BOOK FOUR: INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRATIC OPINIONS AND SENTIMENTS ON POLITICAL
SOCIETY
1. Chapter I: That Equality Naturally Gives Men A Taste For Free
Institutions
I should imperfectly fulfil the purpose of this book, if,
after having shown what opinions and sentiments are suggested by
the principle of equality, I did not point out, ere I conclude,
the general influence which these same opinions and sentiments
may exercise upon the government of human societies. To succeed
in this object I shall frequently have to retrace my steps; but I
trust the reader will not refuse to follow me through paths
already known to him, which may lead to some new truth.
The principle of equality, which makes men independent of
each other, gives them a habit and a taste for following, in
their private actions, no other guide but their own will. This
complete independence, which they constantly enjoy towards their
equals and in the intercourse of private life, tends to make them
look upon all authority with a jealous eye, and speedily suggests
to them the notion and the love of political freedom. Men living
at such times have a natural bias to free institutions. Take any
one of them at a venture, and search if you can his most
deep-seated instincts; you will find that of all governments he
will soonest conceive and most highly value that government,
whose head he has himself elected, and whose administration he
may control. Of all the political effects produced by the
equality of conditions, this love of independence is the first to
strike the observing, and to alarm the timid; nor can it be said
that their alarm is wholly misplaced, for anarchy has a more
formidable aspect in democratic countries than elsewhere. As the
citizens have no direct influence on each other, as soon as the
supreme power of the nation fails, which kept them all in their
several stations, it would seem that disorder must instantly
reach its utmost pitch, and that, every man drawing aside in a
different direction, the fabric of society must at once crumble
away.
I am, however, persuaded that anarchy is not the principal
evil which democratic ages have to fear, but the least. For the
principle of equality begets two tendencies; the one leads men
straight to independence, and may suddenly drive them into
anarchy; the other conducts them by a longer, more secret, but
more certain road, to servitude. Nations readily discern the
former tendency, and are prepared to resist it; they are led away
by the latter, without perceiving its drift; hence it is
peculiarly important to point it out. For myself, I am so far
from urging as a reproach to the principle of equality that it
renders men untractable, that this very circumstance principally
calls forth my approbation. I admire to see how it deposits in
the mind and heart of man the dim conception and instinctive love
of political independence, thus preparing the remedy for the evil
which it engenders; it is on this very account that I am attached
to it.
2. Chapter II: That The Notions Of Democratic Nations On Government
Are Naturally Favorable To The Concentration Of Power
The notion of secondary powers, placed between the sovereign
and his subjects, occurred naturally to the imagination of
aristocratic nations, because those communities contained
individuals or families raised above the common level, and
apparently destined to command by their birth, their education,
and their wealth. This same notion is naturally wanting in the
minds of men in democratic ages, for converse reasons: it can
only be introduced artificially, it can only be kept there with
difficulty; whereas they conceive, as it were, without thinking
upon the subject, the notion of a sole and central power which
governs the whole community by its direct influence. Moreover in
politics, as well as in philosophy and in religion, the intellect
of democratic nations is peculiarly open to simple and general
notions. Complicated systems are repugnant to it, and its
favorite conception is that of a great nation composed of
citizens all resembling the same pattern, and all governed by a
single power.
The very next notion to that of a sole and central power, which
presents itself to the minds of men in the ages of
equality, is the notion of uniformity of legislation. As every
man sees that he differs but little from those about him, he
cannot understand why a rule which is applicable to one man
should not be equally applicable to all others. Hence the
slightest privileges are repugnant to his reason; the faintest
dissimilarities in the political institutions of the same people
offend him, and uniformity of legislation appears to him to be
the first condition of good government. I find, on the contrary,
that this same notion of a uniform rule, equally binding on all
the members of the community, was almost unknown to the human
mind in aristocratic ages; it was either never entertained, or it
was rejected. These contrary tendencies of opinion ultimately
turn on either side to such blind instincts and such ungovernable
habits that they still direct the actions of men, in spite of
particular exceptions. Notwithstanding the immense variety of
conditions in the Middle Ages, a certain number of persons
existed at that period in precisely similar circumstances; but
this did not prevent the laws then in force from assigning to
each of them distinct duties and different rights. On the
contrary, at the present time all the powers of government are
exerted to impose the same customs and the same laws on
populations which have as yet but few points of resemblance. As
the conditions of men become equal amongst a people, individuals
seem of less importance, and society of greater dimensions; or
rather, every citizen, being assimilated to all the rest, is lost
in the crowd, and nothing stands conspicuous but the great and
imposing image of the people at large. This naturally gives the
men of democratic periods a lofty opinion of the privileges of
society, and a very humble notion of the rights of individuals;
they are ready to admit that the interests of the former are
everything, and those of the latter nothing. They are willing to
acknowledge that the power which represents the community has far
more information and wisdom than any of the members of that
community; and that it is the duty, as well as the right, of that
power to guide as well as govern each private citizen.
If we closely scrutinize our contemporaries, and penetrate
to the root of their political opinions, we shall detect some of
the notions which I have just pointed out, and we shall perhaps
be surprised to find so much accordance between men who are so
often at variance. The Americans hold, that in every State the
supreme power ought to emanate from the people; but when once
that power is constituted, they can conceive, as it were, no
limits to it, and they are ready to admit that it has the right
to do whatever it pleases. They have not the slightest notion of
peculiar privileges granted to cities, families, or persons:
their minds appear never to have foreseen that it might be
possible not to apply with strict uniformity the same laws to
every part, and to all the inhabitants. These same opinions are
more and more diffused in Europe; they even insinuate themselves
amongst those nations which most vehemently reject the principle
of the sovereignty of the people. Such nations assign a different
origin to the supreme power, but they ascribe to that power the
same characteristics. Amongst them all, the idea of intermediate
powers is weakened and obliterated: the idea of rights inherent
in certain individuals is rapidly disappearing from the minds of
men; the idea of the omnipotence and sole authority of society at
large rises to fill its place. These ideas take root and spread
in proportion as social conditions become more equal, and men
more alike; they are engendered by equality, and in turn they
hasten the progress of equality.
In France, where the revolution of which I am speaking has
gone further than in any other European country, these opinions
have got complete hold of the public mind. If we listen
attentively to the language of the various parties in France, we
shall find that there is not one which has not adopted them.
Most of these parties censure the conduct of the government, but
they all hold that the government ought perpetually to act and
interfere in everything that is done. Even those which are most
at variance are nevertheless agreed upon this head. The unity,
the ubiquity, the omnipotence of the supreme power, and the
uniformity of its rules, constitute the principal characteristics
of all the political systems which have been put forward in our
age. They recur even in the wildest visions of political
regeneration: the human mind pursues them in its dreams. If
these notions spontaneously arise in the minds of private
individuals, they suggest themselves still more forcibly to the
minds of princes. Whilst the ancient fabric of European society
is altered and dissolved, sovereigns acquire new conceptions of
their opportunities and their duties; they learn for the first
time that the central power which they represent may and ought to
administer by its own agency, and on a uniform plan, all the
concerns of the whole community. This opinion, which, I will
venture to say, was never conceived before our time by the
monarchs of Europe, now sinks deeply into the minds of kings, and
abides there amidst all the agitation of more unsettled thoughts.
Our contemporaries are therefore much less divided than is
commonly supposed; they are constantly disputing as to the hands
in which supremacy is to be vested, but they readily agree upon
the duties and the rights of that supremacy. The notion they all
form of government is that of a sole, simple, providential, and
creative power. All secondary opinions in politics are
unsettled; this one remains fixed, invariable, and consistent.
It is adopted by statesmen and political philosophers; it is
eagerly laid hold of by the multitude; those who govern and those
who are governed agree to pursue it with equal ardor: it is the
foremost notion of their minds, it seems inborn. It originates
therefore in no caprice of the human intellect, but it is a
necessary condition of the present state of mankind.
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.
4. Chapter IV: Of Certain Peculiar And Accidental Causes Which
Either Lead A People To Complete Centralization Of Government, Or
Which Divert Them From It
If all democratic nations are instinctively led to the
centralization of government, they tend to this result in an
unequal manner. This depends on the particular circumstances
which may promote or prevent the natural consequences of that
state of society -circumstances which are exceedingly numerous;
but I shall only advert to a few of them. Amongst men who have
lived free long before they became equal, the tendencies derived
from free institutions combat, to a certain extent, the
propensities superinduced by the principle of equality; and
although the central power may increase its privileges amongst
such a people, the private members of such a community will never
entirely forfeit their independence. But when the equality of
conditions grows up amongst a people which has never known, or
has long ceased to know, what freedom is (and such is the case
upon the Continent of Europe), as the former habits of the nation
are suddenly combined, by some sort of natural attraction, with
the novel habits and principles engendered by the state of
society, all powers seem spontaneously to rush to the centre.
