2. Chapter II: That Democracy Renders The Habitual Intercourse Of
The Americans Simple And Easy
democracy does not attach men strongly to each other; but it
places their habitual intercourse upon an easier footing. If two
Englishmen chance to meet at the Antipodes, where they are
surrounded by strangers whose language and manners are almost
unknown to them, they will first stare at each other with much
curiosity and a kind of secret uneasiness; they will then turn
away, or, if one accosts the other, they will take care only to
converse with a constrained and absent air upon very unimportant
subjects. Yet there is no enmity between these men; they have
never seen each other before, and each believes the other to be a
respectable person. Why then should they stand so cautiously
apart? We must go back to England to learn the reason.
When it is birth alone, independent of wealth, which classes
men in society, everyone knows exactly what his own position is
upon the social scale; he does not seek to rise, he does not fear
to sink. In a community thus organized, men of different castes
communicate very little with each other; but if accident brings
them together, they are ready to converse without hoping or
fearing to lose their own position. Their intercourse is not
upon a footing of equality, but it is not constrained. When
moneyed aristocracy succeeds to aristocracy of birth, the case is
altered. The privileges of some are still extremely great, but
the possibility of acquiring those privileges is open to all:
whence it follows that those who possess them are constantly
haunted by the apprehension of losing them, or of other men's
sharing them; those who do not yet enjoy them long to possess
them at any cost, or, if they fail to appear at least to possess
them -which is not impossible. As the social importance of men
is no longer ostensibly and permanently fixed by blood, and is
infinitely varied by wealth, ranks still exist, but it is not
easy clearly to distinguish at a glance those who respectively
belong to them. Secret hostilities then arise in the community;
one set of men endeavor by innumerable artifices to penetrate, or
to appear to penetrate, amongst those who are above them; another
set are constantly in arms against these usurpers of their
rights; or rather the same individual does both at once, and
whilst he seeks to raise himself into a higher circle, he is
always on the defensive against the intrusion of those below him.
Such is the condition of England at the present time; and I
am of opinion that the peculiarity before adverted to is
principally to be attributed to this cause. As aristocratic
pride is still extremely great amongst the English, and as the
limits of aristocracy are ill-defined, everybody lives in
constant dread lest advantage should be taken of his familiarity.
Unable to judge at once of the social position of those he meets,
an Englishman prudently avoids all contact with them. Men are
afraid lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an
unsuitable acquaintance; they dread civilities, and they avoid
the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger quite as much as his
hatred. Many people attribute these singular anti-social
propensities, and the reserved and taciturn bearing of the
English, to purely physical causes. I may admit that there is
something of it in their race, but much more of it is
attributable to their social condition, as is proved by the
contrast of the Americans.
In America, where the privileges of birth never existed, and
where riches confer no peculiar rights on their possessors, men
unacquainted with each other are very ready to frequent the same
places, and find neither peril nor advantage in the free
interchange of their thoughts. If they meet by accident, they
neither seek nor avoid intercourse; their manner is therefore
natural, frank, and open: it is easy to see that they hardly
expect or apprehend anything from each other, and that they do
not care to display, any more than to conceal, their position in
the world. If their demeanor is often cold and serious, it is
never haughty or constrained; and if they do not converse, it is
because they are not in a humor to talk, not because they think
it their interest to be silent. In a foreign country two
Americans are at once friends, simply because they are Americans.
They are repulsed by no prejudice; they are attracted by their
common country. For two Englishmen the same blood is not enough;
they must be brought together by the same rank. The Americans
remark this unsociable mood of the English as much as the French
do, and they are not less astonished by it. Yet the Americans
are connected with England by their origin, their religion, their
language, and partially by their manners; they only differ in
their social condition. It may therefore be inferred that the
reserve of the English proceeds from the constitution of their
country much more than from that of its inhabitants.