

It's undeniable that in times of danger, a free people shows far more energy than an unfree one. But I'm inclined to think this is especially true in free nations where the democratic element dominates. Democracy seems much better suited to the peaceful management of society, or to an occasional burst of remarkable vigor, than to the tough, sustained endurance required when a nation's political survival is at stake.

The reason is clear: it's enthusiasm that drives people to face danger and hardship, but they won't endure these for long without rational calculation. There's more cold thinking in acts of bravery than we usually acknowledge. While the first impulse may come from passion, perseverance is sustained by a clear sense of purpose. We risk a part of what we value in order to save the rest.

But it's precisely this clear perception of the future — grounded in sound judgment and experience — that democracies most often lack. The public is more apt to feel than to reason. And if the present suffering is severe, there's a real danger that the even greater suffering that would follow defeat will be forgotten.

There's another reason why a democracy's efforts are less persistent than those of an aristocracy. Not only are ordinary people less attuned to future risks and opportunities than the upper classes, but they also suffer far more acutely from present hardships. The noble risks his life, certainly, but the prospect of glory balances the risk of harm. If he sacrifices a large portion of his income to the state, he merely gives up the pleasures of luxury for a while. But for the poor person, there is no glory to embellish the sacrifice, and the taxes that merely inconvenience the rich can be devastating.

This relative weakness of democratic republics may be the greatest obstacle to establishing one in Europe. For such a state to survive in the Old World, it would probably be necessary for similar institutions to exist in all the neighboring nations.

In my view, a democratic government ultimately increases the real strength of a society. But it can never concentrate as much power on a single objective, at a single moment, as an aristocracy or monarchy can. If a democratic country spent an entire century under republican government, it would probably end up more populous and more prosperous than the neighboring autocracies. But during that same period, it would have faced a much greater risk of being conquered.

Self-Control of the American Democracy

The American people are slow to embrace what's good for them, and sometimes refuse to do so altogether. But the mistakes of American democracy are, for the most part, fixable.

The difficulty a democracy has in mastering its passions and sacrificing short-term gratification for long-term benefit shows up in even the most mundane situations in the United States. The people, surrounded by flatterers, have great difficulty overcoming their impulses. Whenever they're asked to accept any kind of inconvenience or sacrifice — even to achieve an end their own reason approves — they almost always refuse at first. Americans' respect for law has been rightly praised, but it's worth adding that in America, the law is made by the people and for the people. The law therefore tends to favor the very classes that, in other countries, have the strongest incentive to evade it. You can safely assume that an unpopular law — one whose immediate usefulness isn't obvious — would either never be passed or never be obeyed.

In America, there's no law against fraudulent bankruptcy — not because such cases are rare, but because they're common. The fear of being prosecuted as a bankrupt weighs more heavily on the public mind than the fear of being ruined by someone else's bankruptcy, and a kind of guilty tolerance extends to an offense that everyone condemns privately. In the newer southwestern states, citizens generally take justice into their own hands, and killings are frequent. This stems from the rough habits and limited education of people living on the frontier, who don't see the value of giving the law enough force to keep order and who prefer settling disputes with weapons rather than courts.

Someone in Philadelphia once told me that nearly all crime in America is caused by excessive drinking, since the lower classes can easily afford liquor because it's so cheap. "Why don't you put a tax on it?" I asked. "Our lawmakers have often thought of that," my companion replied, "but actually doing it would be very difficult. You might get a revolt, and any legislator who voted for such a law would certainly lose his seat." "So what you're telling me," I said, "is that drinkers are the majority in your country, and temperance is unpopular."

When you point these things out to American politicians, they reassure you that time will bring the necessary changes — that the experience of making mistakes will teach the people where their true interests lie. This is often true. Although a democracy is more prone to error than a monarch or an aristocratic body, its chances of correcting course once it recognizes its mistake are also greater — because it rarely has to contend with entrenched internal interests that conflict with those of the majority and resist the force of reason. But a democracy can only arrive at truth through experience, and many nations may destroy themselves while waiting for the lessons of their mistakes to sink in.

The great advantage of Americans isn't simply that they're more enlightened than other peoples — it's that they have the ability to repair the mistakes they make. But it must be added that a democracy can't benefit from past experience unless it has already reached a certain level of knowledge and civilization. There are peoples whose education has been so flawed and whose character combines passion, ignorance, and false beliefs so thoroughly that they can't even identify the causes of their own suffering. They are destroyed by problems they don't understand.

I have traveled through vast territories that were once home to powerful Native American nations now extinct. I've spent time among diminished tribes watching the daily decline of their numbers and their independence. I've heard these Indigenous people themselves speak of the approaching end of their way of life. Any European observer can see the steps that might rescue them from destruction. They alone seem unable to see the path forward. They feel the weight of suffering that grows heavier each year, but they resist the changes that might save them. It would take force to compel them to accept the protections — and the constraints — of the civilization pressing in on them.

The constant upheavals that have rocked the South American nations for the past quarter century are often met with astonishment, along with the expectation that these countries will soon return to a stable order. But isn't this turmoil actually the most natural state of things for them right now? These societies are trapped in difficulties that all their efforts can't overcome. The inhabitants of that beautiful part of the Western Hemisphere seem stubbornly committed to tearing themselves apart from within. If they collapse into a brief period of exhaustion, that rest only prepares them for the next round of chaos. When I consider their condition — swinging between misery and disorder — I'm almost tempted to think that authoritarian rule would actually benefit them. But I can never allow the words "authoritarianism" and "benefit" to be united in my mind.

The Conduct of Foreign Affairs by the American Democracy

The direction given to foreign policy by Washington and Jefferson. Nearly all the weaknesses inherent in democratic institutions are revealed in the conduct of foreign affairs. Their advantages are less visible.

We've seen that the Federal Constitution entrusts the permanent direction of the nation's foreign interests to the President and the Senate, which somewhat shields foreign policy from direct popular control. So it wouldn't be entirely accurate to say that foreign affairs are managed by the democracy.

American foreign policy traces its origins to Washington, and after him to Jefferson, who established the principles still followed today. Washington wrote in his famous farewell letter to the nation — which can be seen as his political testament: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote, relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary ups and downs of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or hostilities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external interference; when we may take such a position as will cause the neutrality we may at any time adopt to be scrupulously respected; when warring nations, seeing the impossibility of conquering us, will not lightly risk provoking us; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall direct. Why give up the advantages of such a unique situation? Why leave our own ground to stand on foreign soil? Why, by interweaving our destiny with any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the traps of European ambition, rivalry, interest, whim, or caprice? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now free to do it. I hold the principle no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore: let those engagements be honored in their genuine sense; but in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend them. Taking care always to keep ourselves in a respectable defensive position, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies."

Earlier in the same letter, Washington made this equally admirable observation: "The nation that gives in to habitual hatred or habitual affection toward another is, in a sense, enslaved. It is a slave to its hostility or to its fondness, either of which is enough to lead it away from its duty and its interest."

Washington's political conduct was always guided by these principles. He succeeded in keeping his country at peace while every other nation was at war, and he established as a fundamental doctrine that America's true interest lay in perfect neutrality toward the internal conflicts of European powers.

Jefferson went even further, introducing a principle that Americans should never seek special privileges from foreign nations, so as never to be obligated to grant similar privileges in return.

These two principles — so straightforward and so sensible that ordinary citizens could grasp them — have greatly simplified American foreign policy. Since the Union doesn't involve itself in European affairs, it has, strictly speaking, no foreign controversies to manage. And it currently has no powerful neighbors on the American continent. The country is as far removed from Old World passions by its chosen policies as by its geographic position. It is neither called upon to embrace nor reject the competing interests of Europe, while the conflicts of the New World are still hidden in the future.

The Union, free from all prior commitments, is able to profit from the experience of older European nations without being forced, as they are, to make the best of their own past and adapt it to their present circumstances — or to accept the vast inheritance from their forefathers, an inheritance that mixes glory with catastrophe and alliances with national grudges. American foreign policy is, by its very nature, reduced to waiting for whatever the future brings. For now, it consists more in staying out of things than in taking action.

It's therefore very difficult to assess how much wisdom the American democracy will show in conducting foreign policy, and on this point both its critics and its supporters should withhold judgment. But I have no hesitation in stating my own conviction: it is in the conduct of foreign relations that democratic governments seem to me most clearly inferior to other forms of government.

Experience, education, and habit can almost always develop a kind of practical good sense in democracies — the common-sense wisdom needed for everyday affairs. Good sense may be enough to guide the ordinary course of society, and for a well-educated people, the benefits of democratic freedom in domestic affairs may more than make up for the weaknesses inherent in democratic government. But this is not always the case when it comes to relations between nations.

Foreign policy demands almost none of the qualities a democracy possesses, and it requires the full use of almost all the qualities it lacks. Democracy is good at increasing a nation's internal resources. It promotes widespread moderate prosperity, fosters civic spirit, and strengthens respect for law across all classes. But these are advantages that only indirectly affect how one nation deals with another. A democracy is unable to manage the details of a major undertaking, to stick with a plan, or to carry it through in the face of serious obstacles. It cannot act in secret, and it won't wait patiently for results. These are qualities that belong more naturally to an individual leader or an aristocratic body — and they are precisely the means by which one nation achieves a dominant position.

If, on the other hand, we examine the natural flaws of aristocracy, we find they cause relatively little harm in the conduct of foreign affairs. The chief fault of aristocratic bodies is that they're more likely to pursue their own advantage than the good of the whole population. But in foreign policy, the interests of the aristocracy and the nation rarely diverge.

The tendency of democracies to act on passion rather than prudence — to abandon a long-term strategy for the satisfaction of a momentary impulse — was on vivid display when the French Revolution broke out. It was just as obvious then as it is now that America's interests required it to stay out of a conflict that would drench Europe in blood but couldn't possibly threaten American welfare. And yet popular sympathies declared themselves with such violence in favor of France that only Washington's iron character and his enormous personal popularity prevented the Americans from declaring war on England. Even so, the immense effort that great man made to restrain the generous but reckless passions of his fellow citizens very nearly cost him the only reward he ever sought — the love of his country. The majority condemned the course he chose, even though the nation has since unanimously approved it. If the Constitution and public trust hadn't placed the direction of foreign affairs in Washington's hands, the American nation would certainly have taken the very steps it now condemns.

Nearly every nation that has powerfully shaped world history — from the Romans to the English — has been governed by aristocratic institutions. This should come as no surprise when you consider that nothing in the world has as fixed a sense of purpose as an aristocracy. The masses can be misled by ignorance or passion. A king's judgment can be clouded, and his resolve can waver — besides which, a king is mortal. But an aristocratic body is too large to be seduced by intrigue, and yet not so large as to be swept away by unreflecting passion. It combines the focused energy of a wise individual with the enduring power that comes from institutional permanence.

Chapter XIV: What American Society Actually Gains from Democracy — Part I

What Real Advantages Does American Society Get from Democratic Government?

Before diving into this chapter, let me remind you of something I've mentioned several times throughout this book. I see American political institutions as one form that democracy can take — but I don't consider the American Constitution the best or the only one a democratic people could adopt. When I point out the advantages Americans gain from democratic government, I'm far from suggesting that these advantages can only come from their particular set of laws.

The General Direction of Laws Under American Democracy, and the Habits of Those Who Enforce Them

The flaws of democratic government are easy to spot — its strengths take much longer to see. Democracy in America often stumbles, but the overall direction of its laws is beneficial. In a democracy, public officials have no permanent interests separate from those of the majority — and this makes all the difference.

The flaws and weaknesses of democratic government jump out at you. They're obvious from the most glaring examples, while democracy's positive effects work more quietly and take longer to notice. A single glance reveals what's wrong; you need sustained observation to see what's right. American democratic laws are often flawed or incomplete. They sometimes violate established rights, or protect rights that are actually dangerous to the community. And even if the laws were good, their constant changes would be a problem in itself. So how is it that American republics still prosper?

When evaluating laws, you have to carefully distinguish between their goals and their methods — between their absolute quality and their relative effectiveness. A lawmaker might design legislation to favor a minority at the expense of the majority. If the law is cleverly crafted to achieve this goal with maximum efficiency, it may be a well-made law — but its purpose is bad, and the more effective it is, the more damage it does.

Democratic laws generally tend to promote the welfare of the greatest number, because they come from the majority of citizens. That majority can certainly make mistakes, but it can't have interests that run against its own well-being. Aristocratic laws, by contrast, tend to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a minority, because an aristocracy is by nature a minority. So as a general rule, the purpose behind democratic legislation serves more citizens than the purpose behind aristocratic legislation. But that's the full extent of democracy's advantage on this front.

Aristocracies are infinitely more skilled at the craft of lawmaking than democracies will ever be. They have the self-discipline to resist the errors of momentary excitement, and they develop long-term strategies that they patiently carry out when the time is right. Aristocratic government operates with the precision of an art form — it knows how to make all its laws converge on the same objective at the same time. Democracy can't match this. Democratic laws are almost always clumsy or poorly timed. Democracy's methods are more imperfect than aristocracy's, and the policies it stumbles into often work against its own goals — but the goals themselves are more beneficial.

Now imagine a society organized in such a way — by nature or by its constitution — that it can absorb the damage of bad laws and survive long enough for the general direction of its legislation to take effect. In that case, a democratic government, despite all its flaws, will do more to promote prosperity than any other system. This is precisely what has happened in the United States. And I'll say again what I've said before: the great advantage of Americans is that they can make mistakes they're able to fix later.

A similar point applies to public officials. It's easy to see that American democracy often picks the wrong people for positions of power. What's harder to explain is why the country thrives anyway under their leadership. First, consider this: even if democratic government produces leaders with less talent and less integrity than you'd find elsewhere, the citizens they govern are more informed and more watchful. Because the people in democracies pay closer attention to public affairs and guard their rights more jealously, they prevent their representatives from straying too far from the course that serves the public interest. Second, democratic officials may be more prone to misusing their power, but they hold that power for a shorter time. But there's a third reason, more fundamental than either of these. Obviously it matters that a nation be governed by people of talent and character. But it may matter even more that the interests of those leaders don't diverge from the interests of the broader community. If they did, their virtues could become useless and their talents could be turned to harmful ends. What I'm saying is that it's crucial for the interests of those in power not to conflict with or oppose the interests of the community at large. But I'm not insisting their interests must be identical to those of everyone — I'm not sure that's ever happened in any country.

No form of government has ever been found that equally serves every class in a society. These classes are almost like separate nations within a single nation, and experience shows it's just as dangerous to hand the fate of all classes over to any single one of them as it is to let one country dictate the destiny of another. When the rich alone govern, the interests of the poor are always at risk. When the poor make the laws, the interests of the rich face serious danger. The advantage of democracy, then, isn't that it protects everyone equally — as people sometimes claim — but simply that it serves the welfare of the greatest number.

The people entrusted with running public affairs in the United States are often less capable and less principled than those an aristocratic system would put in power. But their interests are bound up with those of the majority of their fellow citizens. They may often be dishonest and often mistaken, but they'll never systematically pursue policies that go against the will of the majority. It's impossible for them to give the government a dangerous or self-serving direction.

When a democratic official abuses his position, it's an isolated event confined to his brief time in office. Corruption and incompetence don't create the kind of shared interest that permanently binds people together. One corrupt or incompetent official won't coordinate with another simply because they share those qualities. These two will never join forces to spread corruption and incompetence to future generations. In fact, each one's ambition and scheming will tend to expose the other. In democracies, an official's failings are usually his alone.

Under aristocratic governments, though, public figures are driven by the interests of their class — interests that may sometimes overlap with those of the majority but are very often distinct from them. This class interest is the enduring bond that unites them. It drives them to coordinate and combine their efforts toward goals that don't always serve the greatest good — and it connects not just the officials themselves but a significant portion of the community, since many citizens belong to the aristocracy without holding official positions. An aristocratic official is therefore constantly backed by both his class and the government he serves.

The shared purpose linking aristocratic officials to their class also links them to future generations — their influence reaches forward in time as much as it shapes the present. The aristocratic official is pushed toward the same destination by the passions of his community, by his own ambitions, and I might almost add by the ambitions of his descendants. Is it any surprise he doesn't resist such powerful forces? Aristocracies are often swept along by the spirit of their class without being corrupted by it. They unconsciously reshape society to serve their own ends and prepare it for their own descendants.

The English aristocracy is perhaps the most liberal that has ever existed, and no group of people has ever so consistently supplied a country's government with capable and principled leaders. Yet you can't help noticing that English legislation has consistently sacrificed the welfare of the poor to the advantage of the rich, and the rights of the majority to the privileges of the few. The result is that England combines extremes of wealth and poverty within the same society, and its dangers are almost as great as its power and prestige.

In the United States, where public officials have no class interests to promote, the overall influence of government is beneficial — even though the individuals running it are often mediocre and sometimes contemptible. Democratic institutions have a built-in tendency to channel the efforts of citizens toward the prosperity of the community, despite their personal failings and mistakes. Aristocratic institutions, by contrast, have a hidden tendency that leads even talented and virtuous leaders to contribute to the suffering of their fellow citizens. In aristocracies, public figures often cause harm they never intended. In democracies, they produce benefits they never planned.

Public Spirit in the United States

Instinctive patriotism versus reflective patriotism — their different characteristics — nations should strive to develop the second kind when the first fades away — the American approach — personal interest deeply connected to the country's welfare.

There's one kind of patriotic feeling that springs mainly from instinct — that unthinking, selfless, hard-to-define attachment that ties a person's heart to the place where they were born. This natural fondness blends with a love of old customs and a reverence for ancestral traditions. People who feel it love their country the way they love their family home. They enjoy the peace it gives them, they cling to the habits they've developed within it, they treasure the memories it holds, and they're even comforted by the sense of belonging it provides. This kind of patriotism is sometimes charged with religious passion, and then it's capable of extraordinary feats. It's a kind of religion in itself — it doesn't reason, it acts on faith and feeling. Some nations have seen the monarch as the living embodiment of the country. Patriotic passion became loyalty, and people took pride in their king's conquests and gloried in his power. Under the old French monarchy, people felt a kind of satisfaction in being subject to the king's absolute will. They used to say with pride: "We are the subjects of the most powerful king in the world."

But like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism is better at inspiring bursts of effort than sustaining long-term commitment. It can save a country in a crisis, but it often lets the nation decline during peacetime. As long as a people's customs are simple and its faith unshaken — as long as society rests on traditional institutions whose legitimacy has never been questioned — this instinctive patriotism endures.

But there's another kind of attachment to one's country that is more rational. It may be less passionate and less stirring, but it's more productive and more durable. It grows alongside the spread of knowledge, is nourished by the laws, and strengthens with the exercise of civil rights. Eventually, it merges with a citizen's personal interest. A person comes to understand how the prosperity of their country affects their own well-being. They know the laws give them the right to contribute to that prosperity, and they work to promote it — first because it's in their interest, and second because it's their right.

But there are moments in a nation's life when old customs are overthrown, public morality collapses, religious faith wavers, and the spell of tradition breaks — while knowledge is still incomplete and civil rights are either insecure or severely limited. At those moments, the country becomes a vague, uncertain thing in the eyes of its citizens. They can no longer find it in the land they live on, because that's just dirt to them. They can't find it in their ancestors' traditions, which they've been taught to see as an oppressive burden. They can't find it in religion, because they've lost their faith. They can't find it in the laws, which aren't of their making. They can't find it in the lawmakers, whom they fear and despise. The country slips from their grasp — they can't recognize it in any form, their own or borrowed — and they retreat into a narrow, stale selfishness. They've freed themselves from old prejudices without embracing reason. They have neither the instinctive patriotism of monarchical subjects nor the considered patriotism of republican citizens. They've stopped halfway between the two, stranded in confusion and misery.

In this situation, going backward is impossible. A people can no more restore the passion of its youth than an individual can return to the innocence of childhood. You can mourn these things, but you can't bring them back. The only option is to move forward — to accelerate the fusion of private interest with public interest, since the age of selfless patriotism has passed forever.

I'm certainly not arguing that political rights should be immediately extended to everyone. But I do maintain that the most powerful — perhaps the only — way to make people care about the welfare of their country is to give them a share in governing it. In our time, civic engagement seems inseparable from the exercise of political rights. I believe the number of true citizens in Europe will rise or fall in direct proportion to how widely those rights are extended.

Americans arrived only recently on the land they now occupy. They brought with them neither shared customs nor traditions. They were essentially strangers meeting for the first time. Instinctive love of country could barely exist among them. Yet every American takes as intense an interest in the affairs of their township, their county, and the whole state as if these were personal matters — because everyone, within their own sphere, plays an active role in governing society.

Ordinary Americans understand that the country's general prosperity affects their own welfare — a simple observation, but one that's surprisingly rare in other countries. In America, people see that prosperity as the result of their own efforts. Citizens view the public good as their private interest, and they contribute to its success not so much from pride or duty as from what I'd call enlightened self-interest.

You don't need to study American institutions and history to see the truth of this — their customs make it obvious. Because Americans participate in everything that happens in their country, they feel obligated to defend anything that gets criticized. It's not just their country being attacked — it's themselves. The result is that their national pride employs a thousand tricks and all the petty maneuvers of personal vanity.

Nothing is more awkward in everyday social life than this touchy patriotism. A visitor might be happy to praise many things about the country, but the moment they ask permission to criticize something — that permission is firmly denied. America is a free country where, for fear of offending anyone, you're not actually free to speak candidly about individuals or the government, citizens or officials, public projects or private ventures — or really anything at all, except maybe the weather and the landscape. And even then, Americans will leap to defend both, as if they personally designed them.

In our time, we face a choice between the patriotism of all and the government of a few. The energy and force that the first provides are incompatible with the stability that the second guarantees.

The Concept of Rights in the United States

No great people without a sense of rights — how this sense can be cultivated — respect for rights in the United States, and where it comes from.

After the idea of virtue, I know no higher principle than that of rights — or more precisely, these two ideas are woven together. The idea of rights is simply virtue applied to the political world. It's the concept of rights that lets people draw the line between anarchy and tyranny, that teaches them to be independent without arrogance and to obey without servility. A person who submits to violence is degraded by the submission. But someone who obeys a person whose legitimate authority they recognize actually rises above the one giving the order. There are no great individuals without virtue, and there are no great nations — you could almost say there would be no society at all — without the concept of rights. What else is a mass of intelligent beings held together only by force?

I'm convinced that the best way to teach people the concept of rights — to make it real and tangible — is to let everyone exercise certain rights in practice. You can see this clearly with children, who are basically people without the strength and experience of adulthood. When a child first moves among the objects around them, their instinct is to grab everything for themselves. They have no concept of other people's property. But as they gradually learn the value of things and realize they too can lose what's theirs, they become more careful. They start respecting others' rights because they want their own rights respected. The principle a child learns from their toys is the same one an adult learns from their possessions. In America, you never hear the complaints against property in general that are so common in Europe — because in America, there are no paupers. Everyone has property to defend, so everyone recognizes the principle on which they hold it.

The same thing happens in politics. In America, even the lowest social classes have a strong sense of political rights — because they actually exercise those rights. They refrain from attacking other people's rights in order to protect their own. While in Europe, these same classes sometimes rebel against the supreme power itself, in America they submit without complaint to the authority of the most minor local official.

This principle plays out in the most ordinary details of daily life. In France, few pleasures are reserved exclusively for the upper classes — the poor are admitted wherever the rich go, and they behave accordingly, respecting anything that contributes to enjoyments they share in. In England, where wealth has a monopoly on amusement as well as power, people complain that whenever the poor manage to get into spaces reserved for the rich, they commit senseless vandalism. But should this surprise anyone? Care has been taken to ensure they have nothing of their own to lose.

Democratic government puts the concept of political rights within reach of the humblest citizen, just as the spread of wealth puts the concept of property within everyone's grasp. To my mind, this is one of democracy's greatest advantages. I won't claim it's easy to teach people to exercise political rights. But I do maintain that when it's possible, the results are profoundly important. And if there was ever a time to make the attempt, it's now. Religious authority is weakening. The notion of divine right is fading. Public morality is fraying. The concept of moral rights is eroding too. These are all symptoms of a world shifting from faith to argument, from instinct to calculation. If, in the middle of this upheaval, you can't manage to connect the idea of rights with personal interest — the one fixed point in the human heart — what tool will you have left to govern except fear? When people tell me that because the laws are weak and the public is unruly, because passions run high and moral authority has collapsed, we must not expand democratic rights — my answer is: these are exactly the reasons why we must. And I'm convinced that governments have even more reason to take this step than the people do, because governments can be destroyed while society itself endures.

I don't want to overstate the American example, though. Americans were granted political rights at a time when those rights could hardly be abused — the population was small and the customs simple. As the country has grown, Americans haven't expanded the power of democracy so much as extended its reach. There's no doubt that the moment political rights are granted to a people who never had them is a critical one — necessary, but dangerous. A child can kill before understanding the value of life, and can take someone's property before realizing their own could be taken. When ordinary people first receive political rights, they stand in relation to those rights much as a child stands to the wider world. As the old Latin saying goes: Homo puer robustus — a strong but immature being. This truth is visible even in America. The states where citizens have enjoyed their rights the longest are the ones where they use them best.

Nothing produces more wonders than the practice of freedom, but nothing is harder than freedom's apprenticeship. This isn't the case with authoritarian rule. Despotism always promises to fix a thousand previous wrongs — it will uphold justice, protect the oppressed, maintain public order. The nation is lulled by the temporary prosperity this produces, until it finally wakes up to its own misery. Freedom, by contrast, is usually born in turmoil, refined through conflict, and its benefits can only be appreciated once it's had time to mature.

Chapter XIV: What American Society Actually Gains from Democracy — Part II

Respect for the Law in the United States

American respect for the law — the almost parental affection citizens feel toward it — everyone's personal interest in strengthening the law's authority.

It's not always possible to consult the whole people, directly or indirectly, in making laws. But when you can, the authority of those laws increases enormously. Popular origins may weaken a law's quality and wisdom, but they dramatically strengthen its power. There's something overwhelming about the expressed will of an entire people — when it speaks, even those most inclined to resist are awed into silence. Political parties know this perfectly well, which is why they always try to claim a majority, real or imagined. If they don't have the most voters, they insist the "true majority" stayed home. If that argument fails, they point to all the people who weren't allowed to vote at all.

In the United States, with the exception of enslaved people, servants, and those receiving public assistance, there was no class of people excluded from voting or from indirectly shaping the laws. Anyone who wanted to challenge the laws had to either change public opinion or trample on the people's decision.

There's a second reason, even more powerful: in the United States, everyone has a personal stake in making sure the whole community obeys the law. Today's minority might become tomorrow's majority, so it has every reason to show respect for the laws it may soon need others to respect in return. However annoying a law might be, American citizens comply with it — not just because it's the will of the majority, but because it stems from their own authority. They see it as a contract they've signed themselves.

In the United States, then, you don't find the large, restless class of people that exists elsewhere — people who see the law as their natural enemy and regard it with suspicion and hostility. On the contrary, every class shows deep confidence in the country's laws, attached to them with something like parental affection.

I should correct myself, though — not quite every class. In America, the European hierarchy is flipped. The wealthy occupy a position similar to the poor in the Old World, and it's actually the rich who often look at the law with suspicion. As I've noted before, democracy's advantage isn't that it protects everyone's interests, but that it protects the interests of the majority. In the United States, where the less wealthy rule, the rich always have some reason to fear abuses of power. This natural anxiety may produce a quiet resentment, but it doesn't destabilize society. The same wealth that keeps the rich from controlling the law also keeps them from defying it. Among civilized nations, revolutions are rarely started by people who have something to lose. And if democratic laws aren't always worthy of respect, they still command it — because the people who usually break laws can't justify ignoring the ones they helped create, and those whose interests might be served by breaking the law are held back by their own social standing and sense of propriety. Besides, Americans obey the law not only because it comes from the people's authority, but because that authority can change it. A law is tolerated because it's a burden they chose for themselves — and because it's temporary.

The Political Energy That Pervades Every Part of American Life

The political activity running through the United States is harder to grasp than its freedom or equality — the constant agitation of legislative bodies is just one small part of a much larger phenomenon — Americans can't confine themselves to their own business — political fervor extends into all social life — America's commercial energy is partly driven by this same force — the indirect advantages society gains from democratic government.

When you travel from a country with free institutions to one without them, the contrast is jarring. In the first, everything is bustle and activity. In the second, everything is calm and still. In one country, people talk constantly about improvement and progress. In the other, the community seems content merely to enjoy whatever advantages it already has. Yet the country that exerts itself so vigorously is generally wealthier and more prosperous than the one that seems so satisfied. When you compare them, it's hard to understand how the first is always discovering new needs while the second barely seems to have any.

If this contrast holds true for free countries that still have monarchs and aristocrats, it's even more dramatic in democratic republics. In those countries, it's not just a segment of the population working to improve things — the whole community is engaged in the effort. And the goal isn't to meet the needs of a single class but the needs of everyone.

You can begin to imagine the extraordinary freedom Americans enjoy. You can form some idea of their deep equality. But the political energy running through the United States has to be seen to be believed. The moment you set foot on American soil, you're hit by a kind of uproar. A confused clamor rises from every direction, and a thousand voices simultaneously demand attention for their concerns. Everything around you is in motion. Here, the residents of one neighborhood are meeting to decide whether to build a church. There, an election is underway. A bit further on, delegates from a district are heading to town to discuss local improvements. Somewhere else, farmers have left their plows to debate plans for a road or a school. One group has gathered for the sole purpose of denouncing the government's policies, while at another assembly, citizens are praising officials as the fathers of their country. And then there are the societies that declare drunkenness the root cause of the nation's problems and solemnly pledge to set an example of sobriety. (When I was visiting, temperance societies already had more than 270,000 members, and in Pennsylvania alone they'd reduced the consumption of alcohol by 500,000 gallons a year.)

The constant political drama in American legislatures — the only part that gets much attention abroad — is really just a small episode within this much larger movement. It starts at the very bottom of society and works its way up through every level. It's impossible to spend more effort in the pursuit of happiness.

Political life takes up an enormous share of an American citizen's time and attention. For many Americans, participating in government is practically their only form of entertainment. This feeling penetrates the most ordinary habits of daily life. Even women frequently attend public meetings and listen to political speeches as a break from household work. Debating clubs serve as a kind of substitute for theater. Americans can't just have a conversation — they have a debate. When someone tries to talk casually, they slide into a lecture. They address you as if you're an audience. And if the discussion heats up, they'll inevitably say "Gentlemen" to the single person standing in front of them.

In some countries, people are reluctant to use the political rights the law gives them. They seem to value their time too much to spend it on public affairs, preferring to retreat into the cozy confines of private life. But if an American were forced to limit their activity to their own personal business, they'd feel robbed of half their existence. The emptiness would be unbearable. I'm convinced that if a despotic government ever took hold in America, it would find it harder to overcome the habits that free institutions have created than to crush any attachment to freedom itself.

This relentless activity that democratic government has injected into political life spills over into everything else. I'm not sure this isn't actually democracy's greatest advantage. And I'm less inclined to praise democracy for what it does directly than for what it causes to happen. There's no question that the people often manage public business badly. But it's impossible for ordinary citizens to participate in public affairs without expanding their horizons and breaking out of their mental routines. The humblest person called upon to help govern society gains a measure of self-respect. Because they have authority, they can call on minds far more educated than their own. They're surrounded by people trying to win their support — people who, even in their attempts at manipulation, end up educating them. They get involved in projects they didn't come up with themselves, but that give them a taste for collective enterprise. New improvements are constantly being proposed for the public property they share, and this awakens a desire to improve their own private property. They may not be happier or more virtuous than those who came before them, but they're better informed and more active. I have no doubt that American democratic institutions, combined with the country's physical advantages, are the cause — not the direct cause, as is often claimed, but the indirect cause — of America's extraordinary commercial energy. It isn't created by the laws themselves, but the people learn how to generate it through the experience of self-government.

When critics of democracy argue that a single individual manages affairs better than a community does, I think they're right. Government by one person — assuming equal levels of education — is more consistent, more persistent, and more precise than government by many. And it's far better at choosing the right people for the right jobs. Anyone who denies this has never seen a democratic government in action, or is basing their opinion on very limited evidence. It's true that even under favorable conditions, democratic institutions never produce a tidy, methodical system of government. Democratic freedom doesn't complete its projects with the skill of an efficient authoritarian regime. It often abandons them before they bear fruit, or takes on risky ventures. But in the end, it produces more than any absolute government ever could. If it does fewer things well, it does far more things overall. Under democracy, the official actions of the government matter less than what private citizens accomplish on their own. Democracy doesn't give people the most skillful government — it gives them something that even the most skillful governments usually can't create: a restless, all-pervading energy, an overflowing vitality inseparable from democratic life. Under the right circumstances, this energy can produce astonishing results. These are the true advantages of democracy.

In our age, when the fate of democratic civilization seems to hang in the balance, some rush to attack democracy as an enemy while it's still taking shape. Others are ready to worship it as a new god rising from the chaos. But both sides barely understand the thing they hate or adore. They're swinging in the dark, landing blows at random.

We need to step back and ask: what do we actually want from society and government?

If your goal is to elevate the human mind, to teach people to look beyond material comfort, to inspire scorn for mere wealth, to cultivate deep convictions and a spirit of noble devotion — if you want to refine habits, polish customs, and promote the arts, poetry, beauty, and fame — if you want to build a nation powerful enough to shape the world, ready for great enterprises that will leave an enduring name in history, whatever the outcome — if these are your priorities, then democracy is the wrong tool. It would be a very unreliable guide toward those goals.

But if your aim is to direct human energy toward producing comfort and acquiring the necessities of life — if practical understanding matters more to you than genius — if your goal is not heroic virtue but habits of peace — if you'd rather see fewer vices than great crimes, and you're willing to accept fewer glorious deeds in exchange for fewer offenses — if instead of living in a brilliant society you're content to live in a prosperous one — if, in short, you believe the main purpose of government is not to make the nation as powerful and glorious as possible, but to ensure the greatest well-being and the least suffering for each individual citizen — then there is no surer path than equalizing social conditions and establishing democratic institutions.

But if the time for choosing has already passed — if some force beyond our control is pushing us toward one system or the other without asking our opinion — then let us at least make the best of what we've been given. Let us study its strengths and its weaknesses, so we can nurture the former and suppress the latter as much as we can.

Chapter XV: The Unlimited Power of the Majority and Its Consequences — Part I

The natural strength of the majority in democracies — how most American constitutions have artificially increased this strength — pledged delegates — the moral power of the majority — the belief in its infallibility — respect for its rights, and how this has grown in the United States.

The Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United States and Its Consequences

The very essence of democratic government is the absolute sovereignty of the majority. In a democracy, nothing can resist it. And most American constitutions have sought to increase this already formidable natural strength by artificial means.

As I noted when examining the federal Constitution, the framers of the national government worked in exactly the opposite direction — trying to limit majority power. The result is that the federal government is more independent within its sphere than any state government. But the federal government rarely gets involved in anything except foreign affairs. It's the state governments that actually run American society day to day.

The legislature is the political institution most easily dominated by the majority's wishes. Americans decided that legislators should be elected directly by the people for very short terms — subjecting them not just to the general views of their constituents, but even to their daily passions. Members of both houses come from the same social class and are chosen the same way, so the legislature shifts direction almost as fast and as unstoppably as a single assembly would. And it's to this kind of legislature that nearly all government authority has been handed.

But while the law was increasing the strength of institutions that were already strong, it was weakening those that were already weak. It stripped executive officials of all stability and independence, making them completely subject to the legislature's whims and robbing them of whatever limited influence the nature of democratic government might have allowed them to keep. In several states, the judiciary was also subjected to popular election, and in all of them, judges' survival depended on the legislature's pleasure, since representatives had the power to set judicial salaries every year.

Custom, though, has done even more than law. A practice is spreading across the United States that will eventually destroy every safeguard of representative government: voters who elect a delegate increasingly dictate a specific agenda and impose binding commitments that the delegate is pledged to fulfill. Aside from the noise, this amounts to the same thing as the majority holding its deliberations in the public square.

Several other factors combine to make the power of the majority in America not just dominant, but irresistible. The moral authority of the majority rests partly on the idea that a large group of people collectively possesses more intelligence and more wisdom than any single individual — that the number of lawmakers matters more than their quality. This is the principle of equality applied to the human intellect, and it strikes at human pride in its last stronghold. It's a doctrine the minority is reluctant to accept and slow to embrace. Like all other powers — and perhaps more than most — the authority of the majority needs time to establish itself. At first it compels obedience by sheer force; its laws earn genuine respect only after they've been around long enough.

The majority's claim to govern, which it bases on its supposed superior intelligence, was brought to America by the first settlers. This idea — powerful enough on its own to create a free nation — has since become woven into the people's customs and the fabric of everyday life.

Under the old French monarchy, people held it as a principle — one that remains a cornerstone of the English Constitution — that the king could do no wrong. If he did wrong, the blame fell on his advisers. This was a useful fiction: it allowed people to obey habitually, and it let them criticize government policy without losing their love and respect for the sovereign. Americans hold exactly the same belief about the majority.

The moral authority of the majority rests on yet another principle: that the interests of the many should take priority over the interests of the few. Obviously, the respect given to the majority's rights will rise or fall depending on the state of political parties. When a nation is split into several irreconcilable factions, the majority's prerogative is often ignored, because complying with its demands becomes unbearable.

If there were a class of Americans that the majority was trying to strip of long-held privileges and force down to the common level, that minority would probably be much less willing to accept majority rule. But since the United States was settled by people of roughly equal standing, there's no deep or permanent conflict between different groups of citizens.

Some communities contain minorities that can never hope to win the majority over, because doing so would mean abandoning the very thing that defines them. An aristocracy, for instance, can never become a majority while keeping its exclusive privileges — and it can't give up those privileges without ceasing to be an aristocracy.

In the United States, political disputes aren't fought in such absolute terms. All parties are willing to recognize the majority's right to rule, because every party hopes to become the majority someday. The majority therefore exercises enormous actual power and a moral influence that's almost as overwhelming. No obstacles exist to slow its progress or force it to listen to the complaints of those it crushes in its path. This situation is dangerous in itself and ominous for the future.

How the Majority's Unlimited Power Increases the Instability Already Built Into Democratic Government

Americans amplify the instability inherent in democracy by changing legislatures every year and giving them unchecked authority — the same effect on public administration — in America, social progress is pursued more energetically but less consistently than in Europe.

I've already discussed the natural defects of democratic institutions. Every one of them gets worse in direct proportion to the power of the majority. Start with the most obvious: the constant changing of laws is a built-in problem of democratic government, because it's natural for democracies to cycle people through power rapidly. But this problem is more or less severe depending on how much authority the legislature has and what tools are at its disposal.

In America, the legislature's authority is supreme. Nothing prevents it from carrying out its wishes immediately and with irresistible force, and new representatives arrive every year. In other words, the conditions most likely to produce democratic instability — the freedom to apply every passing impulse to every corner of government — are here operating at full strength. The result is predictable: at the time of my visit, America was the country in the world where laws lasted the shortest time. Nearly every American state constitution had been amended within thirty years. There wasn't a single state that hadn't changed the basic principles of its laws during that period. As for ordinary legislation, a glance at the archives of any state was enough to see that the American lawmaking machine never stops. Not because American democracy is inherently less stable than any other kind, but because it's given free rein to follow its every impulse in making laws. (Consider Massachusetts, a state no larger than a French department and considered the most stable and deliberate in the Union — by 1823, the published collection of its laws already filled three thick volumes, and that edition had already left out many old laws that had fallen into disuse.)

The majority's near-total power — and the speed and finality with which its decisions are carried out — doesn't just make the laws unstable. It has the same effect on how laws are administered. Since the majority is the only power that matters, all its projects are taken up with tremendous enthusiasm. But the moment its attention wanders, all that enthusiasm evaporates. In Europe's free states, the bureaucracy is both independent and secure, so government projects continue moving forward even when the legislature turns its attention elsewhere.

In America, certain improvements are pursued with more zeal and energy than anywhere else. In Europe, the same goals are achieved with less effort but more consistency.

A few years before my visit, a group of reformers set out to improve prison conditions. The public was stirred by their findings, and the rehabilitation of criminals became a popular cause. New prisons were built, and for the first time, the idea of reforming inmates — not just punishing them — became part of the system. But this promising reform, which had captured the public's wholehearted enthusiasm and been propelled forward by citizens' tireless energy, couldn't be completed overnight. While the new prisons were being built — and the majority demanded they be finished as fast as possible — the old prisons still held large numbers of inmates. These older facilities actually grew more squalid and inhumane in direct proportion to how much the new ones improved, creating a stark contrast. The majority was so focused on building the new prisons that it forgot about the old ones entirely. Public attention shifted to the shiny new project, and the care that had been given to the old facilities simply ceased. Discipline was first relaxed, then abandoned altogether. The result was that right next door to a prison that embodied the enlightened spirit of the modern age, you could find dungeons that would have been at home in the Middle Ages.

Chapter XV: The Unlimited Power of the Majority and Its Consequences — Part II

How to understand the principle of popular sovereignty — why "mixed government" is a myth — the need for a central authority — precautions needed to control power — why these precautions are missing in the United States, and what follows.

The Tyranny of the Majority

I believe it's a dangerous and repugnant principle that a people, politically speaking, has the right to do whatever it wants. And yet I've argued that all legitimate authority comes from the will of the majority. Am I contradicting myself?

There is a higher law — which we call Justice — that has been established and approved not just by the majority of this or that nation, but by the majority of all humanity. The rights of any people are therefore strictly limited by what is just. A nation can be thought of as a jury empowered to represent society as a whole and apply this great universal law of justice. Should such a jury have more power than the society that created the laws it applies?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I'm not questioning the majority's right to lead. I'm simply appealing from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of the human race. It's often argued that a people can never truly violate justice or reason in its own internal affairs, and that we can therefore safely give the majority total power. But that is the language of a slave.

A majority is essentially a collective being whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, conflict with those of another being called the minority. If we admit that a single person with absolute power can misuse that power to harm their enemies, why shouldn't a majority be capable of the same thing? People don't suddenly change their character when they join a crowd; nor do they become more patient when they realize they have the strength to crush any obstacle. (Think of political parties as smaller nations within a larger one; they are essentially strangers to each other. If one nation can act tyrannically toward another, a party can certainly do the same to its rivals.) For these reasons, I can never willingly grant any group of my fellow human beings the kind of unlimited authority I would refuse to any individual among them.

I don't believe it's possible to combine several competing principles in the same government without either losing freedom or seeing those principles clash. The idea of a "mixed government" has always seemed like a fantasy to me. Strictly speaking, there is no such thing, because in every society, one single principle of action eventually dominates the others.

England in the last century was often cited as a model of mixed government, but it was actually an aristocratic society with some powerful democratic elements. Its laws and customs were such that the aristocracy was guaranteed to win out in the end and direct public affairs according to its own will. The mistake observers made was focusing on the visible struggle between the nobles and the people without considering how that contest was likely to end — which was the only point that mattered. When a community truly has a mixed government — when it is split exactly down the middle between two opposing principles — it must either undergo a revolution or collapse entirely.

Therefore, I'm convinced that one social power must always be made to dominate the others. But I also believe that freedom is in danger whenever that power faces no obstacles that can slow it down or force it to moderate its behavior.

Unlimited power is in itself bad and dangerous. Human beings aren't capable of exercising it wisely. Only God can be all-powerful, because His wisdom and justice are always equal to His strength. But there is no power on earth so worthy of honor or so entitled to obedience that I would grant it uncontrolled and total authority. When I see the right to absolute command given to a people or a king, to an aristocracy or a democracy, I see the seeds of tyranny, and I start looking for a country with better institutions.

In my view, the main problem with the current democratic institutions in the United States isn't their weakness — as people in Europe often claim — but their overwhelming strength. I'm not alarmed by the excessive freedom in America, but by the lack of any real safeguards against tyranny.

When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, where can they turn for help? Not to public opinion, because public opinion is the majority. Not to the legislature, because it represents the majority and obeys its every whim. Not to the executive branch, because the president is chosen by the majority and serves as its passive tool. The police are just the majority under arms. The jury is the majority with the power to pass judgment. In some states, even the judges are elected by the majority. No matter how unfair or absurd the harm you're suffering, you have no choice but to submit.

Consider what happened in Baltimore in 1812. The war was popular there, and when a local newspaper published an opposing view, it triggered a public outcry. A mob gathered, smashed the printing presses, and attacked the editors' homes. The militia was called out, but no one showed up. The only way to save the editors from the frenzy was to throw them into prison like common criminals. But even that didn't work. The mob returned at night, the magistrates failed again to call out the militia, the prison was stormed, one editor was killed on the spot, and the others were left for dead. When the perpetrators were finally brought to trial, a jury promptly acquitted them.

I once spoke to a resident of Pennsylvania about this. "Please explain something to me," I said. "This state was founded by Quakers and is famous for its tolerance. Yet Black citizens aren't allowed to exercise their civil rights. They pay taxes — shouldn't they have a vote?"

"You're insulting us," he replied, "if you think our lawmakers could be that unjust."

"So Black people do have the right to vote here?"

"Without question."

"Then why didn't I see a single Black voter at the polls this morning?"

"That's not the law's fault," he said. "They have an undisputed right to vote, but they choose to stay away."

"How modest of them," I replied.

"Well, the truth is they want to vote, but they're afraid of being attacked. In this country, the law sometimes can't maintain its authority without the majority's support. In this case, the majority has deep prejudices against Black people, and the officials aren't able to protect them."

"So," I concluded, "the majority claims the right not only to make the laws, but to break them whenever it likes?"

If a legislature could be designed to represent the majority without being a slave to its passions; if an executive could retain some independent authority; and if a judiciary could remain truly independent of both — then you would have a government that remains democratic without the risk of tyranny. I'm not saying that tyrannical abuses are common in America today. But I am saying there's no sure barrier against them. Whatever moderates the government's behavior is found in the circumstances and customs of the country more than in its laws.

How the Majority's Unlimited Power Affects the Authority of Public Officials

We must distinguish between tyranny and arbitrary power. Tyranny can be exercised through the law itself, in which case it isn't "arbitrary." Arbitrary power can be exercised for the good of the community, in which case it isn't "tyrannical." Tyranny usually uses arbitrary means, but it can rule without them if it has to.

In the United States, the majority's absolute power encourages both the legal despotism of the legislature and the arbitrary authority of officials. The majority has total control over the law, both when it's written and when it's carried out. Because it holds power over both the government and the public, it views officials as its passive agents and expects them to carry out its designs. Their specific duties and privileges are rarely defined in advance; instead, the majority treats them the way a master treats his servants — watching them work and directing or reprimanding them at every turn.

In general, American officials are far more independent than French civil servants within their assigned roles. Sometimes the majority even lets them step outside those roles. Because they're protected by public opinion and backed by the majority's cooperation, they can flex their power in ways that would shock a European. In this way, habits are forming at the heart of a free country that may one day prove fatal to its freedom.

The Power of the Majority over Public Opinion

In the United States, we see clearly how the power of the majority surpasses anything we know in Europe. Intellectual ideas usually exert an influence so invisible and hard to pin down that they escape the reach of oppression. Even the most absolute monarchs in Europe can't stop ideas they dislike from circulating in secret throughout their kingdoms, or even within their own courts.

That is not the case in America. As long as the majority is undecided, debate rages on. But the moment a decision is irrevocably made, everyone falls silent. Both friends and enemies of the measure suddenly agree on its wisdom. The reason is simple: no monarch is absolute enough to hold all of society's power in his hands and crush all opposition with the energy that a majority brings when it has the right to make and enforce the laws.

A king's authority is purely physical; he controls actions but cannot conquer the will. But the majority possesses a power that is both physical and moral. It acts on the will as much as on the deed, suppressing not just conflict but controversy itself. I know of no country where there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America.

In any European constitutional state, you can promote almost any religious or political theory. No matter how powerful the government, there are always citizens ready to protect someone who speaks the truth from the consequences of their boldness. If they live under an absolute government, the people are on their side; if they live in a free country, they can find shelter behind the authority of the throne if they need it. The aristocracy supports them in some places, the democracy in others. But in a nation organized like the United States, there is only one authority, one single source of success, and nothing beyond it.

In America, the majority raises formidable barriers around freedom of opinion. Within those barriers, an author can write whatever they like, but they will regret it if they ever step outside them. They won't face an executioner, but they will be tormented by the daily slights and public shaming of their neighbors. Their political career is over, because they've offended the only power that could help them. Every kind of reward, even fame, is denied to them. Before they published their opinions, they thought many people agreed with them; but the moment they speak out, their opponents shout them down, while those who secretly agree with them fall silent and walk away. Eventually, exhausted by the daily pressure, they give in and fall silent, as if they were actually ashamed of having told the truth.

Chains and executioners were the crude tools tyranny used to rely on. But our modern civilization has refined the art of oppression — which already seemed perfected enough. Absolute monarchs used physical means to subdue the soul, but the soul simply escaped the blows and rose above them. In democratic republics, tyranny takes a different approach: it leaves the body free and goes straight for the soul. The sovereign no longer says, "Think like me or die." Instead, it says: "You are free to think differently from me and keep your life and property. But if you do, you are a stranger among your own people. You can keep your civil rights, but they will be useless to you. You will never be elected by your fellow citizens, and they will pretend to look down on you if you ask for their respect. You will stay among men, but you will lose the rights of humanity. Your neighbors will shun you like something unclean, and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, fearing they'll be shunned too. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."

Monarchies made despotism hated. We should be careful that democratic republics don't bring it back, making it less offensive to the many while making it even more crushing for the few.

In the proudest nations of the Old World, writers have always been free to criticize the vices and mock the follies of their time. La Bruyère lived in the palace of Louis XIV while writing about the arrogance of the Great, and Molière mocked the courtiers in plays performed right in front of the King. But the ruling power in the United States is not to be made fun of. The smallest criticism irritates it; the slightest joke, if it contains a grain of truth, makes it indignant. From its language to its character, everything must be praised. No writer, no matter how famous, can escape this requirement to flatter their fellow citizens. The majority lives in a state of perpetual self-applause, and there are certain truths that Americans can only learn from foreigners or from hard experience.

If America hasn't yet produced great writers, this is the simple reason: there can be no literary genius without freedom of opinion, and freedom of opinion doesn't exist in America. The Inquisition was never able to stop anti-religious books from circulating in Spain. The empire of the majority is much more successful; it actually takes away the desire to publish them. You can find unbelievers in America, but there is no public voice for them. Some governments try to protect morality by banning "inappropriate" books. In the United States, no one is punished for writing such works, but no one is inspired to write them either — not because every citizen is perfect, but because the majority is decent and orderly.

In these cases, the benefits of this power are clear, and I'm simply analyzing the nature of the power itself. This irresistible authority is a constant fact; its wise use is only an occasional accident.

How the Tyranny of the Majority Affects the American Character

Until now, the effects of majority tyranny have been felt more in the way people behave than in how the government acts. It stunts the development of great leaders. Democratic republics like the United States make the practice of "courting the people" common across all classes. Why there is more patriotism among the people than among those who govern in their name.

The tendencies I've described are only starting to show up in politics, but they're already beginning to damage the American character. I'm inclined to blame the strange lack of distinguished political figures on the growing despotism of the majority. When the American Revolution broke out, great leaders appeared in huge numbers, because public opinion then served to guide rather than tyrannize individuals. Those famous men took part in the general intellectual excitement of the time and earned a personal fame that they brought to the nation, rather than borrowing it from the public.

In absolute governments, the nobles closest to the throne flatter the king and submit to his whims. But the mass of the nation doesn't degrade itself by serving him; it submits out of weakness, habit, ignorance, or sometimes loyalty. Some nations have even taken pride in sacrificing their own desires to those of their king, showing a kind of independence even in their submission. These people are miserable, but they aren't degraded. There's a big difference between doing something you don't approve of and pretending to approve of something you don't. One is the situation of a weak person; the other is the behavior of a lackey.

In free countries where everyone is involved in state affairs, and especially in democratic republics where public life is mixed into everything, more people are tempted to play on the public's weaknesses and live off its passions than in absolute monarchies. This isn't because people are naturally worse in these countries, but because the temptation is stronger and easier to reach. The result is a much more widespread debasement of character among citizens.

Democratic republics encourage the practice of currying favor with the many and introduce it to all classes at once. This is one of the most serious criticisms that can be leveled against them. In America, the majority's authority is so absolute and irresistible that a man must essentially give up his rights as a citizen — and almost his identity as a human being — if he intends to stray from the path it lays down.

In the massive crowd that throngs the avenues to power in the United States, I found very few men who showed the kind of manly candor and independent opinion that used to distinguish Americans and which marks a truly great character anywhere. At first glance, it seems as if all American minds were made from the same mold, so perfectly do they agree in their judgments. A stranger does occasionally meet Americans who disagree with these rigid formulas — people who lament the flaws in the laws, the instability and ignorance of democracy, and the bad tendencies that are damaging the national character. But no one hears these things except you; and you, the person they're confiding in, are just a stranger passing through. They're happy to tell you truths that are useless to you, but in public, they use very different language.

If these lines are ever read in America, I'm certain of two things: first, that everyone who reads them will publicly condemn me; and second, that many of them will agree with me in their heart of hearts.

I have heard much about patriotism in the United States. It's a virtue you can find among the people, but almost never among their leaders. This can be explained by analogy: despotism debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor. In absolute monarchies, the king often has great virtues, but his courtiers are always servile. It's true that American "courtiers" don't say "Sire" or "Your Majesty" — but that's a distinction without a difference. They're constantly talking about the "natural intelligence" of the people they serve. They don't debate which of their master's virtues is most worthy of praise; instead, they assure him that he possesses every virtue under heaven without ever having to work for them. They don't offer him their daughters and wives to be his mistresses; instead, they prostitute their own opinions.

American moralists and philosophers aren't forced to hide their ideas behind metaphors. But before they dare tell a harsh truth, they say: "We know that the people we're addressing are too superior to human weakness to lose their temper for even a second. We wouldn't speak like this if we weren't talking to men whose virtues and intelligence make them more worthy of freedom than anyone else in the world." Even the sycophants of Louis XIV couldn't have flattered him more skillfully. For my part, I'm convinced that in any government, servility will always bow to force and flattery will cling to power. The only way to keep people from degrading themselves is to give no one the kind of unlimited authority that is the surest way to debase them.

The Greatest Danger to the American Republic: The Unlimited Power of the Majority

Democratic republics are more likely to be destroyed by the misuse of their power than by weakness. State governments in America are more centralized and energetic than the monarchies of Europe. The dangers this creates. The opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson.

Governments usually fail either because they're too weak or because they're tyrannical. In the first case, power slips away from them; in the second, it's taken from them. Many people who have seen the chaos in democratic states have assumed that democracy is naturally weak. The truth is that once a conflict starts between parties, the government loses its control over society. But I don't think democratic power is inherently weak or resource-poor. Rather, it's almost always the abuse of its power and the misuse of its resources that causes a democratic government to fail. Anarchy is almost always the result of its tyranny or its mistakes, not its lack of strength.

It's important not to confuse stability with force, or the size of a thing with how long it lasts. In democratic republics, the power that directs society isn't stable, because it often changes hands and directions. But whichever way it turns, its force is almost irresistible. The state governments in the American republic seem to me to be just as centralized as the absolute monarchies of Europe, and even more energetic. I don't think they'll ever perish from weakness. (I should remind the reader here that I'm speaking not of the federal government, but of the individual state governments, which the majority controls at its whim.)

If the free institutions of America are ever destroyed, it will be because the unlimited power of the majority eventually drives minorities to desperation, forcing them to resort to physical force. Anarchy will be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.

Alexander Hamilton expressed the same opinion in The Federalist Papers (No. 51): "It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part... In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger." He went on to argue that if a state like Rhode Island were left entirely to its own devices, the insecurity created by the "reiterated oppressions of factious majorities" would soon lead people to call for some power completely independent of the people to restore order.

Thomas Jefferson expressed the same concern in a letter to Madison in 1789: "The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my concern. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period." I'm happy to quote Jefferson on this subject, because I consider him the most powerful advocate democracy has ever had.

Chapter XVI: Causes That Mitigate Tyranny in the United States — Part I

The national majority doesn't try to micromanage everything — It has to rely on town and county officials to carry out its decisions.

I've already drawn the distinction between a centralized government and a centralized administration. America has the first but barely knows the second. If the ruling power in American society had both tools at its disposal — if it combined the habit of personally executing its commands with the right to issue them, if after setting the broad principles of government it burrowed into the details of everyday public business, and if after regulating the country's major interests it could also invade the privacy of individual lives — freedom would quickly vanish from the New World.

But in the United States, the majority — which so often displays the instincts and appetites of a despot — still lacks the full machinery of tyranny. The central government has never extended its reach beyond a limited number of issues important enough to attract its attention. It has never regulated the minor affairs of society, and so far nothing suggests it even wants to. The majority has grown more and more absolute, but it hasn't expanded the central government's powers. Those powers remain confined to a certain sphere. The majority's despotism may be suffocating on any given issue, but it can't be said to cover everything.

No matter how carried away the dominant party gets by its passions, no matter how eagerly it pursues its agenda, it can't force every citizen to comply with its wishes in the same way, at the same time, across the entire country. When the central government issues a decree, it has to hand the execution over to local agents it often can't control and can't constantly supervise. Townships, municipal governments, and counties therefore act as hidden breakwaters, absorbing or deflecting the tide of popular excitement. Even if an oppressive law is passed, the people's freedoms are still partially protected by the way that law actually gets enforced: the majority can't reach down into the details — the petty tyrannies, if I may call them that — of day-to-day administration. And the people themselves don't have a full enough sense of their own authority to meddle in these matters. They know the extent of their natural powers, but they haven't yet figured out how much the machinery of government could amplify those powers.

This point deserves attention. If a democratic republic like America's were ever established in a country where one-man rule had previously existed and centralized administration had already sunk deep into the habits and laws of the people, I wouldn't hesitate to say that a more unbearable despotism would emerge than anything we see in Europe's monarchies today — or indeed anything found this side of Asia.

The Legal Profession as a Counterweight to Democracy

Why lawyers' natural instincts matter — This class is destined to play a major role in the society now emerging — How legal training gives lawyers an aristocratic bent — Circumstances that can offset this tendency — How easily the aristocracy blends with the legal class — How a despot can use lawyers — The legal profession is the only aristocratic element that naturally combines with democracy — Why English and American lawyers in particular lean toward aristocratic thinking — America's aristocracy sits on the bench and at the bar — How lawyers shape American society — Their habits of authority influence the legislature, the administration, and even the people themselves.

When you visit the Americans and study their laws, you discover that the authority they've given to legal professionals, and the influence these people exercise in government, is the single most powerful safeguard against the excesses of democracy. This effect, as I see it, comes from a general cause worth investigating, since it may produce similar consequences elsewhere.

Lawyers have played a major role in every political upheaval in Europe over the past five hundred years. Sometimes they've served as tools of those in power; other times they've managed to turn the powerful into their tools. In the Middle Ages, they were a key prop for the Crown; since then, they've worked relentlessly to limit royal authority. In England, they've forged a close alliance with the aristocracy. In France, they've been that class's most dangerous enemies. What I want to understand is whether, through all these circumstances, lawyers have been driven by momentary impulses — or whether they've been following instincts that are built into the profession itself, instincts that keep reappearing throughout history. This investigation feels especially pressing when I consider that this particular class of people will most likely play a leading role in the new order of things that current events are bringing into being.

People who have devoted themselves to the law develop certain occupational habits: a love of order, a taste for formalities, and an instinctive respect for the logical connection of ideas. These habits make them naturally hostile to revolutionary upheaval and the unthinking passions of the crowd.

The specialized knowledge lawyers gain from their studies sets them apart in society. They form a kind of privileged class on the scale of intelligence. This sense of superiority comes up constantly in their daily practice: they are masters of a science that is necessary but not widely understood; they serve as arbiters between citizens; and their habit of steering the blind passions of litigants gives them a certain contempt for the judgment of the masses. On top of this, lawyers naturally form a cohesive group — not through any formal agreement or shared purpose, but because the similarity of their training and the uniformity of their methods bind their minds together as effectively as a common interest would.

You can therefore detect in lawyers some of the tastes and habits of an aristocracy. They share the same instinctive love of order and formality. They share the same distaste for the actions of the crowd and the same quiet contempt for popular government. I'm not saying lawyers' natural tendencies are strong enough to be irresistible — like most people, they're ultimately governed by their private interests and the advantages of the moment.

In a society where lawyers are blocked from holding the political rank their professional standing would suggest, you can count on them becoming the leading agents of revolution. But we need to ask whether what drives them to tear things down is circumstantial — or whether it reflects some permanent feature of their character. It's true that lawyers helped overthrow the French monarchy in 1789. But the real question is: did they act that way because they had studied the law, or because they were shut out from making it?

Five hundred years ago, English nobles led the people and spoke in their name. Today, the aristocracy supports the throne and defends royal authority. Yet the aristocracy has maintained its core instincts throughout. We have to be careful not to confuse individual members of a class with the class itself. In every free government, whatever its form, you'll find lawyers leading all the parties. The same is true of the aristocracy — nearly every democratic revolution that has shaken the world has been led by nobles.

A privileged class can never satisfy the ambition of all its members. It always has more talented and passionate people than it has positions for. So you'll always find a significant number of individuals within it who are ready to attack the very privileges they can't manage to use for their own advantage.

My claim, then, is not that every lawyer is always a friend of order and an opponent of change — only that most of them usually are. In a society where lawyers can occupy, without opposition, the high position that naturally belongs to them, their general outlook will be deeply conservative and anti-democratic. When an aristocracy shuts the leaders of the legal profession out of its ranks, it creates enemies all the more dangerous because they are independent — they've earned their way through hard work — and they consider themselves intellectual equals of the nobility, even if they have less wealth and power. But whenever an aristocracy is willing to share some of its privileges with these same individuals, the two classes merge quite readily and take on the unity of a single order bound by shared interests.

Similarly, I believe a monarch can always turn legal professionals into highly useful instruments of power. There is a much greater natural affinity between this class and the executive than between lawyers and the people — just as there is a greater natural affinity between nobles and the king than between nobles and ordinary citizens, even though the upper classes have occasionally joined forces with the lower to resist the Crown.

Lawyers are devoted to public order above all else, and the best guarantee of public order is authority. We shouldn't forget that while they value their country's free institutions, they value the legality of those institutions even more. They are less afraid of tyranny than of arbitrary power. As long as the legislature goes through the proper process of stripping people of their independence, lawyers won't complain.

So I'm convinced that any ruler who, facing an expanding democracy, tried to weaken the courts and reduce the political influence of lawyers would be making a serious mistake. He would be letting go of real power to grab at its shadow. He would be better off bringing lawyers into government. If he placed them in charge of authoritarian power — even a somewhat harsh form of it — that power would most likely take on the outward appearance of justice and legality in their hands.

Democratic government actually increases the political power of lawyers. When the wealthy, the noble, and the prince are all excluded from government, lawyers are sure to rise to the top — by their own merit, as it were — since they are the only people of knowledge and judgment, outside the general public, whom voters can choose. If their tastes draw them toward aristocracy and the Crown, their interests naturally bring them into contact with the people. They like democratic government without sharing its impulses or imitating its weaknesses — and from this they draw a double authority, both from democracy and over it. The people in democratic countries don't distrust lawyers, because everyone knows lawyers have an interest in serving the popular cause. The people listen to them without resentment, because they don't suspect any hidden agenda. Lawyers don't actually aim to overthrow democratic institutions. Instead, they constantly try to steer democracy away from its natural tendencies, using methods that are foreign to its character. Lawyers belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit and taste. They are the natural link connecting the two great classes of society.

The legal profession is the only aristocratic element that can merge peacefully with the natural elements of democracy and combine with them effectively over the long term. I'm well aware of the flaws inherent in the legal profession. But without this admixture of lawyerly sobriety into the democratic recipe, I doubt democratic institutions could survive for long. I don't believe a republic could exist today if the influence of lawyers in public affairs didn't grow in proportion to the power of the people.

This aristocratic character, which I consider common to lawyers everywhere, is far more pronounced in the United States and England than anywhere else. This comes not just from how English and American lawyers study the law, but from the nature of the law itself and the position lawyers hold in these two countries. The English and Americans have kept the common law system — that is, they continue to base their legal opinions and court decisions on the opinions and decisions of their predecessors. In the mind of an English or American lawyer, a taste and reverence for what is old almost always goes hand in hand with a love of regular, lawful procedures.

This habit has another effect on lawyers' character and on society as a whole. English and American lawyers investigate what has been done; French lawyers ask what should have been done. The former cite precedents; the latter construct arguments from first principles. A French observer is struck by how often an English or American lawyer quotes the opinions of others and how rarely he offers his own — while in France, the reverse is true. There, even the most trivial case is argued as if the entire philosophy of law were at stake; fundamental principles are debated just to settle a property dispute. This deference to the past, this willingness to subordinate one's own thinking to the opinions of earlier generations — so characteristic of English and American lawyers — naturally makes them more cautious and slower-moving than their French counterparts.

French legal codes are sometimes hard to understand, but anyone can read them. Nothing, on the other hand, is more impenetrable to an outsider than a legal system built on precedent. The sheer necessity of legal help in England and the United States, and the high regard people generally have for the profession, separate lawyers more and more from ordinary citizens and place them in a class of their own. A French lawyer is simply someone well-versed in his country's statutes. An English or American lawyer is more like the priests of ancient Egypt — the sole interpreters of an arcane science.

The position lawyers hold in England and America shapes their habits and opinions just as much as their training does. The English aristocracy, which has always been careful to absorb anything similar to itself, has given the legal profession a great deal of importance and authority. In English society, lawyers don't occupy the very top rank, but they're content with their place. They are, in a sense, the younger branch of the English aristocracy — attached to their older siblings, even if they don't enjoy all the same privileges. English lawyers consequently absorb the tastes and ideas of the aristocratic circles they move in, blending them with the aristocratic instincts of their profession.

And indeed, the lawyerly character I'm trying to describe shows up most clearly in England. There, laws are valued not so much because they are good but because they are old. When it becomes necessary to modify them or adapt them to social changes, the English resort to the most incredible contortions in order to preserve the traditional structure and maintain the fiction that nothing has been done that contradicts the intentions of previous generations. The very people who carry out these changes deny any intention of innovating — they'd rather use absurd workarounds than plead guilty to changing the law. This spirit belongs especially to English lawyers: they seem indifferent to the actual meaning of what they're dealing with and focus all their attention on the letter of the law, appearing ready to violate common sense and basic humanity rather than deviate one inch from established rules. English law is like an old tree trunk on which lawyers have grafted the most varied branches, hoping that even if the fruit differs, the foliage will at least blend in with the venerable trunk that supports it all.

In America, there is no nobility and no intellectual aristocracy, and the people tend to distrust the wealthy. Lawyers therefore become the highest political class and the most cultivated circle of society. They have nothing to gain from innovation, which adds a conservative self-interest to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where to find America's aristocracy, I would answer without hesitation: it isn't made up of the wealthy, who have no common bond. It sits on the judicial bench and at the bar.

The more you study the United States, the more convinced you become that lawyers, as a class, form the most powerful — and perhaps the only — counterweight to the democratic element. In that country, you can see how perfectly the legal profession is suited, by its strengths and even by its flaws, to offset the weaknesses inherent in popular government. When the American people gets drunk on passion or swept up in the rush of its own ideas, it is checked and slowed by the nearly invisible influence of its legal class. Lawyers quietly oppose their aristocratic instincts to the people's democratic ones, their reverence for tradition to the people's love of novelty, their narrow caution to the people's grand ambitions, their habitual slowness to the people's impatient energy.

The courts are the most visible way the legal profession controls democracy. A judge is a lawyer who, beyond the taste for regularity and order he acquired through legal study, draws an additional love of stability from the permanence of his own position. His legal training has already raised him to a distinguished rank among his fellow citizens; his political power completes the distinction and gives him the instincts natural to a privileged class.

Armed with the power to declare laws unconstitutional, the American judge is a constant player in political affairs. He can't force the people to make laws, but he can at least force them to obey their own — to act consistently with their own principles. I'm aware that a quiet movement to weaken judicial power exists in the United States, and that under most state constitutions, judges can be removed by vote of both legislative houses. Under some constitutions, judges are elected and even subjected to frequent re-elections. I'll venture a prediction: these changes will eventually produce disastrous consequences. Someday people will discover that the attack on judicial power has undermined the democratic republic itself.

One more thing: the legal spirit I've been describing isn't confined to the courtroom in the United States — it extends far beyond. Since lawyers are the only educated class the people doesn't distrust, they are naturally called to fill most public positions. They dominate the legislatures and run the administration, giving them enormous influence over both the making and the execution of law. Lawyers are forced to bend to the current of public opinion, which is too strong to resist. But it's easy to see what they would do if left to their own devices. Americans have made sweeping changes to their political laws but only the most reluctant, minimal changes to their civil laws — even when those civil laws clash with their social conditions. The reason is simple: in civil law, the majority has to defer to the legal profession's authority, and American lawyers, when left to their own preferences, don't like change.

It's amusing, from a French perspective — where the situation is so different — to hear the constant complaints Americans make about the conservative stubbornness of their lawyers and their bias in favor of existing institutions.

The influence of legal habits extends even further than I've described. In the United States, almost every question eventually turns into a legal question. All parties are therefore forced to borrow the ideas, and even the language, of the courtroom for their everyday political arguments. Since most public officials are or have been lawyers, they bring the customs and jargon of their profession into the country's affairs. The jury system extends these habits to every class. Legal language becomes, in a way, the common tongue. The spirit of the law, nurtured in law schools and courtrooms, gradually spreads beyond those walls into the heart of society, filtering down to the lowest levels, until the entire population takes on the habits and tastes of the legal profession. The lawyers of the United States form a party that is little feared and barely noticed. It has no special badge, and it adapts with remarkable flexibility to the demands of the moment, bending with every movement of the social body. But this party reaches across the entire community and penetrates every class. It works on the country imperceptibly — and in the end, it shapes America in its own image.

Chapter XVI: Causes That Mitigate Tyranny in the United States — Part II

Trial by Jury as a Political Institution

Trial by jury as one of the instruments of popular sovereignty, and how it compares to the other institutions that establish that sovereignty — How the jury is composed in the United States — Its effect on the national character — How it educates the people — How it strengthens the authority of judges and spreads legal knowledge among the public.

Since my subject has brought me back to the administration of justice in the United States, I don't want to move on without discussing the jury system. Trial by jury can be viewed from two separate angles: as a judicial institution and as a political institution. If my purpose here were to ask how effectively trial by jury — especially in civil cases — ensures good justice, I'd admit that its usefulness could be debated. The jury was first introduced when society was in a rough, early stage and courts were simply asked to sort out questions of fact. Adapting it to the needs of a highly developed society — where human relationships have multiplied enormously and taken on all the complexity of the modern age — is no easy task.

But my focus here is on the jury as a political institution, and any other approach would pull me away from my subject. As a purely judicial institution, I'll say only this: when the English adopted trial by jury, they were a semi-barbarous people. Over time, they became one of the most advanced nations on earth — and their attachment to the jury system only grew stronger as their civilization advanced. They spread beyond their island to every corner of the globe. Some colonies kept the monarchical system; many founded powerful republics. But wherever the English went, they celebrated the privilege of trial by jury. They established it, or rushed to re-establish it, in all their settlements. A judicial institution that wins the loyalty of a great people across so many centuries, that is renewed with such passion at every stage of civilization, in every climate, under every form of government — such an institution cannot be at odds with the spirit of justice.

But I want to move beyond this judicial perspective. To look at the jury as merely a judicial institution is to take far too narrow a view. However great its influence on court decisions, that influence is secondary compared to the powerful effect it has on society as a whole. The jury is, above all, a political institution, and it must be understood as such to be properly appreciated.

By "jury," I mean a certain number of citizens chosen at random and temporarily given the authority to judge. Using trial by jury to punish crime introduces a fundamentally republican element into the government, for the following reasons.

The jury can be aristocratic or democratic, depending on the class from which jurors are drawn. But it always preserves its republican character, because it places the real direction of society in the hands of the governed — or at least a portion of them — rather than in the hands of the government. Force is never more than a temporary source of power. After force comes the idea of right. A government that could only defeat its enemies on the battlefield would soon be destroyed. The true foundation of political law lies in criminal justice. If that foundation is missing, the law will sooner or later lose its force. Whoever controls punishment is the real master of society. The jury system raises the people themselves — or at least a class of citizens — to the judge's seat. It therefore puts the direction of society in the hands of the people.

In England, the jury is drawn from the aristocratic portion of the nation. The aristocracy makes the laws, applies the laws, and punishes violations of the laws. Everything is consistent, and England can fairly be described as an aristocratic republic. In the United States, the same system is applied to the whole people. Every American citizen can vote, can serve on a jury, and can hold office. The American jury system strikes me as just as direct and radical a consequence of popular sovereignty as universal suffrage. These two institutions are instruments of equal power, both serving the supremacy of the majority. Every ruler who has chosen to govern by personal authority, directing society rather than following its direction, has either destroyed or weakened the jury. The Tudor monarchs sent jurors to prison for refusing to convict. Napoleon had his own agents select them.

However obvious these points may seem, they don't command universal agreement. In France, at least, the jury system is still badly misunderstood. When the French debate who should qualify to serve on a jury, they focus entirely on jurors' intelligence and knowledge — as if the jury were nothing more than a judicial mechanism. This strikes me as missing the real point. The jury is first and foremost a political institution. It should be seen as one form of popular sovereignty. When that sovereignty is rejected, the jury must be rejected too; when that sovereignty is embraced, the jury must be adapted to the laws that establish it. The jury is the branch of the nation that enforces the laws, just as the legislature is the branch that makes them. And for society to be governed with consistency, the pool of eligible jurors must expand and contract along with the pool of eligible voters. This is what really matters. Everything else is secondary.

I'm so thoroughly convinced that the jury is fundamentally a political institution that I hold this view even when it's applied to civil cases. Laws are always fragile unless they're rooted in a nation's customs. Customs are the only durable, resilient force in a society. When the jury is limited to criminal cases, the people only see it in action occasionally. Everyday life goes on without it, and the jury comes to be seen as one instrument of justice among many. This is even more true when the jury handles only certain types of criminal cases.

But when jury service extends to civil cases, its influence is felt constantly. It touches every interest in the community. Everyone participates in its work. It weaves itself into the fabric of daily life, shapes the way people think, and gradually becomes inseparable from the very idea of justice.

If the jury is limited to criminal cases, it's always in danger. But once introduced into civil proceedings, it becomes nearly indestructible — proof against both the passage of time and the ambitions of the powerful. If it had been as easy to remove the jury from English customs as from English law, it would have been destroyed under Henry VIII and Elizabeth. In fact, the civil jury saved the country's freedoms during that era. However the jury is applied, it inevitably exercises a powerful influence on the national character — and that influence is enormously magnified when it enters civil cases. The civil jury, in particular, communicates the spirit of the judges to the minds of all citizens. And this spirit, along with the habits that accompany it, is the best possible preparation for free institutions. It gives every class a respect for the authority of court rulings and a sense of right. Remove these two elements, and the love of independence becomes nothing but a destructive impulse. The jury teaches people to practice fairness. Every person learns to judge their neighbor as they would want to be judged themselves — and this is especially true in civil cases, because while few people worry about being prosecuted for a crime, everyone is liable to be sued. The jury teaches people not to shrink from the responsibility of their own actions and instills the kind of confidence without which political courage cannot exist. It gives every citizen a share of authority. It makes people feel the duties they owe to society and the role they play in government. By forcing people to pay attention to matters beyond their own private concerns, it scrapes away the individual selfishness that is the rust corroding society.

The jury also does more than perhaps anything else to develop a people's judgment and increase their practical intelligence — and this, in my opinion, is its greatest advantage. It is a free public school, always open, where every juror learns to exercise his rights. Through jury service, ordinary citizens enter into daily contact with the most educated and accomplished members of the upper classes. The law is brought within their understanding through the arguments of lawyers, the guidance of the judge, and even the passions of the parties involved. I believe the practical intelligence and political good sense of the Americans are largely the result of their long experience with civil juries. I don't know whether the jury benefits the people who are involved in the lawsuit, but I'm certain it is enormously beneficial to those who decide it. I consider it one of the most effective tools for educating a people that any society can use.

Everything I've said so far applies to all nations. But the point I'm about to make applies specifically to Americans and democratic peoples. I've already noted that in democracies, lawyers and judges form the only aristocratic body capable of checking the people's excesses. This aristocracy has no physical power — it exercises its conservative influence on people's minds. And its richest source of authority is the civil jury. In criminal cases, when society is armed against a single individual, jurors tend to see the judge as a mere instrument of social power and distrust his advice. Besides, criminal cases rest entirely on questions of fact that common sense can easily grasp — so judge and jury stand on equal ground. In civil cases, however, the judge appears as a neutral arbiter between the conflicting passions of the parties. The jurors look up to him with confidence and listen to him with respect, because in this setting their intelligence is completely under the guidance of his expertise. The judge summarizes the arguments that have overwhelmed their memory. He steers them through the maze of legal proceedings. He focuses their attention on the precise factual question they need to answer, and he practically puts the legal answer into their mouths. His influence over their verdict is nearly unlimited.

If someone asks me why I'm not especially troubled by the argument that jurors in civil cases are ignorant, here's my answer: in these proceedings, whenever the question goes beyond a simple matter of fact, the jury is really only a judicial body in appearance. The jury lends the decision the authority of the society it represents; the judge lends it the authority of reason and law.

In England and America, judges exercise an influence over criminal trials that French judges have never possessed. The reason is easy to see: English and American judges build their authority in civil cases first, then carry it over to criminal courts — where that authority wasn't originally acquired. In some cases — and these are often the most important ones — American judges have the right to decide cases on their own. When they do, they are temporarily placed in the same position French judges normally occupy, but they wield far more power. They are still surrounded by the prestige of the jury, and their judgment carries almost as much weight as the voice of the community itself, represented by that institution. Their influence extends beyond the courtroom. In private life and in public affairs, in casual settings and in legislative assemblies, the American judge is constantly surrounded by people who are accustomed to regarding his intelligence as superior to their own. Having exercised his power in deciding cases, he continues to shape the habits of thought and the character of the individuals who participated in his judgments.

The jury, then — which at first glance seems to limit the power of judges — actually consolidates it. In no country are judges as powerful as in one where the people share their authority. It is through the civil jury above all that American judges infuse every class of society with the spirit of their profession. The jury, which is the most powerful way of making the people rule, is also the most effective way of teaching them to rule well.

Chapter XVII: Principal Causes That Maintain the Democratic Republic — Part I

Principal Causes That Tend to Maintain the Democratic Republic in the United States

A democratic republic exists in the United States, and the main purpose of this book has been to explain why. Several of the causes that help sustain American institutions were touched on only in passing as my subject carried me along. Others I wasn't able to discuss at all, and the ones I examined most closely are, in a way, buried in the details of earlier chapters. So before I talk about the future, I think it's worth pulling together the reasons that best explain the present into one compact picture. This chapter will be a summary of sorts — I'll only briefly remind readers of what they already know, and I'll focus on the most important facts I haven't yet addressed.

All the causes that help maintain the democratic republic in the United States can be reduced to three:

I. The unique and fortunate circumstances — call them providential — in which the Americans find themselves.

II. The laws.

III. The customs and habits of the people.

Circumstantial or Providential Causes

The Union has no hostile neighbors — No dominant capital city — Americans had the luck of starting fresh — America as an empty continent — How this powerfully supports the democratic republic — How the American wilderness is being settled — The hunger of Anglo-Americans to claim the open lands of the New World — How material prosperity shapes Americans' political views.

A thousand circumstances, independent of anyone's will, work together to sustain the democratic republic in the United States. Some of these are well known; others are easy enough to identify. I'll limit myself to the most important.

The Americans have no neighbors, and as a result they have no great wars to fear, no financial crises triggered by foreign threats, no invasions, no conquests to dread. They don't need heavy taxes, large armies, or great generals. And they have nothing to fear from a danger more threatening to republics than all of these combined: military glory. It's impossible to deny the extraordinary influence military glory exerts on a nation's spirit. Andrew Jackson, whom the Americans elected president twice, is a man of violent temperament and middling talent. Nothing in his entire career ever proved he was qualified to govern a free people, and the most informed citizens of the Union have always opposed him. Yet he was raised to the presidency, and kept there, solely on the strength of a victory he won twenty years earlier at the Battle of New Orleans — a victory that was, frankly, a fairly ordinary military achievement, the kind that would only be remembered in a country where battles are rare. And yet the people so captivated by this illusion of glory are, without question, the most cool-headed and calculating, the least militaristic, and the most practical-minded people on earth.

America has no great capital city whose influence radiates, directly or indirectly, across the entire country — and I consider this one of the foremost reasons republican institutions have survived in the United States. In cities, people can't be prevented from gathering together and whipping each other into a mutual excitement that produces sudden, passionate decisions. Cities are like giant assemblies where every resident is a member. Their urban populations exercise enormous influence over local officials and frequently carry out their own wishes without waiting for official intervention.

Tocqueville added a revealing note on this point: the United States had no true capital city, but it already had several large ones. Philadelphia had 161,000 residents and New York 202,000 in 1830. The lower-income populations of these cities, he observed, were already more volatile than the urban poor of European cities. They included free Black Americans, who were condemned by both law and public opinion to a permanent state of poverty and degradation, as well as masses of Europeans driven to American shores by misfortune or misconduct, who brought all the vices of the Old World without the stabilizing interests that might counteract them. Having no civil rights, these people were ready to exploit any social unrest for their own advantage. Serious riots had recently broken out in both Philadelphia and New York. Still, these disturbances had no effect on the rest of the country, because city populations had so far exercised neither power nor influence over the rural majority. Nevertheless, Tocqueville considered the size of certain American cities — and especially the character of their populations — a real danger to the future of American democracy.

Making the provinces subordinate to a capital city means placing the nation's destiny in the hands of one segment of the population — which is unjust — and in the hands of a population acting on its own impulses — which is dangerous. The dominance of capital cities is therefore a serious threat to representative government, and it exposes modern republics to the same flaw that destroyed the republics of antiquity, which all perished because they never figured out representative democracy.

I could cite many secondary causes that have helped establish and sustain the American democratic republic. But I can identify two principal ones, and I want to highlight them now. I've already noted that the origins of the American settlements may be considered the first and most powerful cause of the country's current prosperity. The Americans had the luck of starting fresh. Their ancestors brought equality of social conditions with them to the New World, and from that equality the democratic republic naturally grew. But they brought more than that: the early settlers also passed down the customs, habits, and ideas that are most conducive to making a republic work. When I reflect on this original circumstance, I feel as though the destiny of America was embodied in the first Puritan who stepped onto those shores, just as the fate of the human race was symbolized by the first man.

The most important factor favoring the establishment and survival of a democratic republic in the United States is the nature of the territory Americans inhabit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equality and freedom. God himself gave them the means to remain equal and free by placing them on a boundless continent open to their energy. General prosperity supports the stability of all governments, but especially democratic ones, which depend on the mood of the majority — and particularly on the mood of those most likely to feel the pressure of poverty. When the people rule, they must be kept reasonably happy, or they will tear the state apart. Misery drives democracies to the same excesses that ambition drives kings to. The physical conditions that promote general prosperity are more abundant in America than in any other country at any other time in history. In the United States, not only is the legislation democratic — nature itself favors the cause of the people.

Where in all of human history can you find anything comparable to what is happening right now in North America? The famous societies of the ancient world were all founded in the midst of hostile peoples they had to conquer before they could flourish. Even in modern times, Europeans found in parts of South America vast regions inhabited by peoples of less advanced technology who occupied and cultivated the land. To establish their new states, the colonizers had to drive out or subjugate large populations, achieving a success that made civilization itself blush. But North America was inhabited only by wandering tribes who gave little thought to the natural wealth of the soil. That vast country was, practically speaking, an empty continent — a desert land waiting for its settlers.

Everything is extraordinary in America — the social conditions, the laws — but the land on which these institutions are built is more extraordinary than anything else. When human beings were first placed on the earth, the planet was young and inexhaustible, but humanity was weak and ignorant. By the time people learned to tap the earth's treasures, the world was crowded and they had to carve out a place for rest and freedom by the sword. At that very moment, North America was discovered, as if it had been held in reserve by Providence — as if it had just risen from beneath the waters of the flood.

That continent still presents, as it did in its earliest days, rivers rising from unfailing sources, green and untouched forests, and fields no plow has ever turned. But it is offered to people not in the barbarous, isolated condition of the early ages, but to a civilization already in possession of nature's most powerful secrets, united in nations, and educated by fifty centuries of experience. At this very time, thirteen million civilized Europeans are peacefully spreading across those fertile plains, the full extent and resources of which they themselves have not yet fully grasped. Three or four thousand soldiers push the wandering Indigenous peoples before them. Behind the soldiers come the pioneers, who pierce the forests, scare off the predators, explore the inland waterways, and prepare the triumphal march of civilization across the wilderness.

The beneficial effect of America's material prosperity on its institutions has been discussed so often by others — and mentioned so often by me — that I'll add only a few facts. People commonly assume that America's empty lands are being populated by European immigrants who disembark every year on the coasts of the New World, while native-born Americans simply multiply on the soil their ancestors tilled. That's not quite right. The European immigrant typically arrives in the United States without friends, often without resources. To survive, he has to work for wages, and he rarely moves beyond the belt of industrial population along the coast. Exploring the frontier requires capital or credit, and the body has to adjust to the rigors of a new climate before it can handle life in the wilderness. It is the Americans themselves who constantly leave their birthplaces to acquire vast tracts of land in remote regions. The European leaves his cottage for the shores of the Atlantic. The American, born on that same coast, plunges in turn into the wilds of the interior. This double migration never stops: it begins in the remotest corners of Europe, crosses the Atlantic, and pushes on across the open spaces of the New World. Millions of people are marching toward the same horizon. Their languages, religions, and customs differ, but their goal is the same. Fortune has been promised in the West, and to the West they go.

Nothing in history compares to this continuous movement of the human race — except perhaps the great migrations that preceded the fall of the Roman Empire. Then, as now, whole generations were driven forward in the same direction, arriving to meet and struggle in the same place. But Providence had different plans. Then, every newcomer was a herald of destruction and death. Now, every adventurer brings with him the seeds of prosperity and life. We can't yet see the ultimate consequences of this American migration westward, but some of its immediate results are clear. As a portion of the population annually leaves the states where they were born, those states grow slowly — even long-established ones. Connecticut, with only fifty-nine inhabitants per square mile, has grown by just one quarter in forty years, while England's population grew by a third in the same period. The European immigrant therefore always arrives in a country that is only half-full, where labor is in demand. He becomes a worker in comfortable circumstances. His son heads for the open lands, and becomes a wealthy landowner. The father accumulates the capital that the son invests. Neither the newcomer nor the native knows real poverty.

American law strongly encourages the division of property, but something more powerful than law prevents property from being divided to the point of uselessness. This is particularly clear in the more densely settled states. Massachusetts, the most populous part of the Union, has only eighty inhabitants per square mile — far fewer than France, which has 162. Yet in Massachusetts, estates are rarely divided. The eldest son takes the land, and the others go seek their fortunes on the frontier. The law has abolished primogeniture, but circumstances have effectively reinstated it in a form that nobody can object to and that violates no one's rights.

A single statistic illustrates the extraordinary number of people who leave New England for the frontier. In 1830, we were told that thirty-six members of Congress had been born in the small state of Connecticut. Connecticut's population was just one-forty-third of the nation's total, yet it had produced one-eighth of the entire body of representatives. But Connecticut itself sent only five delegates to Congress. The other thirty-one sat for the new Western states. If those thirty-one individuals had stayed in Connecticut, they would probably have remained modest laborers, lived in obscurity without any chance at public life, and far from becoming useful legislators, they might have been discontented citizens.

The Americans themselves understand this perfectly well. "It cannot be doubted," wrote Chancellor Kent in his treatise on American law, "that the division of landed estates must produce great evils when it is carried to such excess that each parcel of land is insufficient to support a family; but these disadvantages have never been felt in the United States, and many generations must elapse before they can be felt. The extent of our inhabited territory, the abundance of adjacent land, and the continual stream of emigration flowing from the shores of the Atlantic towards the interior of the country, suffice as yet, and will long suffice, to prevent the parcelling out of estates."

It's hard to overstate the eagerness with which Americans rush forward to seize the immense bounty that fortune holds out to them. In the pursuit, they fearlessly brave conflict with Indigenous peoples and the diseases of the forest. The silence of the woods doesn't intimidate them. The approach of wild animals doesn't slow them down. They are driven by a passion more intense than the love of life itself. Before them lies a boundless continent, and they push forward as if time were running out, as if they were afraid of finding no room. I've already described the emigration from the older states, but how can I capture the migration from the newer ones? Ohio has existed as a state for barely fifty years. Most of its residents weren't born there. Its capital was built only thirty years ago, and huge stretches of its territory are still uncultivated — yet the population of Ohio is already heading west. Most of the settlers pouring into the fertile prairies of Illinois are citizens of Ohio. These people left their first homes to improve their condition. They leave their second homes to improve it even more. Fortune awaits them everywhere, but happiness they can never quite catch. The desire for prosperity has become a burning, restless passion that only grows stronger with every success. They broke the bonds that tied them to their birthplace long ago and haven't formed new ones along the way. Emigration started as a necessity for survival and quickly became a kind of gambling — pursued as much for the thrill of the chase as for the rewards.

Sometimes human progress is so fast that the wilderness reappears behind the settlers. The forests bend to let them pass and spring back up once they're gone. It's not unusual, crossing the new Western states, to find abandoned homesteads in the middle of the wild — the remains of a log cabin in the most isolated places, testifying equally to the power and the restlessness of the human species. In these deserted fields, over these ruins of a single day, the primeval forest soon spreads its new growth. Animals reclaim their old territory. Nature covers the traces of the human path with branches and wildflowers, erasing the fleeting tracks.

I remember crossing one of the forested districts that still covered the state of New York and reaching the shores of a lake surrounded by woods as old as the world itself. A small island rose from the center of the water, its thick foliage hiding its banks. On the lakeshore, the only sign of human presence was a column of smoke on the horizon, rising from the treetops to the clouds — seeming to hang from heaven rather than climb toward it. A small boat was pulled up on the sand, and it tempted me to visit the island that had caught my eye. In a few minutes I set foot on its banks. The entire island was one of those exquisite solitudes of the New World that almost make a civilized person long for the life of the wilderness. Lush vegetation testified to the staggering fertility of the soil. The deep silence typical of the North American wild was broken only by the hoarse cooing of wood-pigeons and the tap of woodpeckers on bark. I was sure no one had ever lived here — nature seemed entirely left to her own devices. But when I reached the center of the island, I thought I noticed signs of human presence. I looked more carefully and soon confirmed that a European had once sought refuge in this spot. Yet how completely things had changed! The logs he had hastily chopped to build a shelter had sprouted new growth. The very support beams were woven through with living green, and his cabin had turned into a bower. Among the bushes I found a few stones, blackened by fire and dusted with thin ashes — a hearth, no doubt, its chimney long since collapsed into rubble. I stood for a long time in silent admiration of nature's abundance and the smallness of human effort. And when I finally had to leave that enchanting solitude, I said with a touch of sadness: "Are there already ruins here?"

In Europe, we tend to see restless ambition, an unlimited desire for wealth, and an excessive love of independence as dangerous tendencies. Yet these are the very qualities that ensure the long, peaceful survival of the American republics. Without these restless passions, the population would concentrate in certain areas and soon face the same scarcities as the Old World — scarcities that are hard to remedy. Such is the good fortune of the New World that the vices of its people are almost as useful to society as their virtues. These circumstances powerfully shape how human behavior is judged on each side of the Atlantic. What Americans proudly call industriousness, we would call greed. What we consider the virtue of moderate desires, they dismiss as timidity.