These powers accumulate there with astonishing rapidity, and the
State instantly attains the utmost limits of its strength, whilst
private persons allow themselves to sink as suddenly to the
lowest degree of weakness.
The English who emigrated three hundred years ago to found a
democratic commonwealth on the shores of the New World, had all
learned to take a part in public affairs in their mother-country;
they were conversant with trial by jury; they were accustomed to
liberty of speech and of the press -to personal freedom, to the
notion of rights and the practice of asserting them. They carried
with them to America these free institutions and manly customs,
and these institutions preserved them against the encroachments
of the State. Thus amongst the Americans it is freedom which is
old -equality is of comparatively modern date. The reverse is
occurring in Europe, where equality, introduced by absolute power
and under the rule of kings, was already infused into the habits
of nations long before freedom had entered into their
conceptions.
I have said that amongst democratic nations the notion of
government naturally presents itself to the mind under the form
of a sole and central power, and that the notion of intermediate
powers is not familiar to them. This is peculiarly applicable to
the democratic nations which have witnessed the triumph of the
principle of equality by means of a violent revolution. As the
classes which managed local affairs have been suddenly swept away
by the storm, and as the confused mass which remains has as yet
neither the organization nor the habits which fit it to assume
the administration of these same affairs, the State alone seems
capable of taking upon itself all the details of government, and
centralization becomes, as it were, the unavoidable state of the
country. Napoleon deserves neither praise nor censure for having
centred in his own hands almost all the administrative power of
France; for, after the abrupt disappearance of the nobility and
the higher rank of the middle classes, these powers devolved on
him of course: it would have been almost as difficult for him to
reject as to assume them. But no necessity of this kind has ever
been felt by the Americans, who, having passed through no
revolution, and having governed themselves from the first, never
had to call upon the State to act for a time as their guardian.
Thus the progress of centralization amongst a democratic people
depends not only on the progress of equality, but on the manner
in which this equality has been established.
At the commencement of a great democratic revolution, when
hostilities have but just broken out between the different
classes of society, the people endeavors to centralize the public
administration in the hands of the government, in order to wrest
the management of local affairs from the aristocracy. Towards
the close of such a revolution, on the contrary, it is usually
the conquered aristocracy that endeavors to make over the
management of all affairs to the State, because such an
aristocracy dreads the tyranny of a people which has become its
equal, and not unfrequently its master. Thus it is not always the
same class of the community which strives to increase the
prerogative of the government; but as long as the democratic
revolution lasts there is always one class in the nation,
powerful in numbers or in wealth, which is induced, by peculiar
passions or interests, to centralize the public administration,
independently of that hatred of being governed by one's neighbor,
which is a general and permanent feeling amongst democratic
nations. It may be remarked, that at the present day the lower
orders in England are striving with all their might to destroy
local independence, and to transfer the administration from all
points of the circumference to the centre; whereas the higher
classes are endeavoring to retain this administration within its
ancient boundaries. I venture to predict that a time will come
when the very reverse will happen.
These observations explain why the supreme power is always
stronger, and private individuals weaker, amongst a democratic
people which has passed through a long and arduous struggle to
reach a state of equality than amongst a democratic community in
which the citizens have been equal from the first. The example of
the Americans completely demonstrates the fact. The inhabitants
of the United States were never divided by any privileges; they
have never known the mutual relation of master and inferior, and
as they neither dread nor hate each other, they have never known
the necessity of calling in the supreme power to manage their
affairs. The lot of the Americans is singular: they have derived
from the aristocracy of England the notion of private rights and
the taste for local freedom; and they have been able to retain
both the one and the other, because they have had no aristocracy
to combat.
If at all times education enables men to defend their
independence, this is most especially true in democratic ages.
When all men are alike, it is easy to found a sole and
all-powerful government, by the aid of mere instinct. But men
require much intelligence, knowledge, and art to organize and to
maintain secondary powers under similar circumstances, and to
create amidst the independence and individual weakness of the
citizens such free associations as may be in a condition to
struggle against tyranny without destroying public order.
Hence the concentration of power and the subjection of
individuals will increase amongst democratic nations, not only in
the same proportion as their equality, but in the same proportion
as their ignorance. It is true, that in ages of imperfect
civilization the government is frequently as wanting in the
knowledge required to impose a despotism upon the people as the
people are wanting in the knowledge required to shake it off; but
the effect is not the same on both sides. However rude a
democratic people may be, the central power which rules it is
never completely devoid of cultivation, because it readily draws
to its own uses what little cultivation is to be found in the
country, and, if necessary, may seek assistance elsewhere.
Hence, amongst a nation which is ignorant as well as democratic,
an amazing difference cannot fail speedily to arise between the
intellectual capacity of the ruler and that of each of his
subjects. This completes the easy concentration of all power in
his hands: the administrative function of the State is
perpetually extended, because the State alone is competent to
administer the affairs of the country. Aristocratic nations,
however unenlightened they may be, never afford the same
spectacle, because in them instruction is nearly equally diffused
between the monarch and the leading members of the community.
The pacha who now rules in Egypt found the population of
that country composed of men exceedingly ignorant and equal, and
he has borrowed the science and ability of Europe to govern that
people. As the personal attainments of the sovereign are thus
combined with the ignorance and democratic weakness of his
subjects, the utmost centralization has been established without
impediment, and the pacha has made the country his manufactory,
and the inhabitants his workmen.
I think that extreme centralization of government ultimately
enervates society, and thus after a length of time weakens the
government itself; but I do not deny that a centralized social
power may be able to execute great undertakings with facility in
a given time and on a particular point. This is more especially
true of war, in which success depends much more on the means of
transferring all the resources of a nation to one single point,
than on the extent of those resources. Hence it is chiefly in
war that nations desire and frequently require to increase the
powers of the central government. All men of military genius are
fond of centralization, which increases their strength; and all
men of centralizing genius are fond of war, which compels nations
to combine all their powers in the hands of the government. Thus
the democratic tendency which leads men unceasingly to multiply
the privileges of the State, and to circumscribe the rights of
private persons, is much more rapid and constant amongst those
democratic nations which are exposed by their position to great
and frequent wars, than amongst all others.
I have shown how the dread of disturbance and the love of
well-being insensibly lead democratic nations to increase the
functions of central government, as the only power which appears
to be intrinsically sufficiently strong, enlightened, and secure,
to protect them from anarchy. I would now add, that all the
particular circumstances which tend to make the state of a
democratic community agitated and precarious, enhance this
general propensity, and lead private persons more and more to
sacrifice their rights to their tranquility. A people is
therefore never so disposed to increase the functions of central
government as at the close of a long and bloody revolution,
which, after having wrested property from the hands of its former
possessors, has shaken all belief, and filled the nation with
fierce hatreds, conflicting interests, and contending factions.
The love of public tranquillity becomes at such times an
indiscriminating passion, and the members of the community are
apt to conceive a most inordinate devotion to order.
I have already examined several of the incidents which may
concur to promote the centralization of power, but the principal
cause still remains to be noticed. The foremost of the
incidental causes which may draw the management of all affairs
into the hands of the ruler in democratic countries, is the
origin of that ruler himself, and his own propensities. Men who
live in the ages of equality are naturally fond of central power,
and are willing to extend its privileges; but if it happens that
this same power faithfully represents their own interests, and
exactly copies their own inclinations, the confidence they place
in it knows no bounds, and they think that whatever they bestow
upon it is bestowed upon themselves.
The attraction of administrative powers to the centre will
always be less easy and less rapid under the reign of kings who
are still in some way connected with the old aristocratic order,
than under new princes, the children of their own achievements,
whose birth, prejudices, propensities, and habits appear to bind
them indissolubly to the cause of equality. I do not mean that
princes of aristocratic origin who live in democratic ages do not
attempt to centralize; I believe they apply themselves to that
object as diligently as any others. For them, the sole
advantages of equality lie in that direction; but their
opportunities are less great, because the community, instead of
volunteering compliance with their desires, frequently obeys them
with reluctance. In democratic communities the rule is that
centralization must increase in proportion as the sovereign is
less aristocratic. When an ancient race of kings stands at the
head of an aristocracy, as the natural prejudices of the
sovereign perfectly accord with the natural prejudices of the
nobility, the vices inherent in aristocratic communities have a
free course, and meet with no corrective. The reverse is the
case when the scion of a feudal stock is placed at the head of a
democratic people. The sovereign is constantly led, by his
education, his habits, and his associations, to adopt sentiments
suggested by the inequality of conditions, and the people tend as
constantly, by their social condition, to those manners which are
engendered by equality. At such times it often happens that the
citizens seek to control the central power far less as a
tyrannical than as an aristocratical power, and that they persist
in the firm defence of their independence, not only because they
would remain free, but especially because they are determined to
remain equal. A revolution which overthrows an ancient regal
family, in order to place men of more recent growth at the head
of a democratic people, may temporarily weaken the central power;
but however anarchical such a revolution may appear at first, we
need not hesitate to predict that its final and certain
consequence will be to extend and to secure the prerogatives of
that power. The foremost or indeed the sole condition which is
required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in
a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to
believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was
once so complex, is simplified, and reduced as it were to a
single principle.
