Democracy in America - Volume 1

by Alexis de Tocqueville

The American continent consists of fertile places and arid places The Indians (as he calls them) are primative and do not utilize the resources of the land The theory existed at the times thats their languages bore similarties to nomadic tribes like the mongols

America is separated into two distinct regions: north and south The south is influenced by its firstg settlers in virginia who were adventurers. All of them men The south was also prone to the decay caused by the lack of labor starting with slavery in 1620 The north was influenced by the puritans who landed there with their whole families It was the north who was the beacon of democracy in all of America

England was eager to allow fringe groups to move to America after the revolution The puritans had freedom to establish their ow n laws They promoted civil liberties but also created strict religious laws All this happened at the height of absolute monarchy in Europe

Socio-economic status is the main driver of legislation Property passed down by inheritance perpetuates an aristocracy Primogeniture was a way of keeping property in one family Such laws didn't exist in the US so fortunes were divided up amongst children As a result, everyone had a basic education but few had an advanced education since they had to work young

The will of the people is no more empowered than in America By this time, sufferage was granted to all white men

The town ship is the main administration interactin g with people The county holds no political power but is just an agglomeration of towns that share courts and a sheriff The state can create roads or raise money, but taxes and votes are still adminijstered at the township level

The enforcement of the laws comes in the form of being proactive as in the case of a civil officer, or reactive in the case of the courts Justices of the peace are not legal experts, but in charge of dispensing judgement This tradition comes from England As we go more to the south, administration is more centralized in the state and less at the township level because the people are less informed

Centralization is a natural tendencyin a democratic state The state often elects a bicameral legislative body and a governor who administers the state Centeralization promotes uniformity but decreases self determination In most cases local administration functions better when the populace are more informed, more centralized government is apporpriate when people need to be guided

Americas justice system is set apart from others in that they use the constitution in addition to law This would be a supreme authority if americans couldn't change the constitution In France the constitution was immutable and the public officials were only liable to a council of state appointed by the crown

In Britain and France, the legislature has the ability to remove from office and deprive of liberty In AMerica, only the former Because of the nature of politics, it is possible when discourse degenerates for impechment to become rampant

The first American constitution failed the second was better It was thanks to Americas distance from other powers that she was able to fail and restart

The constitution split the rights of the states and the rights of the federation The legislature restrains the states but not unilaterally The US is a federation not a nation. Each state was meant to be a nation

The united states is able to have frequent ex changes of power because they are remote The president can delegate agents at his will and fire too Elections are not direct because of the amount of time needed to count votes Legislators are uninvolved in elections unles there is no conclusive victory

The supreme court cant be appealed The it enforces federal law and cases of interstate conflict It has the right to rule on matters where state law infringes contract, which could be pretext for exersizing greater authority

The federal constitution is better than the states because it acknowledges the weaknesses of legislative hegemony The federal tribunals act on individuals and states The federal government is the first with executive authority

The federal system balances the freedom of small nation with the power of large ones Smaller nations are more conducive to repubics Republics and federalism only work in societies predisposed to freedom and selfdetermination The power of states is real, the union is more abstract The union is broad but also weak

The political parties that extoll principle over immediate intrest are better Parties generally fall along the spectrum of favoring aristocracy vs the people At the time, the democratic party dominated and thus the rich had to conceal their wealth in society

The freedom of the press is not inately good, but its better than not having it America had a lot more smaller papers than France The press always aggrivates the empowered The freedom of the press always correlates to freedom of the people

It is natural in free society that like minded people associate toward a common goal It is less feasible in France where associated people have historically only made war

Frequent elections make rule incoherent Infrequent elections make revolution desirable Democratically elected leaders can have more arbitrary power than a despot because their rule is legitimized People of high quality are less incentivized to achieve power in a democratic system which favors guile

There is little institutional consistency at this time due to regime change American public officers are paid much less but there are far more of them There was no effective way to budget the governments income Based on observing citizens, Americans pay less per capita than other nations American government is not particularly economcal because there is cost to all the redundency in the system