3. Chapter III: That The Sentiments Of Democratic Nations Accord
With Their Opinions In Leading Them To Concentrate Political
Power
If it be true that, in ages of equality, men readily adopt the notion
of a great central power, it cannot be doubted on the other hand that
their habits and sentiments predispose them to recognize such a power
and to give it their support. This may be demonstrated in a few words,
as the greater part of the reasons, to which the fact may be attributed,
have been previously stated. [1]As the
men who inhabit democratic countries have no superiors, no inferiors,
and no habitual or necessary partners in their undertakings, they
readily fall back upon themselves and consider themselves as beings
apart. I had occasion to point this out at considerable length in
treating of individualism. Hence such men can never, without an effort,
tear themselves from their private affairs to engage in public business;
their natural bias leads them to abandon the latter to the sole visible
and permanent representative of the interests of the community, that is
to say, to the State. Not only are they naturally wanting in a taste
for public business, but they have frequently no time to attend to it.
Private life is so busy in democratic periods, so excited, so full of
wishes and of work, that hardly any energy or leisure remains to each
individual for public life. I am the last man to contend that these
propensities are unconquerable, since my chief object in writing this
book has been to combat them. I only maintain that at the present day a
secret power is fostering them in the human heart, and that if they are
not checked they will wholly overgrow it.
I have also had occasion to show how the increasing love of
well-being, and the fluctuating character of property, cause democratic
nations to dread all violent disturbance. The love of public
tranquillity is frequently the only passion which these nations retain,
and it becomes more active and powerful amongst them in proportion as
all other passions droop and die. This naturally disposes the members of
the community constantly to give or to surrender additional rights to
the central power, which alone seems to be interested in defending them
by the same means that it uses to defend itself. As in ages of equality
no man is compelled to lend his assistance to his fellow-men, and none
has any right to expect much support from them, everyone is at once
independent and powerless. These two conditions, which must never be
either separately considered or confounded together, inspire the citizen
of a democratic country with very contrary propensities. His
independence fills him with self-reliance and pride amongst his equals;
his debility makes him feel from time to time the want of some outward
assistance, which he cannot expect from any of them, because they are
all impotent and unsympathizing. In this predicament he naturally turns
his eyes to that imposing power which alone rises above the level of
universal depression. Of that power his wants and especially his desires
continually remind him, until he ultimately views it as the sole and
necessary support of his own weakness.
[2] This may more completely explain what
frequently takes place in democratic countries, where the very men who
are so impatient of superiors patiently submit to a master, exhibiting
at once their pride and their servility.
The hatred which men bear to privilege increases in
proportion as privileges become more scarce and less
considerable, so that democratic passions would seem to burn most
fiercely at the very time when they have least fuel. I have
already given the reason of this phenomenon. When all conditions
are unequal, no inequality is so great as to offend the eye;
whereas the slightest dissimilarity is odious in the midst of
general uniformity: the more complete is this uniformity, the
more insupportable does the sight of such a difference become.
Hence it is natural that the love of equality should constantly
increase together with equality itself, and that it should grow
by what it feeds upon. This never-dying, ever-kindling hatred,
which sets a democratic people against the smallest privileges,
is peculiarly favorable to the gradual concentration of all
political rights in the hands of the representative of the State
alone. The sovereign, being necessarily and incontestably above
all the citizens, excites not their envy, and each of them thinks
that he strips his equals of the prerogative which he concedes to
the crown. The man of a democratic age is extremely reluctant to
obey his neighbor who is his equal; he refuses to acknowledge in
such a person ability superior to his own; he mistrusts his
justice, and is jealous of his power; he fears and he contemns
him; and he loves continually to remind him of the common
dependence in which both of them stand to the same master. Every
central power which follows its natural tendencies courts and
encourages the principle of equality; for equality singularly
facilitates, extends, and secures the influence of a central
power.
In like manner it may be said that every central government
worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an
infinite number of small details which must be attended to if
rules were to be adapted to men, instead of indiscriminately
subjecting men to rules: thus the government likes what the
citizens like, and naturally hates what they hate. These common
sentiments, which, in democratic nations, constantly unite the
sovereign and every member of the community in one and the same
conviction, establish a secret and lasting sympathy between them.
The faults of the government are pardoned for the sake of its
tastes; public confidence is only reluctantly withdrawn in the
midst even of its excesses and its errors, and it is restored at
the first call. Democratic nations often hate those in whose
hands the central power is vested; but they always love that
power itself.
Thus, by two separate paths, I have reached the same
conclusion. I have shown that the principle of equality suggests
to men the notion of a sole, uniform, and strong government: I
have now shown that the principle of equality imparts to them a
taste for it. To governments of this kind the nations of our age
are therefore tending. They are drawn thither by the natural
inclination of mind and heart; and in order to reach that result,
it is enough that they do not check themselves in their course.
I am of opinion, that, in the democratic ages which are opening
upon us, individual independence and local liberties will ever be
the produce of artificial contrivance; that centralization will
be the natural form of government. [4.3c]
[2]
In democratic communities nothing but the
central power has any stability in its position or any permanence in its
undertakings. All the members of society are in ceaseless stir and
transformation. Now it is in the nature of all governments to seek
constantly to enlarge their sphere of action; hence it is almost
impossible that such a government should not ultimately succeed, because
it acts with a fixed principle and a constant will, upon men, whose
position, whose notions, and whose desires are in continual vacillation.
It frequently happens that the members of the community promote the
influence of the central power without intending it. Democratic ages are
periods of experiment, innovation, and adventure. At such times there
are always a multitude of men engaged in difficult or novel
undertakings, which they follow alone, without caring for their
fellowmen. Such persons may be ready to admit, as a general principle,
that the public authority ought not to interfere in private concerns;
but, by an exception to that rule, each of them craves for its
assistance in the particular concern on which he is engaged, and seeks
to draw upon the influence of the government for his own benefit, though
he would restrict it on all other occasions. If a large number of men
apply this particular exception to a great variety of different
purposes, the sphere of the central power extends insensibly in all
directions, although each of them wishes it to be circumscribed. Thus a
democratic government increases its power simply by the fact of its
permanence. Time is on its side; every incident befriends it; the
passions of individuals unconsciously promote it; and it may be
asserted, that the older a democratic community is, the more centralized
will its government become.