5. Chapter V: That Amongst The European Nations Of Our Time The
Power Of Governments Is Increasing, Although The Persons Who
Govern Are Less Stable
On reflecting upon what has already been said, the reader
will be startled and alarmed to find that in Europe everything
seems to conduce to the indefinite extension of the prerogatives
of government, and to render all that enjoyed the rights of
private independence more weak, more subordinate, and more
precarious. The democratic nations of Europe have all the
general and permanent tendencies which urge the Americans to the
centralization of government, and they are moreover exposed to a
number of secondary and incidental causes with which the
Americans are unacquainted. It would seem as if every step they
make towards equality brings them nearer to despotism. And indeed
if we do but cast our looks around, we shall be convinced that
such is the fact. During the aristocratic ages which preceded
the present time, the sovereigns of Europe had been deprived of,
or had relinquished, many of the rights inherent in their power.
Not a hundred years ago, amongst the greater part of European
nations, numerous private persons and corporations were
sufficiently independent to administer justice, to raise and
maintain troops, to levy taxes, and frequently even to make or
interpret the law. The State has everywhere resumed to itself
alone these natural attributes of sovereign power; in all matters
of government the State tolerates no intermediate agent between
itself and the people, and in general business it directs the
people by its own immediate influence. I am far from blaming
this concentration of power, I simply point it out.
At the same period a great number of secondary powers existed in
Europe, which represented local interests and administered local
affairs. Most of these local authorities have already disappeared; all
are speedily tending to disappear, or to fall into the most complete
dependence. From one end of Europe to the other the privileges of the
nobility, the liberties of cities, and the powers of provincial bodies,
are either destroyed or upon the verge of destruction. Europe has
endured, in the course of the last half-century, many revolutions and
counter-revolutions which have agitated it in opposite directions: but
all these perturbations resemble each other in one respect -they have
all shaken or destroyed the secondary powers of government. The local
privileges which the French did not abolish in the countries they
conquered, have finally succumbed to the policy of the princes who
conquered the French. Those princes rejected all the innovations of the
French Revolution except centralization: that is the only principle they
consented to receive from such a source. My object is to remark, that
all these various rights, which have been successively wrested, in our
time, from classes, corporations, and individuals, have not served to
raise new secondary powers on a more democratic basis, but have
uniformly been concentrated in the hands of the sovereign. Everywhere
the State acquires more and more direct control over the humblest
members of the community, and a more exclusive power of governing each
of them in his smallest concerns. [3]
Almost all the charitable establishments of Europe were formerly in the
hands of private persons or of corporations; they are now almost all
dependent on the supreme government, and in many countries are actually
administered by that power. The State almost exclusively undertakes to
supply bread to the hungry, assistance and shelter to the sick, work to
the idle, and to act as the sole reliever of all kinds of misery.
Education, as well as charity, is become in most countries at the
present day a national concern. The State receives, and often takes,
the child from the arms of the mother, to hand it over to official
agents: the State undertakes to train the heart and to instruct the mind
of each generation. Uniformity prevails in the courses of public
instruction as in everything else; diversity, as well as freedom, is
disappearing day by day. Nor do I hesitate to affirm, that amongst
almost all the Christian nations of our days, Catholic as well as
Protestant, religion is in danger of falling into the hands of the
government. Not that rulers are over-jealous of the right of settling
points of doctrine, but they get more and more hold upon the will of
those by whom doctrines are expounded; they deprive the clergy of their
property, and pay them by salaries; they divert to their own use the
influence of the priesthood, they make them their own ministers -often
their own servants -and by this alliance with religion they reach the
inner depths of the soul of man. [4]
But this is as yet only one side of the picture. The
authority of government has not only spread, as we have just
seen, throughout the sphere of all existing powers, till that
sphere can no longer contain it, but it goes further, and invades
the domain heretofore reserved to private independence. A
multitude of actions, which were formerly entirely beyond the
control of the public administration, have been subjected to that
control in our time, and the number of them is constantly
increasing. Amongst aristocratic nations the supreme government
usually contented itself with managing and superintending the
community in whatever directly and ostensibly concerned the
national honor; but in all other respects the people were left to
work out their own free will. Amongst these nations the
government often seemed to forget that there is a point at which
the faults and the sufferings of private persons involve the
general prosperity, and that to prevent the ruin of a private
individual must sometimes be a matter of public importance. The
democratic nations of our time lean to the opposite extreme. It
is evident that most of our rulers will not content themselves
with governing the people collectively: it would seem as if they
thought themselves responsible for the actions and private
condition of their subjects -as if they had undertaken to guide
and to instruct each of them in the various incidents of life,
and to secure their happiness quite independently of their own
consent. On the other hand private individuals grow more and
more apt to look upon the supreme power in the same light; they
invoke its assistance in all their necessities, and they fix
their eyes upon the administration as their mentor or their
guide.
I assert that there is no country in Europe in which the public
administration has not become, not only more centralized, but more
inquisitive and more minute it everywhere interferes in private concerns
more than it did; it regulates more undertakings, and undertakings of a
lesser kind; and it gains a firmer footing every day about, above, and
around all private persons, to assist, to advise, and to coerce them.
Formerly a sovereign lived upon the income of his lands, or the revenue
of his taxes; this is no longer the case now that his wants have
increased as well as his power. Under the same circumstances which
formerly compelled a prince to put on a new tax, he now has recourse to
a loan. Thus the State gradually becomes the debtor of most of the
wealthier members of the community, and centralizes the largest amounts
of capital in its own hands. Small capital is drawn into its keeping by
another method. As men are intermingled and conditions become more
equal, the poor have more resources, more education, and more desires;
they conceive the notion of bettering their condition, and this teaches
them to save. These savings are daily producing an infinite number of
small capitals, the slow and gradual produce of labor, which are always
increasing. But the greater part of this money would be unproductive if
it remained scattered in the hands of its owners. This circumstance has
given rise to a philanthropic institution, which will soon become, if I
am not mistaken, one of our most important political institutions. Some
charitable persons conceived the notion of collecting the savings of the
poor and placing them out at interest. In some countries these
benevolent associations are still completely distinct from the State;
but in almost all they manifestly tend to identify themselves with the
government; and in some of them the government has superseded them,
taking upon itself the enormous task of centralizing in one place, and
putting out at interest on its own responsibility, the daily savings of
many millions of the working classes. Thus the State draws to itself the
wealth of the rich by loans, and has the poor man's mite at its disposal
in the savings banks. The wealth of the country is perpetually flowing
around the government and passing through its hands; the accumulation
increases in the same proportion as the equality of conditions; for in a
democratic country the State alone inspires private individuals with
confidence, because the State alone appears to be endowed with strength
and durability. [5]Thus the sovereign
does not confine himself to the management of the public treasury; he
interferes in private money matters; he is the superior, and often the
master, of all the members of the community; and, in addition to this,
he assumes the part of their steward and paymaster.
The central power not only fulfils of itself the whole of
the duties formerly discharged by various authorities -extending
those duties, and surpassing those authorities -but it performs
them with more alertness, strength, and independence than it
displayed before. All the governments of Europe have in our time
singularly improved the science of administration: they do more
things, and they do everything with more order, more celerity,
and at less expense; they seem to be constantly enriched by all
the experience of which they have stripped private persons. From
day to day the princes of Europe hold their subordinate officers
under stricter control, and they invent new methods for guiding
them more closely, and inspecting them with less trouble. Not
content with managing everything by their agents, they undertake
to manage the conduct of their agents in everything; so that the
public administration not only depends upon one and the same
power, but it is more and more confined to one spot and
concentrated in the same hands. The government centralizes its
agency whilst it increases its prerogative -hence a twofold
increase of strength.