In France, simple tastes, orderly habits, domestic attachments, and the love people feel for the place where they were born are considered great guarantees of the nation's peace and happiness. But in America, nothing seems more harmful to society than these very virtues. The French Canadians, who have faithfully preserved the customs of their ancestors, are already running out of room in their small territory. This community, which has only recently come into existence, will soon face the problems of old nations. In Canada, the most enlightened, patriotic, and humane citizens make extraordinary efforts to convince the people to abandon the simple pleasures that still satisfy them. There, the rewards of wealth are promoted with the same fervor that the Old World uses to promote the charms of a modest but honest income. More effort goes into stirring up ambition in the Canadian public than goes into calming it elsewhere. According to these advocates, nothing is more praiseworthy than trading the pure, humble pleasures a poor person enjoys in his own country for the dull satisfactions of prosperity under a foreign sky — leaving the family hearth, leaving the ground where your ancestors are buried, abandoning the living and the dead in the pursuit of fortune.

Right now, America offers a field for human effort far vaster than any sum of labor that could be thrown at it. In America, knowledge can never be spread too widely, because all knowledge benefits not only the person who has it but also those who don't. New desires are nothing to fear, since they can be satisfied without difficulty. The growth of human passions is no threat, since every passion can find an easy and legitimate outlet. People can't be given too much freedom, since they are almost never tempted to misuse it.

The American republics of this era are like companies of adventurers formed to explore the empty lands of the New World together — enterprises engaged in a booming trade. The passions that stir Americans most deeply are not political but commercial. Or to put it more precisely, they bring the habits they develop in business into their political life. They love order, because without it business can't prosper. They prize steady, predictable behavior, which is the foundation of any solid enterprise. They prefer the common sense that builds large fortunes to the adventurous spirit that often squanders them. Big abstract ideas alarm their practical, numbers-oriented minds, and they value experience over theory.

It's in America that you truly learn to understand the influence material prosperity has over political behavior — and even over opinions that should answer to nothing but reason. This is especially visible among immigrants. Most of the Europeans who come to the New World carry with them the wild love of independence and upheaval that hardship tends to breed. I sometimes ran into Europeans in the United States who had been forced to leave their own countries because of their political views. They all amazed me with what they had to say, but one surprised me more than the rest. I was crossing one of the most remote parts of Pennsylvania when night fell and I had to ask for hospitality at the house of a wealthy landowner who turned out to be French by birth. He invited me to sit by his fire, and we began to talk with the openness that comes naturally when you meet a countryman in the backwoods, two thousand leagues from home. I knew my host had once been a fiery revolutionary and a radical democrat — and that his name was not unknown. So I was more than a little surprised to hear him discussing property rights like an economist or a landowner, speaking about the necessary distinctions that wealth creates among people, about obedience to established laws, about the influence of good morals on public life, and about the support that religion gives to order and freedom. He even went so far as to quote Scripture to back up one of his political arguments.

I listened and marveled at the weakness of human reason. A proposition is either true or false, but no amount of argument can prove it one way or the other amid the uncertainties of knowledge and the contradictory lessons of experience — until some new event clears away the fog. I was poor; then I got rich. Am I really supposed to believe that prosperity has no effect on my judgment, that it changes my circumstances but leaves my opinions untouched? My views shift with my fortunes, and the happy accident that works to my advantage suddenly provides me with the decisive argument I was missing before. Prosperity works even more freely on Americans than on immigrants, because Americans have always seen public order and public prosperity marching side by side before their eyes. They can't imagine one surviving without the other. They have nothing to unlearn. Unlike so many Europeans, they don't have to undo the lessons of their youth.

Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic — Part II

How the Laws Help Maintain Democracy in America

Three main factors sustain the democratic republic: the federal system, local government institutions, and the power of the judiciary.

The main goal of this book has been to explain the laws of the United States. If I've done my job, you're already able to judge for yourself which laws actually prop up the democratic republic and which threaten it. If the whole book hasn't made this clear, I can't hope to do it in a single chapter. I won't retrace ground I've already covered — a few lines will be enough to sum things up.

Three factors, in my view, contribute most powerfully to maintaining democracy in the United States.

The first is the federal system of government, which lets the Union combine the power of a great empire with the security of a small state.

The second is local government. Municipal institutions limit the tyranny of the majority while giving people a taste for freedom and teaching them the art of being free.

The third is the judicial system. I've already shown how the courts keep the excesses of democracy in check, steering and restraining the impulses of the majority without shutting down its energy.

How Customs and Habits Help Maintain Democracy in America

I noted earlier that the customs and habits of the people should be considered one of the major forces sustaining democracy in the United States. Here I should explain what I mean by that word. I'm using "customs" the way the ancients used the Latin word "mores." I'm not just talking about social manners in the narrow sense — the way people interact with each other. I'm extending it to the whole range of ideas, opinions, and beliefs that shape a people's character and outlook. By "customs," then, I mean the entire moral and intellectual condition of a society. My goal isn't to paint a full portrait of American customs, but simply to highlight the ones that help sustain their political institutions.

Religion as a Political Force: How It Helps Sustain Democracy in America

North America was settled by people who practiced a democratic and republican form of Christianity. Later came the Catholics — who, paradoxically, now form the most democratic and republican class in the country.

Every religion naturally aligns with a certain political outlook. If the human mind is left to follow its own instincts, it will try to bring its earthly institutions into harmony with its spiritual beliefs — to make the world it lives in match the world it hopes for after death. Most of British America was settled by people who, after throwing off the authority of the Pope, recognized no other religious hierarchy. They brought to the New World a form of Christianity that I can best describe as democratic and republican. This faith powerfully reinforced the establishment of democracy and republican government, and from the very beginning, politics and religion formed an alliance that has never been broken.

About fifty years ago, Ireland began pouring a Catholic population into the United States. At the same time, the Catholic Church in America was winning converts. Today more than a million Christians who follow the Church of Rome live in the Union. These Catholics are devoted to the practices of their religion — fervent and deeply committed to their beliefs. And yet they make up the most republican and democratic class of citizens in the United States. This might seem surprising at first, but the reasons become clear on reflection.

I think Catholicism has been wrongly viewed as the natural enemy of democracy. Among the various branches of Christianity, Catholicism actually seems to me one of the most favorable to social equality. In the Catholic Church, the religious community has only two elements: the priest and the people. The priest alone stands above the congregation, and everyone below him is equal.

On matters of doctrine, the Catholic faith puts all human beings on the same level. It holds the wise and the ignorant, the genius and the ordinary person, to the exact same creed. It imposes the same rituals on the rich and the poor, the same disciplines on the strong and the weak. It makes no deals with any mortal, reducing the entire human race to one standard and erasing all social distinctions at the foot of the same altar — just as those distinctions are erased in the sight of God. If Catholicism encourages obedience, it certainly doesn't encourage inequality. Protestantism, by contrast, generally tends to make people independent rather than equal.

Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy: remove the king, and everyone else is more equal than they would be in a republic. It's not uncommon for Catholic priests to leave the altar and enter the governing class, mixing with the social hierarchy. Sometimes this religious influence has been used to prop up whatever political order the priest belongs to. At other times, Catholics have sided with aristocracy out of religious conviction.

But the moment the priesthood is completely separated from the government — as it is in the United States — you find that no group is more naturally inclined than Catholics to carry the principle of equality into political life. Even if the nature of their faith doesn't actively push Catholic citizens toward democracy, it certainly doesn't oppose it. And their social position — mostly poor and a clear minority — pushes them in that direction. Most Catholics are not wealthy, and they have no shot at political power unless the government is open to all citizens. As a minority, they need all rights to be respected in order to secure their own freedom of worship. These two factors push them, almost unconsciously, toward democratic principles — principles they might support with less enthusiasm if they were rich and dominant.

The Catholic clergy in the United States have never tried to fight this political tendency. Instead, they've sought to justify its results. American priests have divided the intellectual world into two spheres: one where they place the doctrines of revealed religion, which demand their submission, and another where they leave questions of politics open to free inquiry. The result is that American Catholics are simultaneously the most faithful believers and the most engaged citizens.

In fact, no religious group in the United States shows the slightest hostility toward democratic and republican institutions. The clergy of every denomination speak the same language on this point. Their views are in harmony with the law, and the intellectual life of the nation flows in a single current.

I happened to be staying in one of the largest cities in the Union when I was invited to a public meeting called to support the Poles — to send them arms and money. I found two or three thousand people gathered in a vast hall. Before long, a priest in full clerical robes stepped to the front of the platform. The audience stood and removed their hats as he spoke:

"Almighty God! God of Armies! You who strengthened the hearts and guided the arms of our fathers when they fought for the sacred rights of national independence — You who made them triumph over hateful oppression and granted our people the blessings of freedom and peace — turn, O Lord, a favorable eye upon the other hemisphere. Look down with mercy upon that heroic nation now struggling, as we once did, for the same rights we defended with our blood. You who created humanity in the same image, do not let tyranny disfigure Your work or establish inequality upon the earth. Almighty God, watch over the destiny of the Poles and make them worthy of freedom. May Your wisdom guide their leaders and Your strength sustain their soldiers! Strike terror into their enemies, scatter the powers that conspire against them, and do not allow the injustice the world has witnessed for fifty years to reach its fulfillment in our time. O Lord, who holds the hearts of nations and of individuals alike in Your powerful hand, raise up allies for the sacred cause of justice. Rouse the French nation from the apathy in which its rulers keep it, so that it may go forth again to fight for the freedom of the world.

"Lord, do not turn Your face from us, and grant that we may always be the most religious as well as the freest people on earth. Almighty God, hear our prayers this day. Save the Poles, we ask You, in the name of Your beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation of humanity. Amen."

The entire crowd responded "Amen!" with deep feeling.

How Religion Indirectly Shapes American Political Life

Christian morality is shared by all sects. Religion shapes American social norms — especially respect for marriage. Religion limits the American imagination within certain boundaries and dampens the urge for radical change. Americans view religion as politically essential, and they work actively to extend and secure its influence.

I've just described religion's direct influence on American politics. But its indirect influence seems to me even more powerful, and religion teaches Americans the most about the art of being free precisely when it says nothing about freedom.

The number of religious denominations in the United States is staggering. They disagree on how to worship God, but they agree on the duties people owe to one another. Each denomination worships in its own way, but all preach the same moral law in the name of God. For an individual, it matters enormously whether their religion is true. For a society, though, it's less important. Society has no afterlife to hope for or fear. As long as citizens hold some religious faith, the specific doctrines matter very little to the public interest. And in any case, nearly all American denominations fall within the broad framework of Christianity, and Christian morality is the same everywhere.

Some Americans, it's fair to say, follow a particular form of worship more out of habit than deep conviction. In the United States, the prevailing culture is religious, and so hypocrisy is inevitable. But there is no country in the world where Christianity holds a stronger grip on people's souls than in America — and there can be no better proof of its usefulness, and of its harmony with human nature, than that its influence is greatest in the freest and most enlightened nation on earth.

I've observed that American clergy, across the board — even those who don't believe in religious liberty in principle — support civil freedom. But they don't back any particular political party. They stay away from parties and public affairs. In the United States, religion has little direct influence on specific laws or the details of public policy, but it shapes the social norms of the community. By regulating domestic life, it regulates the state.

I have no doubt that the strict social norms you find in the United States come, first and foremost, from religious faith. Religion often can't restrain people from the countless temptations of wealth, and it can't suppress the drive to get ahead that everything in American life encourages. But its hold over women is powerful, and women are the guardians of moral values. There is certainly no country in the world where the bond of marriage is more respected than in America, or where the happiness of married life is more deeply valued. In Europe, nearly all the disruptions of society arise from disorder in domestic life. When people scorn the natural bonds and legitimate pleasures of home, they develop a taste for excess, a restless heart, and the torment of constantly shifting desires. The European, agitated by the turbulent passions that often disrupt his household, chafes under the demands that government makes on him. But when the American steps away from the chaos of public life and returns to his family, he finds there a picture of order and peace. His pleasures are simple and natural, his joys innocent and calm. Finding that an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he naturally learns to moderate his opinions as well as his appetites. While the European tries to forget his domestic troubles by stirring up public life, the American draws from his own home that love of order he then carries into public affairs.

In the United States, religion's influence doesn't stop at shaping social behavior — it extends to shaping how people think. Among the Anglo-Americans, some profess Christianity out of sincere belief, and others do so because they're afraid of being suspected of unbelief. Christianity, therefore, reigns unopposed, by universal consent. The result, as I've noted before, is that every moral principle is fixed and settled, even though the political world is left open to debate and experimentation. The human mind is never allowed to wander across a limitless field. Whatever its ambitions, it hits barriers it cannot cross. Before anyone can push for radical innovation, certain fundamental and unchangeable principles are already in place, and the boldest ideas are forced through channels that slow them down and keep them in check.

The American imagination, even at its most ambitious, is cautious and restrained; its impulses are checked, its projects left incomplete. These habits of self-restraint carry over into political life, and they are remarkably favorable both to public peace and to the stability of American institutions. Nature and circumstances came together to make Americans a bold people — their adventurous pursuit of wealth proves that much. If their minds were free from all restraints, they would quickly become the most daring innovators and the most relentless debaters in the world. But American revolutionaries are forced to profess at least an outward respect for Christian morality and fairness, which makes it hard for them to violate the laws that stand in their way. And even if they could overcome their own scruples, they'd still struggle to overcome the scruples of their followers. So far, no one in the United States has dared to argue that anything is permissible in the name of the public interest — a dangerous slogan that seems designed to give cover to every future tyrant. So while the law allows Americans to do as they please, religion prevents them from imagining, and forbids them from carrying out, what is reckless or unjust.

Religion in America plays no direct role in governing. But it must still be considered the most important political institution in the country. It may not give people a taste for freedom, but it teaches them how to use free institutions. And this is exactly how Americans themselves view religion. I can't be sure every American sincerely believes in their faith — who can read the human heart? But I'm certain they consider it essential to maintaining a republic. This isn't the opinion of one class or one party; it belongs to the entire nation, at every level of society.

In the United States, if a politician attacks one particular denomination, even members of that denomination might still support him. But if he attacks all religions at once, everyone abandons him, and he finds himself completely alone.

While I was in America, a witness called to testify in a court in Chester County, New York, announced that he didn't believe in the existence of God or the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to accept his testimony, on the grounds that the witness had destroyed in advance any basis for the court to trust his word. The newspapers reported the fact without any additional comment.

Americans have fused the ideas of Christianity and freedom so completely in their minds that they can't conceive of one without the other. This isn't some inherited, half-dead faith that seems to merely exist in the soul rather than live in it.

I learned of organizations formed by Americans to send ministers into the new western states to found schools and churches there, so that religion wouldn't die out in those remote settlements and the new states would be just as capable of self-government as the ones that spawned them. I met wealthy New Englanders who had left the comfortable lives they'd built in order to plant the foundations of Christianity and freedom on the banks of the Missouri or in the prairies of Illinois. Religious zeal in America is constantly fueled by patriotism. These people don't act solely from hope of an afterlife — eternity is only one motive among several. Talk to these missionaries of Christian civilization and you'll be surprised at how much they value worldly success. Where you expected to find a priest, you find a political strategist. They'll tell you: "All the American republics are bound up with each other. If the western republics fall into chaos or under a despot's rule, the republican institutions thriving along the Atlantic coast would be in serious danger. It's in our interest that the new states be religious, so that we can keep our freedoms."

Those are the opinions of the Americans. And if anyone believes that this religious spirit I admire is actually America's biggest flaw — that the only thing humanity needs for freedom and happiness is some materialist philosophy, or to declare, like Cabanis, that the brain secretes thought the way the liver secretes bile — I can only say that those who talk this way have never been to America. They've never seen a nation that is both deeply religious and genuinely free. When they return from that trip, we can hear what they have to say.

There are people in France who view republican government as nothing more than a temporary means to power, wealth, and status — mercenaries of freedom who fight for their own advantage regardless of which flag they wave. I'm not talking to them. But there are others who genuinely look forward to republican government as a stable, lasting condition toward which modern society is being driven by the ideas and customs of the age — people who sincerely want to prepare their fellow citizens for freedom. When these people attack religious beliefs, they are following their passions at the expense of their interests. Authoritarianism can rule without faith, but freedom cannot. Religion is far more necessary in the kind of republic they dream of than in the monarchy they're trying to tear down. It's more necessary in democracies than in any other form of government. How can a society survive if the moral bonds holding it together aren't strengthened as the political ones loosen? And what can you do with a people that is its own master, if that people doesn't answer to God?

Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic — Part III

Why Religion Is So Powerful in America

Americans have been careful to separate church and state. The laws, public opinion, and the clergy themselves all work toward this end. Religion's influence on the American mind is directly tied to this separation. What is the natural state of people regarding religion today? What specific and accidental forces prevent some countries from reaching that state?

The philosophers of the eighteenth century had a simple explanation for the decline of religious faith: the more freedom and knowledge spread, they said, the more religious devotion would inevitably fade. Unfortunately, the facts don't match their theory. There are populations in Europe whose lack of faith is matched only by their ignorance and degradation, while in America, one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world, people fulfill all the outward duties of religious devotion.

When I first arrived in the United States, religion was the first thing that struck me. The longer I stayed, the more I recognized the enormous political consequences of this — something I simply wasn't used to. In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom running in opposite directions. But in America, I found them deeply intertwined, ruling together over the same country. My desire to understand why this was the case grew stronger every day. To satisfy it, I questioned members of every denomination. I especially sought out the clergy, who serve as the custodians of their various faiths and have the strongest stake in their survival. As a Roman Catholic myself, I was naturally drawn into contact with several Catholic priests, and I got to know some of them well. To each one I expressed my surprise and laid out my questions. I found that they disagreed only on minor details, and that they all attributed the peaceful reign of religion in their country to one thing: the separation of church and state. I can say without hesitation that during my entire stay in America, I did not meet a single person — clergy or layperson — who disagreed on this point.

This led me to look more closely at the role American clergy play in political life. I was surprised to learn that they held no public offices. Not one could be found in government administration, and they weren't even represented in the legislatures. In several states, the law actually bars them from political life; in all states, public opinion does. And when I looked into the prevailing attitude among the clergy, I found that most of them seemed to stay away from power voluntarily — they made it a point of professional pride to abstain from politics.

I heard them preach against ambition and dishonesty, regardless of which political camp those vices appeared in. But I learned from their sermons that in God's eyes, people aren't guilty for their sincere political opinions any more than they are for making mistakes in building a house or plowing a field. I could see that these ministers avoided all political parties with the kind of anxiety that comes from personal self-interest. These facts convinced me that what I'd been told was true. My next step was to figure out why — how was it that religion's real authority actually increased when its visible power was diminished? The answers didn't take long to find.

A lifespan of sixty-odd years can never satisfy the human imagination, and the imperfect joys of this world can never fill the human heart. Of all creatures, humans alone feel a natural contempt for mere existence — and yet an overwhelming desire to exist. We scorn life, but we dread annihilation. These conflicting feelings constantly push the soul toward thoughts of an afterlife, and religion gives those thoughts direction. Religion, then, is simply another form of hope, and it's no less natural to the human heart than hope itself. People cannot abandon religious faith without a kind of intellectual breakdown, a violent warping of their true nature. They are irresistibly drawn back to religious feeling, because unbelief is an accident and faith is the permanent condition of humanity. Even from a purely practical standpoint, religious institutions draw an inexhaustible source of strength from human nature itself, since they tap into one of our most fundamental impulses.

I'm well aware that religion can sometimes amplify this natural influence by borrowing the power of the state — by leaning on laws and government institutions for support. Religions that have formed tight alliances with political power have wielded enormous authority, drawing on both fear and faith. But when a religion makes this kind of deal, I believe it commits the same error as a person who sacrifices their future for present comfort. In seizing a power it has no right to, it puts at risk the authority that is rightfully its own. When religion builds its empire on the universal human desire for immortality, it can aspire to worldwide influence. But the moment it ties itself to a government, it must adopt principles that only apply to certain nations. By allying with political power, religion strengthens its hold over a few people — and forfeits its hope of reaching everyone.

As long as religion rests on those feelings that comfort people in their suffering, it can win universal affection. But when it gets mixed up with the bitter passions of politics, it may be forced to defend allies that self-interest — not love — has given it, or to treat as enemies people who still share its spirit but oppose the powers it has allied with. A church cannot share in the state's political power without also absorbing some of the hostility that the state provokes.

Political regimes that seem rock-solid often have no better guarantee of survival than the opinions of a single generation, the interests of the moment, or the life of one individual. A single law can transform what seemed like the most fixed social order, and when the social order changes, everything else changes with it. Political power is fleeting, like the years we spend on earth. Governments succeed one another rapidly, like the passing concerns of life, and no government has ever been built on an unchanging feature of the human heart or an indestructible interest.

As long as a religion is sustained by the feelings and instincts that appear in every era of human history, in the same basic form, it can defy time — or at least, only another religion can destroy it. But when religion clings to worldly interests, it becomes almost as fragile as the powers of this earth. It's the only institution that can hope for immortality. But if it ties itself to temporary authority, it shares that authority's fate and may be destroyed along with the passing passions that sustained it. The alliance religion forms with political power is always costly to religion, because it doesn't need political support to survive — and by offering that support, it exposes itself to decay.

The danger I've just described is always real, but it's not always equally visible. In some eras, governments seem eternal; in others, society itself looks more fragile than a human life. Some political systems lull citizens into a stupor; others whip them into a frenzy. When governments look strong and laws seem stable, people don't notice the dangers of merging church and state. When governments look weak and laws keep shifting, the danger is obvious — but by then it's too late to avoid it. You have to act before the threat arrives.

The more democratic a society becomes, the more dangerous it is to tie religion to political institutions. In a democracy, power is constantly changing hands, political theories replace one another, and people, laws, and constitutions appear and disappear or get overhauled, not just occasionally but constantly. Turmoil and instability are built into the nature of democratic republics, just as stagnation and inertia define absolute monarchies.

If the Americans — who change the head of government every four years, elect new legislators every two years, and replace local officials every year — if the Americans, who have left the political world open to every kind of reformer, had not placed religion beyond the reach of politics, where could it find shelter amid the ebb and flow of public opinion? How could it command respect in the middle of partisan battles? And what would happen to its claim of permanence in a world of perpetual change? The American clergy were the first to grasp this truth and act on it. They understood that they would have to give up their religious influence if they chased political power. They chose to abandon the support of the state rather than share in its ups and downs.

In America, religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been at certain moments in history. But its influence is more durable. It relies only on its own resources — and no one can take those away. Its sphere is limited to certain principles, but those principles are entirely its own, and it controls them completely.

All across Europe, people complain about the decline of religious faith and search for ways to restore some of religion's former power. It seems to me that we need to start by carefully considering what the natural state of people with respect to religion actually is today. Once we know what to hope for and what to fear, we can figure out where to direct our efforts.

The two great threats to any religion are division and indifference. In eras of passionate devotion, people sometimes abandon their faith — but only to adopt another one. Their faith changes its object but doesn't weaken. The old religion inspires either fierce loyalty or bitter hatred, but irreligion is unknown. That's not what happens, though, when religious belief is quietly undermined by negative doctrines — ideas that deny the truth of one religion without affirming any other. In these situations, enormous revolutions take place in the human mind, almost without the involvement of human passions and almost without people even noticing. They lose the things they once hoped for most, as if through simple forgetfulness. They're carried along by an invisible current they lack the courage to resist, drifting with regret away from a faith they love toward a skepticism that plunges them into despair.

In eras like this, people abandon their religious beliefs out of apathy rather than hostility. They don't reject them — the feelings that once nourished them simply evaporate. Even the unbeliever, though, still admits that religion is useful. Looking at religious institutions from a practical standpoint, he acknowledges their influence on social norms and legislation. He concedes that they help people live in peace with one another and prepare them gently for death. He mourns the faith he's lost. Having learned to appreciate its full value, he hesitates to strip it away from those who still have it.

On the other side, those who still believe aren't afraid to say so openly. They look on unbelievers more with pity than hostility, and they know that winning the respect of skeptics doesn't require following their example. They're hostile to no one. They don't see the world as an arena where religion must fight off a thousand enemies. They love their fellow citizens, even while they condemn their weaknesses and mourn their errors.

Since unbelievers hide their skepticism and believers display their faith, public opinion tips in religion's favor. Love, support, and respect flow toward it, and you have to search the depths of the human soul to find the wounds it has suffered. The great mass of people, who never entirely lose the religious instinct, don't notice anything that conflicts with the established faith. The innate longing for a life beyond this one draws the crowd to the altar and opens their hearts to religion's teachings and comforts.

But this picture doesn't apply to France. There, some have abandoned Christianity without adopting any other religion. Others are paralyzed by doubt and already pretend not to believe. Still others are afraid to publicly acknowledge the Christian faith they still hold in secret.

Among these lukewarm supporters and passionate opponents, a small number of true believers stand ready to brave every obstacle and scorn every danger in defense of their faith. They've overcome human weakness to rise above public opinion. But in the intensity of their struggle, they've lost their sense of proportion. Knowing that the first thing the French did with their freedom was to attack religion, they look at their contemporaries with dread. They recoil in alarm from the very freedom their fellow citizens are trying to win. Because unbelief seems to them a modern invention, they lump everything new together in one sweeping hostility. They're at war with their own time and country, and they treat every new idea as an enemy of the faith.

This is not the natural state of people when it comes to religion today. Something unusual, something accidental, must be at work in France — something driving the human mind past the limits where it would normally stop. I'm deeply convinced that this accidental force is the tight connection between politics and religion. European unbelievers attack Christians as political enemies rather than religious opponents. They hate the Christian religion as a partisan position more than as a set of false beliefs. They reject the clergy less because priests represent God than because they're allies of the people in power.

In Europe, Christianity has been intimately bound to the powers of the earth. Those powers are now in decline, and Christianity is buried, as it were, under their ruins. The living body of religion has been chained to the dead corpse of a decaying political order. Cut the chains that bind it, and what is alive will rise again. I don't know what could restore the European Church to its former energy — that power belongs to God alone. But it is within human power to leave faith free to exercise whatever strength it still has.

How Education, Habits, and Practical Experience Help Americans Sustain Their Democracy

What "education" means in the American context. Americans are less deeply educated than Europeans — but no one is completely uneducated. Why this is. The remarkable speed at which ideas spread even in the roughest western states. Practical experience is more useful to Americans than book learning.

I don't have much to add to what I've already said about how education and the habits of the American people help sustain their political institutions.

America has so far produced very few distinguished writers. It has no great historians and not a single major poet. Americans look at what we'd call literary pursuits with a kind of disapproval, and there are second-rate European towns that publish more books in a year than all twenty-four states combined. The American mind doesn't gravitate toward abstract ideas; it doesn't chase theoretical breakthroughs. Neither politics nor industry drives Americans in that direction. Although new laws are constantly being passed, no important writer has yet examined the general principles behind American legislation. Americans have lawyers and legal commentators, but no great legal theorists. They furnish examples to the world rather than lessons. The same goes for technology. Americans adopt European inventions with remarkable cleverness, perfecting and adapting them brilliantly to their own needs. They have manufacturing, but the science of manufacturing isn't cultivated. They have excellent workers, but very few inventors. Robert Fulton had to offer his services to foreign nations for years before he could put them to use in his own country.

If you want to understand the state of education in America, you have to look at it from two angles. Focus on the highly educated, and you'll be amazed at how rare they are. Count the completely ignorant, and the American people will look like the most enlightened population in the world. The whole population sits between these two extremes. In New England, every citizen picks up the basics of human knowledge. They're taught the doctrines and evidence of their religion, the history of their country, and the main features of the Constitution. In Connecticut and Massachusetts, it's extremely rare to find someone who doesn't know all these things, and a person who is wholly ignorant of them is a kind of freak.

When I compare the ancient Greek and Roman republics with these American states — the manuscript libraries of the ancients and their uneducated masses, versus the countless newspapers and enlightened citizens of the Americans — when I think about all the attempts people make to judge modern republics by ancient ones, using what happened two thousand years ago to predict what will happen now, I'm tempted to burn my books and apply nothing but fresh ideas to such a radically new condition of society.

What I've said about New England shouldn't be applied uniformly to the whole Union, though. As you move west or south, the level of public education drops. In the states along the Gulf of Mexico, you can find people who lack even the basics of education, just as you can in Europe. But there isn't a single district in the entire United States sunk in total ignorance — and for a simple reason. The peoples of Europe started in the darkness of barbarism and moved toward the light of civilization. Their progress has been uneven: some have advanced quickly, others have lagged behind, and some stopped and are still asleep along the road.

That's not what happened in America. The Anglo-Americans arrived in an already civilized state and settled the territory their descendants now occupy. They didn't have to start learning — they just had to avoid forgetting. And their children are the ones who, year after year, push their homes deeper into the wilderness, carrying with them the knowledge they've acquired and their respect for education. Learning taught them the value of education, and it enabled them to pass that value on to the next generation. In the United States, society was never in its infancy — it was born fully grown.

Americans never use the word "peasant," because they have no concept of the class that word describes. The ignorance of remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, the crudeness of the villager — none of this has been preserved among them. They're equally unfamiliar with the virtues, vices, rough habits, and simple graces of an early stage of civilization. At the far edges of the settled states, on the border between society and wilderness, a population of bold adventurers has made its home. They push into the solitude of the American forests, seeking new territory to escape the poverty that awaited them back east. As soon as a pioneer reaches the spot that will become his home, he chops down a few trees and builds a log cabin. Nothing looks more miserable than these isolated dwellings. A traveler approaching one at dusk sees the flicker of the hearth fire through the cracks in the walls. At night, if the wind rises, you hear the rough-hewn roof shaking among the great forest trees. You'd assume this poor hut shelters ignorance and crudeness. But don't confuse the pioneer with his dwelling. Everything around him is primitive and unfinished, but he himself is the product of eighteen centuries of labor and experience. He wears the clothes and speaks the language of cities. He knows the past, is curious about the future, and ready to argue about the present. He is, in short, a highly civilized person who has agreed, for a time, to live in the backwoods — and who plunges into the wilderness of the New World carrying a Bible, an axe, and a stack of newspapers.

It's hard to overstate how quickly public opinion travels through these remote areas. I traveled along a stretch of the American frontier in a kind of cart they called the mail coach. We raced day and night along barely marked roads through vast forests. When the darkness of the woods became impenetrable, the driver lit pine branches and we rode on by their light. Every now and then we'd reach a hut in the middle of the forest that served as a post office. The mail coach would drop an enormous bundle of letters at the door, and we'd gallop on, leaving the people in the surrounding log cabins to come collect their share. I don't think as much intellectual exchange takes place in the most educated and densely populated districts of France. There's no doubt that in the United States, public education powerfully supports democracy. And I believe this will always be the case, as long as the kind of education that sharpens the mind is not separated from the kind that strengthens moral character. But I don't want to overstate this point, and I'm far from believing, as many Europeans do, that you can instantly make citizens out of people by teaching them to read and write. True practical knowledge mostly comes from experience. If Americans hadn't gradually learned to govern themselves, all their book learning wouldn't do them much good today.

I've spent a great deal of time with ordinary Americans, and I can't say enough about their experience and good sense. An American should probably never be allowed to talk about Europe — he'll quickly display enormous presumption and remarkably foolish pride, relying on the same crude, vague generalizations that serve the ignorant everywhere. But ask him about his own country, and the fog lifts instantly. His language becomes as clear and precise as his thinking. He'll tell you exactly what his rights are and how he exercises them. He can explain how government administration works and how the laws are structured. The American citizen doesn't get this practical knowledge from books. His formal education may have prepared him to absorb these ideas, but it didn't supply them. The American learns the law by participating in making it. He learns how government works by governing. The great machinery of society is always running before his eyes and, as it were, under his hands.

In the United States, the whole point of education is politics. In Europe, the main goal is to prepare people for private life. Citizens in Europe so rarely participate in public affairs that it barely occurs to anyone to prepare for it. Glancing at the two societies, you can see the difference even in their outward appearance.

In Europe, we constantly bring the habits of private life into public affairs. Stepping straight from the living room to the halls of government, we often discuss the great interests of society the same way we chat with friends. Americans do the opposite: they bring the habits of public life into their private world. In their country, schoolchildren play at holding jury trials, and dinner parties follow parliamentary procedure.

Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining the Democratic Republic — Part IV

Laws Matter More Than Geography — but Customs Matter Most of All

Every nation in the Americas has a democratic social order, yet only the Anglo-Americans have sustained democratic institutions. The Spanish of South America, blessed with the same geographic advantages, have been unable to maintain a democratic republic. Mexico adopted the United States Constitution and ended up in the same predicament. Even the Anglo-Americans of the West are less able to sustain democracy than those of the East. Here is why.

I've argued that three factors sustain democratic institutions in the United States: the country's physical circumstances, its laws, and its customs. Most Europeans are only familiar with the first of these, and they tend to give it far more weight than it deserves.

It's true that the Anglo-Saxons who settled the New World arrived in a state of social equality. There were no commoners or nobles among them, and professional snobbery was as unknown as the prejudices of birth. Since social conditions were already democratic, democracy took root without difficulty. But this wasn't unique to the United States — nearly every colony in the Americas was founded by people who were equals, or who became equals once they arrived. Nowhere in the New World did Europeans manage to create an aristocracy. And yet democratic institutions flourish only in the United States.

The American Union has no enemies to worry about. It sits in the wilderness like an island in the ocean. But the Spanish of South America were just as isolated by nature, and that hasn't saved them from needing standing armies. They wage war on each other when they have no foreign enemies to fight. The Anglo-American democracy, until the Civil War, was the only one that managed to maintain itself in peace.

The territory of the Union offers a boundless field for human ambition and inexhaustible resources for industry and labor. The passion for wealth replaces political ambition, and the intensity of partisan conflict is tempered by a general sense of prosperity. But where on earth will you find more fertile plains, mightier rivers, or more unexplored riches than in South America? Yet South America has been unable to sustain democratic institutions. If national prosperity depended on nothing more than geographic isolation and vast open land, the Spanish of South America would have nothing to complain about. Even if they were less prosperous than the United States, their situation should still have been the envy of many European nations. Instead, no nations on earth are more miserable than those of South America.

So geography alone is not only unable to produce results comparable to those in North America — it can't even raise the populations of South America above the level of European countries where geography works against them. Physical circumstances, therefore, don't shape the destiny of nations nearly as much as people have assumed.

I met New Englanders who were about to leave a region where they could have lived in comfort, heading off to seek their fortune in the wilderness. Not far away, I found a French population in Canada, packed tightly onto a narrow strip of land, even though the same vast wilderness lay at their doorstep. The American emigrant bought a huge estate with the earnings of a few years' work. The Canadian paid as much for land as he would have in France. Nature offers the empty spaces of the New World to Europeans, but they don't always know how to take advantage of the gift. Other peoples of the Americas enjoy the same geographic blessings as the Anglo-Americans, but without their laws and customs — and those peoples are wretched. The laws and customs of the Anglo-Americans are therefore the real cause of their greatness, and that's what this whole inquiry is about.

I'm far from claiming that American laws are perfect in themselves. I don't think they'd work for all democracies, and several of them seem dangerous even in the United States. Still, you can't deny that American legislation, taken as a whole, is remarkably well suited to the character of the people and the nature of the country it governs. American laws are good, and a large share of democracy's success in America should be credited to them. But I don't believe the laws are the main reason for that success. If they seem to me to matter more than geography, there's still good reason to think their effect is less powerful than that of the people's customs and habits.

The federal laws are undoubtedly the most important part of American legislation. Mexico, which enjoys geographic advantages no less impressive than the Anglo-American Union's, adopted the same laws — but has been unable to make democracy work. Some other force must be at work, independent of geography and legal structure, that enables democracy to function in the United States.

Here's an even more striking proof. Nearly all the inhabitants of the Union are descended from the same stock. They speak the same language, worship God in the same way, are shaped by the same physical environment, and obey the same laws. So where do their differences come from? Why does republican government in the eastern states display vigor, regularity, and mature deliberation? Where does it get the wisdom and durability that mark its decisions? Meanwhile, in the western states, society seems ruled by chance. Public affairs are conducted with an irregularity and a feverish, passionate intensity that doesn't suggest anything built to last.

I'm no longer comparing Anglo-Americans to foreign nations here. I'm comparing them to each other, trying to figure out why they're so different. The usual explanations — geography and legislation — are off the table, since those are essentially the same. The only remaining explanation is the customs of the people.

It's in the eastern states that Anglo-Americans have been practicing democracy the longest and have developed the habits and ideas most favorable to sustaining it. Democracy has gradually seeped into their customs, their opinions, and their forms of social life. You can find it in all the details of daily existence, just as you can find it in the laws. In the eastern states, education and practical experience are the most advanced, and religion has been most thoroughly blended with freedom. These habits, opinions, customs, and convictions are exactly what I mean by "customs" — the moral and intellectual character of a people.

In the western states, by contrast, many of these advantages are still missing. A large number of westerners grew up in the woods, mixing the ideas and habits of frontier life with the civilization of their parents. Their passions are more intense, their religious values carry less weight, and their convictions are less settled. People exercise little control over their neighbors, because they barely know each other. The western states display, to a certain extent, the inexperience and rough habits of a society in its youth — even though their population is made up of old elements, their communities are newly formed.

The customs of the American people, then, are the real reason the United States is the only nation in the Americas that can sustain a democratic government. It's the influence of customs that produces the different levels of order and prosperity you can see across the various Anglo-American democracies. In short, the importance of geography in sustaining democracy is exaggerated in Europe. Too much credit is given to laws, and too little to customs. These three great forces — geography, laws, and customs — all help shape and direct American democracy. But if I had to rank them, I would say that geography matters less than laws, and laws matter far less than customs. I'm convinced that the best geographic position and the best possible laws can't sustain a political system if the customs of the people work against it — while strong customs can make the most unfavorable geography and the worst laws work to some advantage. The importance of customs is one of those truths that study and experience point to again and again. It's the central finding of all political observation, the place where every line of inquiry converges. I take this point so seriously that if I've failed to convince you that the practical experience, habits, opinions — in short, the customs — of the Americans are the main reason their institutions survive, then I've failed at the principal goal of this entire book.

Can Laws and Customs Sustain Democracy Outside of America?

If Anglo-Americans were transplanted to Europe, they'd have to significantly alter their laws. We must distinguish between democratic institutions in general and specifically American institutions. It's possible to imagine democratic laws that are better than — or at least different from — the ones America has adopted. The American example only proves that it's possible to manage democracy with the help of customs and laws.

I've argued that the success of American democracy is tied more closely to the country's laws and customs than to its geography. But does it follow that the same laws and customs would produce the same results elsewhere? If geography can't substitute for laws and customs, can laws and customs substitute for geography? Obviously, we don't have all the data we'd need for a complete answer. Other peoples in the New World share America's physical environment and can be compared to the Anglo-Americans. But outside the Americas, there are no nations that have adopted similar laws and customs while lacking America's geographic advantages. So we don't have a perfect test case and can only offer our best judgment.

First, it seems to me we need to carefully distinguish between the institutions of the United States specifically and democratic institutions in general. When I think about the state of Europe — its mighty nations, its huge cities, its formidable armies, and the complexity of its politics — I can't imagine that even Anglo-Americans, with their ideas, religion, and customs, could survive there without substantially changing their laws. But we can imagine a democratic nation organized differently from the American model. It's not impossible to conceive of a government genuinely based on majority rule where the majority, restraining its natural drive toward equality, would agree to invest a family or an individual with all the powers of the executive branch, for the sake of stability and order. You could have a democratic society where the nation's power is more centralized than in the United States, where the people exercise less direct influence over public affairs, and yet every citizen still holds certain rights and participates, within their own sphere, in governing. What I observed among the Anglo-Americans leads me to believe that democratic institutions of this kind, introduced gradually and carefully woven into the habits and beliefs of the people, could work in countries besides America. If America's laws were the only possible democratic laws, or the most perfect ones imaginable, then America's success would tell us nothing about whether democracy can work elsewhere. But since American laws seem to me flawed in several ways, and since I can easily imagine different democratic laws that might work just as well, America's particular geographic advantages don't prove that democracy can't succeed in less favored countries with better laws.

If human nature were different in America than elsewhere, or if the American social condition produced habits and ideas unlike those found in similar conditions in the Old World, American democracy would tell us nothing about what might happen in other democracies. But Americans display the same tendencies as every other democratic people. If their lawmakers had simply relied on geography and lucky circumstances to keep those tendencies in check, the prosperity of the United States would be attributable entirely to physical causes and would offer no encouragement to nations that want to follow their example without sharing their natural advantages. Neither of these scenarios is true.

In America, I found the same passions you find in Europe — some rooted in human nature, others in the democratic social condition itself. I found the restlessness that is natural to people when all ranks are nearly equal and everyone has the same chances of rising. I found the democratic feeling of envy expressed in a thousand different ways. I noticed that the people frequently displayed, in public affairs, a potent mix of ignorance and presumption. I concluded that Americans are just as susceptible to the same flaws and absurdities as we are. But when I looked more closely, I quickly discovered that Americans had made enormous and successful efforts to counteract these imperfections and correct the natural defects of democracy. Their various local laws seemed designed to restrain citizens' ambition within a narrow sphere and to channel passions that might have wrecked the state into productive work for the township or the parish. American lawmakers have managed, to a considerable extent, to pit the concept of individual rights against the feeling of envy; the permanence of the religious world against the constant shifting of politics; the practical experience of the people against their theoretical ignorance; and their hands-on knowledge of business against the impatience of their desires.

The Americans, then, haven't relied on geography to counterbalance the dangers built into their constitution and political laws. They've applied remedies to the problems common to all democracies — remedies no one else had thought of before. They were the first to try the experiment, and they've succeeded.

The specific laws and customs of the Americans aren't the only ones that could work for a democratic people. But the Americans have shown that it would be wrong to despair of governing democracy with the help of customs and laws. If other nations were to borrow this broad and powerful idea from the Americans — without necessarily copying the specific way they've applied it — and if they set about preparing themselves for the democratic social order that Providence seems determined to impose on this generation, in order to escape both authoritarianism and anarchy, what reason is there to think they would fail? The organization and establishment of democracy in the modern world is the great political problem of our time. The Americans haven't solved this problem, but they've provided invaluable data for those who want to try.

What All of This Means for Europe

It should be clear by now what I've been driving at. The question I've been exploring matters not just to the United States but to the entire world — not to one nation but to all of humanity. If democratic peoples could only remain free as long as they live in the wilderness, we'd have to despair of the human future, because democracy is spreading rapidly and the wilderness is filling up. If it were true that laws and customs weren't enough to sustain democratic institutions, what refuge would remain for nations other than the rule of a single dictator? I know there are well-meaning people today who aren't alarmed by that prospect — people so exhausted by freedom that they'd welcome the calm of authoritarianism, far from the storms that freedom brings. But these people don't understand where they're headed. They're deluded by nostalgia, judging absolute power by what it used to be rather than by what it could become today.

If absolute power were reestablished in the democratic nations of Europe, I'm convinced it would take a new form and display features unknown to our ancestors. There was a time in Europe when the laws and the consent of the people gave princes nearly unlimited authority — but they rarely used it. I'm not talking about the formal checks on power: the privileges of the nobility, the authority of the courts, the rights of chartered corporations, or the independence of provinces. All of these served to blunt the blows of royal authority and keep alive the spirit of resistance. But quite apart from these political institutions — which, even when they conflicted with personal freedom, still kept the love of freedom alive in the public mind — the customs and beliefs of the nation confined royal power within barriers that were less visible but no less powerful. Religion, the affection of the people, the goodwill of the prince, the sense of honor, family pride, local traditions, custom, and public opinion — all of these limited the power of kings and kept their authority inside an invisible circle. In those days, the constitution of nations was authoritarian, but their customs were free. Princes had the right to do whatever they pleased, but they lacked both the means and the desire to do it.

What's left of those barriers now? Since religion has lost its hold over people's souls, the clearest boundary between good and evil has been erased. The very foundations of the moral world have become uncertain. Rulers and citizens alike are guided by chance, and no one can say where the demands of power end and the boundaries of freedom begin. Long revolutions have destroyed the respect that once surrounded heads of state. Stripped of public esteem, rulers now surrender without hesitation to the temptations of unchecked power.

When kings know their subjects love them, they can afford to be generous, because they're confident of their strength. They treasure the affection of their people because that affection is the foundation of the throne. A mutual exchange of goodwill between ruler and people resembles the warmth of a family. Subjects may grumble about the king's decisions, but they're sorry to displease him. And the king disciplines his subjects with the light hand of a parent.

But once the spell of monarchy is broken in the chaos of revolution — once a series of rulers have crossed the throne, alternately revealing the weakness of their claim and the harshness of their rule — the ruler is no longer seen as a father of the nation. He is feared as its master. If he is weak, he is despised. If he is strong, he is hated. He himself is full of hostility and fear. He feels like a stranger in his own country and treats his subjects like a conquered people.

When provinces and towns were like separate nations within a common country, each had its own identity and will, and this diversity resisted the general spirit of submission. But now that every part of the same empire — having lost its special privileges, customs, traditions, and even its name — is subject to the same laws and accustomed to the same authority, it's no harder to oppress them all at once than it used to be to oppress them one at a time.

While the nobility held power, and even long after they'd lost it, the code of aristocratic honor gave individuals an extraordinary strength in opposing authority. You could find people who, despite their personal weakness, still thought highly enough of themselves to stand alone against the force of the state. But today, when all classes are increasingly blended together, when the individual disappears into the crowd and is easily lost in the common anonymity, when the prestige of monarchy is almost gone without being replaced by public virtue, and when nothing enables a person to rise above the mass — who can say where the demands of power and the submission of weakness will stop?

As long as family bonds held strong, the person who resisted oppression was never alone. He could look around and find his dependents, his hereditary friends, and his relatives. If they were gone, his ancestors sustained him and his descendants gave him purpose. But when family estates are broken up and a few years are enough to erase the distinctions of a lineage, where can family loyalty be found? What force can custom have in a country that keeps changing and never stops changing — where every act of tyranny has a precedent and every crime has an example, where nothing is so old that its age can protect it and nothing so unprecedented that its novelty can prevent it? What resistance can be offered by social norms so flexible that they've already bent countless times? What strength can public opinion have when no twenty people are connected by a shared bond — when not a single individual, family, chartered organization, class, or free institution has the power to represent or express that opinion — when every citizen, equally weak, equally poor, and equally dependent, has nothing but his personal powerlessness to oppose the organized force of the government?

There's nothing in French history comparable to the condition the country might reach. But we can find parallels in ancient Rome — those hideous eras of Roman oppression when the people's morals were corrupted, their traditions destroyed, their habits shattered, and their beliefs shaken; when freedom, expelled from the laws, could find no refuge anywhere in the land; when nothing protected the citizens and the citizens no longer protected themselves; when human nature was a plaything and rulers exhausted the patience of heaven before they exhausted the patience of their subjects. Anyone who hopes to restore the monarchy of Henry IV or Louis XIV is, in my view, afflicted with political blindness. Considering the current trajectory of several European nations — a trajectory all the others seem to be following — I believe they will soon face a stark choice: democratic freedom or the tyranny of the Caesars. A prediction that Tocqueville wrote in 1832, which was realized to the letter when Napoleon III seized power in France in 1852.

And it's worth considering: if people must be either completely free or completely enslaved — if their rights must be made equal or taken away entirely — wouldn't that resolve many people's doubts, ease many consciences, and prepare society to make great sacrifices with less difficulty? In that case, the gradual growth of democratic customs and institutions shouldn't be seen as the best option, but as the only way to preserve freedom. You might not love democratic government, but it might be the most practical and the fairest remedy available for the ills of the present.

It's hard to get a people involved in the work of governing. It's even harder to give them the experience and instill the values they need to govern well. I admit that democracy's impulses are erratic, its tools are crude, and its laws are imperfect. But if it's true that soon there will be no middle ground between majority rule and one-man rule, shouldn't we lean toward the former rather than submit willingly to the latter? And if complete equality is our destiny, isn't it better to be leveled by free institutions than by authoritarian power?

Anyone who reads this book and thinks my purpose was to recommend American laws and customs for every democratic nation to copy would be making a serious mistake. They'd be paying more attention to the form of my ideas than to their substance. My goal has been to show, through the example of America, that laws — and especially customs — can allow a democratic people to remain free. But I'm very far from thinking we should copy the American model and use the same methods to reach the same ends. I'm well aware of how much a country's geography and political history shape its institutions. I would consider it a great misfortune for humanity if freedom existed everywhere in exactly the same form.

But I do believe this: if we don't succeed in gradually establishing democratic institutions in France, and if we give up on teaching citizens the ideas and values that first prepare them for freedom and then allow them to enjoy it, there will be no independence for anyone — not for the middle class, not for the nobility, not for the poor, not for the rich — but an equal tyranny over all. And I foresee that if the peaceful rule of the majority isn't established among us in time, we will sooner or later arrive at the unlimited power of a single despot.

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races in the United States — Part I

The Present and Likely Future of the Three Races Living in the United States

The main task I set for myself is now essentially done. I've laid out, as best I could, the laws and customs of American democracy. I could stop here — but the reader would probably feel I'd left something out.

Democracy isn't the only thing you encounter in America. The inhabitants of the New World can be viewed from more than one angle. Throughout this work, my subject has often led me to mention Native Americans and Black Americans, but I've never been able to pause and show what place these two groups occupy in the midst of the democratic society I was describing. I explained the spirit and the laws behind the formation of the Anglo-American Union, but I could only glance at the dangers threatening that confederation. I couldn't give a detailed account of its chances for survival, independent of its laws and customs. When discussing the united republican states, I offered no predictions about the permanence of republican government in the New World. And when frequently noting the commercial energy that drives the Union, I couldn't explore the future of Americans as a commercial people.

These topics are connected to my subject without being part of it. They are American without being specifically about democracy — and portraying democracy has been my central aim. So I had to set these questions aside, and I take them up now as the natural conclusion of my work.

The territory now occupied or claimed by the American Union stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific. East and west, its boundaries are those of the continent itself. To the south it reaches nearly to the tropics; to the north it extends into the icy Arctic regions. The people scattered across this vast space don't form, as in Europe, branches of the same family tree. Three naturally distinct races — I might almost say hostile to each other — are visible at first glance. Nearly insurmountable barriers have been raised between them by education, by law, by their origins, and by their physical characteristics. But fate has brought them together on the same soil where, although they are mixed, they do not blend, and each race pursues its destiny apart.

Among these vastly different groups, the first to attract attention — superior in intelligence, power, and material comfort — is the white European, the dominant figure. Below him, in subordinate positions, stand the Black American and the Native American. These two suffering groups have nothing in common: not birth, not physical features, not language, not customs. Their only resemblance lies in their misfortunes. Both occupy an inferior rank in the country they inhabit; both suffer from tyranny. And if their wrongs are not identical, they originate with the same authors.

If we judge by what we see in the world, we might almost say that the European is to other races what humans are to animals — he forces them to serve his purposes, and when he cannot subjugate them, he destroys them. Oppression has, in a single stroke, stripped the descendants of Africans of almost every privilege of humanity. The Black American in the United States has lost all memory of his homeland. The language his ancestors spoke is never heard around him. He abandoned their religion and forgot their customs when he was torn from Africa, without gaining any claim to European privileges. He remains suspended between two worlds — sold by the one, rejected by the other — finding no place in the universe he can call home, except the faint image of a home provided by his master's roof.

The Black man has no family. A woman is merely the temporary companion of his pleasures, and his children are on the same level as himself from the moment of their birth. Should I call it a proof of God's mercy or a curse of His wrath that a person in certain conditions seems numb to his own extreme misery, and almost develops a twisted attachment to the cause of his suffering? The Black American, plunged into this abyss of horrors, barely feels his own catastrophic situation. Violence made him a slave, and the habit of servitude has given him the thoughts and desires of a slave. He admires his oppressors more than he hates them, and finds his joy and his pride in the servile imitation of those who crush him. His mind has been degraded to the level of his condition.

The Black person enters slavery the moment he is born — no, he may have been purchased in the womb and begun his slavery before he began his existence. Equally without wants and without pleasures, useless to himself, he learns with his first conscious thoughts that he is the property of another person who has an interest in keeping him alive, and that taking care of himself is not his concern. Even the ability to think seems to him a useless gift from God, and he quietly accepts the routines of his degradation. If he becomes free, independence often feels like a heavier burden than slavery. Having learned throughout his life to submit to everything except reason, he is too unfamiliar with reason's demands to follow them. A thousand new desires overwhelm him, and he lacks the knowledge and energy to resist them — these are masters he must contend with, and he has learned only to submit and obey. In short, he sinks to such depths of misery that while slavery brutalizes him, freedom destroys him.

[The passage above reflects Tocqueville's 1830s perspective on the psychological devastation of slavery. His observations about what oppression does to people are incisive, but his framing sometimes conflates the damage done by the system with the nature of those trapped within it.]

Oppression has been no less fatal to Native Americans than to Black Americans, but its effects are different. Before white settlers arrived in the New World, the inhabitants of North America lived quietly in their forests, enduring the hardships and practicing the virtues and vices common to pre-industrial societies. The Europeans, having scattered the Native tribes and driven them into the wilderness, condemned them to a wandering life full of inexpressible suffering.

These Indigenous nations were governed by tradition and custom. When the Native Americans of North America lost their attachment to their homeland — when their families were scattered, their traditions obscured, and the chain of their collective memory broken — when all their habits were changed and their needs multiplied beyond measure — European tyranny made them more disorderly and less stable than they had been before. Their moral and physical condition deteriorated constantly, and they became more desperate as they became more impoverished. Yet the Europeans have never been able to transform the character of the Native peoples. Though they had the power to destroy them, they have never been able to make them submit to the rules of European civilization.

The Black American's fate lies at the extreme edge of servitude, while the Native American's lies at the furthest edge of freedom. Slavery produces no more destructive effects on the one than independence does on the other. The Black man has lost all ownership of his own person — he cannot end his own existence without committing a kind of theft. But the Native American is his own master from the moment he can act. Parental authority is barely known to him. He has never bent his will to anyone, never learned the difference between voluntary obedience and shameful subjection. The very concept of law is unknown to him. To be free, for him, means to escape every constraint of society. Since he cherishes this fierce independence, and would rather die than sacrifice the smallest part of it, European civilization has little hold on him.

The Black American makes a thousand futile efforts to join a society that rejects him. He adopts the tastes of his oppressors, takes on their opinions, and hopes by imitating them to become part of their community. Having been told from infancy that his race is naturally inferior to that of whites, he accepts the claim and is ashamed of his own identity. In every one of his features he discovers a mark of slavery, and if he could, he would willingly rid himself of everything that makes him who he is.

The Native American, by contrast, inflates his imagination with the supposed nobility of his origins and lives and dies in the grip of that proud dream. Far from wanting to conform to European habits, he loves his traditional way of life as the distinguishing mark of his race. He resists every step toward European civilization — perhaps less from hatred of it than from a fear of resembling Europeans. While he has nothing to oppose to European mastery of technology except the resources of the wilderness, nothing to match European military tactics except raw courage, and nothing to counter European strategic planning except the instincts of a traditional way of life, is it any wonder he fails in this unequal contest?

[Tocqueville adds an anecdote: During the summer of 1831, he was beyond Lake Michigan at a place called Green Bay, on the frontier between the United States and Native territory. An American officer, Major H., told him about a young Native man who had been educated at a college in New England, where he had distinguished himself and acquired all the outward marks of a civilized gentleman. When the War of 1812 broke out, the young man returned to serve in the American army at the head of his tribe's warriors. The agreement was that the Native fighters would not practice their traditional custom of scalping enemies. But after the battle, the young man sat by the campfire, and growing excited as he recounted the day's events, suddenly opened his coat and said, "You must not betray me — see here!" Between his body and his shirt was the scalp of a British soldier, still dripping with blood.]

The Black American, who desperately wants to merge with European society, cannot achieve it. The Native American, who might succeed to some degree, refuses to try. The servility forced on one dooms him to slavery; the pride of the other dooms him to death.

I remember that while I was traveling through the forests that still covered the state of Alabama, I arrived one day at the log cabin of a pioneer. I didn't go into the settler's house, but went to rest for a while by a spring not far off in the woods. While I was sitting there — near Creek territory — a Native American woman appeared, followed by a Black woman, and holding by the hand a little white girl of five or six, whom I took to be the pioneer's daughter. A kind of rough magnificence decorated the Native woman: metal rings hung from her nose and ears, her hair was adorned with glass beads and fell loosely on her shoulders, and I could see she was unmarried, because she still wore the shell necklace that a bride traditionally sets aside on her wedding night. The Black woman was dressed in ragged European clothes. All three came and sat down by the spring. The young Native woman took the child in her arms and lavished on her the kind of tender caresses that mothers give, while the Black woman tried through little gestures to attract the young girl's attention.

The child displayed in her smallest movements a sense of superiority that formed a strange contrast with her infant helplessness — as if she received the attention of her companions with a kind of condescension. The Black woman sat on the ground before her little mistress, watching her smallest wishes, apparently torn between deep affection for the child and servile fear. The Native woman, even in the midst of her tenderness, showed an air of freedom and pride that was almost fierce. I had come closer to the group and was watching them in silence, but my curiosity must have bothered the Native woman, because she suddenly stood up, pushed the child away roughly, gave me an angry look, and disappeared into the woods. I had often happened to see people from the three races of North America gathered in the same place. I had observed in many contexts the dominance of whites. But in the scene I've just described, there was something uniquely moving: a bond of affection united the oppressors with the oppressed, and nature's effort to bring them together made the immense distance placed between them by prejudice and law all the more striking.

The Present and Likely Future of the Native American Tribes on United States Territory

The gradual disappearance of the Native tribes — how it happens — the suffering that accompanies forced migrations — North America's Indigenous peoples had only two paths to survival: war or assimilation into European civilization — they can no longer make war — why they refused to adopt European ways when they could have, and why they can't now that they want to — the example of the Creeks and Cherokees — the policy of individual states toward these peoples — the policy of the federal government.

None of the Native tribes that once inhabited New England — the Narragansetts, the Mohicans, the Pequots — exist anymore except in memory. The Lenape, who welcomed William Penn on the banks of the Delaware a hundred and fifty years ago, have vanished. I myself met the last of the Iroquois, who were begging for money on the street. The nations I've just mentioned once covered the entire Atlantic seaboard, but a traveler today would have to go more than three hundred miles into the interior of the continent to find a Native American. Not only have these peoples retreated — they have been destroyed. And as they disappear, an immense and growing population fills their place. There is no recorded example of such extraordinary growth, or such rapid destruction. How this destruction happens is not hard to describe.

When Native Americans were the sole inhabitants of the wilderness from which they have since been expelled, their needs were few. Their weapons were handmade, their only drink was water from the brook, and their clothes were the skins of animals whose flesh also provided their food.

Europeans introduced firearms, alcohol, and iron among the Native peoples. They taught them to trade their rough but adequate clothing for manufactured goods. Having acquired new tastes without the skills to satisfy them, the Native Americans had to rely on European craftsmanship. But in return for these manufactured goods, they had nothing to offer except the rich furs that still filled their forests. Hunting therefore became necessary not just for survival, but to produce the only trade goods they could offer to Europeans. And so while the needs of the Native peoples kept increasing, their resources kept shrinking.

The moment a European settlement is established near territory occupied by Native Americans, the wild game takes alarm. Thousands of Indigenous people, wandering through the forests without permanent homes, had not disturbed the animals. But as soon as the steady sounds of European labor are heard nearby, the animals begin to flee westward, guided by instinct toward the immeasurable wilderness beyond. "The buffalo is constantly receding," wrote Clarke and Cass in their 1829 report to Congress. "A few years ago they grazed at the base of the Alleghenies; a few years from now they may be rare even on the immense plains stretching to the Rocky Mountains." I was told that this effect of white settlement is often felt two hundred leagues from the frontier. The influence of European settlers reaches tribes whose names are unknown to them — peoples who suffer the consequences of encroachment long before they learn who is causing their distress.

[Volney, writing in the 1790s, noted that just five years earlier, a traveler crossing the prairies of what is now Illinois could see herds of four to five hundred buffalo. By the time he wrote, there were none left: "They swam across the Mississippi to escape from the hunters, and especially from the bells of the American cows."]

Bold pioneers soon move into the territory that Native Americans have abandoned. Once they've advanced fifteen or twenty leagues beyond the frontier, they begin building homes for settlers in the middle of the wilderness. This happens easily, because the territory of a hunting people is loosely defined — it's the common property of the tribe and belongs to no one individually, so no one has a personal stake in defending any particular part of it.

A few European families, settling in scattered locations, soon drive away whatever wild animals remain in the area. The Native Americans, who had previously lived in a kind of plenty, then find it hard to survive, and even harder to produce the trade goods they need.

Destroying their game is as effective as striking a farmer's fields with blight — it deprives them of their means of existence. They are reduced, like starving wolves, to prowling through forsaken woods in search of prey. Their instinctive love of homeland ties them to the land where they were born, even after it yields nothing but suffering and death. At last they are forced to give in and leave. They follow the trails of the elk, the buffalo, and the beaver, letting these wild animals guide them toward their next home. So technically speaking, it is not the Europeans who drive away the original inhabitants of America — it is famine that forces them to retreat. A convenient distinction that escaped earlier commentators, and for which we have modern ingenuity to thank!

[Clarke and Cass noted in their report to Congress: "The Indians are attached to their country by the same feelings which bind us to ours. Besides, there are certain sacred traditions connected with the land the Great Spirit gave their ancestors, which weigh heavily on tribes that have made few or no land cessions. 'We will not sell the spot which contains the bones of our fathers' is almost always the first response to any proposal for a sale."]

It's impossible to overstate the suffering that accompanies these forced migrations. The people undertaking them are already exhausted and diminished. The lands they flee to are inhabited by other tribes who receive them with hostile jealousy. Hunger is behind them; war awaits them; misery besieges them on every side. Hoping to escape this army of enemies, they scatter, and each person tries to survive alone and in secrecy, living in the immensity of the wilderness like an outcast in civilized society. The social bonds that hardship had already weakened are then dissolved entirely. They have lost their homeland, and their own people soon abandon them. Their very family lines are erased; the names they shared are forgotten; their language dies out; and all traces of their origins disappear. Their nation ceases to exist except in the memory of American antiquarians and a few European scholars.

I would hate for my reader to think I'm exaggerating. I saw with my own eyes several of the cases of suffering I've been describing, and I witnessed miseries that I don't have the power to convey in words.

At the end of 1831, while I was on the east bank of the Mississippi at a place the Europeans called Memphis, a large group of Choctaw arrived. These people had left their homeland and were trying to reach the west bank of the Mississippi, where the American government had promised them a refuge. It was the middle of winter, and the cold was unusually severe. The snow was frozen hard on the ground, and the river was choked with huge blocks of ice. The Choctaw had their families with them, and they brought along the wounded and the sick, along with newborn children and old people on the verge of death. They had no tents and no wagons — only their weapons and some provisions. I watched them board the boats to cross the great river, and that solemn scene will never fade from my memory. No cry, no sob rose from the assembled crowd. All were silent. Their suffering was ancient, and they knew it was beyond remedy. The Choctaw had all climbed into the boat that would carry them across, but their dogs stayed behind on the bank. As soon as these animals realized their masters were truly leaving the shore, they set up a dismal howl and, plunging together into the icy waters of the Mississippi, swam after the boat.

The expulsion of Native Americans often takes place today in a regular and even quasi-legal manner. When the white population begins to approach the territory inhabited by a Native tribe, the United States government typically sends envoys who assemble the people in a large clearing. After eating and drinking with them, the envoys address them like this: "What do you have left in the land of your fathers? Soon you'll have to dig up their bones just to survive. Is the country you live in really better than any other? Aren't there woods, marshes, and prairies somewhere else? Can you only live under this particular sun? Beyond those mountains on the horizon, beyond the lake that borders your land to the west, there are vast regions where game is still plentiful. Sell us your land and go live happily in those wide-open spaces." After delivering this speech, they spread out before the eyes of the assembled people: firearms, woolen blankets, kegs of brandy, glass bead necklaces, cheap bracelets, earrings, and mirrors. If, after seeing all these riches, they still hesitate, it is hinted that they don't really have the option of refusing — and that the government itself won't be able to protect their rights much longer. What are they to do? Half persuaded and half coerced, they go to settle in new wilderness — where the relentless whites will not leave them in peace for ten years. In this way the Americans acquire, at a very low price, entire provinces that the richest kings of Europe could not afford to purchase.

[The prices paid were staggering in their disproportion. In 1808, the Osage gave up 48 million acres for an annual payment of $1,000. In 1818, the Quapaw ceded 29 million acres for $4,000. They reserved a million acres as hunting ground, and solemn oaths were taken that it would be respected — but before long it was invaded like the rest. As one Congressional report acknowledged with remarkable candor, the practice of buying Native titles was merely "the substitute which humanity and expediency have imposed, in place of the sword."]

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races in the United States — Part II

These are terrible realities, and I must add that they seem to me irreversible. I believe the Native American nations of North America are doomed to perish, and that when Europeans have settled the shores of the Pacific Ocean, that race will be no more. Native peoples had only two alternatives: war or civilization — in other words, they had to either destroy the Europeans or become their equals.

[This view was shared by almost all American statesmen. "Judging the future by the past," wrote Mr. Cass, "we cannot err in anticipating a progressive decline in their numbers, and their eventual extinction, unless our frontier should stop expanding and they be placed beyond it — or unless some radical change should take place in the principles of our dealings with them, which it is easier to hope for than to expect."]

In the early days of colonization, the Native peoples might have been able to unite their forces and drive off the small groups of strangers landing on their continent. They tried several times and nearly succeeded. But the gap between their resources and those of the whites is now far too wide for any such attempt. Still, from time to time there arise among the Native Americans leaders of real vision who foresee the final fate awaiting their people and try to unite all the tribes in common resistance to the Europeans. But their efforts fail. The tribes closest to the whites are too weakened to mount an effective defense, while the rest — surrendering to the careless disregard for the future that characterizes traditional societies — wait until danger is almost upon them before preparing to face it. Some are unable to act; others are unwilling.

It's easy to predict that the Native Americans will never fully adopt European civilization — or that when they finally try, it will be too late.

Civilization is the product of a long social process that takes place in one location and is passed from one generation to the next, each building on the experience of its predecessors. Of all peoples, those who live by hunting adapt to settled civilization with the greatest difficulty. Nomadic herding peoples often change their location, but they follow regular patterns in their migrations and frequently return to the same places. The hunter's dwelling, by contrast, moves with the animals he pursues.

Several attempts have been made to bring European knowledge to the Native Americans without curbing their nomadic ways — by the Jesuits in Canada and by the Puritans in New England. None of these efforts produced lasting results. Civilization took root in the cabin but quickly retreated to die in the woods. The fundamental mistake these would-be reformers made was failing to understand that to civilize a nomadic people, you first have to make them settle down — and you can't do that without teaching them agriculture. The Native Americans needed to be introduced to farming first. But not only did they lack this essential foundation of European-style civilization; they would have had enormous difficulty acquiring it. People who have given themselves over to the restless, adventurous life of the hunter feel an overwhelming disgust for the constant, routine labor that farming requires. We see this even within our own society, but it's far more powerful among peoples whose devotion to hunting is part of their national identity.

Beyond this general difficulty, there is another that applies specifically to Native Americans: they regard manual labor not merely as a burden, but as a disgrace. Their pride prevents them from adopting European ways just as much as their resistance to settled work.

[As Volney observed: "In all the tribes there still exists a generation of old warriors who, whenever they see their countrymen using the hoe, cry out against the degradation of ancient customs, insisting that their people owe their decline to such innovations and need only return to their original ways to recover their power and glory."]

There is no Native American so destitute that he doesn't maintain, under his bark shelter, a lofty sense of his own worth. He sees farming and manual labor as degrading occupations. He compares the farmer to the ox that drags the plow. Even in our most sophisticated craftsmanship, he sees nothing but the labor of slaves. It's not that he lacks admiration for the power and intellectual achievement of white people — the results of our efforts genuinely astonish him. But he despises the means by which we obtain them. While acknowledging white dominance, he still believes in his own superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits that seem to him worthy of a man. The Native American, in the solitude of his forests, holds the same ideas and opinions as the medieval nobleman in his castle — and he would only need to become a conqueror to complete the resemblance. So, strange as it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World, and not among the Europeans who line its coasts, that the old prejudices of Europe still survive.

[An official document describes the culture: "Until a young man has fought an enemy and performed some act of valor, he earns no respect and is barely regarded. In their great war dances, warriors take turns striking the post and recounting their exploits. The audience — kinsmen, friends, and comrades — listens with profound, silent attention, then erupts in loud shouts at the end. A young man at such a gathering who has nothing to recount is deeply unhappy; and it has sometimes happened that young warriors, inflamed by the occasion, have left the dance abruptly and gone off alone to seek trophies they could exhibit and adventures they could tell."]

Throughout this work, I've tried to show the enormous influence that social conditions seem to have on the laws and customs of a people. Let me add a few more words on this subject.

When I notice the resemblance between the political institutions of our Germanic ancestors and those of the wandering tribes of North America — between the customs described by Tacitus and those I've sometimes witnessed firsthand — I can't help thinking that the same causes have produced the same results in both hemispheres. Beneath the apparent diversity of human affairs, a certain number of fundamental patterns can be found from which everything else flows. What we usually call "Germanic institutions" I'm inclined to see as simply the habits of tribal societies. And what we dignify as "feudal principles" look to me like the opinions of any people living outside organized states.

However strong the resistance of North American Native peoples to agriculture and European civilization, necessity sometimes forces the issue. Several Southern nations, including the Cherokees and the Creeks, found themselves surrounded by Europeans who had landed on the Atlantic coast and were simultaneously descending the Ohio and ascending the Mississippi. These tribes were not driven from place to place like their Northern relatives. Instead, they were gradually hemmed in — like game enclosed in a thicket before the hunters plunge into the interior. Caught between civilization and death, they were forced to take up farming as the whites did. They adopted agriculture and, without entirely abandoning their old customs, sacrificed just enough of them to survive.

[In 1830, the remnants of the four great Southern nations — the Choctaw, the Chickasaw, the Creek, and the Cherokee — numbered about 75,000 individuals. By the 1870 census, the total Native American population of the entire United States had been reduced to just 25,731.]

The Cherokees went further than any other tribe. They created a written language and established a permanent form of government. And because everything moves fast in the New World, before all of them even had clothes, they had launched a newspaper.

[Tocqueville adds: "I brought back to France one or two copies of this remarkable publication."]

The adoption of European habits was greatly accelerated among these peoples by people of mixed heritage. Drawing intelligence from their fathers' side without entirely losing the traditional customs of their mothers, they formed a natural bridge between the two worlds. Wherever this mixed population grew, traditional ways were modified and significant change took place in the customs of the people.

[Tocqueville notes in a footnote the contrast between French and English colonists. The French were quick to form relationships with Native women, but — as one colonial governor wrote to Louis XIV in 1685 — instead of civilizing the Native peoples, "those French who have lived among them are changed into savages." The English, by contrast, remained stubbornly attached to their own customs and refused any mingling of the races. "Thus while the French exercised no beneficial influence over the Indians, the English have always remained alien from them."]

The success of the Cherokees proves that Native Americans are capable of adopting European civilization, but it does not prove they will succeed. The difficulty they face stems from a general pattern that is almost impossible to escape. A careful reading of history shows that, as a rule, less advanced peoples have raised themselves up gradually and through their own efforts. When they have acquired knowledge from a foreign people, they have stood in the position of conquerors, not the conquered. When the conquered nation is the educated one and the conquerors are the ones with less developed institutions — as when the Germanic tribes invaded Rome, or the Mongols conquered China — the power that victory gives the less advanced people is enough to maintain their status among their more sophisticated subjects, until they eventually become rivals. One side has strength; the other has knowledge. The conqueror admires the learning and arts of the conquered; the conquered envies the power of the conqueror. Eventually the less advanced people open themselves to the civilization around them, and the more advanced people open their institutions to the newcomers. But when the side that holds physical power also holds intellectual superiority, the conquered party rarely becomes civilized. It retreats, or it is destroyed. In general terms: less advanced peoples go out in search of knowledge with arms in hand, but they don't accept it when it comes to them.

If the Native American tribes living in the heart of the continent could summon the energy to transform their way of life on their own terms, they might possibly succeed. Already more advanced than the neighboring peoples around them, they would gradually gain strength and experience. When the Europeans eventually appeared at their borders, they would be able, if not to maintain their independence, at least to assert their right to the land and merge with the newcomers on something like equal terms. But it is the Native Americans' misfortune to be brought into contact with a civilization that is also — it must be said — the most acquisitive on the globe, while they are still in a transitional state. They find oppressors in their teachers and receive knowledge from the hand of those who exploit them. Living free in the forests, the Native American lacked material goods but felt no sense of inferiority toward anyone. The moment he tries to enter the white social hierarchy, however, he takes the lowest rung. He enters ignorant and poor into a world of science and wealth. After a life of movement and danger, filled with proud emotions, he is forced into a dull, obscure, and degraded existence. He must earn his bread through hard, unglamorous work. In his eyes, these are the only rewards civilization can boast of — and even these are not guaranteed.

[Tocqueville includes a lengthy note about John Tanner, a European captured at age six by Native Americans, who lived with them for thirty years. Despite witnessing extraordinary hardship — tribes without leaders, families without nations, individuals wandering through ice and snow — Tanner found civilized life impossible to readjust to. He kept returning to the wilderness. "The rude existence he described had a secret charm for him which he was unable to define." When Tanner finally settled among whites, several of his children refused to join him. Tocqueville met Tanner at the southern end of Lake Superior: "He seemed to me more like a man of the woods than of civilized society."]

When Native Americans try to farm like their European neighbors, they immediately face crushing competition. The white settler is skilled at agriculture; the Native American is a raw beginner in an art he has never practiced. The former reaps abundant harvests with relative ease; the latter encounters a thousand obstacles in raising crops.

The European settler lives among a population whose needs he understands and shares. The Native American is isolated in the midst of a hostile people, imperfectly acquainted with their customs, language, and laws — yet unable to survive without their help. He can only get manufactured goods by trading his own products for European ones, since his fellow tribespeople cannot supply what he needs. When the Native American tries to sell what he has produced, he can't always find a buyer, while the European always has a ready market. The Native American can only produce at high cost what the European sells cheaply. So no sooner does he escape the hardships of his traditional life than he is subjected to the even greater miseries of a market economy. He finds it almost as hard to survive amid our abundance as in the depths of his own wilderness.

He hasn't yet lost the habits of his former way of life. The traditions of his ancestors and his passion for hunting are still alive within him. The wild pleasures that once filled him with energy in the woods now painfully stir his troubled imagination. His former hardships seem less harsh, his former dangers less terrifying. He compares the independence he enjoyed among his equals with the subordinate position he occupies in European society. Meanwhile, the wilderness that was so long his free home is still nearby — a few hours' march would bring him back. The whites offer him what seems like a large sum for the ground he has begun to clear. This money might buy him a peaceful existence farther away. He abandons the plow, takes up his old weapons, and returns to the wilderness forever. The situation of the Creeks and Cherokees, which I've already described, fully confirms this bleak picture.

[Tocqueville includes a remarkable footnote about Texas, written before Texas independence. Anglo-American settlers, he observed, were penetrating into this Mexican province, buying land, producing its commodities, and supplanting the original population. "It may easily be foreseen that if Mexico takes no steps to check this change, the province of Texas will very shortly cease to belong to that government." — a prediction that proved exactly right within a few years.]

The Native Americans have shown, in the little they've accomplished, as much natural genius as the peoples of Europe in their most ambitious projects. But nations, like individuals, need time to learn, no matter how intelligent or dedicated they may be. While the Native Americans were engaged in the long work of civilization, the Europeans continued to surround them on every side and confine them within ever narrower boundaries. The two groups gradually came into direct contact. The Native American is already far above his ancestors, but still far below his white neighbors. With their resources and accumulated knowledge, the Europeans quickly seized most of the advantages that the Native peoples might have drawn from owning the land. Europeans settled the country, purchased land at rock-bottom prices or seized it by force, and the Native Americans were ruined by a competition they had no means of withstanding. They were isolated in their own country — their people reduced to nothing more than a colony of unwelcome outsiders in the midst of a vast and domineering population.

[Congressional documents from this period reveal case after case of white encroachment on Native lands — settlers seizing property, driving off cattle, burning houses, destroying crops, committing violence against individuals. The federal government's own Cherokee agent described the "intrusion of whites upon the lands of the Cherokees" as bringing "ruin to the poor, helpless, and inoffensive inhabitants."]

Washington said in one of his messages to Congress: "We are more enlightened and more powerful than the Indian nations; we are therefore bound in honor to treat them with kindness and even with generosity." But this principled policy was not followed. The greed of the settlers was usually backed by the heavy hand of state government. Although the Cherokees and the Creeks were established on territory they had occupied since before European arrival, and although the Americans had repeatedly treated with them as with foreign nations, the surrounding states refused to recognize them as independent peoples. Attempts were made to subject these children of the forest to Anglo-American officials, laws, and customs. Poverty had driven these unfortunate peoples toward European civilization, and now oppression was driving them back to their former way of life. Many abandoned the land they had begun to cultivate and returned to the wilderness.

[In 1829, Alabama divided Creek territory into counties and placed the Native population under European-style magistrates. In 1830, Mississippi declared that any Choctaw or Chickasaw who took the title of chief would be punished with a $1,000 fine and a year in prison. When these laws were read to the Choctaw, the tribe assembled, heard their chief explain what the whites intended, listened to the new laws they were supposed to obey — and unanimously declared that it was better to retreat into the wilderness at once.]

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races in the United States — Part III

If we look at the oppressive measures adopted by the legislatures of the Southern states, the behavior of their governors, and the rulings of their courts, we can see that the total expulsion of the Native Americans is the end goal of their policies. The Americans in that part of the country look upon the original inhabitants with jealous suspicion. They know these peoples have not yet fully lost the traditions of their former way of life, and before European civilization can permanently anchor them to the land, the plan is to drive them out by reducing them to desperation. The Creeks and the Cherokees, oppressed by the individual states, have appealed to the federal government, which is genuinely sympathetic to their plight and sincerely wants to save what remains of these peoples — protecting them in their rightful possession of territory that the Union has pledged to respect. But the states put up such fierce resistance to this effort that the federal government is forced to consent to the elimination of a few Native nations in order to avoid endangering the American Union itself.

The federal government, unable to protect the Native Americans, at least tries to soften their suffering. With this in mind, it has proposed to transport them at public expense to more remote regions.

Between the thirty-third and thirty-seventh parallels of north latitude lies a vast tract of country that has taken the name Arkansas, from the principal river that waters it. It is bordered on one side by Mexico, on the other by the Mississippi. Countless streams cross it in every direction. The climate is mild and the soil productive, but it is inhabited only by a few scattered bands of Native peoples. The federal government's plan is to move the broken remnants of the Southern Indigenous population to the part of this territory nearest Mexico and farthest from American settlements.

By the end of 1831, we were told that 10,000 Native Americans had already relocated to the banks of the Arkansas, with more arriving constantly. But Congress has been unable to convince everyone it claims to be protecting. Some are willing to leave behind the scene of their oppression, but the most educated members of these communities refuse to abandon their newly built homes and growing crops. They believe that the work of civilization, once interrupted, will never resume. They fear that the domestic habits they have only recently acquired will be irretrievably lost in a land that is still wild and where nothing has been prepared for an agricultural people. They know their arrival in those territories will be resisted by hostile groups, and that they have lost the toughness of their former life without gaining the resources of civilization to defend themselves. Moreover, the Native Americans can plainly see that the proposed settlement is only a temporary fix. Who can promise them they'll finally be left in peace? The United States pledges itself to honor this commitment — but the territory they currently occupy was once secured to them by the most solemn oaths. The American government doesn't technically rob them of their land, but it allows constant encroachment. In a few years, the same white population now crowding around them will follow them to the wilderness of the Arkansas. They'll face the same suffering without the same remedies. And when the earth itself finally runs out of room for them, their only refuge will be the grave.

[The treaties speak for themselves. The 1790 treaty with the Creeks stated: "The United States solemnly guarantee to the Creek nation all their land within the limits of the United States." The 1791 treaty with the Cherokees declared: "The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded." The same treaty specified that any citizen or settler who established himself on Cherokee land would lose federal protection and be turned over to the Cherokee for punishment.]

The federal government treats the Native Americans with less greed and brutality than the individual states, but both governments are equally lacking in good faith. The states extend what they are pleased to call "the benefits of their laws" to the Native Americans, confident that the tribes will retreat rather than submit. And the federal government, which promises a permanent refuge to these unfortunate people, knows perfectly well it cannot actually deliver on that promise.

[This didn't stop the federal government from making extravagant guarantees. The President wrote to the Creek in 1829: "Beyond the great river Mississippi, where some of your people have already gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to move there. Your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours forever." The Secretary of War, writing to the Cherokees that same year, declared they couldn't expect to keep their current lands — but gave them "the most positive assurance of uninterrupted peace" if they moved west. As if the government that couldn't protect them now would somehow be able to protect them later.]

So the tyranny of the states forces the Native Americans to retreat, and the federal government, with its promises and resources, greases the path of their removal. Both measures aim at precisely the same result. "By the will of our Father in Heaven, the Governor of the whole world," the Cherokees wrote in their petition to Congress in December 1829, "the red man of America has become small, and the white man great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the shores of America, they found the red man strong. Though he was ignorant and uncivilized, he received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their weary feet. They met in peace, and shook hands in friendship. Whatever the white man wanted and asked of the Indian, the Indian willingly gave. At that time the Indian was the lord, and the white man the supplicant. But now the scene has changed. The strength of the red man has become weakness. As his neighbors increased in numbers, his power grew less and less, and now, of the many and powerful tribes who once covered these United States, only a few remain — a few whom a sweeping plague has spared. The northern tribes, who were once so numerous and powerful, are now nearly extinct. This is what has happened to the red man of America. Shall we, who are remnants, share the same fate?"

"The land on which we stand we received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. They passed it down to us as their children, and we have kept it sacred, as the resting place of our beloved dead. This right of inheritance we have never surrendered nor forfeited. Let us ask: what better right can a people have to a country than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceful possession? We know it is now claimed by the State of Georgia and by the President of the United States that we have forfeited this right. But we believe this claim is made without basis. When did we make this forfeiture? What great crime have we committed that we must be forever stripped of our country and our rights? Was it when we sided with the King of Great Britain during the war for independence? If so, why wasn't this forfeiture declared in the first peace treaty between the United States and our people? Why wasn't a clause inserted saying: 'The United States grants peace to the Cherokees, but because of the part they played in the late war, they are declared to be mere tenants at will, to be removed whenever the convenience of the states they live in shall require it'? That was the proper time to make such a claim. But no one thought of it then — nor would our forefathers have agreed to any treaty whose purpose was to strip them of their rights and their country."

That is how the Native Americans spoke. Their assertions are true; their predictions inevitable. From whichever direction we examine the fate of North America's original inhabitants, their suffering appears beyond remedy. If they remain in their traditional ways, they are forced to retreat. If they try to adopt European civilization, the proximity of a more advanced society subjects them to oppression and poverty. They perish if they continue to wander from one wasteland to the next, and they perish if they try to settle in one place. European help is necessary to teach them, but the approach of Europeans corrupts them and drives them back into the wilderness. They refuse to change their habits as long as their open lands are still their own, and it is too late to change them when they are forced to submit.

The Spanish pursued the Indigenous peoples of the Americas with bloodhounds, like wild animals. They sacked the New World with no more restraint or compassion than an army looting a conquered city. But outright massacre eventually runs its course, and even frenzy burns itself out. The surviving Native peoples of Spanish America mixed with their conquerors and eventually adopted their religion and customs. The conduct of the Americans toward the original inhabitants of their territory, on the other hand, is distinguished by a remarkable devotion to legal formality. As long as the Native Americans maintain their traditional way of life, the Americans take no part in their affairs. They treat them as independent nations and don't take their hunting grounds without a purchase agreement. And when a Native nation has been so thoroughly encroached upon that it can no longer survive on its territory, the Americans offer brotherly assistance in transporting it to a grave sufficiently far from the land of its ancestors.

[Tocqueville notes that the survival of Native peoples in South America was due not to Spanish mercy, but to the fact that those peoples were already agricultural. If they had been hunters, they would have been destroyed just as completely in the South as in the North.]

The Spanish were unable to exterminate the Native American peoples through their atrocities — atrocities that brand them with permanent shame — nor did they even succeed in fully stripping them of their rights. But the Americans of the United States have accomplished this double purpose with remarkable ease: calmly, legally, philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without violating a single great principle of morality in the eyes of the world. It is impossible to destroy a people with more respect for the laws of humanity.

[An editorial note from the original translator, written decades later: "I leave this chapter entirely unchanged, for it has always seemed to me one of the most eloquent and heartbreaking parts of this book. But it has ceased to be prophecy; the destruction of the Native American population in the United States is already an accomplished fact. In 1870 there remained only 25,731 Native Americans in the entire territory of the Union. The predictions of Tocqueville are fulfilled."]

The Situation of the Black Population in the United States, and the Dangers Its Presence Poses to Whites

Why it is harder to abolish slavery and erase its effects today than it was in the ancient world — In the United States, white prejudice against Black people seems to increase as slavery is abolished — The situation of Black Americans in the Northern and Southern states — Why the Americans abolish slavery — Slavery degrades the enslaved and impoverishes the enslaver — The contrast between the left and right banks of the Ohio — The Black population, like slavery itself, retreats toward the South — Why the Americans of the South intensify the harshness of slavery even as they are troubled by its existence.

The Native Americans will perish in the same isolation in which they have lived. But the fate of Black Americans is in some ways intertwined with that of white Americans. These two groups are bound to each other without blending, and they are equally unable to fully separate or to combine. The most dangerous of all the threats facing the future of the Union arises from the presence of a Black population on its soil. Anyone who contemplates the present difficulties or future dangers of the United States is inevitably led to this as a fundamental fact.

The lasting evils that afflict humanity are usually produced by the violent or mounting efforts of people. But there is one catastrophe that crept into the world almost unnoticed, barely distinguishable at first amid the ordinary abuses of power. It began with one person whose name history has not preserved. It was carried like an accursed seed to a portion of the earth's soil, where it took root, grew without effort, and spread naturally with the society it inhabited. I hardly need to say that this catastrophe is slavery. Christianity abolished slavery, but the Christians of the sixteenth century brought it back — as an exception to their social system, restricted to one race of humanity. The wound they inflicted on the human race was narrower, but at the same time far harder to heal.

It's important to distinguish clearly between slavery itself and its aftermath. The immediate evils of slavery were essentially the same in the ancient world as in the modern. But the long-term consequences are very different. In the ancient world, enslaved people belonged to the same race as their masters, and were often better educated. Freedom was the only distinction between them, and once freedom was granted, they blended together easily. The ancients therefore had a simple remedy for slavery and its consequences: emancipation. And they largely succeeded once they adopted it widely. True, in the ancient world the traces of servitude lingered for a time after servitude itself was abolished. There is a natural human tendency to look down on those who were once your inferiors long after they've become your equals. The real inequality created by law or fortune is always followed by an imaginary inequality embedded in social customs. But among the ancients, this secondary effect of slavery was limited in duration, because freed people bore such a complete resemblance to the freeborn that it soon became impossible to tell them apart.

The greatest difficulty in the ancient world was changing the law. In the modern world, the greatest difficulty is changing social attitudes. And for us, the real obstacles begin where those of the ancients ended. This is because modern slavery is fatally linked to race. The legacy of slavery dishonors the race, and the visibility of the race perpetuates the legacy of slavery. No African ever voluntarily emigrated to the New World — from which we must conclude that every Black person now living in the Western Hemisphere is either a slave or a descendant of slaves. The Black American thus transmits the permanent mark of his degradation to all his descendants. The law may abolish slavery, but only God can erase the traces of its existence.

The modern enslaved person differs from his master not only in his condition but in his origin. You may free the Black man, but you cannot make him anything other than an outsider to European society. Nor is this all: we barely acknowledge the common features of humanity in this person whom slavery has delivered among us. His appearance strikes our eyes as alien, his understanding we judge to be weak, his tastes we consider crude — and we are almost inclined to view him as a being somewhere between human and animal. After abolishing slavery, then, the moderns face three prejudices far harder to overcome than the mere fact of servitude: the prejudice of the former master, the prejudice of race, and the prejudice of color.

[Tocqueville adds: "To persuade whites to abandon their belief in the moral and intellectual inferiority of their former slaves, Black people must change. But as long as that belief persists, change is impossible." — a vicious circle he identifies with devastating clarity.]

It is hard for us, who have had the good fortune to be born among people like ourselves in nature and equal to ourselves in law, to grasp the irreconcilable divide that separates Black and white Americans. But we can get some faint notion of it through analogy. France was once a country of numerous distinctions of rank, created entirely by law. Nothing is more artificial than a purely legal hierarchy; nothing more contrary to human instinct than permanent divisions between people who are obviously the same. Yet these divisions lasted for centuries. They still survive in many places. And everywhere they have left imaginary traces that only time can erase. If it is so difficult to uproot an inequality that exists only in the law, how can we hope to destroy distinctions that seem to be rooted in the immutable laws of nature? When I think about how hard it is for aristocratic classes — of whatever kind — to dissolve into the general population, and how carefully they guard the invisible boundaries of their caste, I despair of seeing an aristocracy vanish that is founded on visible and indelible physical differences. Those who hope that Europeans will ever truly blend with Black Americans appear to me to be deceiving themselves. I see no evidence in either my own reasoning or in the facts to support such a conclusion.

Up to now, wherever whites have been the most powerful, they have kept Black people in a subordinate or enslaved position. Wherever Black people have been strongest, they have destroyed whites. This has been the only pattern of interaction between the two races.

In certain parts of the United States today, I can see the legal barriers between the two races starting to come down — but not the barriers embedded in social customs. Slavery is retreating, but the prejudice it created remains in place. Anyone who has spent time in America must have noticed that in the states where Black people are no longer enslaved, they have in no way drawn closer to whites. On the contrary, racial prejudice appears to be stronger in the states that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists. And nowhere is it more intense than in states where slavery has never been practiced at all.

It's true that in the Northern states, marriages between Black and white Americans are legally permitted. But public opinion would brand any white man who married a Black woman as disgraceful, and it would be hard to find a single example of such a union. Black Americans have been given the right to vote in nearly every state that has abolished slavery, but if they show up at the polls, their lives are in danger. If they are wronged, they may bring a lawsuit — but they will find only white faces among their judges. Although they may legally serve as jurors, prejudice keeps them out of the jury box. The same schools don't admit the children of Black and white families. In the theaters, no amount of money can buy a Black person a seat next to a white person. In the hospitals, they lie in separate wards. They are allowed to pray to the same God as whites, but in a different church, at a different altar, with their own clergy. The gates of heaven are not closed to them, but their inequality extends to the very edge of the afterlife: when a Black person dies, his bones are buried apart, and the distinction of status persists even in the equality of death. The Black man is free, but he cannot share the rights, the pleasures, the labor, the grief, or the tomb of the person whose equal he has been declared. He cannot meet him on fair terms in life or in death.

In the South, where slavery still exists, Black and white people are kept apart less carefully. They sometimes share work and recreation. Whites accept a certain degree of mixing. And although the law treats Black people more harshly, the actual habits of the people are more tolerant and compassionate. In the South, the master is not afraid to raise his slave closer to his own level, because he knows he can push him back down at any moment. In the North, whites no longer clearly see the barrier that separates them from Black people, and they shun them with even greater determination — precisely because they fear that one day the two groups might be confused.

