Key ideas: This is one of the most fundamental books of the 19th century. The book consists of two volumes published five years apart (in 1835 and 1840). The first volume analyzes the conditions and political institutions in America, the second talks about the American culture. I found the parts anaylzing the tyranny of the majority particularly interesting and prescient.
Volume 1
To clear this unfriendly land [in America], nothing short of the persistent and committed efforts of the owner himself was needed. Once the ground was prepared, it was found that its produce was not enough to support both an owner and a tenant farmer.
Now, aristocracy takes root in the land, attaches itself to the soil from which it derives its power; it is not established by privileges alone, it is not founded on birth but upon the ownership of property handed down through the generations.
A nation can offer huge fortunes and great misery; but if these fortunes are not attached to land ownership, true aristocracy does not exist, simply rich classes and poor ones.
All the English colonies, therefore, at the time of their inception, shared a great kindred spirit. From the start, they all seemed destined to promote the development of liberty, not the aristocratic liberty of their mother country, but middle-class, democratic liberty...
The seeds of aristocracy were never planted in that part of the Union.
But it is in mandates relating to public education that, from the outset, the original character of American civilization is revealed in the clearest light.
“Granted,” says the law, “that Satan, the enemy of mankind, locates his most powerful weapons in men’s ignorance and that it matters that the wisdom of our fathers does not remain buried in their tombs; granted that the education of children is one of the first concerns of the state, with the aid of the Lord… ”
Here follow clauses establishing schools in every township and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy fines, to support them.
Town magistrates had to make sure that parents sent their children to school; they had the right to inflict fines against those who refused; if the refusal persisted, society, assuming the place of the family, took possession of the child, removing from the father those natural rights which he had so badly abused. The reader will doubtless have noticed the preamble to these enactments: in America religion leads to wisdom; the observance of divine laws guides man to freedom.
In America there are few rich people; therefore, all Americans have to learn the skills of a profession which demands a period of apprenticeship. Thus America can devote to general learning only the early years of life.
At fifteen, they begin a career; their education ends most often when ours begins. If education is pursued beyond that point, it is directed only toward specialist subjects with a profitable return in mind. Science is studied as if it were a job and only those branches are taken up which have a recognized and immediate usefulness...
Variations in intellect come directly from God and men cannot prevent this being so.
But it is at least a consequence of what I have just stated that, although the intelligence of men is different, as the Creator has willed it, there is at its disposal an equal means of development.
Now, I am aware of only two means of establishing equality in the world of politics:
rights have to be granted to every citizen or to none...
In fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality arouses in men the desire to be strong and honored; this passion tends to raise the weak to the ranks of the strong.
But also, we encounter in the hearts of men a degenerate taste for equality which inspires the weak to bring the strong down to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in a state of slavery to inequality in a state of freedom.
Not one American public official wears uniform but they all receive a salary...
Whenever a democratic republic converts salaried offices to unpaid ones, I think one may conclude that it is veering toward monarchy. And whenever a monarchy begins to remunerate unpaid offices, it is a sure sign of progression toward a despotism or a republic...
The complete absence of unpaid offices is for me one of the most obvious indications of the absolute sway American democracy holds. Services of whatever kind rendered to the public are rewarded so that everyone has not only the right but also the means of performing such services.
So, what is a majority taken as a collective whole, if not an individual with opinions and quite often interests, in opposition to another individual whom we call a minority?
Now, if you admit that an all-powerful man can abuse his power against his opponents, why not admit the same thing for a majority?
Have men, united together, changed their character? Have they become more patient of obstacles by becoming stronger?
For my part, I cannot think so and I shall never grant to several the power to do anything they like which I refuse to grant to a single one of my fellows...
When, therefore, I see the right and capacity to enact everything given to any authority whatsoever, whether it be called people or king, democracy or aristocracy, whether exercised in a monarchy or a republic, I say: the seed of tyranny lies there and I seek to live under different laws.
My main complaint against a democratic government as organized in the United States is not its weakness, as many Europeans claim, but rather its irresistible strength. And what I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom that prevails there but the shortage of any guarantee against tyranny.
When a man or a party suffers from an injustice in the United States, to whom can he turn?
To public opinion? That is what forms the majority.
To the legislative body? That represents the majority and obeys it blindly.
