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But above all the institutions and outside all the forms resides a sovereign power,
ways by which this power, dominant over the laws, proceeds;
Chapter 1
the opinions, the prejudices, the interests, and even the passions of the people can find no lasting obstacles that prevent them from taking effect in the daily direction of society.
What I call great political parties are those that are attached more to principles than to their consequences; to generalities and not to particular cases; to ideas and not to men.
Small parties, on the contrary, are generally without political faith.
their character is stamped with a selfishness that shows openly in each of their acts.
When the War of Independence came to an end and it was a question of establishing the bases of the new government, the nation found itself divided between two opinions.
One opinion wanted to restrict popular power, the other to extend it indefinitely.
The party that wanted to restrict popular power sought above all to make its doctrines apply to the Constitution of the Union, by which it earned the name federal.
The other, which claimed to be the exclusive lover of freedom, took the title republican.
America is the land of democracy. The Federalists were therefore always in a minority; but they counted in their ranks almost all the great men the War of Independence had given bi...
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The coming of the Federalists to power is, in my opinion, one of the most fortunate events that accompanied the birth of the great American Union.
aristocratic or democratic passions are readily found at the foundation of all parties; and that although they may escape one’s glance, they form as it were the sensitive spot and the soul of them.
the United States the wealthy classes of society are almost entirely out of political affairs and that wealth, far from being a right [to power], is a real cause of disfavor and an obstacle to coming to power.
The two great weapons that the parties employ in order to succeed are newspapers and associations.
I want to examine only the effects produced by freedom of the press in the political world.
When one accords to each a right to govern society, one must surely recognize his capacity to choose among the different opinions that agitate his contemporaries and to appreciate different facts, the knowledge of which can guide him.
The sovereignty of the people and freedom of the press are therefore two entirely correlative things:
In the matter of the press there is therefore really no middle between servitude and license. To get the inestimable good that freedom of the press assures one must know how to submit to the inevitable evil it gives rise to.
The lack of power of newspapers in America is due to several causes,
Every power increases the action of its forces as it centralizes their direction;
In France, the press unites two distinct kinds of centralization.
Almost all its power is concentrated in the same place and so to speak in the same hands, for its organs are very few in number.
the power of the press will be almost w...
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Neither of the two kinds of centralization I have just spoken of exists in America.
The spirit of the journalist in France is to discuss in a violent but elevated and often eloquent manner the great interests of the state;
The spirit of the journalist in America is to attack coarsely, without preparation and without art, the passions of those whom it addresses, to set aside principles in order to grab men; to follow them into their private lives, and to lay bare their weaknesses and their vices.
the political effects of this license of the press contribute indirectly to the maintenance of public tranquillity.
Above all the result is that the personal views expressed by journalists have so to speak no weight in the eyes of readers. What they seek in a newspaper is knowledge of the facts; it is only in altering or in denaturing the facts that the journalist can acquire some influence for his opinion.
Reduced to these resources alone, the press still exercises an immense power in America.
In the United States each newspaper has little power individually; but the periodical press is still, after the people, the first of powers.
When an idea has taken possession of the mind of the American people, whether it is just or unreasonable, nothing is more difficult than to root it out.
The same fact has been observed in England,
I attribute this effect to
freedom of the press. Peoples in whom this freedom exists are attached to their opinions by pride as much as by conviction.
There are several more reasons.
profound convictions are found only at both ends and that in the middle is doubt.
All social theories having been contested and combated in their turn, those who have settled on one of them guard it not so much because they are sure that it is good as because they are not sure that there is a better one.
Add to this reason another more powerful still: in their doubt of opinions, men in the end attach themselves solely to instincts and material interests, which are much more visible, more tangible, and more permanent in their nature than opinions.
Chapter 4 ON POLITICAL ASSOCIATION IN THE UNITED STATES
the right to associate is almost confused with the freedom to write; already, however, an association possesses more power than the press.
The second degree in the exercise of the right of association is the power to assemble.
Finally, there is a last degree in the exercise of the right of association in political matters: partisans of the same opinion can gather in electoral colleges and name agents to go to represent them in a central assembly.
among the moderns the independence of the press is the capital and so to speak constitutive element of freedom.
But unlimited freedom of association in political matters cannot be entirely confused with the freedom to write. The former is at once less necessary and more dangerous.
In America, the freedom to associate for political goals is unlimited.
In our time, freedom of association has become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority.
there are no countries where associations are more necessary to prevent the despotism of parties or the arbitrariness of the prince than those in which the social state is democratic.
unlimited freedom of association in political matters is, of all freedoms, the last that a people can tolerate.
