Democrazia in America, vol. 2 - Tocqueville

Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville

Translated by Henry Reeve

Volume II

Indice

Book Two: Influence of Democracy on Progress of Opinion

De Tocqueville's Preface to the Second Part

Section I: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect

• Chapter I: Philosophical method among the Americans
• Chapter II: Of the principal source of belief among democratic nations
• Chapter III: Why the Americans display more readiness and more taste
• Chapter IV: Why the Americans have never been so eager as the French
• Chapter V: Of the manner in which religion in the United States avails
• Chapter VI: Of the progress of Roman Catholicism in the United States
• Chapter VII: Of the cause of a leaning to pantheism
• Chapter VIII: The principle of equality suggests to the Americans
• Chapter IX: The example of the Americans does not prove
• Chapter X: Why the Americans are more addicted to practical
• Chapter XI: Of the spirit in which the Americans cultivate the arts
• Chapter XII: Why the Americans raise some monuments so insignificant
• Chapter XIII: Literary characteristics of democratic ages
• Chapter XIV: The trade of literature
• Chapter XV: The study of Greek and Latin literature peculiarly useful
• Chapter XVI: The effect of democracy on language
• Chapter XVII: Of some of the sources of poetry
• Chapter XVIII: Of the inflated style of American writers and orators
• Chapter XIX: Some observations on the drama
• Chapter XX: Characteristics of historians in democratic ages
• Chapter XXI: Of parliamentary eloquence in the United States

Section 2: Influence of Democracy on the Feelings of Americans

• Chapter I: Why democratic nations show a more ardent and enduring love
• Chapter II: Of individualism in democratic countries
• Chapter III: Individualism stronger
• Chapter IV: That the Americans combat the effects of individualism
• Chapter V: Of the use which the Americans make of public associations
• Chapter VI: Of the relation between public associations and newspapers
• Chapter VII: Connection of civil and political associations
• Chapter VIII: The Americans combat individualism
• Chapter IX: That the Americans apply the principle of interest rightly
• Chapter X: Of the taste for physical well-being in America
• Chapter XI: Peculiar effects of the love of physical gratifications
• Chapter XII: Causes of fanatical enthusiasm in some Americans
• Chapter XIII: Causes of the restless spirit of Americans
• Chapter XIV: Taste for physical gratifications united in America
• Chapter XV: That religious belief sometimes turns the thoughts
• Chapter XVI: That excessive care of worldly welfare
• Chapter XVII: That in times marked by equality of conditions
• Chapter XVIII: That amongst the Americans all honest callings
• Chapter XIX: That almost all the Americans follow industrial callings
• Chapter XX: That aristocracy may be engendered by manufactures

Book Three: Influence of Democracy on Manners, Properly So Called

• Chapter I: That manners are softened as social conditions become
• Chapter II: That democracy renders the habitual intercourse
• Chapter III: Why the Americans show so little sensitiveness
• Chapter IV: Consequences of the three preceding chapters
• Chapter V: How democracy affects the relation of masters and servants
• Chapter VI: That democratic institutions and manners tend to raise rents
• Chapter VII: Influence of democracy on wages
• Chapter VIII: Influence of democracy on kindred
• Chapter IX: Education of young women in the United States
• Chapter X: The young woman in the character of a wife
• Chapter XI: That the equality of conditions contributes
• Chapter XII: How the Americans understand the equality of the sexes
• Chapter XIII: That the principle of equality naturally divides
• Chapter XIV: Some reflections on American manners
• Chapter XV: Of the gravity of the Americans
• Chapter XVI: Why the national vanity of the Americans is more restless
• Chapter XVII: That the aspect of society in the United States
• Chapter XVIII: Of honor in the United States and in democratic
• Chapter XIX: Why so many ambitious men and so little lofty ambition
• Chapter XX: The trade of place-hunting in certain democratic countries
• Chapter XXI: Why great revolutions will become more rare
• Chapter XXII: Why democratic nations are naturally desirous of peace
• Chapter XXIII: Which is the most warlike and most revolutionary class
• Chapter XXIV: Causes which render democratic armies weaker
• Chapter XXV: Of discipline in democratic armies
• Chapter XXVI: Some considerations on war in democratic communities

Book Four: Influence of Democratic Opinions on Political Society

• Chapter I: That equality naturally gives men a taste for freedom
• Chapter II: That the notions of democratic nations on government
• Chapter III: That the sentiments of democratic nations accord
• Chapter IV: Of certain peculiar and accidental causes
• Chapter V: That amongst the European nations of our time
• Chapter VI: What sort of despotism democratic nations have to fear
• Chapter VII: Continuation of the preceding chapters
• Chapter VIII: General survey of the subject

Appendix to Parts I. and II.

