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.