5. Chapter V: Of The Use Which The Americans Make Of Public
Associations In Civil Life
I do not propose to speak of those political associations -by the aid of which men endeavor to defend themselves against the
despotic influence of a majority -or against the aggressions of
regal power. That subject I have already treated. If each
citizen did not learn, in proportion as he individually becomes
more feeble, and consequently more incapable of preserving his
freedom single-handed, to combine with his fellow-citizens for
the purpose of defending it, it is clear that tyranny would
unavoidably increase together with equality.
Those associations only which are formed in civil life,
without reference to political objects, are here adverted to.
The political associations which exist in the United States are
only a single feature in the midst of the immense assemblage of
associations in that country. Americans of all ages, all
conditions, and all dispositions, constantly form associations.
They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in
which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds -religious, moral, serious, futile, extensive, or restricted,
enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give
entertainments, to found establishments for education, to build
inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send
missionaries to the antipodes; and in this manner they found
hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it be proposed to advance
some truth, or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a
great example, they form a society. Wherever, at the head of
some new undertaking, you see the government in France, or a man
of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find
an association. I met with several kinds of associations in
America, of which I confess I had no previous notion; and I have
often admired the extreme skill with which the inhabitants of the
United States succeed in proposing a common object to the
exertions of a great many men, and in getting them voluntarily to
pursue it. I have since travelled over England, whence the
Americans have taken some of their laws and many of their
customs; and it seemed to me that the principle of
association was by no means so constantly or so adroitly used in
that country. The English often perform great things singly;
whereas the Americans form associations for the smallest
undertakings. It is evident that the former people consider
association as a powerful means of action, but the latter seem to
regard it as the only means they have of acting.
Thus the most democratic country on the face of the earth is
that in which men have in our time carried to the highest
perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their
common desires, and have applied this new science to the greatest
number of purposes. Is this the result of accident? or is there
in reality any necessary connection between the principle of
association and that of equality? Aristocratic communities
always contain, amongst a multitude of persons who by themselves
are powerless, a small number of powerful and wealthy citizens,
each of whom can achieve great undertakings single-handed. In
aristocratic societies men do not need to combine in order to
act, because they are strongly held together. Every wealthy and
powerful citizen constitutes the head of a permanent and
compulsory association, composed of all those who are dependent
upon him, or whom he makes subservient to the execution of his
designs. Amongst democratic nations, on the contrary, all the
citizens are independent and feeble; they can do hardly anything
by themselves, and none of them can oblige his fellow-men to lend
him their assistance. They all, therefore, fall into a state of
incapacity, if they do not learn voluntarily to help each other.
If men living in democratic countries had no right and no
inclination to associate for political purposes, their
independence would be in great jeopardy; but they might long
preserve their wealth and their cultivation: whereas if they
never acquired the habit of forming associations in ordinary
life, civilization itself would be endangered. A people amongst
which individuals should lose the power of achieving great things
single-handed, without acquiring the means of producing them by
united exertions, would soon relapse into barbarism.
Unhappily, the same social condition which renders
associations so necessary to democratic nations, renders their
formation more difficult amongst those nations than amongst all
others. When several members of an aristocracy agree to combine,
they easily succeed in doing so; as each of them brings great
strength to the partnership, the number of its members may be
very limited; and when the members of an association are limited
in number, they may easily become mutually acquainted, understand
each other, and establish fixed regulations. The same
opportunities do not occur amongst democratic nations, where the
associated members must always be very numerous for their
association to have any power.
I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least
embarrassed by this difficulty. They contend that the more
enfeebled and incompetent the citizens become, the more able and
active the government ought to be rendered, in order that society
at large may execute what individuals can no longer accomplish.
They believe this answers the whole difficulty, but I think they
are mistaken. A government might perform the part of some of the
largest American companies; and several States, members of the
Union, have already attempted it; but what political power could
ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser undertakings which the
American citizens perform every day, with the assistance of the
principle of association? It is easy to foresee that the time is
drawing near when man will be less and less able to produce, of
himself alone, the commonest necessaries of life. The task of
the governing power will therefore perpetually increase, and its
very efforts will extend it every day. The more it stands in the
place of associations, the more will individuals, losing the
notion of combining together, require its assistance: these are
causes and effects which unceasingly engender each other. Will
the administration of the country ultimately assume the
management of all the manufacturers, which no single citizen is
able to carry on? And if a time at length arrives, when, in
consequence of the extreme subdivision of landed property, the
soil is split into an infinite number of parcels, so that it can
only be cultivated by companies of husbandmen, will it be
necessary that the head of the government should leave the helm
of state to follow the plough? The morals and the intelligence of
a democratic people would be as much endangered as its business
and manufactures, if the government ever wholly usurped the place
of private companies.
Feelings and opinions are recruited, the heart is enlarged,
and the human mind is developed by no other means than by the
reciprocal influence of men upon each other. I have shown that
these influences are almost null in democratic countries; they
must therefore be artificially created, and this can only be
accomplished by associations.
When the members of an aristocratic community adopt a new
opinion, or conceive a new sentiment, they give it a station, as
it were, beside themselves, upon the lofty platform where they
stand; and opinions or sentiments so conspicuous to the eyes of
the multitude are easily introduced into the minds or hearts of
all around. In democratic countries the governing power alone is
naturally in a condition to act in this manner; but it is easy to
see that its action is always inadequate, and often dangerous. A
government can no more be competent to keep alive and to renew
the circulation of opinions and feelings amongst a great people,
than to manage all the speculations of productive industry. No
sooner does a government attempt to go beyond its political
sphere and to enter upon this new track, than it exercises, even
unintentionally, an insupportable tyranny; for a government can
only dictate strict rules, the opinions which it favors are
rigidly enforced, and it is never easy to discriminate between
its advice and its commands. Worse still will be the case if the
government really believes itself interested in preventing all
circulation of ideas; it will then stand motionless, and
oppressed by the heaviness of voluntary torpor. Governments
therefore should not be the only active powers: associations
ought, in democratic nations, to stand in lieu of those powerful
private individuals whom the equality of conditions has swept
away.
As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States
have taken up an opinion or a feeling which they wish to promote
in the world, they look out for mutual assistance; and as soon as
they have found each other out, they combine. From that moment
they are no longer isolated men, but a power seen from afar,
whose actions serve for an example, and whose language is
listened to. The first time I heard in the United States that
100,000 men had bound themselves publicly to abstain from
spirituous liquors, it appeared to me more like a joke than a
serious engagement; and I did not at once perceive why these
temperate citizens could not content themselves with drinking
water by their own firesides. I at last understood that 300,000
Americans, alarmed by the progress of drunkenness around them,
had made up their minds to patronize temperance. They acted just
in the same way as a man of high rank who should dress very
plainly, in order to inspire the humbler orders with a contempt
of luxury. It is probable that if these 100,000 men had lived in
France, each of them would singly have memorialized the
government to watch the publichouses all over the kingdom.
Nothing, in my opinion, is more deserving of our attention
than the intellectual and moral associations of America. The
political and industrial associations of that country strike us
forcibly; but the others elude our observation, or if we discover
them, we understand them imperfectly, because we have hardly ever
seen anything of the kind. It must, however, be acknowledged
that they are as necessary to the American people as the former,
and perhaps more so. In democratic countries the science of
association is the mother of science; the progress of all the
rest depends upon the progress it has made. Amongst the laws
which rule human societies there is one which seems to be more
precise and clear than all others. If men are to remain
civilized, or to become so, the art of associating together must
grow and improve in the same ratio in which the equality of
conditions is increased.