Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America T he French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (see Chapter 23). Based on extensive travels and personal observations, Democracy in America is still regarded as one of the most insightful analyses of the "American character" ever written. first traveled to the United States in 1831 at the age of twenty-six, and at age thirty he published the original French version of Democ- racy in America. Later, as a deputy in the French National Assembly, he was a political moderate and opposed both the Socialists and Louis Napoleon Source: Alexis de Tocquevile, Demoracy in America, http://aroads virginia.edu/-HYPER/DETOC/toc_jndx.html. Author's Introduction Among the novel objects that attracted my at- tention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people.... The more I advanced in the study of American soclety, the more I peroceived that this equality of condition is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived and the central point at which all my obser- vations constantly terminated. On Patrlotism As the American participates in all that is done in his country, he thinks himself obliged to defend whatever may be censured in it; for itis not only his country that is then attacked, it is himself. ... Nothing is more embarrassing in the ordinary intercourse of life than this iritable patriotism of the Americans. A stranger may be well inclined to praise many of the institutions of their country, but he begs permission to blame some things in it, a permission that is in- exorably refused. Geography and Democracy In what part of human history can be found anything similar to what is passing be- fore our eyes in North America? The celebrated communities of antiquity were all founded in the midst of hostile nations, which they were obliged to subjugate before they could flourish in their place. Even the moderns have found, in some parts of South America, vast regions inhabited by a people of inferlor dvilization, who nevertheless had already occupied and The chief crcumstance which has favored the establishment and the maintenance of a democratic republic in the United States is the nature of the territory that the Americans inhabit. Their ancestors gave them the love of equality and of freedom; but God himself gave them the means of remaining equal and free, by placing them upon a boundless continent. General prosperity is favorable to the stability of all governments, but more particularly of a democratic one, which depends upon the will of the majority, and especially upon the will of that portion of the community which is most exposed to want.... In the United States not only is legislation democratic, but Nature herself favors the cause of the people. cultivated the soil. To found their new states it was necessary to extirpate or subdue a numer- ous population.... But North America was inhabited only by wandering tribes, who had no thought of profiting by the natural riches of the soll; that vast country was still, properly speaking, an empty continent, a desert land awalting Its Inhabitants.... make ready the triumphal march of civiliza- tion across the desert.... Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon; their language, their religion, thelr manners differ; their object is the same. Fortune has been promised to them somewhere in the West, and to the West they go to find it.... Three or four thousand soldiers drive be- fore them the wandering races of the aborigi- nes; these are followed by the pioneers, who pierce the woods, scare off the beasts of prey, explore the courses of the inland streams, and Rellglon and Democracy [American Catholics] attributed the peaceful dominion of religion in their country mainly to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to affirm that during my stay in America I did not meet a single individual, of the clergy or the laity, who was not of the same opinion on this point... The Americans combine the notions of Chris- tlanity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them con- celve the one wthout the other.... In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of free- dom marching in opposite directions.... Assoclations and Civil Soclety In no country in the world has the prin- cdple of assoclation been more successfully used or applied to a greater multitude of ob- jects than in America... The citizen of the United States is taught from infancy to rely upon his own exertions in order to resist the evils and the difficulties of life; he looks upon the social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxlety, and he claims its assistance only when he is unable to do without it.... If some public pleasure is concerned, an as- sociation is formed to give more splendor and regularity to the entertainment. Socletles are formed to resist evils that are exclusively of a moral nature.... In the United States asso- clations are established to promote the public safety, commerce, Industry, morality, and re- liglon. There is no end which the human will despairs of attatning through the combined power of individuals unted into a society. Tyranny of the Majority I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. In any constitu- tional state in Europe every sort of religious and political theory may be freely preached and disseminated.... In America the ma- jority ralses formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.