Part I.

• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Appendix D
• Appendix E
• Appendix F

Part II.

• Appendix G
• Appendix H
• Appendix I
• Appendix K
• Appendix L
• Appendix M
• Appendix N
• Appendix O
• Appendix P
• Appendix Q
• Appendix R
• Appendix S
• Appendix T
• Appendix U
• Appendix V
• Appendix W
• Appendix X
• Appendix Y
• Appendix Z

Constitution of the United States of America

Article I

• Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested
• Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed
• Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed
• Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections
• Section 5. Each house shall be the judge of the elections
• Section 6. The senators and representatives shall receive a compensation
• Section 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house
• Section 8. The congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes
• Section 9. The migration or importation of such persons
• Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance

Article II

• Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a president
• Section 2. The president shall be commander in chief of the army
• Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the congress information
• Section 4. The president, vice-president and all civil officers

Article III

• Section 1. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested
• Section 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases
• Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist

Article IV

• Section 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each state
• Section 2. The citizens of each state shall be entitled
• Section 3. New states may be admitted by the congress into this union
• Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every state

Article V

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Article VI

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Article VII

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Bill of Rights

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Book Two: Influence of Democracy on Progress of Opinion in the United States

De Tocqueville's Preface to the Second Part

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally suggested to them certain laws and a certain political character. This same state of society has, moreover, engendered amongst them a multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown amongst the elder aristocratic communities of Europe: it has destroyed or modified all the relations which before existed, and established others of a novel kind. The aspect of civil society has been no less affected by these changes than that of the political world. The former subject has been treated of in the work on the Democracy of America, which I published five years ago; to examine the latter is the object of the present book; but these two parts complete each other, and form one and the same work.

I must at once warn the reader against an error which would be extremely prejudicial to me. When he finds that I attribute so many different consequences to the principle of equality, he may thence infer that I consider that principle to be the sole cause of all that takes place in the present age: but this would be to impute to me a very narrow view. A multitude of opinions, feelings, and propensities are now in existence, which owe their origin to circumstances unconnected with or even contrary to the principle of equality. Thus, if I were to select the United States as an example, I could easily prove that the nature of the country, the origin of its inhabitants, the religion of its founders, their acquired knowledge, and their former habits, have exercised, and still exercise, independently of democracy, a vast influence upon the thoughts and feelings of that people. Different causes, but no less distinct from the circumstance of the equality of conditions, might be traced in Europe, and would explain a great portion of the occurrences taking place amongst us.

I acknowledge the existence of all these different causes and their power, but my subject does not lead me to treat of them. I have not undertaken to unfold the reason of all our inclinations and all our notions: my only object is to show in what respects the principle of equality has modified both the former and the latter.

Some readers may perhaps be astonished that—firmly persuaded as I am that the democratic revolution which we are witnessing is an irresistible fact against which it would be neither desirable nor wise to struggle—I should often have had occasion in this book to address language of such severity to those democratic communities which this revolution has brought into being. My answer is simply, that it is because I am not an adversary of democracy, that I have sought to speak of democracy in all sincerity. Men will not accept truth at the hands of their enemies, and truth is seldom offered to them by their friends: for this reason I have spoken it. I was persuaded that many would take upon themselves to announce the new blessings which the principle of equality promises to mankind, but that few would dare to point out from afar the dangers with which it threatens them. To those perils therefore I have turned my chief attention, and believing that I had discovered them clearly, I have not had the cowardice to leave them untold.

I trust that my readers will find in this Second Part that impartiality which seems to have been remarked in the former work. Placed as I am in the midst of the conflicting opinions between which we are divided, I have endeavored to suppress within me for a time the favorable sympathies or the adverse emotions with which each of them inspires me. If those who read this book can find a single sentence intended to flatter any of the great parties which have agitated my country, or any of those petty factions which now harass and weaken it, let such readers raise their voices to accuse me.

The subject I have sought to embrace is immense, for it includes the greater part of the feelings and opinions to which the new state of society has given birth. Such a subject is doubtless above my strength, and in treating it I have not succeeded in satisfying myself. But, if I have not been able to reach the goal which I had in view, my readers will at least do me the justice to acknowledge that I have conceived and followed up my undertaking in a spirit not unworthy of success.