To the executive power? That is appointed by the majority and serves as its passive instrument.
To the public police force? They are nothing but the majority under arms.
To the jury? That is the majority invested with the right to pronounce judgments; the very judges in certain states are elected by the majority.
So, however unfair or unreasonable the measure which damages you, you must submit.*
(* A striking example of the excesses which the despotism of the majority may occasion was seen in Baltimore during the war of 1812. At that time the war was very popular in Baltimore. A newspaper opposed to it aroused the indignation of the inhabitants by taking that line. The people came together, destroyed the printing presses and attacked the journalists’ premises. The call went out to summon the militia which, however, did not respond to the call. In order to save these wretched fellows threatened by the public frenzy the decision was taken to put them in prison like criminals. This precaution was useless. During the night the people gathered once again; when the magistrates failed to summon the militia, the prison was forced, one of the journalists was killed on the spot and the others were left for dead. The guilty parties, when standing before a jury, were acquitted.)
I am not suggesting that, at the present time in America, there are frequent instances of tyranny. I am saying that no guarantee against tyranny is evident and that the causes for the mildness of the government should be sought more in circumstances and habits than in laws.
Thought is an invisible power which cannot be bound and which makes fun of tyrannies.
In our day, the most absolute sovereigns in Europe cannot prevent certain thoughts hostile to their authority from circulating secretly in their states or even in the heart of their courts.
The same is not true of America; as long as the majority cannot make up its mind, speech is allowed; as soon as it has pronounced its irrevocable decision, speech is silenced.
Friends along with enemies seem to hitch themselves to its wagon.
The reason for that is simple: no monarch is so absolute that he can gather all the forces of society into his own hands and overcome resistance as can a majority endowed with the right of enacting laws and executing them.
Moreover, a king has a power which is only physical, affecting people’s actions and unable to influence their wills. But the majority is endowed with a force both physical and moral which affects people’s will as much as their actions and which at the same time stands in the way of any act and the desire to do it.
I know of no country where there is generally less independence of thought and real freedom of debate than in America...
In America, the majority has staked out a formidable fence around thought. Inside those limits a writer is free but woe betide him if he dares to stray beyond them. Not that he need fear an auto-da-féa but he is the victim of all kinds of unpleasantness and everyday persecutions.
A political career is closed to him for he has offended the only power with the capacity to give him an opening. He is denied everything, including renown. Before publishing his views, he thought he had supporters; it seems he has lost them once he has declared himself publicly; for his detractors speak out loudly and those who think as he does, but without his courage, keep silent and slink away.
He gives in and finally bends beneath the effort of each passing day, withdrawing into silence as if he felt ashamed at having spoken the truth...
[I]n democratic republics, tyranny [...] leaves the body alone and goes straight to the spirit. No longer does the master say: “You will think as I do or you will die” he says: “You are free not to think like me, your life, property, everything will be untouched but from today you are a pariah among us. [...] Go in peace; I grant you your life but it is a life worse than death.”
Absolute monarchies had brought despotism into dishonor; let us guard against democratic republics reinstating it and rendering it less odious and degrading in the eyes of the many by making it more burdensome for the few...
The Inquisitiond was never able to stop the circulation in Spain of books hostile to the religion of the majority. The power of the majority in the United States has had greater success than that by removing even the thought of publishing such books.
I think that the presence of the small number of remarkable men upon the political scene has to be due to the ever-increasing despotism of the American majority.
When the American revolution broke out, such men emerged in great numbers; at that time, public opinion directed men’s wills without tyrannizing them...
Democratic republics place the spirit of a court within the reach of a great number of citizens and allow it to spread through all social classes at once. That is one of the most serious criticisms that can be made against them. That is especially true of democratic states organized on the lines of American republics ...
Among the huge throng of those pursuing a political career in the United States, I saw very few men who displayed that manly openness, that male independence of thought, which has often distinguished Americans in previous times and which, wherever it is found, is virtually the most marked characteristic of great men...
I have heard the motherland spoken of in the United States. I have encountered a sincere patriotism in the people. I have often looked in vain for any such thing in their rulers. An analogy makes this easily understandable:
despotism corrupts the man who submits to it much more than the man who imposes it.
I think it is not the fundamental nature of democratic power to lack strength or resources; rather, it is the abuse of its strength and the poor use of its resources that bring about its downfall.