In the American South, nature sometimes reasserts her rights and creates a fleeting equality between Black and white. In the North, pride suppresses even the most powerful of human impulses. A white Northern man might share his illicit pleasures with a Black woman, if the law of his state did not also declare that she could aspire to be the lawful partner of his life. He recoils from the woman who might become his wife.

And so in the United States, racial prejudice seems to grow stronger in direct proportion to emancipation. Inequality is written into social customs even as it is erased from the law. But if the relationship between the two races is as I've described it, the natural question is: why have Americans abolished slavery in the North, why do they maintain it in the South, and why do they make it even harsher there? The answer is straightforward. It is not for the good of Black people that Americans take steps to abolish slavery, but for the good of whites.

The first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia around 1621. In America, as everywhere else, slavery started in the South and spread northward. But the number of enslaved people decreased toward the Northern states, and the Black population was always very small in New England.

[Historical footnotes confirm that slavery was initially welcomed even in the North. In 1740, the New York legislature declared that direct importation of slaves "ought to be encouraged as much as possible." But public opinion and then the law gradually turned against the institution.]

Barely a century after the colonies were founded, planters noticed a remarkable fact: the provinces with relatively few enslaved people were growing in population, wealth, and prosperity more rapidly than those with the most. In the former, the inhabitants had to work the land themselves or hire laborers. In the latter, they had workers for whom they paid no wages. Yet despite having the advantage of free labor on one side and unpaid labor on the other, the free-labor provinces were clearly better off. This was all the more puzzling because the settlers all belonged to the same European race, shared the same habits, the same civilization, and the same laws, with only minor differences between them.

Time went on, and the Anglo-Americans pushed farther and farther into the West. They encountered new soils and unfamiliar climates. The obstacles they faced were enormously varied. Their populations mixed as Southerners moved North and Northerners moved South. But amid all these shifting circumstances, the same pattern held at every step: in general, the colonies without slavery became more populous and richer than those where slavery flourished. The more progress was made, the clearer it became that slavery, which is so cruel to the enslaved, is equally damaging to the enslaver.

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races in the United States — Part IV

But this truth was demonstrated most vividly when civilization reached the banks of the Ohio. The river that the Native Americans had named the Ohio — the "Beautiful River" — flows through one of the most magnificent valleys ever inhabited by human beings. Rolling farmland stretches along both banks, and the soil offers inexhaustible riches to anyone willing to work it. On either side, the air is clean and the climate mild. Each bank forms the border of a vast state: the one that follows the winding course of the Ohio on the left is called Kentucky; the one on the right bears the name of the river itself. These two states differ in a single respect: Kentucky has allowed slavery; Ohio has banned it.

The traveler who floats down the Ohio toward the spot where it empties into the Mississippi might be said to be sailing between freedom and slavery. A quick look at the landscape on either side will tell him which is better for humanity. On the left bank, the population is sparse. From time to time you spot a group of enslaved people working listlessly in half-empty fields. The primeval forest reappears at every turn. Society seems to be sleeping; human beings seem idle; only nature shows any sign of activity and life. But from the right bank, a steady hum announces the presence of industry. The fields are covered with rich harvests. The neatness of the homes reflects the energy and good taste of the workers. People appear to enjoy the comfort and contentment that reward honest labor.

[Tocqueville notes that Ohio's vitality wasn't limited to individuals: the state had built a canal linking Lake Erie to the Ohio River, connecting the Mississippi Valley to the North and allowing European goods arriving in New York to be shipped by water all the way to New Orleans across five hundred leagues of continent.]

Kentucky was founded in 1775; Ohio only twelve years later. But twelve years in America are more than half a century in Europe, and by the 1830s Ohio's population exceeded Kentucky's by 250,000. These opposite results of slavery and freedom are easy to understand, and they go a long way toward explaining the differences between ancient and modern civilization.

On the left bank of the Ohio, labor is associated with slavery. On the right bank, it is identified with prosperity and self-improvement. On one side it is degraded; on the other it is honored. On the Kentucky side, you can't find white laborers — they would be afraid of being confused with Black workers. On the Ohio side, no one is idle: the white population puts its energy and intelligence into every kind of work. The people whose job it is to farm Kentucky's rich soil are ignorant and unmotivated, while those with talent and drive either do nothing or cross over into Ohio, where they can work without shame.

It's true that Kentucky planters don't have to pay wages to the enslaved people they employ. But they get little return from their labor, while wages paid to free workers are returned with interest through the quality of their work. Free workers are paid, but they work faster than enslaved workers, and speed of execution is a major factor in economic efficiency. Free workers sell their services, but those services are only purchased when they're needed. Enslaved workers cannot demand compensation, but the cost of maintaining them is constant — they must be supported in old age as well as in their prime, in their unproductive childhood as well as in the productive years of youth. In the end, both systems have costs: the free worker receives wages in cash; the enslaved person is paid in food, housing, clothing, and care. The money a slaveholder spends on maintaining his workers goes out gradually, in small amounts, so it's barely noticed. The wages of a free worker are paid in a lump sum that appears to enrich the person receiving it. But when you add it all up, the enslaved worker has cost more than the free one, and his labor has been less productive.

[Tocqueville adds a note about the distorting effects of the sugar economy. Sugar cultivation in Louisiana was so lucrative that enslaved workers there commanded premium prices, which drove up the price of enslaved people across the entire Union — making slave labor even more expensive relative to free labor.]

The influence of slavery extends still further: it shapes the character of the slaveholder and gives a distinctive bent to his attitudes and ambitions. On both banks of the Ohio, the people are enterprising and energetic. But this energy takes very different forms in the two states. The white Ohioan, obliged to make his own way, regards material prosperity as the chief goal of his life. Since the land around him offers inexhaustible resources and ever-new opportunities, his drive to acquire surpasses the ordinary limits of human ambition. He is consumed by the desire for wealth and boldly follows every path that fortune opens to him. He becomes a sailor, a pioneer, a craftsman, or a laborer with equal readiness, enduring the hardships and dangers of each profession with unfailing determination. The resourcefulness of his mind is remarkable, and his pursuit of gain approaches a kind of heroism.

The Kentuckian, by contrast, scorns not only labor but everything that labor produces. Living in idle independence, his tastes are those of a man with too much time on his hands. Money loses some of its value in his eyes. He desires wealth far less than pleasure and excitement. The energy his Northern neighbor pours into making money, the Kentuckian channels into a passionate love of hunting, horsemanship, and military exercises. He delights in violent physical exertion, is comfortable with firearms, and has been accustomed since childhood to risking his life in personal combat. Slavery doesn't just prevent whites from becoming prosperous — it even prevents them from wanting to.

These same causes, operating continuously for two centuries across the British colonies of North America, have produced a striking difference between the commercial capacity of Northerners and Southerners. Today, only the Northern states possess significant shipping, manufacturing, railroads, and canals. This difference is visible not just in a North-South comparison but even among the Southern states themselves. Nearly all the people who run businesses or try to make slave labor profitable in the deep South originally came from the North. Northerners are constantly spreading across the Southern states, where they face less competition. They discover resources that the locals have overlooked and, while working within a system they disapprove of, manage to run it more efficiently than the people who created and maintain it.

I could continue this comparison and easily show that nearly all the differences between Northern and Southern character can be traced to slavery. But that would take me too far from my subject. My purpose here is not to catalog every consequence of slavery, but to examine those effects it has had on the prosperity of the societies that practice it.

The influence of slavery on economic productivity was poorly understood in the ancient world, since slavery existed everywhere in the civilized nations, and the peoples who didn't practice it were the ones with less developed economies. Indeed, Christianity first challenged slavery by advocating for the enslaved person's humanity. Today it can also be challenged in the name of the slaveholder's self-interest — and on this point, morality and economics are in agreement.

As these truths became apparent in the United States, slavery retreated before the advance of experience. Slavery had started in the South and spread northward; now it withdrew again. Freedom, which originated in the North, moved steadily southward. Among the major states, Pennsylvania now marked the northern boundary of slavery, but even within those limits the system was shaking. Maryland, just below Pennsylvania, was preparing for abolition. Virginia, next in line, was already debating the institution's usefulness and dangers.

[Tocqueville notes a practical factor accelerating the trend: the former wealth of Maryland and Virginia came from tobacco, which was cultivated with slave labor. But as the price of tobacco declined while the cost of maintaining enslaved workers stayed the same, the economics shifted against slavery in those states.]

No great change takes place in human institutions without the law of inheritance playing a role. When the law of primogeniture — where the eldest son inherits everything — prevailed in the South, each family was led by a wealthy individual who had neither the need nor the inclination to work. The other family members, excluded by law from the inheritance, clustered around him and lived the same idle life — just with less money. The same pattern occurred in the American South that still occurs in wealthy European families: younger sons remain just as idle as the eldest, without being as rich. The entire white population of the South formed a kind of aristocracy, led by a class of privileged men whose wealth was permanent and whose leisure was hereditary. These leaders of American aristocratic society kept alive the traditional prejudices of the white race and upheld the honor of a life of idleness. This aristocracy included many who were poor, but none who would work. Its members preferred poverty to labor. Consequently, there was no competition against enslaved workers, and regardless of anyone's opinion about the efficiency of slave labor, it was indispensable to employ them since there was no one else willing to do the work.

Once the law of primogeniture was abolished, fortunes began to shrink, and all families were gradually reduced to a condition where work became necessary for survival. Several old families disappeared entirely, and all of them learned to look ahead to the day when everyone would have to provide for their own needs. Wealthy individuals still existed, but they no longer formed a unified, hereditary class capable of setting the tone for all of society. The prejudice against labor was the first casualty: it was abandoned by common consent. The number of people who needed to earn a living increased, and they were allowed to do so without shame. One of the most immediate effects of dividing estates equally among heirs was the creation of a class of free laborers. Once free workers began competing with enslaved workers, the inferiority of slave labor became obvious — and slavery was attacked at its foundation: the slaveholder's own economic interest.

As slavery retreated, the Black population followed it southward, drifting back toward the tropical regions from which it originally came. This may seem strange at first, but the explanation is simple. When Americans abolish slavery, they don't actually free the enslaved people living among them. Let me use the example of New York. In 1788, New York banned the sale of enslaved people within its borders — an indirect way of prohibiting new imports. From that point on, the Black population could only grow through natural increase. Eight years later, a more decisive step was taken: all children born to enslaved parents after July 4, 1799, would be free. No further increase in the enslaved population was possible, and although enslaved people still existed, slavery could effectively be considered abolished.

Once a Northern state prohibited slave imports, no enslaved people were brought from the South for sale in its markets. On the other hand, since sales within the state were also banned, an owner could no longer get rid of an enslaved person — now a financial burden — except by sending him South. And when a Northern state declared that the children of enslaved people would be born free, the market value of the enslaved parent dropped sharply, since his descendants were no longer part of the bargain. The owner then had a powerful incentive to sell him south. The same set of laws simultaneously prevented Southern slaves from coming North and pushed Northern slaves toward the South.

As the number of enslaved people in a state declined, the demand for free labor grew. But as more work was done by free hands, slave labor became even less productive by comparison, making the remaining enslaved workers useless or costly — and increasing the motivation to export them to the Southern states, where free labor posed no competition. In this way, abolition didn't free the enslaved person so much as transfer him from one master to another, from the North to the South.

The Black Americans who were emancipated, and those born free after abolition, did not migrate southward. But their situation relative to whites wasn't so different from that of Native Americans. They remained semi-marginalized and stripped of their rights in the midst of a population far superior to them in wealth and education — exposed to the tyranny of the laws and the hostility of the people. In some ways they were even worse off than Native Americans, since they were haunted by the memory of slavery and could claim no portion of the land as their own. Many died in miserable conditions, and the rest crowded into the large cities, where they performed the lowest-paid work and led wretched, precarious lives.

[The statistics were grim: in Philadelphia between 1820 and 1831, one out of every forty-two white people died. Among Black Philadelphians, the figure was one in twenty-one — twice the mortality rate. Notably, the death rate was much lower among Black people who were still enslaved, suggesting that the hardships of "freedom" without true equality were themselves deadly.]

Even if the Black population continued to grow at the same rate as during slavery, the white population was increasing twice as fast. Black Americans would soon be, as it were, lost in the midst of a foreign population.

An area farmed by enslaved labor is generally less densely populated than one farmed by free labor. A state is therefore only half-settled when it abolishes slavery. As soon as slavery ends, free labor is needed, and a flood of enterprising newcomers arrives from all directions to take advantage of the fresh opportunities that open up. The land is quickly divided among them, and families of white settlers claim each tract. European immigrants, too, come exclusively to the free states. What would be the fate of a poor immigrant who crossed the Atlantic seeking prosperity, only to land in a place where labor was considered degrading?

So the white population grows through both natural increase and massive immigration, while the Black population receives no immigrants and is declining. The ratio between the two races inverts. Black Americans become a tiny remnant — a poor, dispossessed group lost in the midst of a vast people who are in full possession of the land. Their presence is marked only by the injustice and suffering they endure.

In several Western states, the Black population never appeared at all, and in all the Northern states it was rapidly declining. The great question of its future was therefore confined to an ever-narrower circle — less alarming in scope, though not easier to resolve.

The farther south we go, the harder it becomes to abolish slavery without catastrophic consequences. This is due to several physical facts that are important to understand.

The first is climate. It is well established that Europeans suffer more from physical labor as they approach the tropics. Some Americans even claim that below a certain latitude, the exertions a Black worker can safely perform would kill a white one. I don't think this argument — so conveniently flattering to the laziness of Southern whites — is confirmed by the evidence. The Southern states are no hotter than southern Italy or Spain, and if slavery was abolished in those countries without killing the former masters, why shouldn't the same be possible in the Union? I can't accept that nature has sentenced the Europeans of Georgia and Florida to death for growing their own food. Their labor would certainly be harder and less productive than in New England, but it would not be impossible. Still, because free workers lose some of their advantage over enslaved workers in the Southern climate, there is less economic incentive to abolish slavery there.

All the crops grown in Europe can be cultivated in the Northern United States. But the South has its own distinctive products. Slave labor turns out to be an especially costly way of growing grain. A Northern wheat farmer typically keeps a small crew year-round and hires extra hands only at planting and harvest time. A Southern slaveholder, by contrast, must maintain a large workforce the entire year just to handle the brief periods of intense labor — because enslaved workers can't be laid off between seasons or left to support themselves. Slavery is therefore even less efficient for grain than for other crops. But the cultivation of tobacco, cotton, and especially sugar demands continuous labor — and employs women and children who would be of little use in wheat farming. Slavery is therefore more naturally suited to the regions that produce these crops. Tobacco, cotton, and sugar are grown exclusively in the South and are among the main sources of Southern wealth. If slavery were abolished, the South would face a hard choice: either switch to different crops and compete with the more experienced and energetic farmers of the North, or continue growing the same crops without enslaved labor and face competition from other Southern states that might keep their slaves. There are special economic reasons for maintaining slavery in the South that don't apply in the North.

But there is an even more compelling reason: the South might conceivably abolish slavery, but how would it deal with the resulting free Black population? In the North, slavery and the Black population were driven out together. But in the South, this double outcome cannot be expected.

The arguments I've laid out to show that slavery is more deeply rooted in the South also prove that the Black population is far larger there. It was to the Southern colonies that the first Africans were brought, and it is there that the most have always been imported. As we move south, the cultural prejudice that glorifies idleness grows stronger. In the states nearest the tropics, there are no white laborers at all. Black people are therefore far more numerous in the South than in the North. And as I've already noted, this disparity increases every day, since enslaved people are transferred southward as soon as slavery is abolished in a given state. The Black population of the South grows not only through natural increase but through the forced migration of Black Americans from the North. The African-descended population has causes for growth in the South very similar to those that accelerate the growth of the European population in the North.

In 1830, the proportions were: in Maine, one Black person for every 300 whites; in Massachusetts, one in 100; in New York, two in 100; in Pennsylvania, three; in Maryland, thirty-four; in Virginia, forty-two; and in South Carolina, fifty-five percent. This ratio was constantly shifting — falling in the North and rising in the South.

[In 1830, the free states contained 6,565,434 whites and 120,520 Black people. The slave states contained 3,960,814 whites and 2,208,102 Black people.]

It is clear that the states of the deep South cannot abolish slavery without facing extreme dangers that the North never had to confront. We have already seen how the Northern states managed the transition from slavery to freedom: they kept the current generation in chains while declaring their children free. This introduced freedom gradually. Those who might have abused their sudden freedom were kept in servitude, while those born free had time to learn the responsibilities of liberty before becoming their own masters. But this approach would be very hard to apply in the South. To declare that all children born after a certain date would be free is to inject the principle of freedom into the heart of slavery itself. The enslaved people whom the law keeps in bondage while their own children are freed are astonished at such unequal treatment — and their astonishment is only the prelude to impatience and fury. From that point on, slavery loses the moral authority it had derived from time and custom. It is reduced to nothing more than a naked exercise of force. The Northern states had nothing to fear from this contrast, because their Black populations were small and their white populations enormous. But if this first glimmer of freedom were to reveal to two million people their true condition, the oppressors would have reason to tremble. Having freed the children of their enslaved workers, the whites of the Southern states would very soon be forced to extend the same freedom to the entire Black population.

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races — Part V

In the North, as I've already noted, abolishing slavery — or even the growing expectation that it will be abolished — triggers a double migration: enslaved people are sent or sold southward, while white Northerners and European immigrants rush in to take their place. But these two forces can't work the same way in the Southern states. On one hand, the enslaved population is too enormous for anyone to seriously imagine removing them from the country. On the other hand, Europeans and white Americans from the North are afraid to settle in a region where labor has not yet been restored to its proper dignity. And they're right to view states where the Black population equals or exceeds the white population as dangerously unstable — so they steer clear.

The result is that white Southerners can't do what their Northern counterparts did — gradually transition enslaved people into freedom by abolishing slavery in stages. They have no way to significantly reduce the Black population, and they'd be left on their own to deal with the consequences. In the space of a few years, a large free Black population would exist at the heart of a white nation of equal size.

The same abuses of power that currently sustain slavery would then become the source of the most terrifying dangers for the white population of the South. Right now, the descendants of Europeans are the sole landowners, the absolute masters of all labor, and the only people with wealth, education, and weapons. A Black person has none of these advantages — but can survive without them because he is enslaved. If he were free and had to provide for himself, could he really get by without these things? Wouldn't the very instruments of white superiority that exist under slavery expose him to a thousand dangers once it was abolished?

As long as a Black person remains enslaved, he can be kept in a condition barely above that of an animal. But with freedom, he inevitably acquires enough education to understand his suffering — and to see that something can be done about it. There's also a basic principle of human psychology deeply embedded in the human heart: people are far more outraged by inequalities among those in the same class than by inequalities between different classes. It's easier for people to accept the existence of slavery in the abstract than to accept that millions of their fellow citizens live under a permanent weight of shame and inherited misery. In the North, the free Black population feels these injustices and resents them — but their numbers are small and their power limited. In the South, they would be numerous and strong.

Once you accept that whites and emancipated Black Americans placed on the same territory are essentially two separate communities, you can see that only two possibilities exist: the two groups must either fully separate or fully merge. I've already stated my view on the second option. I don't believe the white and Black races will ever live as equals in any country. But I believe the difficulty is even greater in the United States than elsewhere. An exceptional individual can rise above the prejudices of religion, country, or race — and if that individual is a king, he can bring about astonishing changes in society. But an entire people cannot lift itself above its own nature like that. A despot who forced Americans and their former slaves under the same yoke might succeed in blending the two races. But as long as American democracy remains in charge, no one will attempt anything so difficult. And it's safe to predict that the freer the white population of the United States becomes, the more isolated it will remain.

Jefferson himself, in his memoirs, wrote: "Nothing is more clearly written in the book of destiny than the emancipation of the blacks; and it is equally certain that the two races will never live in a state of equal freedom under the same government, so insurmountable are the barriers which nature, habit, and opinions have established between them." Meanwhile, the British West Indian planters offer a telling contrast: if they had governed themselves, they never would have passed the emancipation bill that their mother country recently imposed on them.

I noted earlier that people of mixed race serve as the natural bridge between Europeans and Native Americans; in the same way, people of mixed Black and white ancestry are the natural means of transition between the two races. Wherever mixed-race people are common, the blending of the two groups isn't impossible. In some parts of America, European and African ancestry have crossed so extensively that it's rare to find someone who is entirely Black or entirely white. When things reach this point, the two races can truly be said to have combined — or rather, to have been absorbed into a third race, connected to both but identical to neither.

Of all European peoples, the English are the ones who have mixed least with Black populations. There are more mixed-race people in the South than in the North, but they are still vastly rarer than in any other European colony. In the United States, mixed-race people are by no means numerous. They have no distinct collective power of their own, and when racial conflicts arise, they generally side with the whites — the way household servants in the old European aristocracies would adopt the contemptuous attitudes of the nobility toward the lower classes.

The pride of ancestry natural to the English is powerfully amplified by the personal pride that democratic freedom fosters among Americans: the white citizen of the United States is proud of his race and proud of himself. If whites and Black Americans don't intermix in the North, where conditions are more favorable, how could they possibly do so in the South? Can anyone seriously imagine that a white Southerner — placed as he forever must be between the white population, with all its social and material advantages, and the Black population — would choose to identify downward? White Southerners are driven by two powerful impulses that will always keep them separate: the fear of being grouped with Black people, their former slaves; and the dread of falling below their white neighbors.

If I were asked to predict what will probably happen, I would say that the abolition of slavery in the South will actually increase the white population's hostility toward Black Americans. I base this on what I've already observed in the North. There, I noticed that white people avoid Black people with increasing care as the legal barriers of separation are removed by the legislature. Why should the same pattern not hold in the South? In the North, whites are repelled from mixing with Black Americans by the fear of an imaginary danger. In the South, where the danger would be real, I can't imagine the fear would be any less intense.

Consider two facts together. First, it's undeniable that the Black population is growing rapidly in the Deep South, increasing faster than the white population. Second, it's impossible to foresee a time when the two races will be so blended as to share equally in the benefits of society. The inevitable conclusion is that Black and white Americans will sooner or later come into open conflict in the Southern states. But if you ask what the outcome of that conflict would be, you're entering territory too uncertain for confident predictions. The human mind can sketch out a broad circle containing the range of future events, but within that circle a thousand different circumstances might push things in a thousand different directions. Every vision of the future has a dark spot that the mind simply can't penetrate. It does appear, however, extremely probable that in the West Indian islands the white race will be overpowered, while on the American continent the Black population may face the same fate.

In the West Indies, white planters are surrounded by an immense Black population. On the continent, Black Americans are caught between the ocean and an enormous white population that already extends over them in a dense mass — from the frozen reaches of Canada to the borders of Virginia, and from the banks of the Missouri to the Atlantic shore. If the white citizens of North America remain united, it's hard to see how the Black population can escape destruction: they would be overwhelmed by deprivation or by force. But the Black population concentrated along the Gulf of Mexico coast has a chance if the American Union dissolves when the struggle between the races begins. If the federal bond were broken, Southerners would be wrong to count on lasting help from their Northern countrymen. Northerners know the danger can never reach them, and unless they're bound by a clear legal obligation, the vague fellow-feeling of race won't be enough to stir them to action.

Still, whenever this conflict might break out, the whites of the South — even if abandoned to their own resources — will enter the fight with an overwhelming advantage in knowledge and weapons. But Black Americans will have numerical strength and the energy of desperation on their side — and these are powerful resources for people who have taken up arms. The fate of the white population in the Southern states might ultimately resemble that of the Moors in Spain: after occupying the land for centuries, they may be forced to retreat to the continent their ancestors came from, leaving Black Americans in possession of a territory that Providence seems to have destined especially for them, since they can live and work there more easily than whites can.

The danger of a conflict between Black and white inhabitants of the Southern states — a danger that, however remote, seems inevitable — perpetually haunts the American imagination. Northerners make it a regular topic of conversation, even though the struggle wouldn't directly threaten them. But they try in vain to come up with ways to prevent the disaster they see coming. In the Southern states, the subject isn't discussed at all. The planter won't mention the future when talking with outsiders. Citizens don't share their fears even with friends. They try to hide the truth even from themselves. But there is something far more alarming in the silent dread of the South than in the loud anxieties of the North.

This all-consuming unease has given rise to a little-known project that could change the fate of a portion of the human race. Out of fear of the dangers I've been describing, a group of American citizens formed a society to transport free Black Americans — at the society's own expense — to the coast of West Africa, offering them an escape from the oppression they face at home. In 1820, this society established a settlement in Africa at about the seventh degree of north latitude, which they called Liberia. The latest reports tell us that about 2,500 Black settlers have gathered there. They've introduced American democratic institutions to the land of their ancestors: Liberia has a representative government, Black jurors, Black judges, and Black clergy. Churches have been built and newspapers established. And in a striking twist of historical irony, white people are prohibited from settling within the colony. The founders made this rule because they feared a situation might develop similar to what happened on the American frontier — that if Black settlers came into contact with a more technologically advanced population, they would be destroyed before they could develop on their own terms.

This is a strange turn of fortune. Two hundred years ago, Europeans tore Black people from their families and homes to transport them to the shores of North America. Now European settlers are sending the descendants of those same people back to the continent they were originally taken from. These Africans were forced into contact with civilization through bondage, and they became acquainted with free political institutions through the experience of slavery. Until now, Africa has been largely closed off from the arts and sciences of the Western world. But the innovations of Europe may finally penetrate those regions — now that they're being introduced by Africans themselves. The founding of Liberia rests on a noble and potentially powerful idea. But whatever its effects on Africa, it offers no solution to the problem in the New World.

In twelve years, the Colonization Society transported 2,500 Black Americans to Africa. In that same period, roughly 700,000 Black children were born in the United States. Even if Liberia could absorb thousands of new settlers every year, and even if the conditions for sending them were ideal, and even if the federal government subsidized the effort and provided ships — it still couldn't keep pace with the natural growth of the Black population. Since the society couldn't remove as many people in a year as were being born in the same period, it could never stop the problem from growing. The simple arithmetic is decisive. The Black population will never voluntarily leave the shores of the American continent where it was brought by the passions and vices of Europeans. And it will not disappear from the New World as long as it continues to exist. The people of the United States may delay the catastrophe they fear, but they can no longer eliminate its root cause.

In 1830, there were 2,010,327 enslaved people and 319,439 free Black Americans in the United States — a total of 2,329,766, or roughly one-fifth of the total population.

I have to be honest: I don't see the abolition of slavery as a way to prevent a racial conflict in the United States. Black Americans may endure slavery for a long time without complaint. But once they're raised to the status of free people, they will quickly revolt against being denied all their civil rights. Since they can't become the equals of whites, they will soon declare themselves enemies. In the North, everything made it easier to free enslaved people — and emancipation was achieved without creating a Black population large enough to be threatening, since their numbers were too small for them to ever demand the full exercise of their rights. But the South is a different story. For slave-owners in the North, slavery was a question of commerce and manufacturing. For those in the South, it's a question of survival. Let me be clear: I am in no way trying to justify the principle of slavery, as some American writers have done. I'm simply observing that not every country that adopted this evil system is equally able to abandon it at the present time.

When I look at the situation in the South, I can see only two real options for the white population: either free the enslaved people and integrate with them, or keep them in slavery as long as possible while remaining separate. Any middle path seems likely to end — and quickly — in the most horrific civil war, and perhaps in the extermination of one race or the other. This is exactly how white Southerners see the question, and they act accordingly. Since they're determined not to integrate with Black Americans, they refuse to free them.

It's not that Southerners believe slavery is essential to their prosperity. On this point, many of them agree with their Northern counterparts that slavery is economically harmful. But they're convinced that their very lives depend on maintaining it. The spread of education in the South has persuaded its white population that slavery hurts the slave-owner — but it has also shown them, more clearly than before, that there's no safe way to get rid of it. The result is a strange paradox: the more people argue that slavery is useless, the more firmly it becomes entrenched in law. Even as the Northern states gradually abolish slavery, that same institution generates ever harsher consequences in the South.

The slave legislation of the Southern states at the present time contains atrocities without parallel — enough to show how profoundly the basic laws of humanity have been perverted, and to reveal the desperation of the society that produced them. To be fair, white Southerners haven't actually increased the physical hardships of slavery. They've actually improved the material conditions of enslaved people. But the old tools of oppression — chains and death — have been replaced by something more insidious. The Americans of the South have turned their despotism against the human mind. In the ancient world, precautions were taken to prevent the enslaved person from breaking his chains. In the American South, measures are taken to strip him even of the desire for freedom. The ancients kept the bodies of their slaves in bondage but placed no restraints on the mind and no restrictions on education. This made a certain sense within their system, since ancient slavery had a natural ending point: the slave could one day be freed and become his master's equal. But the Americans of the South, who refuse to accept that Black Americans could ever be integrated into their society, have made it a crime — under severe penalties — to teach them to read or write. Unwilling to raise them to their own level, they push them down as close to the level of animals as possible.

In the ancient world, enslaved people were always allowed hope — the hope of eventual freedom made their suffering bearable. But white Southerners know that emancipation would be dangerous when the freed person can never be absorbed into his former master's society. To give someone freedom while leaving him in wretchedness and degradation is nothing less than grooming a future leader for a slave revolt. It has long been observed that the mere presence of a free Black person subtly agitates the minds of those still enslaved, giving them a dim sense of their rights. Southerners have therefore passed laws making it extremely difficult for slave-owners to free their slaves — not through outright prohibition, but by surrounding the process with so many legal obstacles that it's nearly impossible.

I met an old man in the South who had been living with one of his enslaved women and had fathered several children by her. Those children were born as their own father's property. He had often thought about at least giving them their freedom, but years had passed without his being able to navigate the legal barriers to emancipation. Meanwhile, old age overtook him, and he was about to die. He described to me the image of his sons being dragged from one slave market to another, passing from the authority of a parent to the whip of a stranger. These horrid visions worked his dying imagination into a frenzy. When I saw him, he was consumed by despair. He made me feel just how terrible nature's retribution is upon those who have violated her laws.

These evils are immense. But they are the predictable and inevitable consequence of the very principle of modern slavery. When Europeans chose to enslave a race they considered different from and inferior to their own — a race they recoiled from with horror at the thought of intimate contact — they must have believed that slavery would last forever. There is no stable middle ground between the extreme inequality produced by enslavement and the complete equality that comes with independence. Europeans felt this truth imperfectly, but without admitting it even to themselves. In every encounter with Black people, their behavior has been driven by their self-interest and their pride, or by their compassion — never by consistency or principle. They first violated every right of humanity in their treatment of Black people, and then told them that those rights were precious and sacred. They pretended to open their ranks to the enslaved, but when Black people tried to enter the community, they were driven back with contempt. Europeans stumbled, recklessly and involuntarily, into granting freedom instead of maintaining slavery — without having the courage to be entirely wicked or entirely just.

If it's truly impossible to foresee a time when white Southerners will merge with Black Americans, can they free their slaves without endangering themselves? And if they must keep the Black population in bondage to protect their own families, can they really be condemned for using whatever means best serve that end? What's happening in the Southern states seems to me at once the most horrible and the most natural consequence of slavery. When I see the order of nature overturned, when I hear the cry of humanity struggling in vain against the system's logic, my anger doesn't fall on the people of our own time who carry out these outrages. I save my condemnation for those who, after a thousand years of freedom, brought slavery back into the world.

Whatever the efforts of white Southerners to maintain slavery, they will not succeed forever. Slavery is now confined to a single corner of the civilized world. It is condemned by Christianity as unjust and by economics as harmful. It stands in stark contrast to the democratic freedoms and enlightenment of our age. It cannot survive. Whether by the master's choice or the slave's will, it will end — and in either case, terrible consequences can be expected. If freedom is denied to Black Americans in the South, they will eventually seize it by force. If it is given to them, they will before long be abused for having it.

An editorial note from the original translation observes that the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment rendered parts of Tocqueville's analysis outdated — enslaved people were freed and made citizens, and in some states they exercised considerable political power. But the translator also acknowledged that emancipation had not solved the fundamental problem: how two races so different and so hostile could live together as equals in one country. That problem, the translator noted, remained as difficult as ever — and Tocqueville's analysis remained perfectly applicable.

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races — Part VI

What Are the Chances the American Union Will Survive, and What Dangers Threaten It?

[An editorial note from the original translation deserves mention here. The translator acknowledged that this section is among the most fascinating in the entire work, because it anticipates nearly every constitutional and social question that would be raised by the secession of the South and settled by the Civil War. But the translator also admitted that Tocqueville's predictions sometimes went wrong. Tocqueville believed the Union was a voluntary compact of sovereign states, and that any state that chose to leave could not easily be stopped — "either by force or by right." This was essentially the Southern constitutional theory, and the whole legal basis for secession. Many Europeans and even some Northern jurists found this argument persuasive, but the North vigorously rejected it and crushed it by force of arms. Tocqueville was also mistaken in thinking the Union was "a vast body which presents no definite object to patriotic feeling" — when the test came, millions were ready to die for it. And he underestimated the federal government's ability to compel obedience from rebellious states. In 1861, nine states with a population of 8,753,000 seceded and fought a determined but ultimately losing four-year war for independence. Finally, Tocqueville assumed that economic self-interest would always hold North and South together; he didn't foresee how the slavery question would override every other bond once the Northern majority turned decisively against it.]

The survival of the existing institutions in each state depends partly on the survival of the Union itself. So it's important to begin by asking: what's likely to happen to the Union? One thing can be assumed right away: if the current confederation were to break apart, the states that compose it would not return to their original isolated condition. Several smaller unions would form in place of the one. I don't intend to speculate on what principles these new unions might be organized around — only to identify the forces that could tear the existing confederation apart.

To do this, I'll have to retrace some steps and revisit topics I've already discussed. I know the reader may accuse me of repetition, but the importance of what remains to be said is my excuse. I'd rather say too much than too little to be clearly understood, and I'd rather bore the author's reputation than shortchange the subject.

The framers who wrote the Constitution of 1789 tried hard to give the federal government a distinct and dominant authority. But they were constrained by the nature of the task. They hadn't been appointed to create the government of a single people — they were regulating an association of several states. Whatever their personal inclinations, they ultimately had to divide sovereignty.

To understand the consequences of this division, you need to draw a basic distinction between different types of government business. Some matters are national by nature — they affect the nation as a whole and can only be handled by the person or body that most fully represents the entire nation. War and diplomacy are the obvious examples. Other matters are local by nature — they affect only a particular area and can only be properly managed in that area, like a municipal budget. Then there's a third category: matters of mixed character that are national in the sense that they affect all citizens, but local in the sense that it isn't strictly necessary for the central government to handle them uniformly. Civil and political rights fall into this category. No society can exist without them, so they concern all citizens equally. But it's not always essential that these rights be identical everywhere, and therefore they don't necessarily have to be regulated by a central authority.

There are, then, two distinct categories of government functions — purely national and purely local — and these categories exist in every well-organized society, regardless of its constitution. Between them lie those mixed matters I've described. These can be managed by either a national or a local government, depending on the agreement of the parties involved, without undermining the basic compact.

In most cases, a sovereign power is formed by the coming together of individual citizens who compose a people. Each individual or small group represents a tiny fraction of sovereignty, and they collectively create a general government of their choosing. In this arrangement, the general government naturally takes charge not only of essential national matters but also of many local ones, leaving provincial governments with only the minimum authority they need to function.

But sometimes the sovereign power is formed by preexisting political bodies — states or provinces that existed before the union and still represent a substantial share of sovereignty. In this case, the provincial governments take control not only of purely local matters but also of some or all of the mixed category. The confederating states, which were independent sovereign nations before their union and still retain considerable power, have agreed to hand over to the general government only those rights that are absolutely essential to the union's existence.

When a national government is given authority over both purely national and mixed matters, it holds a dominant position. Not only are its own powers extensive, but whatever powers it doesn't directly exercise exist only at its pleasure. The risk in this arrangement is that provincial governments may gradually be stripped of their natural and necessary authority.

When, on the other hand, provincial governments are given authority over mixed matters, the opposite tendency prevails. The dominant force sits at the provincial level, not the national level, and the national government may gradually be stripped of the powers it needs to survive.

Independent nations therefore naturally tend toward centralization, while confederations naturally tend toward fragmentation.

Now apply these principles to the American Union. The individual states necessarily held the right to manage all purely local affairs. They also kept authority over civil and political rights — determining who could be a citizen, how citizens related to each other, and how justice would be administered. These are matters of a general nature, but they don't inherently belong to the national government. We've already seen that the federal government was given the power to act in the nation's name in those cases where the nation needs to present itself as a single, undivided entity — foreign relations, common defense, and similar exclusively national concerns.

At first glance, the federal government's share of sovereignty seems larger than the states'. But a closer look reveals the opposite. The federal government's undertakings may be grander in scale, but they touch people's lives less frequently. The state governments' responsibilities may be smaller, but they are constant and tangible. The federal government watches over the general interests of the country — but a nation's general interests have a surprisingly weak hold on any individual's daily happiness. State governments, by contrast, maintain freedom, regulate rights, protect property, and secure the life and entire future prosperity of every citizen.

The federal government is distant from the people it governs. State governments are right there, accessible to everyone, ready to respond to the smallest concern. The federal government has on its side the ambitions of a few outstanding individuals who aspire to lead it. State governments attract the interests of all those capable, second-tier politicians who can only hope for influence within their own state — and yet these are the people who wield the most direct power over the public, because they operate closest to its level. Americans therefore have far more to hope for and fear from their state governments than from the Union. Given the natural tendencies of the human mind, they're far more likely to feel attached to the former than to the latter. On this point, their habits and feelings align perfectly with their interests.

When a unified nation divides its sovereignty and adopts a federal system, its traditions, customs, and social norms take a long time to catch up with the new legal structure — and in the meantime, they tend to give the central government more influence than the law intends. When several confederated states unite to form a single nation, the same forces work in reverse. If France were to become a federal republic like the United States, I have no doubt its government would initially be more powerful than the American one. And if the United States adopted a monarchy like France's, I think the American government would take a long time to acquire the strength that currently rules France. When the Anglo-Americans began their national existence, their provincial identity was already well established. Close relationships linked townships to individual citizens within each state, and people were accustomed to thinking of certain matters as shared concerns and others as exclusively local business.

The Union is a vast abstraction that offers no clear object for patriotic feeling. The individual state, by contrast, has distinct borders and familiar shape. It represents a defined set of things that citizens know and care about. It is tied to the very soil, to property rights and family life, to memories of the past, the work of the present, and the hopes of the future. Patriotism, which is often just an extension of personal self-regard, is therefore directed at the state, not the Union. The tendency of interests, habits, and feelings is to center political energy at the state level rather than the national level.

You can see the difference in how the two governments operate. When a state government addresses an individual or a group, its language is clear and commanding. The federal government uses the same authoritative tone with individuals — but the moment it has to deal with a state, it shifts into a completely different mode. It starts explaining, justifying, negotiating, persuading — anything but commanding. When a constitutional dispute arises between the two levels of government, the state government asserts its claim boldly and acts on it immediately. The federal government, meanwhile, reasons and deliberates. It appeals to the nation's interests, good sense, and pride. It stalls, it negotiates, and refuses to act until pushed to the absolute limit. At first glance, you'd think the state government was the one armed with national authority, and that Congress represented a single state.

The federal government, despite the precautions its founders took, is therefore inherently weak. More than any other form of government, it depends on the voluntary consent of the governed to function at all. The Constitution was designed to enable the states to act on their desire to remain united — and as long as that desire exists, federal authority is strong, measured, and effective. The Constitution gives the federal government the power to deal with individuals and to overcome the resistance any single person might offer. But it was never designed to handle the secession of one or more states from the Union.

If the sovereignty of the Union were to clash directly with the sovereignty of a state, the Union's defeat could be confidently predicted. Such a clash is unlikely to be seriously attempted. Experience has shown that whenever a state has demanded something with determination and persistence, it has always gotten its way — and when a state government has flatly refused to act, it has been left alone. As Jefferson wrote to General Lafayette about the War of 1812: "Four of the Eastern States were only attached to the Union like so many inanimate bodies to living men."

Even if the federal government had inherent strength of its own, the physical geography of the country would make it extremely difficult to exercise. The United States covers an immense territory. Its population is spread across a landscape that is still half wilderness. If the Union were to try to enforce the loyalty of a rebellious state by military force, it would find itself in a position remarkably similar to England's during the American Revolution.

However strong a government may be, it can't easily escape the consequences of a principle it has built into its own foundation. The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the states. In joining together, the states didn't forfeit their identity as separate peoples — they weren't fused into a single nation. If one of the states chose to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to prove it had no right to do so. The federal government would have no straightforward way to maintain its claim, either by force or by legal argument. For the federal government to easily overcome the resistance of a single state, it would need other states that were deeply invested in preserving the Union — the way dominant members have propped up other confederations throughout history.

If some states within a confederation exclusively enjoy its principal benefits, or if their prosperity depends on the union's survival, they'll always be ready to back the central government in forcing compliance from the others. But in that case, the government would be wielding a power derived not from its own nature but from a principle that contradicts it. Confederations are supposed to distribute benefits equally; a federal government drawing its power from the unequal distribution of those benefits is betraying its own founding logic.

If one state within a confederation becomes so powerful that it can seize control of the central authority, it will treat the other states as provinces under its rule and impose its dominance under the borrowed name of federal sovereignty. Great things may then be done in the name of the federal government, but the real federal government will have ceased to exist. In both cases — whether the union is held together by dominant members or by a single hegemon — the power acting in the federation's name grows stronger precisely as it abandons the true principles of confederation.

In America, the existing Union benefits all the states, but it is indispensable to none of them. Several could break away without damaging the others, though their own prosperity would suffer. Since no state's existence or happiness depends entirely on the current Constitution, none would be willing to make enormous personal sacrifices to preserve it. At the same time, no single state has enough ambition or power to dominate the rest — none can hope to treat the others as subordinates.

It seems clear to me that if any part of the Union seriously wanted to separate, the other states could not and would not try to prevent it. The present Union will last only as long as the states that compose it choose to remain. If we accept this point, the question becomes less difficult. We don't need to ask whether the states are capable of separating — we need to ask whether they will want to.

Among the reasons that make the Union valuable to Americans, two stand out. First, although Americans are essentially alone on their continent, their commerce makes them the neighbors of every trading nation in the world. Despite their apparent isolation, they need a degree of military strength they can only maintain by staying united. If the states split apart, they would not only lose their combined strength in foreign affairs — they would soon find foreign powers on their own doorstep. A system of interstate customs would spring up. River valleys would be divided by artificial borders. A web of obstacles would prevent Americans from fully exploiting the vast continent that Providence has given them. Right now they face no threat of invasion, and therefore need no standing army and levy no special taxes. If the Union dissolved, all these costly measures might quickly become necessary. Americans therefore have very powerful reasons to preserve their Union. On the other hand, it's almost impossible to identify any material interest that would tempt any part of the Union to break away.

Look at a map of the United States. You'll see the Allegheny Mountains running from northeast to southwest for nearly a thousand miles, and you might think Providence designed them as a natural barrier between the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic coast — one of those mountain ranges that divide peoples and mark the borders of nations. But the Alleghenies average only about 2,500 feet in height, with peaks no higher than 4,000 feet. Their rounded summits and spacious valleys are easily accessible from several directions. Moreover, the major rivers flowing into the Atlantic — the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the Potomac — all have their headwaters west of the Alleghenies, in open country bordering the Mississippi Valley. These rivers cut through the mountains, winding their way east and opening natural corridors for trade and travel. The Alleghenies are so far from being a boundary between nations that they don't even serve as a border between states — New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia all extend across both sides of the range. The territory of the twenty-four states and the three large territories that haven't yet achieved statehood covers about a million square miles, roughly five times the size of France. Within these borders, the soil, the climate, and the products of the land vary enormously. This vast extent has raised doubts about whether the Union can hold together. But a distinction must be made: conflicting interests within different parts of a large empire can lead to open dissension, and in that case, the country's size becomes a liability. But if the inhabitants of these vast regions don't have conflicting interests, then the size of the territory actually works in their favor — a unified government promotes trade between regions, increasing the value of each region's products by making them easier to exchange and consume.

It's easy to identify different interests across different parts of the Union, but I haven't found any that are truly hostile to one another. The Southern states are almost entirely agricultural. The Northern states focus more on commerce and manufacturing. The Western states combine both. The South grows tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar. The North and West grow wheat and corn. These are different sources of wealth — but the Union is what makes these sources available to all, and equally beneficial to each region.

The North, which ships American products to the world and brings the world's products back, has an obvious interest in keeping the confederation intact — the bigger the market, the better. The North is the natural commercial link between the South and West on one hand and the rest of the world on the other. The North therefore benefits from the continued union and prosperity of the South and West, which supply raw materials for its factories and cargo for its ships.

The South and West, for their part, are even more directly invested in preserving the Union and the North's prosperity. Southern products are mostly exported overseas. The South and West therefore need the North's commercial infrastructure. They also benefit from a powerful federal navy to protect them. The South and West have no ships of their own, but they can't refuse to help pay for the navy — because if European fleets were to blockade Southern ports and the mouth of the Mississippi, what would become of Carolina rice, Virginia tobacco, and the sugar and cotton of the Mississippi Valley? Every part of the federal budget therefore sustains material interests that are shared by all the states in the confederation.

Beyond this commercial value, the South and West draw significant political advantages from their connection with the North. The South contains an enormous enslaved population — already alarming and growing more formidable by the year. The Western states lie at the far end of a single vast river valley, cut off from Europe and the Old World by their geography. All the rivers running through their territory rise in the Rockies or the Alleghenies and flow into the Mississippi, which carries them to the Gulf of Mexico. Southerners are therefore drawn to support the Union for protection against the dangers of their enslaved population. Westerners support it to avoid being cut off from the wider world and trapped in the isolation of central America. The North wants the Union to continue because it serves as the connecting link between this enormous continental body and the rest of the globe.

The material interests of every part of the Union are therefore deeply intertwined. And the same holds true for what might be called the immaterial interests — the shared opinions and sentiments of the American people.

Chapter XVIII: The Future of Three Races — Part VII

Americans talk constantly about their love of country, but I'll confess that I don't put much faith in the kind of calculating patriotism that's founded on self-interest — the kind that disappears the moment interests change. I also don't put much weight on what Americans say in everyday conversation about their commitment to the federal system their forefathers established. A government holds onto the loyalty of large numbers of people far less through their rational, voluntary consent than through the instinctive, almost involuntary agreement that comes from shared feelings and similar ways of seeing the world. I will never accept that people form a real society simply because they obey the same leader and the same laws. True social bonds exist only when a large number of people see a large number of things the same way — when they share opinions on many subjects, and when the same events provoke the same thoughts and reactions.

Anyone who examines the United States with this principle in mind will quickly see that although the citizens are divided into twenty-four distinct sovereign states, they nonetheless form a single people. In fact, the unity among Americans may be deeper and more genuine than what you'd find in many European nations that live under the same laws and the same ruler.

Although Americans belong to multiple religious denominations, they all view religion in fundamentally the same way. They don't always agree on which policies are best for good government, and they differ on some institutional questions. But they are unanimous on the basic principles that should govern human society. From Maine to Florida, from Missouri to the Atlantic, the people are held to be the legitimate source of all power. Everyone shares the same ideas about freedom and equality, freedom of the press, the right of association, trial by jury, and the accountability of government officials.

If we move from their political and religious beliefs to the moral and philosophical principles that guide their daily behavior, we find the same uniformity. Americans accept the absolute moral authority of the community's collective judgment, just as they accept the political authority of the majority of citizens. They hold that public opinion is the most reliable judge of what's lawful or forbidden, true or false. Most of them believe that a person will naturally do the right thing if he correctly understands his own self-interest. They believe every person is born with the right to govern himself, and that no one has the right to force others to be happy against their will. They all share a lively faith in human perfectibility. They believe that spreading knowledge is always beneficial and that ignorance is always destructive. They see society as a work in progress and humanity as an ever-changing scene in which nothing is — or should be — permanent. They accept that what seems good today may be replaced by something better tomorrow. I'm not saying all these opinions are correct. I'm citing them as characteristic of the American mind.

Americans are bound together not only by these shared beliefs but also by a common feeling of national pride that separates them from every other country. For the past fifty years, no effort has been spared to convince Americans that they are the only truly religious, enlightened, and free people on earth. They see that their own democratic institutions are succeeding while those of other countries fail, and this produces an inflated sense of their own superiority. They are not far from believing they belong to a distinct race of humanity.

The real dangers facing the American Union don't come from conflicting interests or opinions. They come from the very different characters and temperaments of Americans in different regions. The people who inhabit this vast territory are nearly all descended from the same stock. But climate, and especially slavery, have gradually produced striking differences between the British settler of the South and the British settler of the North. In Europe, it's widely assumed that slavery has put the interests of one part of the Union in direct conflict with those of another. But that's not what I observed. Slavery hasn't created opposing interests between North and South — what it has done is reshape the character and transform the habits of Southerners.

I've already described how slavery has affected the commercial abilities of the South. Its influence extends equally to social customs and behavior. The enslaved person is a servant who never talks back, who endures everything without complaint. He may sometimes commit violence, but he never resists his master openly. In the South, there are no families so poor that they don't own slaves. From his earliest years, the white citizen of the Southern states lives as a kind of domestic dictator. The first idea he absorbs is that he was born to command. The first habit he develops is being obeyed without resistance. His upbringing therefore tends to make him proud, quick-tempered, impulsive, violent in his desires, impatient with obstacles — but easily discouraged if his first attempt at something doesn't succeed.

The Northerner, by contrast, grows up surrounded by no enslaved people. He's often not even attended by free servants, and usually has to take care of his own needs from an early age. The moment he enters the world, the idea of necessity presses on him from every side. He quickly learns the natural limits of his authority. He never expects to overpower those who resist him by force. He knows the surest way to get other people's cooperation is to earn their goodwill. He therefore becomes patient, reflective, tolerant, slow to act, and persistent in his plans.

In the Southern states, the basic necessities of life are always provided by others. Freed from material concerns, the Southerner's mind turns to grander, vaguer, more captivating ambitions. The white Southerner is drawn to grandeur, luxury, fame, entertainment, pleasure, and above all, idleness. Nothing forces him to exert himself to survive, and since he has no necessary occupation, he gives in to laziness and doesn't even attempt what might be useful.

In the North, the equality of fortunes and the absence of slavery plunge people into exactly the daily material concerns that Southern whites disdain. From childhood, Northerners are taught to fight want and to place practical comfort above the pleasures of the mind or the heart. Imagination is smothered by the small details of daily life. Ideas become fewer and less sweeping, but far more practical and precise. Since prosperity is the sole purpose of effort, it is pursued with remarkable efficiency. Nature and humanity are put to the best financial use, and society is skillfully organized so that each person's private selfishness becomes a source of general prosperity.

The Northerner has both experience and knowledge — but he doesn't value knowledge for its own sake. He sees it as a tool for achieving a practical end and is interested only in its most profitable applications. The Southerner is more impulsive, more clever, more generous, more intellectual, and more brilliant. The Northerner, with his greater energy, common sense, information, and all-around capability, has the strengths and weaknesses of the middle class. The Southerner has the tastes, prejudices, weaknesses, and grandeur of an aristocracy. If two people share interests and broadly agree on principles but have different temperaments, different skills, and different styles of living, they will probably clash. The same observation applies to a society of nations. Slavery, then, doesn't threaten the American Union directly through conflicting interests — it threatens it indirectly, through the different characters it produces.

The states that signed the federal compact in 1790 were thirteen in number. The Union now consists of thirty-four. The population, which stood at nearly four million in 1790, had more than tripled by 1830, reaching almost thirteen million. Changes this dramatic don't happen without risk.

A federation, like any association, gets its best chance of lasting from the wisdom of its members, their individual weakness, and their small number. The Americans who leave the Atlantic coast to push into the western wilderness are adventurers who chafe at restraint, are hungry for wealth, and are often people who were driven out of the states where they were born. When they arrive in the wilderness, they're strangers to one another. They have no shared traditions, no family bonds, no force of example to restrain their excesses. The rule of law is weak among them, and the rule of morality weaker still. The settlers constantly streaming into the Mississippi Valley are, in every way, inferior to the Americans living in the older parts of the Union. Yet they already wield significant influence in national politics, arriving at the business of governing the country before they've learned to govern themselves.

The weaker each member of a federation is individually, the better the federation's chances of survival — because each member's safety depends on the union. When the most populous American state in 1790 had fewer than 500,000 people, every state felt its own insignificance as an independent entity, and this made it easier to accept federal authority. But when a single state, like New York, has two million inhabitants and covers a territory equal to a quarter of France, it feels its own strength. It may still see the Union as beneficial to its prosperity, but it no longer sees it as essential to its existence. And once it stays in the federal compact not out of necessity but out of convenience, it inevitably starts reaching for dominance in the federal assemblies. As the number of states grows, their natural unanimity shrinks. The interests of different parts of the Union are not currently in conflict — but who can foresee all the changes coming in a country where new cities are founded daily and new states almost yearly?

Since the first British settlement, America's population has roughly doubled every twenty-two years. I see no reason why this shouldn't continue for the next hundred years. Before that century is over, I believe the territories and dependencies of the United States will hold more than a hundred million people, divided into some forty states. I'll grant that these hundred million people would have no hostile interests. I'll even assume they're all equally invested in preserving the Union. I still believe that with a hundred million people spread across forty distinct and unequally powerful states, the survival of the federal government can only be a fortunate accident.

Until human nature is fundamentally altered, I will refuse to believe in the durability of a government that has to hold together forty different peoples spread across a territory half the size of Europe — avoiding all rivalry, ambition, and conflict among them while directing their independent energies toward common goals.

But the greatest danger the Union faces from its own growth comes from the constant shifts in its internal balance of power. The distance from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico stretches from the 47th to the 30th parallel — more than 1,200 miles as the crow flies. The American frontier traces this entire immense line, sometimes falling short of it but usually reaching far beyond into unsettled territory. On average, the white population advances about seventeen miles a year along this vast boundary. Obstacles appear — barren land, a lake, a Native American nation that wasn't expected — and the advancing line pauses. Its two ends fold inward, and once they reconnect, the advance resumes. This gradual, relentless westward march of the European race toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event. It's like a flood of humanity, rising without pause, driven ceaselessly forward by the hand of God.

Within this advancing front line, towns are being built and enormous states founded. In 1790, only a few thousand pioneers were scattered across the Mississippi Valley. By the time of writing, those valleys hold nearly four million people — as many as the entire Union had in 1790. Washington, D.C. was built in 1800 at what was then the geographic center of the Union. But the center has shifted so dramatically that Washington now sits near the eastern edge. Delegates from the most remote Western states already have to travel as far as the distance from Vienna to Paris.

All the states are moving forward together along the road of progress, but they aren't all growing at the same rate. North of the Potomac, the Atlantic coast has natural deep-water harbors constantly accessible to large ships. South of the Potomac all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi, the coast is flat and sandy. Almost every river mouth is obstructed, and what few harbors exist among the coastal lagoons are far shallower and commercially less useful than those in the North.

This natural disadvantage is compounded by a man-made one. As we've already seen, slavery persists in the South while the North has abolished it — and I've already described slavery's devastating effects on the slave-owner's own prosperity.

The North is therefore superior to the South in both commerce and manufacturing, and the natural result is faster population growth and faster accumulation of wealth. The states along the Atlantic seaboard are already half-filled. Most of the land has an owner, so these states can't absorb as many newcomers as the Western states, where a boundless field still lies open. The Mississippi Valley is far more fertile than the Atlantic coast. This fact, combined with all the others, drives Europeans westward — and the numbers prove it conclusively. While the total population of the United States roughly tripled over forty years, the population of the newer states along the Mississippi increased thirty-one-fold in the same period.

The center of gravity of federal power is constantly being displaced. Forty years ago, the majority of Americans lived along the Atlantic coast, near where Washington now stands. Today, the bulk of the population is moving inland and northward. In twenty years, the majority will unquestionably live west of the Alleghenies. If the Union continues to exist, the Mississippi basin is clearly destined by its fertility and extent to become the center of federal power. In thirty or forty years, that region will have assumed the rank that naturally belongs to it. A rough calculation puts its population at about four times that of the Atlantic coast. In a few years, the states that founded the Union will lose control of its politics, and the population of the Mississippi Valley will dominate the federal assemblies.

This constant gravitational pull of federal power and influence toward the Northwest is revealed every ten years, when the census is taken and the number of congressional representatives each state sends is recalculated. In 1790, Virginia had nineteen representatives in Congress. That number rose to twenty-three by 1813, then began to fall, dropping to twenty-one by 1833. During the same period, New York went in the opposite direction: ten representatives in 1790, twenty-seven in 1813, thirty-four in 1823, forty in 1833. Ohio, which had just one representative in 1803, already had nineteen by 1833.

This pattern illustrates a simple but important point: a state's number of representatives can actually decline even while its population is growing, as long as other states are growing faster. Virginia's population grew by thirteen percent in the decade from 1820 to 1830 — but because other states, and especially the western territories, were growing far more rapidly, Virginia's share of the total shrank. The unequal fortunes of different states are dramatic: during the same period that Virginia grew by thirteen percent, the territory of Michigan grew by 250 percent, and neighboring Ohio by sixty-one percent.

It's hard to imagine a lasting union between a rich, strong nation and a poor, weak one — even if you could prove that the strength and wealth of one didn't cause the poverty and weakness of the other. But keeping a union together is even harder when one side is losing power while the other is gaining it. The rapid, uneven growth of certain states threatens the independence of the rest. New York, with its two million inhabitants and forty representatives, could potentially dictate terms to the other states in Congress. But even if the more powerful states never actually try to dominate the smaller ones, the danger still exists — because the mere possibility of the act is almost as threatening as the act itself. The weak always distrust the justice and reasoning of the strong. States that grow more slowly look at the faster-growing ones with envy and suspicion. This explains the deep-seated anxiety and vague unrest you can see in the South, which stands in stark contrast to the confidence and prosperity found elsewhere in the Union. I'm inclined to think the hostile measures recently taken by the Southern states can be traced to nothing else. Southerners are, of all Americans, the most invested in maintaining the Union — they would suffer the most from being left on their own — and yet they're the only citizens threatening to break the bond of confederation. It's easy to see why: the South, which gave four presidents to the Union — Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe — can feel its federal influence slipping away. Its representation in Congress shrinks year after year, while the Northern and Western states gain more seats. The South, populated by passionate and quick-tempered people, grows more and more angry and alarmed. Its citizens reflect on their current position and remember their past influence with the uneasy suspicion of people who sense oppression coming. If they find a federal law that isn't clearly favorable to their interests, they denounce it as an abuse of power. If their passionate protests go unheard, they threaten to leave an association that loads them with burdens while stripping them of their fair share. "The tariff," declared the people of South Carolina in 1832, "enriches the North and ruins the South. If that weren't the case, how else do you explain the constantly growing power and wealth of the North, with its harsh climate and barren soil — while the South, which could rightly be called the garden of America, is rapidly declining?"

If these changes were gradual — if each generation at least had time to pass from the scene along with the order of things it had known — the danger would be smaller. But the pace of change in America is breakneck, almost revolutionary. A single citizen might live to see his state lead the Union, and then watch it become powerless in federal assemblies. An American republic has been known to grow as fast as a person aging from infancy to adulthood in the span of thirty years. It shouldn't be imagined, though, that states losing their dominant position also lose their population or wealth. Their prosperity doesn't stop — they actually keep growing faster than any kingdom in Europe. But they believe themselves impoverished because their wealth doesn't increase as fast as their neighbors'. They think their power is lost because they suddenly find themselves up against a power greater than their own. Their feelings and their pride are hurt more than their actual interests. But that's more than enough to endanger the Union. If kings and peoples throughout history had always acted on their true interests alone, the word "war" would barely be known to humanity.

So the very prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers threatening it. Rapid growth breeds a kind of overexcitement in some states, while triggering envy, mistrust, and regret in others — the feelings that always accompany the loss of fortune. Americans look at their extraordinary, headlong progress with pride, but they would be wiser to view it with concern. The people of the United States are destined to become one of the greatest nations in the world. Their descendants will eventually cover almost all of North America; the continent they inhabit is their domain, and it can't escape them. What's driving them to seize it so quickly? Wealth, power, and fame will inevitably be theirs someday — but they rush toward their destiny as if they only had a moment left to claim it.

I believe I've shown that the survival of the current confederation depends entirely on the ongoing consent of all the member states. Starting from that principle, I've examined what might lead the various states to separate from one another. The Union can die in two ways. One of the member states might choose to withdraw from the compact, forcibly severing the federal bond — and most of my observations so far have addressed this scenario. Alternatively, the authority of the federal government might be gradually hollowed out as the member states simultaneously drift toward independence. The central power, stripped of one prerogative after another, would be reduced to impotence by tacit consent and rendered incapable of fulfilling its purpose. This second Union would die, like the first, from a kind of senile decay. The gradual weakening of the federal bond, which could eventually dissolve the Union entirely, is a distinct process that might produce all sorts of consequences well before it reaches that extreme. The confederation could keep existing even if its government were so enfeebled that it paralyzed the nation, caused internal chaos, and stunted the country's prosperity.

Having examined the causes that might drive Americans to break apart, it's important to ask whether — if the Union survives — the federal government will expand or contract its sphere of action, and whether it will grow stronger or weaker.

Americans clearly tend to look at their country's future with alarm. They see that in most nations around the world, sovereign power tends to fall into fewer and fewer hands, and they're dismayed by the idea that the same thing could happen here. Even the politicians feel — or pretend to feel — these fears, because in America, centralization is deeply unpopular, and there's no surer way to win over the majority than by railing against the encroachments of the central government. But Americans fail to notice that the countries where this alarming tendency toward centralization exists are each made up of a single unified people, while the fact that the Union is composed of different member communities is enough to invalidate any such comparison. I'll confess that I think the fears of many Americans are purely imaginary. Far from sharing their dread that power is consolidating in the hands of the Union, I believe the federal government is visibly losing strength.

To prove this, I won't reach back to distant events — I'll stick to things I've witnessed myself, things that belong to our own time.

A careful look at what's happening in the United States reveals two opposing tendencies at work in the country, like two currents flowing in opposite directions through the same channel. The Union has now existed for forty-five years, and during that time a great many regional prejudices that were once hostile to federal power have faded. The patriotic attachment that tied each American to his own state has become less exclusive. The different parts of the Union have grown more closely connected as they've gotten to know each other better. The postal service — that great instrument of intellectual exchange — now reaches into the backwoods. Steamboats have created daily communication links between different points along the coast. An inland navigation network of remarkable speed carries goods up and down the country's rivers. And to these natural and technological advantages, add the restless energy, the busy-mindedness, and the love of money that constantly push Americans into active life and bring them into contact with their fellow citizens. An American crosses the country in every direction. He visits all its various populations. There isn't a province in France where the inhabitants know each other as well as the thirteen million people spread across the territory of the United States.

But while Americans are mixing together, they're also growing more alike. The differences created by climate, origin, and institutions are shrinking, and everyone is converging toward a common type. Every year, thousands of people leave the North to settle in different parts of the Union. They bring with them their beliefs, their opinions, and their customs. Since they tend to be better educated than the people among whom they settle, they quickly rise to positions of influence and reshape society to suit themselves. This continuous migration from North to South is especially favorable to the fusion of all the different regional characters into a single national character. Northern civilization appears to be the common standard toward which the whole nation is gradually converging.

The commercial ties binding the member states together are strengthened by America's growing manufacturing sector. What began as a union of shared opinions is gradually becoming a union of shared habits. Over time, the phantom fears that haunted people's imaginations in 1789 have been swept away. The federal government hasn't become oppressive. It hasn't destroyed the independence of the states. It hasn't imposed monarchical institutions. The Union hasn't made the smaller states dependent on the larger ones. On the contrary, the confederation has continued to grow in population, in wealth, and in power. I'm therefore convinced that the natural obstacles to the Union's survival are not as powerful today as they were in 1789, and that its enemies are not as numerous.

Yet a careful look at the last forty-five years of American history will readily show that federal power is in decline — and the reasons aren't hard to explain. When the Constitution was adopted in 1789, the nation was in a state of near-anarchy. The Union that replaced this chaos inspired both dread and hostility, but it had strong support because it answered an urgent need. So even though it faced more opposition than it does now, the federal government quickly reached its peak authority — as usually happens with a government that emerges victorious from a struggle that tested its strength. At the time, constitutional interpretation tended to expand federal sovereignty rather than restrict it, and in several respects, the Union looked like a single, undivided people governed by a single government. But to reach that point, the people had risen, in a sense, above themselves.

The Constitution hadn't abolished the separate sovereignty of the states, and all communities — whatever their nature — are driven by a deep impulse to assert their independence. This impulse is even stronger in a country like America, where every village is a kind of republic accustomed to managing its own affairs. Submitting to federal authority was an effort for the states, and all efforts, however successful, naturally fade once the conditions that produced them pass.

As the federal government consolidated its authority, America regained its standing among nations. Peace returned to its borders and public credit was restored. Chaos gave way to stability — which in turn allowed industry and enterprise to flourish freely. And it was precisely this prosperity that made Americans forget what had caused it. Once the danger had passed, the energy and patriotism that had carried them through it vanished. Free of the worries that had weighed on them, they slipped easily back into their old habits and gave in to their natural tendencies without resistance. When a powerful central government no longer seemed necessary, they began to see it as a burden. The Union had created widespread prosperity, and the states had no desire to leave it — but they wanted to make the authority of its central government as light as possible. The general principle of union was accepted, but in every specific detail, the real tendency was toward independence. The idea of confederation was more easily accepted every day, but less and less often put into practice. And so the federal government brought about its own decline at the very moment it was creating order and peace.

As soon as this shift in public opinion became visible, political leaders — who thrive on popular passions — began exploiting it for their own advantage. The federal government's position became extremely precarious. Its enemies had won popular support, and they gained control of its policies by promising to reduce its influence. From that point on, the federal government was forced to retreat every time it tried to compete with state governments. Whenever the terms of the federal Constitution required interpretation, that interpretation almost always went against the Union and in favor of the states.

The Constitution had given the federal government the right to promote the national interest, and it had been accepted that no other authority was better suited to oversee "internal improvements" that affected the whole Union's prosperity — things like building canals. But the states grew alarmed at a power separate from their own that could dispose of portions of their territory. They feared the central government would use this to build up a formidable network of patronage within their borders, exercising a degree of influence they intended to reserve for their own officials. The Democratic Party, which had always opposed expanding federal authority, accused Congress of overreaching and the president of ambition. The central government, intimidated by this opposition, backed down and acknowledged its error, promising to confine its influence strictly within the limits prescribed by the Constitution.

The Constitution gives the Union the right to conduct foreign affairs. The Native American tribes along the frontiers had generally been treated as foreign nations in this context. As long as these Indigenous peoples agreed to retreat before the advancing settlers, the federal government's authority over them went unquestioned. But as soon as a Native American tribe tried to establish itself permanently on a given piece of land, the neighboring states claimed ownership of the territory and sovereignty over its inhabitants. The central government quickly conceded both claims: after having negotiated treaties with the tribes as independent nations, it handed them over as subjects to the legislative tyranny of the states.

Some of the original coastal states had extended their claims indefinitely westward, into wilderness where no European had ever set foot. The states with firmly fixed boundaries looked jealously at the boundless regions their neighbors might one day explore. To resolve this and facilitate the act of union, those larger states agreed to set boundaries and surrender all territory beyond them to the confederation as a whole. From that point on, the federal government became the owner of all uncultivated land beyond the borders of the original thirteen states. It was given the right to divide and sell this land, with all proceeds going exclusively to the federal treasury — funding the purchase of territory from Native Americans, the construction of roads to remote settlements, and the general advance of civilization. Over time, however, new states formed in the midst of these formerly ceded wilderness areas. Congress continued selling the uncultivated land within these new states for the benefit of the nation as a whole. But the new states eventually argued that since they were now fully established, they should have the exclusive right to keep the revenue from these sales. As their protests grew more threatening, Congress thought it wise to give up a portion of the privileges it had held, and at the end of 1832, it passed a law transferring most of the revenue from land sales to the new western states — though the land itself was not ceded to them.

Even the most casual observer in the United States can appreciate the advantages the country gets from the national bank. These advantages are numerous, but one is especially striking to a foreigner: banknotes issued by the Bank of the United States are accepted at the same value on the edge of the frontier as they are in Philadelphia, where the bank has its headquarters.

The Bank of the United States is nevertheless the target of fierce hostility. Its directors have openly opposed the president, and they are accused — not without some basis — of having used their influence to thwart his election. The president therefore attacks the institution they represent with all the heat of a personal vendetta, encouraged by the conviction that the majority secretly supports him. The bank can be seen as the great monetary bond of the Union, just as Congress is its great legislative bond — and the same passions that drive the states toward independence from the central government also fuel the campaign to destroy the bank.

The Bank of the United States constantly holds a large number of notes issued by state banks, which it can at any time demand be converted into cash. It has nothing to fear from a similar demand itself, since its vast resources allow it to meet all claims. But the existence of state banks is thus kept in check, and their operations are limited — they can only issue notes in proportion to their capital. They submit to this restraint with growing impatience. The newspapers they've bought and the president, whose own interests make him their instrument, attack the bank with the greatest ferocity. They stir up regional loyalties and the country's blind democratic instincts to support their cause, claiming that the bank's directors form a permanent aristocratic class whose influence will eventually infiltrate the government and threaten the principles of equality on which American society rests.

The battle between the bank and its opponents is just one episode in the larger struggle playing out in America between the states and the central government — between the spirit of democratic independence and the spirit of hierarchy and order. I don't mean that the bank's enemies are exactly the same people who attack the federal government on other issues. But I do assert that the attacks on the Bank of the United States spring from the same impulses that undermine the federal government, and that the bank's many opponents are a troubling symptom of the declining support for federal authority.

The Union has never looked as weak as it did during the celebrated tariff crisis. The wars of the French Revolution and of 1812 had created manufacturing establishments in the North by cutting off free trade between America and Europe. When peace came and the flow of European goods resumed, the Americans established a system of import duties both to protect their new industries and to pay off their war debts. The Southern states, which had no manufacturers to protect and were purely agricultural, quickly objected. Those were the simple facts, and I won't try to judge here whether their complaints were justified or not.

As early as 1820, South Carolina declared in a petition to Congress that the tariff was "unconstitutional, oppressive, and unjust." Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi subsequently filed similar protests with varying degrees of force. But far from listening, Congress actually raised tariff rates in 1824 and 1828, reaffirming the principle behind the tariff. A doctrine was then proclaimed — or rather revived — in the South, which took the name of Nullification.

I've already shown that the purpose of the federal Constitution was not to create a league but to create a national government. The people of the United States form a single, undivided nation in all the cases specified by the Constitution, and on these matters the will of the nation is expressed — as in all constitutional nations — by the voice of the majority. When the majority has spoken, the minority's duty is to submit. This is the sound legal doctrine, and the only one consistent with the text of the Constitution and the known intentions of its framers.

The proponents of Nullification in the South argued the opposite: that when the Americans united, they never intended to merge themselves into a single people; that they meant to form a league of independent states; and that each state therefore retained its full sovereignty, if not in practice, at least in principle — including the right to interpret the laws of Congress for itself and to suspend their enforcement within its own territory if it deemed them unconstitutional and unjust.

The entire doctrine of Nullification is captured in a single sentence spoken by Vice President John C. Calhoun, the leader of that party in the South, before the United States Senate in 1833: "The Constitution is a compact to which the states were parties in their sovereign capacity; now, whenever a compact 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 itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument." It's obvious that such a doctrine destroys the very foundation of the federal Constitution and brings back all the evils of the old Articles of Confederation, from which Americans were supposed to have been safely delivered.

When South Carolina saw that Congress was ignoring its protests, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to the federal tariff. Congress persisted, and the storm finally broke. In 1832, the citizens of South Carolina convened a state convention to consider what extraordinary measures the situation demanded. On November 24 of that year, this convention issued a decree annulling the federal tariff law, forbidding the collection of the duties it imposed, and refusing to recognize any appeal to the federal courts. The decree was to take effect in February, and it was suggested that if Congress modified the tariff before then, South Carolina might be persuaded to back down. A vague desire was also expressed to submit the whole question to an extraordinary assembly of all the member states.

In the meantime, South Carolina armed its militia and prepared for war. Congress, which had ignored the state's complaints when they came as petitions, suddenly listened once the petitioners picked up weapons. A law was passed that would progressively reduce tariff duties over ten years until they were no higher than what the government needed to cover its own expenses. Congress had completely abandoned the principle of the protective tariff, replacing it with a simple revenue tax. To disguise its defeat, the federal government resorted to an expedient that weak governments love: it gave in on the substance while holding firm on the principle. Even as Congress was changing the tariff law, it passed another bill granting the president extraordinary powers to overcome by force a resistance that was, by that point, no longer expected.

But South Carolina wasn't about to let the Union enjoy even these small trophies of victory. The same state convention that had annulled the tariff met again, accepted the offered concession — but simultaneously declared its unshaken commitment to the doctrine of Nullification. And to prove it meant what it said, it annulled the law granting the president extraordinary powers, even though everyone knew those powers would never actually be used.

Nearly all the controversies I've been describing took place under the presidency of Andrew Jackson, and it must be admitted that on the tariff question, he defended the Union's interests with both vigor and skill. I believe, however, that the conduct of the man who currently represents the federal government should itself be counted among the dangers threatening the Union's survival.

Some people in Europe have formed opinions about Jackson's potential influence on his country that strike those who've observed things more closely as wildly exaggerated. We've been told that Jackson has won battles, that he's an energetic man, naturally and habitually inclined to use force, hungry for power, and a despot by temperament. All this may be true, but the conclusions drawn from it are completely wrong. People have imagined that Jackson is bent on establishing a dictatorship, introducing a military spirit into American life, and giving the central government a dangerous degree of influence over state freedoms. But in America, the time for such undertakings — and the era for that kind of leader — hasn't arrived. If Jackson had ever hoped to exercise authority in that way, he would certainly have lost his political position and risked his life. He's not reckless enough to have tried.

Far from wanting to expand federal power, the president belongs to the party that wants to limit it to the bare, literal text of the Constitution — the party that never interprets that document in the federal government's favor. Far from being a champion of centralization, Jackson is the agent of all the states' jealousies. He was elevated to his position by precisely those popular passions most hostile to the central government. He maintains his office and his popularity by constantly flattering those passions. Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its tendencies, its demands — or rather, he anticipates and gets ahead of them.

Whenever the state governments clash with the federal government, the president is usually the first to question his own authority. He almost always outpaces the legislature in retreating. When the extent of federal power is disputed, he essentially takes the other side against himself — concealing his official interests and suppressing his own natural inclinations. Not that he's naturally weak or hostile to the Union. When the majority ruled against the advocates of Nullification, Jackson put himself at its head, forcefully and clearly asserted the nation's doctrines, and was the first to recommend the use of force. But Jackson strikes me — to borrow the American political labels — as a Federalist by temperament and a Republican by calculation.

Jackson bows low to win the majority's favor, but once he feels his popularity is secure, he steamrolls every obstacle in pursuit of the goals the public approves — or at least doesn't care enough to oppose. He wields a power his predecessors never had. He tramples his personal enemies with an ease no former president ever enjoyed. He takes responsibility for measures no one before him would have dared attempt. He even treats the national legislature with something approaching contempt: he vetoes acts of Congress and frequently doesn't bother responding to that powerful body at all. He's a favorite who sometimes treats his master roughly. Jackson's personal power keeps growing — but the power of the presidency as an institution is declining. In his hands, the federal government is strong. But it will pass, weakened, into the hands of his successor.

I would be very much mistaken if the federal government is not steadily losing strength — gradually withdrawing from public affairs and shrinking its scope of action with each passing year. It is naturally weak, and now it's even abandoning its pretensions to strength. On the other hand, I thought I detected a more vigorous sense of independence and a stronger attachment to state government in the individual states. The Union is to go on existing — but as a shadow. It is supposed to be strong in certain cases and weak in all others: powerful enough in wartime to concentrate the nation's entire military and economic resources, yet barely perceptible in peacetime. As if this alternation between feebleness and vigor were natural — or even possible.

For the present, I don't see anything capable of stopping this general drift of public opinion. The causes that set it in motion continue to operate with the same force. The shift will therefore continue, and it can be predicted that — barring some extraordinary event — the federal government will grow weaker and weaker with each passing day.

I do think, however, that the moment when the federal government is entirely extinguished by its own inability to protect itself and maintain domestic peace is still a long way off. The Union is sustained by the customs and desires of the people. Its results are tangible, its benefits visible. When it becomes clear that federal weakness is threatening the Union's very existence, I have no doubt a reaction will set in to restore its strength.

The government of the United States is, of all federal governments ever established, the one most naturally equipped to act. As long as it is only attacked indirectly — through the interpretation of its laws — and as long as its essential substance isn't seriously altered, a shift in public opinion, an internal crisis, or a war could restore all the strength it needs. The point I've been most eager to make clear is simply this: many people, especially in France, believe that a trend in the United States is moving toward centralizing power in the hands of the president and Congress. I see the exact opposite. Far from gaining strength or threatening the sovereignty of the states as it ages, the federal government is growing weaker and weaker. It is the sovereignty of the Union itself that is in danger. These are the facts as they stand today. The future hides the final outcome of this tendency, along with the events that might check, slow, or accelerate the changes I've described. But I won't pretend I can lift the veil that conceals them from our sight.

The Prospects of Republican Government in the United States

The Union is an accident — republican institutions have better prospects for permanence — a republic is currently the natural form of government for Americans — to destroy it, you would have to change all the laws simultaneously and transform the entire culture — the difficulty of creating an aristocracy in America.

The breakup of the Union, by bringing war into the heart of states that are currently joined together — with standing armies, dictatorships, and heavy taxation — might eventually threaten the survival of republican institutions. But we shouldn't confuse the future of the republic with the future of the Union. The Union is an accident that will last only as long as circumstances favor its existence. But a republican form of government seems to me to be the natural condition of Americans — something that only the sustained pressure of hostile forces, always acting in the same direction, could transform into a monarchy. The Union exists mainly in the law that created it: one revolution, one shift in public opinion, could destroy it forever. But the republic rests on a much deeper foundation.

What does "republican government" actually mean in the United States? It means the slow, quiet influence of society governing itself. It's a stable system genuinely founded on the informed will of the people. It's a conciliatory form of government in which decisions are given time to ripen, are deliberately discussed, and are executed with careful judgment. American republicans place a high value on morality, respect religious belief, and acknowledge the existence of individual rights. They hold that a people should be moral, religious, and self-disciplined in direct proportion to how free it is. What Americans call "the republic" is the calm rule of the majority — a majority that, after having had time to examine itself and prove that it exists, becomes the common source of all governmental power. But the majority's power is not unlimited. In the moral world, humanity, justice, and reason enjoy undisputed authority. In the political world, established rights are treated with no less respect. The majority recognizes both these boundaries. If it sometimes oversteps them, that's because — like any individual — it has passions and is capable of doing wrong while knowing what's right.

But European demagogues have come up with some strange ideas. A republic, according to them, isn't the rule of the majority, as has always been understood, but the rule of those who claim to be the majority's most passionate champions. It isn't the people who govern in this kind of system, but those who consider themselves the greatest experts on what the people really want. A convenient distinction — one that allows people to act in the name of nations without consulting them, and to demand gratitude while trampling on rights. Republican government, in their version, is also the only kind that claims the right to do whatever it pleases, scorning everything that people have always respected, from the highest moral obligations to the most basic rules of common sense. Until our time, despotism was considered hateful in whatever form it appeared. But modern thinkers have discovered that there are such things as legitimate tyranny and holy injustice — as long as they're exercised in the name of the people.

The ideas Americans hold about republican government make it easy for them to live under it, and ensure its survival. Even if republican government in their country is often flawed in practice, it is at least sound in theory — and in the end, the people always act in accordance with it.

It would have been impossible at the founding of the states, and it remains difficult today, to establish a centralized administration in America. The population is dispersed over too vast a space, separated by too many natural obstacles, for any one person to manage the details of their lives. America is therefore, above all, the country of local and municipal government. All the European colonists in the New World felt this reality, but the Anglo-Americans added several factors unique to themselves.

When the North American colonies were founded, local self-government had already become embedded in English law and English customs. The settlers adopted it not merely as a necessity but as a benefit they knew how to value. We've already seen how the colonies were established: every region, almost every district, was settled separately by people who were strangers to one another or who had come together for very different purposes. The English settlers in America quickly realized they were divided into a great many small, distinct communities with no common center, and that each of these little communities had to manage its own affairs since there was no central authority naturally suited to do it for them. The nature of the country, the way the colonies were founded, the habits of the first settlers — in short, everything — combined to promote local and municipal self-government to an extraordinary degree.

In the United States, therefore, the mass of the country's institutions is fundamentally republican. To permanently destroy the laws that form the basis of the republic, you would have to abolish them all at once. It would actually be harder today for a political party to establish a monarchy in the United States than for a group of people to declare that France should become a republic going forward. A monarchy would find no system of laws prepared for it in advance. It would exist as an isolated institution surrounded by republican ones. The monarchical principle would also have enormous difficulty penetrating into American customs and habits.

In the United States, the sovereignty of the people isn't some isolated doctrine disconnected from the prevailing customs and ideas. On the contrary, it can be seen as the final link in a chain of beliefs that runs through the entire Anglo-American world. The grand principle underlying civil and political life in the United States is this: Providence has given every human being enough reason to direct himself in the matters that concern him personally. A father applies this principle to his children, a master to his servants, a township to its officials, a county to its townships, a state to its counties, the Union to the states. Extend it to the nation as a whole, and it becomes the doctrine of popular sovereignty.

The fundamental principle of the republic in the United States is therefore the same principle that governs most of human life. Republican ideas permeate all American thought, opinions, and habits, while being formally enshrined in law. Before these laws could be changed, the entire community would have to undergo a profound transformation. In the United States, even the religion of most citizens is republican in character: it submits the truths of the spiritual world to individual judgment, just as politics entrusts temporal interests to the good sense of the people. Every person is free to take whatever road he thinks will lead to heaven, just as every citizen has the right to choose his government.

Clearly, nothing short of a long series of events, all pushing in the same direction, could replace this combination of laws, opinions, and customs with an entirely opposite set.

If republican principles are ever to die in America, they will do so only after a long, painful social process — one that is frequently interrupted and frequently resumed. There will be many apparent revivals, and republicanism won't become fully extinct until an entirely new people has replaced the one that exists today. And there is simply no sign that any such revolution is approaching. Nothing strikes a newcomer to the United States more than the tumultuous energy of its political life. Laws change constantly, and at first glance it seems impossible that a people so fickle in its desires could avoid adopting an entirely new form of government within a short time. But these fears are premature. There are two kinds of legislative instability, and they shouldn't be confused. The first kind — which modifies secondary laws — is perfectly compatible with a very stable social order. The second kind shakes the very foundations of the constitution and attacks the fundamental principles of legislation. This second kind is always accompanied by upheaval and revolution, and the nation that suffers from it is in a state of violent transition.

Experience shows that these two kinds of instability have no necessary connection — they can exist together or separately, depending on times and circumstances. The first is common in the United States, but not the second. Americans change their laws often, but the foundation of the Constitution is respected.

In our time, the republican principle reigns in America much as the monarchical principle did in France under Louis XIV. The French of that era weren't merely supporters of the monarchy — they thought it was impossible to put anything in its place. They accepted it the way we accept sunshine and the turning of the seasons. Royal power had neither advocates nor opponents, because it needed none. In exactly the same way, republican government exists in America without debate or opposition — not through proofs and arguments but through a silent consensus, a kind of universal agreement. I do think, however, that by changing their administrative procedures as often as they do, Americans risk the future stability of their government.

It's possible to imagine that people who are constantly thwarted by shifting legislation will eventually come to see republican institutions themselves as inconvenient. The problems caused by unstable secondary laws might then cast doubt on the fundamental principles of the Constitution and indirectly bring about a revolution. But that day is still very far off.

It can already be foreseen, however, that when Americans do lose their republican institutions, they will pass quickly to despotism without any long interval of limited monarchy. Montesquieu observed that nothing is more absolute than the authority of a ruler who immediately succeeds a republic, since the powers that were fearlessly entrusted to an elected official are then transferred to a hereditary sovereign. This is true in general, but especially applicable to a democratic republic. In the United States, officials are not elected by any particular class of citizens but by the majority of the nation. They are the direct representatives of the majority's passions, and because they depend entirely on its pleasure, they inspire neither hatred nor fear. As I've already shown, little care has been taken to limit their power, and they've been left with an enormous amount of discretionary authority. This situation has created habits that would outlast the system itself. An American official would keep his power but would cease to be accountable for how he used it — and it's impossible to say what limits could then be placed on tyranny.

Some European political observers expect an aristocracy to emerge in America and already predict when it will seize the reins of government. I've said before, and I'll say it again: the current direction of American society strikes me as becoming more and more democratic. I won't claim that Americans will never restrict the scope of political rights in their country, or even concentrate those rights in a single individual. But I can't imagine them ever handing the exclusive exercise of those rights to a privileged class — in other words, ever creating an aristocracy.

An aristocratic class is made up of a certain number of citizens who, without being very far removed from the mass of the people, are nonetheless permanently stationed above them — a group that is easy to reach but hard to strike, that the people interact with daily but can never merge with. Nothing is more contrary to human nature and to the deepest instincts of the human heart than this kind of subordination. People left to follow their own preferences will always choose the arbitrary power of a single ruler over the orderly administration of an aristocratic class. Aristocratic institutions can't exist without establishing human inequality as a foundational principle, writing it into law, and affecting the condition of the human family as much as it affects the structure of society. But these arrangements are so repugnant to natural fairness that they can only be imposed on people by force.

I don't think you can point to a single people in all of human history that has voluntarily, through its own effort, created an aristocracy within its own society. Every aristocracy of the Middle Ages was founded by military conquest: the conqueror became the noble, the conquered became the serf. Inequality was imposed by force, and once it had embedded itself in the customs of the country, it sustained itself and was ratified by law. There have been societies that were aristocratic from their origins due to pre-existing circumstances, and which became more democratic with each passing generation. That was the trajectory of Rome, and of the barbarian peoples after it. But a people that began in a state of civilization and democracy and then gradually built up inequality of conditions until it arrived at rigid privileges and exclusive castes — that would be something entirely new in the world. And nothing suggests America is likely to provide so remarkable an example.

America's Commercial Destiny

Americans are destined by nature to be a great maritime people — the extent of their coastline — the depth of their ports — the size of their rivers — American commercial superiority owes less to physical advantages than to character and intellect — the future of America as a trading nation — even the dissolution of the Union wouldn't check the maritime energy of the states — Americans will naturally supply the needs of South America — they will become, like the English, the commercial agents of much of the world.

The coast of the United States, from the Bay of Fundy to the Sabine River in the Gulf of Mexico, stretches more than two thousand miles. These shores form an unbroken line, all under the same government. No nation in the world possesses deeper, more secure, or more spacious ports.

The people of the United States are a great civilized nation that fortune has placed in the middle of a wilderness, three thousand miles from the center of civilization. America is therefore in constant need of European trade. The Americans will no doubt eventually succeed in producing or manufacturing most of what they need at home, but the two continents can never be fully independent of each other — the natural ties between their needs, ideas, habits, and customs are too numerous.

The Union produces goods that have become essential to us but that can't be grown, or can only be grown at enormous cost, in Europe. The Americans consume only a small portion of this production and are happy to sell us the rest. Europe is therefore America's market, just as America is Europe's market. Maritime trade is as necessary for transporting American raw materials to European ports as it is for bringing European manufactured goods to the United States. The Americans were essentially faced with a choice: either let other maritime nations profit enormously from their trade (as the Spanish colonies in Mexico had done), or become one of the world's leading trading powers.

The Anglo-Americans have always had a strong affinity for the sea. The Declaration of Independence broke the commercial restrictions that had tied them to England and gave a fresh, powerful boost to their maritime energy. Since then, American shipping has grown at nearly the same rapid rate as the population itself. Americans now carry nine-tenths of the European goods they consume in their own ships. They also transport three-quarters of the New World's exports to European consumers. American ships fill the docks of Le Havre and Liverpool, while the number of English and French vessels in New York is comparatively small.

Not only do American merchants face competition from their own countrymen, but they beat foreign competitors in their own home ports. The explanation is straightforward: American ships can cross the seas more cheaply than any others in the world. As long as American merchant shipping maintains this advantage, it will not only keep what it has gained but will continue to grow.

It's hard to say exactly why Americans can trade at lower cost than any other nation, and your first instinct might be to credit their physical or natural advantages. But that explanation doesn't hold up. American vessels cost almost as much to build as European ones. They're not built any better, and they generally don't last as long. American sailors are paid more than their European counterparts — a fact proven by the large number of Europeans who serve on American merchant ships. I believe the true cause of their superiority lies not in physical advantages but entirely in their character and intellect.

Here's a comparison that illustrates what I mean. During the wars of the French Revolution, the French introduced a new tactical system that baffled the most experienced generals and nearly destroyed the oldest monarchies in Europe. They did something no one had attempted before: they made do without a whole range of things that had always been considered essential to warfare. They demanded extraordinary exertions from their troops — efforts no civilized nation had ever imagined. They accomplished great feats in incredibly short periods of time and risked human life without hesitation to achieve their objectives. The French had less money and fewer men than their enemies. Their resources were vastly inferior. Yet they won battle after battle — until their adversaries finally chose to copy their methods.

The Americans have applied a similar system to commerce. What the French did in pursuit of conquest, the Americans do in pursuit of cheapness. The European sailor navigates cautiously: he sets sail only in fair weather; if an unexpected accident occurs, he puts into port; at night he furls part of his canvas; when the whitening waves signal land ahead, he slows down and checks his position against the sun. The American ignores all these precautions and defies all these dangers. He weighs anchor in the middle of a storm. Day and night, he spreads every sail to the wind. He repairs storm damage while still underway. And when he finally nears the end of his voyage, he races toward the coast as if he can already see the harbor. Americans are shipwrecked often, but no trader in the world crosses the seas as fast. And because they cover the same distance in less time, they can do it at less cost.

The European sailor makes several stops at different ports during a long voyage. He loses precious time entering harbors or waiting for favorable winds to leave them, and he pays daily fees for the privilege of staying. The American departs from Boston to buy tea in China. He arrives in Canton, stays a few days, and heads home. In less than two years, he has sailed a distance equal to the circumference of the globe — and he has seen land only once. During a voyage of eight or ten months, he has drunk brackish water and lived on salted meat. He has been in a constant fight with the ocean, with disease, and with monotony. But when he returns, he can sell a pound of tea for a fraction of a penny less than the English merchant — and his purpose is accomplished.

I can't put it any better than this: the Americans bring a kind of heroism to their way of doing business. But the European merchant will always find it very hard to imitate his American competitor, because the American isn't just following a rational calculation of profit. He's following an impulse of his nature.

The people of the United States have all the needs and desires of an advanced civilization, but unlike Europeans, they aren't surrounded by a society perfectly adapted to satisfy those needs. They often have to provide for themselves. In America, it sometimes happens that the same person tills his field, builds his house, fashions his tools, makes his shoes, and weaves the rough fabric of his clothing. This hurts the quality of the work, but it powerfully stimulates the intelligence of the worker. Nothing dulls the human mind and strips work of every trace of thought more than extreme division of labor. In a country like America, where specialized professionals are rare, no one is required to serve a long apprenticeship before taking up a trade. Americans change their occupations with remarkable ease, adapting to whatever the moment demands in whatever way is most profitable. You meet people who have been, in succession, lawyers, farmers, merchants, ministers, and doctors. If an American is less expert in each individual trade than a European, there's almost no trade he's completely unfamiliar with. His abilities are more general, and the range of his intelligence is wider.