In examining the ancient constitution of the judicial power,
amongst most European nations, two things strike the mind -the
independence of that power, and the extent of its functions. Not only
did the courts of justice decide almost all differences between private
persons, but in very many cases they acted as arbiters between private
persons and the State. I do not here allude to the political and
administrative offices which courts of judicature had in some countries
usurped, but the judicial office common to them all. In most of the
countries of Europe, there were, and there still are, many private
rights, connected for the most part with the general right of property,
which stood under the protection of the courts of justice, and which the
State could not violate without their sanction. It was this
semi-political power which mainly distinguished the European courts of
judicature from all others; for all nations have had judges, but all
have not invested their judges with the same privileges. Upon examining
what is now occurring amongst the democratic nations of Europe which are
called free, as well as amongst the others, it will be observed that new
and more dependent courts are everywhere springing up by the side of the
old ones, for the express purpose of deciding, by an extraordinary
jurisdiction, such litigated matters as may arise between the government
and private persons. The elder judicial power retains its independence,
but its jurisdiction is narrowed; and there is a growing tendency to
reduce it to be exclusively the arbiter between private interests. The
number of these special courts of justice is continually increasing, and
their functions increase likewise. Thus the government is more and more
absolved from the necessity of subjecting its policy and its rights to
the sanction of another power. As judges cannot be dispensed with, at
least the State is to select them, and always to hold them under its
control; so that, between the government and private individuals, they
place the effigy of justice rather than justice itself. The State is
not satisfied with drawing all concerns to itself, but it acquires an
ever-increasing power of deciding on them all without restriction and
without appeal. [6]
There exists amongst the modern nations of Europe one great
cause, independent of all those which have already been pointed
out, which perpetually contributes to extend the agency or to
strengthen the prerogative of the supreme power, though it has
not been sufficiently attended to: I mean the growth of
manufactures, which is fostered by the progress of social
equality. Manufactures generally collect a multitude of men of
the same spot, amongst whom new and complex relations spring up.
These men are exposed by their calling to great and sudden
alternations of plenty and want, during which public tranquillity
is endangered. It may also happen that these employments
sacrifice the health, and even the life, of those who gain by
them, or of those who live by them. Thus the manufacturing
classes require more regulation, superintendence, and restraint
than the other classes of society, and it is natural that the
powers of government should increase in the same proportion as
those classes.
This is a truth of general application; what follows more
especially concerns the nations of Europe. In the centuries
which preceded that in which we live, the aristocracy was in
possession of the soil, and was competent to defend it: landed
property was therefore surrounded by ample securities, and its
possessors enjoyed great independence. This gave rise to laws
and customs which have been perpetuated, notwithstanding the
subdivision of lands and the ruin of the nobility; and, at the
present time, landowners and agriculturists are still those
amongst the community who must easily escape from the control of
the supreme power. In these same aristocratic ages, in which all
the sources of our history are to be traced, personal property
was of small importance, and those who possessed it were despised
and weak: the manufacturing class formed an exception in the
midst of those aristocratic communities; as it had no certain
patronage, it was not outwardly protected, and was often unable
to protect itself.
Hence a habit sprung up of considering manufacturing property as
something of a peculiar nature, not entitled to the same deference, and
not worthy of the same securities as property in general; and
manufacturers were looked upon as a small class in the bulk of the
people, whose independence was of small importance, and who might with
propriety be abandoned to the disciplinary passions of princes. On
glancing over the codes of the middle ages, one is surprised to see, in
those periods of personal independence, with what incessant royal
regulations manufactures were hampered, even in their smallest details:
on this point centralization was as active and as minute as it can ever
be. Since that time a great revolution has taken place in the world;
manufacturing property, which was then only in the germ, has spread till
it covers Europe: the manufacturing class has been multiplied and
enriched by the remnants of all other ranks; it has grown and is still
perpetually growing in number, in importance, in wealth. Almost all
those who do not belong to it are connected with it at least on some one
point; after having been an exception in society, it threatens to become
the chief, if not the only, class; nevertheless the notions and
political precedents engendered by it of old still cling about it. These
notions and these precedents remain unchanged, because they are old, and
also because they happen to be in perfect accordance with the new
notions and general habits of our contemporaries. Manufacturing
property then does not extend its rights in the same ratio as its
importance. The manufacturing classes do not become less dependent,
whilst they become more numerous; but, on the contrary, it would seem as
if despotism lurked within them, and naturally grew with their growth.
[7] As a nation becomes more engaged in
manufactures, the want of roads, canals, harbors, and other works of a
semi-public nature, which facilitate the acquisition of wealth, is more
strongly felt; and as a nation becomes more democratic, private
individuals are less able, and the State more able, to execute works of
such magnitude. I do not hesitate to assert that the manifest tendency
of all governments at the present time is to take upon themselves alone
the execution of these undertakings; by which means they daily hold in
closer dependence the population which they govern.
On the other hand, in proportion as the power of a State
increases, and its necessities are augmented, the State
consumption of manufactured produce is always growing larger, and
toese commodities are generally made in the arsenals or
establishments of the government. Thus, in every kingdom, the
ruler becomes the principal manufacturer; he collects and retains
in his service a vast number of engineers, architects, mechanics,
and handicraftsmen. Not only is he the principal manufacturer,
but he tends more and more to become the chief, or rather the
master of all other manufacturers. As private persons become
more powerless by becoming more equal, they can effect nothing in
manufactures without combination; but the government naturally
seeks to place these combinations under its own control.
It must be admitted that these collective beings, which are
called combinations, are stronger and more formidable than a
private individual can ever be, and that they have less of the
responsibility of their own actions; whence it seems reasonable
that they should not be allowed to retain so great an
independence of the supreme government as might be conceded to a
private individual.
Rulers are the more apt to follow this line of policy, as
their own inclinations invite them to it. Amongst democratic
nations it is only by association that the resistance of the
people to the government can ever display itself: hence the
latter always looks with ill-favor on those associations which
are not in its own power; and it is well worthy of remark, that
amongst democratic nations, the people themselves often entertain
a secret feeling of fear and jealousy against these very
associations, which prevents the citizens from defending the
institutions of which they stand so much in need. The power and
the duration of these small private bodies, in the midst of the
weakness and instability of the whole community, astonish and
alarm the people; and the free use which each association makes
of its natural powers is almost regarded as a dangerous
privilege. All the associations which spring up in our age are,
moreover, new corporate powers, whose rights have not been
sanctioned by time; they come into existence at a time when the
notion ofprivate rights is weak, and when the power of government
is unbounded; hence it is not surprising that they lose their
freedom at their birth. Amongst all European nations there are
some kinds of associations which cannot be formed until the State
has examined their by-laws, and authorized their existence. In
several others, attempts are made to extend this rule to all
associations; the consequences of such a policy, if it were
successful, may easily be foreseen. If once the sovereign had a
general right of authorizing associations of all kinds upon
certain conditions, he would not be long without claiming the
right of superintending and managing them, in order to prevent
them from departing from the rules laid down by himself. In this
manner, the State, after having reduced all who are desirous of
forming associations into dependence, would proceed to reduce
into the same condition all who belong to associations already
formed -that is to say, almost all the men who are now in
existence. Governments thus appropriate to themselves, and
convert to their own purposes, the greater part of this new power
which manufacturing interests have in our time brought into the
world. Manufacturers govern us -they govern manufactures.
I attach so much importance to all that I have just been
saying, that I am tormented by the fear of having impaired my
meaning in seeking to render it more clear. If the reader thinks
that the examples I have adduced to support my observations are
insufficient or ill-chosen -if he imagines that I have anywhere
exaggerated the encroachments of the supreme power, and, on the
other hand, that I have underrated the extent of the sphere which
still remains open to the exertions of individual independence, I
entreat him to lay down the book for a moment, and to turn his
mind to reflect for himself upon the subjects I have attempted to
explain. Let him attentively examine what is taking place in
France and in other countries -let him inquire of those about
him -let him search himself, and I am much mistaken if he does
not arrive, without my guidance, and by other paths, at the point
to which I have sought to lead him. He will perceive that for
the last half-century, centralization has everywhere been growing
up in a thousand different ways. Wars, revolutions, conquests,
have served to promote it: all men have labored to increase it.
In the course of the same period, during which men have succeeded
each other with singular rapidity at the head of affairs, their
notions, interests, and passions have been infinitely
diversified; but all have by some means or other sought to
centralize. This instinctive centralization has been the only
settled point amidst the extreme mutability of their lives and of
their thoughts.
