7. Chapter VII: Connection Of Civil And Political Associations
There is only one country on the face of the earth where the
citizens enjoy unlimited freedom of association for political
purposes. This same country is the only one in the world where
the continual exercise of the right of association has been
introduced into civil life, and where all the advantages which
civilization can confer are procured by means of it. In all the
countries where political associations are prohibited, civil
associations are rare. It is hardly probable that this is the
result of accident; but the inference should rather be, that
there is a natural, and perhaps a necessary, connection between
these two kinds of associations. Certain men happen to have a
common interest in some concern -either a commercial undertaking
is to be managed, or some speculation in manufactures to be
tried; they meet, they combine, and thus by degrees they become
familiar with the principle of association. The greater is the
multiplicity of small affairs, the more do men, even without
knowing it, acquire facility in prosecuting great undertakings in
common. Civil associations, therefore, facilitate political
association: but, on the other hand, political association
singularly strengthens and improves associations for civil
purposes. In civil life every man may, strictly speaking, fancy
that he can provide for his own wants; in politics, he can fancy
no such thing. When a people, then, have any knowledge of public
life, the notion of association, and the wish to coalesce,
present themselves every day to the minds of the whole community:
whatever natural repugnance may restrain men from acting in
concert, they will always be ready to combine for the sake of a
party. Thus political life makes the love and practice of
association more general; it imparts a desire of union, and
teaches the means of combination to numbers of men who would have
always lived apart.
Politics not only give birth to numerous associations, but
to associations of great extent. In civil life it seldom happens
that any one interest draws a very large number of men to act in
concert; much skill is required to bring such an interest into
existence: but in politics opportunities present themselves every
day. Now it is solely in great associations that the general
value of the principle of association is displayed. Citizens who
are individually powerless, do not very clearly anticipate the
strength which they may acquire by uniting together; it must be
shown to them in order to be understood. Hence it is often
easier to collect a multitude for a public purpose than a few
persons; a thousand citizens do not see what interest they have
in combining together -ten thousand will be perfectly aware of
it. In politics men combine for great undertakings; and the use
they make of the principle of association in important affairs
practically teaches them that it is their interest to help each
other in those of less moment. A political association draws a
number of individuals at the same time out of their own circle:
however they may be naturally kept asunder by age, mind, and
fortune, it places them nearer together and brings them into
contact. Once met, they can always meet again.
Men can embark in few civil partnerships without risking a
portion of their possessions; this is the case with all
manufacturing and trading companies. When men are as yet but
little versed in the art of association, and are unacquainted
with its principal rules, they are afraid, when first they
combine in this manner, of buying their experience dear. They
therefore prefer depriving themselves of a powerful instrument of
success to running the risks which attend the use of it. They
are, however, less reluctant to join political associations,
which appear to them to be without danger, because they adventure
no money in them. But they cannot belong to these associations
for any length of time without finding out how order is
maintained amongst a large number of men, and by what contrivance
they are made to advance, harmoniously and methodically, to the
same object. Thus they learn to surrender their own will to that
of all the rest, and to make their own exertions subordinate to
the common impulse -things which it is not less necessary to
know in civil than in political associations. Political
associations may therefore be considered as large free schools,
where all the members of the community go to learn the general
theory of association.
But even if political association did not directly
contribute to the progress of civil association, to destroy the
former would be to impair the latter. When citizens can only
meet in public for certain purposes, they regard such meetings as
a strange proceeding of rare occurrence, and they rarely think at
all about it. When they are allowed to meet freely for all
purposes, they ultimately look upon public association as the
universal, or in a manner the sole means, which men can employ to
accomplish the different purposes they may have in view. Every
new want instantly revives the notion. The art of association
then becomes, as I have said before, the mother of action,
studied and applied by all.
When some kinds of associations are prohibited and others
allowed, it is difficult to distinguish the former from the
latter, beforehand. In this state of doubt men abstain from them
altogether, and a sort of public opinion passes current which
tends to cause any association whatsoever to be regarded as a
bold and almost an illicit enterprise. [3]
It is therefore chimerical to suppose that the spirit of
association, when it is repressed on some one point, will
nevertheless display the same vigor on all others; and that if
men be allowed to prosecute certain undertakings in common, that
is quite enough for them eagerly to set about them. When the
members of a community are allowed and accustomed to combine for
all purposes, they will combine as readily for the lesser as for
the more important ones; but if they are only allowed to combine
for small affairs, they will be neither inclined nor able to
effect it. It is in vain that you will leave them entirely free
to prosecute their business on joint-stock account: they will
hardly care to avail themselves of the rights you have granted to
them; and, after having exhausted your strength in vain efforts
to put down prohibited associations, you will be surprised that
you cannot persuade men to form the associations you encourage.
