13. Chapter XIII: That The Principle Of Equality Naturally Divides
The Americans Into A Number Of Small Private Circles
It may probably be supposed that the final consequence and
necessary effect of democratic institutions is to confound
together all the members of the community in private as well as
in public life, and to compel them all to live in common; but
this would be to ascribe a very coarse and oppressive form to the
equality which originates in democracy. No state of society or
laws can render men so much alike, but that education, fortune,
and tastes will interpose some differences between them; and,
though different men may sometimes find it their interest to
combine for the same purposes, they will never make it their
pleasure. They will therefore always tend to evade the
provisions of legislation, whatever they may be; and departing in
some one respect from the circle within which they were to be
bounded, they will set up, close by the great political
community, small private circles, united together by the
similitude of their conditions, habits, and manners.
In the United States the citizens have no sort of
pre-eminence over each other; they owe each other no mutual
obedience or respect; they all meet for the administration of
justice, for the government of the State, and in general to treat
of the affairs which concern their common welfare; but I never
heard that attempts have been made to bring them all to follow
the same diversions, or to amuse themselves promiscuously in the
same places of recreation. The Americans, who mingle so readily
in their political assemblies and courts of justice, are wont on
the contrary carefully to separate into small distinct circles,
in order to indulge by themselves in the enjoyments of private
life. Each of them is willing to acknowledge all his
fellow-citizens as his equals, but he will only receive a very
limited number of them amongst his friends or his guests. This
appears to me to be very natural. In proportion as the circle of
public society is extended, it may be anticipated that the sphere
of private intercourse will be contracted; far from supposing
that the members of modern society will ultimately live in
common, I am afraid that they may end by forming nothing but
small coteries.
Amongst aristocratic nations the different classes are like
vast chambers, out of which it is impossible to get, into which
it is impossible to enter. These classes have no communication
with each other, but within their pale men necessarily live in
daily contact; even though they would not naturally suit, the
general conformity of a similar condition brings them nearer
together. But when neither law nor custom professes to establish
frequent and habitual relations between certain men, their
intercourse originates in the accidental analogy of opinions and
tastes; hence private society is infinitely varied. In
democracies, where the members of the community never differ much
from each other, and naturally stand in such propinquity that
they may all at any time be confounded in one general mass,
numerous artificial and arbitrary distinctions spring up, by
means of which every man hopes to keep himself aloof, lest he
should be carried away in the crowd against his will. This can
never fail to be the case; for human institutions may be changed,
but not man: whatever may be the general endeavor of a community
to render its members equal and alike, the personal pride of
individuals will always seek to rise above the line, and to form
somewhere an inequality to their own advantage.
In aristocracies men are separated from each other by lofty
stationary barriers; in democracies they are divided by a number
of small and almost invisible threads, which are constantly
broken or moved from place to place. Thus, whatever may be the
progress of equality, in democratic nations a great number of
small private communities will always be formed within the
general pale of political society; but none of them will bear any
resemblance in its manners to the highest class in aristocracies.