If the reader, after having investigated these details of
human affairs, will seek to survey the wide prospect as a whole,
he will be struck by the result. On the one hand the most
settled dynasties shaken or overthrown -the people everywhere
escaping by violence from the sway of their laws -abolishing or
limiting the authority of their rulers or their princes -the
nations, which are not in open revolution, restless at least, and
excited -all of them animated by the same spirit of revolt: and
on the other hand, at this very period of anarchy, and amongst
these untractable nations, the incessant increase of the
prerogative of the supreme government, becoming more centralized,
more adventurous, more absolute, more extensive -the people
perpetually falling under the control of the public
administration -led insensibly to surrender to it some further
portion of their individual independence, till the very men, who
from time to time upset a throne and trample on a race of kings,
bend more and more obsequiously to the slightest dictate of a
clerk. Thus two contrary revolutions appear in our days to be
going on; the one continually weakening the supreme power, the
other as continually strengthening it: at no other period in our
history has it appeared so weak or so strong. But upon a more
attentive examination of the state of the world, it appears that
these two revolutions are intimately connected together, that
they originate in the same source, and that after having followed
a separate course, they lead men at last to the same result. I
may venture once more to repeat what I have already said or
implied in several parts of this book: great care must be taken
not to confound the principle of equality itself with the
revolution which finally establishes that principle in the social
condition and the laws of a nation: here lies the reason of
almost all the phenomena which occasion our astonishment. All
the old political powers of Europe, the greatest as well as the
least, were founded in ages of aristocracy, and they more or less
represented or defended the principles of inequality and of
privilege. To make the novel wants and interests, which the
growing principle of equality introduced, preponderate in
government, our contemporaries had to overturn or to coerce the
established powers. This led them to make revolutions, and
breathed into many of them, that fierce love of disturbance and
independence, which all revolutions, whatever be their object,
always engender. I do not believe that there is a single country
in Europe in which the progress of equality has not been preceded
or followed by some violent changes in the state of property and
persons; and almost all these changes have been attended with
much anarchy and license, because they have been made by the
least civilized portion of the nation against that which is most
civilized. Hence proceeded the two-fold contrary tendencies
which I have just pointed out. As long as the democratic
revolution was glowing with heat, the men who were bent upon the
destruction of old aristocratic powers hostile to that
revolution, displayed a strong spirit of independence; but as the
victory or the principle of equality became more complete, they
gradually surrendered themselves to the propensities natural to
that condition of equality, and they strengthened and centralized
their governments. They had sought to be free in order to make
themselves equal; but in proportion as equality was more
established by the aid of freedom, freedom itself was thereby
rendered of more difficult attainment.
These two states of a nation have sometimes been
contemporaneous: the last generation in France showed how a
people might organize a stupendous tyranny in the community, at
the very time when they were baffling the authority of the
nobility and braving the power of all kings -at once teaching
the world the way to win freedom, and the way to lose it. In our
days men see that constituted powers are dilapidated on every
side -they see all ancient authority gasping away, all ancient
barriers tottering to their fall, and the judgment of the wisest
is troubled at the sight: they attend only to the amazing
revolution which is taking place before their eyes, and they
imagine that mankind is about to fall into perpetual anarchy: if
they looked to the final consequences of this revolution, their
fears would perhaps assume a different shape. For myself, I
confess that I put no trust in the spirit of freedom which
appears to animate my contemporaries. I see well enough that the
nations of this age are turbulent, but I do not clearly perceive
that they are liberal; and I fear lest, at the close of those
perturbations which rock the base of thrones, the domination of
sovereigns may prove more powerful than it ever was before.
[3]
This gradual weakening of individuals in relation to
society at large may be traced in a thousand ways. I shall
select from amongst these examples one derived from the law of
wills. In aristocracies it is common to profess the greatest
reverence for the last testamentary dispositions of a man; this
feeling sometimes even became superstitious amongst the older
nations of Europe: the power of the State, far from interfering
with the caprices of a dying man, gave full force to the very
least of them, and insured to him a perpetual power. When all
living men are enfeebled, the will of the dead is less respected:
it is circumscribed within a narrow range, beyond which it is
annulled or checked by the supreme power of the laws. In the
Middle Ages, testamentary power had, so to speak, no limits:
amongst the French at the present day, a man cannot distribute
his fortune amongst his children without the interference of the
State; after having domineered over a whole life, the law insists
upon regulating the very last act of it.
[4]
In proportion as the duties of the central power are
augmented, the number of public officers by whom that power is
represented must increase also. They form a nation in each nation; and
as they share the stability of the government, they more and more fill
up the place of an aristocracy.
In almost every part of Europe the
government rules in two ways; it rules one portion of the community by
the fear which they entertain of its agents, and the other by the hope
they have of becoming its agents.
[5]
On the one hand the taste for worldly welfare is
perpetually increasing, and on the other the government gets more
and more complete possession of the sources of that welfare.
Thus men are following two separate roads to servitude: the taste
for their own welfare withholds them from taking a part in the
government, and their love of that welfare places them in closer
dependence upon those who govern.
[6]
A strange sophism has been made on this head in
France. When a suit arises between the government and a private person,
it is not to be tried before an ordinary judge -in order, they say, not
to mix the administrative and the judicial powers; as if it were not to
mix those powers, and to mix them in the most dangerous and oppressive
manner, to invest the government with the office of judging and
administering at the same time.
[7]
I shall quote a few facts in corroboration of
this remark. Mines are the natural sources of manufacturing wealth: as
manufactures have grown up in Europe, as the produce of mines has become
of more general importance, and good mining more difficult from the
subdivision of property which is a consequence of the equality of
conditions, most governments have asserted a right of owning the soil in
which the mines lie, and of inspecting the works; which has never been
the case with any other kind of property. Thus mines, which were private
property, liable to the same obligations and sheltered by the same
guarantees as all other landed property, have fallen under the control
of the State. The State either works them or farms them; the owners of
them are mere tenants, deriving their rights from the State; and,
moreover, the State almost everywhere claims the power of directing
their operations: it lays down rules, enforces the adoption of
particular methods, subjects the mining adventurers to constant
superintendence, and, if refractory, they are ousted by a government
court of justice, and the government transfers their contract to other
hands; so that the government not only possesses the mines, but has all
the adventurers in its power. Nevertheless, as manufactures increase,
the working of old mines increases also; new ones are opened, the mining
population extends and grows up; day by day governments augment their
subterranean dominions, and people them with their agents.
6. Chapter VI: What Sort Of Despotism Democratic Nations Have To
Fear
I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a
democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans,
might offer singular facilities for the establishment of
despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much
use had already been made by most of our rulers, of the notions,
the sentiments, and the wants engendered by this same social
condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their
power. This led me to think that the nations of Christendom
would perhaps eventually undergo some sort of oppression like
that which hung over several of the nations of the ancient world.
A more accurate examination of the subject, and five years of
further meditations, have not diminished my apprehensions, but
they have changed the object of them. No sovereign ever lived in
former ages so absolute or so powerful as to undertake to
administer by his own agency, and without the assistance of
intermediate powers, all the parts of a great empire: none ever
attempted to subject all his subjects indiscriminately to strict
uniformity of regulation, and personally to tutor and direct
every member of the community. The notion of such an undertaking
never occurred to the human mind; and if any man had conceived
it, the want of information, the imperfection of the
administrative system, and above all, the natural obstacles
caused by the inequality of conditions, would speedily have
checked the execution of so vast a design. When the Roman
emperors were at the height of their power, the different nations
of the empire still preserved manners and customs of great
diversity; although they were subject to the same monarch, most
of the provinces were separately administered; they abounded in
powerful and active municipalities; and although the whole
government of the empire was centred in the hands of the emperor
alone, and he always remained, upon occasions, the supreme
arbiter in all matters, yet the details of social life and
private occupations lay for the most part beyond his control.
The emperors possessed, it is true, an immense and unchecked
power, which allowed them to gratify all their whimsical tastes,
and to employ for that purpose the whole strength of the State.
They frequently abused that power arbitrarily to deprive their
subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely
onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; it
was fixed to some few main objects, and neglected the rest; it
was violent, but its range was limited.
But it would seem that if despotism were to be established
amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a
different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it
would degrade men without tormenting them. I do not question,
that in an age of instruction and equality like our own,
sovereigns might more easily succeed in collecting all political
power into their own hands, and might interfere more habitually
and decidedly within the circle of private interests, than any
sovereign of antiquity could ever do. But this same principle of
equality which facilitates despotism, tempers its rigor. We have
seen how the manners of society become more humane and gentle in
proportion as men become more equal and alike. When no member of
the community has much power or much wealth, tyranny is, as it
were, without opportunities and a field of action. As all
fortunes are scanty, the passions of men are naturally
circumscribed -their imagination limited, their pleasures
simple. This universal moderation moderates the sovereign
himself, and checks within certain limits the inordinate extent
of his desires.
Independently of these reasons drawn from the nature of the state
of society itself, I might add many others arising from causes beyond my
subject; but I shall keep within the limits I have laid down to myself.