Americans are never imprisoned by the assumptions of their profession. They escape the prejudices of their current station. They're no more attached to one line of work than another, no more inclined to use an old method than a new one. They have no ingrained habits, and they easily resist the influence of other nations' habits — convinced that their country is unlike any other and that its situation is without precedent. America is a land of wonders where everything is in constant motion and every change seems like an improvement. The idea of novelty is inseparably linked to the idea of progress. No natural boundary seems set on human effort, and what hasn't been done yet is simply what hasn't been attempted.

This perpetual change in the United States, these frequent reversals of fortune, these unforeseen fluctuations in both private and public wealth — all of it keeps citizens in a state of feverish excitement that energizes their efforts and lifts them above the ordinary level of human endeavor. The entire life of an American is lived like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle. These same forces, operating constantly across the whole country, ultimately stamp an irresistible character on the nation itself. The typical American must therefore be a person of intense desires — enterprising, adventurous, and above all, in love with innovation. This same spirit shows up in everything he does: in his political laws, his religious beliefs, his economic theories, his daily occupations. He carries it with him into the depths of the backwoods just as much as into the business districts of the city. It is this same passion, applied to maritime commerce, that makes him the cheapest and fastest trader in the world.

As long as American sailors keep these driving advantages and the practical superiority they produce, they won't just continue supplying the needs of their own country's producers and consumers — they'll increasingly become, like the English, the commercial agents of every other nation. This prediction is already starting to come true. American traders are inserting themselves as middlemen in the commerce of several European nations, and America will offer an even wider field for their enterprise.

The great colonies founded in South America by the Spanish and Portuguese have since become independent nations. Civil war and oppression now lay waste to those vast regions. Their populations aren't growing, and the thinly scattered inhabitants are too consumed with self-defense to even attempt improving their condition. But this won't always be the case. Europe managed to fight its way out of the darkness of the Middle Ages through its own efforts. South America shares the same Christian laws and customs. It contains all the seeds of civilization that grew in Europe or in Europe's offshoots, with the added advantage of learning from our example. So why should it remain undeveloped forever? It's simply a matter of time. Sooner or later, the people of South America will form flourishing, enlightened nations.

But when the Spanish and Portuguese descendants in South America begin to feel the needs common to all civilized peoples, they still won't be able to satisfy those needs on their own. As the youngest children of civilization, they'll have to acknowledge the superiority of their older siblings. They'll be farmers long before they succeed in manufacturing or trade, and they'll need foreign intermediaries to exchange their goods overseas for the products they're beginning to demand.

There can be no doubt that the Americans of the North will eventually supply the needs of the Americans of the South. Nature has placed them side by side and has given the former every means of understanding those demands, establishing permanent connections with those nations, and gradually filling their markets. American merchants could only lose these natural advantages by being far worse than their European competitors — when in fact they're superior in several respects. The Americans already exert a considerable cultural influence on every nation in the New World. They're seen as the source of knowledge and progress, and all the peoples of the continent are already accustomed to viewing them as the most educated, most powerful, and wealthiest members of the great American family. All eyes are turned toward the Union, and the states that compose it serve as the models that other nations try to imitate as best they can. It's from the United States that they borrow their political principles and their laws.

Americans stand in exactly the same position relative to the peoples of South America as the English occupy relative to the Italians, the Spanish, the Portuguese, and all those European nations that receive their everyday goods from England because they're less advanced in civilization and trade. England is currently the natural hub for almost every nation within its reach. The American Union will play the same role in the other hemisphere. Every new nation that is founded or that prospers in the New World is founded and prospers to the advantage of the Anglo-Americans.

If the Union were dissolved, the trade of its member states would undoubtedly be disrupted for a time, but the consequences would be less severe than people generally suppose. Whatever happens, the commercial states will stick together. They're all neighbors. They share identical opinions, interests, and customs. They're the only ones capable of forming a great maritime power. Even if the South became independent of the North, it would still need the North's services. I've already noted that the South is not a commercial region and shows no signs of becoming one. Southerners would therefore have to rely on outsiders for a long time to export their goods and supply them with the products they need. And the Northern states can do this more cheaply than any other merchants. They would therefore keep the business, because cheapness is the supreme law of commerce. National pride and national prejudice can't hold out against a better price. Nothing could be more intense than the hatred between Americans and the English. But despite these bitter feelings, Americans get most of their manufactured goods from England — because England sells them cheaper than anyone else. And so America's growing prosperity ends up benefiting British industry, regardless of how Americans feel about it.

Both reason and experience prove that no commercial prosperity can last unless it's backed, when necessary, by naval power. This truth is as well understood in the United States as anywhere else. Americans can already command respect for their flag; in a few years, they'll be able to command fear. I'm convinced that the breakup of the Union wouldn't diminish American naval power — it would actually increase it. Right now, the commercial states are tied to others that don't share their interests and that only reluctantly support the growth of a naval force from which they benefit only indirectly. If the commercial states formed their own independent nation, commerce would become their foremost national interest. They would willingly make great sacrifices to protect their shipping, and nothing would stand in the way of their maritime ambitions.

Nations, like individuals, almost always reveal the most prominent features of their future destiny in their earliest years. When I consider the passion with which the Anglo-Americans pursue commercial enterprise, the advantages that favor them, and the success of their undertakings, I can't help believing they will one day become the world's foremost maritime power. They were born to rule the seas, as the Romans were born to conquer the world.

Conclusion

I've now nearly reached the end of my inquiry. Up to this point, in discussing the future destiny of the United States, I've tried to divide the subject into separate parts in order to study each more carefully. My purpose now is to take it all in at a single glance. My observations will be less detailed, but more certain. I'll see each element less distinctly, but I'll grasp the main facts with greater clarity. A traveler who has just left the walls of an immense city climbs a nearby hill. As he moves farther away, he loses sight of the individuals he just left behind. Their houses blur into a dense mass. He can no longer make out the public squares, and he can barely trace the main streets. But his eye follows the boundaries of the city more easily, and for the first time, he sees the shape of the whole. That's how the future destiny of the Anglo-American people looks to me now: the details of the vast picture are lost in shadow, but I can see the outline of the whole clearly.

The territory now occupied or claimed by the United States makes up about one-twentieth of the habitable earth. But vast as these borders are, the Anglo-American people have already pushed far beyond them.

There was a time when we French might have created a great French nation in the American wilderness to counterbalance England's influence over the destiny of the New World. France once possessed territory in North America nearly as large as all of Europe. The continent's three greatest rivers flowed through our domain. The Native American tribes living between the mouth of the St. Lawrence and the delta of the Mississippi spoke no language but ours, and every European settlement scattered across that immense region recalled the traditions of our country. Louisbourg, Montmorency, Duquesne, St. Louis, Vincennes, New Orleans — these are names dear to France and familiar to our ears.

But a series of circumstances deprived us of this magnificent inheritance. Wherever the French settlers were few in number and only loosely established, they have disappeared. Those who remain are gathered in a small area and now live under other laws. The 400,000 French inhabitants of Lower Canada are the remnant of an old nation lost in the midst of a new people. A foreign population is growing around them ceaselessly, on every side. It already penetrates among the old masters of the country, dominates their cities, and corrupts their language. This population is the same as that of the United States — so I was right to say that the British-descended people are not confined to the borders of the Union; they already extend to the northeast.

To the northwest, there's nothing but a handful of insignificant Russian settlements. To the southwest, Mexico presents a barrier to the Anglo-Americans. So in reality, only two peoples — the Spanish-descended and the Anglo-Americans — divide possession of the New World between them. Their boundary has been settled by treaty, but although the terms of that treaty are very favorable to the Anglo-Americans, I have no doubt they'll soon push past them. Vast provinces stretching beyond the Union's borders toward Mexico are still empty of settlers. Americans will get there before the rightful owners do. They'll take possession of the land and build social institutions, so that when the legal owner finally arrives, he'll find the wilderness already cultivated and strangers comfortably settled on his inheritance. (This prediction was swiftly fulfilled: before long, both Texas and California became part of the United States.)

The lands of the New World belong to the first occupant, and they are the natural reward of the swiftest pioneer. Even countries that are already populated will have trouble defending themselves from this encroachment. I've already mentioned what's happening in Texas. Americans are perpetually migrating there, buying land, and — while conforming to local laws — gradually establishing the dominance of their own language and customs. Texas is still part of Mexico, but it will soon contain no Mexicans. The same thing has happened everywhere the Anglo-Americans have come into contact with populations of different origin.

It can't be denied that the British-descended people have gained an astonishing dominance over every other European group in the New World — they are far superior in civilization, industry, and power. As long as they're surrounded only by empty land or thinly populated countries, as long as they don't encounter any dense population they can't push through, they'll keep expanding. Treaty lines won't stop them. They'll cross every imaginary boundary.

The geographical position of the British-descended people in the New World is particularly favorable to their rapid growth. The frozen polar regions lie above their northern borders; the burning climate of the equator lies a few degrees below their southern ones. The Anglo-Americans occupy the most temperate and habitable zone of the continent.

It's widely believed that the spectacular population growth of the United States began after the Declaration of Independence. But this is wrong. The population was growing just as fast under colonial rule — doubling roughly every twenty-two years. The difference is that this rate of growth, once applied to thousands, is now applied to millions. A fact that was barely noticeable a century ago has become obvious to every observer.

The British subjects in Canada, who are ruled by a king, grow and spread almost as rapidly as the British settlers in the United States who live under a republic. During the eight-year War of Independence, the population continued to increase at the same rate without interruption. Although powerful Native American nations allied with the British existed on the western frontier, westward migration was never stopped. While the enemy devastated the Atlantic coast, Kentucky, western Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Maine were filling with settlers. Nor did the unsettled state of affairs that followed the war slow population growth or check its westward advance. Differences in laws, the varying conditions of peace and war, order and chaos — none of these had any measurable impact on the steady development of the Anglo-American population. The explanation is simple: no single cause is powerful enough to affect simultaneously the whole of such an enormous territory. One part of the country always offers refuge from the disasters afflicting another, and however great the problem, the available remedy is always greater still.

We shouldn't imagine, then, that the advance of the British-descended people in the New World can be stopped. The breakup of the Union, the wars that might follow, the abolition of republican government, the tyrannical regime that might replace it — all of these might slow the advance, but they can't prevent it from reaching its ultimate destination. No power on earth can shut off that fertile wilderness, which offers resources for every kind of industry and a refuge from every kind of want. Future events, whatever they may be, will not strip Americans of their climate, their inland seas, their great rivers, or their inexhaustible soil. Nor will bad laws, revolutions, or anarchy be able to destroy that love of prosperity and spirit of enterprise that seem to be the defining characteristics of their people, or extinguish the knowledge that guides them on their way.

In the midst of an uncertain future, one thing at least is sure. Within a period that can be called near — speaking in terms of the life of a nation — the Anglo-Americans will cover the immense space between the polar regions and the tropics, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific shore. The territory they'll probably occupy can be estimated at three-quarters the size of Europe. The climate of the Union is, on the whole, better than Europe's, and its natural advantages are no less great. It's therefore obvious that its population will eventually be proportionate to our own. Europe, divided among so many different nations and scarred by centuries of war and medieval brutality, has nonetheless reached a population density of 410 inhabitants per square league. What could possibly prevent the United States from reaching the same density in time?

Many centuries must pass before the various branches of the British-descended people in America cease to share the same basic characteristics. The time can't be foreseen when a permanent inequality of conditions will be established in the New World. Whatever differences arise between the different descendants of the great Anglo-American family — whether from peace or war, freedom or oppression, prosperity or hardship — they will at least maintain a similar social condition and will hold in common the customs and opinions that such a social condition produces.

In the Middle Ages, the bond of religion was powerful enough to give all the different peoples of Europe the same civilization. The British-descended people of the New World share a thousand other ties among themselves, and they live at a time when the tendency toward equality is universal. The Middle Ages were a period when everything was fragmented — when each nation, each province, each city, each family struggled to preserve its own distinct identity. Today the opposite tendency prevails, and nations seem to be moving toward unity. Our means of communication connect the most remote parts of the earth, making it impossible for people to remain strangers to one another or to be ignorant of events taking place anywhere on the globe. The result is that there is less difference today between Europeans and their descendants in the New World than there was between certain towns in the thirteenth century separated only by a river. If this tendency toward assimilation draws foreign nations closer together, it must all the more powerfully prevent the descendants of the same people from becoming strangers to each other.

The time will come, then, when a hundred and fifty million people will live in North America — equal in social condition, all descendants of the same stock, owing their origin to the same cause, preserving the same civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the same customs, and sharing the same opinions, shaped by the same influences. Everything else is uncertain, but this is certain. And it is a fact new to the world — a fact so momentous in its consequences that it staggers the imagination.

There are today two great nations in the world that seem to be moving toward the same end, though they started from different points: I mean Russia and America. Both grew up unnoticed. While the rest of the world's attention was directed elsewhere, they suddenly took a prominent place among the nations. The world learned of their existence and their greatness almost simultaneously.

Every other nation seems to have nearly reached its natural limits, charged only with maintaining its power. But these two are still growing. All the others have stopped, or continue to advance only with great difficulty. These two are moving forward with ease and speed along a path whose end no one can see. The American struggles against the natural obstacles that oppose him; the Russian's adversaries are other people. The American fights the wilderness and the hardships of an unsettled life; the Russian fights civilization itself, with all its weapons and its arts. The conquests of the one are won by the plow; the conquests of the other, by the sword. The Anglo-American relies on personal interest to achieve his goals, giving free rein to the unguided efforts and common sense of individual citizens. The Russian concentrates all the authority of society in a single hand. The principal instrument of the one is freedom; of the other, servitude. Their starting points are different, and their paths are not the same. Yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Providence to hold the destinies of half the world in its hands.

BOOK TWO

How Democracy Shapes Thought and Opinion in the United States

Tocqueville's Preface to the Second Volume

Americans live in a democratic society, and that society has naturally given rise to certain laws and a certain kind of political life. But this same democratic condition has also produced among them a whole world of feelings and opinions that were unknown in the older aristocratic societies of Europe. It has destroyed or transformed all the relationships that existed before, and created entirely new ones. The face of civil society has been just as deeply changed as that of the political world. The political side of the story was the subject of the book I published five years ago, Democracy in America. This second volume examines the other side — how democracy shapes the way people think, feel, and live. But these two parts complete each other, and together they form a single work.

I need to warn the reader right away against a misunderstanding that would be very damaging to me. When I trace so many different consequences back to the principle of equality, some readers may conclude that I consider equality the sole cause of everything happening in the modern world. That would be attributing a very narrow view to me. A whole host of opinions, feelings, and tendencies exist today that owe their origin to circumstances completely unrelated to — or even opposed to — the principle of equality. Take the United States as an example: I could easily show that the nature of the country, the origins of its inhabitants, the religion of its founders, their prior education, and their earlier habits have all exercised — and continue to exercise — a vast influence on American thought and feeling, entirely independent of democracy. Different causes, equally distinct from equality of conditions, could be identified in Europe and would explain a great deal of what's happening there.

I acknowledge the existence and power of all these different causes. But my subject doesn't require me to examine them. I haven't set out to explain the reason for all our tendencies and ideas. My only goal is to show how the principle of equality has changed both.

Some readers may be surprised that I — firmly persuaded as I am that the democratic revolution we're witnessing is an irresistible fact, one that it would be neither desirable nor wise to resist — have so often used harsh language about the democratic societies this revolution has created. My answer is simple: it's precisely because I'm not an enemy of democracy that I've tried to speak about it with complete honesty.

People won't accept the truth from their enemies, and their friends rarely offer it to them. That's why I've spoken it. I was convinced that many people would step forward to announce the new blessings that equality promises humanity, but that few would dare to point out — from a distance — the dangers it also carries. I've therefore focused my attention primarily on those dangers, and believing I'd identified them clearly, I didn't have the cowardice to leave them unsaid.

I trust that my readers will find in this second volume the same impartiality that others seem to have noticed in the first. Placed as I am in the middle of the conflicting opinions that divide us, I've tried to suppress within myself — at least temporarily — both the sympathies and the hostilities that each of them inspires in me. If anyone who reads this book can find a single sentence intended to flatter any of the great political parties that have divided my country, or any of the petty factions that now harass and weaken it, let that reader speak up and accuse me.

The subject I've tried to embrace is immense, for it includes most of the feelings and opinions produced by the new democratic condition of society. Such a subject is undoubtedly beyond my abilities, and in treating it, I haven't succeeded in satisfying even myself. But if I haven't been able to reach the goal I set for myself, my readers will at least do me the justice of recognizing that I conceived and pursued this undertaking in a spirit not unworthy of success.

A. de T. March 1840

SECTION I: How Democracy Influences Intellectual Life in the United States

Chapter I: The Philosophical Method of the Americans

I don't think there's any country in the civilized world where people pay less attention to philosophy than in the United States. Americans have no philosophical school of their own, and they barely know the names of the various schools that divide Europe, let alone care about them. And yet, it's easy to see that nearly all Americans think in the same way and follow the same rules — that without ever bothering to define a philosophical method, they all share one. Here's what it looks like: reject the chains of any system or tradition, of family wisdom, class prejudice, and even national bias. Treat tradition as information, not gospel. Look at existing facts as lessons in how to do things differently and better. Figure things out for yourself, by yourself. Focus on results rather than methods, and aim for substance over form. These are the defining features of what I'll call the American philosophical method.

But if I look for the single trait that dominates and contains all the rest, it's this: in most matters of the mind, every American relies on their own individual judgment alone. America is therefore one of the countries where philosophy is least studied — and where Descartes's principles are best applied. This isn't as surprising as it sounds. Americans don't read Descartes because their social conditions steer them away from abstract speculation. But they follow his core principle — think for yourself — because those same social conditions naturally lead them to it.

In the constant motion of a democratic society, the thread connecting one generation to the next loosens and snaps. People easily lose track of the ideas their ancestors held, or simply stop caring about them. And they can't base their beliefs on the opinions of their social class, either — because in a real sense, classes no longer exist. Whatever classes remain are made up of such shifting, mobile elements that no group can truly control what its members think.

As for the influence one person's intelligence has on another's — that's bound to be limited in a country where citizens are roughly equal, can all see each other clearly, and where no one displays unmistakable signs of greatness or superiority. People are constantly driven back to their own reasoning as the most obvious and accessible source of truth. It's not just that they lose confidence in this or that particular person — they lose the habit of taking anyone's word for anything. Everyone retreats into their own mind and presumes to judge the world from there.

This habit of using themselves as the standard for judgment leads Americans to other mental habits. Because they succeed in solving the practical problems of everyday life without outside help, they quickly conclude that everything in the world can be explained and that nothing exceeds the limits of human understanding. They start denying whatever they can't comprehend — which leaves them with little patience for the extraordinary and a deep distaste for the supernatural. Since they're used to relying on their own experience, they want to see whatever they're examining with absolute clarity. So they strip away everything that covers it, push aside whatever stands between them and it, and remove anything that hides it from view — all to see it up close, in broad daylight. This mindset soon leads them to dismiss formal structures, which they see as pointless veils placed between themselves and the truth.

Americans, then, didn't need to get their philosophical method from books — they found it in themselves. And the same pattern can be seen in Europe. This same method took hold there only as social conditions became more equal and people grew more alike. Consider the historical progression.

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant reformers opened some church dogmas to individual scrutiny — but held back all the rest. In the seventeenth century, Bacon did the same for the natural sciences and Descartes for philosophy proper: they overthrew established formulas, destroyed the authority of tradition, and toppled the dominance of the old intellectual schools. In the eighteenth century, the philosophers took this same principle to its logical conclusion and applied individual judgment to everything.

Here's the question: Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire all used the same basic method — they only disagreed about how far to take it. Why did the reformers stay so tightly within religious questions? Why did Descartes apply his method only to certain subjects, even though he'd designed it for universal use, and declare that people could judge for themselves in philosophy but not in politics? How did it happen that the eighteenth century suddenly drew such sweeping conclusions from a method that Descartes and his predecessors had either not seen or deliberately rejected? And why did this method, which had been confined to universities, suddenly break into society at large and become the common standard of thought? Once it became popular in France, why was it openly adopted or quietly followed by every nation in Europe?

The answer comes down to social conditions. This philosophical method may have been born in the sixteenth century, and more clearly defined and widely applied in the seventeenth, but in neither era could it be broadly adopted. The political system, the structure of society, and the habits of mind those structures produced all stood against it. It was discovered when people were just beginning to level out their social conditions. It could only be widely embraced once those conditions had actually become roughly equal and people had grown to resemble each other.

The philosophical method of the eighteenth century wasn't merely French — it was democratic. That's why it spread so easily across Europe, where it did so much to transform society. The French didn't turn the world upside down because they changed their old opinions or abandoned their old customs. They did it because they were the first to generalize and publicize a philosophical method that made it easy to attack everything old and clear a path toward everything new.

If someone asks why the French still follow this method more rigorously than the Americans today — even though equality is just as complete in the United States and has deeper roots — the answer lies in two key factors.

First, never forget that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society. In the United States, religion is woven into the fabric of the nation's habits and patriotic feelings, giving it a special power. On top of this, American religion has essentially drawn its own boundaries. Religious institutions have stayed completely separate from political ones, so political systems could change freely while religious belief remained unshaken. Christianity has therefore kept a strong hold on the American mind. And I'd emphasize this: its authority rests not on philosophical inquiry but on faith accepted without debate. In the United States, Christian denominations are endlessly varied and constantly evolving, but Christianity itself is a fact so firmly established that no one bothers to either attack or defend it. Since Americans accept the core doctrines of Christianity without questioning them, they're bound to accept the many moral truths that grow out of those doctrines. Individual analysis is therefore confined within narrow limits, and many of the most important questions about human life are simply taken off the table.

The second factor is this: Americans have a democratic society and a democratic constitution, but they never had a democratic revolution. They arrived on this continent already living more or less the way they live today — and that matters enormously.

Every revolution shakes existing beliefs, weakens authority, and casts doubt on established ideas. Revolutions have the effect of throwing people back on their own judgment, opening up a vast, almost limitless space for speculation. And when equality of conditions comes after a long, bitter struggle between social classes, envy, hatred, distrust, pride, and reckless self-confidence tend to seize the human heart and hold it for a time. This, quite apart from equality itself, powerfully divides people — leading them to distrust each other's judgment and seek truth nowhere but in their own minds. Everyone tries to be their own guide and makes a point of pride in forming their own opinions on everything. People are no longer bound together by shared ideas, but only by shared interests. It's as if human thought has been ground into a kind of intellectual dust — scattered everywhere, unable to gather, unable to hold together.

The independence of mind that equality creates, then, is never as great — and never looks as extreme — as during the moment when equality is first being established, in the painful struggle that brings it about. The intellectual freedom that equality can provide needs to be carefully distinguished from the intellectual chaos that revolution produces. These are two separate things, and we need to consider them separately to avoid either exaggerated hopes or exaggerated fears about the future.

I believe that people living under these new social conditions will make heavy use of their own private judgment. But I'm far from thinking they'll constantly abuse it. There's a deeper force at work in all democratic countries that will ultimately confine individual thinking within fixed — and sometimes narrow — limits. I'll explain that force in the next chapter.

Chapter II: The Main Source of Belief in Democratic Nations

Beliefs accepted on faith — ideas people hold without testing them through argument — come in different forms at different times. They may change their object or their shape. But they never disappear entirely. People will always hold some opinions simply on trust. If everyone tried to form their own views and search for truth entirely on their own, by some path they carved out alone, it's hard to imagine that any significant number of people would ever agree on anything. But without shared beliefs, no society can thrive — in fact, no society can even survive. Without ideas held in common, there's no common action, and without common action, you may have individuals, but you don't have a society. For a society to exist, let alone prosper, everyone's thinking needs to be anchored by certain shared ideas. And that can only happen if people sometimes draw their opinions from a common source and agree to accept certain beliefs from the community at large.

This isn't just about living together. Even in isolation, a person needs beliefs they accept on faith. If you had to personally prove every truth you rely on in daily life, the task would never end. You'd exhaust all your energy on preliminary work and never get past it. Life is too short and our minds too limited to verify everything ourselves, so we're forced to take a huge number of facts and opinions on trust — things discovered by more capable minds, or simply adopted by the world at large. On this foundation, each of us builds our own structure of thought. We don't do this by choice so much as by necessity — it's an inescapable condition of being human.

There's no philosopher alive, no matter how brilliant, who doesn't believe a million things on other people's word, and assume far more truths than they've personally demonstrated. This isn't just unavoidable — it's actually desirable. Someone who insisted on investigating everything personally could devote only a sliver of time and attention to each question. Their mind would be in constant turmoil, unable to penetrate to the bottom of any truth or hold firmly to any conviction. Their intellect would be simultaneously independent and powerless.

So everyone has to choose: you must accept many opinions without examination in order to investigate the few that really matter to you. It's true that accepting an idea on someone else's authority is, in a sense, surrendering a piece of your intellectual freedom. But it's a productive kind of surrender — one that lets you make real use of the freedom you keep.

Some form of intellectual authority, then, will always exist. Its location may shift, but it always has a home. The independence of individual minds can be greater or lesser, but it can never be absolute. The real question in democratic ages isn't whether intellectual authority exists, but where it resides and how we measure it.

In the previous chapter, I showed how equality leads people toward an instinctive skepticism about the supernatural and an inflated confidence in human reason. People living in conditions of social equality don't easily look beyond or above humanity for their intellectual authority. They look for the sources of truth in themselves and in people like them. This alone would be enough to prove that new religions can't easily take root in such times — any attempt to create one would be not only impious but absurd and irrational. You can safely predict that democratic peoples won't readily believe in divine missions, that they'll make fun of modern prophets, and that they'll look for the ultimate judge of their beliefs within the human world, not beyond it.

When social ranks are unequal and people are unlike one another, some individuals carry all the weight of superior intelligence, learning, and enlightenment, while the masses are sunk in ignorance and prejudice. In aristocratic times, people naturally shape their opinions by the standard of a superior person or class, while rejecting the idea that the common crowd could be right about anything.

In ages of equality, the reverse happens. The closer citizens are drawn to a common level, the less each person is inclined to put blind faith in any particular individual or class. But their readiness to believe the crowd grows — and public opinion becomes more powerful than ever.

Public opinion isn't just the only guide that private judgment has left in a democracy. Among democratic peoples, it has a power far beyond what it has anywhere else. In times of equality, people don't trust one another, precisely because they're all so similar. But that same similarity gives them almost unlimited confidence in the judgment of the public — because if everyone has roughly equal ability to judge, wouldn't the greater truth naturally be on the side of the greater number?

When a citizen of a democratic country compares themselves to any single person around them, they feel proud to be that person's equal. But when they consider all their fellow citizens together — when they set themselves against that enormous mass — they're immediately overwhelmed by their own insignificance and weakness. The same equality that makes them independent of each individual citizen leaves them alone and unprotected against the influence of the majority. In a democracy, the public has a singular kind of power that aristocratic nations could never even imagine. It doesn't persuade people to hold certain opinions — it forces those opinions on them, pressing them into every mind through a kind of enormous collective weight bearing down on each individual's reasoning.

In the United States, the majority supplies a whole set of ready-made opinions for individuals to use, relieving them of the need to form their own. Americans adopt vast numbers of theories on philosophy, morality, and politics without investigation, simply on public trust. And if you look closely, you'll see that religion itself holds its authority there less as revealed truth than as a commonly accepted opinion.

The fact that American political institutions give the majority sovereign power over the community significantly increases the power that majority already naturally has over people's minds. Nothing is more common than to see wisdom in whoever has power over you. The political omnipotence of the majority in the United States certainly amplifies the influence public opinion would have even without it — but that influence doesn't depend on political institutions. Its roots lie in the principle of equality itself, not in whatever particular form of government people living under equality choose to adopt. The intellectual dominance of the majority would probably be somewhat less absolute under a democratic monarchy than in a pure democracy, but it will always be extremely powerful. In ages of equality, no matter what the political system, faith in public opinion will become a kind of religion, with the majority as its prophet.

Intellectual authority, then, will be different in democratic times — but it won't be weaker. Far from thinking it will vanish, I suspect it may easily become too dominant, squeezing private judgment into limits narrower than are good for either human greatness or human happiness. In the principle of equality, I clearly see two opposing tendencies: one pushes every mind toward new and untested ideas; the other threatens to shut down independent thought altogether. And I can see how, under certain laws, democracy could actually destroy the very intellectual freedom that democratic social conditions are supposed to encourage — so that, after breaking every chain once imposed by rank or by powerful individuals, the human mind would find itself tightly bound to the collective will of the majority.

If democratic nations simply replaced the various powers that once restrained individual minds with the absolute power of the majority, they would only have changed the form of the disease. People wouldn't have found a path to intellectual independence — they would merely have invented (no easy task) a new costume for servitude.

There is — and I can't say it often enough — there is matter here for deep reflection by everyone who values freedom as something sacred, and who hates not just the tyrant but tyranny itself. For my own part, when I feel the hand of power pressing down on me, I care very little about who's doing the pressing. And I'm not any more willing to bow under the yoke just because a million arms are holding it out to me.

Chapter III: Why Americans Are More Drawn to General Ideas Than the English

God doesn't look at the human race as a mass. He takes in every individual at a single glance, seeing both what makes each person like everyone else and what makes them unique. God, then, has no need for general ideas — He never has to group similar things together under a single heading for the sake of convenience. Humans, however, aren't so lucky. If the human mind tried to examine and judge every individual case it encounters, the sheer flood of detail would overwhelm it. So we resort to an imperfect but necessary shortcut — one that both helps us and exposes our limitations. After superficially examining a number of things and noticing their similarities, we assign them a common name, set them aside, and move on.

General ideas don't prove the strength of the human mind — they prove its limitations. In nature, no two beings are exactly alike, no two things are perfectly identical, and no rule applies equally to everything. The great advantage of general ideas is that they let us make quick judgments about a vast number of things at once. The downside is that the concepts they produce are always incomplete: the mind gains in scope what it loses in precision.

As societies advance, people accumulate knowledge and almost unconsciously arrive at particular truths. The more particular truths you grasp, the more naturally you're drawn to general ideas — because when you've gathered enough specific facts, you eventually start to see the common thread connecting them. Individual cases lead to the perception of species; species lead to genera. So the taste for general ideas will always be strongest among people with a long intellectual tradition and extensive knowledge.

But there are other forces that push people toward — or pull them away from — generalizing.

Americans are far more drawn to general ideas than the English, and have a much stronger appetite for them. This seems strange at first, considering the two nations share common origins, lived under the same laws for centuries, and still constantly exchange opinions and customs. The contrast gets even more striking when you compare the two most intellectually advanced nations in Europe. The English mind seems to tear itself away from particular facts only with great reluctance and pain, rising to general causes almost against its will. The French, on the other hand, have turned the taste for general ideas into something close to a raging passion that demands satisfaction at every turn.

Every morning when I wake up, I'm told that someone has just discovered a general and eternal law that I've never heard of before. There's not a mediocre writer in France who doesn't try his hand at uncovering truths applicable to an entire nation, and who isn't deeply disappointed if he can't compress the whole human race into a single article.

Such a vast difference between two highly educated nations is remarkable. And when I look at England and observe what's happened there over the past half-century, I believe I can say that the taste for general ideas grows in that country in direct proportion to the weakening of its old class structure.

So the level of civilization alone doesn't explain why some societies love general ideas and others avoid them. The real driver is social equality. When inequality is the permanent condition of society, individuals within each class become so different from those in other classes that each one starts to look like a separate race. You only ever see one class at a time, and you lose sight of the universal bond that ties all of humanity together. The focus is never on "people" in the abstract — it's always on particular people.

Those who live in aristocratic societies, then, never develop truly general ideas about themselves, and that's enough to breed a habitual distrust and instinctive aversion toward such ideas. In a democratic country, by contrast, you look around and see people who differ only slightly from each other. You can't think about any portion of humanity without your mind expanding until it embraces the whole. Every truth that applies to you seems equally applicable to every one of your fellow citizens. Once you've gotten into the habit of generalizing in the area that matters most to you, you carry that habit into everything else. The drive to discover universal laws, to fit vast numbers of things under a single formula, to explain a whole mass of facts with one cause — this becomes an intense, and sometimes reckless, passion of the human mind.

Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the ancient world's views on slavery. The most profound and powerful minds of Greece and Rome never managed to reach an idea that seems both obvious and simple to us: that all people share a common humanity, and that each has a birthright to freedom. Instead, they worked to prove that slavery was part of the natural order and would always exist. Even more telling, many people who had risen from slavery to freedom themselves — some of whom left us excellent writings — saw servitude in exactly the same light.

Every great writer of antiquity belonged to the aristocracy of masters, or at least grew up seeing that aristocracy unchallenged before their eyes. Their minds could expand in many directions, but they were blocked in this one. It took the coming of Jesus Christ to teach that all members of the human race are equal by nature.

In ages of equality, everyone is independent, isolated, and relatively weak. The movements of the masses aren't permanently directed by any individual's will; humanity seems to advance on its own. To explain what's happening in the world, people are driven to search for great underlying causes — forces that act on everyone in the same way and push them all in the same direction. This naturally leads the mind toward general ideas and creates a taste for them.

I've already shown how equality drives everyone to investigate truths for themselves. It's easy to see how this method naturally breeds a tendency toward general ideas. When I reject the traditions of rank, profession, and birth — when I escape the authority of precedent to seek my own path through reason alone — I'm naturally drawn to base my opinions on human nature itself. And that leads me, almost unconsciously, to adopt a great many very general ideas.

All of this explains why Americans show more readiness and taste for general ideas than their English ancestors, and why the French show more still. It also explains why the English today are more inclined toward generalizing than their own forebears were. The English have long been both highly educated and deeply aristocratic. Their education constantly pushed them toward general ideas, while their aristocratic habits held them back. The result was a distinctive kind of philosophy — at once bold and cautious, broad and narrow — that has long prevailed in England and still grips many minds there.

Beyond the causes I've already described, there are others, less visible but no less powerful, that give democratic peoples a taste — and often a passion — for general ideas. But we need to make a crucial distinction here. Some general ideas are the product of slow, careful, rigorous thinking, and these genuinely extend human knowledge. Others spring from a quick first impression and produce nothing but shallow, unreliable conclusions.

People living in ages of equality have enormous curiosity but very little free time. Their lives are so practical, so busy, so stimulated, so active that little time remains for deep thought. They're drawn to general ideas precisely because generalizing saves them from the trouble of studying particulars — you get a lot of content in a small package and a big return on a small investment of time. If, after a quick and superficial look, they think they've spotted a connection between certain things, they don't investigate further. Without examining how these things actually differ or agree, they hastily file them under one heading and move on to the next subject.

One of the defining traits of democratic times is that everyone craves easy success and immediate rewards. This applies to intellectual life as much as to everything else. Most people living in an era of equality are full of ambition that's both soaring and lazy at the same time: they want to succeed brilliantly and quickly, but they'd rather not put in enormous effort to get there. These conflicting impulses push people straight toward general ideas, which flatter them into thinking they can make a big impression with minimal investment, and attract public attention with very little work.

And honestly, I'm not sure they're wrong. Their readers are just as allergic to investigating anything thoroughly as they are. What people generally want from intellectual work is easy pleasure and knowledge without effort.

If aristocratic nations don't make enough use of general ideas and often dismiss them unfairly, it's equally true that democratic peoples are forever ready to take such ideas too far and embrace them with reckless enthusiasm.

Chapter IV: Why Americans Have Never Been as Eager as the French for General Ideas in Politics

I noted in the last chapter that Americans have less of a taste for general ideas than the French. This is especially true in politics. Even though Americans weave far more general principles into their legislation than the English do, and pay much more attention than the English to aligning practice with theory, no American political body has ever shown the passionate attachment to general ideas displayed by France's Constituent Assembly and National Convention during the Revolution. The American people have never seized on abstract political ideas with the feverish energy the French showed in the eighteenth century, or placed the same blind faith in the absolute truth of any theory.

The difference comes down to several causes, but mainly this one: Americans are a democratic people who have always governed themselves directly. The French are a democratic people who, for a long time, could only speculate about the best way to do it. France's social conditions led its people to develop sweeping theories about government, while its political system prevented them from testing those theories through experience and gradually discovering their flaws. In America, theory and practice constantly balance and correct each other.

At first glance, this might seem to contradict what I said earlier — that democratic nations love theory because of the busy pace of their active lives. But a closer look shows there's no contradiction. People in democratic countries grab onto general ideas eagerly because they have little free time and generalizing saves them from studying the details. That's true — but only for subjects that aren't part of their daily work. Businesspeople will cheerfully accept, without much scrutiny, sweeping ideas about philosophy, politics, science, or the arts. But when it comes to commerce — their own field — they won't accept any general theory without careful examination or adopt it without reservations. The same goes for politicians and general ideas about politics.

So here's the practical lesson: if there's a subject where a democratic people is especially prone to losing itself in blind, reckless abstraction, the best corrective is to make that subject part of people's daily work. Force them to engage with the details, and the details will teach them the weak points of the theory. This remedy can be painful, but it works.

And that's exactly what happens. The democratic institutions that compel every citizen to take a practical part in government act as a check on the excessive love of abstract political theories that equality naturally encourages.

Chapter V: How Religion in the United States Makes Use of Democratic Tendencies

In an earlier chapter, I argued that people can't do without beliefs they accept on faith — and that it's actually a very good thing when such beliefs exist. Now I'll go further: of all the types of beliefs accepted on authority, the most valuable are religious beliefs. This follows logically even if you consider nothing beyond our interests in this world.

There's hardly any human action, no matter how specific, that doesn't originate in some very general idea we hold about God, about God's relationship to humanity, about the nature of our souls, and about our duties to one another. Nothing can prevent these ideas from being the common wellspring from which everything else flows. People are therefore deeply invested in having settled ideas about God, the soul, and their shared obligations to their Creator and to one another — because doubt on these fundamental questions would leave all their actions at the mercy of chance, and condemn them to live, to a significant degree, without purpose or discipline.

This is the subject on which it matters most for each of us to hold firm convictions. Tragically, it's also the subject on which it's hardest for any of us, working alone, to reach conclusions through pure reason. Only minds that are unusually free from the ordinary pressures of life — minds that are sharp, subtle, and trained by long practice in thinking — can even begin to plumb the depth of these essential truths, and even then only with considerable time and effort. And what do we find? Even these philosophers are almost always shrouded in uncertainty. At every step, the natural light that guides them grows dimmer and less reliable. Despite all their efforts, after thousands of years they've discovered only a handful of conflicting ideas, and the human mind has been tossed back and forth among them without ever getting a firmer grip on truth — or finding anything new, even in its errors.

These kinds of inquiries are far beyond the average person's capacity. And even if most people were capable of them, they wouldn't have the time. Settled ideas about God and human nature are essential to the daily conduct of life — but the daily conduct of life is exactly what prevents people from developing those ideas on their own.

The difficulty here is extraordinary. Among the sciences, some are useful to everyone and accessible to everyone; others can only be pursued by specialists and are relevant to most people only through their practical applications. But religion is different: its daily practice is essential for everyone, even though deep study of it is out of reach for the vast majority.

General ideas about God and human nature are therefore the ideas that should, above all others, be shielded from the constant second-guessing of private judgment — and the area where accepting an established authority has the most to gain and least to lose. The first purpose and one of the chief benefits of religion is to provide clear, precise answers to these fundamental questions — answers that are understandable to the general public and built to last.

Some religions are deeply false and deeply absurd. But any religion that stays within its proper sphere — without trying to go beyond it, as many religions have attempted, by restricting the free progress of the human mind in every direction — imposes a healthy discipline on the intellect. Even if such a religion doesn't save people in the next world, it's enormously useful for their happiness and greatness in this one.

This is especially true for people living in free countries. When a people's religion is destroyed, doubt seizes the highest faculties of the mind and half-paralyzes everything else. People grow accustomed to holding only confused and shifting opinions on the subjects that matter most to them and to their fellow citizens. Their convictions are poorly defended and easily abandoned. Despairing of ever resolving life's hardest questions on their own, they give up thinking about them entirely.

This kind of condition can only weaken the soul, drain the will, and prepare a people for servitude. And it's not just that they let their freedom be taken — they often surrender it voluntarily. When there's no longer any authority in religion, just as there's none in politics, people are quickly terrified by such boundless independence. The constant upheaval of everything around them wears them out. Since everything in the intellectual sphere is adrift, they decide that at least the machinery of society should be firm and fixed. Unable to recover their old beliefs, they accept a master instead.

For my own part, I doubt whether anyone can sustain complete religious independence and full political freedom at the same time. I'm inclined to think that if people lack faith, they must serve — and if they are to be free, they must believe.

The usefulness of religion may be even more obvious in nations where equality prevails than anywhere else. Equality, for all the benefits it brings, also encourages some dangerous tendencies — as I'll show later in more detail. It tends to isolate people from one another, to turn everyone's attention inward, and to open the soul to an excessive love of material comfort.

Religion inspires precisely the opposite impulses. Every religion lifts the object of human desire above and beyond earthly possessions. Every religion naturally raises the soul to regions far above the senses. And every religion imposes certain duties toward others, pulling people away from the contemplation of themselves. This holds true even for the most flawed and dangerous religions. Religious nations are naturally strongest on the very point where democratic nations are weakest — which shows how important it is for people to hold on to their faith as social conditions become more equal.

I have neither the right nor the desire to examine the supernatural means God uses to implant religious belief in the human heart. Right now, I'm looking at religion from a purely practical, human perspective. My question is: how can religions most effectively maintain their influence in the democratic age we're entering?

I've shown that in times of widespread education and equality, the human mind resists adopting beliefs on authority, and feels their necessity most acutely in spiritual matters. This leads to a first principle: in democratic times, religions should be more careful than ever to stay within their own territory. By reaching beyond spiritual matters, they risk not being believed at all. They should carefully mark the boundaries of the sphere where they guide the intellect, and beyond those boundaries leave the mind entirely free.

Muhammad claimed to receive not just religious doctrines from heaven but also political principles, civil and criminal laws, and scientific theories, all of which he embedded in the Koran. The Gospels, by contrast, speak only of the general relationship between people and God and between people and each other — beyond which they impose no specific system of belief. This alone, among a thousand other reasons, is enough to prove that Islam will struggle to maintain its hold in an educated, democratic age, while Christianity is positioned to thrive in such times as it has in all others.

But there's more to it. For religions to maintain their authority in democratic ages — speaking in purely human terms — they must not only stay within the spiritual sphere. Their power also depends heavily on the nature of the beliefs they teach, the external forms they adopt, and the obligations they impose.

The observation I made earlier — that equality leads people toward broad, universal ideas — applies with special force to religion. People living in similar, equal conditions naturally conceive the idea of one God, governing every person by the same laws and granting everyone future happiness on the same terms. The idea of human unity constantly leads them back to the idea of a single Creator. In an unequal society, by contrast, where people are divided into sharply distinct ranks, they tend to imagine as many deities as there are nations, castes, classes, or families — and to trace a thousand separate roads to heaven.

Christianity itself has felt the influence of social and political conditions on religious thought. When it first appeared, Providence — which had surely prepared the world for its coming — had gathered a large portion of humanity under the rule of the Roman emperors. The people in this vast empire differed in countless ways, but they had one thing in common: they all obeyed the same laws, and every individual was so weak and insignificant compared to the imperial power that everyone appeared equal when measured against it. This unique situation naturally predisposed people to hear the universal truths Christianity teaches, and helps explain why the new faith spread through the human mind with such remarkable speed.

The reverse happened after the empire fell. The Roman world shattered into a thousand pieces, and each nation recovered its separate identity. An elaborate hierarchy of ranks quickly emerged within these nations. Different peoples were more sharply defined, and each nation divided itself into castes that functioned almost like separate peoples. Amid this general drive toward fragmentation — as human society seemed to be rushing toward the greatest conceivable degree of subdivision — Christianity didn't lose sight of the universal ideas it had brought into the world. But it did, inevitably, adapt to these new tendencies as much as it could. People continued to worship one God, the Creator and Preserver of all things. But every nation, every city, and practically every individual tried to claim a special privilege and win the personal favor of a particular patron before the Throne of Grace. Unable to subdivide God himself, they multiplied the divine agents and inflated their importance. The worship of saints and angels became almost idolatrous among the majority of Christians, and for a moment it seemed Christianity might slide back toward the very superstitions it had overcome.

The pattern seems clear: the more the barriers separating nation from nation and citizen from citizen are torn down, the more powerfully the human mind is drawn — almost by instinct — toward the idea of a single, all-powerful Being dispensing equal laws to everyone. In democratic ages, it's therefore especially important not to confuse the honor given to secondary figures with the worship owed to the Creator alone.

Another truth is equally clear: religions should adopt fewer outward rituals and observances in democratic times than in any other era. In discussing the philosophical method of the Americans, I showed that nothing is more offensive to the democratic mind than submission to forms. People in such times are impatient with symbols. To them, rituals look like childish devices used to conceal or dress up truths that would be better presented plainly and in the open. They're unmoved by ceremony and inclined to treat the details of public worship as secondary matters.

Those responsible for managing the external forms of religion in a democratic age need to pay close attention to these instincts, so as not to fight them unnecessarily. I firmly believe that forms are necessary — they anchor the mind in the contemplation of abstract truths, fuel the pursuit of those truths, and strengthen our ability to hold on to them. I don't think religion can survive without some external observances. But I'm equally convinced that in the age we're entering, it would be especially dangerous to multiply them beyond what's strictly needed. They should be limited to what's absolutely necessary to preserve the core doctrine — which is the substance of religion, while ritual is merely the form. (In some religions, certain ceremonies are inseparable from the substance of the faith itself and shouldn't be altered under any circumstances. This is especially true of Roman Catholicism, where doctrine and form are often so closely bound that they become a single article of belief.)

A religion that became more rigid, more demanding, and more burdened with minor observances just as people were becoming more equal would soon find itself reduced to a band of fanatical true believers in the middle of a secular nation.

I can anticipate the objection: since all religions deal with general and eternal truths, how can they adapt to the shifting spirit of each age without undermining their own credibility? My answer is that we need to draw a sharp line between a religion's core beliefs — what theologians call articles of faith — and the secondary practices attached to them. Religions must hold fast to their core beliefs no matter what the prevailing spirit of the age. But they should be very careful not to chain themselves just as rigidly to secondary practices in an era when everything is in flux and the mind, accustomed to the constant movement of human affairs, resists being pinned down. When civil society is stable, the rigidity of external religious forms can work. Under any other circumstances, I believe it's dangerous.

As I'll have occasion to show, equality generates one passion above all others, a passion it makes uniquely intense and plants in every heart: the love of material comfort. The craving for comfort is the dominant and defining feature of democratic ages.

A religion that tried to destroy such a deep-seated passion would ultimately destroy itself. If it tried to completely wean people from earthly concerns in order to focus their minds exclusively on the next world, it would eventually lose its grip on them, and they'd plunge into the pursuit of material pleasures with nothing to restrain them. The proper task of religion isn't to eliminate the love of comfort but to purify it, regulate it, and prevent it from becoming all-consuming. Religions won't succeed in curing people of the desire for wealth. But they can still persuade people to pursue wealth only through honest means.

This brings me to a final point that, in a way, encompasses all the others. The more equal and similar people's conditions become, the more important it is for religions to carefully avoid the daily noise of secular affairs — while also avoiding unnecessary conflicts with the ideas that generally prevail and the permanent interests of the majority. As public opinion becomes more and more clearly the first and most irresistible power in existence, religion has no external support strong enough to resist its attacks for long. This is just as true under a democratic despot as in a republic. In ages of equality, kings may command obedience, but the majority always commands belief. Deference is therefore owed to the majority in everything that doesn't contradict the faith.

In my earlier volumes, I showed how American clergy stay out of secular affairs. This is the most visible example of their self-restraint, but not the only one. In America, religion occupies its own distinct sphere. Within it, the minister is sovereign. Outside it, he leaves people to themselves and to the independence and restlessness that belong to their nature and their age.

I've seen no country where Christianity is wrapped in fewer outward forms and rituals than the United States, or where it presents clearer, simpler, and more universal ideas to the mind. Although American Christians are divided into countless denominations, they all see their religion in essentially the same light. This applies to Roman Catholics as much as to Protestants. American Catholic priests show less attachment to minor individual observances, less interest in extraordinary or unusual paths to salvation, and more devotion to the spirit rather than the letter of the faith than Catholic clergy anywhere else. Nowhere is the Church's doctrine — that the worship reserved for God alone must not be offered to the saints — more clearly taught or more widely followed. Yet American Catholics are deeply devout and entirely sincere.

One more observation applies to clergy of every denomination. American ministers don't try to monopolize people's attention for the afterlife. They're willing to leave room in the heart for the concerns of the present. They seem to view worldly goods as important, even if secondary. If they don't participate directly in productive work, they're at least interested in its progress and ready to celebrate its results. While they never stop pointing to the next world as the great object of the believer's hope and fear, they don't forbid honest efforts to prosper in this one. Far from trying to prove that earthly and spiritual concerns are opposed to each other, they work to show where the two are most closely connected.

All the American clergy understand and respect the intellectual authority the majority holds. They never pick unnecessary fights with it. They take no part in partisan battles, but they readily adopt the general views of their country and their time, allowing themselves to be carried along, without resistance, in the current of feeling and opinion that sweeps everything around them. They try to improve their fellow citizens, but they don't cut themselves off from them. Public opinion, as a result, is never hostile to them — it supports and protects them. Their faith draws its authority both from its own inherent strength and from the power it borrows from the opinions of the majority.

This is how it works: by respecting every democratic tendency that doesn't directly contradict its principles, and by turning several of those tendencies to its own advantage, religion sustains a winning struggle against its most dangerous adversary — the spirit of individual independence.

Chapter VI: The Rise of Roman Catholicism in the United States

America is the most democratic country in the world, and — according to reliable reports — it's also the country where Roman Catholicism is growing fastest. At first glance, this seems like a contradiction. But two separate forces are at work here, and they need to be carefully distinguished.

On the one hand, equality makes people want to form their own opinions. On the other, it gives them a taste for unity, simplicity, and consistency in whatever authority governs their lives. People living in democratic times are deeply inclined to throw off all religious authority. But if they do accept one, they at least want it to be singular and uniform. The idea of religious power scattered across multiple centers — with no common source — naturally repels them. They'd almost rather have no religion at all than have several competing ones.

Here's what we see in our own time, more clearly than in any previous era: Catholics are leaving the faith for unbelief, while Protestants are converting to Catholicism. If you look at Catholicism from inside the Church, it appears to be losing ground. If you look at it from outside, it appears to be gaining.

This isn't hard to explain. People today are naturally inclined to believe in something. But the moment they embrace any religion, they discover within themselves a hidden pull toward Catholicism. Many of the Catholic Church's doctrines and practices surprise them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its sweeping unity draws them in.

If Catholicism could ever disentangle itself from the political conflicts it has sparked, I have little doubt that the very spirit of the age — which seems so hostile to it right now — would actually become its greatest asset, fueling rapid and dramatic growth.

One of the most common weaknesses of the human mind is the desire to reconcile contradictory principles — to buy peace at the expense of logic. So there have always been, and always will be, people who submit part of their religious beliefs to authority while trying to keep other parts free from its influence — letting their minds float somewhere between obedience and independence. But I think there will be fewer of these halfway thinkers in democratic ages than in others. Increasingly, people will sort themselves into two camps: those who abandon Christianity entirely, and those who return to the Catholic Church.

Chapter VII: Why Democracies Lean Toward Pantheism

I'll have occasion later to show how the democratic taste for very broad, general ideas plays out in politics. But at this point in the argument, I want to highlight its main effect on philosophy.

There's no denying that pantheism has made enormous progress in our age. The writings of much of Europe bear visible marks of it. The Germans introduce it into philosophy; the French weave it into literature. Most of the imaginative works published in France contain at least a trace of pantheistic thinking, or reveal some drift in that direction among their authors. This seems to me not an accident, but a permanent tendency.

Here's why. As social conditions become more equal, and each individual starts to look more like everyone else — more alike, more small, more insignificant — people develop a habit of looking past individual citizens to see only "the people" as a whole, of overlooking the person to think only about the species. At such times, the human mind tries to take in a vast number of things at once. It keeps trying to trace many different effects back to a single cause. The idea of unity takes such powerful hold of the mind that once someone thinks they've found it, they happily settle into that belief.

And the mind doesn't stop at the discovery that the world contains only a creation and a Creator. Still unsatisfied with even this basic division, it tries to expand and simplify further — folding God and the universe into one great whole.

Now consider a philosophical system that teaches this: that everything material and immaterial, visible and invisible, everything the world contains, is really just the various parts of one immense Being — a Being that alone remains unchanged amid the constant flux and transformation of everything it comprises. It's easy to see why such a system, even though it destroys human individuality — or rather, precisely because it destroys it — would hold a secret attraction for people living in democracies. All their mental habits prepare them to grasp it, and their instincts predispose them to adopt it. It naturally captures and holds their imagination. It flatters their pride while soothing their laziness.

Among the many systems philosophy uses to explain the universe, I believe pantheism is one of the most likely to seduce the democratic mind. Everyone who values the true greatness of the individual should resist it and fight against it.

Chapter VIII: Equality and the Idea of Human Perfectibility

Equality plants ideas in the human mind that would never have come from any other source, and it reshapes nearly all the ideas that already existed. Take the concept of human perfectibility — I choose it because it's one of the most important ideas the mind can hold, and because it amounts to a major philosophical theory whose consequences show up constantly in practical life.

Humans share many traits with other animals, but one characteristic belongs to us alone: we improve. Other creatures cannot. Humanity must have noticed this difference very early on. The idea of perfectibility is therefore as old as the world itself. Equality didn't invent it, but equality gave it an entirely new character.

When citizens are sorted by rank, profession, or birth, and everyone is forced to follow whatever career opens up in front of them, people assume the outer limits of human potential are somewhere close to where they already stand. No one tries to resist what feels like the inevitable law of their destiny. It's not that aristocratic societies completely deny humanity's capacity for self-improvement — they just refuse to see it as unlimited. They can imagine improvement, but not transformation. They can picture a future society that's better, but not fundamentally different. They acknowledge that humanity has made great strides and may still have more to make, but they draw a firm line at some impassable boundary. They don't claim to have reached the ultimate good or absolute truth — who would be crazy enough to think that? — but they do convince themselves they've gotten pretty close to the peak of greatness and knowledge that our imperfect nature allows. And since nothing around them seems to be changing, they're happy to believe everything is in its proper place. That's when lawmakers claim to lay down eternal laws, when kings and nations build nothing but permanent monuments, and when the present generation takes it upon itself to settle the destiny of every generation to come.

But as old hierarchies break down and social classes draw closer together — as customs, laws, and habits shift from the constant mingling of people — as new facts emerge, new truths come to light, old ideas crumble, and new ones take their place — the image of an ideal perfection, forever just out of reach, appears before the human mind. Change is happening constantly, right before everyone's eyes. Some people's situations get worse, which teaches the painful lesson that no person or nation, no matter how enlightened, can claim to be infallible. Other people's situations improve, which suggests that humanity is gifted with an unlimited capacity for progress. Our setbacks teach us that no one should hope to have discovered the ultimate good. Our successes push us into a never-ending pursuit of it. And so, forever seeking, forever falling only to rise again, often disappointed but never discouraged, we press unceasingly toward that immense greatness barely visible at the end of the long road humanity still has to travel.

It's hard to believe how many practical consequences flow from this philosophical theory of unlimited human perfectibility, or how powerfully it shapes even those people who — living entirely for action rather than thought — seem to follow its logic without knowing a thing about it. I once struck up a conversation with an American sailor and asked him why his country's ships are built to last only a short time. He answered without hesitation that the art of navigation is advancing so rapidly that even the finest vessel would be practically useless if it lasted more than a few years. In those casual words, spoken by an uneducated man on a narrow subject, I recognized the same broad, systematic idea that drives an entire nation in everything it does.

Aristocratic nations are naturally too inclined to set narrow limits on human perfectibility. Democratic nations are naturally too inclined to stretch it beyond all bounds.

Chapter IX: Americans Don't Prove That Democracy Has No Use for Science, Literature, or Art

It has to be admitted: among the civilized nations of our time, few have made less progress in the higher sciences than the United States, and few have produced fewer great artists, fine poets, or celebrated writers. Many Europeans, struck by this fact, have treated it as the natural and inevitable result of equality. They've assumed that if democratic society and democratic institutions ever spread across the entire earth, the human mind would gradually see its brightest lights grow dim, and people would slide back into an age of darkness.

To reason this way is, I think, to confuse several ideas that need to be separated and examined on their own. It's to mix up what is democratic with what is merely American.

The religion the first settlers brought with them — and passed on to their descendants — was simple in its worship, austere and nearly harsh in its principles, and hostile to visual symbols and ceremonial display. It was naturally unfavorable to the fine arts and only grudgingly tolerated the pleasures of literature. The Americans are a very old and very enlightened people who found themselves in a new and boundless country, where they could spread out as they pleased and prosper without great difficulty. Nothing like this had ever happened before in human history. In America, everyone found opportunities unknown anywhere else for making or growing a fortune. The pursuit of profit never let up, and the human mind, constantly pulled away from the pleasures of imagination and intellectual labor, was driven by nothing except the quest for wealth. It wasn't just that America had manufacturing and commercial classes, like every other country — what was unprecedented was that the entire population was simultaneously engaged in productive industry and commerce.

I'm convinced that if the Americans had been alone in the world, with only the freedom and knowledge inherited from their ancestors and the passions that were their own, they would not have been slow to discover that you can't keep making progress in applied science without also cultivating the theory behind it — that all the arts improve each other. However absorbed they were in chasing their main goals, they would eventually have admitted that you sometimes need to step back from a pursuit in order to succeed at it.

Besides, the taste for intellectual pleasures is so natural to civilized people that even among the nations least inclined toward them, you'll always find some citizens who take part. This intellectual hunger, once felt, would quickly have been satisfied.

But at the very moment when the Americans were naturally inclined to demand nothing from science except practical applications — useful techniques and a more comfortable life — the learned and literary nations of Europe were busy exploring the deepest sources of truth and advancing everything that could satisfy or delight the human mind. Among these European nations, the Americans identified one in particular to which they were closely tied by common origins and shared habits. Among the English, they found distinguished scientists, skilled artists, and eminent writers — and they could enjoy the treasures of the intellect without having to produce them.

I can't bring myself to separate America from Europe, despite the ocean between them. I see the American people as that branch of the English nation commissioned to explore the wilderness of the New World, while the rest of the nation, with more leisure and less burdened by the grind of daily life, could devote its energies to thought and expand the empire of the mind in every direction.

The Americans' situation is therefore completely exceptional, and it's unlikely that any other democratic people will ever be in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origins, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit — which seems to pull their minds away from science, literature, and the arts — the proximity of Europe, which lets them neglect these pursuits without falling into barbarism — a thousand specific causes, of which I've only pointed out the most important, have converged to fix the American mind on purely practical matters. Their passions, their needs, their education, everything about them seems designed to pull them earthward. Only their religion, from time to time, bids them cast a brief, distracted glance toward heaven.

So let's stop looking at all democratic nations through the lens of the American people. Let's try to see them as they actually are.

It's possible to imagine a people with no castes or ranks, where the law recognizes no privileges and divides inherited property into equal shares — but which is also without knowledge and without freedom. This isn't an empty hypothesis. A despot might find it in his interest to make his subjects equal and keep them ignorant, the better to keep them enslaved. A democratic people in this condition would show neither talent for nor interest in science, literature, or art — and would probably never acquire them. Inheritance laws would destroy fortunes with each generation, and no new ones would be built. The poor, without knowledge or freedom, wouldn't even conceive of the idea of getting rich. The wealthy would let themselves sink into poverty with no thought of self-defense. Between these two groups, complete and unbreakable equality would quickly be established.

No one would have the time or desire to pursue the pleasures of the mind. Everyone would remain paralyzed in a state of shared ignorance and equal servitude. When I picture a democratic society like this, I feel as though I'm in one of those low, dark, suffocating rooms where the light that seeps in from outside quickly fades and dies. A sudden heaviness comes over me, and I grope through the darkness, looking for the opening that will let me back into daylight and fresh air.

But none of this applies to people who are already educated and who keep their freedom after abolishing the hereditary privileges that once locked property in the hands of a few families or institutions. When people living in a democratic society are both educated and free, they quickly realize there's nothing holding them to their current position. They all get the idea of improving it. If they're free, they all try — though not all succeed equally. The law no longer grants privileges, but nature does. Since natural inequality is enormous, fortunes become unequal the moment everyone starts using their full abilities to get rich. Inheritance laws prevent the creation of permanently wealthy families, but they don't prevent the existence of wealthy individuals. These laws constantly pull people back to a common level, from which they just as constantly escape. The gap between fortunes actually grows as knowledge spreads and freedom increases.

A movement that emerged in our time — celebrated for its brilliance and its extremism — proposed concentrating all property in the hands of a central authority, which would then distribute it to individuals based on their abilities. That would have been one way to escape the complete, permanent equality that threatens democratic society. But there's a simpler and less dangerous solution: give no one any privileges, provide everyone with equal education and equal independence, and let each person find their own level. Natural inequality will quickly assert itself, and wealth will naturally end up in the hands of the most capable.

Free democratic communities will therefore always contain a substantial number of well-off and prosperous people. These wealthy citizens won't be as tightly bound to each other as the old aristocratic class was. Their tastes will be different, and they'll rarely enjoy leisure as secure or as complete. But they'll be far more numerous than the aristocrats ever were. These people won't be consumed by the demands of practical life. They'll still be able — in varying degrees — to pursue and enjoy intellectual pleasures. And pursue them they will. Because if it's true that the human mind leans in one direction toward the narrow, the practical, and the useful, it naturally rises in the other toward the infinite, the spiritual, and the beautiful. Physical needs tie it to the earth, but the moment those chains loosen, it springs upward again.

Not only will the number of people who care about intellectual life grow, but the taste for it will spread downward, step by step, even to those who in aristocratic societies seemed to have neither the time nor the ability for it. When inherited wealth, the privileges of rank, and the advantages of birth have all disappeared — when everyone draws their strength from themselves alone — it becomes obvious that the main thing separating people's fortunes is their mind. Anything that strengthens, expands, or refines the mind immediately rises in value. The usefulness of knowledge becomes strikingly clear to everyone. Even those with no taste for learning itself recognize its results and make some effort to acquire it.

In free, enlightened democratic times, nothing separates people or locks them into a fixed position. They rise or fall with startling speed. All classes live in constant contact because they're so close to each other. They communicate and mix every day. They imitate and envy one another. This puts ideas, ambitions, and desires into people's heads that they never would have had if social ranks had been rigid and society static. In such nations, the servant doesn't see himself as a total stranger to the pleasures and hardships of his employer, nor the poor person to those of the rich. Rural populations take on the habits of city dwellers, and the provinces copy the capital. No one easily resigns themselves to a life of nothing but material concerns. Even the humblest worker occasionally casts an eager, furtive glance toward the higher regions of the mind. People don't read with the same expectations or in the same way as they do in an aristocratic society — but the circle of readers keeps expanding until it includes everyone.

Once the general public begins to take an interest in intellectual work, it quickly discovers that excelling in certain fields is a powerful path to fame, power, or wealth. The restless ambition that equality breeds immediately seizes on this, as it does on everything else. The number of people who pursue science, letters, and the arts becomes enormous. Intellectual life explodes into frantic activity. Everyone tries to carve out a path and catch the public eye. It's similar to what happens in American politics: the individual results are often mediocre, but the attempts are countless, and though each person's contribution may be small, the total output is always vast.

So it's simply not true that people living in democratic times are naturally indifferent to science, literature, and the arts. It just has to be recognized that they pursue them in their own way, bringing their own particular strengths and weaknesses to the task.

Chapter X: Why Americans Prefer Practical Science Over Theory

Even if democratic society and democratic institutions don't halt the progress of the human mind, they unmistakably steer it in one direction rather than another. The effects, even within this narrower channel, are still enormous — and worth pausing to examine.

We had occasion earlier, in discussing how Americans approach philosophy, to make several observations that become relevant here.

Equality gives people the desire to judge everything for themselves. It gives them a taste for the tangible and the real, and a distrust of tradition and formal systems. These tendencies show up with particular clarity in the subject of this chapter.

People who pursue science in a democratic society are always afraid of getting lost in abstract speculation. They distrust grand systems. They stick close to facts and to what they can verify with their own senses. Since they don't easily defer to anyone's reputation, they're never inclined to accept another person's authority without question. Instead, they work relentlessly to find the weak points in other people's ideas. Scientific precedent carries little weight with them. They're never held up for long by academic subtleties, and they don't accept impressive jargon as genuine currency. They dig as deep as they can into the core of whatever subject they're studying, and they explain their findings in plain language. As a result, science follows a freer and safer course in democracies — but a less lofty one.

The mind can, it seems to me, divide science into three levels. The first contains the most theoretical principles and the most abstract ideas — the kind whose practical applications are either unknown or very far off. The second consists of general truths that still belong to pure theory but lead, by a direct and short path, to practical results. The third is made up of methods of application and techniques of execution. Each of these levels can be pursued independently, but reason and experience both show that none of them can thrive for long if it's completely cut off from the other two.

In America, the purely practical level of science is brilliantly understood, and close attention is paid to the theoretical work that feeds directly into applications. In this area, Americans consistently show a clear, free, original, and inventive mind. But almost no one in the United States devotes themselves to the essentially theoretical and abstract part of human knowledge. In this respect, Americans take to an extreme a tendency that I think exists, to a lesser degree, in all democratic nations.

Nothing is more essential to the advancement of higher science than deep, sustained thought — and nothing is less suited to deep thought than the structure of democratic society. In democracies, you don't find what you do in aristocracies: one class that stays at rest because it's comfortable, and another that doesn't dare move because it's given up hope of improving its lot. Everyone is in constant motion — some chasing power, others chasing money. In the middle of this universal commotion — this endless clash of competing interests, this relentless race for fortune — where is the calm that serious intellectual work requires? How can the mind settle on any single problem when everything is swirling around it, and the person himself is being swept along by the rushing current that carries everything in its path?

But there's an important distinction to make. The constant, low-grade restlessness of an established, peaceful democracy is very different from the violent upheaval that almost always accompanies the birth and early growth of a democratic society. When a revolution erupts among a highly civilized people, it inevitably gives a sudden jolt to their thoughts and feelings. This is especially true of democratic revolutions, which shake up every class and breed enormous ambition in everyone at once. The French made astonishing advances in the exact sciences at the very moment they were demolishing the last remnants of their old feudal order. But this burst of scientific creativity shouldn't be credited to democracy — it was the product of an extraordinary revolution that accompanied democracy's rise. What happened then was a special case, and it would be a mistake to treat it as proof of a general rule.

Great revolutions aren't actually more common in democracies than elsewhere — I'm even inclined to think they're less common. But there does exist in democratic nations a kind of small, persistent agitation — a constant jostling of people against each other — that annoys and unsettles the mind without stimulating or elevating it.

People in democratic societies don't just rarely engage in deep reflection — they naturally have little respect for it. Democratic life plunges most people into constant activity, and the mental habits suited to an active life aren't always suited to a contemplative one. The person of action is constantly forced to settle for "good enough," because insisting on perfection in every detail would mean never getting anything done. They have to rely on ideas they haven't had time to fully examine, because the timeliness of an idea often matters more than its strict accuracy. In the long run, it's less risky to act on a few wrong assumptions than to spend all your time making sure every assumption is right. The world isn't shaped by long, scholarly arguments. Quick takes on specific situations, daily reading of the public mood, and the skill to seize the moment — that's what decides everything.

In eras when nearly everyone lives an active life, people naturally overvalue the quick bursts and surface-level insights of the intellect, while undervaluing its slower, deeper work. This public attitude influences the scientists themselves: they become convinced they can succeed without sustained reflection, or they're scared away from the kind of work that demands it.

There are different ways to approach science. Among any large group of people, you'll find a selfish, commercial appetite for intellectual discoveries that shouldn't be confused with the passionate, disinterested love of knowledge that burns in the hearts of a few. Wanting to use knowledge is one thing. Wanting to know is another.

I have no doubt that in some rare minds, an intense, inexhaustible love of truth emerges — self-sustaining, endlessly productive, yet never reaching the satisfaction it seeks. It's this fierce, proud, selfless love of truth that drives certain people to the deepest sources of knowledge, to draw out understanding at its very roots. If Pascal had been motivated only by profit, or even by fame alone, I can't imagine he would have been able to marshal all the powers of his mind the way he did, dedicated wholly to uncovering the most hidden workings of creation. When I picture him tearing his soul away from all the distractions of life to devote it entirely to this research — snapping the bonds between body and life before his time, dying of old age before forty — I stand amazed, and I know that no ordinary force produces such extraordinary effort.

The future will reveal whether these passions — so rare and so productive — arise and flourish as easily in democratic societies as in aristocratic ones. Personally, I doubt it.

In aristocratic societies, the class that sets the tone for public opinion and controls the direction of affairs is permanently and hereditarily positioned above the masses. It naturally develops an elevated idea of itself and of humanity. It loves to imagine noble pleasures and magnificent ambitions for the human race. Aristocracies often commit tyrannical and inhumane acts, but they rarely entertain petty thoughts, and they display a kind of proud disdain for small pleasures even as they indulge in them. This greatly raises the general level of a society's aspirations. In aristocratic times, people commonly hold grand ideas about the dignity, the power, and the greatness of humanity. These ideas influence scientists as much as everyone else. They encourage the mind's natural drive toward the highest reaches of thought and prepare it to conceive an exalted — even sacred — love of truth. In such periods, scientists are naturally drawn toward pure theory. It even happens that they develop a reckless contempt for the practical side of knowledge. "Archimedes," writes Plutarch, "had so lofty a spirit that he never bothered to write anything about how to build his engines of war and defense. He considered the whole business of inventing and assembling machines — and indeed all practical arts — to be low and vulgar, and he spent his time and talent writing only about things whose beauty and subtlety were untouched by necessity." That's the aristocratic ideal of science. In democratic nations, it can't be the same.

Most people in democracies are intensely focused on gaining real, physical satisfaction. They're always dissatisfied with their current position and always free to change it, so they think about nothing except how to improve their fortune. To minds like these, every new method that offers a shortcut to wealth, every machine that saves labor, every tool that cuts production costs, every discovery that makes pleasures easier or greater — these seem like the highest achievements of the human mind.

This is the main reason democratic peoples devote themselves to science — and the main way they understand and respect it. In aristocratic times, science is mainly called upon to serve the mind. In democracies, it's called upon to serve the body.

You can be sure of this: the more democratic, educated, and free a nation is, the greater the number of people who will promote applied science for their own benefit, and the more that discoveries with immediate industrial applications will bring their creators profit, fame, and even power. In democracies, the working class participates in public affairs, and both public honors and financial rewards are available to those who earn them.

In a society organized this way, you can easily see how the human mind might gradually neglect theory while being driven with tremendous force toward practical applications — or at least toward the theoretical work that's directly useful to practitioners. Something deep in us may try to pull the mind toward the highest intellectual realms, but self-interest drags it back to the middle zone. There it can develop all its energy and restless drive. There it can produce all its wonders. These same Americans, who haven't discovered a single general law of mechanics, have given the world the steamship — an invention that has transformed the face of the earth.

I certainly don't mean to suggest that the democratic nations of our time are destined to watch the most brilliant lights of human intelligence go dark, or that no new ones will ever appear. At this point in history, among so many advanced nations constantly driven by the fever of productive industry, the connections between different branches of science can't help but become obvious. And the taste for practical science itself, if it's guided by good judgment, should lead people not to neglect theory. In the midst of countless experiments and applications repeated every day, it's almost impossible for general laws not to regularly come to light. Great discoveries will be frequent, even if great discoverers are rare.

I believe, moreover, in the high calling of the scientific mind. Even if democracy doesn't encourage people to pursue science for its own sake, it vastly increases the number of people who pursue it at all. And it's not believable that among such an enormous crowd, no purely speculative genius would occasionally appear, driven by nothing but the love of truth itself. Such a person, we can be sure, would plunge into the deepest mysteries of nature, whatever the spirit of their country or their age. They need no help on their journey — only that no one stand in their way.

Here's my bottom line. Permanent inequality of social conditions leads people to confine themselves to the arrogant and sterile pursuit of abstract truth. Democratic society and its institutions, on the other hand, prepare people to seek the immediate, useful, practical results of science. This tendency is natural and inevitable. It's worth understanding, and it may be necessary to call attention to it.

If the leaders of our time could see clearly the new tendencies that will soon become unstoppable, they would understand this: educated, free people living in a democracy will inevitably advance the industrial side of science. Therefore, all the efforts of government should be directed toward supporting the highest branches of learning and nurturing the noble passion for pure science.

In our age, the human mind has to be pushed toward theoretical work. It runs toward practical applications on its own. Instead of constantly directing it toward the fine details of secondary effects, it would be far better to occasionally pull it away from those details and lift it toward the contemplation of first principles.

Just because the civilization of ancient Rome fell to barbarian invasion, we're perhaps too ready to assume that civilization can only collapse that way. But if the light that guides us is ever extinguished, it will dim by degrees and go out on its own. If we cling too tightly to mere applications, we'll lose sight of the principles behind them. And when the principles are completely forgotten, the methods that came from them will be poorly applied. New methods could no longer be invented, and people would keep using scientific processes they no longer understand — mechanically, without intelligence, without creativity.

When Europeans first arrived in China three hundred years ago, they found that nearly all the practical arts had reached an impressive level of development. They were astonished that a people who had gotten this far hadn't gone further. Later, they discovered traces of more advanced scientific knowledge that had been lost. The nation had been consumed by productive industry. Most of its scientific techniques had been preserved, but science itself no longer existed. This explained the strangely frozen state of Chinese intellectual life. The Chinese had followed in their ancestors' footsteps but had forgotten the reasons behind what their ancestors did. They still used the formulas without understanding their meaning. They kept the tools but had lost the ability to improve or replace them. They had lost the power to change. Improvement had become impossible. They were forced, in all things and at all times, to imitate their predecessors, for fear that straying even slightly from the established path would plunge them into total darkness. The source of human knowledge had all but dried up: the stream still flowed, but it could neither grow nor change course.

Despite all this, China had existed peacefully for centuries. Its conquerors adopted the customs of the conquered, and order prevailed. A kind of material prosperity was visible everywhere. Revolutions were rare. War was practically unknown.

But here's the lesson: it's foolish to reassure ourselves that the barbarians are still far away. Because while some nations have their civilization torn from them by force, others trample it underfoot all by themselves.

Chapter XI: The Spirit of the Arts in Democratic Nations

It would waste my readers' time and my own if I tried to prove what's already obvious: that when most fortunes are modest, no one has much surplus wealth, everyone craves comfort, and everyone scrambles to get it, people will naturally prefer the useful over the beautiful. Democratic nations, where all of this is true, will cultivate the arts that make life easier before the arts that make it elegant. They'll consistently choose the useful over the beautiful — and they'll insist that the beautiful also be useful.

But I want to go further than this first observation and sketch several others.

In aristocratic ages, the practice of almost every art becomes a kind of privilege. Each profession is a separate lane that not everyone is allowed to enter. Even when industry is technically open to all, the rigid character of aristocratic society gradually sorts everyone who practices the same trade into a distinct class — always made up of the same families, whose members all know each other, and among whom a shared professional opinion and a kind of guild pride quickly develop. In such a class, each craftsman isn't only trying to make money — he's trying to protect his reputation. He isn't driven solely by his own interests, or even by his customer's, but by the interests of his guild. And the guild's interest is that every member produce the best possible work. In aristocratic times, the goal of the arts is therefore to make things as well as possible — not as quickly, and not as cheaply.

When, on the other hand, every profession is open to everyone — when crowds of people are constantly entering and leaving it, when its members are strangers to each other, indifferent, and so numerous they can barely see one another — the social bond is destroyed. Each worker, standing alone, simply tries to make the most money at the least cost. The customer's wishes are his only constraint.

But at the same time, a parallel revolution happens on the consumer side. In countries where wealth and power are concentrated in a few hands, most of the world's finer goods belong to a small, unchanging group of people. Necessity, public opinion, or modest ambitions keep everyone else from enjoying them. This aristocratic class, permanently fixed at the top without growing or shrinking, is always shaped by the same desires and satisfies them in the same ways. Its members naturally develop, from their inherited position, a taste for things that are extremely well made and built to last. This attitude shapes the entire nation's relationship to craftsmanship. In such a society, even a peasant would often rather go without something than own a shoddy version of it. In aristocracies, craftsmen work for a small number of very demanding customers, and their profit depends mainly on the perfection of their work.

All of this changes when privileges are abolished, ranks blur together, and people are constantly rising or falling on the social ladder. In a democracy, there are always citizens whose inherited wealth is shrinking. They acquired certain tastes during better times — tastes that persist after the means to satisfy them are gone. They're anxiously looking for some way to keep up appearances. At the same time, there are always large numbers of people in democracies whose fortunes are growing, but whose desires grow much faster than their bank accounts. They eye the rewards of wealth long before they can actually afford them. These people are eager to find a shortcut to the pleasures that are tantalizingly close.

The combination of these two groups produces a predictable result: in democracies, there are always masses of people whose wants exceed their means, and who would rather settle for an imperfect version of something than give it up entirely.

The craftsman understands these desires perfectly, because he shares them. In an aristocracy, he would try to sell masterwork at a high price to a few buyers. Now he sees that the faster route to wealth is to sell cheaper goods to everyone. But there are only two ways to lower prices. The first is to find a better, faster, or more clever way to make something. The second is to produce a larger quantity of goods that are similar in appearance but lower in quality.

In a democracy, all the intellectual energy of the worker is focused on these two goals: figuring out how to work better, faster, and cheaper — or, failing that, how to reduce the real quality of what he makes without making it completely useless. When only the rich owned watches, nearly all watches were very good. Few watches worth much are made today, but everyone has one in their pocket. The democratic principle doesn't just steer the mind toward useful arts — it pushes the craftsman to produce more goods of lower quality more quickly, and it teaches the consumer to settle for them.

Not that democracies are incapable of producing excellent work when it's called for. They can, if customers show up who are willing to pay for the time and care it requires. In the midst of fierce competition and endless experimentation, some truly outstanding craftsmen do emerge — people who push their skills to the absolute limit. But they rarely get the chance to show what they can do. They carefully ration their abilities. They settle into a state of accomplished mediocrity that knows it could aim higher but chooses only to hit the target in front of it. In aristocracies, by contrast, workers always give everything they have. When they stop, it's because they've reached the limit of their talent.

When I arrive in a country and find some of the finest productions of the arts, this alone tells me nothing about that society's social conditions or political system. But if I see that the products are generally mediocre, extremely abundant, and very cheap, I can be confident that in this nation, privilege is declining, ranks are blurring, and social classes will soon be indistinguishable.

The craftsmen of democratic times don't just try to bring useful goods within everyone's reach — they also work to give all their products attractive qualities they don't actually possess. In the confusion of blurred social ranks, everyone hopes to appear as something they're not, and puts enormous effort into pulling it off. This impulse is deeply human and not exclusive to democracy. But democracy applies it to material goods. Faking virtue is timeless. But the hypocrisy of luxury belongs especially to the age of democracy.

To satisfy these new cravings of human vanity, the arts resort to every kind of deception — and sometimes these tricks defeat their own purpose. Imitation diamonds are now made that can easily pass for real ones. The moment the art of making fake diamonds reaches such perfection that they can't be told from genuine stones, both will probably be abandoned and become worthless pebbles.

This brings me to the fine arts specifically. I don't believe that democracy necessarily reduces the number of people who practice the fine arts. But it powerfully shapes how those arts are practiced. Many people who once had a taste for fine art are now impoverished, while many who aren't yet wealthy are beginning to develop that taste, at least by imitation. The number of consumers grows, but wealthy and demanding consumers become rare. Something similar to what I described in the useful arts happens here too: artistic works become more numerous, but the quality of each one declines. No longer able to aim for greatness, artists cultivate what is pretty and elegant. Appearance gets more attention than substance. In aristocracies, a few great paintings are produced. In democracies, a vast number of forgettable ones. In the former, statues are cast in bronze. In the latter, they're molded in plaster.

When I first arrived in New York by sea, coming through the Narrows, I was surprised to see along the shore, some distance from the city, a number of small palaces of white marble, several of them built in the style of ancient architecture. The next day, when I went to inspect the building that had most caught my eye, I discovered that its walls were whitewashed brick and its columns were painted wood. Every building I had admired the night before turned out to be the same.

Democracy's social conditions and institutions also give certain characteristic tendencies to all the imitative arts. They frequently pull artists away from depicting the soul and fix them instead on the body. They replace the representation of feeling and thought with the representation of motion and sensation. In a word, they put the real in the place of the ideal.

I doubt that Raphael studied the fine details of human anatomy as thoroughly as the artists of our own time do. He didn't attach the same importance to that kind of precision, because he aspired to go beyond nature. He wanted to make something greater than a person — to elevate beauty itself. David and his students, by contrast, were as good at anatomy as they were at painting. They depicted their models with stunning accuracy, but they rarely imagined anything beyond what was in front of them. They followed nature faithfully, while Raphael sought something better than nature. They left us exact portraits of people. He left us glimpses of the divine.

This observation about how a subject is treated applies equally to the choice of subject. The painters of the Middle Ages generally looked far above themselves and far beyond their own time for their subjects, choosing grand themes that left unlimited room for the imagination. Our painters more often use their talents to produce exact reproductions of the details of everyday private life — subjects they see all around them. They spend their time copying trivial objects whose originals are all too plentiful in the real world.

Chapter XII: Why Americans Build Some Monuments So Small and Others So Enormous

I just noted that in democratic societies, works of art tend to become more numerous but less impressive. Now let me point out the exception to that rule.

In a democracy, individual citizens are relatively powerless — but the government that represents them all, and holds them all in its grip, is enormously powerful. Nowhere do individual citizens seem so small as in a democratic nation; and nowhere does the nation itself seem so grand, or is it so easy for the mind to take in the whole sweeping picture at once. In democracies, the imagination shrinks when people think about themselves. It expands without limit when they think about the state. This is why the same people who live modestly in cramped apartments will dream of gigantic splendor when it comes to their public buildings.

The Americans laid out the boundaries of an immense city on the spot they chose for their capital — a place that, at the time, was barely more populated than a small French town, though they claimed it would one day hold a million people. They had already cleared trees for ten miles in every direction, just so those trees wouldn't get in the way of the future residents of this imaginary metropolis. They built a magnificent palace for Congress at the center of the city and gave it the grand name "the Capitol." Meanwhile, every state in the Union is constantly planning and constructing massive projects that would astonish the engineers of the great European nations.

So democracy doesn't just lead people to produce vast quantities of mediocre work — it also drives them to build some things on the most colossal scale. But between these two extremes, there's nothing. A few scattered remains of enormous buildings, then, can't actually tell us much about the social conditions or institutions of the people who built them. And I'd add — even though this takes me slightly off topic — that they don't tell us much about that society's greatness, civilization, or real prosperity either. Whenever any power is capable of making an entire population cooperate on a single project, that power — with a little knowledge and a lot of time — will produce something enormous from all that combined effort. But that doesn't mean the people were especially happy, enlightened, or even strong.

The Spanish found Mexico City full of magnificent temples and vast palaces — but that didn't stop Cortes from conquering the entire Mexican Empire with six hundred soldiers and sixteen horses. If the Romans had better understood hydraulics, they wouldn't have built all those aqueducts that now surround the ruins of their cities — they would have put their power and wealth to better use. If they had invented the steam engine, they might never have extended those long artificial highways we call Roman roads to the far edges of their empire. These monuments are simultaneously splendid memorials to both their ignorance and their greatness. A civilization that left behind nothing but a few lead pipes underground and some iron rails on the surface might have been far more the master of nature than the Romans ever were.

Chapter XIII: What Literature Looks Like in Democratic Societies

Walk into a bookstore in the United States and scan the shelves. The sheer number of American books is enormous, but the number of well-known authors is strikingly small. First you'll find a wave of basic textbooks designed to teach the fundamentals of various subjects. Most of these were actually written in Europe; Americans just reprint them and adapt them for their own country. Next comes an avalanche of religious material — Bibles, sermons, inspirational stories, theological debates, and reports from charitable organizations. And finally, the endless catalog of political pamphlets. In America, political parties don't write books to fight each other's ideas — they write pamphlets that circulate at incredible speed for a day, then vanish. Buried among all these forgettable products of the human mind, you can find the more noteworthy works of that small handful of authors whose names are, or should be, known in Europe.

Although America may be the civilized country where literature gets the least attention today, plenty of Americans do take an interest in intellectual work — making it, if not their life's calling, at least the pleasure of their spare time. But it's England that supplies these readers with most of their books. Nearly every important English book is republished in the United States. The literary spirit of Great Britain still reaches into the remotest corners of the New World. There's hardly a pioneer's cabin that doesn't contain a few worn volumes of Shakespeare. I remember reading Henry V — that feudal drama — for the first time in a log cabin.

Americans don't just constantly draw on the treasures of English literature; you could say that English literature practically grows on American soil. Most of the small number of Americans who write literary works are English in substance and even more so in style. They transplant the ideas and literary fashions of the aristocratic nation they've taken as their model right into the heart of a democracy. They paint with borrowed colors, and because they hardly ever portray their own country as it actually is, they're rarely popular at home. American readers are so convinced that books aren't really written for them that they usually wait for an author's reputation to be certified in England before making up their minds about the work — the way people assume the creator of an original painting is the best judge of a copy's quality.

So, strictly speaking, the United States doesn't really have a literature of its own yet. The only writers I'd call genuinely American are the journalists. They're not great writers, but they speak the language of their fellow citizens and actually get heard. The other authors are essentially foreigners: they're to Americans what the imitators of Greece and Rome were to Europeans during the Renaissance — objects of curiosity, not genuine connection. They entertain the mind but don't shape the customs of the people.

I've already said that this situation doesn't come from democracy alone — its causes lie in several specific circumstances that have nothing to do with the democratic principle itself. If the Americans had kept the same laws and social conditions but had a different origin and been transplanted to a different country, I have no doubt they would have developed a literature. Even as things stand, I'm convinced they'll eventually create one. But its character will be very different from what American literary production looks like right now, and that character will be uniquely its own. It's not impossible to sketch out what it will look like in advance.

Picture an aristocratic society where literature flourishes. The work of the mind, like the affairs of state, is controlled by the ruling class. Literary careers, like political ones, are almost entirely confined to this class or to those closest to it in rank. That gives me the key to everything else.

When a small number of the same people are working on the same subjects at the same time, they easily coordinate with one another and agree on certain governing rules that apply to everyone. If what draws their attention is literature, they'll quickly impose strict standards on literary work — standards that become mandatory. And if these people hold hereditary positions, they'll naturally be inclined not only to adopt fixed rules for themselves but also to follow the ones their ancestors laid down. Their code becomes both rigid and traditional.

Since they're not consumed by the demands of daily survival — and never have been, any more than their parents were — they've had the leisure, over generations, to develop a genuine interest in intellectual work. They've learned to understand literature as an art, to love it for its own sake, and to take a scholar's satisfaction in watching others follow its rules. And there's more: these people began and will end their lives in comfortable or affluent circumstances, so they naturally develop a taste for refined, delicate pleasures. A kind of mental and emotional laziness, which they often pick up from years of peaceful prosperity, leads them to push aside anything in their pleasures that might be too startling or too intense. They'd rather be amused than deeply moved. They want to be engaged, but not swept away.

Now imagine a huge body of literature produced by such people, or for them, and you can easily picture a literary culture where everything is orderly and carefully arranged. Even the smallest work will be polished down to its finest details; craftsmanship and effort will be visible in everything. Each genre will have its own rules, and no one will be allowed to deviate from them. Style will be considered almost as important as ideas, and form will matter as much as content. The language will be polished, measured, and uniform. The tone will always be dignified, rarely very lively, and writers will care more about perfecting what they produce than multiplying their output.

Eventually, though, the members of this literary class — always living among themselves and writing only for each other — will lose sight of the rest of the world. This inbreeding will produce a false, labored style. They'll invent minute literary rules for their own exclusive use, which will gradually lead them away from common sense and finally beyond the boundaries of nature itself. By striving so hard to speak differently from ordinary people, they'll end up with a kind of aristocratic jargon that's hardly less distant from genuine language than the rough speech of the uneducated. These are the natural dangers of literature in aristocratic societies. Any aristocracy that completely cuts itself off from the people becomes powerless — a truth that holds as much in literature as it does in politics.

(This is especially true in aristocratic countries that have been under a stable monarchy for a long time. When freedom prevails in an aristocracy, the upper classes are constantly forced to engage with the lower classes, and this contact introduces something of a democratic spirit into their literary work. There also develops, in a governing elite with energy and bold ambitions, a taste for action and excitement that inevitably colors everything they write.)

Now let's flip the picture and look at the other side. Imagine ourselves in the middle of a democracy — one without the ancient traditions and established culture that prepare people for intellectual pleasures. Social ranks are jumbled and blurred together. Knowledge and power are infinitely subdivided, scattered in every direction. Here is a diverse, restless crowd whose intellectual needs must somehow be met.

These new consumers of intellectual pleasure haven't all received the same education. They don't have their parents' level of culture and bear no resemblance to them — in fact, they're constantly changing even from their own past selves, because they live in a state of perpetual movement, shifting feelings, and shifting fortunes. No one's mind is connected to anyone else's by tradition or shared habits, and they've never had the power, the desire, or the time to coordinate with each other.

Yet it's from the heart of this messy, churning mass that authors emerge — and from this same source that their income and fame are distributed. Given all this, you'd expect to find very few of those strict literary conventions that readers and writers accept in aristocratic periods. Even if the people of one generation agreed on such rules, that would prove nothing about the next, because in democratic nations, each new generation is essentially a new people. Literature in such nations will never be easily bound by rigid rules, and it's impossible that any such rules could ever last.

In democracies, it's far from the case that everyone who dabbles in literature has received a proper literary education. And most of those who have some taste for fine writing are either wrapped up in politics or practicing a profession that only lets them dip into intellectual pleasures occasionally and on the side. These pleasures aren't the main focus of their lives; they're a brief, welcome break from the serious business of making a living. People like this can never develop the deep familiarity with the art of writing needed to appreciate its subtler beauties; the finer shades of expression will escape them. Since they have so little time for reading, they want to make the most of it. They prefer books that are easy to get, quick to read, and don't require scholarly knowledge to understand. They want beauty that announces itself and delivers instantly. Above all, they want what's surprising and new. Accustomed to struggle, setbacks, and the monotony of practical life, they need rapid emotional impact — striking passages, truths or bold claims vivid enough to jolt them and plunge them headlong into the middle of a subject.

Do I need to say more? Can't you already see where this is going? Taken as a whole, literature in democratic ages will never display the order, regularity, discipline, and artfulness that it does in aristocratic periods. On the contrary, form will typically be neglected, sometimes scorned. Style will often be wild, uneven, overloaded, and loose — yet almost always forceful and daring. Authors will aim for speed of execution over perfection of detail. Short works will be more common than big books. There will be more cleverness than learning, more imagination than depth. Literary works will bear the marks of raw, untrained intellectual energy — frequently showing great range and remarkable fertility. Writers will try to astonish rather than please, and to stir passions more than charm refined taste.

Here and there, of course, some writers will choose a different path, and if they have exceptional talent, they'll find readers despite their departures from the norm — or perhaps because of them. But these will be exceptions, and even authors who break from the dominant approach on the big questions will slip back into it in smaller ways.

I've just described two extremes. The transition from one to the other isn't sudden but gradual, with countless variations along the way. In that passage from one literary culture to another, there's almost always a moment when the literary spirit of democracy meets the literary spirit of aristocracy, and both compete for influence over the human mind. These moments are brief but brilliant — productive without excess, lively without chaos. Eighteenth-century French literature is a perfect example.