Almost always anarchy grows out of tyranny or the incompetence of democracy but not its powerlessness.
Stability must not be confused with strength, nor the greatness of anything with its duration...
If ever freedom is lost in America, blame will have to be laid at the door of the omnipotence of the majority, which will have driven minorities to despair and will have forced them to appeal to physical force.
Today, two great nations of the earth seem to be advancing toward the same destination from different starting points: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans...
Americans struggle against obstacles placed there by nature; Russians are in conflict with men. The former fight the wilderness and barbarity; the latter, civilization with all its weaponry: thus, American victories are achieved with the plowshare, Russia’s with the soldier’s sword.
To achieve their aim, the former rely upon self-interest and allow free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of individuals.
The latter focus the whole power of society upon a single man.
The former deploy freedom as their main mode of action; the latter, slavish obedience.
Democracy not only introduces the taste for literature to the working classes, it brings the working spirit into the heart of literature.
In aristocracies, readers are fastidious and few in number; in democracies, they are immensely more numerous and more easily satisfied.
The result is that among aristocratic nations no one can hope to succeed without huge efforts and such efforts, while gaining a great deal of fame, never earn much money, whereas with democratic nations a writer may flatter himself that he can gain cheaply a modest reputation and great wealth. To achieve that, he does not have to be admired; it is enough for his works to be popular...
Democratic literature always teems with authors who see in letters a mere trade, and for each of the few great writers, peddlers of ideas can be counted in their thousands.
A persistent education in the classics alone, in a society where everyone was always struggling to increase or preserve their wealth, would produce very sophisticated but very dangerous citizens; for their needs would be prompted every day by their social and political state, which their education would never satisfy, and they would disrupt the state in the name of the Greeks and Romans, instead of enriching it with their industriousness...
It is clear that in democratic times, individual interest, as well as the security of the state, insists that the education of the masses should be scientific, commercial, and industrial rather than literary.
Greek and Latin should not be taught in all schools; but it is important that those destined by natural endowment or wealth to cultivate or appreciate literature should find schools where they can achieve complete proficiency in classical literature and deeply imbibe its spirit...
All those with the ambition to excel in literature in democratic nations should take frequent nourishment from the classics. That is a healthy regime.
Not that I hold classical literature to be without faults; simply that it has special qualities which can admirably counteract our own peculiar deficiencies. It supports us just where we are likely to fall down.
The emperors, it is true, wielded immense and unchecked power which allowed them to indulge freely any strange whims they might have and to use the entire power of the state to satisfy them; they often abused this power to deprive a citizen arbitrarily of his property or his life: their tyranny was an excessive burden on a few people but never spread over a great numberb; it latched on to a few main objects, leaving the rest alone; it was violent but its extent was limited.
If despotism were to be established in present-day democracies, it would probably assume a different character; it would be more widespread and kinder; it would debase men without tormenting them...
Thus, I think that the type of oppression threatening democracies will not be like anything there has been in the world before; our contemporaries would not be able to find any example of it in their memories. I, too, am having difficulty finding a word which will exactly convey the whole idea I have formed; the old words despotism and tyranny are not suitable. This is a new phenomenon which I must, therefore, attempt to define since I can find no name for it.
I wish to imagine under what new features despotism might appear in the world: I see an innumerable crowd of men, all alike and equal, turned in upon themselves in a restless search for those petty, vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls.
Each of them, living apart, is almost unaware of the destiny of all the rest. His children and personal friends are for him the whole of the human race; as for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he stands alongside them but does not see them; he touches them without feeling them; he exists only in himself and for himself; if he still retains his family circle, at any rate he may be said to have lost his country.
Above these men stands an immense and protective power which alone is responsible for looking after their enjoyments and watching over their destiny. It is absolute, meticulous, ordered, provident, and kindly disposed. It would be like a fatherly authority, if, fatherlike, its aim were to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks only to keep them in perpetual childhood; it prefers its citizens to enjoy themselves provided they have only enjoyment in mind.
It works readily for their happiness but it wishes to be the only provider and judge of it. It provides their security, anticipates and guarantees their needs, supplies their pleasures, directs their principal concerns, manages their industry, regulates their estates, divides their inheritances. Why can it not remove from them entirely the bother of thinking and the troubles of life?