Democratic governments may become violent and even cruel at certain
periods of extreme effervescence or of great danger: but these crises
will be rare and brief. When I consider the petty passions of our
contemporaries, the mildness of their manners, the extent of their
education, the purity of their religion, the gentleness of their
morality, their regular and industrious habits, and the restraint which
they almost all observe in their vices no less than in their virtues, I
have no fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers, but
rather guardians. [8] I think then that
the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is
unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our
contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I am
trying myself to choose an expression which will accurately convey the
whole of the idea I have formed of it, but in vain; the old words
"despotism" and "tyranny" are inappropriate: the thing itself is new;
and since I cannot name it, I must attempt to define it.
I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may
appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the
observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and
alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry
pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living
apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest -his
children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of
mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to
them, but he sees them not -he touches them, but he feels them
not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his
kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have
lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and
tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their
gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is
absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like
the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object
was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to
keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the
people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but
rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly
labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter
of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and
supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages
their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the
descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances -what
remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the
trouble of living? Thus it every day renders the exercise of the
free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it
circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually
robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality
has prepared men for these things: it has predisposed men to
endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.
After having thus successively taken each member of the
community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the
supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It
covers the surface of society with a net-work of small
complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most
original minds and the most energetic characters cannot
penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not
shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced
by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting:
such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does
not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and
stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing
better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which
the government is the shepherd. I have always thought that
servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have
just described, might be combined more easily than is commonly
believed with some of the outward forms of freedom; and that it
might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of
the people. Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two
conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to
remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of
these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at
once. They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of
government, but elected by the people. They combine the
principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty; this
gives them a respite; they console themselves for being in
tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own
guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading-strings,
because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons,
but the people at large that holds the end of his chain. By this
system the people shake off their state of dependence just long
enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A
great many persons at the present day are quite contented with
this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the
sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough
for the protection of individual freedom when they have
surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not
satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me
than the fact of extorted obedience.
I do not however deny that a constitution of this kind appears to
me to be infinitely preferable to one, which, after having concentrated
all the powers of government, should vest them in the hands of an
irresponsible person or body of persons. Of all the forms which
democratic despotism could assume, the latter would assuredly be the
worst. When the sovereign is elective, or narrowly watched by a
legislature which is really elective and independent, the oppression
which he exercises over individuals is sometimes greater, but it is
always less degrading; because every man, when he is oppressed and
disarmed, may still imagine, that whilst he yields obedience it is to
himself he yields it, and that it is to one of his own inclinations that
all the rest give way. In like manner I can understand that when the
sovereign represents the nation, and is dependent upon the people, the
rights and the power of which every citizen is deprived, not only serve
the head of the State, but the State itself; and that private persons
derive some return from the sacrifice of their independence which they
have made to the public. To create a representation of the people in
every centralized country, is therefore, to diminish the evil which
extreme centralization may produce, but not to get rid of it. I admit
that by this means room is left for the intervention of individuals in
the more important affairs; but it is not the less suppressed in the
smaller and more private ones. It must not be forgotten that it is
especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For
my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in
great things than in little ones, if it were possible to be secure of
the one without possessing the other. Subjection in minor affairs
breaks out every day, and is felt by the whole community
indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses
them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their
will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character
enervated; whereas that obedience, which is exacted on a few important
but rare occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals, and
throws the burden of it upon a small number of men. It is in vain to
summon a people, which has been rendered so dependent on the central
power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power;
this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it
may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of
thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling
below the level of humanity. [9] I add
that they will soon become incapable of exercising the great and only
privilege which remains to them. The democratic nations which have
introduced freedom into their political constitution, at the very time
when they were augmenting the despotism of their administrative
constitution, have been led into strange paradoxes. To manage those
minor affairs in which good sense is all that is wanted -the people are
held to be unequal to the task, but when the government of the country
is at stake, the people are invested with immense powers; they are
alternately made the playthings of their ruler, and his masters -more
than kings, and less than men. After having exhausted all the different
modes of election, without finding one to suit their purpose, they are
still amazed, and still bent on seeking further; as if the evil they
remark did not originate in the constitution of the country far more
than in that of the electoral body. It is, indeed, difficult to
conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government
should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be
governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and
energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient
people. A constitution, which should be republican in its head and
ultra-monarchical in all its other parts, has ever appeared to me to be
a short-lived monster. The vices of rulers and the ineptitude of the
people would speedily bring about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its
representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions, or soon
return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.
7. Chapter VII: Continuation Of The Preceding Chapters
I believe that it is easier to establish an absolute and
despotic government amongst a people in which the conditions of
society are equal, than amongst any other; and I think that if
such a government were once established amongst such a people, it
would not only oppress men, but would eventually strip each of
them of several of the highest qualities of humanity. Despotism
therefore appears to me peculiarly to be dreaded in democratic
ages. I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but
in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. On the
other hand, I am persuaded that all who shall attempt, in the
ages upon which we are entering, to base freedom upon
aristocratic privilege, will fail -that all who shall attempt to
draw and to retain authority within a single class, will fail.
At the present day no ruler is skilful or strong enough to found
a despotism, by re-establishing permanent distinctions of rank
amongst his subjects: no legislator is wise or powerful enough to
preserve free institutions, if he does not take equality for his
first principle and his watchword. All those of our
contemporaries who would establish or secure the independence and
the dignity of their fellow-men, must show themselves the friends
of equality; and the only worthy means of showing themselves as
such, is to be so: upon this depends the success of their holy
enterprise. Thus the question is not how to reconstruct
aristocratic society, but how to make liberty proceed out of that
democratic state of society in which God has placed us.
These two truths appear to me simple, clear, and fertile in
consequences; and they naturally lead me to consider what kind of
free government can be established amongst a people in which
social conditions are equal. It results from the very
constitution of democratic nations and from their necessities,
that the power of government amongst them must be more uniform,
more centralized, more extensive, more searching, and more
efficient than in other countries. Society at large is naturally
stronger and more active, individuals more subordinate and weak;
the former does more, the latter less; and this is inevitably the
case. It is not therefore to be expected that the range of
private independence will ever be as extensive in democratic as
in aristocratic countries -nor is this to be desired; for,
amongst aristocratic nations, the mass is often sacrificed to the
individual, and the prosperity of the greater number to the
greatness of the few. It is both necessary and desirable that
the government of a democratic people should be active and
powerful: and our object should not be to render it weak or
indolent, but solely to prevent it from abusing its aptitude and
its strength.
The circumstance which most contributed to secure the
independence of private persons in aristocratic ages, was, that
the supreme power did not affect to take upon itself alone the
government and administration of the community; those functions
were necessarily partially left to the members of the
aristocracy: so that as the supreme power was always divided, it
never weighed with its whole weight and in the same manner on
each individual. Not only did the government not perform
everything by its immediate agency; but as most of the agents who
discharged its duties derived their power not from the State, but
from the circumstance of their birth, they were not perpetually
under its control. The government could not make or unmake them
in an instant, at pleasure, nor bend them in strict uniformity to
its slightest caprice -this was an additional guarantee of
private independence. I readily admit that recourse cannot be had
to the same means at the present time: but I discover certain
democratic expedients which may be substituted for them. Instead
of vesting in the government alone all the administrative powers
of which corporations and nobles have been deprived, a portion of
them may be entrusted to secondary public bodies, temporarily
composed of private citizens: thus the liberty of private persons
will be more secure, and their equality will not be diminished.
The Americans, who care less for words than the French,
still designate by the name of "county" the largest of their
administrative districts: but the duties of the count or lord-lieutenant are in part performed by a provincial assembly. At a
period of equality like our own it would be unjust and
unreasonable to institute hereditary officers; but there is
nothing to prevent us from substituting elective public officers
to a certain extent. Election is a democratic expedient which
insures the independence of the public officer in relation to the
government, as much and even more than hereditary rank can insure
it amongst aristocratic nations. Aristocratic countries abound
in wealthy and influential persons who are competent to provide
for themselves, and who cannot be easily or secretly oppressed:
such persons restrain a government within general habits of
moderation and reserve. I am very well aware that democratic
countries contain no such persons naturally; but something
analogous to them may be created by artificial means. I firmly
believe that an aristocracy cannot again be founded in the world;
but I think that private citizens, by combining together, may
constitute bodies of great wealth, influence, and strength,
corresponding to the persons of an aristocracy. By this means
many of the greatest political advantages of aristocracy would be
obtained without its injustice or its dangers. An association
for political, commercial, or manufacturing purposes, or even for
those of science and literature, is a powerful and enlightened
member of the community, which cannot be disposed of at pleasure,
or oppressed without remonstrance; and which, by defending its
own rights against the encroachments of the government, saves the
common liberties of the country.