I do not say that there can be no civil associations in a
country where political association is prohibited; for men can
never live in society without embarking in some common
undertakings: but I maintain that in such a country civil
associations will always be few in number, feebly planned,
unskillfully managed, that they will never form any vast designs,
or that they will fail in the execution of them.
This naturally leads me to think that freedom of association
in political matters is not so dangerous to public tranquillity
as is supposed; and that possibly, after having agitated society
for some time, it may strengthen the State in the end. In
democratic countries political associations are, so to speak, the
only powerful persons who aspire to rule the State. Accordingly,
the governments of our time look upon associations of this kind
just as sovereigns in the Middle Ages regarded the great vassals
of the Crown: they entertain a sort of instinctive abhorrence of
them, and they combat them on all occasions. They bear, on the
contrary, a natural goodwill to civil associations, because they
readily discover that, instead of directing the minds of the
community to public affairs, these institutions serve to divert
them from such reflections; and that, by engaging them more and
more in the pursuit of objects which cannot be attained without
public tranquillity, they deter them from revolutions. But these
governments do not attend to the fact that political associations
tend amazingly to multiply and facilitate those of a civil
character, and that in avoiding a dangerous evil they deprive
themselves of an efficacious remedy.
When you see the Americans freely and constantly forming
associations for the purpose of promoting some political
principle, of raising one man to the head of affairs, or of
wresting power from another, you have some difficulty in
understanding that men so independent do not constantly fall into
the abuse of freedom. If, on the other hand, you survey the
infinite number of trading companies which are in operation in
the United States, and perceive that the Americans are on every
side unceasingly engaged in the execution of important and
difficult plans, which the slightest revolution would throw into
confusion, you will readily comprehend why people so well
employed are by no means tempted to perturb the State, nor to
destroy that public tranquillity by which they all profit.
Is it enough to observe these things separately, or should
we not discover the hidden tie which connects them? In their
political associations, the Americans of all conditions, minds,
and ages, daily acquire a general taste for association, and grow
accustomed to the use of it. There they meet together in large
numbers, they converse, they listen to each other, and they are
mutually stimulated to all sorts of undertakings. They
afterwards transfer to civil life the notions they have thus
acquired, and make them subservient to a thousand purposes. Thus
it is by the enjoyment of a dangerous freedom that the Americans
learn the art of rendering the dangers of freedom less
formidable.
If a certain moment in the existence of a nation be
selected, it is easy to prove that political associations perturb
the State, and paralyze productive industry; but take the whole
life of a people, and it may perhaps be easy to demonstrate that
freedom of association in political matters is favorable to the
prosperity and even to the tranquillity of the community.
I said in the former part of this work, "The unrestrained
liberty of political association cannot be entirely assimilated
to the liberty of the press. The one is at the same time less
necessary and more dangerous than the other. A nation may
confine it within certain limits without ceasing to be mistress
of itself; and it may sometimes be obliged to do so in order to
maintain its own authority." And further on I added: "It cannot
be denied that the unrestrained liberty of association for
political purposes is the last degree of liberty which a people
is fit for. If it does not throw them into anarchy, it
perpetually brings them, as it were, to the verge of it." Thus I
do not think that a nation is always at liberty to invest its
citizens with an absolute right of association for political
purposes; and I doubt whether, in any country or in any age, it
be wise to set no limits to freedom of association. A certain
nation, it is said, could not maintain tranquillity in the
community, cause the laws to be respected, or establish a lasting
government, if the right of association were not confined within
narrow limits. These blessings are doubtless invaluable, and I
can imagine that, to acquire or to preserve them, a nation may
impose upon itself severe temporary restrictions: but still it is
well that the nation should know at what price these blessings
are purchased. I can understand that it may be advisable to cut
off a man's arm in order to save his life; but it would be
ridiculous to assert that he will be as dexterous as he was
before he lost it.
[3]
This is more especially true when the executive
government has a discretionary power of allowing or prohibiting
associations. When certain associations are simply prohibited by
law, and the courts of justice have to punish infringements of
that law, the evil is far less considerable. Then every citizen
knows beforehand pretty nearly what he has to expect. He judges
himself before he is judged by the law, and, abstaining from
prohibited associations, he embarks in those which are legally
sanctioned. It is by these restrictions that all free nations
have always admitted that the right of association might be
limited. But if the legislature should invest a man with a power
of ascertaining beforehand which associations are dangerous and
which are useful, and should authorize him to destroy all
associations in the bud or allow them to be formed, as nobody
would be able to foresee in what cases associations might be
established and in what cases they would be put down, the spirit
of association would be entirely paralyzed. The former of these
laws would only assail certain associations; the latter would
apply to society itself, and inflict an injury upon it. I can
conceive that a regular government may have recourse to the
former, but I do not concede that any government has the right of
enacting the latter.