I'd be overstating my case if I claimed that a nation's literature is always entirely determined by its social conditions and political system. I know there are other factors that give literature its distinctive qualities. But these social and political factors seem to me the most important ones. The connections between a people's social and political condition and the character of its writers are always deep and numerous: if you understand one, you're never completely ignorant of the other.

Chapter XIV: The Business of Literature

Democracy doesn't just give the commercial classes a taste for reading — it also introduces a commercial mentality into literature itself.

In aristocracies, readers are demanding and few. In democracies, they're far more numerous and far easier to please. The result: in aristocratic nations, no one can succeed without enormous effort, and that effort may bring great fame but never much money. In democracies, a writer can reasonably expect to win a modest reputation and a large income without too much trouble. He doesn't need to be admired; it's enough to be liked. The ever-growing crowd of readers, and their constant hunger for something new, guarantees sales for books that nobody particularly respects.

In democratic times, the public often treats authors the way kings treat their courtiers: they enrich them and despise them. And what more do the mercenary souls born in royal courts — or suited to live there — really need?

Democratic literature is always overrun with writers who see books as nothing more than a business. For every few genuinely great authors who grace it, you can count thousands of idea-peddlers.

Chapter XV: Why Studying Greek and Latin Is Especially Valuable in Democracies

What people called "the People" in the most democratic republics of the ancient world was nothing like what we mean by that term today. In Athens, every citizen participated in public affairs — but there were only 20,000 citizens out of more than 350,000 inhabitants. Everyone else was enslaved and performed most of the work that today falls to the working and middle classes. Athens, with its universal suffrage, was really just an aristocratic republic where all the nobles had equal rights to govern. The struggle between the patricians and plebeians of Rome should be understood the same way: it was essentially a family feud between the older and younger branches of the same house. All Roman citizens effectively belonged to the aristocracy and shared its character.

It's also worth noting that among the ancients, books were always scarce and expensive, and enormous obstacles stood in the way of publishing and distributing them. These conditions concentrated literary tastes and habits among a small elite — a literary aristocracy drawn from the choicest minds of the broader political aristocracy. As a result, there's no evidence that literature was ever treated as a commercial enterprise among the Greeks and Romans.

These peoples formed not just aristocracies but highly cultivated, free ones, and so their literary works naturally display both the strengths and weaknesses of aristocratic literature. Even a quick survey of what survives from ancient writers confirms this: while they sometimes lacked range, creative energy, boldness, liveliness, or the ability to generalize, they always showed exquisite care and skill in their details. Nothing in their work feels rushed or random. Every line was written for the eye of a connoisseur, shaped according to some ideal of beauty.

No body of literature puts on bolder display the very qualities that democratic writers naturally lack. No literature, therefore, deserves more attention in democratic times. Studying the classics is the best possible remedy for the literary weaknesses that democracy breeds. As for democracy's genuine literary strengths — energy, originality, range — those will emerge on their own, without anyone needing to be taught them.

But this point needs to be understood carefully. A particular kind of study can be good for a nation's literature without being suited to its practical social and political needs. If people insisted on teaching nothing but classical literature in a society where everyone is constantly scrambling to build or maintain their fortune, the result would be a very polished but very dangerous class of citizens. Their social and economic reality would constantly present them with problems their education never prepared them to solve, and they'd end up disrupting the state in the name of the Greeks and Romans instead of enriching it with productive work.

Obviously, in democratic societies, the interest of individuals and the security of the nation both demand that most people receive a scientific, commercial, and practical education rather than a literary one. Greek and Latin shouldn't be taught in every school. But it's crucial that those who are drawn to literature by natural inclination or personal circumstances should be able to find schools where they can gain a thorough knowledge of ancient literature and develop into true scholars. A few excellent universities would do far more to achieve this than a vast number of mediocre schools where subjects are badly taught and get in the way of the things students actually need to learn.

Everyone who aspires to literary excellence in a democracy should regularly refresh themselves at the springs of ancient literature. There is no healthier exercise for the mind. I don't claim that the literary works of the ancients are flawless. But I do think they possess certain qualities that are perfectly suited to counterbalance the particular weaknesses of our age. They're a support on the side where we're most in danger of falling.

Chapter XVI: How Democracy Changes Language

If you've followed what I've said so far about literature in general, you won't have trouble understanding the kind of influence that democratic social conditions and democratic institutions can have on language itself — the primary tool of thought.

American authors essentially live more in England than in their own country, since they constantly study English writers and take them as their models every day. But that's not the case for the general population, which is more directly shaped by the forces unique to the United States. So it's not written language but spoken language that we need to pay attention to if we want to understand what happens when the language of an aristocratic people becomes the language of a democracy.

Educated Englishmen — better judges than I am of the finer shades of expression — have often told me that the language of educated Americans is noticeably different from that of educated Britons. They complain not only that Americans have introduced a flood of new words (which the distance between the two countries would be enough to explain) but that these new words come especially from the jargon of political parties, technical trades, and business. They also point out that Americans frequently use old English words with new meanings, and that they sometimes combine words in strange ways that would never be put together in the mother country. These observations, made to me at various times by people who seemed reliable, got me thinking about the subject. And my theoretical reasoning led me to exactly the same conclusions that my informants had reached through practical observation.

In aristocratic societies, language naturally reflects the general state of stability. Few new words are coined because few new things are invented. And even when new things appear, they're labeled with existing words whose meanings are fixed by tradition. When intellectual life does stir — or when outside influences break through — the new expressions that enter the language bear the stamp of scholarship, intelligence, and philosophy, revealing that they didn't originate in a democracy. After the fall of Constantinople sent a wave of science and literature westward, French was almost immediately flooded with new words, all derived from Greek or Latin roots. This scholarly burst of word-coining was confined to the educated classes and had little immediate effect on ordinary people. The same pattern played out across every nation in Europe. Milton alone introduced more than six hundred words into English, almost all from Latin, Greek, or Hebrew.

Democracy is the opposite. The constant movement that defines a democratic society endlessly reshapes the language, just as it reshapes everything else. In the midst of all this intellectual competition and restlessness, a huge number of new ideas are born, old ideas vanish or resurface, and every concept gets subdivided into an infinite number of smaller shades of meaning. The result is that many words fall out of use and many others have to be brought in.

Democratic peoples love change for its own sake, and this shows up in their language as much as in their politics. Even when they don't need to change words, they sometimes just feel like it. The character of a democratic people reveals itself not only in the sheer number of new words they produce but in the kinds of ideas those words represent. In such a society, the majority sets the rules for language just as it does for everything else, and its dominant spirit is just as visible here. But the majority is more absorbed in business than in study — in politics and commerce than in philosophy or literature. Most of the words they coin or adopt will therefore reflect these habits: they'll mainly express the needs of business, the passions of politics, or the details of government administration. Language will constantly expand in these areas, while gradually losing ground in metaphysics and theology.

As for where democratic peoples find their new words and how they go about creating them — both are easy to describe. People living in democracies know little of the languages spoken in ancient Athens and Rome, and they don't care to dig through classical scholarship to find the expression they need. When they do occasionally reach for learned roots, it's vanity that drives them to the dead languages, not genuine familiarity. And sometimes the most ignorant people use classical roots the most. The deeply democratic desire to rise above one's station often leads people to dress up an ordinary job with a Greek or Latin title. The humbler and more distant from learning the profession, the more pompous and scholarly its name. This is how French rope-dancers rebranded themselves as "acrobates" and "funambules."

When they don't draw on dead languages, democratic peoples are quick to borrow words from living ones — because their constant international contact means people from different countries are always imitating each other, and growing more alike every day.

But the main innovations democratic peoples make happen within their own language. From time to time, they dig up forgotten words and put them back into circulation. Or they borrow a term from a specific profession or group and introduce it, with a figurative meaning, into everyday speech. Many expressions that originally belonged to the technical vocabulary of a trade or a political faction get pulled into general use this way.

The most common method, though, is simply giving a new meaning to a word that already exists. This approach is simple, quick, and convenient. It requires no learning, and ignorance actually makes it easier. But it's extremely dangerous to the language. When a democratic people doubles the meaning of a word like this, they sometimes make the old meaning just as ambiguous as the new one. A writer starts by slightly bending a familiar expression away from its original sense and adapts it, as best he can, to his subject. A second writer twists the meaning in a different direction. A third seizes the word for yet another purpose. And since there's no permanent authority to settle what the word actually means, it's left in a state of permanent ambiguity. The result is that writers almost never seem to be focusing on a single thought — they always seem to be aiming at a cluster of ideas, leaving readers to guess which one they actually hit.

This is a genuinely harmful consequence of democracy. I'd honestly rather see the language made ugly with words imported from Chinese, Mongolian, or any other foreign tongue than see the meaning of words in our own language become indeterminate. Harmony and uniformity are secondary virtues in writing; many of these things are matters of convention, and strictly speaking, you can do without them. But without clear language, there is no good language at all.

The principle of equality inevitably changes language in other ways too. In aristocratic times, when each nation tends to keep itself apart from all others and insists on its own distinctive character, it often happens that peoples with a common origin grow estranged from each other. Without ceasing to understand the same language, they no longer speak it the same way. In these eras, each nation splits into distinct classes that rarely see each other and never mix. Each class develops and stubbornly retains its own mental habits, adopting particular words and phrases that pass from generation to generation like family estates. The same language ends up containing a language of the poor and a language of the rich, a language of the common citizen and a language of the nobility, a learned language and a popular one. The deeper the social divisions and the more impassable the barriers, the more pronounced this becomes. I'd bet that among the castes of India, the variations in language are astonishing — and that there's almost as much difference between the speech of an untouchable and that of a Brahmin as there is between their clothing.

When, on the other hand, people are no longer separated by rigid ranks and meet each other in constant interaction — when castes are destroyed and classes recruit from and mix with each other — all the words of a language get thrown together. The ones that don't serve the majority die off; the rest form a common pool from which everyone draws more or less at random. Nearly all the regional dialects that once divided European languages are visibly declining. There's no patois in the New World, and it's disappearing every day in the Old.

This social revolution makes itself felt in style just as much as in vocabulary. Not only does everyone use the same words, but people develop a habit of using them without discrimination. The rules that style once imposed are nearly abolished. The line between expressions that seem inherently vulgar and those that seem refined starts to dissolve. People from different social backgrounds carry the terms they're used to into every new situation, so the origin of words gets lost — just like the origin of individuals. Language becomes as confused as society.

I'm aware that there are rules about language that don't belong to any particular form of society but are rooted in the nature of things. Some expressions are coarse because the ideas they express are inherently low. Others carry a higher register because the objects they describe are naturally elevated. No amount of social mixing will ever erase these differences entirely. But the principle of equality will inevitably root out whatever in language is merely conventional and arbitrary. And the natural distinctions I just mentioned will probably always be less respected in a democracy than anywhere else — because in democracies, there's no permanent class of people whose education, culture, and leisure allow them to study the natural laws of language and enforce those laws by their own example.

I won't leave this topic without touching on one feature of democratic language that may be its most characteristic quality of all. I've already shown that democratic peoples have a taste — sometimes a passion — for general ideas, and that this comes from their particular strengths and weaknesses. This love of general ideas shows up in democratic language through the constant use of abstract terms and generic expressions, and in the way these terms are deployed. This is both the great strength and the great flaw of democratic language.

Democratic peoples are addicted to abstract and generic terms because these modes of speech expand thought. They help the mind work more efficiently by letting it pack several objects into a small space. A French democratic writer will say "capacites" (capabilities) in the abstract to mean "capable people," without specifying what they're capable of. He'll talk about "actualites" (current events) to capture in a single word everything happening around him at that moment. He'll use "eventualites" (eventualities) to encompass whatever might happen in the universe from the moment he opens his mouth. Democratic writers are constantly inventing words like this, pushing the already abstract terms of their language to even higher levels of abstraction. They go further still: to make their speech more concise, they personify these abstract terms and make them act like living beings. In French, they'll say something like: "The force of circumstances demands that capabilities govern."

I can illustrate this perfectly with my own example. I've used the word "equality" throughout this book in an absolute sense — and I've even personified it in several places, saying that equality does this or refrains from that. Writers in the age of Louis XIV would never have used the word that way. They would never have dreamed of using "equality" without connecting it to some specific thing, and they would have abandoned the term entirely rather than consent to turn it into a living character.

These abstract terms that overflow in democratic language — used at every turn without being attached to any particular fact — expand and blur the thoughts they're meant to convey. They make speech more concise but ideas less clear. And when it comes to language, democratic peoples prefer vagueness to effort.

I'm not sure whether this loose style doesn't hold some secret appeal for those who speak and write in democratic nations. People who are largely left to their own individual mental resources are almost always prey to doubt. And because their position in life is constantly shifting, they never hold onto any opinion with the confidence that comes from a secure place in the world. People in democracies are therefore drawn to unsettled ideas, and they need loose language to express them. Since they never know whether the idea they express today will still fit the new situation they may find themselves in tomorrow, they naturally develop a taste for abstraction. An abstract term is like a box with a false bottom: you can put in whatever ideas you like and take them out again without anyone noticing.

Among all peoples, generic and abstract terms form the foundation of language. I'm not suggesting we should expel them from democratic languages. I'm simply pointing out that in democratic ages, people have a special tendency to multiply words of this kind — to use them in their most abstract sense at every opportunity, even when the subject doesn't call for it.

Chapter XVII: Where Poetry Comes From in Democratic Nations

The word "poetry" has been given all sorts of definitions. I'd bore my readers if I dragged them through a debate about which one is best, so let me just say which one I've chosen. In my view, poetry is the search for, and the portrayal of, the ideal. The poet is someone who — by leaving out part of what exists, adding some imaginary details to the picture, and combining real circumstances that don't actually occur together — completes and extends the work of nature. The object of poetry, then, is not to depict what is true but to beautify it, to present the mind with something more elevated. Verse, understood as the ideal beauty of language, can certainly be deeply poetical — but verse alone does not make poetry.

With that definition in hand, I want to ask: among the activities, feelings, and beliefs of democratic peoples, are there any that lead to a sense of ideal beauty and can serve as natural wellsprings of poetry?

First, we have to admit that the taste for ideal beauty, and the pleasure that comes from expressing it, are never as intense or as widespread in a democracy as they are in an aristocratic society. In aristocracies, it sometimes happens that the body goes through its routines almost automatically while the higher faculties of the mind are left free — unburdened, with nothing to do but wander. Among such peoples, you'll often see genuine poetic sensibility, a willingness to let the imagination roam beyond the immediate and the practical.

But in democracies, the love of material comfort, the drive to improve one's situation, the thrill of competition, the lure of anticipated success — all of these act as spurs pushing people headlong into their active careers, never allowing them a moment's detour. The full force of their faculties is aimed at practical goals. The imagination isn't dead, but its main job is to figure out what's useful and to represent what's real.

The principle of equality doesn't just pull people away from depicting ideal beauty — it also shrinks the number of things available to depict.

Aristocracy, by keeping society in a fixed position, is favorable to established religion and to stable political institutions. It holds the human mind within a certain sphere of belief and predisposes it to adopt one faith over another. An aristocratic people will always tend to place intermediate powers between God and humanity. In this sense, the aristocratic worldview is friendly to poetry. When the universe is populated with supernatural beings — invisible to the senses but accessible to the mind — the imagination ranges freely, and poets find a thousand subjects to portray and a vast audience eager to hear them.

In democratic times, by contrast, people are often as unsettled in their beliefs as they are in their laws. Skepticism pulls the poetic imagination back to earth and confines it to the real, visible world. Even when equality doesn't disturb religious faith, it tends to simplify it — shifting attention away from lesser spiritual agents and focusing it on the Supreme Power alone.

Aristocracy naturally draws the mind to contemplate the past and holds it there. Democracy gives people an instinctive distaste for anything old. In this respect, aristocracy is far more hospitable to poetry, because things generally grow larger and more mysterious the further back in time they recede — and for that double reason, they lend themselves better to ideal portrayal.

Having stripped poetry of the past, the principle of equality also robs it of much of the present. In aristocratic nations, there exist certain privileged figures whose position seems almost beyond the human condition — people to whom power, wealth, fame, wit, refinement, and every form of distinction seem specially to belong. The crowd never sees them up close or examines them in detail, and it takes very little to make descriptions of such people poetical. On the other hand, in those same societies you'll find classes so downtrodden and wretched that they're equally fit subjects for poetry — their misery as striking as the greatness of those above them. And since the different classes that make up an aristocratic society are widely separated and barely know each other, the imagination can always portray them with some addition or subtraction from what they really are.

In democratic societies, where people are all roughly equal and alike, each person instantly sees everyone else when they look at themselves. The poets of democratic times can never take any individual as the subject of their work, because a figure of no great importance, clearly visible from every angle, will never lend itself to an ideal treatment. This is how the principle of equality, as it has spread through the world, has dried up most of the ancient springs of poetry.

Let's see what new ones it might open up.

When skepticism had emptied heaven and the progress of equality had reduced every individual to smaller, more familiar proportions, poets — not yet aware of what they could put in place of the grand themes that were vanishing along with the aristocracy — turned their eyes to nature. Having lost sight of gods and heroes, they set about describing rivers and mountains. This gave rise, in the last century, to what has been called "descriptive poetry." Some have argued that this kind of writing — decorating the physical landscape with elaborate language — is the poetry that naturally belongs to democratic ages. I think this is wrong. It belongs only to a period of transition.

I'm convinced that democracy ultimately turns the imagination away from everything external and fixes it on humanity alone. Democratic peoples may enjoy contemplating nature for a while, but they're only truly stirred by the contemplation of themselves. Here, and here alone, lie the real sources of poetry in such nations. And poets who fail to draw their inspiration from this well will lose their hold on the minds they want to enchant, left with nothing but indifferent spectators watching their ecstasies.

I've already shown how the ideas of progress and the limitless perfectibility of the human race belong to democratic ages. Democratic peoples care little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be. In that direction, their boundless imagination grows and expands beyond all measure. Here, then, is the widest territory open to poetic genius — a space that allows poets to set their work at a sufficient distance from the eye to take on the glow of the ideal. Democracy closes the past to the poet but throws open the future.

Since all the citizens of a democratic society are nearly equal and alike, no single one of them can serve as a worthy subject for poetry. But the nation itself invites the poet's powers. The very similarity of individuals that makes any one of them too small for poetry allows the poet to gather them all into the same grand vision — to take the people as a whole as the subject. Democratic nations perceive their own collective character more clearly than any others, and that collective image is grand enough to deserve ideal treatment.

I readily admit that Americans don't have poets. But I can't accept that they lack poetic ideas. Europeans love to talk about the American wilderness, but Americans themselves never think about it. They're blind to the wonders of the natural world around them — you could almost say they don't even notice the vast forests until those forests fall under the axe. Their eyes are fixed on a different spectacle: the American people watching their own march across this continent — draining swamps, diverting rivers, settling empty lands, subduing nature. This magnificent self-image doesn't appear to Americans only in special moments. It haunts every one of them in their smallest actions as much as their greatest. Nothing imaginable is so petty, so dull, so crammed with trivial concerns — in a word, so anti-poetic — as the daily life of an American. But among all the thoughts that daily life suggests, there is always one that is full of poetry, and that is the hidden nerve that gives the whole body its vitality.

In aristocratic ages, each people, like each individual, tends to stand apart from all others. In democratic ages, the extreme restlessness of people and the impatience of their desires keep them perpetually in motion. The inhabitants of different countries mix together, listen to each other, and borrow from each other's stores. It's not just that members of the same community grow more alike — communities themselves start to resemble one another, until the whole scene presents to the observer one vast democracy, where every citizen is a nation. This reveals the human race, for the first time, in the broadest possible light. Everything that touches the existence of humanity taken as a whole — its ups and downs, its future — becomes a rich source of poetry. Poets who lived in aristocratic ages brilliantly captured certain moments in the life of a people or a person. But none of them ever attempted to portray the destiny of the entire human race — a task that only poets writing in democratic ages can undertake.

At the very moment when every person, lifting their gaze beyond their own country, begins to make out humanity at large, God becomes more and more visible to the human mind in full and entire majesty. If democratic ages often shake people's faith in organized religion and cloud their belief in spiritual intermediaries of every kind, people at the same time grow disposed to conceive a far grander idea of Providence itself. God's involvement in human affairs takes on a new, more imposing appearance. Looking at the human race as a single vast entity, people easily imagine that its fate is governed by a single design — and in the actions of every individual, they begin to recognize traces of that universal, eternal plan by which God governs our species.

This opens another fertile source of poetry in democratic times. Democratic poets will always seem trivial and cold if they try to give physical form to gods, demons, or angels, or if they try to drag them down from heaven to fight over control of the earth. But if they strive to connect the great events they describe with the larger providential design that governs the universe — and if, without pointing to the finger of the Supreme Governor, they can reveal the thoughts of the Supreme Mind — their work will be admired and understood. The imaginations of their contemporaries are already moving in that direction on their own.

It's also predictable that poets in democratic ages will prefer to depict passions and ideas rather than people and events. The language, the clothing, the daily routines of people in democracies resist ideal treatment. These things are not poetical in themselves, and even if they were, they would cease to be, because they're too familiar to everyone the poet is addressing. This forces the poet to constantly look beneath the visible surface to read the inner soul — and nothing lends itself better to ideal portrayal than the exploration of the hidden depths in the immaterial nature of human beings.

I don't need to search the earth and sky to find something wondrous, woven of contradictions — of infinite greatness and infinite smallness, of deep darkness and astonishing light — something capable of inspiring pity, admiration, terror, and contempt all at once. I find it in myself. We spring from nothing, cross through time, and vanish forever into the vastness of God. We are visible for only a moment, tottering on the edge between two abysses, and then we are gone. If we were completely ignorant of ourselves, there would be no poetry in us, because you can't describe what the mind can't conceive. If we understood our own nature perfectly, the imagination would have nothing left to do — nothing to add to the picture. But our nature is just clear enough for us to glimpse something of what we are, and just obscure enough that everything else is plunged in deep darkness, where we grope forever — and forever in vain — trying to grasp some fuller understanding of our own existence.

In a democratic society, poetry will not be fed by legends or ancient traditions. The poet won't try to populate the universe with supernatural beings that neither readers nor the poet still believe in, and won't dress up virtues and vices in the frozen costumes of allegory, since these are better received in their own true form. All of these old resources fail. But humanity remains — and the poet needs nothing more. The destiny of the human race; the individual, stripped of time and place, standing before Nature and God with all their passions, their doubts, their rare triumphs, and their unfathomable suffering — this will become the chief, if not the only, theme of poetry in these nations.

Experience already confirms this. Consider the greatest poets who have appeared since the world turned toward democracy. The authors of our age who so brilliantly explored the characters of Faust, Childe Harold, Rene, and Jocelyn — Goethe, Byron, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine — were not trying to record the actions of a single individual. They were trying to illuminate some of the darker corners of the human heart.

These are the poems of democracy. The principle of equality does not destroy all the subjects of poetry. It makes them fewer, but far more vast.

Chapter XVIII: The Inflated Style of American Writers and Speakers

I've often noticed that Americans, who generally discuss business in plain, clear language — stripped of all decoration, so simple it can actually be blunt — become weirdly pompous the moment they try for a more elevated tone. Once they go poetic, the bombast flows nonstop from beginning to end. Hearing them pile on imagery at every opportunity, you'd think they were physically incapable of saying anything simply. The English fall into this trap less often. The reason isn't hard to find.

In democracies, every citizen spends most of their time focused on one very small object: themselves. If they ever look up from that, they see only two things — the vast, shapeless mass of society as a whole, or the even more overwhelming idea of all humanity. Their thoughts are either extremely small and precise, or extremely grand and vague. There's nothing in between — just an empty gap.

So when someone is pulled out of their own little world, they expect to be shown something spectacular. That's the only deal they'll accept in exchange for tearing themselves away from the petty but absorbing details that fill their daily lives. This, I think, is exactly why people in democracies — whose everyday concerns are so small — demand that their poets and writers deliver visions that are enormous and descriptions that are boundless.

Writers, for their part, are happy to oblige — since they share the same instinct. They constantly inflate their imaginations, stretching them past all reasonable limits, and end up abandoning the merely great in pursuit of the gigantic. They figure this is how to grab the crowd's attention and hold it — and they're not wrong. The public wants poetry on a massive scale. It doesn't have the time to carefully judge whether everything it's shown is actually in proportion, or the refined taste to spot immediately where things have gone off the rails. The author and the audience corrupt each other.

We've already seen that in democratic nations, the sources of poetry are grand but not plentiful. They're quickly used up. And when poets can't find material for the ideal in what's real and true, they abandon reality altogether and create monsters. I'm not worried that democratic poetry will be too bland, or that it will fly too close to the ground. What concerns me is the opposite — that it will lose itself forever in the clouds, drifting off into purely imaginary territory. I worry that what democratic poets produce will be overloaded with enormous, disconnected imagery, exaggerated descriptions, and bizarre creations — and that the fantastic beings dreamed up in their minds will sometimes make us miss the real world.

Chapter XIX: Drama in Democratic Nations

When the revolution that overturns an aristocratic society starts seeping into its literature, it shows up first in the theater — and it stays most visible there. A theatergoer is caught off guard by what's happening onstage. There's no time to check your memory or consult someone with better judgment. You don't consciously decide to resist the new literary trends washing over you — you give in before you even realize what they are. Writers are quick to pick up on which way public taste is secretly drifting. They adjust their work accordingly. And the literature of the stage, after serving as an early warning signal for the coming literary revolution, ends up driving it to completion. If you want to predict the future of a nation's literature as it moves toward democracy, study its theater.

Theater is, in fact, the most democratic form of literature even in aristocratic societies. No other form of artistic enjoyment is as accessible to the general public as a live performance. You don't need any preparation or study to enjoy one — it grabs you right where you are, complete with your biases and your ignorance. When people first develop a taste for the pleasures of the mind, they head straight to the theater. The theaters of aristocratic nations have always been packed with audience members who were not aristocrats themselves. The theater is the one place where the upper classes actually mix with the middle and lower classes — the one place where the elite consents to hear other people's opinions, or at least to let them have opinions at all. At the theater, the educated and the literary have always had a harder time imposing their taste on the crowd, or keeping themselves from being swept along by it. The cheap seats have often dictated terms to the expensive boxes.

If aristocracies have trouble keeping the people from taking over the theater, you can imagine what happens when democratic principles have worked their way into the laws and customs — when social ranks are scrambled, when minds as well as bank accounts are brought closer together, and when the upper class has lost its inherited wealth, its power, its traditions, and its leisure. The tastes and instincts natural to democratic nations in matters of literature will therefore show up first in drama, and they'll burst out with real force. In books and essays, aristocratic literary standards will be modified gently, gradually, almost legally. In the theater, they'll be overthrown in a riot.

Drama showcases most of the strengths and nearly all the weaknesses of democratic literature. Democratic audiences don't care much about scholarly learning and have little interest in what happened in ancient Rome or Athens. They want to see something about their own lives. What they demand is a portrait of the present.

When the heroes and customs of antiquity are constantly staged, and playwrights faithfully follow the rules of ancient tradition, you can safely conclude that the democratic classes haven't yet taken charge of the theaters. The French playwright Racine once wrote an apologetic preface to his play Britannicus because he'd placed the character Junia among the Vestal Virgins in violation of a historical detail — they supposedly accepted no one under six or over ten years old. We can be sure he would never have bothered defending himself against that charge if he'd been writing for a modern audience. This kind of detail reveals not just the state of literature at the time but the state of society itself. A democratic-flavored stage doesn't necessarily prove the nation is democratic — as we've seen, even in aristocracies, democratic tastes can influence drama. But when the spirit of aristocracy reigns exclusively on the stage, that's unmistakable proof that the entire society is aristocratic. You can confidently conclude that the same educated, literary class that controls the playwrights also commands the people and governs the country.

The refined tastes and proud bearing of an aristocracy will almost inevitably lead it, when it controls the stage, to be selective about what slice of human nature gets shown. Certain social classes command its attention; scenes depicting their customs get priority. Certain virtues — and even certain vices — are considered especially worthy of dramatic treatment, while everything else gets excluded. On the stage, as everywhere else, an aristocratic audience expects to see only distinguished characters and to share the emotions of kings. The same selectivity applies to language: aristocracies tend to impose specific modes of expression on playwrights, setting the key in which everything must be delivered. The result is that the stage often shows only one side of human experience, or sometimes depicts something that doesn't exist in human nature at all — rising above reality to go beyond it.

In democratic societies, audiences have no such biases and rarely display such strong aversions. They like seeing onstage the same mix of social classes, feelings, and viewpoints that they encounter in everyday life. Drama becomes more vivid, more relatable, and more true to life. Sometimes, though, democratic playwrights also push past the boundaries of human nature — just in a different direction from their predecessors. By obsessing over the tiny quirks of the moment and the peculiar traits of specific characters, they forget to capture the universal features of humanity.

When democratic audiences rule the stage, they bring as much freedom to how subjects are treated as to which subjects get chosen. Because theater is the most naturally democratic of all literary tastes, the number of writers, audiences, and performances keeps growing in these societies. A crowd made up of such different people, scattered across so many different places, can't agree on the same rules or submit to the same standards. There's no consensus possible among critics who are this numerous and who may never cross paths again — so each person renders their own verdict on the show. If democracy's general effect is to question the authority of all literary rules and conventions, in the theater it abolishes them entirely, replacing them with nothing but the whim of each writer and each audience.

The theater also illustrates with special clarity something I've said before about style and art in democratic literature generally. When you read the criticism prompted by the plays of Louis XIV's era, you're struck by how much the public cared about the plausibility of the plot and how important it was that the characters be perfectly consistent — never doing anything that couldn't be easily explained. The fuss over precise language, and the petty verbal battles waged against playwrights, are equally surprising. It seems like people in Louis XIV's time placed wildly exaggerated importance on details you might notice while reading in your study but that fly right past you in a live performance. After all, the main purpose of a play is to be performed, and its chief merit is to move the audience. But in that era, the audience and the readers were the same people: after leaving the theater, they went home and put the playwright on trial in their living rooms.

In democracies, plays are watched but not read. Most people who go to the theater aren't looking for intellectual pleasure — they want strong emotions. They don't expect a fine literary work; they expect a show. As long as the writer uses language correctly enough to be understood, and the characters spark curiosity and sympathy, the audience is satisfied. They ask nothing more from fiction and immediately return to real life. Precision of style matters less because the careful observance of literary rules is barely noticeable in a live performance. As for plausibility of plot — that's incompatible with the constant novelty, surprise, and rapid invention that democratic audiences crave. So it gets ignored, and the public forgives the lapse. You can be sure that if you manage to put your audience in the presence of something that moves them, they won't care what road you took to get there. They'll never blame you for stirring their emotions in defiance of the dramatic rulebook.

Americans display all of these tendencies very clearly when they go to the theater. But it has to be said that, so far, relatively few of them actually go. Although the number of theatergoers and plays has grown enormously in the United States over the last forty years, the population still approaches this form of entertainment with considerable restraint. The reasons are ones the reader is already familiar with, and a brief reminder will suffice. The Puritans who founded the American republic were not just opposed to amusement in general — they had a particular horror of the stage. They considered it a detestable pastime, and as long as their principles held undisputed power, theatrical performances were completely unknown. These views of the original settlers left deep marks on their descendants' minds. The extreme regularity of habits and the strict social norms still visible in the United States have created additional obstacles for the growth of dramatic art. There aren't many dramatic subjects in a country that has seen no great political catastrophes and where love invariably follows a straight, easy path to marriage. People who spend every weekday making money and every Sunday at church don't offer much material for comedy.

One fact is enough to show how unpopular the stage remains in the United States. Americans, whose laws permit the most extreme freedom — even license — of speech in every other area, have still imposed a kind of censorship on their playwrights. Theatrical performances can only take place with permission from local authorities. This shows how much communities resemble individuals: they abandon themselves recklessly to their dominant passions, then take great care not to indulge too much in tastes they don't actually have.

No branch of literature is more tightly or more directly connected to the current state of society than drama. A play from one era can never work in the next if a major revolution has transformed the nation's customs and laws in between. The great writers of a previous age may still be read, but works written for a different audience won't draw crowds. The playwrights of the past survive only in books. The traditional preferences of a few individuals, vanity, fashion, or the genius of a particular actor may keep aristocratic drama alive for a while in a democracy, but it will soon fade away on its own — not overthrown, but simply abandoned.

Chapter XX: Historians in Democratic Ages

Historians who write in aristocratic ages tend to trace everything back to the will or temperament of specific individuals. They're quick to attribute the most important revolutions to the smallest accidents. They hunt down minor causes with great skill — and often miss the major ones entirely. Historians who live in democratic ages are the exact opposite. Most of them deny that any single person has much influence over a nation's destiny, or that individual citizens can really shape a people's fate. Instead, they assign sweeping general causes to every small event. These two opposing tendencies actually explain each other.

When a historian writing in an aristocratic age surveys the world stage, they immediately spot a small number of prominent actors who seem to be running the whole show. These great figures occupy center stage and hold the historian's attention. While the historian is busy trying to uncover the secret motives behind their words and actions, everyone else fades from view. The outsized importance of what a few powerful people are seen doing leads the historian to exaggerate how much influence any one person can actually have. It naturally leads them to conclude that explaining the movements of the masses requires tracing those movements back to the personal influence of some particular individual.

But when all citizens are independent of one another and each of them is individually weak, no one appears to exert a great or lasting power over the community. At first glance, individuals seem to have absolutely zero influence on it, and society appears to advance entirely on its own through the free and voluntary cooperation of everyone in it. This naturally prompts the mind to search for some general force that acts on so many people's thinking at the same time and pushes them all in the same direction.

I'm fully convinced that even in democratic nations, the genius, the flaws, or the virtues of certain individuals do speed up or slow down the natural current of a people's history. But these secondary, accidental causes are infinitely more varied, more hidden, more tangled, less powerful, and therefore much harder to trace in eras of equality than in aristocratic ages — where the historian's job is simply to isolate the particular influence of one person or a few people from the mass of events. In a democratic era, the historian quickly gets exhausted by the work. Their mind gets lost in the labyrinth. And because they can't clearly identify or dramatically spotlight the influence of individuals, they end up denying it exists at all. They prefer to talk about racial characteristics, geography, or the spirit of civilization — which cuts their workload significantly and satisfies their readers much better at far less effort.

Lafayette once wrote in his memoirs that the obsession with general causes provides "surprising consolation to second-rate statesmen." I'd add that it's equally consoling to second-rate historians. It can always furnish a few grand explanations to rescue them from the hardest parts of their work. It indulges the laziness or incompetence of their minds while giving them the appearance of deep thinking.

Personally, I believe that at all times, one large share of the events in this world is driven by general forces, and another share by specific influences. These two kinds of causes are always at work — only their proportions change. General forces explain more in democratic ages than in aristocratic ones, and fewer things can be traced to specific influences. In aristocratic periods, the reverse is true: specific influences are stronger and general causes weaker — unless, of course, you count the very fact of inequality itself as a general cause, since it allows certain individuals to override the natural tendencies of everyone else. Historians who describe what happens in democratic societies are right, then, to give great weight to general causes and to focus on identifying them. But they're wrong to completely deny the specific influence of individuals just because that influence is hard to track.

Historians in democratic ages don't just tend to assign a big cause to every event — they also tend to link events together into systems. In aristocratic ages, historians are so focused on individuals that they miss the connections between events, or rather, they don't believe such connections exist. To them, the thread of history seems constantly cut and tangled by the steps of individual actors. In democratic ages, by contrast, historians see far more actions than actors, and they can easily arrange those actions into some kind of sequence and methodical order. Ancient literature, rich as it is in brilliant historical writing, doesn't contain a single grand historical system. Meanwhile, even the weakest modern literatures are overflowing with them. The ancient historians apparently didn't make enough use of the general theories that our modern historians are always ready to push to excess.

But writers in democratic ages have another, more dangerous tendency. When the traces of individual action on nations are lost, it often happens that the world keeps moving even though the force behind the movement can no longer be found. As it becomes extremely difficult to identify and analyze the separate reasons that, acting on each person's individual choices, combine in the end to produce movement in the whole mass, people start to believe that this movement is involuntary — that societies unconsciously obey some superior force ruling over them. And even when some general cause that governs everyone's individual choices is supposedly identified, the principle of human free will is still not safe. A cause powerful enough to affect millions of people at once and strong enough to bend them all in the same direction can easily seem irresistible. Once you've seen humanity yield to it, the mind is one small step from concluding that humanity cannot resist it.

Historians in democratic ages, then, don't just deny that a few powerful individuals can shape a people's destiny — they strip the people themselves of the power to change their own condition. They subject humanity either to an inflexible Providence or to some blind necessity. According to them, each nation is permanently bound by its geography, its origins, its traditions, and its character to a certain fate that no effort can ever change. They chain generation to generation, and going back from age to age, from necessity to necessity, all the way to the origin of the world, they forge an enormous, airtight chain that wraps around and binds the entire human race. For these historians, it's not enough to show what happened — they insist on proving that nothing else could have happened. They take a nation at a certain point in its history and declare that it could only have followed the path that brought it there. It's easier to make that claim than to show how the nation might have chosen a better course.

When you read historians of aristocratic ages, especially those of antiquity, it seems like all a person needs in order to master their fate and govern others is to master themselves. When you read the historical works of our own time, it seems like people are utterly powerless — over themselves and over everything around them. The historians of antiquity taught how to command; those of our time teach only how to obey. In their pages, the author may appear great, but humanity is always small.

If this doctrine of inevitability — so attractive to historians in democratic ages — passes from writers to readers and eventually infects the whole community, it will soon paralyze the energy of modern society and reduce people to passive fatalism. And I'd add that this kind of thinking is especially dangerous right now. Our contemporaries are already too inclined to doubt human free will, because each of them feels hemmed in on every side by their own weakness. But they're still willing to acknowledge the strength and independence of people acting together. We must not lose sight of this — because the great task of our time is to lift people's capacities, not to complete their surrender.

Chapter XXI: Parliamentary Eloquence in the United States

In aristocratic nations, all members of the community are linked to and dependent on one another. The graduated scale of ranks acts as a chain that keeps everyone in their place and the whole structure in order. Something similar happens in the political assemblies of these nations. Parties naturally line up behind certain leaders, whom they obey by a kind of instinct — really just the result of habits formed elsewhere. They bring the customs of general society into the smaller assembly.

In democratic countries, it often happens that a great number of citizens are heading toward the same goal. But each one moves independently — or at least likes to think they do. Accustomed to following only their own judgment, people in democracies don't easily submit to outside direction. This taste for independence follows them into the halls of the legislature. Even if they agree to join forces with others for a shared purpose, they insist on remaining free to contribute to the common effort in their own way. This is why parties in democratic countries are so hard to discipline and are only manageable in moments of serious public crisis. Even then, the authority of party leaders — which in emergencies may be enough to make people act or speak — almost never extends to making them shut up.

In aristocratic nations, members of political assemblies are also members of the aristocracy. Each of them holds a high rank in their own right, and the position they occupy in the assembly is often less important to them than the one they hold in the country at large. This makes it easier to accept not playing a starring role in public debates, and it restrains them from trying too eagerly to play a minor one.

In America, a Representative typically only becomes somebody because of their position in the assembly. They're therefore constantly haunted by the need to make themselves important there, and they feel an impatient urge to force their opinions on the chamber at every opportunity. Their own vanity isn't the only thing driving this — there's also the pressure from their constituents and the constant necessity of keeping them happy. In aristocratic nations, a lawmaker is rarely tightly dependent on their constituents. Often, the constituents are actually dependent on the lawmaker. And if the voters do eventually reject them, it's easy enough to get elected somewhere else, or to retire from public life and enjoy the comforts of wealthy leisure. In a democratic country like the United States, a Representative almost never has a secure hold on their constituents' loyalty. No matter how small the electorate, the constant churn of democracy keeps reshaping it, so it must be courted relentlessly. Representatives can never be sure of their supporters, and if those supporters abandon them, they're left with nothing — because they're not prominent enough outside their district for strangers to know who they are, and given the fierce independence of the voters, they can't count on friends or the government to parachute them into a different seat. Their political fortune is rooted in their own neighborhood. From that little patch of ground they must rise to command a nation and influence the fate of the world. It's only natural, then, that in democracies, politicians think more about their constituents than their party, while in aristocracies they think more about their party than their constituents.

But what constituents want to hear is not always what needs to be said to serve the party. The party's general interest often demands that its members not speak on major issues they only half understand; that they speak little on minor issues that slow down the important ones; and that, for the most part, they not speak at all. Staying quiet is the most useful service a mediocre spokesperson can perform for the nation. Constituents, however, don't see it that way.

A district sends its representative to the capital with an inflated sense of that person's abilities. Because people look larger in proportion to the smallness of their surroundings, the opinion the voters hold of their delegate tends to be higher when talent is rarer among the voters themselves. The less constituents actually have to expect from their representative, the more they'll demand. And however incompetent the representative may be, they won't hesitate to call for remarkable performances worthy of the lofty rank they've conferred.

Beyond their role as a lawmaker, voters also see their Representative as the natural advocate for the district. They practically consider him their personal agent, and they expect him to defend their private interests as zealously as the country's. Voters are confident in advance that their chosen representative will be a great speaker — that he'll talk often if he can, and if he's forced to hold back, he'll cram into his fewer appearances an examination of every major issue of state combined with a catalog of every petty local grievance. They want him, even if he can't show up constantly, to prove on each occasion everything he's capable of — condensing his full powers into a compact, brilliant showcase of both himself and his district. On those terms, they'll vote for him again. These expectations drive capable but modest people to despair — people who know their own limitations and would never have put themselves forward voluntarily. But pushed into it, the Representative starts speechifying, to the great alarm of his friends. Plunging recklessly into the middle of the most celebrated orators, he derails the debate and exhausts the chamber.

Every law that makes a Representative more dependent on voters affects not just how legislators behave, as I've discussed elsewhere, but also how they speak. It shapes both the substance of governance and the style in which governance is discussed.

There's hardly a member of Congress who can bring himself to go home without having delivered at least one speech to his constituents, or who will tolerate any interruption until he's worked into his address every useful suggestion about all of the states in the Union, and especially the district he represents. He therefore presents his listeners with a parade of grand general truths — which he himself only half understands and expresses confusedly — along with petty details that he's all too skilled at discovering and pointing out. The result is that debates in that great assembly are frequently vague and disjointed, and they seem to drag on endlessly rather than moving toward any clear goal. Some version of this, I believe, will always arise in the public assemblies of democracies.

Favorable circumstances and good laws might succeed in attracting far more talented people to a democratic legislature than the Americans currently send to Congress. But nothing will ever stop the less capable members from constantly thrusting themselves and their opinions on the public with perfect self-satisfaction. This problem doesn't seem fixable to me, because it doesn't just come from that assembly's procedures — it comes from its very structure and from the structure of the country itself. Americans seem to see the matter the same way. They show their long experience with legislative life not by avoiding bad speeches, but by courageously enduring them. They've accepted it as an evil they know to be unavoidable.

We've looked at the petty side of political debate in democratic assemblies. Now let's see the grander side.

For the last hundred and fifty years, the proceedings of the English Parliament have never produced much excitement beyond England's borders. The views and passions expressed by its speakers have rarely stirred sympathy, even among neighboring nations closest to that great arena of British freedom. Yet Europe was electrified by the very first debates in the small colonial assemblies of America during the Revolution. This wasn't just due to particular circumstances of the moment — it was driven by general, lasting causes.

I can imagine nothing more impressive or more powerful than a great orator debating major questions of state in a democratic assembly. Because no particular class is represented by delegates sent to defend its own interests, the speaker always addresses the whole nation and speaks in the name of the whole nation. This expands their thinking and elevates their language. Since precedent carries little weight, since no privileges are attached to certain kinds of property, and no rights belong exclusively to certain groups or individuals, the mind must turn to universal principles rooted in human nature to resolve any particular question. And that's why the political debates of a democratic people — however small the nation — have a breadth that frequently makes them compelling to all of humanity. Everyone is interested because they're about the human condition, which is the same everywhere.

Among the greatest aristocratic nations, by contrast, the most general questions are almost always argued on narrow grounds — the practices of a particular time or the rights of a particular class — which interest only that class, or at most the nation where that class happens to exist. It's partly for this reason — and not just because of the greatness of the French people or the favorable attitude of the nations listening to them — that French political debates sometimes produce such a powerful effect around the world. The orators of France frequently speak to all of humanity, even when they're only addressing their own countrymen.

Section 2: How Democracy Shapes Americans' Feelings

Chapter I: Why Democratic Nations Love Equality More Passionately Than Freedom

The first and most powerful passion that equality of conditions creates is — no surprise — the love of equality itself. My readers won't be shocked that I address it before anything else. Everyone has noticed that in our time, and especially in France, this passion for equality keeps gaining ground in the human heart. It's been said a hundred times that our contemporaries are far more passionately and stubbornly attached to equality than to freedom. But since I don't think the reasons behind this have been fully explained, I'll try to lay them out.

You can imagine an extreme point where freedom and equality merge completely. Picture a society where every citizen participates in the government and each has an equal right to do so. Since no one is different from anyone else, no one can exercise tyrannical power. People would be perfectly free because they'd all be entirely equal, and they'd be perfectly equal because they'd all be entirely free. This is the ideal that democratic nations are moving toward. It's the most complete form equality can take on earth — but there are a thousand other, less perfect versions that democratic peoples cherish just as much.

Equality can be established in civil society without extending to the political world. People can have equal rights to enjoy the same pleasures, enter the same professions, go to the same places — in short, to live in the same way and pursue wealth by the same means — even though not everyone has an equal share in governing. A certain kind of equality can even exist in politics without any real political freedom. A person might be the equal of all their fellow citizens except one, who is the master of everyone without distinction and chooses the agents of his power equally from among them all. You can easily imagine other combinations where significant equality coexists with institutions that are more or less free — or even with institutions that allow no freedom at all.

Although people can't become truly equal unless they're entirely free — and therefore equality, pushed to its absolute limit, blends into freedom — there's good reason to distinguish one from the other. The taste people have for freedom and the feeling they have for equality are, in fact, two different things. And I'm not afraid to say that in democratic nations, they are two unequal things.

If you look closely, you'll see that in every age there is some dominant, defining fact to which everything else connects — a fact that gives rise to some powerful idea or ruling passion that pulls all the feelings and opinions of the time into its orbit, like a great river into which all the surrounding streams seem to flow.

Freedom has appeared in the world at different times and in different forms. It has never been tied exclusively to one type of society, and it isn't confined to democracies. Freedom, therefore, can't be what sets the democratic age apart. The defining fact of the democratic era is equality of conditions. The ruling passion of people in these times is the love of that equality. Don't ask what special charm people in democratic ages find in being equal, or what particular reasons they have for clinging so stubbornly to equality over all the other goods society offers. Equality is the defining characteristic of the age they live in. That alone is enough to explain why they prefer it to everything else.

But beyond that, there are several other reasons that will always lead people to prefer equality over freedom.

If a people ever managed to destroy — or even to reduce — the equality that exists within it, this could only be accomplished through long, grueling effort. Its entire social structure would have to be reshaped, its laws abolished, its ideas replaced, its habits changed, its customs corrupted. But political freedom is much more easily lost. Neglect to hold it tightly and it slips away. So people don't just cling to equality because they love it — they also hold on to it because they believe it will last forever.

The fact that political freedom can, in its excesses, endanger the peace, the property, and the lives of individuals is obvious to even the most narrow and unthinking minds. But the dangers that equality poses are visible only to the attentive and the clear-sighted — and even they usually avoid pointing them out. They know the catastrophes they fear are far off, and they tell themselves these problems will only fall on future generations, which the present generation doesn't much care about.

The costs of freedom are immediate. They're visible to everyone, and everyone feels them to some degree. The harms that extreme equality produces reveal themselves slowly. They creep gradually into the social fabric. They're only visible at long intervals, and by the time they become most severe, people are so used to them that they no longer notice. The benefits of freedom only become clear over time, and it's always easy to mistake what actually caused them. The benefits of equality are instant, and you can always trace them back to their source.

Political freedom delivers extraordinary pleasures, from time to time, to a certain number of citizens. Equality delivers small enjoyments to every person, every day. The appeal of equality is felt every moment and is within everyone's reach. The noblest hearts aren't immune to it, and the most ordinary souls revel in it. The passion that equality generates is therefore both powerful and universal. People can't enjoy political freedom without making sacrifices, and they never win it without great effort. But the pleasures of equality are self-serve: each small incident of daily life seems to produce them, and all you have to do to taste them is exist.

Democratic nations always love equality, but there are certain moments when this love swells into a frenzy. This happens when the old social order, long under threat, finally collapses after one last internal struggle, and the barriers of rank are torn down at last. At times like these, people seize equality like plunder and cling to it like a precious treasure they're terrified of losing. The passion for equality floods into every heart, expands there, and fills it completely. Don't bother telling them that by surrendering blindly to this one exclusive passion they're risking their most vital interests — they're deaf. Don't bother showing them freedom slipping through their fingers while they're looking the other way — they're blind. Or rather, they can see only one thing in the entire universe worth wanting.

What I've said so far applies to all democratic nations. What I'm about to say concerns France specifically. Among most modern nations, and especially those on the European continent, the idea and the taste for freedom only began to develop at the same time that social conditions were moving toward equality — and as a direct consequence of that equality. It was absolute monarchs who did the most to level the ranks among their subjects. In these nations, equality came first. It was an established fact while freedom was still a novelty. Equality had already shaped customs, opinions, and laws in its own image when freedom, alone and for the first time, appeared on the scene. Freedom was still just an idea and a preference, while equality had already worked its way into people's daily habits, taken hold of their customs, and shaped the smallest details of their lives. Is it any wonder that the people of our time prefer one to the other?

I believe democratic societies have a natural taste for freedom. Left to themselves, they'll seek it, cherish it, and feel the loss of it with real pain. But for equality, their passion is fierce, insatiable, relentless, and unconquerable. They demand equality in freedom, and if they can't have that, they still demand equality in slavery. They'll endure poverty, subjugation, and barbarism — but they will not endure aristocracy.

This is true at all times, and especially true in ours. Every person and every power that tries to stand against this irresistible passion will be overthrown and destroyed by it. In our age, freedom cannot be established without equality's support, and even despotism cannot rule without it.

Chapter II: Individualism in Democratic Countries

I've shown how, in an age of equality, everyone looks inward for their opinions. Now I want to show how, in that same age, all their feelings turn inward too.

"Individualism" is a new word, born from a new idea. Previous generations only knew about selfishness. Selfishness is a passionate, exaggerated love of self — it makes a person connect everything to themselves and put themselves above everything else in the world. Individualism is something different. It's a calm, considered feeling that leads each person to withdraw from the wider community and retreat into a small circle of family and friends — and once that little circle is established, to willingly abandon the larger society to its own devices.

Selfishness springs from blind instinct. Individualism comes more from flawed reasoning than from corrupt feelings — it originates as much in failures of the mind as in failures of the heart. Selfishness kills the seed of every virtue. Individualism, at first, only undermines the virtues of public life — but over time it attacks and destroys all the others too, until it eventually collapses into plain selfishness.

Selfishness is a vice as old as humanity, and it belongs to no particular form of society more than any other. Individualism is democratic in origin, and it threatens to grow at the same rate as equality itself.

In aristocratic societies, families remain in the same position for centuries, often in the same place, so all the generations become, in a sense, contemporaries. A person almost always knows their ancestors and respects them. They can almost see their distant descendants, and they love them. They willingly take on obligations toward both — and frequently sacrifice personal pleasures for those who came before and those who will come after. Aristocratic institutions also have the effect of closely binding every person to several of their fellow citizens. Because the classes in an aristocratic society are sharply defined and permanent, each class is seen by its members as a kind of smaller country — more tangible and more beloved than the nation as a whole. And because everyone in an aristocratic community occupies a fixed position, one above another, the result is that each person always sees someone above them whose support they need and someone below them whose cooperation they can count on.

People living in aristocratic ages are therefore almost always closely attached to something outside themselves, and they're often inclined to forget their own interests. It's true that in those ages the concept of universal human solidarity is weak, and people rarely think of sacrificing themselves for humanity as a whole — but they often sacrifice themselves for other individuals. In democratic ages, by contrast, the duties of each person to the human race are much clearer, but devoted service to any single person becomes rare. The bonds of human connection are stretched wider, but they grow thinner.

In democratic societies, new families are constantly rising, others are constantly falling, and all that remain are changing their circumstances. The thread of time is broken at every moment, and the track of generations is erased. Those who came before are soon forgotten. Of those who will come after, no one has any idea. People's concern shrinks to include only those in their immediate vicinity.

As each class moves closer to the others and merges with them, its members become indifferent to one another — strangers, really. Aristocracy had made a chain linking every member of the community, from the peasant to the king. Democracy breaks that chain and separates every link.

As social conditions become more equal, the number of people grows who, while neither rich enough nor powerful enough to have much influence over others, have still acquired or held on to enough education and money to take care of themselves. They owe nothing to anyone. They expect nothing from anyone. They fall into the habit of thinking of themselves as standing alone, and they come to imagine that their entire destiny is in their own hands.

And so democracy doesn't just make people forget their ancestors — it hides their descendants from them and cuts them off from their contemporaries. It throws each person back on themselves alone and threatens, in the end, to lock them entirely within the solitude of their own heart.

Chapter III: Individualism Is Strongest Right After a Democratic Revolution

The moment when democratic society has just been built on the ruins of an aristocracy is exactly when this separation between people — and the selfishness it produces — is most striking. Democratic societies don't just contain a large number of independent citizens; they're constantly filled with people who only recently gained their independence and are drunk on their new power. They have an overblown confidence in their own strength, and since they can't imagine ever needing help from anyone else, they have no qualms about showing that they care for nobody but themselves.

An aristocracy rarely falls without a prolonged struggle, and in the course of that struggle, deep hostilities are kindled between the different classes. These passions survive the victory, and their traces can be seen in the democratic upheaval that follows.

Those who were at the top of the old social hierarchy can't immediately forget their former greatness. For a long time they see themselves as outsiders in this newly reordered society. They view everyone whom equality has made their peers as oppressors, whose fate deserves no sympathy. They've lost sight of their former equals and no longer feel bound by any shared interest to their destiny. Each of them, standing apart, feels reduced to caring only for themselves.

Meanwhile, those who were at the bottom of the old social ladder, suddenly brought up to the common level by revolution, can't enjoy their newly won independence without a secret uneasiness. If they run into one of their former superiors now standing on the same footing, they keep their distance — with a look that mixes triumph and fear.

So it's typically at the beginning of a democratic society that citizens are most inclined to live apart. Democracy by its nature doesn't lead people to reach out to one another. But democratic revolutions actively drive them to avoid each other, perpetuating in a state of equality all the hostilities that inequality had created.

The great advantage of the Americans is that they arrived at democracy without having to endure a democratic revolution — and that they were born equal, instead of becoming so.

Chapter IV: How Americans Fight Individualism with Free Institutions

Despotism is timid by nature, and it's never more secure than when it can keep people isolated from one another. Everything about its power is typically aimed at that goal. No human vice is more useful to a despot than selfishness: a despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, as long as they don't love each other. He doesn't ask them to help him run the government — it's enough that they don't try to run it themselves. He brands anyone who would join forces to improve the community as troublemakers and rebels, and — twisting the natural meaning of words — he praises as "good citizens" those who care about nobody but themselves.

So the vices that despotism breeds are precisely the ones that equality encourages. These two forces complete and reinforce each other in a destructive loop. Equality places people side by side with no common bond between them; despotism raises walls to keep them apart. The first makes people inclined to ignore their fellow citizens; the second turns that general indifference into something like a public virtue.

Despotism is dangerous at all times, but it's especially dangerous in democratic ages. And it's easy to see that in those same ages, people need freedom most of all.

When citizens are required to participate in public affairs, they're necessarily pulled out of their private concerns and forced, at times, to stop thinking only about themselves. The moment someone begins to deal with public matters in a public setting, they start to realize they're not as independent of other people as they'd thought — and that to get others' support, they often have to lend theirs in return.

When public opinion rules, there's no one who doesn't feel the value of public goodwill or who doesn't try to earn it by winning the respect and affection of the people around them. Many of the passions that freeze and isolate human hearts are then forced to retreat beneath the surface. Pride has to be hidden. Contempt doesn't dare show itself. Selfishness fears its own reflection.

Under a free government, where most public offices are elected, the ambitious and talented — people whose aspirations feel too cramped in private life — constantly sense that they can't get by without the support of the people around them. In such times, people learn to think about others out of ambition, and they often find it in their interest to forget about themselves.

Someone might object here: What about the scheming, the pandering of candidates, the mudslinging between opponents? These are real sources of conflict, and they come up more often as elections become more frequent. These are genuine problems — but they're temporary, while the benefits they produce are lasting. The desire to win an election may drive some people toward fierce hostility for a time, but that same desire eventually leads everyone to support one another. If an election occasionally divides two friends, the electoral system permanently brings together multitudes of citizens who would otherwise have remained strangers. Freedom creates personal grudges, but despotism creates universal indifference.

Americans have used free institutions to fight the tendency of equality to drive people apart — and they've won. America's founders understood that simply having a national legislature wouldn't be enough to prevent a problem so natural to democratic society and so dangerous. They also believed it was essential to inject political life into every corner of the country — to multiply opportunities for collective action as much as possible, and to make citizens constantly feel their dependence on one another.

It was a wise plan. National politics only engages the attention of prominent politicians, who come together now and then in the same place and often lose track of each other afterward — no lasting bonds form between them. But when local affairs are handled by the people who actually live in that area, the same people are always in contact, and they're essentially forced to get to know each other and work together.

It's hard to pull someone out of their own little world and get them interested in the fate of the nation, because they don't clearly see how the nation's fate affects their own. But propose building a road through the edge of their property, and they'll instantly see the connection between this small public matter and their biggest private concerns. They'll discover on their own — without anyone having to explain it — the tight link between private interest and the common good.

In fact, you can do far more to get citizens invested in the public welfare by trusting them with the management of small local affairs than by handing them control of large national ones. A dramatic achievement might win you the people's admiration in one stroke. But to earn the love and respect of the community around you takes a long series of small services and unnoticed good deeds — a steady habit of kindness and a proven reputation for putting others first. Local self-government, then, which gives a great number of citizens reasons to value their neighbors' affection, continually brings people together and forces them to help one another, in spite of the instincts that pull them apart.

In the United States, the wealthier citizens are careful not to separate themselves from the people. On the contrary, they stay on easy terms with ordinary people — they listen to them, they talk with them every day. They know that in a democracy, the rich always need the poor, and that in a democratic age, you win over a poor person more through your manner than through your generosity. In fact, large displays of generosity — which highlight the gap in social standing — often secretly irritate those who receive them. But the charm of simple, unpretentious behavior is almost irresistible. Friendliness wins people over, and even a lack of polish isn't always a bad thing.

This truth doesn't sink in right away for the wealthy. They generally resist it as long as the democratic revolution is underway, and they don't accept it even after it's over. They're perfectly willing to do good for the people, but they still want to keep them at arm's length. They think that's enough — but they're wrong. They could spend fortunes without warming the hearts of those around them. What the people want from them isn't a sacrifice of their money — it's a sacrifice of their pride.

It seems as though everyone in the United States is constantly trying to think of ways to increase the nation's wealth and meet the public's needs. The best-informed residents of each area are always using their knowledge to find new approaches that might boost the general prosperity — and when they discover something useful, they eagerly share it with everyone.

When you look closely at the flaws and weaknesses of America's elected officials, the country's prosperity seems surprising — but that surprise is misplaced. Elected officials don't make American democracy work. American democracy works because its officials are elected.

It would be unfair to assume that the patriotism and dedication Americans show for their fellow citizens' welfare is entirely fake. While self-interest drives most human actions in the United States, just as it does everywhere else, it doesn't drive all of them. I have to say that I've often seen Americans make real and significant sacrifices for the public good, and I observed countless instances where they reliably supported one another. The free institutions that Americans enjoy, and the political rights they exercise so vigorously, remind every citizen in a thousand ways that they live in a society. These institutions constantly reinforce the idea that it's both the duty and the interest of people to make themselves useful to others. And since no one has any particular reason to resent their fellow citizens — no one is anyone else's master or slave — people naturally lean toward kindness.

People first attend to public interests out of necessity, then by choice. What begins as calculated becomes instinctive. By working for the good of their fellow citizens over and over, they eventually develop a genuine habit and taste for it.

Many people in France view equality as one evil and political freedom as a second. When they're forced to accept the first, they at least try to escape the second. But I argue that to fight the problems equality creates, there's only one effective remedy — and that remedy is political freedom.

Chapter V: How Americans Use Associations in Everyday Life

I'm not going to discuss political associations here — the kind people form to defend themselves against an oppressive majority or an overreaching government. I've already covered that subject. If each citizen didn't learn, as they individually become weaker and less capable of protecting their freedom on their own, to join forces with their fellow citizens for that purpose, it's obvious that tyranny would grow right alongside equality.

What I want to focus on here are the associations formed in everyday life, with no political purpose. The political associations that exist in the United States are really just one small part of a vast universe of associations in that country.

Americans of all ages, all backgrounds, and all temperaments are constantly forming associations. They don't just have business and manufacturing companies, in which everyone participates — they have associations of a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, serious, trivial, broad, narrow, enormous, tiny. Americans form associations to throw parties, to build schools, to construct inns and churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the other side of the world. They found hospitals, prisons, and schools through associations. If someone wants to promote an idea or encourage a particular value by setting a powerful example, they form an organization. Wherever you'd find the government leading the way in France, or a prominent aristocrat in England, in the United States you'll find an association.

I came across kinds of associations in America that I'd never even imagined existed, and I was often impressed by the remarkable skill with which Americans managed to set a common goal before a large group of people and get them to pursue it voluntarily. I've since traveled through England, where Americans got many of their laws and customs, and it seemed to me that the English used the principle of association far less consistently and less skillfully. The English often accomplish great things individually, while Americans form associations for even the smallest undertakings. The English clearly see association as a powerful tool for action — but Americans seem to view it as the only tool they have.

So the most democratic country on earth is also the one where people have perfected, more than anywhere else, the art of pursuing shared goals together — and have applied this new science to the widest range of purposes. Is this a coincidence? Or is there actually a necessary connection between the principle of association and the principle of equality?

Aristocratic societies always contain, within a mass of powerless individuals, a small number of wealthy and powerful citizens, each of whom can accomplish great things single-handedly. In aristocratic societies, people don't need to combine forces in order to act, because they're already tightly bound together. Every wealthy and powerful citizen is essentially the head of a permanent, mandatory association made up of everyone who depends on them or who can be enlisted to carry out their plans.

In democratic societies, by contrast, all citizens are independent and weak. They can accomplish almost nothing by themselves, and none of them can compel others to help. They all fall into a state of helplessness if they don't learn to help each other voluntarily. If people living in democratic countries had no right or desire to associate for political purposes, their independence would be in serious danger — but they might still hold on to their wealth and their culture for a long time. If they never developed the habit of forming associations in everyday life, however, civilization itself would be at risk. A people who lost the ability to accomplish great things individually, without gaining the ability to accomplish them collectively, would quickly slide back into barbarism.

Unfortunately, the same social conditions that make associations so necessary in democratic societies also make them harder to form there than anywhere else. When a few members of an aristocracy decide to join forces, they easily succeed — since each one brings considerable strength to the partnership, the group can be quite small. And when an association is small, its members can easily get to know one another, understand each other, and set up clear rules. The same isn't true in democratic societies, where an association needs a large number of members to have any real power.

I know that many of my countrymen aren't troubled by this problem at all. They argue that the weaker and less capable individual citizens become, the stronger and more active the government should be, so that the state can do what individuals can no longer manage. They think this solves everything — but I think they're wrong.

A government might be able to fill the role of some of the largest American companies, and several states have already tried. But what government could ever take on the vast number of smaller projects that American citizens carry out every day through the principle of association? It's easy to see that a time is coming when individuals will be less and less able to produce even the most basic necessities of life on their own. The government's workload will therefore keep growing, and its very efforts will expand its reach further. The more it takes the place of associations, the more individuals — losing the instinct for working together — will need its help. Cause and effect feed each other in an endless cycle. Will the government eventually take over the management of every business that no single citizen can run alone? And if the day comes when land is divided into so many tiny parcels that only farming cooperatives can work it, will the head of state have to abandon the helm to follow a plow? A democratic people's moral and intellectual life would be just as endangered as its economy if the government ever fully replaced private associations.

Ideas and values are spread, hearts are expanded, and the human mind develops only through people's influence on one another. I've shown that in democratic countries, this influence is almost nonexistent. It has to be created deliberately — and only associations can do it.

When members of an aristocracy adopt a new opinion or develop a new passion, they give it a platform — placing it, as it were, right beside themselves on the elevated stage where they stand, visible to everyone. Opinions and feelings displayed so prominently easily find their way into the minds and hearts of the crowd. In democratic countries, only the government naturally has this kind of visibility. But it's easy to see that its efforts in this area are always inadequate and often dangerous. A government can't keep ideas and values circulating among a large population any better than it can manage every business venture in the economy. The moment a government steps outside its political role and onto this new ground, it inevitably exerts an unbearable form of tyranny — even unintentionally. A government can only lay down rigid rules; the opinions it favors are enforced strictly; and it's never easy to tell the difference between its advice and its commands. Even worse, if a government actually believes it has an interest in preventing the free circulation of ideas, it simply goes still — crushed under the weight of its own deliberate inertia.

Governments, then, shouldn't be the only active forces in society. In democratic nations, associations need to take the place of the powerful private individuals that equality has swept away.

As soon as a number of Americans take up an idea or a cause they want to promote, they look for allies. The moment they find each other, they combine. From that point on, they're no longer isolated individuals but a visible power — their actions serve as an example, and their voice is heard.

The first time I heard that a hundred thousand Americans had publicly pledged to stop drinking alcohol, it struck me as more of a joke than a serious commitment. I couldn't see why these sober citizens couldn't just drink water quietly at home. Eventually I understood: three hundred thousand Americans, alarmed by the spread of drunkenness around them, had decided to champion temperance. They were doing exactly what a high-ranking person might do by dressing plainly to inspire ordinary people to reject luxury. If those hundred thousand people had been living in France, each of them would probably have individually petitioned the government to crack down on every bar in the country.

Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than America's intellectual and moral associations. The country's political and business associations are striking enough. But the others tend to escape our notice — or if we do spot them, we understand them poorly, because we've almost never seen anything like them. Yet they're just as essential to the American people as political and business associations — perhaps even more so.

In democratic countries, the art of association is the foundation of all progress. Every other advance depends on how far that art has developed. Among all the laws that govern human societies, one seems clearer and more certain than any other: if people are to remain civilized — or to become civilized — the art of working together must grow and improve at the same rate as equality increases.

Chapter VI: The Connection Between Associations and Newspapers

When people are no longer bound together by strong, lasting ties, you can't get large numbers of them to cooperate unless you can convince each individual that their own private interest requires them to voluntarily join their efforts to everyone else's. This can only be done regularly and conveniently through a newspaper. Nothing else can plant the same idea in a thousand minds at the same moment. A newspaper is an advisor that doesn't need to be sought out — it shows up on its own and talks to you briefly each day about the common good, without pulling you away from your private business.

Newspapers therefore become more necessary as people become more equal and individualism becomes more of a threat. To suggest that newspapers only serve to protect freedom would be to understate their importance: they sustain civilization. I won't deny that in democratic countries, newspapers often push citizens to launch poorly thought-out projects together. But if there were no newspapers, there would be no common action at all. The damage they cause is far less than the damage they prevent.

A newspaper doesn't just suggest a shared purpose to a large number of people — it also provides the means for carrying out plans that each person may have been forming on their own. In an aristocratic country, the leading citizens can spot each other from a distance; if they want to join forces, they simply move toward each other, pulling a crowd behind them. In a democratic country, by contrast, large numbers of people who want to come together often can't manage it — because they're too insignificant and too lost in the crowd to see or find one another. Then a newspaper picks up the idea or the feeling that had occurred to each of them simultaneously but in isolation. Everyone is immediately drawn toward this beacon, and these scattered minds, which had long searched for each other in the dark, finally meet and unite.

The newspaper brought them together, and it remains necessary to keep them together. For an association in a democratic society to have any power, it needs many members. Those members are scattered across a wide area, and each one is stuck in place by limited income or by the constant small efforts required to earn a living. They need a way to communicate every day without seeing each other and to coordinate action without ever having met. Almost no democratic association can function without a newspaper.

There is, then, a necessary link between associations and newspapers: newspapers create associations, and associations create newspapers. And if it's true that associations multiply as social conditions become more equal, it's equally certain that the number of newspapers grows in proportion to the number of associations. That's why America has both the most associations and the most newspapers of any country on earth.

This connection between newspapers and associations leads to another one: between the state of the press and the structure of government. The number of newspapers in a democratic country must rise or fall in proportion to how centralized or decentralized its administration is. In a democracy, local government can't be entrusted to a small elite the way it can in an aristocracy. Local powers must either be abolished or placed in the hands of large numbers of citizens, who then effectively form a permanent legal association to manage the affairs of their area — and they need a newspaper to bring them daily updates on the state of their community amid all their own small concerns. The more numerous these local government bodies are, the more people hold these positions, and the more urgently they feel this daily need — which is why newspapers multiply so abundantly.

(This is specifically true of democratic societies. In an aristocratic society, the administration might be decentralized without creating much demand for newspapers, because local power is held by a very small number of people who either act independently or who know each other well enough to meet and coordinate easily.)

The extraordinary subdivision of government in America has far more to do with the country's enormous number of newspapers than either its broad political freedom or its absolute freedom of the press. If all Americans had the right to vote — but only to elect their members of Congress — they'd need very few newspapers, because they'd only have to act together on a few rare, important occasions. But within the great national association, smaller associations have been established by law in every county, every city, and indeed every village, for the purposes of local administration. The laws of the country effectively require every American to cooperate daily with some of their fellow citizens for a shared purpose — and each of them needs a newspaper to find out what everyone else is doing.

I believe that a democratic people without a national legislature but with a large number of small local governments would end up with more newspapers than a people governed by a centralized administration with an elected national parliament. What best explains the enormous circulation of daily newspapers in America is that I found the broadest national freedom combined with local freedom of every kind.

There's a common belief in France and England that newspaper circulation would increase dramatically if press taxes were removed. This greatly overestimates what such a reform would accomplish. Newspapers multiply not because they're cheap, but because large numbers of people frequently feel the need to communicate and coordinate with one another.

Along similar lines, I'd attribute the growing influence of the daily press to causes more fundamental than the ones usually cited. A newspaper can only survive if it publishes ideas or principles that a large number of people share. Every newspaper therefore represents an association made up of its regular readers. This association may be more or less clearly defined, more or less restricted, more or less numerous — but the fact that the newspaper stays alive is proof that at least the seed of such an association exists in its readers' minds.

This brings me to a final thought. The more equal people's conditions become and the less powerful individuals are on their own, the more easily they give in to the current of the crowd, and the harder it becomes to hold an opinion that the majority rejects. A newspaper represents an association: it speaks to each reader in the name of all the others and exerts influence over them in proportion to their individual weakness. The power of the press must therefore grow as social conditions become more equal.

Chapter VII: The Connection Between Civil and Political Associations

There is only one country on earth where citizens enjoy unlimited freedom of association for political purposes. That same country is the only one where the continual exercise of the right of association has been woven into everyday life, and where all the benefits that civilization can offer are obtained through it.

In every country where political associations are banned, civil associations are rare. It's hard to believe this is just a coincidence. The more likely conclusion is that there's a natural — and perhaps necessary — connection between these two kinds of associations.

Here's how it works. Some people happen to share a common interest — a business to manage, a venture to try. They meet, they join forces, and in the process they gradually become familiar with the principle of association itself. The more small projects people tackle together, the better they get — often without realizing it — at carrying out large ones. Civil associations therefore pave the way for political associations. But the relationship works even more powerfully in reverse: political associations do an extraordinary amount to strengthen and improve civil ones.

In everyday life, any individual can at least imagine being self-sufficient. In politics, no one can. So once a people have any experience with public life, the idea of association and the desire to cooperate present themselves to everyone's mind, every day. Whatever natural reluctance people may feel about working together, they'll always be ready to combine for the sake of a political cause. Political life, then, makes the love and practice of association more widespread. It teaches the desire for union and the mechanics of cooperation to huge numbers of people who would otherwise have lived entirely apart.

Politics doesn't just create numerous associations — it creates large ones. In everyday life, it's rare for any single interest to draw a very large number of people to act together; it takes real skill to make that happen. In politics, opportunities arise constantly. And it's precisely in large associations that people see the true value of the principle of association. Citizens who are individually powerless don't easily grasp the strength they could gain by uniting — they need to see it demonstrated. This is why it's often easier to gather a multitude for a public cause than a handful of people for a private one: a thousand citizens may not see the point of combining, but ten thousand will understand it perfectly.

In politics, people combine for major undertakings, and the experience of using association for important purposes teaches them that it's in their interest to help each other in smaller matters too. A political association pulls a wide range of individuals out of their private worlds at the same time. However much they may be separated by age, outlook, and wealth, it places them closer together and brings them into contact. Once they've met, they can always meet again.

People can hardly enter into any business partnership without risking some of their money, and that's true of every commercial or industrial venture. When people are still new to the art of association and don't know its basic rules, they're afraid of paying too high a price for experience. They'd rather go without a powerful tool than take the risks that come with using it.

Political associations, however, seem risk-free — because they don't cost money. But you can't belong to a political association for long without learning how order is maintained among a large group of people, how they're led to advance harmoniously and methodically toward a shared goal. You learn to subordinate your own will to the group's, and to make your personal efforts serve the common purpose — skills that are just as necessary in business partnerships as in political ones. Political associations can therefore be seen as large free schools where every member of the community goes to learn the general theory of association.

But even if political associations didn't directly contribute to the development of civil ones, destroying the former would still damage the latter. When citizens can only meet publicly for certain narrow purposes, they start to see such meetings as a strange and unusual thing, and they rarely think about it at all. When they're free to meet for any purpose, they eventually come to see collective action as the universal tool — practically the only tool — for accomplishing anything they want to do. Every new need instantly revives the instinct. The art of association then becomes, as I've said before, the foundation of all action, studied and practiced by everyone.

When some kinds of associations are banned while others are allowed, it's hard to tell in advance which is which. In that atmosphere of doubt, people avoid associations altogether, and a kind of public opinion takes hold that treats any association as a bold, almost illicit enterprise.

(This is especially true when the executive branch has discretionary power to allow or prohibit associations. When certain associations are simply banned by law and the courts handle violations, the harm is much smaller — every citizen knows roughly what to expect, judges their own case before the law does, steers clear of prohibited associations, and freely joins the legal ones. This is how all free nations have always placed limits on the right of association. But if the legislature gives someone the power to decide in advance which associations are dangerous and which are useful, and authorizes them to kill any association before it gets started or let it proceed, then no one can foresee what's allowed and what isn't — and the spirit of association is paralyzed entirely. The first kind of law targets specific associations; the second strikes at society itself. I can see that a lawful government might resort to the first approach. I can't accept that any government has the right to adopt the second.)

It's therefore naive to think that the spirit of association, when crushed in one area, will still flourish in all the others — that if people are allowed to cooperate on certain things, that's enough to keep them eager to do it. When members of a community are allowed and accustomed to combine for all purposes, they'll combine just as readily for small ones as for large ones. But if they're only allowed to combine for small things, they'll be neither inclined nor able to do even that. You can leave people perfectly free to form business partnerships, and they'll barely bother to use the rights you've given them. After exhausting your strength trying to suppress the associations you've banned, you'll be surprised to find you can't persuade people to form the ones you encourage.

I'm not saying that civil associations can't exist in a country where political association is prohibited. People can never live in society without undertaking some things together. But I maintain that in such a country, civil associations will always be few in number, poorly conceived, badly managed, and that they'll either never attempt anything ambitious or they'll fail at it.

This naturally leads me to think that freedom of political association isn't as dangerous to public order as people assume — and that after shaking things up for a while, it may actually strengthen the nation in the long run. In democratic countries, political associations are, in a sense, the only powerful actors that aspire to influence the state. Governments today therefore view them the way medieval kings viewed their great vassals: with an instinctive horror, fighting them at every turn. Toward civil associations, meanwhile, governments feel a natural warmth — because instead of directing citizens' attention to public affairs, these groups divert people's minds from politics. By keeping citizens busy pursuing goals that require public order to achieve, civil associations discourage revolution. But what governments fail to see is that political associations enormously multiply and strengthen civil ones — and that by fighting a dangerous force, they're depriving themselves of an effective remedy.

When you watch Americans freely and constantly forming associations to advance some political principle, to elevate one person to power, or to unseat another, you have trouble understanding why such independent people don't constantly abuse their freedom. But then look at the infinite number of businesses and ventures that Americans run through associations, and you'll quickly understand why people so productively occupied have no interest in disrupting the state or destroying the public order they all benefit from.

Is it enough to observe these things separately? Shouldn't we look for the hidden thread that connects them? In their political associations, Americans of every background, every mindset, and every age develop a general taste for association and grow comfortable using it. They meet in large numbers, they talk, they listen to each other, and they're inspired to pursue all kinds of projects together. They then carry the skills they've learned back into everyday life and put them to a thousand different uses. It's through the practice of a dangerous freedom that Americans learn how to make the dangers of freedom less threatening.

If you pick a single moment in a nation's life, it's easy to show that political associations destabilize the government and paralyze industry. But look at a nation's entire life span, and it may be just as easy to demonstrate that freedom of political association actually promotes prosperity — and even stability.

I wrote in an earlier part of this work: "The unrestricted freedom of political association can't be treated exactly like freedom of the press. It's at once less necessary and more dangerous. A nation may limit it without ceasing to be free, and may sometimes have to do so to preserve its own authority." And later: "The unrestricted freedom of political association is the last degree of freedom that a people can handle. If it doesn't plunge them into anarchy, it perpetually brings them to the brink."

So I don't believe a nation can always grant its citizens an absolute right of political association, and I doubt whether, in any country or any era, it's wise to set no limits on that freedom at all. Some nations, it's said, couldn't maintain order, enforce their laws, or sustain stable government if the right of association weren't kept within narrow bounds. These are invaluable goods, and I can imagine that a nation might impose strict temporary limits to secure or preserve them. But the nation should understand the price it's paying. I can understand that it may be wise to cut off a person's arm to save their life. But it would be absurd to claim they'll be just as capable as before they lost it.

Chapter VIII: How Americans Fight Individualism with the Principle of Self-Interest Rightly Understood

When the world was run by a few rich and powerful individuals, those people loved to cultivate a lofty idea of human duty. They were fond of declaring that it's admirable to forget yourself, and that good should be done without any hope of reward — just as God does. These were the standard moral teachings of the time. I doubt that people were actually more virtuous in aristocratic ages than in any other, but they were constantly talking about the beauty of virtue. Its practical usefulness was studied only in private.

But now that individual ambition has replaced grand visions, and everyone's thoughts revolve around themselves, moralists have grown alarmed by this culture of self-interest. They no longer dare to hold up self-sacrifice as an ideal. Instead, they content themselves with asking whether each person's private advantage might be served by working for the good of all. Whenever they find a point where personal interest and public interest overlap, they're eager to call attention to it. Observations like these have multiplied. What started as a single insight has become a general principle, and it's now widely accepted that you serve yourself by serving others — that it's in your own interest to do good.

I've already shown, in several parts of this book, how Americans almost always manage to align their personal advantage with their fellow citizens'. My purpose now is to describe the general principle that allows them to do it.

In the United States, hardly anyone talks about the beauty of virtue. But they insist that virtue is useful — and they prove it every day. American moralists don't argue that people should sacrifice themselves for others because it's a noble thing to do. They state bluntly that such sacrifices are just as necessary for the person making them as for the person receiving them. They've figured out that in their country and their time, people are pulled toward self-interest by an irresistible force. Having given up any hope of stopping that force, they focus all their energy on directing it. They don't deny that everyone may pursue their own interest — but they work hard to prove that it's in everyone's interest to be virtuous.

I won't go into all the reasons they give, which would take me off track. Suffice it to say: they've convinced their fellow citizens.

Montaigne put it long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found by experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most useful track." The doctrine of self-interest rightly understood isn't new, then — but among today's Americans it has gained universal acceptance. It has become popular. You can find it at the bottom of all their actions. You can hear it in everything they say. You'll encounter it just as often on the lips of the poor as of the rich.

In Europe, the principle of self-interest is much cruder than in America, but at the same time less widespread and, especially, less openly acknowledged. Among Europeans, people still constantly pretend to a spirit of self-sacrifice that they no longer actually feel. Americans, by contrast, are fond of explaining almost all their actions by the principle of self-interest rightly understood. They cheerfully describe how an enlightened concern for themselves constantly drives them to help each other and makes them willing to sacrifice a portion of their time and property for the common good.

In this respect, I think Americans often sell themselves short. In the United States, just as elsewhere, people sometimes give in to those disinterested, spontaneous impulses that are simply part of human nature. But Americans rarely admit that they act on such emotions. They're more eager to credit their philosophy than themselves.

I could stop here without passing judgment on what I've described. The extreme difficulty of the subject would excuse me. But I won't take that escape route — I'd rather have my readers clearly understand where I stand, even if they disagree, than leave them in suspense.

The principle of self-interest rightly understood is not a lofty one, but it's clear and reliable. It doesn't aim at great things, but it achieves everything it aims at without excessive effort. Because it's within everyone's reach, anyone can grasp and hold on to it. By fitting itself perfectly to human weakness, it easily gains wide influence — and that influence is durable, since the principle keeps one person's self-interest in check by appealing to another's. It uses the very passions it harnesses as the instrument for directing them.

The principle of self-interest rightly understood doesn't produce great acts of self-sacrifice. But it does encourage steady, small acts of self-discipline. By itself, it can't make anyone virtuous. But it does train large numbers of citizens in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, and self-control. And if it doesn't lead people straight to virtue through the will, it gradually draws them toward it through their habits.

If the principle of self-interest rightly understood governed the entire moral world, extraordinary virtue would no doubt become rarer. But I think gross depravity would also become less common. The principle might prevent a few people from rising far above the average level of humanity — but it catches and holds a great many others who would otherwise fall far below it. Look at a few individuals, and they're diminished by it. Survey humanity as a whole, and it's elevated.

I'm not afraid to say it: the principle of self-interest rightly understood strikes me as the philosophy best suited to the needs of people in our time, and I regard it as their strongest remaining safeguard against themselves. The moralists of our age should therefore turn their attention toward it. Even if they judge it incomplete, they should still embrace it as necessary.

I don't think, on the whole, that there's more selfishness in America than among us. The only difference is that in America it's enlightened, and here it's not. Every American is willing to sacrifice a portion of their private interests to preserve the rest. We try to hold on to everything — and often lose it all.

Everyone I see around me seems determined to teach their contemporaries, by word and example, that what is useful is never wrong. Will no one undertake to show them that what is right can also be useful?

No force on earth can stop the growing equality of conditions from pushing the human mind toward the useful, or from leading every member of the community to turn inward. We should therefore expect that self-interest will become more than ever the main — if not the only — motivation for human action. But it remains to be seen how each person will understand their self-interest.

If the members of a community, as they become more equal, also become more ignorant and narrow-minded, it's impossible to predict what depths of stupid excess their selfishness might drag them to — or into what disgrace and misery they'd plunge themselves in order to avoid sacrificing anything for the good of others.

I don't think the system of self-interest, as it's practiced in America, is entirely self-evident. But it contains a great number of truths that are so clear that people need only be educated to see them.

Educate, then, at all costs. For the age of instinctive self-sacrifice and spontaneous virtue is already slipping away from us, and the time is fast approaching when freedom, public peace, and social order itself will not be able to survive without education.

Chapter IX: How Americans Apply Self-Interest Properly Understood to Religion

If the principle of self-interest properly understood only concerned this world, it would be a pretty inadequate philosophy — because there are many sacrifices that can only be repaid in another life. And no matter how cleverly you try to prove that virtue is useful, it's never easy to convince someone to live well if they have no thought of dying.

So we need to ask: is this principle of self-interest properly understood actually compatible with religious belief?

The philosophers who promote this moral system tell people that to be happy in this life, they need to watch their passions and steadily control their excesses — that lasting happiness can only be achieved by giving up a thousand fleeting pleasures, and that you have to constantly master yourself in order to serve your own long-term interests. The founders of nearly every religion have said essentially the same thing. They point people down the same path; the only difference is that the destination is farther off. Instead of placing the reward in this world, they place it in the next.

Still, I can't believe that everyone who practices virtue from religious motives is driven purely by the hope of a reward. I've known devout Christians who constantly forgot about themselves in their tireless efforts to help others, and I've heard them say that everything they did was just to earn the blessings of the afterlife. I can't help thinking they were deceiving themselves. I respect them too much to believe them.

Christianity does teach that you must put your neighbor before yourself in order to gain eternal life. But Christianity also teaches that people should help others out of love for God. What a magnificent idea! A person, using their intellect to probe the divine plan and seeing that order is God's purpose, freely works to advance that grand design. And while sacrificing their personal interests to this supreme order of all created things, they expect no other reward than the pleasure of contemplating it.

I don't believe that self-interest is the only motivation for religious people. But I do believe that self-interest is the main tool that religions themselves use to guide people, and I have no doubt that this is how they reach the masses and become popular.

It's hard to see why the principle of self-interest properly understood should stay away from religion — and it seems much easier to show why it should draw people toward it. Imagine someone who, in order to achieve happiness in this world, fights against their impulses on every occasion and deliberately calculates every action. Instead of blindly giving in to their first desires, they've learned the art of resisting them and have grown accustomed to sacrificing momentary pleasure for their long-term well-being. If such a person believes in the religion they profess, it will cost them very little to follow its restrictions. Reason itself advises obedience, and habit has prepared them to endure the demands. Even if they have some doubts about the promised afterlife, they won't easily let those doubts stop them. They'll decide it's wise to risk some of this world's advantages in order to preserve their claim to the great inheritance promised in the next. As Pascal put it: "Being wrong about Christianity being true costs you nothing. But how terrible to be wrong about it being false!"

Americans don't pretend to a hard-nosed indifference about the afterlife. They don't make a childish show of scorning dangers they actually hope to avoid. They practice their religion without shame and without weakness. But there's generally something so indescribably calm, methodical, and deliberate about their faith that it looks like the head, far more than the heart, has led them to the foot of the altar.

Americans don't just follow their religion out of self-interest — they often find within this world the very interest that makes them follow it. In the Middle Ages, the clergy talked about almost nothing but the afterlife; they barely bothered to argue that a sincere Christian could also be happy here on earth. But American preachers are constantly talking about this world, and they can barely tear their attention away from it. To move their congregations, they always show how religious beliefs support freedom and public peace. In fact, it's often hard to tell from their sermons whether the main purpose of religion is to win eternal happiness in the next world — or prosperity in this one.

Chapter X: The American Taste for Material Comfort

In America, the passion for physical comfort isn't always all-consuming, but it is universal. Not everyone feels it the same way, but everyone feels it. Taking care to satisfy every bodily need, even the smallest ones, and securing the little conveniences of life — that's what's on everyone's mind. Something similar is becoming increasingly apparent in Europe. Among the causes producing these parallel effects on both sides of the Atlantic, several are closely connected to my subject and worth examining.

When wealth stays fixed in families by inheritance, a large number of people enjoy the comforts of life without developing an obsessive taste for them. The human heart isn't captured so much by the undisturbed possession of something valuable as by the desire — still imperfectly satisfied — to possess it, and by the constant dread of losing it.

In aristocratic societies, the wealthy have never experienced a condition different from their own, so they have no fear of losing it. The possibility barely occurs to them. Comfort isn't the goal of their lives — it's simply how they live. They experience it the way they experience existence itself: enjoyed but barely noticed. Since their natural, instinctive desire for a good life is satisfied without effort or worry, their minds turn elsewhere, drawn to more demanding and lofty pursuits that excite and absorb them. This is why, surrounded by every physical pleasure, the members of an aristocracy often display a proud contempt for those very enjoyments — and a remarkable ability to endure going without them. Every revolution that has ever shaken or destroyed aristocracies has shown how easily people accustomed to lavish luxuries can survive without the bare necessities, while people who have worked their whole lives to build a modest fortune can hardly go on after losing it.

If I shift my attention from the upper classes to the lower, I find the same effects produced by opposite causes. In a nation where aristocracy dominates society and keeps it frozen in place, the poor eventually get as used to their poverty as the rich are to their wealth. The rich don't worry about their comforts because they enjoy them effortlessly. The poor don't think about things they've given up hope of ever having — things they barely know enough about to want. In these kinds of societies, the imagination of the poor is driven to seek another world. The miseries of real life close in on them from every side, but their imagination escapes and flies off to find its pleasures far beyond.

But when class distinctions break down and privileges are destroyed — when inherited property gets divided up, and education and freedom spread widely — then the desire for material comfort haunts the imagination of the poor, and the fear of losing it haunts the rich. Countless modest fortunes spring up. The people who have them enjoy enough physical comfort to develop a taste for it, but not enough to satisfy that taste. They never get these pleasures without effort, and they never enjoy them without anxiety. So they're always straining to pursue or hold on to satisfactions that are so delightful, so incomplete, so fleeting.

If I had to identify the passion most natural to people whose birth is unremarkable and whose fortune is middling, I couldn't find one more perfectly suited to their condition than this love of physical comfort. The passion for material well-being is fundamentally a middle-class passion. It grows and spreads with the middle class, and it dominates where the middle class dominates. From there it rises into the upper classes and descends to the masses.

In America, I never met a citizen so poor that they didn't cast a hopeful, envious glance at the pleasures of the rich — or whose imagination didn't already claim the good things that fate still stubbornly withheld from them. On the other hand, I never saw among the wealthier Americans that proud contempt for physical pleasures you sometimes find even in the most extravagant and dissolute aristocracies. Most of these wealthy people were once poor themselves. They knew the sting of want. They struggled against bad fortune for years. Now that they've won, the passions that fueled the fight have outlasted it — their minds are intoxicated by the small pleasures they chased for forty years.

It's true that in the United States, as everywhere, there are some wealthy people who inherited their money and enjoy an affluence they didn't earn. But even these people are no less devoted to material pleasures. The love of comfort has become the dominant passion of the nation. The great current of human desire runs in that channel, and it sweeps everything along in its course.

Chapter XI: The Distinctive Effects of the Love of Material Pleasure in Democracies

Given what I've just described, you might assume that the love of physical pleasure would constantly push Americans toward moral excess, disrupt family life, and threaten the stability of society as a whole. But that's not the case. The passion for material comfort produces very different effects in democracies than in aristocratic nations.

It sometimes happens that an aristocracy, exhausted by public affairs and glutted with wealth, watches religious belief crumble and the state decline — and gradually, step by step, the hearts of its members are seduced into pursuing nothing but sensual pleasure. At other times, the power of the monarch or the weakness of the people, without stripping the nobility of their wealth, shuts them out from public life. With the road to great ambition closed off, they're left alone with the restlessness of their own desires. They fall back heavily upon themselves and seek in bodily pleasure an escape from the memory of their former greatness.

When the members of an aristocracy devote themselves entirely to physical gratification, they typically pour into it all the energy they've built up through generations of power. They're not satisfied with mere comfort — they demand extravagant depravity and magnificent corruption. The worship they pay to the senses is a spectacular one, and they seem to compete with each other in the art of degrading their own nature. The stronger, more illustrious, and freer an aristocracy once was, the more depraved it becomes in its decline. However brilliant its virtues may have been, I'm willing to predict that they will always be surpassed by the splendor of its vices.