A. De T.
March, 1840

Section I: Influence of Democracy on the Action of Intellect in the United States

Chapter I: Philosophical Method Among the Americans

I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. The Americans have no philosophical school of their own; and they care but little for all the schools into which Europe is divided, the very names of which are scarcely known to them. Nevertheless, it is easy to perceive that almost all the inhabitants of the United States conduct their understanding in the same manner, and govern it by the same rules; that is to say, that without ever having taken the trouble to define the rules of a philosophical method, they are in possession of one, common to the whole people.

To evade the bondage of system and habit, of family maxims, class opinions, and, in some degree, of national prejudices; to accept tradition only as a means of information, and existing facts only as a lesson used in doing otherwise, and doing better; to seek the reason of things for one's self, and in one's self alone; to tend to results without being bound to means, and to aim at the substance through the form;—such are the principal characteristics of what I shall call the philosophical method of the Americans. But if I go further, and if I seek amongst these characteristics that which predominates over and includes almost all the rest, I discover that in most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals to the individual exercise of his own understanding alone. America is therefore one of the countries in the world where philosophy is least studied, and where the precepts of Descartes are best applied. Nor is this surprising. The Americans do not read the works of Descartes, because their social condition deters them from speculative studies; but they follow his maxims because this very social condition naturally disposes their understanding to adopt them.

In the midst of the continual movement which agitates a democratic community, the tie which unites one generation to another is relaxed or broken; every man readily loses the trace of the ideas of his forefathers or takes no care about them. Nor can men living in this state of society derive their belief from the opinions of the class to which they belong, for, so to speak, there are no longer any classes, or those which still exist are composed of such mobile elements, that their body can never exercise a real control over its members. As to the influence which the intelligence of one man has on that of another, it must necessarily be very limited in a country where the citizens, placed on the footing of a general similitude, are all closely seen by each other; and where, as no signs of incontestable greatness or superiority are perceived in any one of them, they are constantly brought back to their own reason as the most obvious and proximate source of truth. It is not only confidence in this or that man which is then destroyed, but the taste for trusting the ipse dixit of any man whatsoever. Everyone shuts himself up in his own breast, and affects from that point to judge the world.

The practice which obtains amongst the Americans of fixing the standard of their judgment in themselves alone, leads them to other habits of mind. As they perceive that they succeed in resolving without assistance all the little difficulties which their practical life presents, they readily conclude that everything in the world may be explained, and that nothing in it transcends the limits of the understanding. Thus they fall to denying what they cannot comprehend; which leaves them but little faith for whatever is extraordinary, and an almost insurmountable distaste for whatever is supernatural. As it is on their own testimony that they are accustomed to rely, they like to discern the object which engages their attention with extreme clearness; they therefore strip off as much as possible all that covers it, they rid themselves of whatever separates them from it, they remove whatever conceals it from sight, in order to view it more closely and in the broad light of day. This disposition of the mind soon leads them to contemn forms, which they regard as useless and inconvenient veils placed between them and the truth.

The Americans then have not required to extract their philosophical method from books; they have found it in themselves. The same thing may be remarked in what has taken place in Europe. This same method has only been established and made popular in Europe in proportion as the condition of society has become more equal, and men have grown more like each other. Let us consider for a moment the connection of the periods in which this change may be traced. In the sixteenth century the Reformers subjected some of the dogmas of the ancient faith to the scrutiny of private judgment; but they still withheld from it the judgment of all the rest. In the seventeenth century, Bacon in the natural sciences, and Descartes in the study of philosophy in the strict sense of the term, abolished recognized formulas, destroyed the empire of tradition, and overthrew the authority of the schools. The philosophers of the eighteenth century, generalizing at length the same principle, undertook to submit to the private judgment of each man all the objects of his belief.

Who does not perceive that Luther, Descartes, and Voltaire employed the same method, and that they differed only in the greater or less use which they professed should be made of it? Why did the Reformers confine themselves so closely within the circle of religious ideas? Why did Descartes, choosing only to apply his method to certain matters, though he had made it fit to be applied to all, declare that men might judge for themselves in matters philosophical but not in matters political? How happened it that in the eighteenth century those general applications were all at once drawn from this same method, which Descartes and his predecessors had either not perceived or had rejected? To what, lastly, is the fact to be attributed, that at this period the method we are speaking of suddenly emerged from the schools, to penetrate into society and become the common standard of intelligence; and that, after it had become popular among the French, it has been ostensibly adopted or secretly followed by all the nations of Europe?

The philosophical method here designated may have been engendered in the sixteenth century—it may have been more accurately defined and more extensively applied in the seventeenth; but neither in the one nor in the other could it be commonly adopted. Political laws, the condition of society, and the habits of mind which are derived from these causes, were as yet opposed to it.