In periods of aristocracy every man is always bound so
closely to many of his fellow-citizens, that he cannot be
assailed without their coming to his assistance. In ages of
equality every man naturally stands alone; he has no hereditary
friends whose co-operation he may demand -no class upon whose
sympathy he may rely: he is easily got rid of, and he is trampled
on with impunity. At the present time, an oppressed member of
the community has therefore only one method of self-defence -he
may appeal to the whole nation; and if the whole nation is deaf
to his complaint, he may appeal to mankind: the only means he has
of making this appeal is by the press. Thus the liberty of the
press is infinitely more valuable amongst democratic nations than
amongst all others; it is the only cure for the evils which
equality may produce. Equality sets men apart and weakens them;
but the press places a powerful weapon within every man's reach,
which the weakest and loneliest of them all may use. Equality
deprives a man of the support of his connections; but the press
enables him to summon all his fellow-countrymen and all his
fellow-men to his assistance. Printing has accelerated the
progress of equality, and it is also one of its best correctives.
I think that men living in aristocracies may, strictly
speaking, do without the liberty of the press: but such is not
the case with those who live in democratic countries. To protect
their personal independence I trust not to great political
assemblies, to parliamentary privilege, or to the assertion of
popular sovereignty. All these things may, to a certain extent,
be reconciled with personal servitude -but that servitude cannot
be complete if the press is free: the press is the chiefest
democratic instrument of freedom.
Something analogous may be said of the judicial power. It
is a part of the essence of judicial power to attend to private
interests, and to fix itself with predilection on minute objects
submitted to its observation; another essential quality of
judicial power is never to volunteer its assistance to the
oppressed, but always to be at the disposal of the humblest of
those who solicit it; their complaint, however feeble they may
themselves be, will force itself upon the ear of justice and
claim redress, for this is inherent in the very constitution of
the courts of justice. A power of this kind is therefore
peculiarly adapted to the wants of freedom, at a time when the
eye and finger of the government are constantly intruding into
the minutest details of human actions, and when private persons
are at once too weak to protect themselves, and too much isolated
for them to reckon upon the assistance of their fellows. The
strength of the courts of law has ever been the greatest security
which can be offered to personal independence; but this is more
especially the case in democratic ages: private rights and
interests are in constant danger, if the judicial power does not
grow more extensive and more strong to keep pace with the growing
equality of conditions.
Equality awakens in men several propensities extremely
dangerous to freedom, to which the attention of the legislator
ought constantly to be directed. I shall only remind the reader
of the most important amongst them. Men living in democratic ages
do not readily comprehend the utility of forms: they feel an
instinctive contempt for them -I have elsewhere shown for what
reasons. Forms excite their contempt and often their hatred; as
they commonly aspire to none but easy and present gratifications,
they rush onwards to the object of their desires, and the
slightest delay exasperates them. This same temper, carried with
them into political life, renders them hostile to forms, which
perpetually retard or arrest them in some of their projects. Yet
this objection which the men of democracies make to forms is the
very thing which renders forms so useful to freedom; for their
chief merit is to serve as a barrier between the strong and the
weak, the ruler and the people, to retard the one, and give the
other time to look about him. Forms become more necessary in
proportion as the government becomes more active and more
powerful, whilst private persons are becoming more indolent and
more feeble. Thus democratic nations naturally stand more in need
of forms than other nations, and they naturally respect them
less. This deserves most serious attention. Nothing is more
pitiful than the arrogant disdain of most of our contemporaries
for questions of form; for the smallest questions of form have
acquired in our time an importance which they never had before:
many of the greatest interests of mankind depend upon them. I
think that if the statesmen of aristocratic ages could sometimes
contemn forms with impunity, and frequently rise above them, the
statesmen to whom the government of nations is now confided ought
to treat the very least among them with respect, and not neglect
them without imperious necessity. In aristocracies the
observance of forms was superstitious; amongst us they ought to
be kept with a deliberate and enlightened deference.
Another tendency, which is extremely natural to democratic
nations and extremely dangerous, is that which leads them ta
despise and undervalue the rights of private persons. The
attachment which men feel to a right, and the respect which they
display for it, is generally proportioned to its importance, or
to the length of time during which they have enjoyed it. The
rights of private persons amongst democratic nations are commonly
of small importance, of recent growth, and extremely precarious -the consequence is that they are often sacrificed without regret,
and almost always violated without remorse. But it happens that
at the same period and amongst the same nations in which men
conceive a natural contempt for the rights of private persons,
the rights of society at large are naturally extended and
consolidated: in other words, men become less attached to private
rights at the very time at which it would be most necessary to
retain and to defend what little remains of them. It is
therefore most especially in the present democratic ages, that
the true friends of the liberty and the greatness of man ought
constantly to be on the alert to prevent the power of government
from lightly sacrificing the private rights of individuals to the
general execution of its designs. At such times no citizen is so
obscure that it is not very dangerous to allow him to be
oppressed -no private rights are so unimportant that they can be
surrendered with impunity to the caprices of a government. The
reason is plain: -if the private right of an individual is
violated at a time when the human mind is fully impressed with
the importance and the sanctity of such rights, the injury done
is confined to the individual whose right is infringed; but to
violate such a right, at the present day, is deeply to corrupt
the manners of the nation and to put the whole community in
jeopardy, because the very notion of this kind of right
constantly tends amongst us to be impaired and lost.
There are certain habits, certain notions, and certain vices
which are peculiar to a state of revolution, and which a
protracted revolution cannot fail to engender and to propagate,
whatever be, in other respects, its character, its purpose, and
the scene on which it takes place. When any nation has, within a
short space of time, repeatedly varied its rulers, its opinions,
and its laws, the men of whom it is composed eventually contract
a taste for change, and grow accustomed to see all changes
effected by sudden violence. Thus they naturally conceive a
contempt for forms which daily prove ineffectual; and they do not
support without impatience the dominion of rules which they have
so often seen infringed. As the ordinary notions of equity and
morality no longer suffice to explain and justify all the
innovations daily begotten by a revolution, the principle of
public utility is called in, the doctrine of political necessity
is conjured up, and men accustom themselves to sacrifice private
interests without scruple, and to trample on the rights of
individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public
purpose.
These habits and notions, which I shall call revolutionary,
because all revolutions produce them, occur in aristocracies just
as much as amongst democratic nations; but amongst the former
they are often less powerful and always less lasting, because
there they meet with habits, notions, defects, and impediments,
which counteract them: they consequently disappear as soon as the
revolution is terminated, and the nation reverts to its former
political courses. This is not always the case in democratic
countries, in which it is ever to be feared that revolutionary
tendencies, becoming more gentle and more regular, without
entirely disappearing from society, will be gradually transformed
into habits of subjection to the administrative authority of the
government. I know of no countries in which revolutions re more
dangerous than in democratic countries; because, independently of
the accidental and transient evils which must always attend them,
they may always create some evils which are permanent and
unending. I believe that there are such things as justifiable
resistance and legitimate rebellion: I do not therefore assert,
as an absolute proposition, that the men of democratic ages ought
never to make revolutions; but I think that they have especial
reason to hesitate before they embark in them, and that it is far
better to endure many grievances in their present condition than
to have recourse to so perilous a remedy.
I shall conclude by one general idea, which comprises not
only all the particular ideas which have been expressed in the
present chapter, but also most of those which it is the object of
this book to treat of. In the ages of aristocracy which preceded
our own, there were private persons of great power, and a social
authority of extreme weakness. The outline of society itself was
not easily discernible, and constantly confounded with the
different powers by which the community was ruled. The principal
efforts of the men of those times were required to strengthen,
aggrandize, and secure the supreme power; and on the other hand,
to circumscribe individual independence within narrower limits,
and to subject private interests to the interests of the public.
Other perils and other cares await the men of our age. Amongst
the greater part of modern nations, the government, whatever may
be its origin, its constitution, or its name, has become almost
omnipotent, and private persons are falling, more and more, into
the lowest stage of weakness and dependence. In olden society
everything was different; unity and uniformity were nowhere to be
met with. In modern society everything threatens to become so
much alike, that the peculiar characteristics of each individual
will soon be entirely lost in the general aspect of the world.