The taste for physical pleasure leads a democratic people into no such excesses. The love of comfort shows up in democracies as a tenacious, all-encompassing, universal passion — but a limited one. Nobody thinks about building enormous palaces, conquering or imitating nature, or ransacking the world to satisfy one person's desires. Instead, the focus is on adding a few acres to your property, planting an orchard, expanding your house, making life a little more comfortable and convenient every day, avoiding hassles, and satisfying the smallest wants without effort and almost without expense. These are small things, but the soul clings to them. It dwells on them closely, day after day, until they eventually shut out the rest of the world — and sometimes come between the soul and heaven.

You might object that this only applies to people of modest means, and that wealthier people in a democracy will show the same extravagant tastes as aristocrats. I disagree. When it comes to physical pleasures, even the richest members of a democracy don't display tastes much different from those of ordinary people — whether because they came from ordinary backgrounds and genuinely share those tastes, or because they feel it's expected of them. In a democratic society, public appetite for pleasure has settled into a moderate, steady groove that everyone is expected to follow. It's as hard to stand out through your vices as through your virtues.

Rich people living in democratic nations are therefore more focused on satisfying their minor wants than on pursuing spectacular indulgences. They gratify a multitude of small desires without giving in to any great excesses of passion. As a result, they're more likely to become soft than debauched.

The particular taste that people in democratic ages have for physical enjoyment is not naturally opposed to public order — in fact, it often needs order to be satisfied. Nor is it hostile to good morals, since good morals contribute to public peace and encourage productive work. It can even be combined with a certain kind of religious morality: people want to be as well off as possible in this world without giving up their shot at the next one. Some physical pleasures can't be enjoyed without breaking the law, and from those people strictly abstain. Others are sanctioned by both religion and morality, and to these they give their heart, their imagination, and their whole life — until, in grabbing at these smaller gifts, they lose sight of the more precious things that constitute the true greatness of humanity.

My criticism of equality is not that it leads people to chase forbidden pleasures, but that it absorbs them entirely in the pursuit of permitted ones. In this way, a kind of respectable materialism may eventually take hold in the world — one that wouldn't corrupt the soul so much as drain it of energy, and silently loosen every spring of action.

Chapter XII: Why Some Americans Display Such Fanatical Enthusiasm

Although the desire for material goods is the dominant passion of the American people, certain sudden outbursts occur when their souls seem to shatter the bonds of the material world and soar wildly toward heaven. Across every state in the Union — but especially in the half-settled territories of the Far West — you can find wandering preachers who carry the word of God from place to place. Entire families — old men, women, and children — cross rough mountain passes and untamed wilderness, traveling great distances to reach a camp meeting, where for several days and nights they completely forget the demands of work and even the most basic needs of the body as they listen to these sermons. Here and there, scattered through American society, you encounter people filled with a fanatical, almost feral religious enthusiasm that barely exists in Europe. From time to time, strange sects spring up that try to blaze extraordinary paths to eternal salvation. Religious extremism is remarkably common in the United States.

This shouldn't surprise us. It wasn't humanity that implanted in itself the longing for the infinite or the love of the immortal. These profound instincts aren't the product of some passing whim — their foundation is fixed deep in human nature, and they persist despite every effort to suppress them. You can twist and distort these instincts, but you can't destroy them.

The soul has needs that must be met. No matter how hard you try to distract it, it quickly grows restless and unsatisfied in the midst of purely physical pleasures. If the vast majority of people were to focus exclusively on material pursuits, you could predict that an astonishing reaction would erupt in the souls of some. They would fling themselves wildly into the world of the spirit, terrified of remaining trapped in the narrow prison of the body.

So it's not surprising that in a society whose thoughts are fixed on earthly things, a small number of people turn their eyes toward heaven. I'd actually be surprised if mysticism didn't gain ground among a people devoted entirely to its own material welfare. It's said that the deserts of the Thebaid — the Egyptian wilderness where early Christian monks retreated — were populated because of the Roman emperors' persecutions and the massacres of the arena. I'd argue instead that it was the luxuries of Rome and the pleasure-seeking philosophy of Greece that drove people into the desert.

If American social conditions, circumstances, and laws didn't confine people's minds so tightly to the pursuit of material success, they would probably show more restraint and more sophistication whenever their attention turned to spiritual matters — they could pull themselves back without difficulty. But they feel imprisoned within boundaries they'll apparently never be allowed to cross. The moment they do break through, their minds don't know where to stop, and they often rush headlong past the limits of common sense.

Chapter XIII: Why Americans Are So Restless in the Midst of Their Prosperity

In certain remote corners of the Old World, you can still stumble upon small districts that seem to have been forgotten by history — places that have stayed frozen while everything around them kept moving. The people who live there are, for the most part, deeply ignorant and poor. They take no part in public affairs and are frequently oppressed by their government. Yet their faces are generally calm and their spirits light.

In America, I saw the freest and most educated people on earth, living in the most fortunate circumstances the world has to offer — and it seemed to me as if a cloud permanently hung over their faces. They struck me as serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.

The main reason for this contrast is that the former group doesn't think about the hardships they endure, while the latter is forever brooding over the advantages they don't yet have. It's remarkable to watch the feverish intensity with which Americans pursue their own well-being — and to see the vague dread that constantly torments them, the fear that they haven't chosen the shortest path to get there.

An American clings to this world's goods as if they were certain they'd never die, and grabs at everything within reach as if they were afraid of not living long enough to enjoy it. They clutch at everything, hold on to nothing, and quickly let go to chase the next pleasure.

In the United States, a man builds a house to spend his final years in — and sells it before the roof is on. He plants a garden and walks away just as the trees start bearing fruit. He clears a field for planting and leaves other men to harvest the crops. He takes up a profession and quits it. He settles in a place and soon abandons it, carrying his restless desires somewhere else. If his private affairs give him any free time, he immediately plunges into the whirlpool of politics. And if at the end of a year of relentless work he finds himself with a few days' vacation, his restless curiosity drives him across the vast expanse of the United States — he'll travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days just to shake off his own contentment. Death finally catches up with him, but only before he's grown tired of his endless chase after a complete happiness that's always just out of reach.

At first, there's something astonishing about this strange restlessness among so many prosperous people — all this anxiety in the midst of abundance. But the phenomenon itself is as old as humanity; what's new is seeing an entire nation embody it.

The American taste for physical pleasure should be understood as the root cause of the secret anxiety that their behavior reveals, and of the fickleness they demonstrate anew every day. A person who has set their heart entirely on pursuing material well-being is always in a hurry, because life is short and time is limited. Beyond the good things they already possess, they constantly imagine a thousand others that death will snatch away if they don't seize them soon. This thought fills them with anxiety, fear, and regret, keeping their mind in a state of constant agitation that leads them to perpetually change their plans and their homes.

And if you add to this taste for material comfort a social condition where laws and customs make no one's position permanent, there's an even more powerful stimulant to this restlessness. People will be seen constantly switching tracks, afraid of missing the shortest route to happiness.

It's easy to see that if people who are passionately focused on physical pleasures desire things intensely, they're also easily discouraged. Since their ultimate goal is enjoyment, the means of getting there have to be quick and easy — otherwise the effort of acquiring the pleasure outweighs the pleasure itself. The prevailing state of mind is therefore both passionate and listless, intense and drained at the same time. Death is often feared less than the sustained effort needed to pursue a single goal.

Equality of conditions leads by an even more direct path to several of these effects. When all privileges of birth and fortune have been abolished, when every profession is open to everyone, and a person's own effort can carry them to the top of any one of them, an unlimited career seems to open before their ambition, and they easily convince themselves that they're destined for great things. But this is a delusion, corrected every day by experience. The same equality that lets every citizen dream these lofty dreams also makes every citizen less able to achieve them. It limits their power on every side while giving freer rein to their desires. Not only are they individually powerless, but at every step they encounter enormous obstacles they hadn't anticipated. They've swept away the privileges of others that stood in their way, but they've opened the door to universal competition. The barrier has changed shape, not position.

When people are roughly alike and everyone follows the same path, it's extremely hard for any one person to move quickly and cut through the dense crowd pressing in around them. This constant struggle between the aspirations that equality creates and the means it provides to fulfill them exhausts and wears out the mind.

You can imagine people reaching a level of freedom that completely satisfies them — they would enjoy their independence without anxiety or impatience. But people will never achieve an equality that contents them. No matter how hard a society tries, it will never manage to make everyone's conditions perfectly equal. And even if it did somehow reach that dismal state of absolute leveling, the inequality of minds would remain — a gift from God that will forever escape human law.

However democratic a society's conditions and political system may be, every person in it will always find others who are above them in some way, and you can be sure their gaze will be fixed stubbornly in that direction. When inequality is the normal state of things, the starkest differences don't stand out. But when everything is roughly equal, the smallest differences are sharp enough to sting. That's why the desire for equality grows more insatiable the more equality you actually achieve.

In democratic nations, people easily reach a certain level of equality — but never the equality they truly want. It retreats before them constantly, yet never quite disappears from view, and in retreating it draws them on. At every moment they think they're about to grasp it; at every moment it slips from their hands. They're close enough to see its beauty but too far away to enjoy it, and before they've fully savored its delights, they die.

These are the reasons for the strange melancholy that so often haunts the people of democratic countries in the midst of their abundance, and for the disgust with life that sometimes seizes them even when circumstances are calm and comfortable. In France, people complain that the number of suicides is rising. In America, suicide is rare, but mental illness is said to be more common there than anywhere else. These are different symptoms of the same disease.

Americans don't end their lives, however troubled they may be, because their religion forbids it. Among them, materialism as a philosophy barely exists, despite the universal passion for material pleasure. The will holds firm — but reason often breaks down.

In democratic ages, pleasures are more intense than in aristocratic ones, and the number of people who enjoy them is incomparably larger. But on the other hand, hopes are more often crushed, the soul is more shaken and unsettled, and the worry itself cuts deeper.

Chapter XIV: How the Taste for Material Comfort Combines in America with the Love of Freedom and Attention to Public Affairs

When a democratic state slides into absolute monarchy, all the energy that was formerly directed toward both public and private affairs suddenly concentrates entirely on the latter. The immediate result is a period of significant material prosperity — but the momentum soon fades and productive activity slows down.

I'm not sure you can point to a single trading or manufacturing nation, from the ancient Tyrians to the Florentines to the English, that wasn't also a free people. There is a tight and necessary connection between these two things — freedom and economic productivity. This is true of all nations, but especially of democratic ones.

I've already shown that people living in ages of equality constantly need to form associations to get the things they want, and I've shown how political freedom improves and spreads the art of association. In these times, freedom is therefore especially good for creating wealth — and it's not hard to see that despotism is especially bad for it. The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be violent or cruel, but petty and meddlesome. This kind of despotism, though it doesn't brutalize people, is directly hostile to the spirit of commerce and the pursuits of industry.

So people in democratic ages need to be free in order to more easily obtain the material pleasures they're always craving. But sometimes it happens that their excessive appetite for those same pleasures delivers them into the hands of the first master who comes along. The passion for material well-being defeats itself — and without realizing it, pushes the very thing they want further out of reach.

There is, in fact, a deeply dangerous moment in the history of a democratic people. When the taste for material comfort has grown faster than their education and their experience with free institutions, a time comes when people are swept away and lose all self-control at the sight of the new possessions they're about to grab. In their intense, single-minded drive to make a fortune, they lose sight of the tight connection between each person's private wealth and the prosperity of all.

You don't need to use force to strip such a people of their rights — they loosen their own grip willingly. Participating in public life starts to feel like an irritating distraction from their real work. If they're asked to elect representatives, to serve the government personally, or to gather for public business, they don't have time — they can't waste their precious hours on such pointless activities. These idle diversions aren't suited to serious people who are busy with the more important concerns of life.

These people think they're following the principle of self-interest, but their version of it is a crude one. In order to better tend to what they call their business, they neglect their most important business of all — which is to remain their own masters.

Since the citizens who work don't bother with public affairs, and since the class that once had the leisure for such duties no longer exists, the seat of government is essentially empty. If at that critical moment some capable and ambitious person seizes supreme power, they'll find the road to every kind of overreach wide open.

All they have to do is ensure material prosperity for a while, and nothing more will be asked of them. Above all, they must guarantee public order. People consumed by the passion for material comfort generally discover that the turbulence of freedom disrupts their well-being long before they figure out how freedom itself actually promotes it. If the slightest rumor of public unrest intrudes on the petty pleasures of their private lives, they're startled and alarmed. The fear of disorder haunts them constantly, and they're always ready to throw away their freedom at the first sign of trouble.

I'll readily admit that public order is a great good. But at the same time, I can't forget that every nation that has been enslaved got there by being kept in good order. This certainly doesn't mean that nations should scorn public peace. But they shouldn't be satisfied with peace alone.

A nation that asks nothing of its government except the maintenance of order is already a slave in its heart — the slave of its own comfort, just waiting for the hand that will bind it.

The despotism of a faction is no less dangerous than the despotism of an individual. When the majority of citizens are absorbed in private concerns, even the smallest parties can hope to seize control of public affairs. At such times, you can see on the great stage of the world something very much like what you see in the theater — a multitude represented by a handful of actors who alone speak in the name of an absent or inattentive crowd. They alone are in motion while everyone else stands still. They rearrange everything according to their own whims, change the laws, and tyrannize over the customs of the country at will — and then people wonder how a great nation could fall into such small and worthless hands.

So far, the Americans have fortunately avoided all the dangers I've just described, and in this respect they truly deserve admiration. There may be no country on earth with fewer idle people than America, or where everyone who works is more determined to improve their own condition. But while Americans' passion for material comfort is intense, at least it isn't indiscriminate — and reason, though unable to restrain it, still guides its course.

An American tends to their private affairs as if they were alone in the world, then a moment later throws themselves into the common good as if they'd forgotten all about private concerns. At one moment they seem driven by the most selfish greed; at the next, by the most passionate patriotism. The human heart can't really be split like that. The people of the United States display such a strong and remarkably similar passion for both their own welfare and their freedom that these two drives must somehow be united and blended in their character.

And indeed, Americans believe their freedom is the best tool and surest safeguard of their prosperity. They're attached to the one because of the other. They certainly don't think they're exempt from participating in public life. On the contrary, they believe their chief business is to secure for themselves a government that will let them acquire the things they want — and that won't prevent them from peacefully enjoying what they've already earned.

Chapter XV: How Religion Turns American Minds Toward the Spiritual

Every Sunday in the United States, the whole engine of commerce and labor seems to shut down. The noise stops. A deep stillness settles over everything — not just quiet, but the solemn calm of reflection, replacing the chaos of the workweek. The soul takes back possession of itself. On this day, the markets are empty. Every member of the community goes to church with their children and listens to language that might seem out of place in their ears. They hear about the countless problems caused by pride and greed. They're reminded of the need to control their desires, of the deeper pleasures that come only from virtue, and of the genuine happiness that follows from it. When they get home, they don't reach for their business ledgers — they open the Bible. There they find vivid, moving descriptions of the greatness and goodness of the Creator, of the infinite magnificence of God's work, of humanity's high calling, its duties, and its immortal promise. This is how the American occasionally steals an hour from the daily grind. Setting aside for a while the petty passions that drive daily life and the fleeting concerns that consume it, they step into an ideal world where everything is great, eternal, and pure.

In an earlier part of this work, I tried to explain why American political institutions have lasted so long, and religion stood out as one of the most important reasons. Now I'm looking at Americans as individuals, and I see once again that religion is just as valuable to each citizen as it is to the nation as a whole. Americans show through their actions that they understand the deep necessity of grounding a democratic society in morality through religion. What they believe about this is a truth that every democratic nation should take seriously.

I have no doubt that a society's political and social structure naturally inclines its people toward certain beliefs and preferences, which then flourish easily among them. At the same time, the same conditions can steer people away from certain ideas and tendencies — without any deliberate effort, almost without their even being aware of it. The real art of governing lies in recognizing these natural inclinations ahead of time, so you know whether to encourage them or restrain them. The duties of those who govern change with the times. The ultimate goal — human flourishing — stays the same; only the means of reaching it must constantly evolve.

If I had been born in an aristocratic age, surrounded by a nation where the inherited wealth of some and the hopeless poverty of others equally discouraged people from improving their condition — holding the soul in a kind of paralysis, fixed on contemplating the next world — I would have wanted to shake that people awake, to make them aware of their real needs. I would have looked for faster, easier ways to satisfy the new desires I'd stirred up. I would have directed the full force of human intelligence toward material pursuits, trying to stimulate improvements in people's actual well-being. If some individuals then became obsessed with getting rich and showed an excessive appetite for physical pleasures, I wouldn't have been alarmed. Those symptoms would quickly be absorbed into the larger character of the nation.

But lawmakers in democracies face a different challenge. Give democratic nations education and freedom, and leave them alone. They'll quickly figure out how to extract every benefit this world has to offer. They'll improve every useful skill and make life more comfortable, more convenient, and easier every day. Their social conditions naturally push them in this direction — I'm not worried they'll slow down.

But here's the danger: while people are busy with this honest and legitimate pursuit of well-being, they may eventually lose the use of their highest faculties. In the process of improving everything around them, they may end up degrading themselves. This, and only this, is where the real peril lies. It should therefore be the constant mission of democratic leaders — and of every thoughtful, principled person who lives in a democracy — to lift the souls of their fellow citizens and keep them aimed toward something higher. Everyone who cares about the future of democratic society needs to join together in a sustained effort to spread the love of the infinite, a sense of grandeur, and a taste for pleasures that go beyond the material. If any philosophy takes hold in a democratic society that teaches everything dies with the body, the people who preach that doctrine should be recognized as the natural enemies of that society.

Materialists offend me on many levels. I consider their ideas destructive, and their arrogance disgusts me. If their system could do anything useful, it would presumably be to give people a humble view of themselves. But that's not what happens. When they think they've proven that humans are nothing more than animals, they parade around as proudly as if they'd proved they were gods. Materialism is a dangerous disease of the mind in any nation, but it's especially threatening in a democracy, because it blends so easily with the vice most common in democratic hearts. Democracy encourages a taste for physical pleasure. If that taste becomes excessive, it quickly leads people to believe that everything is just matter. And materialism, in turn, drives them back to those same pleasures with frantic urgency. This is the vicious cycle that democratic nations get trapped in. They would do well to see the danger and pull back.

Most religions are, at their core, straightforward practical ways of teaching people that the soul is immortal. That is the greatest gift a democratic people gets from its faith, which is why belief matters more in democracies than anywhere else. So when a religion has taken deep root in a democracy, be very careful not to disturb it. Guard it instead as one of the most precious legacies of aristocratic ages. Don't try to replace people's old religious beliefs with new ones — during the transition from one faith to another, the soul might be left stripped of all belief, and the appetite for physical pleasure could rush in to fill the void completely.

The doctrine of reincarnation is certainly no more rational than materialism. But if a democracy absolutely had to choose between the two, I wouldn't hesitate: a society runs less risk of being brutalized by believing that the human soul will pass into the body of a pig than by believing the soul doesn't exist at all. The belief in a spiritual and immortal element temporarily joined to matter is so essential to human greatness that its effects are remarkable even when it isn't connected to ideas of heaven and hell — even when it claims only that after death, the divine spark within us is absorbed back into God or transferred to some other living creature. People who hold even this imperfect belief will still see the body as the secondary, lesser part of their nature, and they'll look down on it even as they give in to its demands. They'll maintain a natural respect and quiet admiration for the immaterial dimension of human existence, even when they sometimes resist its authority. That alone is enough to elevate their thinking and their tastes, and to draw them — not out of self-interest but by instinct — toward pure feelings and noble thoughts.

It's not clear that Socrates and his followers had very firm ideas about what happens after death. But the one point they were certain of — that the soul has nothing in common with the body and survives it — was enough to give Platonic philosophy its sublime character. Reading Plato, you can see that many philosophers before and around him were materialists. Their works either haven't survived or have come down to us only in fragments. The same pattern repeats across nearly every era: the greatest minds in intellectual history have embraced the idea of a reality beyond the physical. Human instinct and taste sustain these beliefs. They rescue them time and again despite people's own tendencies, and they raise the names of their defenders above the tide of time. So don't assume that at any point in history or under any political system, the passion for physical pleasure and the ideas it generates can ever satisfy an entire people. The human heart is bigger than that. It can hold both a love for the things of this earth and a longing for something beyond. At times it may seem to cling entirely to one, but it will never go long without reaching for the other.

If it's easy to see that spiritual beliefs are especially important in democratic times, it's much harder to say how those who govern democracies can actually make them take hold. I'm no believer in the success — or the durability — of official philosophies. As for state religions, I've always thought that while they may temporarily serve political interests, they inevitably end up harming the church. Nor do I agree with those who say that to elevate religion in the public eye, we should give clergy political influence that the law otherwise denies them. I'm so keenly aware of the nearly inevitable dangers that threaten religious belief whenever clergy get involved in politics, and so convinced that Christianity must be preserved at all costs within modern democracies, that I'd rather confine the priesthood to the sanctuary than let them step outside it.

So what tools do governments actually have to draw people back toward spiritual beliefs, or to anchor them in the religion from which those beliefs spring? My answer won't make politicians happy. I believe the only truly effective method governments have for ensuring the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is properly respected is to always act as if they believe it themselves. And I think that only by scrupulously following religious morality in great public matters can they hope to teach the broader community to understand, to love, and to practice it in the smaller affairs of daily life.

Chapter XVI: How an Obsession with Material Comfort Can Undermine Itself

There's a closer connection than most people realize between improving the soul and improving the body's circumstances. You can separate these two things in your mind and consider each on its own, but you can't completely sever them without eventually losing sight of both. Animals have the same senses we do and very nearly the same appetites. Every physical desire we have exists in them too — at least in seed form, you can find it in a dog as easily as in a person. So why is it that animals can only meet their most basic needs, while we can endlessly expand and multiply our pleasures?

The difference is this: we use our minds to discover material benefits that animals can only stumble upon through instinct. In us, the angel teaches the brute how to satisfy its desires. It's precisely because humans are capable of rising above physical existence — of holding life itself in contempt, something animals can't even conceive of — that we can multiply material comforts to a degree that lesser creatures could never imagine. Whatever elevates, expands, and strengthens the soul makes it more capable of succeeding even in pursuits that have nothing to do with the soul. Conversely, whatever weakens or diminishes the soul undermines it for every purpose — the highest and the lowest alike — and threatens to leave it equally powerless for both. The soul must remain great and strong, if only so it can occasionally lend its strength and greatness to the service of the body. If people ever became satisfied with nothing but material things, they would probably lose, little by little, the very ability to produce them. In the end, they'd enjoy them like animals — without thought and without improvement.

Chapter XVII: In Times of Equality and Skepticism, People Need to Think Long-Term

In ages of faith, the ultimate purpose of life is placed beyond life itself. People in those times naturally — almost involuntarily — train themselves to fix their gaze on some distant, unchanging goal, and they gradually learn to suppress a multitude of small, passing desires in order to satisfy the one great, lasting desire that drives them. When those same people turn to the affairs of this world, the same habits shape their behavior. They set clear, definite long-term objectives and direct all their efforts toward them. They don't chase after some new whim every day; they pursue settled plans and never tire of the pursuit. This explains why religious nations have so often achieved enduring results: while they were focused on the next world, they accidentally discovered the great secret of success in this one. Religion gives people the habit of acting with the future in mind. In this respect, faith is no less useful for happiness in this life than for the life to come — and that is one of its most important political effects.

But as the light of faith dims, people's horizons shrink, as if the end and purpose of human action appears every day to be closer at hand. Once people stop thinking about what happens after death, they quickly slide into a total, almost animal-like indifference to the future — a tendency that fits all too well with certain human instincts. As soon as they lose the habit of placing their greatest hopes in distant events, they naturally rush to gratify their smallest desires without delay. The moment they give up on living forever, they start acting as if they'll only exist for a single day. In skeptical ages, the constant fear is that people will surrender endlessly to their passing impulses and — abandoning anything that can't be achieved without sustained effort — will build nothing great, lasting, or stable.

If a society under these conditions also becomes democratic, the danger intensifies. When everyone is constantly striving to change their position — when an enormous field of competition opens up to all — when wealth is made and lost in the blink of an eye amid the turbulence of democracy — visions of sudden, easy fortunes, of great wealth quickly won and quickly gone, of luck in all its forms, haunt the mind. The instability of society itself feeds the natural instability of human desires. In the midst of all these fluctuations, the present swells in people's minds until it blocks out the future entirely, and they can't see past tomorrow.

In countries where — unfortunately — irreligion and democracy coexist, the most important duty of thinkers and leaders is to constantly push the objects of human effort further into the distance. Constrained by the character of his country and his era, the moral philosopher must learn to make his case from that starting point. He must show his contemporaries that even amid the constant turmoil around them, it's easier than they think to plan and carry out long-term projects. He must teach them that while humanity's circumstances may have changed, the methods for achieving prosperity remain the same — and that in democratic nations, just as everywhere else, lasting happiness can only come from resisting a thousand petty selfish urges of the moment.

The duty of those in power is equally clear. At all times, it matters that leaders govern with the future in mind. But in democratic and skeptical ages, this matters more than ever. By acting this way, the leaders of democracies don't just make public affairs more successful — they also teach private citizens, by example, the art of managing their own lives. Above all, they must work to banish randomness from the world of politics. In an aristocratic country, the sudden, undeserved promotion of a court favorite makes only a passing impression, because the whole structure of institutions and opinions forces people to advance slowly along fixed paths they can't leave. But in a democracy, nothing is more destructive than similar displays of arbitrary favoritism. They give the final push to a public mind already hurtling in a dangerous direction. In skeptical, egalitarian times especially, the favor of the people or the ruler — which luck can grant or withhold — should never substitute for real achievement. Every advancement should clearly be the result of effort, so that no success comes too easily and ambition is forced to fix its gaze on a distant goal before it gets what it wants.

Governments must work to restore in people the love of the future that neither religion nor the conditions of society any longer inspire. Without saying so directly, they need to teach the public every day that wealth, fame, and power are the rewards of hard work — that great success lies at the end of long effort, and that nothing lasting is won without it. When people train themselves to look ahead and anticipate what's coming, they can hardly confine their minds to the narrow boundaries of this life alone. They're ready to break through those limits and look beyond. I have no doubt that by training people to think about their future in this world, you would gradually and unconsciously draw them closer to religious conviction. In this way, the very methods that allow people — up to a point — to get by without religion may turn out to be the only means we still have of leading them back, by a long and roundabout path, to faith.

Chapter XVIII: In America, All Honest Work Is Honorable

In a democratic society, where there's no inherited wealth, everyone either works to earn a living, has worked, or was born to parents who worked. The idea of labor is everywhere — it's understood as the necessary, natural, and honest condition of human life. Not only is work not looked down upon, it's actually honored. The prejudice isn't against labor; it's in favor of it. In the United States, a wealthy person feels obligated by public opinion to devote their leisure to some kind of business, industry, or public service. They'd consider it shameful to spend their life simply living off their money. In fact, this is exactly why so many rich Americans come to Europe — to escape that social pressure to work. In Europe, they can still find remnants of aristocratic society where idleness is considered respectable.

Equality of conditions doesn't just make the idea of work respectable — it also elevates the idea of working for money. In aristocracies, it isn't labor itself that's despised so much as labor done for profit. Work undertaken purely out of ambition or virtue is considered noble. Yet in aristocratic societies, the person who works for honor is never completely indifferent to money. These two motivations blend together — but only deep inside, where no one can see. People carefully hide from everyone, even from themselves, the point where ambition and profit meet. In aristocratic countries, plenty of government officials pretend to serve their country with no thought of personal gain. Their salary is treated as an afterthought, something they barely consider and always pretend to ignore. The idea of profit is kept completely separate from the idea of labor. However closely they're linked in practice, no one thinks of them together.

In democratic societies, it's the opposite — the two ideas are openly and obviously united. Since the desire for well-being is universal, since fortunes are modest or unstable, and since everyone wants either to increase their own resources or build something for their children, people can clearly see that profit is what drives them to work — if not entirely, then at least in large part. Even those who are mainly motivated by the love of fame can't help noticing that this isn't their only motivation. They discover that the desire to make a living is tangled up in their minds with the desire to make a name for themselves.

Once the whole community accepts, on the one hand, that labor is an honorable necessity of the human condition, and on the other, that labor is always performed — openly, wholly or in part — for the purpose of earning money, the vast gap that separated different professions in aristocratic societies disappears. If people aren't all the same, they at least have one thing in common. No profession exists where people don't work for pay, and this shared motivation gives every occupation a family resemblance. This explains the attitude Americans have toward different professions. In America, nobody is degraded by the fact that they work, because everyone around them works too. Nobody is humiliated by the idea of getting paid, because the President of the United States works for pay. He gets paid to lead; others get paid to follow orders. In the United States, some jobs are harder or more lucrative than others, but none are considered high or low. Every honest profession is honorable.

Chapter XIX: Why Nearly All Americans Go into Business

Agriculture is probably the useful art that improves most slowly in democratic nations. In fact, it often seems to stand still while other industries race ahead. On the other hand, almost all the tastes and habits that equality of conditions creates naturally push people toward commerce and industry.

Picture an active, educated, free person with a decent income but plenty of ambition. They're too poor to live in idleness but rich enough not to worry about immediate survival, and they're thinking about how to improve their situation. They've developed a taste for material comforts — thousands of people around them are already enjoying these things — and they've begun sampling these pleasures themselves. Now they're eager to find the means to enjoy them more fully. But life is short and time is pressing — where should they turn? Farming promises a nearly certain return, but a slow one. You don't get rich from agriculture without patience and hard work. Farming is really only suited to people who already have substantial wealth, or to those so poor they're just trying to survive. Someone like the person I've described makes the choice quickly: they sell their plot of land, leave their home, and throw themselves into some risky but potentially lucrative line of work. Democratic societies are full of people like this, and the more equal conditions become, the more of them there are. Democracy doesn't just swell the ranks of working people — it steers them toward particular kinds of work. While it pulls them away from agriculture, it encourages their taste for commerce and manufacturing.

(It's often been noted that businesspeople and manufacturers are especially drawn to material pleasures, and people assume that commerce causes the appetite. But I think that gets the causation backward. The taste for material pleasure isn't created by business — rather, it's that taste which drives people into business in the first place, as the fastest and most effective way to satisfy it. If commerce and manufacturing increase the desire for comfort, it's only because every passion grows stronger the more you feed it. All the forces that make people prioritize material well-being also promote the growth of commerce and manufacturing. Equality of conditions is one of those forces: it encourages trade not by directly giving people a taste for business, but indirectly, by strengthening and expanding their taste for prosperity.)

This commercial mentality can be seen even among the wealthiest members of society. In democracies, no matter how rich someone is, they're almost always dissatisfied with their fortune — because they're less rich than their father was, and they fear their children will be less rich still. Most wealthy people in democracies are therefore constantly driven by the desire to make more money, and they naturally turn to commerce and manufacturing, which seem to offer the quickest and most powerful path to success. In this way, the rich share the instincts of the poor, without feeling the same pressures. Or rather, they feel the most urgent pressure of all: the fear of falling.

In aristocracies, the rich are also the ruling class. The constant attention they give to important public business distracts them from the smaller concerns that commerce and manufacturing demand. If an individual aristocrat does happen to take an interest in business, the will of his social class will quickly pull him back. However much people may rail against the rule of the majority, they can never entirely escape it — and even among those aristocratic groups that most stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the rights of the national majority, an internal majority forms that governs the rest.

(There are exceptions: some aristocracies have thrown themselves enthusiastically into commerce and manufacturing. History offers several notable examples. But generally speaking, the aristocratic principle is not favorable to the growth of trade and industry. The one exception is a money-based aristocracy. In such societies, almost every desire requires wealth to satisfy, and the love of riches becomes the main highway of human ambition, crossing and connecting every lesser road. The love of money and the thirst for the prestige that comes with power get so tangled together that it becomes hard to tell whether people are greedy out of ambition or ambitious out of greed. This is the case in England, where people seek wealth in order to gain distinction, and seek distinction as proof of their wealth. The mind is pulled in both directions at once and hurled into trade and manufacturing — the shortest roads to riches.

But this strikes me as an exceptional and temporary phenomenon. When wealth becomes the only basis of aristocracy, it's very hard for the wealthy to maintain exclusive political power. A birthright aristocracy and pure democracy are the two extremes of social and political organization; a money-based aristocracy sits between them. It resembles birthright aristocracy in granting great privileges to a small number of people, but it has a democratic element in that these privileges can be acquired by anyone. It frequently serves as a natural bridge between the two, and it's hard to say whether it marks the end of the aristocratic era or the beginning of the democratic one.)

In democratic countries, money doesn't lead its possessors to political power — it often pushes them away from it. The rich don't know what to do with their leisure. They're driven into active life by the restlessness and scale of their ambitions, by the size of their resources, and by the appetite for the extraordinary that almost always grips people who have risen — by whatever means — above the crowd. Business is the only road open to them. In democracies, nothing is greater or more glamorous than commerce. It captures the public's attention and fills the popular imagination. Every passionate impulse gets channeled into it. Neither their own prejudices nor anyone else's can keep the rich from plunging in. The wealthy in democracies never form a distinct class with its own customs and rules. They're not held back by the particular opinions of their group, and the general opinion of their country pushes them forward. Besides, since all the large fortunes in a democratic society are built through business, many generations have to pass before their inheritors fully shed the habits of commerce.

Confined to the narrow space that politics leaves them, the rich in democracies eagerly throw themselves into business ventures. There they can deploy and expand their natural advantages. In fact, you can measure how little they would have valued productive industry — had they been born into an aristocratic society — by the very boldness and scale of their commercial ventures now.

The same observation applies to everyone living in a democracy, rich or poor. People living amid democratic turbulence always have the phantom of chance before their eyes, and they end up loving any endeavor where chance plays a role. They're drawn to commerce not just for the profit it promises, but for the thrill of the constant excitement it provides.

The United States had been independent for barely half a century when Tocqueville was writing, and had only recently emerged from colonial dependence on Great Britain. The number of great fortunes was still small, and capital was scarce. Yet no country in the world had made faster progress in trade and manufacturing. The Americans were already the second-greatest maritime power on earth, and although their manufacturers faced nearly impossible natural obstacles, they were making rapid advances every day. In the United States, the largest projects and speculations are carried out without difficulty, because the entire population is engaged in productive work, and the poorest citizens are just as ready as the wealthiest to combine their efforts for these purposes. The result is that visitors are constantly amazed by the immense public works accomplished by a nation that, in effect, has no rich people. The Americans had arrived on their territory only yesterday, yet they had already remade the natural order to serve their advantage. They had connected the Hudson River to the Mississippi and linked the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, spanning a continent of more than five hundred leagues. The longest railroads in the world at that time were in America.

But what astonished me most about the United States was not so much the marvelous scale of certain great enterprises, but the countless number of small ones. Nearly all American farmers combined some business with their farming; most of them treated agriculture itself as a business. It was rare for an American farmer to settle permanently on the land they worked — especially in the Far West, where people brought land under cultivation in order to sell it, not to farm it. They'd build a farmhouse on the speculation that rising population would soon drive up the price. Every year, swarms of Northerners moved into the Southern states to settle where cotton and sugar cane grew. They worked the soil to extract as much wealth from it as they could in a few years, already looking forward to the day they could go home and enjoy what they'd earned. The Americans brought their business instincts to agriculture and displayed their commercial passions there just as openly as in everything else.

The Americans make enormous progress in productive industry precisely because they all throw themselves into it at once. But for this same reason, they are exposed to sudden and devastating setbacks. Since they are all involved in commerce, and since commercial affairs are shaped by so many varied and complex forces, it's impossible to predict what problems might arise. Since virtually everyone is engaged in some form of productive industry, the slightest shock to business puts every private fortune in danger at the same time — and shakes the nation itself. I believe that these recurring financial panics are an endemic disease of democratic nations in our age. The disease can be made less dangerous, but it can't be cured, because it doesn't come from accidental circumstances. It comes from the very temperament of these nations.

Chapter XX: How Manufacturing Creates Its Own Aristocracy

I've shown that democracy promotes the growth of manufacturing and endlessly expands the manufacturing class. Now let's see how manufacturing might, by a side road, lead people back toward aristocracy.

Everyone agrees that when a worker spends every day on the same narrow task, the final product is made more easily, quickly, and cheaply. Everyone also agrees that production costs drop as factories grow larger and as more capital or credit is brought to bear. These truths had long been dimly understood, but in our time they've been clearly demonstrated. They've already been applied to many major industries, and gradually they'll govern even the humblest ones. I know of nothing in politics that deserves a lawmaker's attention more urgently than these two new axioms of manufacturing.

When a worker is constantly and exclusively engaged in making one single thing, they eventually do it with extraordinary skill. But at the same time, they lose the general ability to apply their mind to anything else. They become more dexterous every day and less versatile — so that you could say: as the worker improves, the person degrades. What can you expect from someone who has spent twenty years of their life making heads for pins? What use can that mighty human intelligence — which has so often changed the world — possibly be put to in such a person, except figuring out the best method of making pin heads? When a worker has spent a large portion of their life this way, their thoughts are permanently fixed on the object of their daily labor. Their body has developed certain rigid habits it can never shake off. In short, they no longer belong to themselves — they belong to the job they've chosen. Laws and social norms may have tried to level every barrier around such a person and open a thousand different paths to success. But a logic of manufacturing more powerful than any law or custom binds them to a trade — and often to a single location — that they cannot leave. It assigns them a fixed place in society, beyond which they cannot go. In the midst of universal movement, it has rendered them stationary.

As the principle of the division of labor is applied more extensively, the worker becomes weaker, more narrow-minded, and more dependent. The craft advances; the craftsperson falls behind. Meanwhile, as it becomes increasingly clear that manufactured goods get cheaper and better as factories grow larger and capital investment increases, wealthy and educated people step forward to enter industries that were previously left to poor or uneducated workers. The scale of the effort required and the importance of the potential results attract them. So at the very moment when the science of manufacturing is lowering the class of workers, it's raising the class of owners.

As the worker concentrates more and more narrowly on a single detail, the owner surveys an ever-wider whole. The owner's mind expands in direct proportion to the worker's mind narrowing. Soon the worker needs nothing but physical strength, without intelligence. The owner needs knowledge, and almost genius, to succeed. One increasingly resembles the administrator of a vast empire; the other, a machine. The owner and the worker grow less and less alike, and their differences widen every day. They're connected only like two links at opposite ends of a long chain. Each occupies the position made for them, and neither can leave it. One is continually, closely, and necessarily dependent on the other — and seems as much born to obey as the other is to command. What is this if not aristocracy?

As the general population becomes more equal, the demand for manufactured goods grows more widespread, and the low prices that put these goods within reach of modest incomes become a major competitive advantage. So every day, more wealthy and educated people invest their resources and knowledge in manufacturing, seeking — through large-scale operations and a strict division of labor — to meet the ever-growing demand from all sides. As the mass of the nation moves toward democracy, the particular class engaged in manufacturing becomes more aristocratic. People grow more alike in the one sphere and more different in the other. Inequality increases within the smaller class at the same rate it decreases in society at large. It would seem, then, that if you dig deep enough, aristocracy naturally springs from the very heart of democracy.

But this new aristocracy doesn't resemble the old ones at all. Notice first that because it applies only to manufacturing and a few specific trades, it's a monstrous exception within the larger society. The small aristocratic societies that form inside certain industries, surrounded by the immense democracy of our age, resemble the great aristocratic societies of the past in one way: they contain a few very rich people and a multitude of very poor ones. The poor have few ways to escape their condition and become rich. But the rich are constantly becoming poor or getting out of business once they've made their fortune. So while the elements of the poor class are fixed, the elements of the rich class are not. To be honest, although rich individuals exist, a rich class does not — because these wealthy people share no common feelings, purposes, traditions, or hopes. There are members, but no body.

Not only are the rich not bound together among themselves, there's no real bond between them and the poor. Their positions relative to each other are not permanent; they're constantly drawn together or pulled apart by their interests. The worker generally depends on an employer, but not on any particular employer. These two people meet in the factory but don't know each other outside it. They connect at one point and stand miles apart on everything else. The manufacturer asks nothing of the worker but labor; the worker expects nothing from the manufacturer but wages. One has no obligation to protect, the other no duty to defend. They're not permanently linked by either habit or duty.

The aristocracy created by business rarely lives among the working population it directs. Its goal is not to govern those people but to use them. An aristocracy built this way can't maintain much hold over its workers. Even if it manages to keep them for a while, they slip away. It doesn't know how to lead, and it can't act decisively. The old territorial aristocracy was either required by law, or believed itself required by tradition, to come to the aid of its dependents and relieve their hardships. But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and degrades the people who serve it, then abandons them to be supported by public charity. This is the natural consequence of everything I've just described. Between the worker and the owner there are frequent dealings, but no real partnership.

On the whole, I believe that the manufacturing aristocracy growing up before our eyes is one of the harshest that has ever existed in the world. But at the same time, it is one of the most limited and least dangerous. Still, the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction. For if permanent inequality and a new aristocracy ever make their way back into the world, you can predict that this is the gate through which they will enter.

Book Three: How Democracy Shapes Social Behavior and Interpersonal Relations

Chapter I: How Equality Softens Social Behavior

For several centuries now, social conditions have been trending toward equality, and during the same period, the customs of society have grown gentler. Are these two things merely coincidental, or is there a hidden link between them — so that one can't advance without pulling the other along? Several forces may work to make a people less harsh, but the most powerful of all, it seems to me, is equality of conditions. Equality and growing gentleness in social behavior are, in my view, not just simultaneous developments but related ones.

When fable writers want us to care about the actions of animals, they give them human thoughts and feelings. Poets do the same with angels and spirits. No suffering is deep enough, no happiness pure enough, to move us unless we can see ourselves reflected in it.

This principle applies directly to what we're considering here. When everyone in an aristocratic society is permanently sorted by profession, property, and birth, the members of each class see themselves as part of the same family and feel a constant, lively sympathy for one another — a sympathy that citizens of a democracy can never feel to the same degree. But this feeling doesn't extend between classes. In an aristocratic society, each caste has its own opinions, emotions, rights, customs, and way of life. The people within each caste don't resemble the broader population. They don't think or feel the same way, and they barely believe they belong to the same human race. They can't truly understand what others feel, because they can't judge others by themselves.

Yet they sometimes help one another, and this doesn't contradict what I've just said. Aristocratic institutions made people of the same species profoundly different from one another, but they also bound them together through tight political obligations. Although the serf had no natural interest in the fate of nobles, he still felt obligated to devote himself to the service of whichever noble happened to be his lord. And although the noble considered himself a fundamentally different kind of being from his serfs, he still believed that duty and honor required him to defend, at the risk of his own life, those who lived on his lands.

Clearly, these mutual obligations didn't come from natural law but from social convention. The claim of social duty was more binding than the claim of simple humanity. These services were understood as owed not from one person to another, but from vassal to lord. Feudal institutions awakened deep sympathy for the sufferings of certain people, but none at all for the sufferings of humanity in general. They instilled generosity more than gentleness. And while they inspired great acts of self-sacrifice, they produced no real empathy — because real empathy can only exist between people who see themselves as alike, and in aristocratic ages, people recognized only members of their own class as being like themselves.

When the chroniclers of the Middle Ages — who all belonged to the aristocracy by birth or education — describe the tragic death of a noble, their grief flows freely. But they'll tell you in a single breath, without flinching, about massacres and tortures inflicted on common people. Not because these writers felt habitual hatred or systematic contempt for ordinary people. War between the classes hadn't been declared yet. They were driven by instinct rather than malice. Since they had never formed a clear picture of what a poor person's suffering actually felt like, they simply didn't care much about it.

The lower classes felt the same way whenever feudal bonds broke down. The same ages that witnessed such heroic self-sacrifice by vassals for their lords were also stained by horrific atrocities committed by the lower classes against the upper. Don't assume this mutual indifference came only from a lack of public order or education. Traces of it persisted for centuries afterward, in societies that had become peaceful and educated but remained aristocratic.

In 1675, the common people of Brittany revolted against a new tax. The disturbances were put down with extraordinary brutality. Consider how Madame de Sevigne — a witness to these horrors — describes them in a letter to her daughter:

She writes from her country estate, breezing through pleasant small talk before casually mentioning the news from Rennes: a tax of a hundred thousand crowns has been levied on the townspeople, to be doubled and collected by soldiers if not paid within twenty-four hours. An entire street has been cleared out, its residents banished on pain of death, so that old men, women who had just given birth, and children were seen wandering and weeping, expelled from the city with nowhere to go. A fiddler who had started the unrest was broken on the wheel, then quartered after death, his body parts displayed at the four corners of the city. Sixty citizens have been arrested, and punishments begin tomorrow. "This province," she writes cheerfully, "is a fine example for the others."

In another letter she adds: "You write amusingly about our troubles. We're not breaking people on the wheel so much anymore — only about one every eight days, just to keep justice going. It's true that hanging now seems to me like a relief. I've developed quite a different idea of justice since I've been in this part of the country."

It would be a mistake to think Madame de Sevigne was a selfish or cruel person. She was passionately devoted to her children and quick to sympathize with the sorrows of her friends. Her letters show that she treated her own tenants and servants with kindness and generosity. But Madame de Sevigne simply couldn't imagine the suffering of anyone who wasn't a person of her own class.

In our time, even the most callous person, writing to the most indifferent reader, wouldn't dare to indulge in the casual cruelty I've just quoted. And even if their own character allowed it, the norms of society at large would forbid it. Where does this change come from? Are we more sensitive than our ancestors? I'm not sure we are. But I am sure that our sensitivity extends to a far wider range of people.

When all social ranks are roughly equal, and everyone thinks and feels in much the same way, each person can instantly imagine what the others are experiencing. They need only glance inward, and that's enough. There's no form of suffering they can't readily enter into, and a kind of instinct reveals to them how deep it goes. It doesn't matter whether the sufferers are strangers or enemies. Imagination puts them in the other person's place, and something like a personal feeling mixes with their compassion, making them suffer while another's body is being tortured.

In democratic ages, people rarely sacrifice themselves for one another. But they display a general compassion for all members of the human race. They inflict no pointless cruelty, and they're happy to ease the suffering of others when they can do so without too much cost to themselves. They're not selfless, but they are humane.

Although the Americans have, in a way, turned self-interest into a social and philosophical theory, they are nonetheless remarkably open to compassion. In no country is criminal justice administered with more leniency than in the United States. While the English still seemed intent on preserving the bloody legacy of the Dark Ages in their criminal law, the Americans had virtually eliminated capital punishment from their legal codes. The United States was, I believe, the only country on earth where no citizen had been executed for a political crime in the previous fifty years.

The fact that most clearly proves this American gentleness comes from their social conditions — and not just their civilization — is the way they treated their slaves. There was perhaps no European colony in the Americas where enslaved people were treated less harshly in physical terms than in the United States. Yet enslaved people there still endured terrible suffering and were constantly subject to brutal punishments. It's easy to see that the condition of these people inspired little compassion in their enslavers, who viewed slavery not just as a profitable institution but as a misfortune that didn't really touch them. The same person who was full of humanity toward his fellow human beings when they were his equals became indifferent to their pain the moment that equality disappeared. His gentleness should therefore be attributed to equality of conditions, rather than to civilization or education alone.

What I've observed about individuals applies, to some extent, to nations as well. When each nation has its own distinct beliefs, laws, and customs, it sees itself as the whole of humanity and is moved only by its own sorrows. If war breaks out between two nations with this mindset, it will be waged with great cruelty. At the height of their civilization, the Romans slaughtered their enemies' generals after dragging them in triumph through the streets, and threw their prisoners to wild animals in the arena for public entertainment. Cicero, who protested so passionately against the idea of crucifying a Roman citizen, had nothing to say against these horrific abuses of victory. In his eyes, clearly, a foreigner didn't belong to the same human race as a Roman.

But as nations become more alike, they become more compassionate toward one another, and the conduct of war grows less savage.

Chapter II: How Democracy Makes Everyday Interactions Simple and Easy

Democracy doesn't create strong bonds between people, but it does make their daily interactions much more relaxed. If two Englishmen happen to meet on the other side of the world, surrounded by strangers whose language and customs are completely foreign to them, they'll first stare at each other with intense curiosity and a kind of uneasy suspicion. Then they'll either turn away, or if one approaches the other, they'll be careful to talk only in a stiff, distracted manner about trivial subjects. There's no hostility between these two people. They've never met before, and each assumes the other is perfectly respectable. So why do they keep such wary distance? You have to go back to England to understand.

When birth alone — independent of wealth — determines a person's place in society, everyone knows exactly where they stand on the social ladder. They don't try to climb, and they don't fear falling. In a society organized this way, people from different classes don't interact much. But if chance brings them together, they're perfectly willing to talk, because neither one is hoping or fearing that the encounter will change their position. Their interaction isn't between equals, but it's not strained either.

When an aristocracy of money replaces an aristocracy of birth, everything changes. The privileges of some are still enormous, but the possibility of acquiring those privileges is open to everyone. The people who have them are constantly haunted by the fear of losing them or sharing them. The people who don't have them are desperate to get them — or at least to look like they have them, which isn't impossible. Since social status is no longer permanently fixed by blood but endlessly reshuffled by wealth, ranks still exist, but it's hard to tell at a glance who belongs where. Secret hostilities erupt throughout the community. One group of people uses every trick to break into — or at least appear to break into — the circle above them. Another group is constantly on guard against these intruders. Or rather, the same person does both at once: while trying to push into a higher circle, they're simultaneously fighting to keep out anyone pushing up from below.

This is the condition of England today, and I believe the standoffish English behavior I described is largely explained by it. Since aristocratic pride remains extremely strong in England, but the boundaries of aristocracy are poorly defined, everyone lives in constant fear that someone will take advantage of their friendliness. Unable to instantly judge the social position of the people they meet, an English person cautiously avoids all contact with them. People are afraid that some small kindness might trap them in an inappropriate acquaintance. They dread casual friendliness, and they're just as alarmed by a stranger's gushing gratitude as by their hostility.

Many people attribute these peculiar antisocial tendencies, and the reserved, taciturn character of the English, to purely physical causes — something in the national temperament. There may be something to that. But much more of it comes from their social conditions, as the contrast with the Americans proves.

In America, where the privileges of birth never existed and where wealth gives no one any special social rights, people who don't know each other are perfectly willing to go to the same places and see neither danger nor advantage in freely exchanging their thoughts. If they meet by accident, they neither seek out the interaction nor avoid it. Their manner is natural, frank, and open. You can see at once that they neither expect anything from each other nor worry about it, and that they're not trying to display their position in the world any more than to hide it. If their demeanor is sometimes cool and serious, it's never arrogant or guarded. If they don't talk, it's because they don't feel like talking — not because they think silence serves their interests.

In a foreign country, two Americans are instant friends, simply because they're Americans. No prejudice pushes them apart; their shared nationality pulls them together. For two Englishmen, shared blood isn't enough — they need to share the same social rank. The Americans notice this English standoffishness just as much as the French do, and they find it just as baffling. Yet the Americans are connected to England by their origins, their religion, their language, and partly by their customs. They differ only in their social conditions. It's safe to conclude, then, that the reserve of the English comes from the structure of their society far more than from the character of their people.

Chapter III: Why Americans Are So Easygoing at Home but So Touchy in Europe

Americans have a vindictive streak, like all serious and reflective peoples. They rarely forget an offense — but it's not easy to offend them in the first place. Their resentment is as slow to flare up as it is to fade.

In aristocratic societies, where a small number of people run everything, social interactions follow elaborate, settled rules. Everyone thinks they know exactly what degree of respect or condescension they're supposed to display, and no one is allowed to claim ignorance of the etiquette code. The customs of the upper class serve as a model for everyone below them, and each lower class develops its own code that all its members must follow. The result is that politeness becomes a complex system of legislation — hard to master perfectly, but dangerous to violate. People are constantly at risk of unintentionally giving or receiving serious offense.

But as class distinctions fade — as people from different backgrounds and education levels meet and mingle in the same places — it becomes almost impossible to agree on the rules of good behavior. Since the code is uncertain, breaking it isn't really a crime, even in the eyes of those who know what the rules are. People start paying more attention to intentions than to forms. They become less polite, but at the same time less quarrelsome. There are plenty of small courtesies that Americans simply don't care about. They figure these gestures aren't owed to them, or they assume the other person doesn't know they're expected. So an American either doesn't notice a slight or simply forgives it. Their manners become less refined, and their character becomes more straightforward and direct.

The easygoing tolerance Americans show each other, and the confident familiarity with which they interact, also spring from a deeper and more fundamental cause that I mentioned in the previous chapter. In the United States, class distinctions in everyday life are minor; in political life, they're nonexistent. An American doesn't feel obligated to pay special attention to any of his fellow citizens, and he doesn't expect such attention from them either. Since he sees no reason to eagerly seek out anyone's company, he's slow to assume that anyone is avoiding his. Because he looks down on no one based on social standing, it doesn't occur to him that anyone would look down on him for the same reason. Until he's clearly perceived an insult, he doesn't assume one was intended. American social conditions naturally train people not to take offense at small things — and the democratic freedom they enjoy reinforces this same mildness of character throughout the nation. The political institutions of the United States constantly bring citizens of every rank into contact and push them to pursue major projects together. People engaged in that kind of collaboration have little time for the finer points of etiquette, and they're too invested in getting along to get stuck on trivialities. They quickly develop the habit of caring more about people's feelings and opinions than about their manners, and they don't let themselves get annoyed by small things.

I've often noticed in the United States that it's not easy to make someone understand that his presence is unwanted. Hints don't always work. I'll contradict an American at every turn, trying to show him that his conversation bores me. He immediately redoubles his efforts to convince me. I lapse into stubborn silence — he thinks I'm deeply pondering the truths he's sharing. I finally bolt from the room, and he figures I must have urgent business elsewhere. This man will never understand that he's boring me to death unless I tell him directly. The only way to get rid of him is to make him my enemy for life.

It seems surprising at first that this same man, transported to Europe, suddenly becomes so sensitive and prickly that it's as hard to avoid offending him here as it was to provoke him back home. But these two opposite effects come from the same cause. Democratic institutions generally give people a lofty sense of their country and themselves. An American leaves home with a heart swelling with pride. When he arrives in Europe, he immediately discovers that we're not as fascinated by the United States and its great people as he assumed — and this starts to irritate him. He's been told that social conditions aren't equal in our part of the world, and he observes that in European nations the traces of rank haven't been fully erased. Wealth and birth still carry vague privileges that force themselves on his attention even though they resist precise definition. So he's profoundly confused about where he should place himself in this half-ruined hierarchy of classes — classes that are distinct enough to hate and despise each other, yet similar enough that he keeps mixing them up. He's afraid of ranking himself too high — but even more afraid of being ranked too low. This double anxiety keeps him perpetually on edge and makes everything he says and does feel awkward.

He learns from tradition that in Europe, ceremonial customs used to vary enormously by rank, and this memory of the old system only deepens his confusion. He becomes increasingly anxious about not receiving the marks of respect he's owed — especially since he doesn't know exactly what those marks are. He's like a man surrounded by traps. Social life isn't entertainment for him — it's serious work. He weighs your every gesture, studies your expressions, and scrutinizes everything you say, in case it contains some hidden insult. I doubt there was ever an aristocratic provincial gentleman as obsessed with propriety as this American abroad. He tries to follow every rule of etiquette and refuses to let any of them be waived for himself. He's full of both scruples and pretensions; he wants to do enough but fears doing too much. And since he doesn't quite know the boundaries of either, he maintains a haughty, nervous air of reserve.

But there's more — here's another twist of the human heart. An American is forever talking about the wonderful equality of the United States. He openly boasts about it. But secretly he regrets it — for himself, at least — and he's desperate to show that he, personally, is an exception to the general condition he praises. You'll hardly meet an American who doesn't claim some distant connection to the original colonial founders. As for descendants of English noble families, America seemed to me to be overflowing with them. When a wealthy American arrives in Europe, his first concern is to surround himself with every luxury money can buy. He's so afraid of being taken for an ordinary citizen of a democracy that he invents a hundred contorted ways to remind you of his wealth at every opportunity. His house will be in the most fashionable part of town; he'll always be surrounded by a crowd of servants. I once heard an American complain that even in the best Parisian homes, the company was rather mixed and the taste not refined enough for him. He ventured to suggest that, in his opinion, there was a certain lack of elegance. He couldn't get used to seeing brilliant conversation hidden behind such unassuming exteriors.

These contrasts shouldn't surprise us. If the remnants of aristocratic distinctions weren't so completely erased in the United States, Americans would be less simple and less tolerant in their own country — and they'd demand less, and be less eager to borrow refined manners, when they come to ours.

Chapter IV: Consequences of the Three Preceding Chapters

When people feel a natural compassion for each other's suffering — when they interact easily and frequently, and no prickly sensibilities keep them apart — it's natural to expect that they'll help one another whenever help is needed. When an American asks for his fellow citizens' cooperation, he's rarely refused. I've often seen it given spontaneously and with genuine goodwill. If an accident happens on the road, everyone rushes to help. If some great and sudden disaster strikes a family, a thousand strangers willingly open their wallets, and small but numerous donations pour in to ease the distress. In many of the most civilized nations on earth, a poor person can be as friendless in the middle of a crowd as someone stranded alone in the wilderness. This is almost never the case in the United States. Americans, who are often cold and sometimes blunt in their social interactions, rarely show true indifference. They may not eagerly offer their services, but they don't refuse to provide them either.

None of this contradicts what I said earlier about individualism. The two things are so far from being at odds that I can see how they fit together. Equality of conditions, while making people feel their independence, also shows them their own weakness. They're free, but exposed to a thousand accidents — and experience quickly teaches them that although they don't usually need other people's help, the time almost always comes when they can't do without it. We constantly see in Europe that people in the same profession are always ready to help each other. They're all exposed to the same risks, and that's enough to teach them to seek mutual protection, however hard-hearted and selfish they may otherwise be. When one of them falls into danger that the others could prevent with a small, temporary sacrifice or a quick effort, they don't hesitate to act. It's not that they're deeply invested in his fate — if their efforts happen to fail, they immediately forget the whole thing and go back to their own business. But a kind of tacit, almost unconscious agreement has formed among them: each person owes the others a temporary helping hand, which he can claim for himself in return.

Apply to an entire people what I've just said about a profession, and you'll understand my point. A similar agreement exists, in practice, among all the citizens of a democracy. They all feel subject to the same weaknesses and the same dangers, and their self-interest, as much as their sympathy, makes it a rule to lend each other help when needed. The more equal social conditions become, the more people display this willingness to help one another. In democracies, no one confers great favors, but small kindnesses are constantly exchanged. Individuals rarely show heroic self-sacrifice, but everyone is ready to be of service.

Chapter V: How Democracy Changes the Relationship Between Masters and Servants

An American who had traveled extensively in Europe once told me: "The English treat their servants with a stiffness and imperiousness that surprises us. But the French sometimes treat their attendants with a familiarity or politeness we can't fathom. It's as if they're afraid to give orders — the whole dynamic between superior and inferior is badly maintained." The observation was spot on, and I've often thought the same thing myself. I've always considered England the country where, in our time, the bond of domestic service is drawn tightest, and France the country where it's loosest. Nowhere have I seen masters stand so high or so low as in these two countries. Americans fall somewhere between these extremes. That's how things look on the surface; to understand the causes, we need to dig deeper.

No society has ever existed where conditions were so equal that there were neither rich nor poor, and therefore neither masters nor servants. Democracy doesn't eliminate these two classes — it changes their attitudes and transforms their relationship. In aristocratic nations, servants form a distinct class, no more varied in its composition than the class of masters. A settled hierarchy soon takes shape in both groups, with numerous ranks and clear gradations, and generations succeed each other without any change in position. These two communities are stacked one above the other, always separate but governed by similar principles. This aristocratic structure shapes the thinking and customs of servants no less powerfully than those of masters. The effects are different, but the cause is the same. Both classes form small communities within the larger nation, and over time, each develops its own fixed ideas of right and wrong. The acts of daily life are viewed through one particular, unchanging lens. In the world of servants, as in the world of masters, people exert a powerful influence over one another. They follow established rules, and where law is absent, a kind of public opinion guides them. Their habits are settled; their behavior is kept in check.

These people, whose lot is to serve, obviously don't think about fame, virtue, honesty, and honor in the same way their masters do. But they have their own pride, their own virtue, their own standards — rooted in their condition. They have, if I can put it this way, a kind of professional honor as servants. Just because a class is lowly doesn't mean everyone in it is low-spirited — that would be a serious mistake. However humble the class, the person who stands at the top of it, with no thought of leaving it, holds what amounts to an aristocratic position. It inspires lofty feelings, pride, and self-respect that fit him for higher virtues and nobler actions than you might expect. In aristocratic nations, it was not at all rare to find servants of noble and vigorous character who felt no degradation in their service and submitted to their masters' will without any fear of displeasure. But this was almost never true at the lowest ranks of domestic service. The person at the very bottom of the servant hierarchy stood very low indeed. The French coined a specific word for the servants of the aristocracy — they called them "lackeys." This word served as the ultimate expression of human contempt, used when every other word had been exhausted. Under the old French monarchy, to describe a low-spirited, contemptible person in a single phrase, you'd say he had "the soul of a lackey." That said it all.

(Tocqueville adds a footnote here: if you examine the core beliefs of the servant class in aristocracies closely, the resemblance to the aristocracy itself is even more striking. You find the same pride of birth, the same respect for ancestors and descendants, the same disdain for inferiors, the same horror of mixing with the wrong people, the same taste for etiquette, precedent, and tradition.)

The permanent inequality of conditions doesn't just give servants certain distinctive virtues and vices — it places them in a specific relationship with their masters. In aristocratic nations, the poor are familiarized from childhood with the idea of being commanded. Everywhere they look, they see the layered structure of society and the face of obedience. This is why masters in such countries easily obtain prompt, complete, respectful, and willing obedience from their servants — because servants revere not just the individual master but the entire class of masters. The whole weight of the aristocracy presses down on the servant's will. The master directs their actions — and to some extent, even their thoughts. In aristocracies, the master often exercises, without even realizing it, an astonishing influence over the opinions, habits, and customs of those who serve him. His influence extends even further than his formal authority.

In aristocratic societies, there are hereditary families of servants as well as masters, and the same servant families stay attached to the same master families for generations — like two parallel lines that neither meet nor separate. This profoundly shapes the relationship between the two classes. Although in aristocratic society master and servant bear no natural resemblance to each other — though they stand, in fortune, education, and outlook, at an immense distance on the scale of human existence — time eventually binds them together. They're connected by a long chain of shared memories. However different they may be, they grow alike over the years. In democracies, by contrast, where master and servant are naturally almost alike, they always remain strangers to each other. In an aristocratic society, the master comes to regard his servants as an inferior, secondary extension of himself, and he often takes an interest in their welfare through a final stretch of self-regard.

Servants, for their part, are not unwilling to see themselves the same way. They sometimes identify so completely with the master that they become an appendage of him — in their own eyes as much as in his. In aristocracies, a servant occupies a subordinate position he can never escape. Above him is another person holding a superior rank he can never lose. On one side: obscurity, poverty, and obedience for life. On the other — also for life — fame, wealth, and command. The two conditions are always distinct and always in close proximity; the bond connecting them is as permanent as they are. In this situation, the servant eventually detaches his sense of self-interest from his own person. He abandons himself, in a way — or rather, he transplants himself into the character of his master, adopting an imaginary personality. He proudly clothes himself in his master's wealth, basks in his fame, elevates himself through his rank, and feeds his mind on borrowed greatness, to which he attaches even more importance than those who actually possess it.

There's something both touching and ridiculous in this strange blending of two separate lives. When a master's passions pass into the soul of a servant, they shrink to fit the space they occupy. What was pride in the master becomes petty vanity and cheap ostentation in the servant. A great man's servants are typically the ones most obsessed with the marks of respect due to him; they care more about his smallest privileges than he does himself. In France you can still find a few of these old servants of the aristocracy here and there. They've outlived their era, and that era will soon vanish entirely with them. In the United States, I never encountered anyone remotely like them. Americans are not only unfamiliar with this kind of person — it's nearly impossible to make them understand that such people ever existed. It's almost as hard for them to imagine as it would be for us to truly grasp what a slave was in ancient Rome, or a serf in the Middle Ages. All these figures were, in different degrees, products of the same cause. They're all fading from sight, disappearing into the past along with the social conditions that created them.

Equality of conditions transforms both servants and masters into new kinds of people and places them in a new relationship. When social conditions are roughly equal, people are constantly changing their situations in life. There's still a class of servants and a class of masters, but these classes aren't always made up of the same individuals, much less the same families. Those who command are no more certain of staying in power than those who obey. Since servants don't form a separate caste, they have no distinctive habits, prejudices, or customs of their own. They don't exhibit any particular mindset or temperament unique to their condition. They have no special vices or virtues of their station; instead, they share the education, opinions, feelings, virtues, and vices of everyone around them. They're honest people or scoundrels in exactly the same way their employers are. Servants' conditions are no less equal than masters'. Since there are no fixed ranks or permanent hierarchies among them, they display neither the degradation nor the grandeur that characterized the aristocracy of servants — just as with every other aristocracy. I never met anyone in the United States who reminded me of the old confidential household servants we still remember in Europe. Nor did I ever encounter anything resembling a lackey. Every trace of both types has disappeared.

In democracies, servants are not only equal among themselves — in a sense, they're equal to their masters. This needs explanation to be properly understood. At any moment, a servant may become a master, and he aspires to exactly that. The servant is not, therefore, a fundamentally different kind of person from the master. So why does one have the right to command and what compels the other to obey? The free and temporary consent of both parties. Neither is naturally inferior to the other; they become so only for a time, by contract. Within the terms of that contract, one is a servant and the other a master. Beyond it, they're two citizens — two equals. I want the reader to note especially that this isn't merely how servants see their own condition. Masters view domestic service in exactly the same light. The precise limits of authority and obedience are as clearly settled in the master's mind as in the servant's.

When most of the population has long enjoyed roughly equal conditions, and when equality is an old and accepted fact, public opinion — which is never swayed by exceptions — establishes general limits on what any person is worth. No one can long remain placed above or below those limits. It's useless for wealth and poverty, authority and obedience, to temporarily place great distances between two people. Public opinion, grounded in the normal order of things, pulls them toward a common level and creates a kind of imaginary equality between them — despite the real inequality of their circumstances. This all-powerful opinion eventually penetrates even the hearts of those whose self-interest should make them resist it. It shapes their judgment while it bends their will. In their deepest convictions, master and servant no longer perceive any fundamental difference between them, and they neither hope nor fear that they ever will. They feel neither contempt nor anger toward each other; they see in each other neither humility nor pride. The master considers the employment contract the sole source of his authority, and the servant regards it as the sole basis of his obedience. They don't argue about their respective positions. Each knows his own and keeps to it.

In the French army, the common soldier comes from roughly the same social class as the officer, and he can hold the same commissions. Off duty, he considers himself entirely equal to his military superiors — and in fact, he is. But when under arms, he obeys without hesitation, and his obedience is no less prompt, precise, and willing for being voluntary and clearly defined. This example gives a fair picture of what happens between masters and servants in democratic societies.

It would be absurd to expect that the warm, deep attachments sometimes kindled by domestic service in aristocracies will ever develop between these two people, or that they'll show dramatic instances of self-sacrifice. In aristocracies, masters and servants live apart; their only contact often comes through an intermediary. Yet they commonly stand firmly by one another. In democratic countries, master and servant are physically close — they're in daily personal contact. But their minds don't intermingle. They share the same work space; they almost never share the same interests. In such a society, the servant always sees himself as a temporary resident in his employer's household. He knows nothing of their ancestors and will see nothing of their descendants. He has nothing lasting to expect from them. Why, then, would he merge his life with theirs? Where would such a strange surrender of self come from? The positions of the two people have changed — their relationship must change too.

I would gladly illustrate all these observations with examples from America, but the distinctions between regions and people need to be carefully drawn. In the South, slavery exists, so everything I've just said is inapplicable there. In the North, the majority of servants are either freed Black people or their children. These people occupy a contested position in public opinion: the laws raise them to the level of their employers, while the customs of the country stubbornly push them back down. They don't clearly know their own place, and they're almost always either defiant or submissive. But in the Northern states, especially New England, there are a certain number of white workers who agree, for wages, to temporarily follow the directions of their fellow citizens. I've heard that these servants generally perform their duties with punctuality and skill — and that without thinking themselves naturally inferior to the person giving orders, they comply without reluctance. They seem to me to bring into service some of the independent, self-respecting habits that equality breeds. Having chosen a tough line of work, they don't try to escape it through back channels. They have enough self-respect not to refuse their employer the obedience they freely promised. For their part, employers require nothing of their servants beyond the faithful and rigorous performance of the agreement. They don't ask for shows of deference; they don't demand love or devoted attachment. It's enough that, as servants, they're reliable and honest. So it wouldn't be true to say that in democratic society the relationship between servants and masters is disorganized. It's organized on a different basis. The rules have changed, but there are rules.

It's not my purpose to decide whether this new state of things is inferior to what came before, or simply different. It's enough for me that it's settled and defined — because what matters most in human affairs is not any particular arrangement, but having some arrangement at all. But what can I say about those troubled, painful times when equality is being established in the midst of revolutionary upheaval — when democracy has been introduced into the social order but still struggles against the old prejudices and customs? The laws, and partly public opinion, already declare that no natural or permanent inferiority exists between servant and master. But this new belief hasn't yet reached the master's deepest convictions — or rather, his heart rejects it. In the secret corners of his mind, he still thinks he belongs to a special, superior class. He doesn't dare say so, but he shudders as he allows himself to be dragged down to the same level. His authority over his servants becomes timid and harsh at the same time. He has already stopped feeling the patronizing kindness that long, unquestioned power always produces, and he's surprised that as he changes, his servant changes too. He wants his servants to form regular, permanent habits — in a condition of service that is only temporary. He expects them to seem contented and proud of a subordinate role they'll one day throw off. He demands that they sacrifice themselves for a person who can neither protect nor ruin them — and, in short, that they enter into an unbreakable commitment to someone who is their equal and who will last no longer than they will.

In aristocratic nations, the condition of domestic service often doesn't degrade those who enter it, because they know no other life and can't imagine one. The vast inequality between them and their master seems like the necessary, inevitable result of some hidden law of Providence. In democracies, domestic service doesn't degrade people either, because it's freely chosen, adopted for a limited time, carries no social stigma, and creates no permanent inequality between servant and master. But during the transition from one social order to another, there's almost always a period when people's minds waver between the aristocratic idea of subjection and the democratic idea of contractual obedience. Obedience loses its moral weight in the eyes of those who obey. They no longer see it as a kind of sacred obligation, but they don't yet see it in purely practical terms either. It has neither the character of something holy nor something just, and they submit to it as a degrading but profitable arrangement.

At that moment, a confused and incomplete vision of equality haunts the minds of servants. They can't immediately tell whether the equality they're entitled to exists within domestic service or outside it, and they rebel in their hearts against a subordination they've voluntarily accepted and from which they profit. They consent to serve, but they're ashamed to obey. They like the advantages of service but not the master — or rather, they're not sure they shouldn't be masters themselves, and they're inclined to see the person giving orders as an unjust usurper of their own rights.

Then every household becomes a scene somewhat like the grim spectacle of political society in turmoil. A secret, internal war goes on between powers that are perpetually rivals and suspicious of each other. The master is ill-tempered and weak; the servant is ill-tempered and defiant. One constantly tries to evade his obligation to protect and pay fairly; the other tries to evade his obligation to obey. The reins of domestic authority dangle between them, ready to be snatched by either side. The lines separating authority from oppression, freedom from lawlessness, and right from might are so tangled in their eyes that no one knows exactly what he is, what he could be, or what he should be. That condition isn't democracy — it's revolution.

Chapter VI: How Democratic Institutions and Customs Tend to Raise Rents and Shorten Leases

What I've said about servants and masters applies, to some extent, to landowners and tenant farmers — but this subject deserves its own treatment. In America, strictly speaking, there are no tenant farmers: every person owns the land they work. It's true that democratic laws tend to increase the number of landowners and decrease the number of tenants. Yet what happens in the United States is much less the result of its institutions than of the country itself. In America, land is cheap and anyone can easily become a landowner. The returns are small, and the profits can't easily be split between an owner and a tenant. So America stands alone in this respect, as in many others, and it would be a mistake to use it as the typical example.

I believe that in democratic countries, just as in aristocratic ones, there will always be landowners and tenants — but the relationship between them will be fundamentally different. In aristocracies, rent isn't the only thing a tenant pays the landlord. He also pays in respect, deference, and obligation. In democracies, the whole transaction is in cash. When estates are divided up and passed from hand to hand — when the permanent bond between families and the land is dissolved — the landowner and tenant come together only by chance. They meet for a moment to settle the terms of an agreement, then lose sight of each other. They're two strangers brought together by a shared financial interest, negotiating a business deal whose sole purpose is to make money.

As property gets subdivided and wealth spreads more evenly across the country, the community fills up with people whose old fortunes are shrinking and others whose new fortunes are growing — but whose desires expand faster than their resources. For all of these people, the smallest financial gain matters, and none of them are inclined to give up any of their claims or lose any portion of their income. As class distinctions blur, and as both great and tiny fortunes become rarer, the social position of the landowner moves closer to that of the tenant every day. Neither has any natural, undisputed superiority over the other. Between two people who are equals and both feel financially squeezed, the lease becomes purely a business transaction. A landowner whose estate covers an entire district and who has a hundred farms is well aware how important it is to win the loyalty of thousands of tenants at once. That goal seems worth his effort, and he'll make considerable sacrifices to achieve it. But a landowner with a hundred acres isn't moved by such considerations — he cares little about winning his tenant's personal affection.

An aristocracy doesn't die like a person, all at once. The aristocratic principle is slowly undermined in people's minds before it's attacked in their laws. Long before open war is declared against it, you can see the bond between the upper and lower classes gradually loosening. One class shows indifference and contempt; the other shows jealousy and resentment. Contact between rich and poor becomes less frequent and less kind — and rents go up. This isn't the result of a democratic revolution; it's the warning sign of one. An aristocracy that has lost the affection of the people, once and for all, is like a tree dead at the root — the higher its branches have spread, the more easily the wind tears it down.

Over the past fifty years, farm rents have risen dramatically, not only in France but across most of Europe. The remarkable advances in agriculture and manufacturing during the same period aren't enough, in my opinion, to explain this fact. We need to look for another cause — more powerful and more hidden. I believe that cause is the democratic institutions several European nations have adopted, and the democratic passions that are stirring, to varying degrees, in all the rest. I've frequently heard wealthy English landowners congratulate themselves on earning far more from their estates than their fathers did. They may have good reason to celebrate. But they certainly don't understand what they're celebrating. What looks like a clear profit is really just an exchange: they're trading influence for cash. And what they gain in money, they'll soon lose in power.

There's yet another sign that a great democratic revolution is underway or approaching. In the Middle Ages, nearly all land was leased for lifetimes or for very long terms. The records of that era show that ninety-nine-year leases were more common then than twelve-year leases are now. People believed that families were immortal. Social conditions seemed fixed forever, and the entire structure of society appeared so permanent that no one imagined anything could ever disturb it. In ages of equality, the human mind works differently. The prevailing sense is that nothing lasts, and people are haunted by the thought of change. Under this impression, both the landowner and the tenant instinctively resist long-term commitments. They're afraid of being locked in tomorrow by an agreement that benefits them today. They have vague premonitions of some sudden, unforeseen change in their circumstances. They distrust themselves — they fear their own tastes will shift, and they'll regret being unable to escape what they once wanted. These fears aren't unfounded. In democratic ages, the most restless thing amid all the restlessness is the human heart.

Chapter VII: The Influence of Democracy on Wages

Most of what I've already said about servants and masters applies equally to employers and workers. As the rungs of the social ladder grow less visible — as the powerful come down while the humble rise, and as neither wealth nor poverty remains hereditary — the distance between worker and employer, in reality and in perception, shrinks every day. Workers develop a higher opinion of their rights, their future, and themselves. They're filled with new ambition and new desires; they're driven by new needs. They constantly eye their employer's profits and, wanting a share, they push to sell their labor at a higher price — and they generally succeed in the end.

In democratic countries, as elsewhere, most branches of industry are run on thin margins by people who aren't much wealthier or better educated than those they employ. These small-scale business owners are extremely numerous. Their interests differ, so they can't easily coordinate or combine their efforts. On the other hand, workers almost always have some fallback resources that allow them to refuse to work when they can't get what they consider a fair price for their labor. In the ongoing struggle over wages between these two groups, their strength is roughly balanced, and success goes back and forth. It's even likely that over time, the workers' side will prevail — because the high wages they've already won make them a little less dependent on their employers every day, and as they grow more independent, they gain even more leverage to push wages higher.

Let me take as an example the branch of industry that's still the most widely practiced in France and in most of the world: farming. In France, most agricultural laborers own small plots of land that allow them to survive without working for anyone else. When these workers offer their services to a neighboring landowner or farmer, they can walk away if he refuses their price and fall back on their own small property while waiting for a better opportunity.

Taking the big picture, I think it's fair to say that a slow and gradual rise in wages is one of the general laws of democratic societies. As social conditions grow more equal, wages rise; and as wages rise, social conditions grow more equal.

But there is a major and ominous exception in our own time. I showed in an earlier chapter that aristocracy, driven out of political life, has taken refuge in certain sectors of industry and established its dominance there in a new form. This has a powerful effect on wages. Because it takes enormous capital to enter the large-scale manufacturing operations I'm talking about, the number of people who can do so is extremely small. Being few, they can easily coordinate and set wages however they please. Their workers, on the other hand, are extremely numerous — and their numbers keep growing. From time to time, an extraordinary boom occurs during which wages spike, drawing the surrounding population into the factories. But once people have entered that line of work, as we've already seen, they can't easily leave it, because they quickly develop physical and mental habits that make them unfit for any other kind of labor. These workers generally have little education, few skills, and almost no savings. They stand nearly at the mercy of the employer.

When competition or other market forces cut into the employer's profits, he can slash his workers' wages almost at will, taking from them what he loses through the ups and downs of business. If the workers strike, the employer — being a rich man — can wait them out without being ruined. But the workers must work every day or they starve, since their only asset is their labor. They've long been ground down by exploitation, and the poorer they become, the more easily they can be exploited further. They can never escape this vicious cycle of cause and effect.

It's no surprise, then, that wages in this branch of industry sometimes spike suddenly but are permanently driven down over time — while in other fields, the price of labor rises slowly but steadily.

This state of dependence and misery, in which part of the industrial workforce now lives, is an exception to the general trend — the opposite of what's happening to everyone else. But for that very reason, no circumstance is more important or more deserving of lawmakers' urgent attention. When all of society is in motion, it's hard to keep any one class standing still. And when the great majority of people are opening new paths to prosperity, it's equally hard to force the few to endure their poverty and frustration in silence.

Chapter VIII: The Influence of Democracy on the Family

I've just examined how equality of conditions changes the relationships between different members of the community in democratic nations, and among Americans in particular. Now I want to go deeper and look at the more intimate bonds of family. My goal here isn't to discover new truths, but to show how facts already known connect to my larger subject.

It's been widely observed that in our time, family members relate to each other on an entirely new footing — that the distance separating a father from his children has shrunk, and that parental authority, if not destroyed, has at least been weakened. Something similar, but even more striking, can be seen in the United States. In America, the family in the old Roman and aristocratic sense of the word doesn't exist. All that remains of it are a few traces in early childhood, when a father exercises, without opposition, the absolute domestic authority that his children's helplessness requires and that his own unquestioned superiority justifies. But as soon as a young American approaches adulthood, the bonds of obedience loosen day by day. Master of his own thoughts, he's soon master of his own actions. In America, there is, strictly speaking, no adolescence. At the end of boyhood the adult appears and begins to chart his own course.

It would be wrong to think this is preceded by some domestic power struggle in which the child wrests freedom from a reluctant parent through a kind of moral force. The same habits and principles that drive the child to assert his independence also lead the parent to consider that independence an undeniable right. The child doesn't exhibit the resentful, disorderly passions that haunt people long after they've thrown off an established authority. The parent doesn't feel the bitter, angry regret that tends to linger after lost power. The father sees the limits of his authority coming long in advance, and when the moment arrives, he surrenders it without a fight. The child looks ahead to the exact moment when he'll be his own master, and he steps into his freedom without haste or struggle — as something that belongs to him and that no one is trying to take away.

(Tocqueville adds here: Americans haven't yet gone as far as France, however, in stripping parents of a key element of parental authority — the power to dispose of property at death. In the United States, there are no restrictions on a person's right to leave property to whomever they choose. In this respect, as in many others, American political legislation is far more democratic than French political legislation, while French civil legislation is far more democratic than American civil legislation. This is easily explained. France's civil code was the work of a man — Napoleon — who saw it was in his interest to satisfy the democratic passions of his time in everything that didn't directly threaten his own power. He was happy to let democratic principles govern the distribution of property and the structure of families, as long as those principles didn't creep into public administration. While the flood of democracy swept over civil law, he hoped to take easy shelter behind the walls of political institutions. The strategy was both clever and selfish, but such a compromise couldn't last. In the end, political institutions always become the mirror of civil society. In that sense, nothing in a nation is more political than its civil laws.)

It may be useful to show how these changes within the family are closely connected to the social and political revolution we're witnessing unfold. There are certain fundamental social principles that a people either applies everywhere or tolerates nowhere. In aristocratically organized countries, with all their careful gradations of rank, the government never appeals directly to the mass of the governed. Since people are linked together in a chain, it's enough to lead the first link — the rest follow. This applies to the family just as much as to any other hierarchy with a head. In aristocratic nations, social institutions recognize, in practice, only one person in the family: the father. Children are presented to society through him; society governs him, and he governs them. The parent holds not only a natural right but a political right to command his children. He is the creator and the provider of his family, but he's also its official ruler. In democracies, where the government deals with every individual directly, pulling each person from the mass to make them subject to the common laws, no such intermediary is needed. In the eyes of the law, a father is simply a member of the community — older and wealthier than his children, but nothing more.

When most conditions in life are extremely unequal and that inequality is permanent, people develop a deep-seated sense that some are naturally superior. Even if the law grants no special privileges, custom and public opinion fill the gap. But when people differ only slightly from one another and don't stay permanently in different circumstances, the whole notion of a natural superior grows weaker and hazier. Lawmakers can try all they want to place the one who obeys far beneath the one who commands — the customs of the time pull the two closer together and draw them daily toward the same level. Even if the laws of an aristocratic society gave no special privileges to the heads of families, I'd still be convinced that their power would be more respected and more extensive than in a democracy. I know that, whatever the laws say, superiors always appear higher and inferiors always appear lower in aristocracies than in democratic nations.

When people live more in the memory of the past than in the concerns of the present — when they care more about what their ancestors thought than about thinking for themselves — the father becomes the natural and necessary link between past and present, the connection between two chains. In aristocracies, then, the father isn't just the civil head of the family; he's the keeper of its traditions, the interpreter of its customs, the judge of its values. He is listened to with deference and addressed with respect, and the love people feel for him is always mixed with fear.

When social conditions become democratic and people adopt the general principle that it's right and good to judge everything for yourself — treating inherited beliefs not as binding rules but simply as useful information — the father's influence over his children's thinking shrinks along with his legal power.

Perhaps the division of property that democracy brings about does more than anything else to change the relationship between parents and children. When a family's wealth is modest, father and children constantly live in the same place and share the same work. Habit and necessity bring them together and force them into constant communication. The inevitable result is a kind of easy intimacy that makes authority less absolute and that doesn't sit well with formal shows of respect. Now, in democratic countries, the class of people with modest fortunes is precisely the one that sets the tone and direction for the whole community. That class's opinions become universal, and even those most inclined to resist them are carried along in the end. I've known fierce opponents of democracy who let their own children address them with complete casual familiarity.

So, as the power of aristocracy declines, the formal, conventional, and legal aspects of parental authority fade away, and a kind of equality settles around the family hearth. I'm not entirely sure whether society as a whole gains or loses from this change, but I'm inclined to think that individuals gain by it. I believe that as customs and laws become more democratic, the relationship between parent and child becomes more intimate and more affectionate. Rules and authority are discussed less; trust and warmth grow. The natural bond seems to tighten in proportion as the social bond loosens.

In a democratic family, the father exercises no power beyond what people naturally grant to the affection and experience of age. His orders might go unheeded, but his advice is usually influential. He may not be surrounded by ceremonial respect, but his children approach him with confidence. There's no special formal language for addressing him, but they talk to him constantly and readily seek his counsel every day. The master and official ruler have vanished — but the father remains.

Nothing illustrates the difference between these two kinds of society better than reading the family correspondence of aristocratic eras. The style is always correct, ceremonious, stiff, and so cold that the natural warmth of the heart can barely be felt through the language. In democratic countries, by contrast, a child's letters to a parent are always marked by a blend of openness, familiarity, and affection that instantly reveals a new kind of family relationship.

A similar transformation takes place in the relationships between siblings. In aristocratic families, as in aristocratic society, every position is marked out in advance. Not only does the father hold a separate rank with extensive privileges, but even the children aren't equal among themselves. Age and sex irrevocably determine each child's rank and guarantee certain privileges. Most of these distinctions are abolished or reduced by democracy.

In aristocratic families, the eldest son inherits the largest share of the property and nearly all the family's standing. He becomes the chief — and to some extent, the master — of his siblings. Greatness and power are his; for the rest, mediocrity and dependence. Yet it would be wrong to assume that the eldest son's privileges benefit only him, or that they provoke nothing but envy and hatred. The eldest usually works to build wealth and influence for his brothers and sisters, because the family's collective prestige reflects back on the one who represents it. The younger siblings support the eldest in all his endeavors, because his power and status put him in a better position to provide for everyone. The members of an aristocratic family are therefore tightly bound together. Their interests are aligned and their minds agree — but their hearts are seldom in harmony.

Democracy also binds siblings to each other, but through very different means. Under democratic laws, all children are perfectly equal and therefore independent. Nothing forces them together, but nothing drives them apart either. Since they share the same origins, grow up under the same roof, receive the same care, and since no special privilege distinguishes or divides them, the affectionate intimacy of childhood springs up easily and naturally among them. Hardly anything happens to break the bond formed at the start of life, because being siblings brings them together every day without creating friction. It's not through shared financial interest, then, but through shared experiences and the natural sympathy of similar tastes and opinions, that democracy unites siblings. It divides their inheritance, but it lets their hearts and minds come together.

The charm of these democratic family bonds is so powerful that even partisans of aristocracy are won over by it. After experiencing it for a while, they have no desire to return to the respectful, frigid formality of aristocratic family life. They'd be happy to keep the intimate habits of democratic families while throwing off democracy's social conditions and laws. But these elements can't be separated — you can't enjoy the warmth without accepting the equality that produces it.

The observations I've made about parent-child love and the bonds between siblings apply to all the affections that arise naturally from human nature itself. When a particular way of thinking or feeling is the product of some specific social arrangement, and that arrangement is swept away, the feeling disappears with it. A law can bind two people very tightly together, but once that law is abolished, they stand apart with nothing left between them. Nothing was more rigid than the tie binding vassal to lord under feudalism. Today the two people wouldn't recognize each other. The fear, the gratitude, and the affection that once connected them have vanished without a trace.

But this isn't true of feelings that are natural to human beings. Whenever a law tries to shape these feelings in some particular mold, it usually weakens them. By trying to intensify them, it strips away some of their elements — because natural feelings are never stronger than when left to themselves.

Democracy, which destroys or obscures nearly all the old conventional rules of society and prevents people from easily accepting new ones, completely erases the feelings that depended on those conventions. But it only modifies other feelings — and often gives them an energy and tenderness they never had before.

Perhaps the entire meaning of this chapter, and several that preceded it, can be condensed into a single sentence: Democracy loosens social ties, but it tightens the ties of nature. It brings family members closer together even as it pushes the various members of the community further apart.

Chapter IX: The Education of Young Women in the United States

No free society has ever existed without strong moral foundations, and as I observed in the earlier part of this work, morality is largely shaped by women. Anything that affects the condition of women — their habits and their beliefs — therefore carries great political significance in my eyes.

Among nearly all Protestant nations, young women enjoy far more control over their own lives than they do in Catholic countries. This independence is even greater in Protestant countries like England that have maintained or developed the practice of self-government; the spirit of freedom enters the home through both political habits and religious convictions. In the United States, the doctrines of Protestantism are combined with broad political freedom and a deeply democratic society. Nowhere in the world are young women given so much independence so early.

Long before an American girl reaches the age of marriage, her emancipation from parental control begins. She's barely stopped being a child when she already thinks for herself, speaks freely, and acts on her own judgment. The full spectacle of the world is constantly open to her view — far from being hidden from her, it's revealed to her more completely every day. She's taught to look at it with a steady, unflinching gaze. The dangers and darker sides of society are shown to her early. She sees them clearly, views them without illusions, and faces them without fear, because she's full of confidence in her own strength — a confidence that everyone around her seems to share.

An American girl rarely displays the sheltered bloom of desire and innocence, or the artless grace, that typically marks a young European woman in the transition from girlhood to womanhood. It's unusual for an American woman at any age to show childish timidity or naivete. Like young women in Europe, she wants to please — but she knows exactly what pleasing costs. If she doesn't give in to temptation, she at least knows that it exists. She's remarkable more for the purity of her conduct than for the innocence of her mind. I've often been surprised, and almost startled, by the remarkable skill and confident directness with which young American women manage their thoughts and their words through all the hazards of frank conversation. A philosopher would have tripped at every step along the narrow path they walked without stumble or strain. Even amid the freedom of their early youth, an American woman is always in control of herself. She enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing herself in any of them, and her reason never quite lets go of the reins of self-guidance, even when it seems to hold them loosely.

In France, where fragments of every era are still strangely jumbled together in the people's opinions and tastes, women typically receive a sheltered, restricted, almost cloistered education, just as they did in aristocratic times — and then they're suddenly abandoned, without guide or support, in the midst of all the irregularities that come with a democratic society. The Americans are more consistent. They've recognized that in a democracy, individual independence will inevitably be great, maturity will come early, desires will be hard to restrain, social customs will be unstable, public opinion will often be unsettled and powerless, parental authority will be weak, and the authority of husbands will be contested.

Given these circumstances, and believing they had little chance of suppressing the strongest passions of the human heart in women, Americans concluded that the safer course was to teach women the art of battling those passions for themselves. Since they couldn't prevent women's virtue from being frequently tested, they decided women should know how best to defend it — and they placed more trust in the free strength of women's own will than in safeguards that had already been shaken or destroyed. Instead of teaching women to distrust themselves, Americans constantly worked to build their confidence in their own character. Since it's neither possible nor desirable to keep a young woman in permanent or total ignorance, they moved quickly to give her early knowledge on all subjects. Far from hiding the world's corruption from her, they preferred that she see it at once and learn to avoid it. They considered it more important to protect her behavior than to be overly scrupulous about her innocence.

Although Americans are a deeply religious people, they don't rely on religion alone to defend women's virtue. They also seek to arm women's reason. In this, they've followed the same approach as in many other areas: they first make the strongest possible effort to help individual independence exercise proper self-control, and they don't call on religion until they've pushed human strength to its limits.

I'm aware that an education like this is not without risks. I can see that it tends to sharpen judgment at the expense of imagination, and to produce women who are self-possessed and principled rather than tender wives and charming companions. Society may be more stable and better ordered, but domestic life may often have fewer charms. These, however, are secondary concerns that can be accepted for the sake of more important goals. At the point we've now reached, the time for choosing is no longer in our hands. A democratic education is essential to protect women from the dangers that democratic institutions and customs place around them.

Chapter X: The Young Woman as Wife

In America, a woman's independence is irrevocably surrendered in marriage. If an unmarried woman is freer there than anywhere else, a wife is held to stricter obligations. The unmarried daughter makes her father's house a place of freedom and pleasure; the wife lives in her husband's home as if it were a convent. Yet these two very different conditions may not be as contradictory as they seem, and it's natural that American women pass through the first to arrive at the second.

Religious peoples and commercial nations both take a particularly serious view of marriage. The former see the orderliness of a woman's life as the best guarantee and most reliable sign of her moral integrity. The latter see it as the highest assurance of a well-run household and family prosperity. Americans are both a Puritan people and a commercial nation. Their religious beliefs and their business habits therefore both lead them to demand considerable self-sacrifice from women — a constant subordination of personal pleasure to duty that is seldom asked of women in Europe. In the United States, the unyielding force of public opinion carefully confines women within the narrow circle of domestic interests and duties, and forbids them to step beyond it.

When a young American woman enters the adult world, she finds these ideas firmly established. She sees the rules that flow from them. She quickly realizes that she can't deviate for a moment from the conventions of her peers without risking her peace of mind, her reputation, and even her social existence. She finds the strength to accept this in the firmness of her own judgment and in the self-reliant habits her education has given her. You could say she learned, through the practice of her independence, how to surrender it without struggle or complaint when the time came. But no American woman falls into marriage like someone walking into a trap set for the naive and ignorant. She's been taught beforehand what will be expected of her, and she enters into this commitment voluntarily and freely. She bears her new condition with courage, because she chose it.

Since parental authority in America is very relaxed while the bond of marriage is very strict, a young woman doesn't enter into the latter without serious thought and caution. Early marriages are rare. American women don't marry until their minds are well developed and seasoned — whereas in other countries, most women only begin to develop and mature intellectually after they're already married.

I don't mean to suggest, however, that the dramatic change in American women's habits after marriage is entirely due to the pressure of public opinion. Women frequently impose this change on themselves, through their own will. When the time comes to choose a husband, the clear-eyed, rigorous thinking that's been educated and strengthened by free observation of the world teaches an American woman that a spirit of frivolity and independence within marriage is a constant source of irritation, not pleasure. It tells her that the amusements of the girl can't become the recreations of the wife, and that a married woman's happiness lies in her husband's home. Seeing clearly the one road that leads to domestic happiness, she takes it at once and follows it to the end without looking back.

The same strength of purpose that young American wives show in immediately and uncomplainingly adapting to the demanding duties of their new condition is equally evident in all the great trials of their lives. In no country in the world are personal fortunes more precarious than in the United States. It's not unusual for the same person, over the course of a lifetime, to rise and fall through every level from wealth to poverty. American women endure these upheavals with a calm, inexhaustible strength of character. Their desires seem to contract as easily as they expand along with their fortunes.

Most of the adventurers who migrate every year to settle the western frontier belong, as I noted earlier in this work, to the established Anglo-American families of the Northern states. Many of these men, who rush so boldly in pursuit of wealth, were already comfortably off in the places they left behind. They bring their wives with them and make them share the countless dangers and hardships that always mark the beginning of such expeditions.

I often encountered, right at the edge of the wilderness, young women who had been raised amid all the comforts of the great New England towns and who had passed, with almost no intermediate stage, from their parents' wealthy homes to a bare cabin in the forest. Fever, isolation, and a tedious life had not broken their spirit. Their faces were worn and faded, but their gaze was steady. They appeared at once sad and resolute. I have no doubt that these young American women had stored up, during the education of their early years, the inner strength they now displayed under these circumstances. The character shaped by a girl's upbringing can still be traced in the United States beneath the surface of married life. Her role has changed, her habits are different — but her character is the same.

Chapter XI: How Equality Helps Maintain Good Morals in America

Some philosophers and historians have said — or at least implied — that a country's sexual morality simply depends on how close it is to the equator. This was a convenient theory: all you needed was a globe and a compass to settle one of the most complex questions about human society in an instant. But I don't see much evidence supporting this materialist explanation. The same nations have been sexually strict at some points in their history and dissolute at others. Their morals clearly depended on something that changed over time, not on permanent features of their geography. I won't deny that in certain climates, sexual desire may be particularly intense. But I believe that this natural intensity can always be either inflamed or restrained by social conditions and political institutions.

Although travelers who have visited North America disagree on many things, they all agree on one point: sexual morality is far stricter there than anywhere else. On this score, Americans are clearly ahead of their English ancestors. A quick comparison of the two nations makes this obvious. In England, as in the rest of Europe, people are constantly gossiping about women's sexual failings. Philosophers and politicians complain that morals aren't strict enough, and the country's literature constantly reinforces that impression. In America, all books — novels included — assume women are chaste, and nobody bothers writing about love affairs. Undoubtedly, some of this strictness comes from the land itself, the people's origins, and their religion. But these factors exist elsewhere too and don't fully explain it. There must be some additional cause. That cause, I believe, is the principle of equality and the institutions built on it. Equality of conditions doesn't automatically produce good morals, but it unquestionably makes them easier to maintain.

In aristocratic societies, birth and fortune frequently make men and women into such different kinds of beings that they can never truly unite. Their passions draw them together, but their social positions and the ideas shaped by those positions prevent them from forming a permanent, public relationship. The inevitable result is a large number of secret, short-lived affairs. Nature quietly takes her revenge for the constraints that human laws impose. This happens far less when equality has swept away all the barriers — real or imagined — between men and women. When no woman has reason to believe she can't marry the man who loves her, premarital affairs become much rarer. Whatever power passion has to deceive us, a woman will have a hard time convincing herself she's truly loved when her lover is perfectly free to marry her and doesn't.

The same principle operates, though more indirectly, within marriage itself. Nothing better justifies an illicit affair — either in the minds of those involved or in the eyes of the public — than a forced or badly matched marriage. In a country where women are always free to choose and where their education has prepared them to choose well, public opinion is unforgiving of their mistakes. Part of America's strictness comes from this. Americans view marriage as a contract that may be burdensome, but whose terms both parties are absolutely bound to honor — because they knew those terms in advance and were perfectly free not to agree to them.

European literature actually confirms this point nicely. When a European novelist wants to depict one of those great marital catastrophes so common in our society, he's careful to win the reader's sympathy by presenting a forced or mismatched marriage. Even though our relaxed moral standards have made us quite tolerant, an author would struggle to make us care about his characters' misfortunes if he didn't first offer some excuse for their faults. This trick almost always works because our daily experience has already prepared us to be lenient. But American writers could never make such excuses believable for their readers — their customs and laws won't allow it. And since they can't make infidelity seem charming, they simply don't write about it. This is one reason why so few novels were published in the United States.

The very conditions that make marital fidelity more obligatory also make it easier. In aristocratic countries, the purpose of marriage is to unite fortunes, not people — so the husband might still be in school and the wife still in the nursery when they're betrothed. It's hardly surprising that a bond designed to tie their money together lets their hearts wander. That's the natural result of such an arrangement. But when a man chooses his own wife freely, without pressure or even guidance, it's usually a shared outlook and shared tastes that bring them together — and that same compatibility keeps them close.

Our ancestors had a very strange idea about marriage. Having noticed that the small number of love matches in their day almost always turned out badly, they firmly concluded that following your heart was extremely dangerous. Random chance, they thought, was a better guide than personal choice. But it wasn't hard to see that their evidence actually proved nothing at all. First of all, in democracies where women are free to choose their husbands, society makes sure to give them enough education and enough strength of will to make such an important choice wisely. By contrast, young women in aristocratic societies who secretly elope against their parents' wishes — throwing themselves into the arms of men they've barely met and can't properly judge — have none of these advantages. It's no surprise they misuse their freedom the first time they exercise it, or that they make terrible mistakes when, without a democratic education, they try to marry according to democratic customs. But there's more. When a couple is determined to marry despite the obstacles an aristocratic society throws in their path, the difficulties they face are enormous. Having broken or weakened the bonds of obedience to their families, they must then free themselves from the grip of custom and the tyranny of public opinion. And when they finally manage this exhausting struggle, they find themselves cut off from their own family and friends. The prejudice they've crossed now separates them from everyone and puts them in a position that soon breaks their spirit and embitters their hearts. If such a couple is first unhappy and then unfaithful, it shouldn't be blamed on the freedom of their choice — but rather on living in a society where that freedom isn't accepted.

Moreover, we shouldn't forget that the very effort required to violently reject a prevailing belief usually pushes a person beyond the bounds of reason. To dare to wage war — however justly — against the dominant opinion of your era takes a wild, reckless spirit, and people with that kind of character rarely find happiness or virtue, no matter what path they take. This, by the way, is why even the most necessary and righteous revolutions so rarely produce virtuous or moderate revolutionaries. So there's no reason to be surprised if someone who, in an aristocratic age, consults only his own feelings when choosing a wife soon finds infidelity and domestic misery invading his home. But when this same freedom of choice is the normal, expected course of things — when it's backed by parental support and public opinion — there's no question that family harmony increases and marital fidelity becomes stronger.

Nearly all men in democracies are busy with public or professional life. At the same time, modest incomes force wives to stay home and personally manage every detail of the household economy. All these separate, demanding occupations act as natural barriers that keep the sexes apart, making temptation less frequent and resistance easier.

Not that equality can ever make people perfectly chaste — but it does make their lapses less dangerous. Since no one has enough time or opportunity to systematically pursue someone who is already on guard, you end up with a society that has both many prostitutes and many virtuous women. This causes real individual suffering, but it doesn't weaken the body of society or destroy family bonds or undermine the nation's morals. What truly endangers society isn't extreme immorality among a few people, but a general looseness of morals among everyone. In the eyes of a lawmaker, prostitution is less threatening than widespread adultery.

The busy, restless life that equality creates doesn't just distract people from romantic passion by denying them the time to pursue it — it redirects them through another, subtler route. Everyone who lives in a democratic age picks up, to some degree, the mindset of the business and commercial world. Their thinking becomes serious, practical, and grounded. They tend to give up on the ideal in favor of pursuing some concrete, immediate goal that seems like the natural object of their desires. Equality doesn't destroy the imagination, but it clips its wings and keeps it close to the ground. No people are less prone to daydreaming than citizens of a democracy, and few of them ever indulge in the kind of idle, solitary reflection that usually precedes and produces the great passions of the heart. They do care deeply about finding the kind of steady, reliable, quiet affection that gives life its warmth and stability — but they're not inclined to chase the wild, unpredictable emotional highs that disrupt life and cut it short.

I'm aware that all of this applies fully only to America and can't yet be extended to Europe. Over the last half-century, while laws and customs have been pushing several European nations toward democracy with unprecedented force, relations between men and women haven't become more orderly or more chaste. In some places the opposite has happened: certain classes have become stricter, but the general morality of the population seems looser. I don't hesitate to say this, because I have no more interest in flattering my contemporaries than in attacking them. This fact is distressing, but it shouldn't be surprising. The beneficial influence that democracy has on morality is one of those effects that only becomes visible over time. If the equality of conditions ultimately promotes good morals, the social upheaval through which that equality is achieved works against them. Over the last fifty years, during which France has been undergoing this transformation, the country has rarely had freedom and always had turmoil. In the midst of this universal confusion of ideas, this swirl of opinions, this incoherent mix of justice and injustice, truth and falsehood, right and might — public virtue has become uncertain and private morality shaky. But all revolutions, regardless of their goals or their leaders, initially produce similar consequences. Even those that ultimately tighten moral standards begin by loosening them. The moral violations the French are currently witnessing don't appear to me to be permanent, and certain telling signs of the times already suggest this.

Nothing is more wretchedly corrupt than an aristocracy that has kept its wealth but lost its power, and still has enormous leisure now that it's been reduced to ordinary amusements. The ambitious passions and grand visions that once drove it are gone. All that remains is a swarm of petty, consuming vices that cling to it like worms on a corpse. No one denies that the French aristocracy of the last century was spectacularly dissolute, while established habits and traditional beliefs still preserved some respect for morality among the other classes. Nor will anyone deny that today the remnants of that same aristocracy display a notable moral strictness, while moral laxity seems to have spread among the middle and lower classes. The very families that were the most dissolute fifty years ago are now the most upright, and democracy seems only to have strengthened the morality of the aristocratic class. The French Revolution, by dividing up noble fortunes, forcing aristocrats to attend seriously to their affairs and families, making them live under the same roof as their children, and in short giving them a more rational and serious cast of mind, instilled in them — almost without their realizing it — a respect for religious belief, a love of order and quiet pleasures, a devotion to family life, and an appreciation of comfort. Meanwhile the rest of the nation, which naturally shared these same tastes, was swept into excess by the effort required to overthrow the country's laws and political habits. The old French aristocracy experienced the consequences of the Revolution, but it neither felt the revolutionary passions nor shared in the chaotic excitement that produced it. It makes sense that this aristocracy would feel the Revolution's beneficial influence on its customs before those who actually carried it out. It sounds paradoxical, but it's true: today, the most anti-democratic classes in the nation are the ones displaying the kind of morality you'd expect from democracy. I can't help but think that when we've finally absorbed all the effects of this democratic revolution — once its turbulence has settled — what is now true only of the few will gradually become true of everyone.

Chapter XII: How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes

I've shown how democracy breaks down or reshapes the various inequalities that society creates. But is that all it does? Doesn't it also eventually affect the great inequality between men and women — one that has seemed, until now, to be permanently rooted in human nature? I believe that the same social changes bringing fathers and sons, masters and servants, and superiors and inferiors closer together will also elevate women and make them more and more equal to men. But here, more than ever, I need to be very clear about what I mean, because there's no subject on which the crude and reckless ideas of our age have run wilder.

There are people in Europe who would blur the differences between the sexes and make men and women not just equal but identical. They would give both the same jobs, impose the same duties, and grant the same rights. They would mix them together in everything — their work, their pleasures, their business. You can easily see that by trying to make one sex equal to the other in this way, both are actually diminished. From such an unnatural blending, you'd only ever get weak men and disorderly women. This is not how Americans understand democratic equality between the sexes. They recognize that nature has made men and women fundamentally different in body and temperament, and that nature's clear intention was to assign different uses to their different abilities. Americans believe that progress doesn't mean making such dissimilar beings do roughly the same things, but rather helping each of them perform their respective roles as well as possible. They've applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy that dominates modern industry: a careful division of labor between men and women, so that the great work of society can be carried out more effectively.

In no country has such deliberate effort been made as in America to draw two clearly distinct paths for the two sexes — keeping them moving at the same pace, but always on different tracks. American women never manage the family's external affairs, run a business, or take part in political life. On the other hand, they're never forced to do heavy physical labor or any work demanding raw physical strength. No families, however poor, are exceptions to this rule. If an American woman can't step outside the quiet circle of domestic life, she's also never forced beyond it. And so American women, who often show a strength of mind and an energy that could be called masculine, generally maintain great refinement in their personal appearance and always preserve the manners of women — even though they sometimes demonstrate that they have the hearts and minds of men.

Americans have never believed that one consequence of democratic principles should be the overthrow of the husband's authority or the confusion of natural roles within the family. They hold that every partnership needs a leader in order to function, and that the natural leader of the marital partnership is the man. They don't deny him the right to direct his partner, and they maintain that in the small association of husband and wife — just as in the great political community — the purpose of democracy is to regulate and legitimize necessary authority, not to destroy all authority. This view isn't held by just one sex and contested by the other. I never noticed that American women regard their husband's authority as an unfair seizure of their rights, or that they feel degraded by submitting to it. On the contrary, they seemed to take a kind of pride in the voluntary surrender of their own will, and they boasted of bending to the yoke rather than shaking it off. At least, that was the feeling expressed by the most respected women. The others stayed silent. And in the United States, it's not the practice for an unfaithful wife to loudly demand the rights of women while trampling on her most basic duties.

It's often been noted that in Europe, a certain contempt lurks behind the flattery men shower on women. Although a European man often pretends to be a woman's slave, you can see that he never truly considers her his equal. In the United States, men rarely pay women compliments, but they show every day how much they respect them. They consistently demonstrate complete confidence in a wife's judgment and a deep respect for her freedom. They've decided that a woman's mind is just as capable of grasping plain truth as a man's, and her character just as firm in embracing it. They've never tried to protect her virtue — any more than his — behind a shield of prejudice, ignorance, and fear. In Europe, where men so readily submit to women's social power, women are nonetheless stripped of some of the greatest qualities of the human species and treated as charming but incomplete beings. And — what's truly astonishing — women eventually come to see themselves the same way, almost considering it a privilege to appear frivolous, delicate, and timid. American women claim no such privilege.

Furthermore, in our European moral codes we've created strange double standards for men — essentially one set of rules for him and another for his partner. According to public opinion, the exact same act can be treated as a crime or merely a slip, depending on who commits it. Americans don't recognize this unjust division of duties and rights. Among them, a seducer is just as dishonored as his victim. It's true that Americans rarely lavish on women the eager attentions that are so common in Europe. But their behavior toward women always implies that they consider them virtuous and refined. Such is the respect shown for women's moral dignity that in a woman's presence, the most careful language is used, for fear of offending her with a careless expression. In America, a young unmarried woman can travel long distances alone and without fear.

American lawmakers, who have softened nearly all criminal penalties, still treat rape as a capital offense, and no crime is punished more relentlessly by public opinion. This makes sense: since Americans consider nothing more precious than a woman's honor and nothing more deserving of respect than her independence, they believe no punishment is too severe for the man who takes these from her by force. In France, where the same crime carries much lighter penalties, it's often difficult to get a jury to convict. Is this because the French have contempt for decency, or contempt for women? I can't help believing it's contempt for both.

So Americans don't believe that men and women should have the same duties or the same rights. But they show equal respect for both in their respective roles, and though their paths are different, they consider both sexes to be of equal worth. They don't expect the same kind of courage from women as from men, but they never doubt that women have courage. And if they believe that men and women shouldn't always use their minds in the same way, they at least consider a woman's understanding to be every bit as sound as a man's, and her intellect every bit as sharp. So while they've allowed women's social inequality to continue, they've done everything they could to raise women morally and intellectually to the level of men. In this respect, I think they've understood the true meaning of democratic progress remarkably well. As for myself, I'll say it plainly: although American women are confined to a narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some ways one of extreme dependence, I have never seen women occupy a more elevated position anywhere. And if I were asked — now that I'm nearing the end of this work, in which I've discussed so many important things Americans have done — what I would mainly attribute their remarkable prosperity and growing strength to, I would answer: the superiority of their women.

Chapter XIII: How Equality Naturally Divides Americans into Small Private Circles

You might assume that the ultimate effect of democratic institutions is to blend everyone together in private life as well as in public, forcing all the members of a community to live in common. But that would be to imagine a very crude, oppressive form of equality. No social system or set of laws can make people so alike that differences of education, fortune, and taste don't still come between them. And although different people may sometimes find it in their interest to work together, they'll never find it their pleasure. They'll always tend to get around whatever the law prescribes, and stepping outside whatever circle they've been assigned to, they'll form small private groups alongside the great political community — groups held together by shared circumstances, habits, and tastes.

In the United States, citizens have no formal rank over one another. They owe each other no obedience or deference. They all come together to administer justice, govern their states, and generally handle matters of common concern. But I never heard of any attempt to force them all to enjoy the same pastimes or amuse themselves in the same places. Americans, who mix so freely in their political assemblies and courtrooms, are careful, by contrast, to separate into small, distinct circles for their private pleasures. Each of them is willing to recognize all his fellow citizens as equals, but he'll only invite a very limited number of them into his home as friends or guests. This strikes me as perfectly natural. The wider the circle of public life expands, the more the sphere of private life contracts. Far from believing that the members of modern societies will eventually live in common, I'm afraid they may end up forming nothing but tight little cliques.

In aristocratic societies, the different classes are like vast enclosed rooms — impossible to get out of, impossible to get into. These classes have no contact with one another, but within each one, people are necessarily in daily contact. Even when they wouldn't naturally get along, the shared conditions of their class bring them together. But when neither law nor custom establishes regular relationships between particular people, social connections spring from chance similarities in opinions and tastes — so private society becomes infinitely varied. In democracies, where the members of a community barely differ from one another and naturally stand so close that they could all be merged into a single mass at any moment, countless artificial and arbitrary distinctions spring up. Through these, everyone hopes to keep himself separate, afraid of being swept away by the crowd against his will. This will always be the case. Human institutions can be changed, but not human nature. No matter how hard a community works to make its members equal and alike, individual pride will always seek to rise above the common level and create some distinction to its own advantage.

In aristocracies, people are separated by high, immovable walls. In democracies, they're divided by countless small, nearly invisible threads that are constantly snapping or shifting from place to place. So no matter how far equality advances, democratic societies will always contain a great number of small private communities within the larger political whole. But none of them will ever resemble the upper class of an aristocratic nation in its customs and character.

Chapter XIV: Some Reflections on American Social Behavior

Nothing seems less important at first glance than the outward forms of human behavior, yet there's nothing people care about more. They can get used to anything except living in a society that doesn't share their social norms. The influence of a country's social and political conditions on its customs is therefore worth examining seriously. Social behavior is generally a product of a people's fundamental character, but it can also result from arbitrary conventions among particular groups — so it's at once natural and learned. When certain people know they are the most prominent members of society — without question and without effort — when they're constantly engaged with large matters, leaving the details to others, and when they enjoy wealth they didn't earn and don't fear losing, you can imagine they develop a kind of lofty disdain for life's petty concerns and practical worries. Their thoughts naturally take on a grandeur reflected in their speech and behavior. In democratic countries, social behavior generally lacks dignity, because private life tends to be consumed by small concerns. It's often coarse, because people have few chances to rise above the all-consuming cares of daily domestic life. True dignity of behavior means always knowing your proper place — neither too high nor too low — and that's as achievable for a farmer as for a prince. In democracies, everyone's place seems uncertain, which is why democratic behavior, though often full of arrogance, usually lacks dignity and is never particularly polished or graceful.

People in democracies are too restless for any group of them to successfully establish a code of good manners and force others to follow it. So everyone behaves as they see fit, and there's always a certain incoherence in a society's customs during these periods, because behavior is shaped by each individual's feelings and ideas rather than by some shared ideal. This is most visible right after an aristocracy has been overthrown, not long after it's been gone. New political institutions and new social forces bring together — and often force into the same spaces — people whose educations and habits are still wildly different. This makes society's patchwork character especially obvious. People still remember that a strict code of social behavior once existed, but what it contained or where to find it has already been forgotten. They've lost the common law of manners but haven't yet decided to do without it. So everyone tries to cobble together some personal, shifting set of rules from the remnants of the old code. The result is that behavior has neither the regularity and dignity you see in aristocratic nations nor the simplicity and freedom it sometimes achieves in democracies. It's constrained and unconstrained at the same time.

This, however, isn't the permanent state of things. Once equality has been established for a long time and is complete, people generally hold similar ideas and do similar things. They don't need to agree with one another or copy each other in order to speak and act in the same way — their customs naturally come to share many small similarities, even if no two people are exactly alike. They're never identical, because they're not copying from the same model, but they're never drastically different, because their social conditions are the same. At first glance, a traveler would think all Americans behave exactly the same way. It's only on closer inspection that you'd notice the subtle differences between them.

The English love to mock American social behavior. But it's worth noting that most of the writers who've drawn these amusing caricatures belonged to the English middle class — to whom the very same criticisms apply perfectly. These merciless critics are actually providing examples of the very thing they're mocking in the United States. They don't realize they're ridiculing themselves, much to the amusement of their own country's aristocracy.

Nothing hurts democracy more than its outward social behavior. Many people who would happily tolerate democracy's flaws can't stand its manners. I can't go so far as to say, though, that there's nothing admirable about democratic social behavior. In aristocratic nations, everyone within reach of the upper class tries to imitate it, which produces ridiculous and insipid knockoffs. Since a democratic people has no model of high social polish to copy, at least it's spared the daily spectacle of wretched imitations. Democratic social behavior is never as refined as in aristocratic nations, but it's also never as crude. You won't hear the coarse swearing of the lower classes or the elegant, carefully chosen expressions of the nobility. The behavior of such a people is often vulgar, but never brutal or contemptible. I've already noted that in democracies, no formal code of good behavior can be established. This has drawbacks but also advantages. In aristocracies, the rules of propriety impose the same demeanor on everyone. They make all members of the same class look alike, regardless of their private inclinations — they dress up and conceal the natural person. In a democratic society, social behavior is neither so carefully taught nor so uniform, but it's frequently more sincere. It forms a kind of light, loosely woven veil through which each person's real feelings and private opinions are easily visible. The form and substance of human actions are therefore more closely aligned. The great picture of human life may be less polished, but it's more honest. In a sense, you could say that the effect of democracy isn't to give people any particular social graces, but to prevent them from having social graces at all.

The feelings, passions, virtues, and vices of an aristocracy may sometimes reappear in a democracy, but never its social customs. Those are lost, vanishing forever the moment the democratic revolution is complete. It seems as though nothing is more lasting than an aristocracy's social customs — they survive for a while even after the class has lost its wealth and power. Yet nothing is more fleeting either, because the moment they disappear, not a trace remains. You can barely describe what they were once they've ceased to exist. A change in social conditions works this miracle, and a few generations are enough to complete it. History preserves the broad characteristics of an aristocracy after it's been destroyed, but the light, exquisite touches of its social customs are erased from memory almost immediately after its fall. People can no longer imagine what those customs were like once they've stopped witnessing them. They're gone, and their departure was unseen and unfelt — because to appreciate the refined pleasure that comes from distinguished social behavior, you need the education and habits that prepare you for it, and the taste for such things is lost almost as easily as the practice of them. A democratic people not only can't have aristocratic social customs — they can't even understand or desire them. Since they've never experienced them, it's as if such things never existed. We shouldn't attach too much importance to this loss, but it's worth mourning all the same.

I'm aware that the same individuals have sometimes combined exquisitely polished behavior with the lowest feelings — the inner life of royal courts has shown us what impressive exteriors can hide the most contemptible hearts. But though aristocratic customs didn't create virtue, they sometimes gave virtue a beautiful frame. It was no ordinary sight to see a large, powerful class of people whose every outward action seemed to be dictated by a natural elevation of thought and feeling, by refined and consistent taste, and by an effortless grace. Those customs cast a pleasant, illusory charm over human nature. The picture was often false, but it couldn't be viewed without a kind of noble satisfaction.

Chapter XV: Why Americans Are So Serious — and Why That Doesn't Stop Them from Acting Rashly

People who live in democratic countries don't go in for the simple, rowdy, or crude entertainment that the common people enjoy in aristocratic societies — they consider such things childish or boring. But they also have no greater taste for the intellectual and refined pleasures of the aristocratic classes. They want their leisure to be productive and substantial. They want real satisfaction mixed in with their fun. In aristocratic societies, the common people readily throw themselves into noisy, boisterous celebrations that let them briefly forget their hardships. But citizens of democracies don't like being jolted out of themselves that way — they never lose sight of their own concerns without some regret. They prefer their lighter, more serious entertainments, the kind that resemble work and don't completely drive work from their minds. An American, instead of going out to dance in some public hall during his free time — as people of his class still do throughout most of Europe — shuts himself up at home to drink. This way he gets to enjoy two pleasures at once: he can keep thinking about his business, and he can get respectably drunk by his own fireside.

I used to think the English were the most serious people on earth, but after seeing the Americans I changed my mind. I don't mean that temperament doesn't play a large role in the American character — but I think their political institutions are an even bigger influence. I believe American seriousness comes partly from pride. In democratic countries, even poor people have an elevated sense of their own importance. They look upon themselves with satisfaction and tend to assume others are looking at them too. With this disposition, they watch their words and actions carefully and don't let their guard down for fear of exposing their weaknesses. To preserve their dignity, they think they have to maintain their gravity.

But I detect another deeper and more powerful cause that instinctively produces this astonishing seriousness among Americans. Under a despotism, people occasionally break into bursts of wild joy, but they're generally gloomy and brooding because they're afraid. Under absolute monarchies softened by custom, people's spirits are often cheerful and even, because they have some freedom and a good deal of security, which spares them from the most important worries of life. But all free peoples are serious, because their minds are habitually occupied with something dangerous or difficult. This is especially true of free peoples who live in democratic societies. In such nations, a very large number of people in every class are constantly occupied with the serious business of government. And those whose minds aren't engaged with public affairs are entirely absorbed in making a living. Among such a people, a serious demeanor stops being a trait of particular individuals and becomes a national habit.

We hear about small democracies in the ancient world where citizens gathered in public squares wearing garlands of roses and spent most of their time dancing and watching plays. I believe in those republics about as much as I believe in Plato's — or, if what we read actually happened, I'm confident those supposed democracies were made up of very different elements than ours and had nothing in common with modern democracies except the name. But don't assume that people in democracies think they deserve pity for all their toil. The opposite is true. No people are more in love with their own way of life. Life would lose all its flavor for them if they were relieved of the anxieties that consume them, and they're more attached to their worries than aristocratic peoples are to their pleasures.

The next question is this: why do these same serious democratic peoples sometimes act so rashly? Americans, who almost always maintain a composed and reserved demeanor, nonetheless allow themselves to be swept far beyond the bounds of reason by a sudden passion or a hasty opinion, and they sometimes commit the most bizarre blunders with the straightest of faces. This contrast shouldn't surprise us. There's a kind of ignorance that comes from too much information. In despotic states, people don't know how to act because they're told nothing. In democratic nations, they often act randomly because they're told everything. The former don't know; the latter forget. And in both cases, the essential facts are lost in a fog of details.

It's astonishing what reckless things a public figure can sometimes say in free countries — especially in democracies — without any real consequences, while in absolute monarchies a few words dropped by accident can unmask and destroy him forever. The explanation follows from what I've just said. When someone speaks in the middle of a great crowd, many of his words go unheard or are immediately forgotten. But in the silence of a mute and motionless audience, the slightest whisper hits the ear.

In democracies, people are never still. A thousand accidents push them this way and that, and their lives are always at the mercy of unforeseen, improvised circumstances. They're constantly forced to do things they've only half-learned, say things they only half-understand, and take on work they haven't been trained for through long practice. In aristocracies, each person has a single purpose that they pursue relentlessly. But in democratic nations, life is more complex. The same mind tries to take in several things at once, and those things are often completely unrelated to each other. Since no one can master them all, the mind settles for an imperfect grasp of each.

When citizens of a democracy aren't driven by necessity, they're driven at least by desire — because of all the possessions they see around them, none are entirely out of reach. So they do everything in a hurry, are always satisfied with "good enough," and never pause more than a moment to reflect on what they've been doing. Their curiosity is both insatiable and cheaply satisfied: they'd rather know a lot quickly than know anything well. They have no time and little inclination to examine things thoroughly. And so democratic peoples are serious because their social and political conditions constantly push them into serious occupations — yet they act rashly because they give so little time and attention to each one. The habit of inattention must be considered the greatest weakness of the democratic character.

Chapter XVI: Why American National Pride Is More Anxious and Touchy Than the English Kind

All free nations are proud, but national pride doesn't express itself the same way everywhere. In their dealings with foreigners, Americans appear unable to tolerate the slightest criticism and impossible to satisfy with praise. The most modest compliment is welcome; the most lavish barely suffices. They constantly badger you for praise, and if you resist, they start praising themselves. It's as though, doubting their own merits, they need to see them constantly reflected in other people's eyes. Their vanity isn't just greedy — it's anxious and jealous. It gives nothing while demanding everything, and it's ready to beg and to fight at the same time. If I tell an American that his country is a fine one, he replies: "Yes — there's nothing like it in the world." If I praise the freedom its people enjoy, he answers: "Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy of it." If I remark on the moral purity that distinguishes the United States, he says: "I can imagine that a stranger, struck by the corruption of every other nation, would be astonished by the difference." I finally leave him to his self-contemplation — but he circles back and doesn't quit until he's made me repeat everything I just said. It's impossible to imagine a more exhausting or more talkative form of patriotism. It wears out even those who are inclined to respect it.

The English are nothing like this. An Englishman calmly enjoys the real or imagined advantages he believes his country possesses. If he grants nothing to other nations, neither does he ask for anything for his own. Foreign criticism doesn't affect him, and foreign praise barely flatters him. His attitude toward the rest of the world is one of disdainful, unbothered indifference. His pride needs no fuel — it feeds on itself. It's remarkable that two nations, so recently sprung from the same root, should be so opposite in the way they feel and talk about themselves.

In aristocratic countries, the powerful possess immense privileges on which their pride comfortably rests, without needing to rely on lesser advantages. Since these privileges came to them by inheritance, they regard them as part of who they are — a natural right attached to their very persons. They feel a calm assurance of their superiority. They don't bother boasting about privileges that everyone can see and no one challenges. These things aren't new enough to be worth talking about. They stand unmoved in their solitary greatness, confident they're visible to all without any effort to show off, and that no one will try to push them from their position. When an aristocracy manages public affairs, its national pride naturally takes on this reserved, indifferent, and haughty character — and every other class in the nation imitates it.

When, on the contrary, social conditions are roughly equal, the smallest privileges take on enormous importance. Since every person sees a million others around him enjoying precisely similar or analogous advantages, his pride becomes hungry and jealous. He clings to trifles and defends them stubbornly. In democracies, where circumstances are constantly shifting, people have almost always recently acquired whatever advantages they possess. The result is that they take extreme pleasure in showing these off — to prove to others, and to convince themselves, that they really have them. Since these same advantages could be lost at any moment, their owners are constantly on alert, making a point of demonstrating they still hold them. People in democracies love their country the same way they love themselves, and they transfer the habits of their personal vanity onto their national vanity. The anxious, insatiable vanity of a democratic people comes entirely from the equality and instability of their social conditions.

Even the haughtiest aristocrats display this same restless vanity in those areas of their lives where things are uncertain or contested. An aristocratic class always differs enormously from other classes in the scope and permanence of its privileges. But within the class itself, the only differences between members are often small, temporary advantages that could be gained or lost on any given day. Members of a powerful aristocracy, gathered at a capital or a court, have been known to fight viciously over trivial privileges that depend on the whims of fashion or the favor of their sovereign. These people displayed toward one another exactly the same petty jealousy that drives citizens of democracies: the same eagerness to snatch the smallest advantages their equals contested, the same desire to ostentatiously parade whatever they possessed. If national pride ever entered the minds of courtiers, I have no doubt they'd express it in exactly the same way as the citizens of a democratic society.

Chapter XVII: Why American Society Is Both Restless and Monotonous

It would seem that nothing could be more fascinating than the spectacle of the United States. Fortunes, opinions, and laws are in constant flux. It's as if immutable nature herself were changeable, so thoroughly has the hand of man transformed her. Yet in the end, watching this restless society becomes monotonous. After observing the moving pageant for a while, the spectator grows tired of it. In aristocratic nations, each person is more or less fixed in place, but people are astonishingly different from one another — their passions, ideas, habits, and tastes are fundamentally distinct. Nothing changes, but everything differs. In democracies, on the contrary, everyone is alike and does roughly the same things. They are subject to dramatic and frequent swings of fortune, true enough. But since the same kinds of good and bad luck keep recurring, only the names of the actors change — the play is always the same. American society is lively because people and circumstances are always shifting, but it's monotonous because all these shifts look alike.

People living in democratic ages have many passions, but most of them either end in the love of money or flow from it. This isn't because their souls are narrower — it's because money genuinely matters more in such times. When all the members of a community are independent of or indifferent to one another, the only way to get anyone's cooperation is to pay for it. This infinitely multiplies the purposes money can serve and increases its value. When the old reverence for tradition has faded, and birth, status, and profession no longer meaningfully distinguish people, hardly anything but money remains to create sharp differences between them or to lift some above the common level. The importance of wealth grows as every other source of distinction shrinks or disappears. In aristocratic nations, money only touches a few points on the vast circle of human desire. In democracies, it seems to lead to all of them. The love of wealth can therefore be traced — as either a primary or a secondary motive — behind everything Americans do. This gives all their passions a kind of family resemblance that quickly makes the study of them tiresome. The constant recurrence of the same passion is monotonous, and the particular methods by which that passion seeks satisfaction are equally so.

In a stable, well-ordered democracy like the United States, where people can't enrich themselves through war, public office, or political plunder, the love of wealth mainly drives them into business and industry. Although these pursuits can produce dramatic upheavals and disasters, they can't succeed without strictly regular habits and a long routine of small, repetitive tasks. The more intense the desire, the more disciplined the habits, and the more uniform the tasks. You could say that the sheer intensity of their desires is what makes Americans so methodical. Their ambition agitates their minds but disciplines their lives.

The observation I'm making about America could really be applied to almost all our contemporaries. Variety is vanishing from the human race. The same ways of acting, thinking, and feeling can be found all over the world. This isn't only because nations are influencing each other more and copying one another more faithfully. It's also because people in every country are increasingly abandoning the distinctive attitudes and feelings that once belonged to a particular class, profession, or family, and are simultaneously arriving at something closer to the common nature of humanity — which is everywhere the same. They're becoming more alike even without having imitated each other. They're like travelers scattered through a vast forest, crisscrossed by paths that all converge on a single point. If each of them keeps their eyes fixed on that point and walks toward it, they gradually draw closer together — though they aren't looking for each other, though they can't see each other, though they don't even know each other exists. And they'll be surprised, in the end, to find that they've all arrived at the same place. Every nation that takes not any particular person but humanity itself as the object of its study and its aspirations is heading, ultimately, toward a similar kind of society — like those travelers converging on the central clearing of the forest.

Chapter XVIII: Honor in the United States and in Democratic Societies

It seems that people use two very different standards when judging each other's actions in public. Sometimes they apply the simple, universal notions of right and wrong that exist everywhere in the world. Other times they measure behavior against a set of highly specific rules that belong to one particular time and place. These two standards often diverge, and sometimes they outright conflict — but neither one ever completely swallows the other. At the height of its power, honor shapes what people do more than what they believe. Even as they obey its commands without hesitation or complaint, they still feel — through some deep and powerful instinct — the existence of a more universal, more ancient, more sacred law, one they sometimes disobey but never stop recognizing. Certain actions have been considered both virtuous and dishonorable at the same time — refusing to fight a duel is a perfect example.

(A note on the word "honor": I'm using it here not in the sense of dignity or glory that a person receives from others, but in the sense of a code — the set of rules by which that dignity or glory is earned. When we say someone "has always obeyed the laws of honor" or "has violated his honor," we're talking about this code.)

I think these patterns can be explained by something more than the random quirks of certain individuals or nations, which is how the subject has usually been approached. Humanity is driven by deep, enduring needs that have given rise to moral laws. Violating those laws has always, everywhere, brought censure and shame — to break them was "to do wrong," and to follow them was "to do right." But within this vast human family, smaller groups have formed — we call them nations. And within nations, still smaller divisions have emerged — classes or castes. Each of these groups functions almost like a separate species of humanity. Though not fundamentally different from the rest of the human race, each stands somewhat apart and develops its own particular needs. It's these specialized needs that shape how different countries and eras judge human behavior. It's in the permanent, universal interest of humanity that people not kill each other. But it may serve the temporary, particular interest of a nation or a class to justify — or even to celebrate — killing.

Honor, then, is simply that specialized code, born from a particular social arrangement, by which a people or a class decides what to praise and what to condemn. Nothing is less productive for the mind than an abstract idea, so let me turn immediately to facts and examples.

I'll take the most extreme system of honor the world has ever known, and the one we're most familiar with: aristocratic honor, born out of feudal society. I'll use it to illustrate the principle I've just laid out, and I'll use the principle to make sense of the illustration. I'm not going to investigate how the medieval aristocracy came into being, why it separated itself so sharply from the rest of the population, or what established and sustained its power. I take its existence as a given and want to understand the peculiar way it judged most human actions.

The first thing that strikes me is this: in the feudal world, actions weren't always praised or condemned based on their inherent worth. Sometimes they were judged entirely based on who performed them or who was affected by them — a principle that offends the general conscience of humanity. Certain actions that were perfectly acceptable for a common person were considered shameful for a noble. Others changed their entire moral character depending on whether the victim belonged to the aristocracy or not.

When these ideas first arose, the nobility formed a distinct body within the population, ruling from heights that seemed unreachable. To maintain this special position — which was the source of its power — the aristocracy didn't just need political privileges. It needed its own moral code, its own standard of right and wrong. The idea that certain virtues and vices belonged specifically to the nobility rather than to common people, that certain acts were harmless when done to a peasant but criminal when done to a noble — these were often arbitrary distinctions. But the broader principle — that honor or shame should be attached to a person's actions according to their social rank — followed inevitably from the internal logic of an aristocratic society. This has been the case in every country that has had an aristocracy. As long as any trace of that principle remains, these double standards persist. To exploit a woman of color barely damages an American's reputation; to marry her destroys it.

In some cases, feudal honor demanded revenge and stigmatized forgiveness. In others, it commanded people to master their own passions and practice selflessness. It didn't make kindness or compassion its law, but it celebrated generosity. It valued lavish giving more than quiet benevolence. It allowed people to get rich through gambling or war, but not through labor. It preferred spectacular crimes to petty profit-seeking. Greed was less offensive to it than stinginess. Violence was often sanctioned, but cunning and deception were always condemned as contemptible.

These strange rules didn't spring purely from the whims of those who held them. A class that has placed itself at the top of all others — and that works constantly to stay there — naturally values the virtues that are most impressive, most dignified, and most easily combined with pride and the love of power. People in such a position wouldn't hesitate to rearrange the natural moral order so those virtues come first. You can even see how some of the more daring and dazzling vices might be ranked above the quiet, unassuming virtues. The very existence of such a class makes these distortions unavoidable.

The nobles of the Middle Ages placed military courage above all other virtues — in place of many of them. This was another specific belief that arose necessarily from a specific social condition. The feudal aristocracy existed by war and for war. Its power was founded by force of arms and maintained by force of arms. It needed nothing so much as military courage, and so that quality was naturally elevated above all others. Whatever displayed it — even at the expense of reason and compassion — was approved, even required, by the customs of the time.

That was the broad principle. Individual quirks only showed up in the details. The idea that a person should treat a slap on the cheek as an unbearable insult, and be obligated to kill in single combat the person who dealt this light blow — that's an arbitrary rule. But the principle that a noble could not calmly accept an insult, and was dishonored if he took a blow without fighting back — these were direct consequences of the fundamental needs of a military aristocracy.

So it was true, up to a point, that the laws of honor were arbitrary. But these apparent whims were always confined within certain necessary limits. The specific code that our ancestors called "honor" is so far from being arbitrary, in my eyes, that I could trace even its most bizarre and irrational commands back to a small number of fixed, unchanging needs built into feudal society.

If I followed the concept of feudal honor into the political realm, it would be no harder to explain. The social structure and political institutions of the Middle Ages were such that the supreme power of the nation never governed the people directly. That power didn't really exist in the eyes of the population. Every person looked to a specific individual above him whom he was bound to obey, and through that intermediary he was connected to everyone else. In feudal society, the entire political system rested on personal loyalty to one's lord. Destroy that loyalty and you opened the floodgates of anarchy. Moreover, personal loyalty to a political superior was a value whose importance every member of the aristocracy had constant reason to appreciate — since every one of them was both a vassal and a lord, both commanding and obeying.

To remain faithful to your lord, to sacrifice yourself for him when called upon, to share his good and bad fortune, to stand by him in all his ventures no matter what — these were the first commandments of feudal honor as it applied to politics. Betraying a vassal's oath was branded with extraordinary severity by public opinion, and a special term of infamy was invented for the offense: "felony."

By contrast, you find few traces in the Middle Ages of the passion that defined the ancient civilizations — I mean patriotism. The word itself is not very old in the language. (Even the French word "patrie" wasn't used by French writers until the sixteenth century.) Feudal institutions hid the broader nation from people's view and made love of country less necessary. The nation was forgotten amid the personal attachments between lords and vassals. So it wasn't part of the strict feudal code to remain loyal to one's country. Not that love of country didn't exist in people's hearts — it did — but it was a dim, weak instinct that has grown clearer and stronger in direct proportion as aristocratic classes have been dismantled and national power has been centralized.

You can see this clearly in how European nations have judged the same historical events differently across generations. What most dishonored the Constable de Bourbon in the eyes of his contemporaries was that he took up arms against his king. What most dishonors him in our eyes is that he made war against his country. We condemn him just as harshly as our ancestors did, but for entirely different reasons.

I chose feudal honor as my example because its features are the most sharply defined and most familiar. But I could have taken examples from anywhere and reached the same conclusion by a different path. We know the Romans less intimately than we know our own medieval ancestors, yet we know they had their own distinctive ideas about glory and disgrace that didn't simply derive from universal principles of right and wrong. Actions were judged very differently depending on whether they affected a Roman citizen or a foreigner, a free person or a slave. Certain vices were flaunted; certain virtues were elevated above all others. "In that age," says Plutarch in his life of Coriolanus, "military valor was more honored and prized in Rome than all the other virtues, to the point that it was called virtus — the name of virtue itself — applying the general term to this particular quality. So 'virtue' in Latin basically meant 'courage.'" Can anyone fail to recognize the distinctive need of that extraordinary community, one built entirely for conquering the world?

Any nation would give us similar examples. As I've already noted, whenever people form a distinct community, a concept of honor immediately springs up among them — that is, a set of opinions specific to that group about what deserves praise and what deserves blame. These specialized rules always grow out of the particular habits and interests of the community.

This applies to democratic societies just as it does to others, as we can now see from the American example. Some remnants of the old aristocratic honor of Europe can still be found scattered among American opinions, but these inherited ideas are few in number, have shallow roots in the country, and carry little weight. They're like a religion whose temples are still standing even though no one believes in it anymore. But alongside these half-faded notions of imported honor, new ideas have emerged that make up what we might call American honor.

I've already shown how Americans are constantly driven toward commerce and industry. Their origins, their social conditions, their political institutions, and even the land they inhabit all push them irresistibly in this direction. Their society is, at present, an almost purely commercial and manufacturing enterprise, set in the middle of a vast, unexplored continent whose chief purpose, in their eyes, is to be developed for profit. This is what most distinctly sets the American people apart from all others today. All the steady, reliable virtues that keep society running smoothly and encourage business will therefore be held in special honor by this people, and to neglect them is to earn public contempt. Meanwhile, all the more dramatic virtues — the ones that often dazzle but more frequently disrupt society — will occupy a lower rank. They can be ignored without losing anyone's respect; pursuing them might actually risk it.

(I'm speaking here of Americans in the states where slavery doesn't exist. Only they present a complete picture of democratic society.)

Americans apply an equally distinctive classification to vices. Certain tendencies that offend the general moral sense of humanity happen to align with the particular, temporary needs of American society. These tendencies are only mildly criticized, and sometimes even encouraged. The love of wealth, and all the secondary impulses connected with it, is a prime example. To clear, cultivate, and transform the vast, unsettled continent that is his domain, the American needs the daily fuel of a powerful passion. That passion can only be the love of wealth. So the pursuit of money is not condemned in America; as long as it doesn't threaten public order, it's celebrated. What Americans praise as noble and admirable ambition is exactly what our medieval ancestors condemned as base greed — just as Americans dismiss as blind and barbaric frenzy the martial passion that drove those ancestors into battle.

In the United States, fortunes are lost and rebuilt easily. The country is boundless and its resources seem inexhaustible. The people have all the appetites and cravings of a growing organism, and no matter how hard they try, they're always surrounded by more than they can use. What would be fatal for such a society isn't the ruin of a few individuals — that can be repaired quickly enough — but the laziness and apathy of the community as a whole. Boldness in enterprise is the primary driver of America's rapid progress, its strength, and its greatness. Commerce is like a vast lottery in which a small number of people constantly lose, but the nation always wins. Such a people naturally should — and does — celebrate boldness in business ventures. But any bold speculation risks the fortune of both the speculator and everyone who trusted him. Since Americans make a virtue of commercial daring, they have no right to heap disgrace on those who practice it. This explains the remarkable leniency shown to bankrupts in the United States — their honor doesn't suffer from the misfortune. In this, Americans differ not only from European nations but from every other commercial nation of the era, and this difference reflects their unique position and needs.

In America, all the vices that tend to corrupt morals and undermine marriage are treated with a severity unknown anywhere else in the world. At first glance, this seems strangely at odds with the tolerance shown on other subjects. You're surprised to encounter such strict and such relaxed moral standards in the same people. But these things are less contradictory than they appear. American public opinion is quite gentle toward the love of money, which fuels the nation's commercial greatness and prosperity, but it comes down hard on sexual immorality, which distracts people from the pursuit of material well-being and disrupts the domestic order so essential to success in business. To earn the respect of their fellow citizens, Americans are effectively required to lead orderly lives. In this sense, you could say they make it a point of honor to live with sexual propriety.

On one point, American honor aligns with the European tradition: it places courage at the top of the virtues and treats it as a person's greatest moral necessity. But what counts as courage takes a different form. In the United States, military valor is not especially prized. The courage Americans know and admire best is the kind that drives people to brave the dangers of the ocean to reach port sooner, to endure the hardships of the wilderness without complaint (and the loneliness that's worse than hardship), the courage that makes a person almost indifferent to the loss of a painstakingly earned fortune and immediately propels them to build another. This kind of courage is essential to maintaining and growing American communities, and it's held in special honor. To show a lack of it is to earn certain disgrace.

There's one more characteristic worth noting to sharpen this chapter's argument. In a democratic society like America, where fortunes are modest and insecure, everybody works — and work opens a path to everything. This has completely reversed the traditional concept of honor and turned it against idleness. I've met young men of wealth in America who had no personal taste for labor but who had been compelled to take up a profession. Their means and their temperament would have allowed them to do nothing; public opinion forbade it, too forcefully to be defied. In European countries, by contrast, where aristocracy is still fighting against the tide that threatens to sweep it away, I've often seen people who were constantly driven by their needs and desires choose to remain idle rather than lose the respect of their peers. I've watched them submit to boredom and deprivation rather than work. No one can miss the fact that these two opposite obligations are two different moral codes — both, nevertheless, rooted in the concept of honor.

What our ancestors called "honor" in the absolute sense was really just one particular form of it. They gave a general name to what was only one species. Honor exists in democratic ages just as it does in aristocratic ones, but it's not hard to show that it takes a different shape. Not only are its rules different, but they're also fewer, less precise, and less strictly enforced.

A caste always occupies a far more peculiar position than a whole nation. Nothing is more unusual in the world than a small community permanently made up of the same families — like the medieval aristocracy — whose whole purpose is to monopolize and pass down education, wealth, and power to its own members. The more unusual a community's position, the more specialized its needs become, and the more elaborate its corresponding code of honor. The rules of honor will therefore always be fewer in a society without castes than in one divided by them. If nations ever reach a point where distinct social classes are hard to identify at all, the concept of honor will be reduced to a small number of principles, increasingly aligned with the basic moral laws shared by all of humanity.

So the laws of honor will be less distinctive and less elaborate in a democratic society than in an aristocracy. They'll also be vaguer — and this follows naturally from what I've just said. When the markers of honor are fewer and less specific, it becomes harder to identify them. Other factors reinforce this tendency. In the aristocratic nations of the Middle Ages, generations followed one another with nothing changing. Each family was like an immortal, stationary being, and opinions shifted almost as slowly as social conditions. Everyone had the same things before their eyes, viewed from the same vantage point. Over time, they could make out the smallest distinctions, and their judgment inevitably became sharp and precise. The people of feudal times didn't just hold extraordinary opinions about honor — each of those opinions existed in their minds in a clear, definite form.

This can never happen in America, where everyone is in constant motion and society, reshaped daily by its own activity, changes its opinions along with its needs. In such a country, people catch glimpses of the rules of honor but rarely have time to focus on them.

Even if society stood still, it would be hard to pin down the meaning of honor in a democracy. In the Middle Ages, each class had its own honor code, so the same opinion was never shared by a large number of people at the same time. This made it possible to give it a precise, definitive form — all the easier because everyone who followed it occupied an identical social position and naturally agreed on the rules of a code made exclusively for them. The honor code thus became a complete and detailed system that anticipated everything and left nothing to chance, applying a fixed, tangible standard to human behavior.

In a democratic nation like America, where classes have merged and all of society forms a single mass — made up of similar but not identical elements — it becomes impossible to agree in advance on what the laws of honor should allow or forbid. Some shared national needs do give rise to common opinions about honor, but these opinions never strike everyone at the same time, in the same way, or with the same intensity. The law of honor exists, but it has no institution to enforce or proclaim it.

The confusion is even worse in a democratic country like France, where the different classes of the old social order have been thrown together but not yet blended. Every day they bring their various, often conflicting, ideas of honor into each other's circles. Each person, at will, drops one piece of the inherited code and keeps another. With so many arbitrary choices being made, no common standard can ever take hold, and it becomes nearly impossible to predict which actions will be honored and which will be considered disgraceful. These are miserable times — but they don't last long.

Because honor is poorly defined in democracies, its influence is naturally weaker. It's hard to enforce with certainty and firmness a law that nobody clearly understands. Public opinion, the natural and supreme interpreter of the honor code, can't clearly see which way to lean and issues only hesitant judgments. Sometimes public opinion contradicts itself. More often, it simply does nothing and lets things pass.

The weakness of honor in democracies also has other causes. In aristocratic countries, the same code of honor is shared by only a small number of people, often living apart from the rest of society. In their minds, honor becomes fused with everything that defines their social position. It feels like the defining characteristic of their rank. They apply its rules with all the passion of personal interest, and they feel — if I can put it this way — a genuine passion for living up to its demands. This comes through vividly in the old legal texts about trial by combat. Nobles in their disputes were required to use lances and swords, while commoners used only clubs, "because," as the old books put it, "commoners have no honor." This didn't mean those people were worthless — only that their actions weren't to be judged by the same rules applied to the aristocracy.

It seems paradoxical at first: the stronger the sense of honor, the more bizarre its rules tend to be. The further it strays from common sense, the more devotedly it's obeyed. Some have concluded from this that honor codes are strengthened by their own extremism. But these two things — the strangeness and the power — spring from the same source without one causing the other. Honor becomes more extreme in proportion to how specialized the needs it reflects are, and how few people share those needs. It's powerful precisely because it speaks to those specialized needs. So honor isn't strong because it's extreme; it's both extreme and strong for the same reason.

Furthermore, in aristocratic societies each rank is different, but all ranks are fixed. Every person occupies a set place in their own sphere that they can't leave, surrounded by others bound by the same constraints. No one can hope or fear to escape being noticed. No one is placed so low that they don't have their own stage, and no one can avoid judgment by hiding in obscurity.

In democratic societies, by contrast, where everyone is mixed together in the same crowd and in constant flux, public opinion can't get a grip on people — they vanish at every turn and elude its power. So the commands of honor carry less force there. Honor operates only under the public eye — this is precisely what distinguishes it from simple virtue, which is self-contained and satisfied with its own approval.

If the reader has followed all of this, they'll see that there's a close, necessary connection between inequality of social conditions and what I've been calling honor — a connection that, unless I'm mistaken, has never been clearly identified before. Let me make one more attempt to illustrate it.

Imagine a nation standing apart from the rest of humanity. Beyond the general needs shared by all human beings, this nation has needs and interests specific to itself. Certain opinions about what deserves praise or blame will naturally arise — opinions unique to this community, which its members call "honor." Now imagine that within this same nation, a caste emerges that stands apart from all other classes and develops its own specialized needs, which in turn generate their own specific opinions. The honor code of this caste — compounded from the distinctive ideas of the nation and the even more distinctive ideas of the caste itself — will be as far removed as possible from the simple, universal moral judgments of humanity.

Having reached this extreme point of the argument, let me now reverse course. When social ranks are blended and privileges abolished — when the members of a nation become equal and alike once more, their interests and needs converging — all the specialized notions that each caste called "honor" gradually disappear. Honor no longer springs from any source except the needs of the nation as a whole, and it expresses the nation's collective character to the world.

Finally, if we could imagine all the races of humanity blending together, and all the peoples of the earth eventually sharing the same interests, the same needs, with nothing to distinguish one from another — then no special value would be attached to any particular behavior. All actions would be seen in the same light by everyone. The universal needs of humanity, revealed by conscience, would become the common standard. Only the simple, general notions of right and wrong would remain, and to those notions the ideas of praise and blame would naturally attach.

To sum up my entire argument in a single statement: the differences and inequalities among people gave rise to the concept of honor. That concept weakens as those differences fade, and if they ever disappeared entirely, honor would vanish with them.

Chapter XIX: Why There Are So Many Ambitious People in America but So Little Grand Ambition

The first thing that strikes a visitor to the United States is the sheer number of people trying to rise above their starting point in life. The second is how rare it is to find genuinely grand ambition amid all this universal striving. No American is without a burning desire to rise — but hardly anyone seems to dream on a truly large scale or aim for truly lofty goals. Everyone is constantly working to gain property, power, and reputation, yet few think about these things in big terms. This is all the more surprising because there's nothing in American laws or customs that limits desire or prevents it from reaching in every direction. It seems hard to chalk up this strange pattern to equality of social conditions, since when that same equality was established in France, ambition became boundless. Still, I believe the main explanation lies in the social conditions and democratic customs of the Americans.

Every revolution expands people's ambition — and this is especially true of revolutions that overthrow an aristocracy. When the old barriers that kept the masses from power and prestige suddenly come crashing down, a violent, universal surge toward those long-coveted heights begins. In this first burst of triumph, nothing seems impossible to anyone. Desires are limitless, and the power to satisfy them seems almost limitless too. Amid the sweeping upheaval of laws and customs, in the vast confusion of people and institutions, individuals rise and fall with dizzying speed. Power passes from hand to hand so quickly that no one need despair of seizing it.

You also have to remember that the people who destroyed an aristocracy grew up under its rules. They witnessed its splendor and unconsciously absorbed its attitudes and assumptions. So at the very moment an aristocracy dissolves, its spirit still pervades the general population, and its tendencies linger long after it's been defeated. Ambition is therefore always enormous during a democratic revolution and for some time after. The memory of the extraordinary events people have witnessed doesn't fade overnight. The passions a revolution stirs up don't vanish when it's over. A feeling of instability persists even after order is restored. A sense that success comes easily survives the wild upheavals that produced it. Desires remain vastly enlarged even as the means to fulfill them shrink day by day. The appetite for great fortunes persists, though great fortunes are rare. On every side you can see the damage done by excessive, frustrated ambition — burning in hearts that it consumes in secret and in vain.

Eventually, though, the last traces of the struggle fade. The remnants of the old aristocracy completely disappear. The dramatic events that accompanied its fall are forgotten. Peace follows war, and order reestablishes itself in the new society. Desires readjust to the means available to fulfill them. People's needs, opinions, and feelings come back into alignment. Society's level is permanently set, and the democratic order is established.

A democratic nation that has reached this stable, settled condition looks very different from the one I just described. We can reasonably conclude that while ambition runs wild when social conditions are in the process of becoming equal, it loses that quality once they've actually become so.

As wealth is spread around and education becomes universal, no one is completely without resources or knowledge. The old privileges and disqualifications of caste are abolished. People have broken the bonds that once held them in place, and the idea of advancement occurs to everyone. The desire to rise swells in every heart. Everyone wants to climb above their current station. Ambition becomes a universal feeling.

But if equality gives everyone some resources, it also prevents anyone from having enormous ones — and this necessarily confines desires within somewhat narrow limits. In democratic societies, ambition is intense and constant, but its aims aren't usually lofty. Life is generally spent eagerly chasing small objectives that are within reach.

What chiefly keeps people in democracies from grand ambition isn't the smallness of their fortunes but the intensity of the daily effort they pour into improving them. They exhaust their abilities pursuing modest results, and this inevitably narrows their vision and limits their capacity. They could be much poorer and still be greater.

The small number of wealthy citizens you find in a democracy don't constitute an exception. A person who rises gradually to wealth and power develops, over the course of that long climb, habits of caution and restraint that they can never shake off afterward. You can't expand your mind the way you expand your house.

The same applies to the children of such a person. They may be born into a privileged position, but their parents started from nothing. They grow up surrounded by attitudes and assumptions they can never fully escape, and they tend to inherit their parents' cautious instincts along with their wealth.

The opposite can happen in an aristocracy: even the poorest descendant of a powerful family may display vast ambition, because the inherited attitudes of his lineage and the general spirit of his class buoy him above his actual circumstances for a time.

Another thing that prevents people in democratic eras from pursuing grand objectives is the sheer amount of time they can see it will take to reach them. "It is a great advantage," says Pascal, "to be a man of quality, since it brings one man as far at eighteen or twenty as another would reach at fifty — a clear gain of thirty years." Those thirty years are precisely what ambitious people in democracies are missing. The principle of equality, which lets everyone aspire to everything, prevents anyone from advancing quickly.

In a democratic society, just as elsewhere, there are only a limited number of great fortunes to be made. Since the paths to them are open to everyone equally, everyone's progress is inevitably slowed. Because the candidates all look roughly similar, and because picking favorites would violate the supreme principle of democratic societies — equality — the first instinct is to make everyone advance at the same pace and pass the same tests. So as people become more alike and the principle of equality sinks deeper into a country's institutions and customs, the rules of advancement become more rigid, advancement itself becomes slower, and reaching any significant height becomes much harder.

Out of distaste for privilege and the difficulty of choosing among equals, everyone is eventually forced — regardless of their ability — to pass through the same ordeal. They're subjected to countless petty preliminary exercises in which their youth is wasted and their imagination extinguished. By the time they're finally in a position to do something extraordinary, they've lost the taste for it.

In China, where equality of conditions is extreme and ancient, no one moves from one government position to another without passing a test. This ordeal is repeated at every stage of a career, and the custom is now so deeply embedded that I remember reading a Chinese novel in which the hero, after countless setbacks, finally wins his beloved's heart — by passing his civil service exams. Grand ambition doesn't breathe easily in that kind of atmosphere.

What I'm saying about politics extends to everything. Equality produces the same effects across the board. Where the laws don't formally slow people's advancement, competition does the same job. In a well-established democracy, rapid, dramatic rises are rare. They're exceptions to the rule — and it's precisely because they're so unusual that people forget how seldom they happen.

People living in democracies eventually figure this out. They discover that the laws of their country open up a boundless field of action before them, but that nobody can hope to sprint across it. Between them and the ultimate object of their desires, they can see a multitude of small obstacles that must be slowly cleared, one by one. This prospect exhausts and discourages their ambition on the spot. They give up their uncertain, distant hopes and search closer to home for more modest, more accessible satisfactions. Their horizon isn't limited by the law — it's narrowed by themselves.

I've said that grand ambition is rarer in democratic ages than in aristocratic ones. I should add that when it does appear despite these natural obstacles, it takes a different form. In aristocracies, the field of ambition is often wide, but its boundaries are defined. In democracies, ambition usually operates in a narrower space — but once it breaks past those limits, there's almost nothing to stop it.

Because individuals are weak, because they live apart from one another and in constant motion, because precedent carries little weight and laws don't last long, resistance to change is feeble, and the social structure never seems entirely solid or secure. So when an ambitious person does seize power, there's nothing they won't dare. And when they lose it, they'll contemplate tearing down the state to get it back. This gives great political ambition in democracies a revolutionary, violent character it rarely shows in aristocratic societies.

The typical picture of a democratic nation will feature a great many small, perfectly rational ambitions — with the occasional burst of larger, poorly controlled desire breaking through. But you won't find ambition conceived and executed on a truly vast scale.

I've shown elsewhere how the principle of equality makes people prioritize physical comforts and love of the present moment. These tendencies bleed into the feeling of ambition and color it with their own hues. I believe that ambitious people in democracies care less about posterity's judgment than anyone else. The present moment alone captivates and consumes them. They're quicker to complete a large number of projects than to build anything lasting. They care far more about success than about fame. What they want most from other people is obedience; what they covet most is power. Their habits almost always remain below the level of their position. The result is that they frequently bring very low tastes to their extraordinary fortunes, and they seem to have acquired supreme power only to indulge their crude or petty pleasures.

I believe that in our time it's essential to channel, regulate, and direct the feeling of ambition, but that it would be extremely dangerous to try to crush or starve it. We should establish certain outer limits that ambition should never cross, but within those limits we shouldn't rein it in too tightly.

I'll confess that what I fear for democratic society is not the boldness but the mediocrity of its desires. What strikes me as most dangerous is that amid the small, endless preoccupations of private life, ambition might lose its energy and its grandeur — that passions might not just calm down but shrink, and that society might grow more tranquil every day but also less aspiring.

I think the leaders of modern society would be wrong to try to lull the public into a state of too-uniform, too-peaceful contentment. It's good to expose people from time to time to difficult and dangerous challenges, in order to raise ambition and give it a field of action.

Moralists constantly complain that the defining vice of our time is pride. In one sense, that's true: no one believes they're inferior to their neighbor, and no one willingly submits to a superior. But in another sense, it's completely false. The same person who can't tolerate subordination or even equality has such a low opinion of himself that he thinks he was only born for small pleasures. He gladly settles for petty desires without daring to attempt great enterprises, which he barely even imagines.

So, far from thinking we should preach humility to our contemporaries, I'd work to give them a bigger idea of themselves and of the human race. Humility is bad for them. What they need most, in my opinion, is pride. I'd gladly trade several of our small virtues for that one vice.

Chapter XX: The Business of Government Job-Hunting in Certain Democracies

In the United States, as soon as a person gets some education and accumulates some money, they either try to get rich through commerce or industry, or they buy land on the frontier and become a pioneer. All they ask of the government is to be left alone in their work and to be secure in their earnings. In most European countries, when a person begins to feel their strength and expand their desires, the first thing that occurs to them is to get a government job. These opposite reactions, stemming from the same underlying cause, are worth a closer look.

When government jobs are scarce, poorly paid, and insecure — while private business is plentiful and profitable — the new, restless desires that equality generates naturally flow toward business, not toward government positions. But if, while social ranks are leveling out, the people's education remains incomplete and their spirit timid — if commerce and industry are stunted and offer only slow, difficult paths to making a fortune — then the various members of the community, despairing of improving their own condition, rush to the head of the state and demand its help. Using the public treasury to meet their own needs seems like the easiest, most accessible — if not the only — way to rise above a situation that no longer satisfies them. Government job-hunting becomes the most widely practiced trade of all.

This is especially likely in those large, centralized monarchies where the number of paid government positions is enormous and their tenure reasonably secure, so that no one despairs of getting a job and holding onto it as comfortably as an inherited fortune.

I won't bother to point out that this universal, excessive craving for government employment is a serious social disease — that it destroys the spirit of independence in citizens and spreads a culture of servility and corruption throughout society; that it smothers the stronger virtues. Nor will I take the trouble to demonstrate that this kind of hustle only creates unproductive activity, stirring up the country without adding to its resources. All of that is obvious.

But I will say this: a government that encourages this tendency risks its own stability and puts its very survival in danger. I'm aware that in an era like ours, when the love and respect that used to attach naturally to authority are visibly declining, those in power may feel it's necessary to bind every citizen to them through self-interest. It may seem convenient to use people's own passions to keep them in line and quiet. But this can't work for long. What appears to be a source of strength for a while will inevitably become a cause of deep weakness in the end.

In democratic nations, as everywhere else, the number of government jobs has a ceiling. But in these nations, the number of people who want them is essentially unlimited — it grows steadily and inevitably as social conditions become more equal, and is checked only by the size of the population.

So when government employment becomes the only outlet for ambition, the government inevitably faces a permanent opposition. It's tasked with satisfying unlimited desires using limited means. It's absolutely certain that of all peoples on earth, the hardest to manage and restrain are a people of office-seekers. Whatever rulers try to do, such a people can never be satisfied, and there's always a danger that they'll eventually overthrow the constitution and reshape the state for the sole purpose of clearing out the current occupants and making room for themselves.

The rulers of the present age, who are trying to channel all the new desires that equality generates toward themselves and satisfy them personally, will come to regret this strategy — if I'm not mistaken. They'll discover one day that they've put their own power at risk by making it so indispensable, and that the safer, more honest course would have been to teach their citizens to provide for themselves.

(It's worth noting that later experience has shown job-hunting to be just as intense in the United States as in any European country. Americans themselves regard it as one of the great evils of their social condition, and it has powerfully affected their political institutions. But the American who seeks a government position is looking less for income than for the prestige and status that public employment confers. Without a true aristocracy, the public service creates a substitute one, and it becomes an object of ambition just as much as titles of rank are in aristocratic countries.)

Chapter XXI: Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare

A people that has lived for centuries under a system of castes and classes can only reach a democratic state of society by passing through a long series of critical transformations, accomplished through violent upheaval, during which property, beliefs, and power are rapidly transferred from one set of hands to another. Even after this great revolution is complete, the revolutionary habits it bred can be traced for a long time, and deep turbulence follows in its wake. Since all of this happens at the very moment when social conditions are becoming more equal, people naturally conclude that some hidden connection exists between equality itself and revolution — that the one can't exist without producing the other.

Reasoning seems to point in the same direction as experience. In a society where ranks are nearly equal, no visible bond connects people to one another or keeps them fixed in their place. No one has a permanent right or power to command; no one is forced by their station to obey. But every person, possessing some education and some resources, can choose their own path and proceed independently. The same forces that make the members of such a community independent of each other also fill them with restless, ever-changing desires and constantly push them forward. It seems natural, then, that in a democratic society, people, things, and ideas should be forever changing shape and place, and that democratic eras should be times of rapid, unceasing transformation.

But is this really the case? Does equality of social conditions habitually and permanently lead people toward revolution? Does that state of society contain some inherent disturbance that prevents the community from ever settling into calm, that drives citizens to constantly alter their laws, their principles, and their customs? I don't think so. And because the subject is important, I ask for the reader's close attention.

Nearly every revolution that has changed the face of nations has been fought to either establish or destroy social inequality. Strip away the secondary causes that produced the great convulsions of history, and you'll almost always find the principle of inequality at the bottom. Either the poor tried to plunder the rich, or the rich tried to enslave the poor. So if a state of society could ever be created in which everyone had something to keep and little to take from others, a great deal would have been done for the peace of the world.

I'm well aware that in any large democratic society, some people will always be very poor and others very rich. But the poor, instead of forming the vast majority of the population as they always do in aristocratic societies, are relatively few. And the laws don't bind them together in ties of permanent, hereditary poverty. The wealthy, for their part, are few and powerless. They have no privileges that attract public attention. Their wealth, no longer bound up with land, is intangible and almost invisible. Since there's no longer a permanent class of poor people, there's no longer a permanent class of rich people either. The rich emerge daily from the masses and fall back into them. They don't form a distinct group that can be easily identified and targeted. And because they're connected to the rest of the population by a thousand invisible ties, the people can't attack them without injuring themselves.

Between these two extremes stands an enormous middle group of people who are roughly alike — not exactly rich or poor, but possessing enough property to want order maintained, yet not enough to provoke envy. These people are the natural enemies of violent upheaval. Their stability holds everything above and below them in place, and they secure the balance of the whole social structure. Not that they're satisfied with what they have, or that they'd instinctively recoil from a revolution where they could grab a share of the spoils without bearing the costs. On the contrary — they burn to get richer, with extraordinary intensity. The difficulty is figuring out who to take from. The same social condition that constantly stokes their desires also restrains those desires within necessary limits. It gives people more freedom to change and less reason to.

Not only do people in democracies lack a natural desire for revolutions — they're actually afraid of them. Every revolution threatens property to some degree. And most people living in democracies own property. Not only do they own property, but they live in the condition of people who care about their property more than anything. If you look carefully at the different classes in society, it's easy to see that the passions around property ownership burn hottest in the middle class. The poor don't care that much about what little they possess, because they suffer far more from lacking what they don't have than they enjoy what they do. The rich have many other passions besides wealth to satisfy, and the long, comfortable enjoyment of a great fortune can eventually make them indifferent to its charms. But people of modest means — equally distant from wealth and poverty — attach enormous value to what they own. They're still close enough to poverty to see its miseries up close, and they dread them. Between poverty and themselves, there's nothing but a modest fortune on which they fix all their anxieties and all their hopes. Every day increases their attachment to it, because of the constant effort it takes to maintain and grow it. The thought of losing even the smallest part is unbearable, and losing it all strikes them as the worst possible calamity.

Now, these anxious, property-conscious people of modest means are precisely the class that equality of conditions constantly expands. In democratic societies, the majority of people can't clearly see what they stand to gain from a revolution, but they constantly feel, in a thousand ways, what they might lose.

I've shown elsewhere that equality naturally pushes people toward business and industry and tends to increase and distribute property. I've also explained how it inspires everyone with a constant, eager desire to improve their material condition. Nothing is more hostile to revolutionary passions than these things. A revolution might ultimately benefit commerce and manufacturing, but its immediate consequence will almost always be to ruin merchants and manufacturers, because it disrupts the fundamental patterns of consumption and temporarily destroys the balance between supply and demand.

I know of nothing more opposed to revolutionary habits than commercial habits. Commerce is naturally hostile to all violent passions. It loves to negotiate, delights in compromise, and carefully avoids confrontation. It's patient, subtle, adaptable, and never resorts to extreme measures until absolutely forced to. Commerce makes people independent of each other, gives them a strong sense of their own importance, teaches them to manage their own affairs — and to manage them well. It therefore prepares people for freedom while preserving them from revolutions.

In a revolution, owners of financial assets have more to fear than anyone else. Their wealth is easy to seize on one hand, and it can vanish entirely on the other — a prospect that scares them far more than it does landowners, who may lose their income but can hope to hold onto their land through the worst upheavals. Financial asset holders are therefore much more alarmed by the first signs of revolutionary turmoil than landowners are. As a result, nations become less inclined toward revolution in proportion as financial wealth grows and spreads among them, and as the number of people who possess it increases.

Moreover, whatever their profession or the type of property they own, one thing is common to all people in democracies: no one is fully content with their current fortune; everyone is perpetually working to improve it in a thousand different ways. Take any one of them at any point in their life, and you'll find them consumed by some new project to increase what they have. Don't try to talk to such a person about the interests and rights of humanity — that small personal concern absorbs all their thoughts for the moment and inclines them to put off political excitement until some other time. This doesn't just prevent people from making revolutions; it prevents them from wanting them. Violent political passions have little hold on those who've devoted all their energy to pursuing their own well-being. The intensity they pour into small matters cools their enthusiasm for great undertakings.

From time to time, of course, bold and ambitious individuals will emerge in democratic societies whose boundless aspirations can't be satisfied by following the usual paths. Such people welcome revolutions and celebrate their approach. But they have great difficulty starting one unless extraordinary events come to their aid. No one can successfully fight the spirit of their age and country. However powerful they may be, they'll find it hard to make their contemporaries share feelings and beliefs that run against everything those contemporaries feel and want.

It's a mistake to think that once equality of conditions has become a society's established and uncontested norm, having shaped a nation's customs, people will easily let themselves be led into dangerous adventures by a reckless leader or a bold revolutionary. Not that they'll resist openly, with organized plans or deliberate opposition. They won't fight energetically against such a person; sometimes they'll even applaud them — but they don't follow. Against the revolutionary's intensity they quietly set their own inertia; against radical tendencies, their conservative interests; against adventurous passions, their preference for domestic comforts; against flashes of genius, their common sense; against poetry, their prose. With enormous effort the revolutionary lifts them up for a moment, but they quickly slip away and fall back, as if by their own weight. The revolutionary exhausts himself trying to rouse the indifferent, distracted masses and finds in the end that he's powerless — not because he's been defeated, but because he's alone.

I'm not saying that people in democracies are naturally static. On the contrary, I think a constant hum of activity pervades these societies, and they never know rest. But people bustle within certain limits they hardly ever cross. They're forever varying, adjusting, and reworking secondary matters, but they carefully avoid touching anything fundamental. They love change, but they dread revolutions.

Although Americans are constantly modifying or repealing their laws, they show no trace of revolutionary passions. You can see it from the speed with which they pull themselves back and calm down when public agitation starts to look alarming. At the very moment when passions seem most inflamed, they dread revolution as the worst of all disasters, and every one of them is privately determined to make great sacrifices to avoid one. In no country on earth is the love of property more active and more anxious than in the United States, and nowhere does the majority show less appetite for ideas that would alter the laws of property in any way.

I've often noticed that revolutionary theories — the kind that require a complete and sometimes sudden overhaul of property and social relations to be put into practice — are viewed far less favorably in the United States than in the great monarchies of Europe. If a few people espouse them, the general population rejects them with instinctive horror. This is easy to understand: in America, people have the opinions and passions of democracy; in Europe, we still have the passions and opinions of revolution.

If America ever does undergo great revolutions, they'll be caused by the presence of the Black population on American soil — meaning they'll owe their origin not to equality but to inequality of conditions.

When social conditions are equal, every person tends to live apart, focused on themselves and indifferent to the public. If the leaders of democratic nations either neglect to correct this dangerous tendency or actively encourage it — thinking it diverts people from political passions and thereby prevents revolutions — they may end up producing the very evil they're trying to avoid. A time may come when the unchecked passions of a few, aided by the unthinking selfishness or the cowardice of the many, will ultimately force society through terrible upheavals. In democracies, revolutions are rarely wanted by more than a minority — but a minority can sometimes pull them off.

I'm not claiming that democratic nations are immune to revolutions. I'm simply saying that the social conditions in those nations don't lead toward revolutions but rather guard against them. A democratic people left to its own devices won't easily rush into great dangers. It's only led to revolutions without realizing it. It may sometimes suffer them, but it doesn't create them. And I'll add that once such a people has acquired enough knowledge and experience, it won't allow revolutions to be imposed on it.

I'm well aware that political institutions can do a great deal in this regard — they can either encourage or suppress the tendencies that arise from social conditions. So I don't claim that a country is safe from revolutions simply because conditions are equal. But I do believe that, whatever a country's institutions, great revolutions will always be far less violent and less frequent than people assume. I can easily imagine a political system that, combined with the principle of equality, would make society more static than anything we've ever seen in our part of the world.

The observations I've made about events also apply, in part, to opinions. Two things about the United States are striking: the constant flux of most human activity, and the remarkable stability of certain fundamental ideas. People are in constant motion, but the American mind appears almost unmoved. Once an opinion has spread across the country and taken root, it seems as though no force on earth is strong enough to dislodge it. In the United States, the basic principles of religion, philosophy, morality, and even politics don't change — or rather, they're only modified by a hidden, almost imperceptible process. Even the crudest prejudices are worn away with incredible slowness, despite the constant friction of people and events.

I keep hearing it said that democracies are constantly changing their opinions and feelings. That may be true of small democratic nations like those of the ancient world, where the entire population could be gathered in a public square and whipped into a frenzy by an orator. But I saw nothing of the kind among the great democratic people living on the other side of the Atlantic.

What struck me in the United States was how hard it is to shake the majority from an opinion once it's been formed, or to pull people away from a leader once he's been chosen. Neither speeches nor writing can accomplish it. Only experience will do — and even then, it has to be repeated. This is surprising at first, but a closer look explains it.

I don't think it's as easy as people suppose to uproot the prejudices of a democratic nation — to change what it believes, to replace established principles with new ones in religion, politics, and morality — in a word, to produce great and frequent changes in people's minds. Not that the minds of democratic citizens are at rest — far from it. They're in constant motion. But that motion is spent on endlessly varying the consequences of known principles and searching for new applications, rather than on discovering new principles. The movement is circular rather than linear. The mind extends its orbit through small, rapid, continuous adjustments, but it doesn't suddenly change position.

People who are equal in rights, education, and fortune — or to sum it up in one word, in their social condition — necessarily have similar needs, habits, and tastes. Since they look at the world from the same vantage point, their minds naturally tend toward similar conclusions. And though each person may sometimes diverge from their contemporaries and form their own opinions, they'll involuntarily and unconsciously converge on a certain body of shared beliefs.

The more closely I examine equality's effects on the mind, the more convinced I become that the intellectual anarchy we see around us is not the natural state of democratic nations. I think it's better understood as a symptom specific to their youth, erupting only during that transitional period when people have already snapped the old ties that bound them together but are still vastly different in origin, education, and customs. Having retained a grab bag of widely varying opinions, habits, and tastes, nothing prevents them from expressing these openly. The leading opinions of a society become more similar as its social conditions converge. That, I believe, is the general and permanent law; everything else is temporary.

I believe it will rarely happen that anyone in a democratic society suddenly devises a system of ideas radically different from what their contemporaries hold. And if such an innovator appeared, I suspect they'd have great difficulty finding an audience — and even more difficulty finding believers. When social conditions are roughly equal, people don't easily let themselves be persuaded by one another. Since they all live in close contact, learned the same things, and lead the same kind of life, they're not naturally inclined to take any one of their peers as a guide and follow them without question. People rarely accept on faith the opinion of someone they consider their equal.

Not only is trust in the superior knowledge of certain individuals weakened in democratic nations, as I've noted elsewhere, but the very idea that any single person can achieve genuine intellectual superiority over everyone else is gradually overshadowed. As people grow more alike, the doctrine of intellectual equality gradually seeps into their thinking, and it becomes harder for any innovator to gain or exercise much influence over the public mind.

In such communities, sudden intellectual revolutions will therefore be rare. If we read history carefully, we'll find that great and rapid changes in human thought have been produced far less by the force of reasoning than by the authority of a name.

Consider, too, that because people in democratic societies aren't connected to each other by any strong tie, each person has to be persuaded individually. In aristocratic societies, it's enough to convince a few — the rest follow. If Luther had lived in an age of equality, without princes and potentates for his audience, he might have found it much harder to change the face of Europe.

Not that people in democracies are strongly convinced of the certainty of their own opinions, or unwavering in their beliefs. They frequently entertain doubts that no one, in their view, can resolve. It sometimes happens that the human mind wants to shift its position, but since nothing pushes or guides it in a clear direction, it oscillates back and forth without making progress.

(It's worth noting that the social conditions most favorable to great intellectual revolutions are found somewhere between total equality and rigid separation of ranks. Under a caste system, generations follow one another without altering people's positions — some have nothing more and others nothing better to hope for. Imagination slumbers amid universal silence and stillness, and the very idea of change fades from the human mind. When ranks have been abolished and social conditions are nearly equal, everyone is in constant excitement, but each person stands alone, independent and weak. This situation is vastly different from the first, yet it has one thing in common: great revolutions of the mind seldom occur in it, either. But between these two extremes lies an intermediate period — as glorious as it is turbulent — when conditions are unsettled enough that minds can't be lulled into torpor, yet unequal enough that some individuals can exercise enormous influence over others, and a few people can reshape the convictions of all. It's at these moments that great reformers emerge and new ideas suddenly change the face of the world.)

Even when a democratic people's trust has been won, gaining their attention is another matter. It's extremely hard to get a hearing from people in democracies unless you're talking to them about themselves. They don't listen to what's being said to them because they're always fully absorbed by what they're doing. Few people in democratic nations are idle. Life is passed amid noise and activity, and people are so busy acting that little time is left for thinking. I want to emphasize that they're not merely occupied — they're passionately devoted to their occupations. They're always in action, and each of their activities absorbs their full attention. The zeal they pour into business extinguishes whatever enthusiasm they might otherwise feel for ideas.

I think it's extremely hard to generate enthusiasm in a democratic people for any theory that doesn't have a tangible, direct, and immediate connection to the daily business of life. For this reason, they won't easily abandon their old beliefs — because it's enthusiasm that flings people's minds out of their established patterns, and that drives the great revolutions of thought just as it drives the great revolutions of politics. Democratic nations have neither the time nor the inclination to go searching for novel ideas. Even when their existing beliefs become doubtful, they still cling to them, because changing would take too much time and effort. They hold onto them not as certainties but as habits.

There are still more compelling reasons why it's hard to change the fundamental beliefs of a democratic people. I've already touched on this earlier in the book. If the influence of individuals is weak and barely noticeable in such a society, the power that the mass exerts over each individual mind is enormously strong — I've already explained why. What I want to add now is that it would be wrong to think this depends solely on the form of government, and that the majority would lose its intellectual dominance if it lost its political power.

In aristocracies, people often have considerable personal strength and standing. When they find themselves at odds with the majority of their countrymen, they can retreat to their own circle, where they find support and consolation. This isn't the case in a democracy. There, public favor feels as necessary as the air we breathe, and to live at odds with the majority is, in a sense, not to live at all. The majority doesn't need laws to coerce those who disagree with it — its disapproval is enough. A sense of loneliness and powerlessness overtakes dissenters and drives them to despair.

Whenever social conditions are equal, public opinion presses on each individual mind with enormous weight. It surrounds, directs, and oppresses. This arises from the very structure of society, far more than from its political laws. As people grow more alike, each person feels weaker in relation to everyone else. Seeing nothing that significantly raises them above or distinguishes them from the crowd, they lose confidence in themselves the moment others challenge them. They don't just doubt their own strength; they doubt their own judgment. They're very nearly ready to admit they're wrong when the majority declares they are so. The majority doesn't need to coerce them — it convinces them.

However democratic society is organized and balanced, it will always be extremely difficult to believe what most people reject, or to profess what they condemn.

This is extraordinarily favorable to the stability of opinions. Once an idea has taken root among a democratic people and established itself in the minds of the majority, it sustains itself afterward without effort, because no one attacks it. Those who initially rejected it as false eventually accept it as the general consensus. Those who still disagree in their hearts conceal their dissent — they're careful not to engage in a dangerous and futile fight.

It's true that when the majority of a democratic people change their minds, they can suddenly and arbitrarily produce dramatic shifts in public opinion. But their minds don't change easily, and it's almost as hard to prove that they've changed as it is to change them.

Sometimes time, events, or the quiet, unaided workings of individual thought will undermine or destroy a belief without any visible sign of the change. No one has openly attacked it; no conspiracy has been organized against it. But its adherents, one by one, silently drift away. Day by day, a few more abandon it, until finally it's only held by a minority. In this state, it will still continue to prevail. Since its opponents remain silent, exchanging their thoughts only in secret, they themselves don't realize for a long time that a great revolution has actually taken place. In this state of uncertainty, they take no action — they watch each other and say nothing. The majority has stopped believing what it used to believe, but it still pretends to, and this empty ghost of public opinion is powerful enough to freeze innovators in place and keep them at a respectful distance.

We live in a time that has witnessed the most rapid changes of opinion in human history. Yet it may be that the leading opinions of society will soon become more settled than they've been for several centuries. That time hasn't come yet — but it may be approaching.

The more closely I examine the natural tendencies of democratic nations, the more persuaded I become that if social equality is ever generally and permanently established in the world, great intellectual and political revolutions will become more difficult and less frequent than people suppose. Because the citizens of democracies appear constantly excited, uncertain, eager, and changeable in their desires and positions, people imagine they're on the verge of abolishing their laws, adopting new beliefs, and transforming their customs overnight. But if the principle of equality predisposes people to change, it also creates interests and tastes that can't be satisfied without stability. Equality pushes them forward, but it also holds them back. It spurs them on, but fastens them to the ground. It kindles their desires, but limits their power.

This, however, isn't obvious at first glance. The forces that tend to pull the citizens of a democracy apart are easy to see. But the hidden force that restrains and unites them is not visible at a glance.

Amid the ruins that surround me, dare I say that revolutions are not what I most fear for future generations? If people continue to shut themselves ever more tightly within the narrow circle of private concerns and to live off that kind of small excitement, there's a real danger that they'll eventually become impervious to the great, powerful public emotions that disrupt nations — but that also enlarge and renew them.

When property becomes so unstable and the love of property so anxious and intense, I can't help fearing that people may reach a point where they regard every new theory as a threat, every innovation as a tiresome burden, every social improvement as a stepping-stone to revolution — and so refuse to move at all, for fear of being moved too far. I dread — and I'll admit it — that they may finally surrender so completely to a cowardly love of present comfort that they lose sight of the interests of their future selves and their descendants, and prefer to drift along the easy current of life rather than make, when necessary, a strong and sudden effort toward a higher purpose.

Some people believe that modern society will be forever changing its face. I fear the opposite: that it will end up locked in the same institutions, the same prejudices, the same customs, so rigidly that humanity will stop and narrow itself; that the mind will swing back and forth forever without generating fresh ideas; that people will exhaust their strength in trivial, solitary pursuits; and that, for all its constant motion, humanity will cease to advance.

Chapter XXII: Why Democratic Nations Naturally Want Peace, but Democratic Armies Want War

The same interests, fears, and passions that keep democratic nations from revolutions also keep them from war. The spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution weaken at the same time and for the same reasons: the ever-growing number of property owners who love peace; the expansion of personal wealth, which war so quickly devours; the gentleness of customs and the softness of heart that equality produces; that coolness of temperament that makes people relatively unmoved by the violent, romantic excitement of combat — all these forces work together to dampen the military spirit. I think we can state it as a general rule: among civilized nations, warlike passions will become rarer and less intense in proportion as social conditions become more equal.

But war still happens. Democratic nations, like all others, are subject to it. Whatever their taste for peace, they have to be ready to repel aggression — in other words, they need an army.

The United States has been especially fortunate in this regard. Placed in the middle of a wilderness with practically no neighbors, a few thousand soldiers are enough for its needs. But this is particular to America's geography, not to democracy. The equality of conditions, and the institutions and customs that result from it, don't spare a democratic nation from the necessity of maintaining standing armies. And those armies always exercise a powerful influence over the nation's fate. It's therefore critically important to understand the natural tendencies of the people who make up these armies.

In aristocratic nations — especially those where birth is the only basis for rank — the same inequality that exists in the nation exists in the army. The officer is a nobleman; the soldier is a serf. One is born to command, the other to obey. In aristocratic armies, the private soldier's ambition is therefore confined within very narrow limits, and the officer's ambition isn't unlimited either. An aristocratic officer corps doesn't just form part of the nation's hierarchy — it contains its own internal hierarchy. Its members are arranged in a fixed, unchangeable order. One person is born to command a regiment, another a company. Once they've reached the summit of what their birth entitles them to, they stop of their own accord and rest content.

There's also a powerful force that, in aristocracies, weakens an officer's hunger for promotion. In an aristocratic nation, an officer holds an elevated social position independently of his military rank. His army rank, in his own eyes, is almost just an appendage to his social standing. A nobleman who takes up the military profession does so less from ambition than from a sense of duty imposed by his birth. He enters the army to find an honorable way to fill the idle years of his youth and to bring home some respectable memories of military life. His main purpose isn't to acquire property, prestige, or power through the profession, since he already possesses all of these by birthright and enjoys them without ever leaving home.

In democratic armies, every soldier can potentially become an officer, which makes the desire for promotion universal and vastly expands the scope of military ambition. The officer, for his part, sees no natural stopping point at any particular rank — and each rank matters enormously to him, because his social position almost entirely depends on his military position. In democracies, it's common for an officer to have no wealth except his salary and no distinction except his military honors. So whenever his duties change, his whole life changes — he practically becomes a different person. What was just an accessory to his position in aristocratic armies has become the main thing — the foundation of his entire existence.

Under the old French monarchy, officers were always addressed by their titles of nobility. Now they're always addressed by their military rank. This small change in language is enough to show that a great revolution has taken place in both society and the army.

In democratic armies, the desire for advancement is almost universal — intense, relentless, perpetual. It's strengthened by every other desire and only dies with the person who feels it. But it's easy to see that, of all the armies in the world, those where advancement is slowest in peacetime are the armies of democratic countries. Since the number of positions is naturally limited while the number of candidates is nearly unlimited, and since the strict law of equality applies to everyone, no one can rise quickly — and many can't rise at all. The desire for advancement is therefore greater, and the opportunities for it fewer, than anywhere else. All the ambitious spirits in a democratic army consequently burn for war, because war creates vacancies and justifies breaking the one privilege that democracy naturally recognizes: seniority.

This leads us to a remarkable paradox: of all armies, the ones most eager for war are democratic armies; and of all nations, the ones most fond of peace are democratic nations. What makes this even more extraordinary is that both effects are produced by the same cause — the principle of equality.

All members of a democratic society, being alike, constantly wish and see the possibility of improving their circumstances. This makes them love peace, which is good for business and allows everyone to pursue their little projects to completion. But this same equality makes soldiers dream of battlefields, by increasing the value of military honors in the eyes of those who follow the profession of arms and making those honors accessible to all. In both cases, the restlessness of the heart is the same, the appetite for success equally insatiable, the ambition equally intense — only the means of satisfying it differ.