Our forefathers were ever prone to make an improper use of the
notion, that private rights ought to be respected; and we are
naturally prone on the other hand to exaggerate the idea that the
interest of a private individual ought always to bend to the
interest of the many. The political world is metamorphosed: new
remedies must henceforth be sought for new disorders. To lay
down extensive, but distinct and settled limits, to the action of
the government; to confer certain rights on private persons, and
to secure to them the undisputed enjoyment of those rights; to
enable individual man to maintain whatever independence,
strength, and original power he still possesses; to raise him by
the side of society at large, and uphold him in that position -these appear to me the main objects of legislators in the ages
upon which we are now entering. It would seem as if the rulers
of our time sought only to use men in order to make things great;
I wish that they would try a little more to make great men; that
they would set less value on the work, and more upon the workman;
that they would never forget that a nation cannot long remain
strong when every man belonging to it is individually weak, and
that no form or combination of social polity has yet been
devised, to make an energetic people out of a community of
pusillanimous and enfeebled citizens.
I trace amongst our contemporaries two contrary notions
which are equally injurious. One set of men can perceive nothing
in the principle of equality but the anarchical tendencies which
it engenders: they dread their own free agency -they fear
themselves. Other thinkers, less numerous but more enlightened,
take a different view: besides that track which starts from the
principle of equality to terminate in anarchy, they have at last
discovered the road which seems to lead men to inevitable
servitude. They shape their souls beforehand to this necessary
condition; and, despairing of remaining free, they already do
obeisance in their hearts to the master who is soon to appear.
The former abandon freedom, because they think it dangerous; the
latter, because they hold it to be impossible. If I had
entertained the latter conviction, I should not have written this
book, but I should have confined myself to deploring in secret
the destiny of mankind. I have sought to point out the dangers to
which the principle of equality exposes the independence of man,
because I firmly believe that these dangers are the most
formidable, as well as the least foreseen, of all those which
futurity holds in store: but I do not think that they are
insurmountable. The men who live in the democratic ages upon
which we are entering have naturally a taste for independence:
they are naturally impatient of regulation, and they are wearied
by the permanence even of the condition they themselves prefer.
They are fond of power; but they are prone to despise and hate
those who wield it, and they easily elude its grasp by their own
mobility and insignificance. These propensities will always
manifest themselves, because they originate in the groundwork of
society, which will undergo no change: for a long time they will
prevent the establishment of any despotism, and they will furnish
fresh weapons to each succeeding generation which shall struggle
in favor of the liberty of mankind. Let us then look forward to
the future with that salutary fear which makes men keep watch and
ward for freedom, not with that faint and idle terror which
depresses and enervates the heart.
8. Chapter VIII: General Survey Of The Subject
Before I close forever the theme that has detained me so
long, I would fain take a parting survey of all the various
characteristics of modern society, and appreciate at last the
general influence to be exercised by the principle of equality
upon the fate of mankind; but I am stopped by the difficulty of
the task, and in presence of so great an object my sight is
troubled, and my reason fails. The society of the modern world
which I have sought to delineate, and which I seek to judge, has
but just come into existence. Time has not yet shaped it into
perfect form: the great revolution by which it has been created
is not yet over: and amidst the occurrences of our time, it is
almost impossible to discern what will pass away with the
revolution itself, and what will survive its close. The world
which is rising into existence is still half encumbered by the
remains of the world which is waning into decay; and amidst the
vast perplexity of human affairs, none can say how much of
ancient institutions and former manners will remain, or how much
will completely disappear. Although the revolution which is
taking place in the social condition, the laws, the opinions, and
the feelings of men, is still very far from being terminated, yet
its results already admit of no comparison with anything that the
world has ever before witnessed. I go back from age to age up to
the remotest antiquity; but I find no parallel to what is
occurring before my eyes: as the past has ceased to throw its
light upon the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.
Nevertheless, in the midst of a prospect so wide, so novel
and so confused, some of the more prominent characteristics may
already be discerned and pointed out. The good things and the
evils of life are more equally distributed in the world: great
wealth tends to disappear, the number of small fortunes to
increase; desires and gratifications are multiplied, but
extraordinary prosperity and irremediable penury are alike
unknown. The sentiment of ambition is universal, but the scope
of ambition is seldom vast. Each individual stands apart in
solitary weakness; but society at large is active, provident, and
powerful: the performances of private persons are insignificant,
those of the State immense. There is little energy of character;
but manners are mild, and laws humane. If there be few instances
of exalted heroism or of virtues of the highest, brightest, and
purest temper, men's habits are regular, violence is rare, and
cruelty almost unknown. Human existence becomes longer, and
property more secure: life is not adorned with brilliant
trophies, but it is extremely easy and tranquil. Few pleasures
are either very refined or very coarse; and highly polished
manners are as uncommon as great brutality of tastes. Neither
men of great learning, nor extremely ignorant communities, are to
be met with; genius becomes more rare, information more diffused.
The human mind is impelled by the small efforts of all mankind
combined together, not by the strenuous activity of certain men.
There is less perfection, but more abundance, in all the
productions of the arts. The ties of race, of rank, and of
country are relaxed; the great bond of humanity is strengthened.
If I endeavor to find out the most general and the most prominent
of all these different characteristics, I shall have occasion to
perceive, that what is taking place in men's fortunes manifests
itself under a thousand other forms. Almost all extremes are
softened or blunted: all that was most prominent is superseded by
some mean term, at once less lofty and less low, less brilliant
and less obscure, than what before existed in the world.
When I survey this countless multitude of beings, shaped in
each other's likeness, amidst whom nothing rises and nothing
falls, the sight of such universal uniformity saddens and chills
me, and I am tempted to regret that state of society which has
ceased to be. When the world was full of men of great importance
and extreme insignificance, of great wealth and extreme poverty,
of great learning and extreme ignorance, I turned aside from the
latter to fix my observation on the former alone, who gratified
my sympathies. But I admit that this gratification arose from my
own weakness: it is because I am unable to see at once all that
is around me, that I am allowed thus to select and separate the
objects of my predilection from among so many others. Such is not
the case with that almighty and eternal Being whose gaze
necessarily includes the whole of created things, and who surveys
distinctly, though at once, mankind and man. We may naturally
believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but
the greater well-being of all, which is most pleasing in the
sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to
be man's decline, is to His eye advancement; what afflicts me is
acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated,
but it is more just; and its justice constitutes its greatness
and its beauty. I would strive then to raise myself to this
point of the divine contemplation, and thence to view and to
judge the concerns of men.
No man, upon the earth, can as yet affirm absolutely and
generally, that the new state of the world is better than its
former one; but it is already easy to perceive that this state is
different. Some vices and some virtues were so inherent in the
constitution of an aristocratic nation, and are so opposite to
the character of a modern people, that they can never be infused
into it; some good tendencies and some bad propensities which
were unknown to the former, are natural to the latter; some ideas
suggest themselves spontaneously to the imagination of the one,
which are utterly repugnant to the mind of the other. They are
like two distinct orders of human beings, each of which has its
own merits and defects, its own advantages and its own evils.
Care must therefore be taken not to judge the state of society,
which is now coming into existence, by notions derived from a
state of society which no longer exists; for as these states of
society are exceedingly different in their structure, they cannot
be submitted to a just or fair comparison. It would be scarcely
more reasonable to require of our own contemporaries the peculiar
virtues which originated in the social condition of their
forefathers, since that social condition is itself fallen, and
has drawn into one promiscuous ruin the good and evil which
belonged to it.
But as yet these things are imperfectly understood. I find
that a great number of my contemporaries undertake to make a
certain selection from amongst the institutions, the opinions,
and the ideas which originated in the aristocratic constitution
of society as it was: a portion of these elements they would
willingly relinquish, but they would keep the remainder and
transplant them into their new world. I apprehend that such men
are wasting their time and their strength in virtuous but
unprofitable efforts. The object is not to retain the peculiar
advantages which the inequality of conditions bestows upon
mankind, but to secure the new benefits which equality may
supply. We have not to seek to make ourselves like our
progenitors, but to strive to work out that species of greatness
and happiness which is our own. For myself, who now look back
from this extreme limit of my task, and discover from afar, but
at once, the various objects which have attracted my more
attentive investigation upon my way, I am full of apprehensions
and of hopes. I perceive mighty dangers which it is possible to
ward off -mighty evils which may be avoided or alleviated; and I
cling with a firmer hold to the belief, that for democratic
nations to be virtuous and prosperous they require but to will
it. I am aware that many of my contemporaries maintain that
nations are never their own masters here below, and that they
necessarily obey some insurmountable and unintelligent power,
arising from anterior events, from their race, or from the
soil and climate of their country. Such principles are false and
cowardly; such principles can never produce aught but feeble men
and pusillanimous nations. Providence has not created mankind
entirely independent or entirely free. It is true that around
every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond which he cannot pass;
but within the wide verge of that circle he is powerful and free:
as it is with man, so with communities. The nations of our time
cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal; but it
depends upon themselves whether the principle of equality is to
lead them to servitude or freedom, to knowledge or barbarism, to
prosperity or to wretchedness.