These opposing tendencies of the nation and the army expose democracies to serious dangers. When the military spirit drains out of a people, the profession of arms immediately loses its prestige. Soldiers drop to the lowest rung among public servants — poorly regarded, poorly understood. The reverse of what happens in aristocratic eras occurs: the people who enter the army are no longer those of the highest social standing but of the lowest. Military ambition becomes the refuge of last resort, pursued only when every other option is closed off.

This creates a vicious cycle that's hard to escape: the best people in the nation avoid the military because it isn't respected, and the military isn't respected because the best people have stopped joining it.

It should come as no surprise, then, that democratic armies are often restless, irritable, and unhappy with their lot — even though their living conditions are usually far better and their discipline less harsh than in other countries. The soldier feels that he occupies an inferior position, and his wounded pride either stokes his appetite for war, which would make his services essential, or inclines him toward revolutions, during which he might hope to win through force the political influence and personal importance now denied him.

The makeup of democratic armies makes this last danger especially alarming. In democratic societies, almost everyone has some property to protect. But democratic armies are typically led by people without property — people who have little to lose in a political upheaval. The general population is naturally far more afraid of revolutions than people were in aristocratic eras, but the military leadership is far less afraid.

Moreover, as I've just noted, since the wealthiest, best-educated, and most capable citizens in democratic nations rarely choose military careers, the army gradually becomes a small nation within the nation — one where minds are less developed and habits rougher than in the broader society. And this small, less-civilized nation has all the weapons and is the only one that knows how to use them. The peaceful temperament of the general population actually increases the threat posed by the military's turbulent spirit. Nothing is more dangerous than an army in the middle of an unwarlike nation. The community's overwhelming desire for tranquility constantly puts its institutions at the mercy of the soldiers.

We can say, as a general rule, that while democratic nations are naturally drawn to peace by their interests and instincts, they're constantly pulled toward war and revolution by their armies. Military coups — virtually unthinkable in aristocracies — are an ever-present threat in democracies. These dangers must be counted among the most serious that democratic nations will face, and political leaders should devote their most careful attention to finding a remedy.

When a nation realizes that it's being destabilized by the restless ambition of its army, the first thought is to give that ambition an outlet by going to war. I won't condemn war outright — war almost always broadens a nation's mind and elevates its character. In some cases, it's the only check on certain dangerous tendencies that naturally spring from equality, and it should be considered a necessary corrective for certain deep-seated ailments that democratic societies are prone to.

But we shouldn't kid ourselves that war can eliminate the danger I've been describing. It only suspends that danger, and the danger returns with even greater force when the war is over — because armies are far more impatient with peace after tasting combat. War would only be a real solution for a people with an insatiable, permanent thirst for military glory.

I foresee that every military leader who rises to power in a large democratic nation will find it easier to conquer with their armies than to make those armies live peacefully after the conquest. There are two things a democratic people will always find extremely difficult: starting a war and ending one.

Furthermore, if war offers democracies certain advantages, it also exposes them to particular dangers that aristocracies don't have to worry about as much. I'll mention just two.

First, although war gratifies the army, it frustrates and often enrages the vast majority of citizens whose small daily pursuits require peace. So there's a risk that war will provoke, in a different form, the very disruptions it was meant to prevent.

Second, no prolonged war can fail to threaten the freedom of a democratic country. Not that we should expect victorious generals to seize power by force in the manner of Sulla and Caesar — the danger is of a different kind. War doesn't always hand democratic societies over to military government, but it inevitably and immensely expands the power of civilian government. It all but forces the centralization of all decision-making and the concentration of all management in the hands of the administration. If war doesn't lead to despotism through sudden violence, it prepares people for it gradually, through their habits. Anyone who wants to destroy the freedoms of a democratic nation should know that war is the surest and shortest path to that goal. That is the first axiom of the science.

One remedy that seems obvious when military ambition starts to become alarming is to increase the number of positions by expanding the army. This provides temporary relief but creates deeper problems for the future. In an aristocratic society, expanding the army can have a lasting effect, because military ambition is confined to a single class and each person's ambition has a natural ceiling. But expanding the army in a democratic society accomplishes nothing, because the number of hopeful candidates grows in exactly the same proportion as the army itself. Those whose ambitions were satisfied by the creation of new positions are instantly replaced by a new wave of aspirants impossible to satisfy. And even those who were just satisfied soon start wanting more, because the same restless drive that pervades democratic civilian life pervades the military too. What people want isn't to reach a certain rank — they want perpetual promotion. Though their individual goals may not be that grand, they never stop recurring.

A democratic nation that expands its army, then, only temporarily quiets the ambition of the military profession — which soon becomes even more dangerous because the number of people who feel it has grown. I believe that a restless, turbulent spirit is an evil inherent in the very constitution of democratic armies, and beyond any hope of cure. The lawmakers of democracies shouldn't expect to design any military system capable of calming and restraining the military profession on its own. They'd exhaust their resources before reaching that goal.

The remedy for the army's problems isn't to be found in the army itself, but in the country. Democratic nations are naturally wary of instability and authoritarianism. The task is to transform these natural instincts into deliberate, well-considered, and lasting convictions. When people have finally learned to make peaceful and productive use of freedom and have felt its benefits — when they've developed a mature love of order and have freely submitted to discipline — those same people, if they enter the military, will bring these civilian habits and values with them, unconsciously and almost against their will. The general spirit of the nation, infused into the spirit of the army, tempers the attitudes and desires that military life generates — or suppresses them through the overwhelming force of public opinion.

Train citizens to be educated, orderly, firm, and free, and the soldiers will be disciplined and obedient.

Any law that tries to quiet the army's turbulent spirit by diminishing the spirit of freedom in the nation, by overshadowing the rule of law — such a law would defeat its own purpose. It would do far more to enable military tyranny than to prevent it.

When all is said and done, despite every precaution, a large army in the midst of a democratic people will always be a source of great danger. The most effective way to reduce that danger would be to reduce the army — but that's a remedy not every nation has the power to use.

Chapter XXIII: Which Class in Democratic Armies Is the Most Warlike and the Most Revolutionary?

It's in the nature of a democratic army to be very large relative to the population it serves, as I'll explain later. On the other hand, people living in democratic times rarely choose a military career voluntarily. Democratic nations are therefore quickly forced to abandon the system of volunteer recruitment in favor of conscription. Their social conditions compel them to adopt this approach, and it's easy to predict that they'll all eventually do so.

When military service is compulsory, the burden falls equally and indiscriminately on the whole community. This, too, is a natural consequence of the social conditions and attitudes of these nations. The government can get away with almost anything, so long as it asks the same thing of everyone. It's the unequal distribution of the burden, not the burden itself, that typically provokes resistance.

But because military service is shared by all citizens, the practical result is that each person serves on active duty for only a few years. So it's in the nature of things that in democracies the soldier merely passes through the army, whereas in most aristocratic nations the military is a lifelong profession — one the soldier either chooses or has imposed on him.

This has important consequences. Among the soldiers of a democratic army, some develop a taste for military life, but the majority — having been drafted against their will and always ready to go home — don't consider themselves truly committed to the military profession. They're always thinking about leaving. These people don't fully develop the needs, and only half absorb the passions, that military life generates. They adjust to their military duties, but their minds remain attached to the interests and obligations of civilian life. They don't absorb the spirit of the army — or rather, they infuse the spirit of broader society into the army and keep it alive there.

In democratic nations, the private soldiers are the ones who remain most like civilians. The habits of the nation have the strongest hold on them, and public opinion exercises the most influence over them. It's primarily through the enlisted ranks that the love of freedom and respect for rights can be instilled in a democratic army — if those principles have first been successfully cultivated among the population at large.

The reverse is true in aristocratic nations, where ordinary soldiers eventually have nothing in common with their fellow citizens and live among them as strangers — often even as enemies. In aristocratic armies, the officers are the stabilizing force, because they alone have maintained a real connection to civilian society and always intend to return to it eventually. In democratic armies, the private soldiers play this stabilizing role, for the same reason.

On the other hand, it often happens that in these same democratic armies, the officers develop tastes and desires completely different from those of the nation. Here's why. In a democracy, the person who becomes an officer cuts all the ties that bound them to civilian life. They leave it behind for good. They have no reason to go back. Their true home is the army, because everything they have — their status, their identity — depends on their military rank. They follow the army's fortunes, rise and fall with it, and from that point forward direct all their hopes toward it alone.

Since an officer's needs are distinct from the country's, they may passionately desire war or work to provoke a revolution at the very moment when the nation most wants stability and peace. There are, however, forces that moderate this restless, warlike spirit. Although ambition in democracies is universal and constant, we've seen that it's rarely grand. A person born in the lower classes who has risen through the ranks to become an officer has already made an enormous leap. They've gained a foothold in a sphere above the one they occupied in civilian life, and they've acquired rights that most democratic nations will always consider sacred. They're willing to pause after such a great effort and enjoy what they've won. The fear of risking what they've already achieved dampens their desire for what they haven't yet attained. Having conquered the first and greatest obstacle to their advancement, they accept the slowness of their subsequent progress with less impatience. Their ambition cools further as the increasing distinction of their rank teaches them they have more to lose.

If I'm not mistaken, the least warlike and least revolutionary part of a democratic army will always be its top commanders.

(The position of officers is actually much more secure in democratic nations than elsewhere. The lower a person's social standing outside the military, the greater the relative importance of their military rank — and the more essential it is that the privileges of that rank be protected by law.)

But the observations I've just made about officers and enlisted soldiers don't apply to a large group that fills the space between them: the non-commissioned officers. This class — which had never played a significant role in history until our own century — is destined, I believe, to become increasingly important.

Like the officers, non-commissioned officers have mentally severed all ties with civilian life. Like the officers, they've committed themselves permanently to the military and perhaps made it even more exclusively the focus of all their desires. But unlike the officers, non-commissioned officers have not yet reached a stable, elevated position where they can pause and catch their breath before climbing higher.

By the very nature of their duties — which are fixed and unchangeable — a non-commissioned officer is condemned to lead an obscure, confined, uncomfortable, and precarious existence. They see nothing of military life yet but its dangers. They know nothing but its hardships and its discipline — which is harder to bear than danger. They suffer all the more from their current misery because they know that the structure of society and the army allows them to rise above it. They can, in fact, receive a commission at any time and step into a world of command, prestige, independence, rights, and comfort. Not only does this goal seem enormously important to them, but they're never certain of reaching it until it's actually theirs. The rank they hold is by no means secure — they're entirely at the mercy of their commanding officer's arbitrary decisions, because military discipline demands it. A minor offense, a whim, can strip them in an instant of the fruits of years of effort and struggle. Until they've reached the rank they aspire to, they've accomplished nothing. Only at that level does their career truly begin.

A desperate ambition is bound to burn in someone who is constantly goaded by their youth, their needs, their passions, the spirit of their age, their hopes, and their fears. Non-commissioned officers are therefore determined to have war — war always, at any cost. And if war is denied them, they want revolutions — to suspend the established rules, to exploit the general chaos and the political passions of the moment to get rid of their superior officers and take their places. Nor is it impossible for them to bring about such a crisis, because their shared background and habits give them considerable influence over the enlisted soldiers, however different their passions and desires may be.

It would be a mistake to think that these various characteristics of officers, non-commissioned officers, and enlisted soldiers belong to any particular time or country. They'll appear at all times and in all democratic nations. In every democratic army, the non-commissioned officers will be the worst representatives of the country's peaceful, orderly spirit, and the private soldiers will be the best. The enlisted troops will carry into military life the strengths or weaknesses of the national character. They'll be a faithful reflection of the broader community. If that community is ignorant and weak, the soldiers will let themselves be led by their superiors into disorder — either without knowing it or against their will. If the community is enlightened and strong, it will keep them within the bounds of order.

Chapter XXIV: Why Democratic Armies Are Weaker at the Start of a War but Stronger the Longer It Lasts

Any army risks defeat at the start of a campaign after a long peace, and any army that has been fighting for a while has a strong chance of winning. This truth applies to democratic armies more than any other.

In aristocratic societies, the military is a prestigious career even in peacetime. People with great talent, education, and ambition pursue it. The army operates at the same level as the nation, and often above it. In democracies, the opposite happens: the most capable minds gradually drift away from the military to seek distinction, power, and especially wealth through other paths. After a long peace — and in democratic eras, the periods of peace are long — the army always falls below the level of the country itself. When that army is called into active service, both the nation and its military are in danger until actual warfare transforms it.

I've shown that in democratic armies during peacetime, the rule of seniority is the supreme and inflexible law of promotion. This isn't just a consequence of how these armies are structured — it reflects the structure of the society itself, and it will always be this way. Furthermore, because officers in these nations derive their social standing entirely from their rank in the army, and because all their income and status come from the same source, they don't retire or get forced out until they're near the very end of their lives. The combined result of these two factors is that when a democratic nation goes to war after a long period of peace, all its senior officers are old men. I'm not just talking about the generals — even the non-commissioned officers have mostly been stuck in place, advancing only one slow step at a time. It's a striking thing to notice: in a democratic army after a long peace, all the soldiers are basically kids while all the senior officers are past their prime. The soldiers lack experience, and the officers lack energy. This is a serious recipe for defeat, because the first requirement of successful military leadership is youth — and I wouldn't have dared say that if the greatest commander of modern times hadn't made the same observation.

These two factors don't operate the same way in aristocratic armies. Since promotion in those armies is based on birth far more than seniority, you'll find young men at every rank who bring fresh physical and mental energy to their roles. And because people who pursue military honors in an aristocratic society already have a secure position in civilian life, they rarely stay in the army until old age catches up with them. After devoting their most vigorous years to military service, they voluntarily retire and spend their later years at home.

A long peace doesn't just fill democratic armies with elderly officers — it also gives all officers habits of body and mind that make them unfit for real combat. Someone who has spent years in the calm, comfortable atmosphere of democratic civilian life can't easily adapt to the harder demands and harsher duties of war. Even if he hasn't completely lost his taste for military life, he's settled into a lifestyle that makes him poorly suited for the battlefield.

In aristocratic nations, civilian comfort has less influence on the military's character, because the aristocracy commands the army — and an aristocracy, no matter how deep into luxury it may be, always has passions beyond its own comfort. To satisfy those other passions, it will readily sacrifice its ease.

I've shown that in democratic armies during peacetime, promotion is painfully slow. Officers initially react to this with impatience — they get restless, agitated, frustrated — but eventually most of them accept it. Those with the most ambition and the most options leave the army. The rest adapt their tastes and desires to their modest circumstances and start to view military service from a purely civilian perspective. What they value most about it is the reliable paycheck and job security. Their entire vision of the future rests on the certainty of that modest income, and all they want is to enjoy it in peace. So a long peace doesn't just fill an army with old men — it frequently gives even those who are still in their prime the mentality of old men.

I've also shown that in democratic nations during peacetime, the military profession gets little respect and attracts little enthusiasm. This lack of public esteem weighs heavily on the army. It drags down morale, and when war finally breaks out, the troops can't immediately snap back to full fighting spirit. Nothing like this happens in aristocratic armies, where officers are never diminished in their own eyes or in the eyes of their countrymen, because their personal greatness exists independently of their military rank. But even if peace affected both types of armies the same way, the results would still be different. When officers in an aristocratic army lose their fighting spirit and their desire for glory through service, they still retain a sense of honor tied to their class and an ingrained habit of leading from the front. When officers in a democratic army lose their love of war and their military ambition, they have nothing left at all.

I believe, therefore, that when a democratic nation goes to war after a long peace, it faces a much greater risk of defeat than any other kind of nation. But it shouldn't be easily discouraged by setbacks, because its chances of success grow the longer the war continues. When a war drags on long enough to pull the entire population away from their peacetime jobs and ruin their small businesses, the same passions that made them cling so desperately to peace get redirected toward the battlefield. War, having destroyed every other avenue for ambition, becomes the one great avenue that remains — and all the restless, ambitious energy that equality generates gets funneled exclusively into it. That's why these same democratic nations that are so reluctant to fight sometimes achieve extraordinary things once they actually take the field.

As the war attracts more public attention and people see that it creates big reputations and big fortunes in a short time, the best minds in the nation pour into the military — all the driven, proud, combative spirits, no longer just from the aristocracy but from the entire country, head in that direction. With an enormous pool of competitors for military distinction, and with war forcing everyone to their true level, great generals are bound to emerge. A long war does for a democratic army what a revolution does for a people: it shatters the old rules and allows extraordinary individuals to rise above the crowd. The officers whose bodies and minds have gone stale in peacetime get pushed aside, retired, or die off. In their place comes a flood of young people, already toughened by service, their ambitions expanded and inflamed by combat. They are determined to advance at any cost, and the advancement never stops. Behind them come others with the same passions and desires, and behind those, still more — limited only by the size of the army. The principle of equality opens the door of ambition to everyone, and death keeps making room. Death constantly thins the ranks, creating vacancies, closing and reopening careers.

There's also a deeper connection between the military mindset and the democratic character that war brings to the surface. People in democracies are naturally eager to grab what they want and enjoy it on easy terms. They tend to worship chance and fear death far less than they fear difficulty. This is the spirit they bring to business and industry, and this same spirit, carried onto the battlefield, makes them willing to risk their lives to seize the rewards of victory in a single stroke. No form of greatness appeals to the imagination of a democratic people more than military greatness — a glory that's vivid, sudden, and brilliant, won without drudgery, by nothing more than the risk of one's life.

So while the interests and tastes of people in a democracy pull them away from war, their mindset makes them good at it. They quickly become effective soldiers once they're pulled away from their businesses and comforts. If peace is uniquely harmful to democratic armies, war gives them advantages that no other armies possess — and these advantages, however invisible at first, will eventually deliver victory. An aristocratic nation that fights a democratic people and doesn't crush them at the very start of the war always runs a serious risk of being defeated in the end.

Chapter XXV: Discipline in Democratic Armies

It's a widely held opinion, especially in aristocratic countries, that the deep social equality in democracies eventually makes ordinary soldiers independent of their officers, destroying the bond of discipline. This is wrong — because there are two kinds of discipline, and it's important not to confuse them.

When the officer is a nobleman and the soldier is a serf — one rich, the other poor; one educated and powerful, the other ignorant and weak — the strictest obedience can easily be established between them. The soldier is essentially broken into military discipline before he even enters the army, because military discipline is really just an extension of his social servitude. In aristocratic armies, the soldier eventually becomes numb to everything except his superior officers' orders. He acts without thinking, triumphs without enthusiasm, and dies without complaint. In this state, he's no longer quite a human being — but he's still a formidable animal trained for war.

A democratic people should give up any hope of getting the kind of blind, minute, unquestioning, mechanical obedience that an aristocratic people can impose without difficulty. The structure of democratic society simply doesn't prepare people for it, and the nation would risk losing its natural strengths by trying to artificially acquire this particular one. In democratic armies, military discipline shouldn't try to crush the independent spirit of the individual — all it can do is channel it. The obedience this produces is less precise, but it's more willing and more intelligent. It's rooted in the will of the person who obeys. It rests not just on instinct but on reason, and as a result, it often becomes stricter on its own as danger increases. The discipline of an aristocratic army tends to break down in wartime, because it's built on peacetime habits, and war disrupts those habits. The discipline of a democratic army, by contrast, gets stronger in the face of the enemy, because every soldier clearly understands that silence and obedience are the price of victory.

The nations that have achieved the greatest military feats knew no other kind of discipline than this. In the ancient world, only free citizens were admitted into the armies — people who were largely equals and accustomed to treating each other as such. In this sense, the armies of antiquity were democratic, even though they came from aristocratic societies. The result was a kind of brotherly familiarity between officers and enlisted men. The lives of great commanders written by Plutarch give vivid examples: soldiers routinely spoke freely to their generals, and the generals listened and responded. Troops were kept in line far more by words and by example than by punishment or coercion. The general was as much their companion as their commander. I'm not sure whether the soldiers of Greece and Rome ever mastered the fine details of military procedure as thoroughly as the Russians have — but that didn't stop Alexander from conquering Asia, or Rome from conquering the world.

Chapter XXVI: Some Thoughts on War in Democratic Societies

When the principle of equality is spreading not just within a single nation but across several neighboring nations at the same time — as is now happening in Europe — the people of these different countries, despite their differences in language, customs, and laws, start to resemble each other in one key way: they all share the same dread of war and the same love of peace. It doesn't matter that ambition or anger puts weapons in the hands of their leaders — they're calmed in spite of themselves by a kind of general apathy and goodwill that makes the sword fall from their grasp. Wars become less frequent.

As the spread of equality across multiple countries simultaneously pushes their populations toward manufacturing and commerce, not only do their tastes grow alike, but their economic interests become so tangled up with one another that no nation can harm another without that harm bouncing back on itself. Eventually, all nations come to see war as a disaster nearly as devastating for the winner as for the loser.

So on the one hand, it becomes extremely difficult in democratic eras to drag nations into war. But on the other hand, it's almost impossible for any two of them to go to war without pulling in the rest. Their interests are so interconnected, their opinions and desires so similar, that none can stay still when the others start to move. Wars therefore become less frequent, but when they do break out, they spread across a much wider field.

It's worth noting that the dread of war among European nations isn't entirely due to the spread of equality. Other factors play a role too — most notably, the sheer exhaustion left behind by the wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon's empire.

Neighboring democratic nations don't just become similar in certain respects — they gradually come to resemble each other in almost every way. This happens not just because they share the same social conditions, but because of the very nature of those conditions: equality drives people to imitate and identify with one another. In aristocratic societies, people don't just differ from each other — they have no desire to be alike. Everyone works hard to preserve their distinctive opinions, maintain their particular habits, and remain uniquely themselves. Individual characteristics are sharply defined. But in democratic societies, where there are no more castes or classes and everyone is roughly equal in education and wealth, people's minds work in the opposite direction. People are very much alike, and they're irritated by any deviation from that likeness. Far from trying to preserve what makes them distinctive, they try to shed it in order to blend into the general mass, which in their eyes is the sole source of legitimacy and power. Individual characteristics get flattened out. In aristocratic eras, even people who are naturally similar work to create imaginary differences between themselves. In democratic eras, even people who are genuinely different try to become the same — so powerfully does the general current of humanity sweep everyone along. Something similar can be observed between nations: two aristocratic nations might remain thoroughly distinct from each other, because the spirit of aristocracy is to maintain strong individual characteristics. But two neighboring democratic nations will inevitably adopt similar opinions and customs, because the spirit of democracy pushes people to become more alike.

This similarity between nations has major consequences for war.

If I ask why the Swiss Confederacy made the greatest powers in Europe tremble in the fifteenth century, while today Switzerland's military strength is exactly proportional to its population, the answer is that the Swiss have become like all the surrounding nations, and those nations have become like the Swiss. Now that the only difference between them is numbers, victory inevitably goes to the biggest army. One consequence of the democratic revolution sweeping Europe is that sheer numerical strength now dominates every battlefield, forcing small nations to either merge with larger states or at least adopt their military policies. Since numbers determine victory, every nation naturally tries to put the maximum number of soldiers in the field. When it was possible to recruit a class of troops clearly superior to all others — like the Swiss infantry or French cavalry of the sixteenth century — there was no need to raise massive armies. But when one soldier is essentially as good as another, the equation changes.

The same cause that creates this need also provides the means to meet it. As I've noted before, when people are all alike, they are all relatively weak, and the central government is naturally much stronger in democratic nations than elsewhere. So while these nations want to enroll their entire male population in the army, they actually have the power to do it. The result is that in democratic eras, armies keep getting larger even as the love of war keeps shrinking.

In these same eras, the way wars are fought also changes for the same reasons. Machiavelli observes in The Prince that it's much harder to conquer a people led by a prince and his nobles than a nation commanded by a prince and his bureaucrats. To put it in terms that apply to our own time: replace "slaves" in Machiavelli's language with "government officials," and the insight still holds perfectly.

A great aristocratic nation can neither conquer its neighbors nor be conquered by them without enormous difficulty. It can't conquer them because it can never fully mobilize and sustain its forces for long. It can't be conquered because an invader runs into small pockets of resistance at every step, each one capable of slowing the advance. War against an aristocracy is like war in mountainous terrain: the losing side always has opportunities to regroup and make a stand in a new position.

Exactly the opposite happens with democratic nations. They can easily throw their entire available force into the field, and if the nation is wealthy and populous, it quickly becomes victorious. But if it is conquered and its territory invaded, it has very few resources to fall back on. If the enemy captures the capital, the nation is effectively finished. Here's why: since each citizen stands alone, individually isolated and powerless, no one can defend themselves or serve as a rallying point for others. In a democratic country, nothing is strong except the state itself. Once the army is destroyed and the capital is taken, all that remains is a leaderless mass without the strength or organization to resist the power that has conquered it.

I'm aware this danger can be reduced by creating strong regional governments and local centers of power, but this remedy will always be incomplete. After such a catastrophe, the population isn't just unable to keep fighting — it probably won't even want to try. Under the accepted rules of modern warfare, the goal isn't to seize private property but to take control of political power. Private property is only destroyed incidentally, as a means to that end. When an aristocratic country is invaded after its army's defeat, the nobles — who are also the wealthiest members of society — will keep fighting individually rather than submit, because the conqueror would strip them of the political power they cling to even more tightly than their wealth. They'd rather fight than accept subjugation, which for them is the ultimate catastrophe. And they easily bring the common people along with them, because the people are used to following their lead and have relatively little to lose from continued war.

In a nation where equality prevails, the situation is reversed. Each citizen has only a tiny share of political power, and many have none at all. On the other hand, everyone is independent and everyone has something to lose. They're much less afraid of being conquered than they are of war itself. This is why it will always be extremely hard to persuade a democratic population to take up arms once the enemy has reached their own territory. And this is exactly why such a people must be given the rights and political engagement that give every citizen the kind of stake in public affairs that drives nobles to fight for the common good in aristocratic countries.

The leaders of democratic nations should never forget this: nothing except the passion and the habit of freedom can sustain a fight against the passion and the habit of material comfort. I can think of nothing more perfectly set up for subjugation, in the event of defeat, than a democratic people without free institutions.

In earlier times, it was standard practice to take the field with a small army, fight limited engagements, and conduct long, methodical sieges. Modern strategy is the opposite: fight decisive battles and, the moment a path opens up, race straight to the capital to end the war in a single blow. Napoleon is commonly credited with inventing this approach, but no single individual, no matter how brilliant, could have invented it. The way Napoleon fought wars was dictated by the state of society in his time. His method worked because it was perfectly suited to that society, and because he was the first to use it. Napoleon was the first commander to march an army from capital to capital, but the road was opened for him by the collapse of feudal society. If that extraordinary man had been born three hundred years earlier, he would not have achieved the same results with the same methods — or rather, he would have developed entirely different methods.

I'll add just a few words about civil wars, to avoid exhausting the reader's patience. Most of what I've said about foreign wars applies even more strongly to civil wars. People in democracies are not naturally inclined toward military life. They sometimes take it up when forced to, but voluntarily rising up as a body to face the horrors of war — especially civil war — is not something democratic populations tend to do. Only the most adventurous members of society are willing to run such risks; the great bulk of the population stays put.

But even if the population were inclined to revolt, they'd face enormous obstacles. They have no established, respected authority figures they're willing to follow — no well-known leaders to rally the discontented, organize them, and lead them. They have no regional political powers that could provide real support for resistance against the central government. In democratic countries, the moral authority of the majority is immense, and the physical resources at its command are overwhelmingly greater than anything that could be assembled against it. The party that holds power, speaks for the majority, and wields its authority triumphs instantly and irresistibly over any private resistance. It doesn't even give opposition time to form — it crushes it before it can take root.

Those who want to make a revolution by force in such nations have no option except to seize the entire machinery of government in one stroke — which is better accomplished by a coup than a war. Once a regular war begins, the side that controls the state apparatus will always win. The only scenario in which civil war could arise is if the army itself splits in two — one faction rebelling, the other staying loyal. An army is a small, tightly knit community with tremendous vitality and the ability to sustain itself for a while. Such a war might be bloody, but it couldn't last long. Either the rebel faction would win the government over by a show of force or by its first victory, ending the war immediately, or the fighting would begin and the faction without the backing of the organized state would quickly disband or be destroyed.

It can therefore be stated as a general truth that in eras of equality, civil wars will become much less common and much shorter.

It should be noted that this applies to sovereign, independent democratic nations — not to federations. In confederate systems, the real power always lies with the state governments rather than the federal government, no matter what the legal fictions say. In such systems, civil wars are really just foreign wars in disguise.

Book Four: How Democratic Ideas Shape Political Society

Chapter I: Equality Naturally Makes People Want Free Institutions

I wouldn't be doing justice to the purpose of this book if, after showing what opinions and feelings the principle of equality produces, I didn't also examine, before wrapping up, the broader influence these opinions and feelings have on how societies govern themselves. To do this, I'll frequently need to retrace my steps, but I trust the reader won't mind following me back through familiar territory if the path leads somewhere new.

The principle of equality, which makes people independent of one another, gives them a habit and a taste for following no guide but their own will in their private lives. This thorough independence, which they constantly enjoy among their equals and in their day-to-day interactions, makes them look on all authority with a suspicious eye. It quickly leads them to the idea — and the love — of political freedom. People living in such times have a natural pull toward free institutions. Pick any one of them at random and dig into their deepest instincts: you'll find that of all possible governments, the one they'll most quickly imagine and most deeply value is one whose leader they've personally elected and whose administration they can hold accountable.

Of all the political effects that equality of conditions produces, this love of independence is the first to catch the eye — and the first to worry cautious observers. Their worry isn't entirely misplaced, because anarchy does look more threatening in democratic countries than elsewhere. Since citizens have no direct power over one another, the moment the supreme authority of the nation collapses — the authority that kept everyone in their place — it seems like chaos would instantly reach its worst, with every person pulling in a different direction and the entire fabric of society falling apart.

I'm convinced, however, that anarchy is not the main danger democratic eras face — it's actually the least of them. The principle of equality creates two tendencies. One leads people straight toward independence and can suddenly tip them into anarchy. The other takes them down a longer, quieter, but more certain road toward servitude. Nations can easily spot the first tendency and are ready to resist it. But the second tendency carries them along without their even noticing where it leads — which makes it especially important to call attention to it.

For my part, far from criticizing equality for making people hard to govern, I actually admire it for precisely that reason. I find it remarkable that equality plants in people's minds and hearts a dim but instinctive love of political independence, thereby preparing the very remedy for the disease it creates. That is exactly why I'm attached to it.

Chapter II: Why People in Democratic Nations Naturally Favor Centralized Government

The idea of intermediate powers — authorities placed between the ruler and the ruled — came naturally to people in aristocratic societies, because those societies contained individuals and families who were raised above the common level and seemed destined to lead by birth, education, and wealth. This same idea is naturally absent from the minds of people in democratic eras, for exactly the opposite reasons. It can only be introduced artificially and maintained with difficulty. By contrast, people in democracies instinctively — almost without thinking about it — arrive at the idea of a single, central power that governs the entire community through its direct authority. Moreover, in politics as in philosophy and religion, the democratic mind is especially drawn to simple, sweeping ideas. Complicated systems repel it. Its preferred vision is a great nation made up of citizens who all look alike and are all governed by a single authority.

The very next idea that occurs to people in an age of equality, right after the notion of a single central power, is the idea of uniform laws. Since everyone sees that they're not very different from the people around them, they can't understand why a rule that applies to one person shouldn't apply equally to everyone else. Even the smallest privileges offend their sense of reason. The faintest inconsistencies in political institutions within the same country bother them, and they see uniformity of legislation as the most basic requirement of good government.

I find, by contrast, that this same idea of a uniform rule binding everyone equally was almost unknown in aristocratic eras. It was either never considered or it was dismissed out of hand. These opposing tendencies of thought eventually harden into such blind instincts and deep-rooted habits on both sides that they continue to shape people's behavior even when exceptions should logically apply. Despite the enormous variety of social conditions in the Middle Ages, there were some people who lived in virtually identical circumstances — but that didn't stop the laws of the time from assigning each of them different rights and different obligations. Today, by contrast, governments strain to impose identical customs and identical laws on populations that still have significant differences between them.

As conditions become more equal within a nation, individuals seem less important and society as a whole seems more so. Or rather, every citizen, being made similar to all the rest, gets lost in the crowd, and nothing stands out anymore except the grand, imposing image of the people themselves. This naturally gives people in democratic eras an inflated sense of society's rights and a diminished sense of the individual's. They're quick to accept that the interests of the whole are everything and the interests of the individual are nothing. They readily agree that the power representing the community has far more knowledge and wisdom than any of its individual members, and that it's both the right and the duty of that power to guide — not just govern — every citizen.

If we look closely at our contemporaries and dig down to the roots of their political beliefs, we'll find these very ideas, and we may be surprised to discover so much agreement among people who seem to disagree about everything. Americans believe that in every state, the supreme power should come from the people. But once that power is established, they can barely imagine any limits to it — they're ready to admit it has the right to do whatever it wants. They have no concept of special privileges granted to cities, families, or individuals. It seems never to have occurred to them that it might be possible not to apply the same laws with strict uniformity to every part of the country and every person in it.

These same ideas are spreading more and more across Europe. They're even infiltrating nations that most passionately reject the principle of popular sovereignty. Such nations may trace their supreme power to a different source, but they attribute exactly the same characteristics to it. Everywhere, the idea of intermediate powers is weakening and fading. The idea that certain individuals have inherent rights is rapidly disappearing. In its place rises the idea of the absolute authority of society at large. These ideas take root and spread in proportion to how equal social conditions become and how alike people grow. Equality creates them, and they in turn accelerate the advance of equality.

In France, where this revolution has gone further than in any other European country, these ideas have completely taken over the public mind. Listen to the various political parties in France, and you won't find a single one that hasn't adopted them. Most of these parties criticize what the government does, but they all believe the government should be constantly doing things and intervening in everything. Even the parties that disagree most violently with each other agree on this point. Unity, omnipresence, and absolute power of the central authority, along with uniformity in its rules — these are the defining features of every political system proposed in our era. They show up even in the most utopian fantasies of political transformation. The human mind chases them even in its dreams.

If these ideas arise spontaneously among ordinary citizens, they present themselves even more forcefully to the minds of rulers. As the old framework of European society is shaken and dissolved, monarchs are developing new ideas about what they can and should do. They're learning for the first time that the central power they represent can and ought to administer all the affairs of the community directly, according to a single, uniform plan. This idea — which, I'll venture to say, no European monarch had ever conceived before our time — is now sinking deep into the minds of kings, and it stays there even amid the turmoil of more unsettled thoughts.

Our contemporaries are therefore far less divided than people commonly think. They argue endlessly about who should hold power, but they readily agree on what that power should look like and what it should do. Their shared vision of government is a single, simple, providential, and creative authority. All their secondary political opinions may be unsettled, but this one remains fixed, unchanging, and consistent. Statesmen and political philosophers embrace it. The public eagerly seizes on it. Those who govern and those who are governed pursue it with equal enthusiasm. It's the first idea in their minds; it seems innate. It doesn't spring from any quirk of human thinking — it's a necessary product of the current state of humanity.

Chapter III: How the Feelings of Democratic Nations Match Their Ideas in Favoring Centralized Power

If it's true that people in eras of equality naturally arrive at the idea of a strong central power, it's equally true that their habits and feelings predispose them to accept such a power and give it their support. This can be explained briefly, since most of the reasons have already been laid out.

People in democratic countries have no superiors, no inferiors, and no regular partners in their endeavors, so they naturally fall back on themselves and think of themselves as beings apart. I discussed this at length when I examined individualism. As a result, these people can never, without real effort, tear themselves away from their private affairs to engage in public business. Their natural inclination leads them to hand public matters over to the only visible, permanent representative of the community's interests — that is, the state. Not only do they have no natural taste for public life, but they often have no time for it. Private life in democratic eras is so busy, so stimulating, so full of desires and activities, that barely any energy or time is left for each individual to devote to public affairs.

I won't pretend these tendencies are unconquerable — after all, my chief purpose in writing this book has been to fight them. I only say that right now, a hidden force is nourishing them in the human heart, and that if they're not checked, they'll completely take over.

I've also had occasion to show how the growing love of material comfort and the unstable nature of property make democratic nations dread any violent disruption. The love of public order is often the only strong feeling these nations have left, and it grows more powerful in proportion as all other passions fade and die. This naturally leads citizens to keep handing over additional rights to the central power — the only entity that seems interested in protecting them, using the same tools it uses to protect itself.

In eras of equality, no one is forced to help their neighbors, and no one has the right to expect much help from them. Everyone is simultaneously independent and powerless. These two conditions — which must never be considered separately or lumped together — inspire deeply contradictory impulses in democratic citizens. Their independence fills them with self-reliance and pride among their equals. Their weakness makes them feel, from time to time, the need for some outside support that they can't expect from any of their fellow citizens, because everyone else is equally powerless and indifferent. In this bind, they naturally look up to that one imposing power that rises above the flat landscape of universal weakness. Their needs and especially their desires constantly draw their attention to it, until they eventually come to see it as the sole and necessary prop for their own fragility.

This helps explain something that frequently happens in democratic countries: the very same people who are so impatient with any equal who claims authority over them will patiently submit to a master — displaying their pride and their servility in the same breath.

It's worth noting that in democratic societies, nothing but the central power has any stability or permanence. All other members of society are in constant motion and transformation. And it's in the nature of all governments to constantly seek to expand their reach. A government like this is almost certain to succeed eventually, because it acts with a fixed purpose and a steady will upon people whose situations, ideas, and desires are in endless flux. It frequently happens that citizens help expand the central power's influence without meaning to. Democratic eras are periods of experimentation, innovation, and risk-taking. At any given time, there are countless people pursuing difficult or novel ventures on their own, without worrying about their fellow citizens. In principle, each of them might agree that government shouldn't interfere in private affairs. But in practice, each one craves government help for the particular project they're working on — even as they'd restrict that same government on every other occasion. When a large number of people each make this exception for a different purpose, the central power's reach quietly expands in every direction, even though each individual wants it kept in check.

A democratic government grows more powerful simply by enduring. Time is on its side. Every turn of events works in its favor. The passions of individuals unconsciously promote it. And it can be stated as a rule: the older a democratic society is, the more centralized its government becomes.

The hatred people feel toward privilege grows stronger as privileges become rarer and smaller. Democratic passions seem to burn hottest when they have the least fuel. I've already explained why this is. When conditions are deeply unequal, no single inequality is dramatic enough to stand out. But when everything is nearly uniform, even the smallest difference becomes unbearable. The more complete the uniformity, the more intolerable any remaining distinction feels. The love of equality, therefore, naturally keeps growing alongside equality itself — it feeds on its own progress.

This relentless, ever-intensifying hatred of even the tiniest privileges is uniquely favorable to the gradual concentration of all political power in the hands of the state. The sovereign, standing necessarily and undeniably above all citizens, doesn't provoke their envy. Each person feels they're simply stripping their equals of an unfair advantage when they hand that advantage to the central authority. People in democratic eras are deeply reluctant to obey a neighbor who is their equal. They refuse to acknowledge superior ability in someone like themselves. They distrust that person's fairness and resent their power. They fear them and look down on them at the same time. And they love to constantly remind each other of their shared dependence on the same master.

Every central power that follows its natural instincts encourages equality, because equality makes it vastly easier to extend and secure the influence of centralized authority.

In the same way, every central government loves uniformity. Uniformity saves it from having to investigate the countless particular details that would arise if rules had to be tailored to individuals, instead of uniformly imposing the same rules on everyone. The government likes what the citizens like, and naturally dislikes what they dislike. These shared feelings, which in democratic nations constantly bind the sovereign and every citizen in a common conviction, create a secret, lasting bond of sympathy between them. The government's mistakes are forgiven because of its shared tastes with the people. Public trust is only reluctantly withdrawn, even in the midst of the government's worst excesses and errors — and it's restored at the first opportunity. Democratic nations often hate the people who hold power, but they always love the power itself.

So by two separate paths, I've arrived at the same conclusion. I've shown that the principle of equality leads people to the idea of a single, uniform, and strong government. I've now shown that equality also gives them a taste for it. The nations of our era are moving toward exactly this kind of government. They're drawn to it by the natural inclinations of their minds and hearts, and to reach it, all they have to do is stop resisting the current.

I believe that in the democratic ages now opening before us, individual independence and local self-government will always be the products of deliberate effort, while centralization will be the natural form of government.

Chapter IV: Specific Causes That Push a Nation Toward Centralization — or Away From It

All democratic nations are instinctively drawn toward centralizing their government, but they don't all get there at the same pace. It depends on the particular circumstances that either accelerate or slow down this natural tendency — and those circumstances are countless. I'll focus on just a few.

Among people who lived as free citizens long before they became equal, the habits born of free institutions push back, to some degree, against the instincts produced by equality. The central government may expand its power among such people, but individual citizens will never completely surrender their independence. But when equality takes root among people who have never known freedom — or who forgot what it was long ago (as is the case across the European continent) — something different happens. The old habits of the nation merge almost naturally with the new habits and principles that equality produces, and all power seems to rush spontaneously toward the center. It accumulates there with astonishing speed. The state instantly reaches the outer limits of its strength, while private individuals let themselves sink just as quickly to the lowest depths of weakness.

The English settlers who emigrated three hundred years ago to build a democratic society on the shores of the New World had already learned to participate in public affairs back home. They knew trial by jury. They were accustomed to freedom of speech and of the press — to personal freedom, to the idea of individual rights and the habit of defending them. They carried these free institutions and self-reliant customs with them to America, and those institutions protected them against government overreach. So in America, freedom is the ancient tradition — equality is the relatively recent development. In Europe, it's the opposite: equality, introduced by absolute monarchs and enforced under the rule of kings, had already been woven into national habits long before freedom had entered anyone's imagination.

I've already noted that in democratic nations, people naturally think of government as a single, central power — the concept of intermediate authorities doesn't come easily to them. This is especially true in democratic nations where the triumph of equality came through violent revolution. When the classes that used to handle local affairs are suddenly swept away by the storm, and the confused mass that remains has neither the organization nor the habits needed to take over those responsibilities, the state alone seems capable of managing every detail. Centralization becomes, almost by default, the unavoidable condition.

Napoleon deserves neither praise nor blame for concentrating nearly all of France's administrative power in his own hands. After the sudden disappearance of the nobility and the upper middle classes, that power simply fell to him — it would have been almost as hard for him to refuse it as to claim it. But Americans never faced this kind of necessity. Having gone through no violent revolution, and having governed themselves from the start, they never had to rely on the state to act as their temporary guardian. So the degree of centralization in a democratic nation depends not just on how far equality has advanced, but on how that equality was achieved in the first place.

At the beginning of a great democratic revolution, when the fighting between social classes has just broken out, the people try to centralize public administration in the hands of the government — to wrestle local power away from the aristocracy. But toward the end of such a revolution, it's usually the defeated aristocracy that tries to hand everything over to the state, because they now fear the tyranny of a people that has become their equal, and often their master. So it isn't always the same class that pushes to expand government power. But as long as the democratic revolution is ongoing, there's always some group — powerful in numbers or in wealth — that has its own reasons for promoting centralization, quite apart from the universal democratic instinct of hating to be governed by your neighbor.

It's worth noting that in England today, the working classes are doing everything they can to destroy local independence and transfer administration from the periphery to the center, while the upper classes are fighting to keep things as they are. I'll venture a prediction: the time will come when those positions are completely reversed.

These observations explain why government power is always stronger, and individuals always weaker, in a democracy that fought its way to equality through a long, painful struggle than in one where citizens were equal from the beginning. America perfectly illustrates this point. Americans were never divided by inherited privileges. They never knew the relationship of master and subordinate. Since they neither feared nor hated each other, they never needed to call on a supreme power to manage their affairs. America's situation is unique: Americans inherited the concept of individual rights and the love of local self-government from English aristocratic tradition, and they were able to keep both — precisely because they had no aristocracy to fight against.

Education always helps people defend their independence, but this is especially true in democratic times. When everyone is equal, it's easy to build a single, all-powerful government through pure instinct alone. But it takes real intelligence, knowledge, and skill to organize and sustain secondary institutions under those same conditions — to create free associations amid all that individual weakness and independence that can stand up to tyranny without destroying public order.

This means that the concentration of power and the subjection of individuals will increase in a democracy not only in proportion to equality, but in proportion to ignorance. It's true that in less developed societies, the government is often just as lacking in the knowledge needed to impose despotism as the people are in the knowledge needed to resist it. But the effects aren't symmetrical. However unsophisticated a democratic people may be, the central power that rules them is never entirely without resources — it naturally absorbs whatever expertise exists in the country, and if necessary, it can seek help from abroad. So in a nation that is both uneducated and democratic, a staggering gap inevitably opens between the intellectual capacity of the ruler and that of each individual citizen. This makes centralizing power easy: the state's administrative functions keep expanding, because the state is the only entity competent to run things. Aristocratic nations, no matter how uneducated, never show this same pattern, because in them, knowledge is spread more or less evenly between the monarch and the leading members of the community.

The pasha who currently rules Egypt found a population of extremely uneducated and extremely equal people, and he borrowed European science and expertise to govern them. The ruler's personal knowledge, combined with his subjects' ignorance and democratic weakness, allowed him to centralize power without any resistance whatsoever. He turned the country into his factory and its people into his workers.

I believe that extreme centralization ultimately drains a society's vitality, and over time weakens even the government itself. But I won't deny that a centralized government can accomplish great things quickly and on a specific front. This is especially true in war, where success depends more on the ability to concentrate a nation's resources at a single point than on the sheer size of those resources. That's why nations at war most often want — and frequently need — to expand central government power. All military geniuses love centralization, because it multiplies their strength. And all centralizers love war, because it forces nations to concentrate all their power in government hands. So the democratic tendency to keep expanding the state's privileges and shrinking individual rights accelerates much faster among nations frequently exposed to war than among all others.

I've already shown how the fear of disorder and the love of comfort gradually lead democratic nations to increase the role of central government — the only power that seems strong enough, competent enough, and stable enough to protect them from chaos. Let me add this: every particular circumstance that makes a democratic society more unstable and anxious only intensifies this tendency, pushing individuals to sacrifice more of their rights for the sake of peace. People are therefore never more willing to expand central government power than in the aftermath of a long, bloody revolution that has stripped property from its former owners, shaken all beliefs, and filled the nation with bitter hatreds, conflicting interests, and warring factions. At such moments, the love of public order becomes an all-consuming passion, and citizens develop an almost fanatical devotion to stability.

I've already examined several factors that can promote the centralization of power, but the most important one remains. The single greatest incidental cause that may concentrate all authority in the ruler's hands in a democratic country is the nature of that ruler — where he comes from and what he wants. People living in an age of equality are naturally fond of central power and willing to extend its reach. But if that same power faithfully represents their own interests and mirrors their own values, the trust they place in it becomes boundless — they feel that whatever they give to it, they're really giving to themselves.

The pull of administrative power toward the center will always be slower and more difficult under kings who retain some connection to the old aristocratic order than under new leaders — self-made figures whose birth, prejudices, instincts, and habits tie them inseparably to the cause of equality. I'm not saying that aristocratic rulers in democratic times don't try to centralize — they do, and they work at it as hard as anyone else. For them, centralization is the only advantage that equality offers. But their opportunities are more limited, because the public, instead of eagerly complying with their wishes, often obeys them reluctantly. The rule in democracies is this: centralization increases in proportion to how little the ruler resembles an aristocrat.

When an old royal family heads an aristocracy, the natural prejudices of the monarch perfectly match those of the nobility, and the inherent flaws of aristocratic society run unchecked. The opposite happens when an heir of feudal stock is placed at the head of a democratic people: the ruler is constantly pulled by his education, habits, and social circle toward attitudes born of inequality, while the people are constantly pulled by their social condition toward the habits that equality produces. At such times, citizens resist the central government not so much because they see it as tyrannical but because they see it as aristocratic — they defend their independence not just because they want to remain free but especially because they're determined to remain equal.

A revolution that overthrows an ancient royal family to place newer figures at the head of a democratic people may temporarily weaken central power. But however chaotic such a revolution may look at first, we can confidently predict that its ultimate and certain result will be to extend and entrench that power. The first — indeed the only — condition needed to centralize supreme power in a democracy is to love equality, or to make people believe you love it. The science of despotism, which was once so complicated, is now simplified and reduced to a single principle.

Chapter V: In Today's Europe, Government Power Is Growing — Even Though the People in Charge Keep Changing

If you think back over everything I've said so far, the picture should be startling and alarming: in Europe, everything seems to be driving toward the unlimited expansion of government power and making everything that once enjoyed independence weaker, more subordinate, and more precarious. The democratic nations of Europe share all the general, permanent tendencies that push Americans toward centralization — and on top of that, they face a host of secondary, circumstantial pressures that Americans have never experienced. It's as if every step they take toward equality brings them closer to despotism. And if we simply look around us, we'll see that this is exactly what's happening.

During the aristocratic centuries that preceded our own, European rulers had been stripped of — or had voluntarily given up — many of the powers inherent in sovereignty. Less than a hundred years ago, across most of Europe, numerous private individuals and institutions were independent enough to administer justice, raise and maintain armies, levy taxes, and frequently even make or interpret the law. The state has now reclaimed all of these natural attributes of sovereign power for itself alone. In all matters of government, the state tolerates no intermediary between itself and the people, and in public affairs generally, it directs the people through its own direct influence. I'm not criticizing this concentration of power — I'm simply pointing it out.

During that same earlier period, a large number of secondary authorities existed in Europe, representing and administering local interests. Most of these local authorities have already disappeared; the rest are rapidly vanishing or falling into total dependence. From one end of Europe to the other, the privileges of the nobility, the freedoms of cities, and the powers of provincial bodies have been either destroyed or are on the verge of destruction. In the last half-century, Europe has endured many revolutions and counter-revolutions that have pulled it in opposite directions. But all these upheavals share one thing in common: every single one of them has shaken or destroyed the secondary powers of government. The local privileges that the French didn't abolish in the countries they conquered eventually fell to the policies of the rulers who conquered the French. Those rulers rejected every innovation of the French Revolution except one: centralization. That was the only principle they were willing to accept from such a source.

My point is this: all the various rights that have been stripped in our time from social classes, institutions, and individuals have not been used to build new secondary powers on a more democratic foundation. Instead, they have uniformly been concentrated in the hands of the central government. Everywhere, the state acquires more direct control over the humblest members of society and more exclusive power to govern each person's smallest concerns.

Nearly all of Europe's charitable organizations were formerly in the hands of private individuals or independent institutions; now they are almost all dependent on the central government, and in many countries the government actually runs them. The state has taken it upon itself to be the sole provider: bread for the hungry, care and shelter for the sick, work for the unemployed, relief for every kind of misery. Education, like charity, has become a matter of national concern in most countries. The state receives — and often takes — children from their mothers' arms to hand them over to official agents. The state undertakes to shape the hearts and instruct the minds of each generation. Uniformity dominates public education just as it dominates everything else; diversity, like freedom, is disappearing day by day.

And I won't hesitate to say this: across nearly all Christian nations today, Catholic and Protestant alike, religion is in danger of falling under government control. It's not that rulers are particularly eager to settle questions of doctrine. But they're gaining more and more influence over the people who interpret doctrine. They strip the clergy of their property and pay them salaries instead. They redirect the influence of the priesthood to serve their own purposes, turning priests into their own agents — often into their own servants. And through this alliance with religion, they reach into the deepest depths of the human soul.

As the duties of central government grow, so does the number of officials who represent that power. They form a kind of nation within each nation. And because they share in the government's stability, they increasingly fill the role that aristocracies once played. Across almost all of Europe, the government rules in two ways: it controls one portion of the population through fear of its agents, and the other through the hope of becoming its agents.

But this is only one side of the picture. Government authority hasn't just spread throughout the sphere of existing powers until that sphere can no longer contain it — it has gone further, invading the domain that was once reserved for private independence. A huge number of activities that were formerly entirely beyond the reach of public administration have been brought under its control in our time, and the number keeps growing.

In aristocratic nations, the government was usually content to manage and oversee whatever directly and obviously concerned the national interest; in everything else, people were left to act on their own. Those governments often seemed to forget that there comes a point where the failures and suffering of private individuals become a matter of public concern — that preventing one person's ruin can sometimes be a matter of national importance. The democratic nations of our time lean to the opposite extreme. It's clear that most of today's rulers aren't satisfied with governing the people collectively: they seem to think themselves responsible for the actions and private circumstances of every citizen — as if they'd agreed to guide and instruct each person through every twist of life and to guarantee their happiness whether they asked for it or not. On the other side, private individuals increasingly view the government in exactly the same way: they call on it for help with every need and look to the administration as their mentor and guide.

I maintain that there is no country in Europe where public administration hasn't become not only more centralized but more intrusive and more granular. It meddles in private affairs more than it ever did. It regulates more enterprises, and smaller ones at that. It gains a firmer foothold every day — above, around, and about every private individual — to assist, advise, and coerce them.

In the past, a monarch lived on the income from his lands or his taxes; this is no longer the case, now that his needs have grown along with his power. In the same circumstances that once would have forced a ruler to impose a new tax, he now takes out a loan. The state thus gradually becomes the debtor of most of the nation's wealthiest citizens and centralizes the largest pools of capital in its own hands. Small savings flow to it by another route. As people mix together and conditions become more equal, the poor gain more resources, more education, and more ambitions. They start to imagine improving their lives, and this teaches them to save. These savings produce a constantly growing number of small pools of capital — the slow, steady product of labor. But most of this money would sit idle if it remained scattered among its individual owners. This created an opening for a philanthropic institution that will soon become, if I'm not mistaken, one of our most important political institutions. Some well-meaning people came up with the idea of collecting the savings of the poor and investing them at interest. In some countries, these organizations remain completely independent of the state. But in almost all of them, they're clearly merging with the government; and in several, the government has taken them over entirely, assuming the enormous task of centralizing and investing, on its own responsibility, the daily savings of millions of working people.

So the state draws the wealth of the rich to itself through loans, and it has the poor person's savings at its disposal through savings banks. The nation's wealth perpetually flows around the government and passes through its hands; and this accumulation grows in proportion to equality, because in a democratic country, only the state inspires enough confidence — only the state appears strong and durable enough — for people to entrust their money to it. The ruler is no longer content to manage the public treasury; he meddles in private financial matters. He is the superior, and often the master, of every member of the community. And on top of all that, he becomes their banker and accountant.

Meanwhile, the appetite for material comfort keeps growing, and the government gets more and more complete control over the sources of that comfort. People are following two separate roads to servitude: their desire for prosperity keeps them from participating in government, and their love of that prosperity places them in ever-closer dependence on those who govern.

The central government doesn't just take over all the duties formerly handled by various authorities — extending and surpassing them — it performs them with more speed, strength, and independence than before. Every government in Europe has dramatically improved the science of administration in our time: they do more things, and they do everything with more order, more efficiency, and less expense. They seem to be constantly enriched by all the expertise they've stripped from private hands.

Day after day, the rulers of Europe hold their subordinate officials under tighter control and invent new methods for supervising them more closely with less effort. Not content with managing everything through their agents, they undertake to manage the behavior of their agents in everything. So public administration doesn't just depend on a single power — it's increasingly concentrated in a single place and in the same hands. The government centralizes its operations while expanding its authority — a double increase in strength.

When you examine the old structure of judicial power across most European nations, two things stand out: the independence of the judiciary and the breadth of its functions. Courts didn't just settle disputes between private individuals — in many cases they acted as arbiters between citizens and the state. In most European countries, there were (and in some places still are) many private rights — mostly connected to property — that stood under the protection of the courts, rights that the state couldn't violate without judicial approval. This semi-political role was what mainly distinguished European courts from all others: every nation has judges, but not every nation has given its judges the same power.

Now look at what's happening across the democratic nations of Europe, the ones called free as well as the others. New, more dependent courts are springing up alongside the old ones, created specifically to handle disputes between the government and private citizens through a special jurisdiction. The traditional judiciary keeps its independence, but its scope is shrinking — increasingly restricted to settling disputes between private parties alone. The number of these special courts keeps growing, and so does their reach. The government is increasingly freed from the need to submit its policies and its rights to the judgment of an independent authority. Since judges can't be eliminated entirely, the state at least gets to pick them — and keeps them permanently under its control. Between the government and private citizens, these courts place the image of justice rather than justice itself. The state isn't satisfied with drawing all matters to itself; it increasingly claims the power to decide them all, without restriction and without appeal.

In France, a strange piece of reasoning has been used on this point: when a lawsuit arises between the government and a private citizen, it's not to be tried before an ordinary judge — in order, they say, to avoid mixing the administrative and judicial powers. As if having the government both judge and administrator at the same time isn't mixing those powers in the most dangerous and oppressive way possible.

Among modern European nations, there is one great cause — independent of everything I've already discussed — that constantly expands the reach and strengthens the authority of the central government, though it hasn't received enough attention: the growth of manufacturing, which is accelerated by the advance of social equality. Manufacturing naturally concentrates large numbers of people in one place, creating new and complex relationships among them. These workers are exposed by the nature of their employment to dramatic swings between abundance and poverty, during which public order is threatened. And it can happen that these jobs sacrifice the health, even the lives, of the people who depend on them. So the manufacturing classes require more regulation, oversight, and control than other segments of society, and it's natural that government power grows in proportion to those classes.

This is a general truth, but what follows applies specifically to Europe. In the centuries before our own, the aristocracy owned the land and was able to defend it. Landed property was therefore surrounded by strong protections, and landowners enjoyed great independence. This produced laws and customs that have persisted even after the breakup of great estates and the decline of the nobility. To this day, landowners and farmers remain the segment of society that most easily escapes government control.

During those same aristocratic centuries — the source of all our historical patterns — personal property was relatively unimportant, and those who had it were looked down on and weak. The manufacturing class was an exception within these aristocratic societies: lacking any established patron, it had no external protection and was often unable to protect itself. So people developed the habit of treating manufacturing property as a special category — not entitled to the same respect or the same protections as property in general. Manufacturers were seen as a small, unimportant class whose independence didn't matter much and could safely be left to the whims of their rulers.

If you flip through the law codes of the Middle Ages, you'll be amazed at how heavily royal regulations controlled manufacturing, down to the tiniest details — even in an era otherwise famous for personal independence. On this one point, centralization was already as thorough and as micro-managing as anything we see today.

Since then, a great transformation has occurred. Manufacturing, which was once only a seed, has grown to cover all of Europe. The manufacturing class has multiplied and enriched itself with the remnants of every other social rank; it has grown and keeps growing in numbers, importance, and wealth. Almost everyone who doesn't belong to it is connected to it in some way. After being an exception in society, it threatens to become the dominant — if not the only — class.

And yet the attitudes and political habits that originally developed around it still cling to it. These old attitudes persist not just because they're old, but because they happen to align perfectly with the new attitudes and general habits of our contemporaries. So manufacturing property doesn't gain rights at the same pace that it gains importance. The manufacturing classes don't become more independent as they become more numerous; on the contrary, it seems as though despotism lurks within them and grows naturally as they do.

As a nation becomes more involved in manufacturing, it feels a stronger need for roads, canals, harbors, and other semi-public infrastructure that facilitates the creation of wealth. And as a nation becomes more democratic, private individuals become less able, and the state more able, to build projects of such scale. I won't hesitate to say that the clear tendency of every government today is to take sole responsibility for these undertakings — and by doing so, they draw the people they govern into ever-closer dependence.

On the other side, as a state's power and needs grow, its consumption of manufactured goods keeps increasing — and these goods are generally produced in government-run arsenals and workshops. In every country, the ruler becomes the principal manufacturer. He gathers and keeps in his service a vast number of engineers, architects, mechanics, and craftspeople. He's not just the biggest manufacturer; he tends more and more to become the boss — or rather the master — of all other manufacturers. As private individuals become more powerless through becoming more equal, they can accomplish nothing in manufacturing without combining their efforts. But the government naturally seeks to bring these combinations under its own control.

It has to be admitted that these collective organizations are stronger and more formidable than any private individual, and they bear less personal responsibility for their actions — which makes it seem reasonable not to let them operate with the same independence that a private citizen might enjoy.

Rulers are all the more inclined to follow this logic because it matches their own instincts. In democratic nations, the only way people can resist the government is through association. So the government always views associations it doesn't control with suspicion. And remarkably, in democratic nations, the people themselves often harbor a secret fear and jealousy toward these same associations — the very institutions they need most. The power and durability of these small private bodies, standing amid the weakness and instability of everyone else, alarms people. The free exercise of an association's natural powers is almost treated as a dangerous privilege.

All the associations that spring up in our time are, moreover, new entities whose rights haven't been sanctioned by tradition. They come into existence at a moment when the idea of private rights is weak and the power of government is limitless — so it's no surprise that they lose their freedom at birth. Across all European nations, some types of associations can't even be formed until the state has examined their bylaws and authorized their existence. In several countries, efforts are underway to extend this rule to all associations. The consequences are easy to foresee. If the government once acquires the general right to authorize associations on certain conditions, it won't be long before it claims the right to supervise and manage them, to make sure they don't deviate from the rules it has laid down. In this way, the state would first reduce everyone who wants to form an association into dependence, then reduce everyone who already belongs to one — which is to say, nearly everyone. Governments are thus appropriating the greater part of the new power that manufacturing has brought into the world. Governments govern us — and they govern manufacturing.

I care so much about everything I've just said that I'm worried I may have undermined my point by trying too hard to make it clear. If the reader thinks my examples are insufficient or poorly chosen — if they believe I've exaggerated the encroachments of government power, or on the other hand, that I've understated how much room still remains for individual initiative — I urge them to put this book down for a moment and think about these questions on their own. Examine what's happening in France and in other countries. Ask the people around you. Search your own experience. I'm confident that without my guidance, and by different paths, you'll arrive at the same place I've been trying to lead you.

You'll see that for the past half-century, centralization has been growing everywhere in a thousand different ways. Wars, revolutions, conquests have all promoted it. Everyone has labored to increase it. During this same period, leaders have replaced each other with remarkable speed at the helm of nations, and their ideas, interests, and passions have been infinitely varied. But every single one of them, by one means or another, has sought to centralize. This instinct toward centralization has been the only constant amid the extreme instability of their lives and their ideas.

And if the reader, having examined these details of human affairs, steps back to take in the whole picture, the result is striking. On one hand: the most established dynasties shaken or overthrown. People everywhere breaking free from the grip of their laws through violence — abolishing or limiting the authority of their rulers. Nations that aren't in open revolution still restless and agitated, all animated by the same spirit of revolt. And on the other hand, at this very same moment, amid all this upheaval and among all these ungovernable nations: the relentless growth of central government power, becoming more centralized, more ambitious, more absolute, more far-reaching. The people perpetually falling under the control of the administration — led, almost without noticing, to surrender some further piece of their independence — until the very same individuals who from time to time overturn a throne and trample on a dynasty of kings bow more and more obediently to the slightest command of a government clerk.

Two contrary revolutions seem to be happening at once: one continually weakening the supreme power, the other continually strengthening it. At no point in our history has it appeared simultaneously so weak and so strong.

But on closer examination, these two revolutions are intimately connected. They spring from the same source, and after following separate paths, they lead to the same result. Let me repeat what I've said and implied throughout this book: we must be very careful not to confuse the principle of equality itself with the revolution that finally establishes that principle in a society's conditions and laws. Here lies the explanation for almost all the things that astonish us.

All the old political powers of Europe, the greatest and the smallest alike, were created in aristocratic ages, and they more or less represented or defended the principles of inequality and privilege. To make the new needs and interests created by the growing principle of equality prevail in government, people had to overturn or overwhelm the established powers. This led them to revolution, and it breathed into many of them that fierce love of disruption and independence that all revolutions produce, whatever their specific purpose. I don't believe there's a single country in Europe where the advance of equality hasn't been preceded or followed by violent changes in property and social relationships. And almost all of these changes have been accompanied by considerable anarchy and disorder, because they were carried out by the least educated portion of the nation against the most educated.

This is what produced the two contrary tendencies I've just described. As long as the democratic revolution was burning hot, the people bent on destroying the old aristocratic powers hostile to that revolution displayed a powerful spirit of independence. But as the victory of equality became more complete, they gradually surrendered to the tendencies natural to that condition and strengthened and centralized their governments. They had fought for freedom in order to achieve equality. But the more equality was established through freedom, the harder freedom itself became to sustain.

These two phases have sometimes occurred simultaneously. The previous generation in France demonstrated how a people could build a monstrous tyranny within their own community at the very moment they were defying the power of the nobility and challenging the authority of kings — teaching the world both how to win freedom and how to lose it.

Today, people watch as established powers crumble on every side. They see all ancient authority gasping for breath, all ancient barriers tottering toward collapse, and the wisest observers are deeply troubled by the spectacle. They focus only on the extraordinary revolution happening before their eyes, and they imagine that humanity is sliding into permanent anarchy. If they looked instead at the ultimate consequences of this revolution, their fears might take a very different shape.

For my part, I confess that I put no trust in the spirit of freedom that seems to animate my contemporaries. I can see clearly enough that the nations of this age are turbulent. But I can't see that they're truly free. And I fear that when these upheavals that shake the foundations of thrones finally subside, the power of rulers may prove greater than it has ever been.

Chapter VI: What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Should Fear

During my time in the United States, I noticed that a democratic society like America's could offer uniquely fertile ground for the establishment of despotism. When I returned to Europe, I saw how much use most of our rulers had already made of the ideas, feelings, and needs that this same social condition produces — using them to extend their own power. This led me to think that the Christian nations of the West would eventually suffer some kind of oppression resembling what hung over several nations of the ancient world. But a closer examination, and five more years of reflection, haven't lessened my fears — they've changed the object of them.

No ruler in previous ages was ever so absolute or so powerful as to undertake, by his own direct administration and without any intermediary authorities, to manage every part of a great empire. None ever attempted to impose strict uniformity of regulation on all subjects and personally to tutor and direct every member of the community. The very idea never occurred to anyone. And if it had, the lack of information, the crudeness of the administrative system, and above all the natural obstacles created by inequality of conditions would have quickly stopped such an enormous project in its tracks.

When the Roman emperors were at the height of their power, the different peoples of the empire still maintained customs and traditions of enormous diversity. Although they were all subject to the same monarch, most provinces were administered separately. The empire was full of powerful and active local governments. And though the whole government was centered in the emperor's hands, and he always remained the supreme arbiter when he chose to be, the details of daily life and private affairs lay mostly beyond his reach. The emperors did possess immense, unchecked power, which they used to satisfy their every whim, deploying the full strength of the state for that purpose. They frequently abused that power to strip people of their property or their lives. Their tyranny was crushing for the few, but it didn't reach the majority. It was focused on a few key targets and ignored the rest. It was violent, but its reach was limited.

If despotism were to take hold in the democratic nations of our time, it would look very different. It would be more far-reaching and more mild. It would degrade people without tormenting them.

I have no doubt that in an age of education and equality like our own, rulers could more easily gather all political power into their own hands and intrude more routinely into the sphere of private life than any ancient despot could ever have done. But this same principle of equality, which makes despotism easier, also softens its edges. We've seen how, as people become more equal and alike, social customs become more humane and gentle. When no one in the community has great power or great wealth, tyranny lacks both the tools and the arena to operate. When fortunes are modest, passions are naturally contained — imaginations limited, pleasures simple. This universal moderation moderates even the ruler, and holds the reckless expansion of his ambitions within certain limits.

Beyond these reasons drawn from the nature of democratic society itself, I could add many others, but I'll stay within the boundaries I've set. Democratic governments may become violent and even cruel in moments of extreme crisis or great danger. But those crises will be rare and brief. When I consider the modest passions of our contemporaries, the mildness of their customs, the breadth of their education, the gentleness of their religion and their morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint they show in their vices no less than in their virtues — I don't fear that they'll find tyrants among their rulers. I expect they'll find guardians.

The kind of oppression that threatens democratic nations is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Our contemporaries won't find any model for it in their memories. I'm struggling to find a word that accurately captures the full idea I've formed of it, but I can't — the old words "despotism" and "tyranny" don't fit. The thing itself is new. Since I can't name it, I'll try to define it.

I'm trying to envision the new form that despotism might take in the world. The first thing I see is an innumerable crowd of people, all alike and all equal, endlessly chasing the petty, hollow pleasures with which they fill their lives. Each one of them, living in isolation, is a stranger to the fate of everyone else. His children and his close friends are the whole of the human race to him. As for the rest of his fellow citizens, he stands next to them but doesn't see them. He touches them but doesn't feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself alone. If he still has a family, he has at any rate lost his country.

Above these people stands an immense, protective power that takes it upon itself alone to secure their comforts and watch over their fate. That power is absolute, thorough, orderly, far-sighted, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, like a parent, its purpose were to prepare people for adulthood. But it seeks the opposite: to keep them in permanent childhood. It is perfectly happy for people to enjoy themselves, as long as they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works to make them happy — but it insists on being the sole agent and only judge of that happiness. It provides for their security, anticipates and supplies their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their major concerns, directs their labor, regulates the transfer of their property, divides their inheritances. Why not go all the way and spare them the trouble of thinking and the burden of living?

Every day, it makes the free exercise of human will a little less useful and a little less common. It confines the will within an ever-narrower space and gradually strips each person of every capacity to act on their own. The principle of equality has prepared people for all of this. It has predisposed them to endure it — and often to welcome it as a benefit.

After taking each individual in its powerful hands and reshaping them to its liking, this supreme power then extends its reach over the whole of society. It covers the surface of social life with a dense web of small, complicated rules — detailed and uniform — through which even the most original minds and the most forceful personalities cannot break through to rise above the crowd. It doesn't shatter the human will; it softens it, bends it, and guides it. It rarely forces anyone to act, but it constantly prevents them from acting. It doesn't destroy; it prevents things from coming into being. It doesn't tyrannize; it compresses, it drains, it extinguishes, it stupefies. And it finally reduces each nation to nothing more than a flock of timid, industrious animals, with the government as their shepherd.

I've always believed that this quiet, orderly, gentle form of servitude could be combined more easily than most people imagine with the outward forms of freedom — and that it might even take root in the shadow of popular sovereignty itself.

Our contemporaries are constantly torn between two conflicting desires: they want to be led, and they want to stay free. Unable to destroy either impulse, they try to satisfy both at once. They invent a single, all-encompassing, all-powerful form of government — but elected by the people. They combine centralization with popular sovereignty. This gives them a moment's relief. They console themselves for being under someone's care by reminding themselves that they chose their own caretakers. Every citizen submits to being led on a leash, because it's not a person or a class holding the other end — it's the people at large.

Under this system, people shake off their dependence just long enough to choose their masters, then sink right back into it. A great many people today are perfectly content with this compromise between administrative despotism and popular sovereignty. They think they've done enough for individual freedom when they've surrendered it to the nation as a whole.

This doesn't satisfy me. The identity of the master matters less to me than the fact of obedience being coerced.

I won't deny, however, that a constitution of this kind seems infinitely preferable to one that, after concentrating all government power, would place it in the hands of an unaccountable individual or group. Of all the forms democratic despotism could take, that would surely be the worst.

When the ruler is elected, or closely watched by a legislature that is genuinely elected and independent, the oppression imposed on individuals is sometimes greater but always less degrading. Because every person, even when oppressed and disarmed, can still imagine that in obeying he is really obeying himself — that it's one of his own convictions that prevails over all the rest. In the same way, when the ruler represents the nation and depends on the people, the rights and power that every citizen gives up don't just serve the head of state but the state itself. And private individuals derive some return from the sacrifice of their independence to the public.

Establishing popular representation in a centralized country therefore reduces the evil that extreme centralization can produce, but it doesn't eliminate it. I grant that representative government preserves individuals' involvement in the most important affairs. But it is no less suppressed in the smaller and more private ones. And we must never forget that it's especially dangerous to enslave people in the minor details of life. Personally, I'd be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in small ones, if it were possible to have one without the other.

Subjection in minor affairs is felt every single day and by everyone without exception. It doesn't drive people to open resistance, but it frustrates them at every turn until they give up exercising their own will. It gradually breaks their spirit and drains their character. By contrast, obedience demanded on a few important but rare occasions only shows servitude at intervals and concentrates its burden on a small number of people.

It's useless to summon a people who have been made this dependent on central authority to occasionally choose the representatives of that power. This rare, brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, won't prevent them from gradually losing the ability to think, feel, and act for themselves — and from slowly sinking below the level of their own humanity. I'll go further: they'll soon become incapable of exercising the one great privilege they still have left.

Democratic nations that have introduced freedom into their political constitutions while increasing the despotism of their administrative constitutions have stumbled into a strange paradox. When it comes to managing minor affairs — where plain common sense is all that's needed — the people are deemed incompetent. But when the government of the entire country is at stake, those same people are suddenly invested with immense powers. They're alternately treated as their rulers' playthings and as their rulers' masters — greater than kings and less than fully human.

After exhausting every method of election without finding one that works, they're still baffled, still searching — as if the problem originated in the electoral system rather than in the structure of the country itself. It's genuinely hard to see how people who have entirely abandoned the habit of self-government could ever succeed in choosing good leaders. And no one should believe that a free, wise, and energetic government can ever spring from the votes of a servile people.

A constitution that is democratic at the top and authoritarian in every other respect has always struck me as a short-lived monster. The corruption of the rulers and the passivity of the people would quickly bring about its collapse. And a nation tired of its representatives and of itself would either create genuinely free institutions — or soon fall prostrate at the feet of a single master.

Chapter VII: Continuation of the Preceding Chapters

I believe it's easier to establish an absolute, despotic government among a people whose social conditions are equal than among any other. And I believe that if such a government were once established among such a people, it would not only oppress them but would eventually strip them of several of the highest qualities of humanity itself. Despotism therefore seems to me especially frightening in democratic times.

I would have loved freedom, I believe, in any era. But in the age we live in, I'm ready to worship it.

On the other hand, I'm convinced that anyone who attempts, in the era we're entering, to base freedom on aristocratic privilege will fail. Anyone who tries to draw and hold authority within a single class will fail. No ruler today is skillful or powerful enough to establish a despotism by restoring permanent distinctions of rank among citizens. And no lawmaker is wise or powerful enough to preserve free institutions without taking equality as his first principle and his watchword.

Everyone in our time who would secure the independence and the dignity of their fellow human beings must show themselves to be friends of equality — and the only worthy way to show it is to be it. On this, the success of their sacred enterprise depends. The question is not how to reconstruct aristocratic society, but how to draw freedom from the democratic society in which God has placed us.

These two truths seem to me simple, clear, and rich in consequences. And they naturally lead me to consider what kind of free government can be built among a people whose social conditions are equal.

It follows from the very nature and needs of democratic nations that government among them must be more uniform, more centralized, more extensive, more searching, and more efficient than in other countries. Society as a whole is naturally stronger and more active; individuals are more subordinate and weak. Society does more; the individual does less. This is inevitable.

We shouldn't expect, therefore, that the sphere of personal independence will ever be as wide in democratic countries as in aristocratic ones — nor should we wish for it. In aristocratic nations, the many are often sacrificed to the few, and the prosperity of the majority is sacrificed to the greatness of a handful. It is both necessary and desirable that the government of a democratic people should be active and powerful. Our goal should not be to make it weak or sluggish, but solely to prevent it from abusing its capacity and its strength.

What most protected individual independence in aristocratic times was that the supreme power didn't try to govern and administer the community all by itself. Those functions were necessarily shared with members of the aristocracy. Because the supreme power was always divided, it never pressed down with its full weight on any single person. And not only did the government not do everything through its own agents — most of the officials who carried out its duties drew their power not from the state but from the accident of their birth, so they weren't perpetually under the government's control. It couldn't create or destroy them at will or bend them to its every whim — and this provided an additional guarantee of personal independence.

I freely admit that we can't use the same methods today. But I can see certain democratic alternatives that could take their place. Instead of giving the government alone all the administrative powers that have been stripped from the aristocracy and from independent institutions, a portion of those powers can be entrusted to secondary public bodies, temporarily composed of ordinary citizens. In this way, the freedom of private individuals will be better protected, and their equality won't be diminished.

Americans, who care less about terminology than the French, still use the name "county" for the largest of their administrative districts — but the duties of the old count or lord-lieutenant are partly performed by an elected provincial assembly. In an age of equality like our own, it would be unjust and unreasonable to establish hereditary offices. But there's nothing to prevent us from substituting elected public officials, to a considerable extent. Election is a democratic tool that can secure the independence of the public official from the government as effectively as hereditary rank ever did — and even more so.

Aristocratic countries are full of wealthy and influential people who are capable of taking care of themselves and who can't easily be oppressed in secret. Such individuals naturally restrain the government within habits of moderation and reserve. I'm well aware that democratic countries don't naturally produce such people. But something like them can be created by deliberate effort. I'm firmly convinced that a true aristocracy can never be refounded in the modern world. But I believe that ordinary citizens, by joining together, can form organizations of great wealth, influence, and strength — organizations that serve the same function as aristocratic individuals. Through this means, many of the greatest political advantages of aristocracy can be achieved without its injustice or its dangers. A political, commercial, manufacturing, or even scientific or literary association is a powerful and well-informed member of the community that can't be pushed around or silenced. By defending its own rights against government overreach, it protects the freedoms of everyone.

In aristocratic times, every person is tightly bound to many of their fellow citizens, so they can't be attacked without those others coming to their defense. In ages of equality, every person stands alone. They have no hereditary allies whose help they can demand, no class they can count on for support. They can easily be disposed of; they can be trampled with impunity.

In our time, an oppressed citizen has only one means of self-defense: to appeal to the whole nation. And if the nation is deaf to their complaint, they can appeal to all of humanity. The only way to make that appeal is through the press. So freedom of the press is infinitely more valuable in democratic nations than in all others. It is the only cure for the evils that equality may produce. Equality isolates people and weakens them, but the press places a powerful weapon within everyone's reach — one that even the weakest and most isolated person can use. Equality strips individuals of the support of their connections, but the press enables them to summon all their fellow citizens and all of humanity to their aid. The printing press has accelerated the advance of equality, and it is also one of its best correctives.

I believe that people living in aristocracies can, strictly speaking, do without freedom of the press. But people living in democracies cannot. To protect their personal independence, I would not put my faith in great political assemblies, in parliamentary privilege, or in declarations of popular sovereignty. All of these can, to some degree, coexist with personal servitude. But that servitude cannot be complete if the press is free. The press is the supreme democratic instrument of freedom.

Something similar can be said about the judiciary. It is in the very nature of judicial power to attend to the interests of individuals and to focus on specific cases. Another essential quality of the judiciary is that it never volunteers its help to the oppressed — but it is always available to the humblest person who seeks it. A complaint, however feeble the complainant, will force itself upon the ear of justice and demand a hearing, because this is built into the very structure of the courts.

A power like this is particularly well suited to the needs of freedom in a time when the eye and hand of the government are constantly intruding into the smallest details of life, and when private individuals are too weak to protect themselves and too isolated to count on each other's help. The strength of the courts has always been the greatest guarantee of individual independence — but this is especially true in democratic times. Private rights and interests are in constant danger if the judiciary doesn't grow more powerful and more extensive to keep pace with the growing equality of conditions.

Equality awakens several tendencies in people that are extremely dangerous to freedom, and to which lawmakers must constantly pay attention. I'll only address the most important ones.

People in democratic ages don't naturally appreciate the value of procedures and formalities. They feel an instinctive contempt for them — I've explained why elsewhere. Formalities provoke their impatience and often their hostility. Because democratic citizens generally want only quick, easy gratifications, they rush toward the object of their desires, and the slightest delay infuriates them. This same temperament, carried into political life, makes them hostile to the formal procedures that perpetually slow them down or block their path.

But this is exactly why formal procedures are so useful to freedom. Their chief purpose is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the weak, the ruler and the people — to slow down the one and give the other time to look around. Formal procedures become more necessary as the government becomes more active and powerful while private individuals become more passive and weak. Democratic nations therefore need formalities more than any other kind of nation, and they naturally respect them less. This deserves the most serious attention.

Nothing is more pitiful than the arrogant dismissal that most of our contemporaries display toward questions of procedure — because the smallest procedural questions have acquired, in our time, an importance they never had before. Some of humanity's greatest interests now depend on them. I believe that while the statesmen of aristocratic ages could sometimes ignore formalities without consequence, and even rise above them, the leaders to whom nations are now entrusted must treat even the least of them with respect and never set them aside without absolute necessity. In aristocratic societies, the observance of formalities was superstitious. In ours, it should be deliberate and well-considered.

Another tendency that is completely natural to democratic nations and extremely dangerous is the impulse to dismiss and undervalue the rights of individuals. People's attachment to a right, and the respect they show it, is generally proportional to its importance or to how long they've enjoyed it. The rights of individuals in democratic nations tend to be small, recently acquired, and fragile. The result is that they're often sacrificed without regret and almost always violated without guilt.

But it so happens that at the same time, and in the same nations, where people feel a natural contempt for individual rights, the rights of society at large are naturally expanded and strengthened. In other words, people become less attached to individual rights at precisely the moment when it's most necessary to defend the little that remains.

It is therefore especially in our own democratic age that the true friends of freedom and of human greatness must constantly stand guard to prevent the power of government from casually sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the broader execution of its plans. In times like these, no citizen is so obscure that allowing them to be oppressed isn't dangerous. No private right is so unimportant that it can be safely surrendered to the whims of government.

The reason is clear: if a private right is violated at a time when people are deeply conscious of the importance and sanctity of such rights, the injury is confined to the individual whose right is infringed. But to violate such a right today is to deeply corrupt the moral fabric of the nation and to put the entire community at risk — because the very concept of individual rights is constantly fading among us.

There are certain habits, certain ideas, and certain vices that are peculiar to a state of revolution, and that a prolonged revolution inevitably breeds and spreads — whatever its character, its purpose, or its setting. When a nation has, in a short period of time, repeatedly changed its rulers, its beliefs, and its laws, the people eventually develop a taste for change itself and grow accustomed to seeing all change accomplished through sudden violence. They naturally develop contempt for formal procedures that prove ineffective day after day, and they can't tolerate the authority of rules they've so often seen broken. As the ordinary principles of fairness and morality no longer seem sufficient to explain and justify all the innovations that revolution constantly produces, people invoke the principle of public necessity. The doctrine of political expediency is conjured up, and people get used to sacrificing private interests without hesitation and trampling on individual rights in the name of achieving some public purpose.

These habits and ideas, which I'll call revolutionary because all revolutions produce them, appear in aristocratic societies just as much as in democratic ones. But in aristocratic societies, they're often weaker and always shorter-lived, because they run up against habits, ideas, and obstacles that counteract them. They disappear as soon as the revolution ends, and the nation returns to its old political patterns. This isn't always the case in democratic countries, where there's a permanent danger that revolutionary tendencies, growing more gradual and more systematic without ever entirely disappearing, will slowly transform into habits of submission to administrative authority.

I know of no kind of country where revolutions are more dangerous than in democracies — because, independent of the temporary, incidental damage they always cause, they can create permanent and lasting harm. I believe in the right to justifiable resistance and legitimate rebellion. I'm not saying, therefore, as an absolute rule, that people in democratic ages should never revolt. But I do think they have special reason to hesitate before embarking on revolution, and that it's far better to endure many injustices in their present condition than to resort to so dangerous a remedy.

I'll conclude with one overarching idea that encompasses everything in this chapter and, indeed, most of what this entire book has been about.

In the aristocratic ages before our own, there were individuals of great power and a social authority of extreme weakness. The outline of society itself was hard to make out, constantly blurred by the different powers that governed the community. The main task of people in those times was to strengthen, expand, and secure the central authority — and on the other hand, to confine individual independence within narrower limits and subordinate private interests to the public good.

Different dangers and different tasks await us. Among most modern nations, the government — whatever its origins, structure, or name — has become nearly omnipotent, and private individuals are falling further and further into the lowest stages of weakness and dependence.

In the old society, everything was different: unity and uniformity were nowhere to be found. In modern society, everything threatens to become so alike that the unique characteristics of each person will soon be entirely lost in the general blur. Our ancestors were always prone to make improper use of the idea that individual rights ought to be respected. We are naturally prone to exaggerate the idea that the interests of one person should always give way to the interests of the many.

The political world has been transformed. New disorders require new remedies. The task now is to set broad but clear and firm limits on government action; to grant certain rights to individuals and guarantee them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights; to help individual people maintain whatever independence, strength, and originality they still possess; to stand them up beside society at large and hold them upright — these seem to me the central goals for lawmakers in the era we're entering.

It seems as if the rulers of our time seek only to use people in order to accomplish great things. I wish they would try harder to make great people. I wish they would place less value on the work and more on the worker. I wish they would never forget that a nation can't remain strong when every individual in it is weak — and that no political system has yet been invented that can build an energetic people out of a community of timid, spineless citizens.

I see among our contemporaries two opposing ideas, both equally harmful. One group can see nothing in the principle of equality except the chaos it produces. They fear their own agency. They fear themselves. Another group, smaller in number but more perceptive, takes a different view: beyond the road that leads from equality to anarchy, they've finally spotted the road that seems to lead inevitably to servitude. They shape their souls in advance for this fate they see coming, and despairing of remaining free, they're already bowing in their hearts to the master who will soon appear.

The first group abandons freedom because they think it's dangerous. The second, because they believe it's impossible.

If I shared the second group's conviction, I would not have written this book. I would have confined myself to quietly mourning the fate of humanity. I've tried to point out the dangers that the principle of equality poses to human independence because I firmly believe these are the most formidable, and the least anticipated, of all the dangers the future holds. But I don't think they're insurmountable.

The people who will live in the democratic ages ahead have a natural taste for independence. They are naturally impatient with regulation, and they grow tired even of the conditions they themselves prefer. They are fond of power — but they tend to despise and hate those who wield it, and their own restlessness and insignificance make them difficult to pin down.

These tendencies will always be present, because they grow from the bedrock of democratic society itself, which will not change. For a long time, they will prevent the establishment of any despotism, and they will furnish fresh weapons to each new generation that takes up the struggle for human freedom.

Let us face the future, then, with the kind of healthy fear that keeps people vigilant in defense of their freedom — not with the faint, passive terror that crushes the spirit and drains the heart.

Chapter VIII: General Survey of the Subject

Before I close forever the subject that has occupied me for so long, I want to take one last look at all the different features of modern society and try, at last, to judge the overall influence that the principle of equality will have on the fate of humanity. But I'm stopped by the enormity of the task. Faced with so vast a subject, my vision blurs and my reason falters.

The modern society I've tried to describe and to judge has only just come into existence. Time hasn't yet given it its final shape. The great revolution that created it isn't over yet. And amid everything happening in our time, it's nearly impossible to tell what will pass away with the revolution itself and what will survive it. The world that's rising into existence is still half-buried under the remains of the world that's fading away. In the vast confusion of human affairs, no one can say how much of the old institutions and former customs will endure and how much will disappear entirely.

Although the revolution taking place in social conditions, in laws, in opinions, and in feelings is still far from complete, its results already defy comparison with anything the world has ever witnessed. I look back from age to age, all the way to the remotest antiquity, and I find no parallel to what's happening before my eyes. The past has ceased to shed its light on the future, and the human mind wanders in darkness.

Nevertheless, amid a landscape so vast, so new, and so bewildering, some of the more prominent features can already be made out.

The good things and the bad things of life are more equally distributed across the world. Great wealth tends to disappear; the number of modest fortunes increases. Desires and pleasures multiply, but extraordinary prosperity and hopeless poverty alike become rare. The feeling of ambition is universal, but the scope of ambition is seldom grand. Each individual stands apart in solitary weakness, but society as a whole is active, resourceful, and powerful. The achievements of private individuals are small; the achievements of the state are immense.

There is less force of character, but customs are milder and laws more humane. If there are fewer examples of soaring heroism or virtue at its most brilliant and pure, people's habits are more orderly, violence is rarer, and cruelty almost unknown. Lives grow longer and property more secure. Life isn't decorated with brilliant accomplishments, but it is extremely comfortable and peaceful. There are fewer pleasures that are either very refined or very crude, and polished manners are as uncommon as coarse brutality. Neither great scholars nor deeply ignorant communities can be found. Genius becomes rarer; general knowledge spreads more widely. The human mind is propelled forward by the small efforts of all people combined, not by the extraordinary exertion of a few. There is less perfection but more abundance in everything that human skill produces. The bonds of race, rank, and country are loosened; the great bond of humanity is strengthened.

If I try to identify the single most prominent of all these characteristics, I see that what's happening to people's fortunes is manifesting itself in a thousand other forms. Almost all extremes are being softened or blunted. Everything that once stood out most sharply is being replaced by something in between — at once less elevated and less debased, less brilliant and less dim, than what existed before.

When I contemplate this countless multitude of human beings, all shaped in each other's image, among whom nothing rises and nothing falls, the sight of such universal sameness saddens me and leaves me cold. I'm tempted to long for the society that has ceased to exist. When the world was full of people of towering importance and extreme insignificance, of immense wealth and desperate poverty, of vast learning and utter ignorance, I turned away from the latter to fix my gaze on the former, who gratified my imagination. But I admit that this satisfaction arose from my own weakness. It's because I can't see everything at once that I allow myself to pick and choose my favorites from the crowd.

This is not how the Almighty and Eternal Being sees things — He whose gaze necessarily encompasses all of creation, and who surveys with equal clarity humanity as a whole and every single human being. We can naturally believe that it's not the extraordinary prosperity of the few but the greater well-being of all that most pleases the Creator and Preserver of humankind. What looks to me like decline is, in His eyes, advancement. What grieves me is, to Him, acceptable.

A society built on equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just. And its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I will strive, then, to raise myself to this point of divine contemplation, and from that vantage point to observe and judge the affairs of the world.

No one on earth can yet say with absolute certainty that the new state of the world is better than the old. But it's already easy to see that it's different.

Some vices and some virtues were so deeply built into the structure of aristocratic society, and are so contrary to the character of modern people, that they can never be grafted onto it. Some good tendencies and some bad ones that were unknown to the old world come naturally to the new. They are like two separate orders of human existence, each with its own merits and defects, its own advantages and its own evils.

We must therefore be careful not to judge the society now coming into being by standards drawn from a society that no longer exists. These two states of society are so fundamentally different in their structure that they can't be fairly compared. It would be no more reasonable to demand of our contemporaries the particular virtues that grew from the social conditions of their ancestors — since those conditions have themselves collapsed and dragged into a common ruin everything that belonged to them, the good along with the bad.

But these things are still poorly understood. I see a great many of my contemporaries trying to make a selective harvest from the institutions, opinions, and ideas that grew in the soil of aristocratic society. Some of these they'd willingly abandon; others they want to keep and transplant into their new world. I fear that such people are wasting their time and energy in noble but futile efforts.

The goal is not to hold on to the particular advantages that inequality bestowed on humanity, but to secure the new benefits that equality can provide. We don't need to make ourselves like our ancestors. We need to work out the kind of greatness and happiness that is our own.

As for me, having now reached the far edge of this long journey, and looking back at all the different subjects that drew my attention along the way, I am full of fears and full of hopes.

I see enormous dangers that it is possible to prevent. I see enormous evils that can be avoided or diminished. And I hold more firmly than ever to the belief that for democratic nations to be virtuous and prosperous, they need only choose to be.

I'm aware that many of my contemporaries believe that nations are never their own masters — that they are driven by some insurmountable and mindless force arising from prior events, from their racial heritage, or from the soil and climate of their country. These are false and cowardly principles. Such principles can never produce anything but feeble people and spineless nations.

Providence has not made humanity entirely independent or entirely enslaved. It's true that around every person a boundary is drawn that they cannot cross. But within the broad limits of that boundary, they are powerful and free. The same is true of nations.

The nations of our time cannot prevent social conditions from becoming equal. But it depends on them whether that equality leads to servitude or to freedom, to knowledge or to barbarism, to prosperity or to wretchedness.