Democracy in America

by Alexis de Tocqueville

The people in democracies, constantly occupied as they are with their affairs, and jealous of their rights, prevent their representatives from deviating from a certain general line that their interest traces for them.

if the democratic magistrate uses power worse than someone else, he generally possesses it for less time.

The real advantage of democracy is not, as has been said, to favor the prosperity of all, but only to serve the well-being of the greatest number.

Moreover, the bad administration of one magistrate under democracy is an isolated fact that has influence only for the short duration of that administration. Corruption and incapacity are not common interests that can bind men among themselves in a permanent manner.

public men under the government of aristocracy have a class interest which, if it is sometimes intermingled with that of the majority, often remains distinct from it.

in aristocratic governments public men do evil without wanting to, and in democracies they produce good without having any thought of doing so.

ON PUBLIC SPIRIT IN THE UNITED STATES

There exists a love of native country that has its source principally in the unreflective, disinterested, and indefinable sentiment that binds the heart of the man to the place where the man was born.

There is another more rational than that one; less generous, less ardent perhaps, but more fruitful and more lasting;

A man understands the influence that the well-being of the country has on his own; he knows that the law permits him to contribute to producing this well-being, and he interests himself in the prosperity of his country at first as a thing that is useful to him, and afterwards as his own work.

the most powerful means, and perhaps the only one that remains to us, of interesting men in the fate of their native country is to make them participate in its government.

There is nothing more annoying in the habits of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans.

ON THE IDEA OF RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES

After the general idea of virtue I know of none more beautiful than that of rights, or rather these two ideas are intermingled. The idea of rights is nothing other than the idea of virtue introduced into the political world.

Why in America, country of democracy par excellence, does no one make heard those complaints against property in general that often ring out in Europe? Is there need to say it?—it is that in America there are no proletarians. Each one, having a particular good to defend, recognizes the right of property in principle.

The government of democracy makes the idea of political rights descend to the least of citizens, as the division of goods puts the idea of the right of property in general within reach of all men.

If in the midst of that universal disturbance you do not come to bind the idea of rights to the personal interest that offers itself as the only immobile point in the human heart, what will then remain to you to govern the world, except fear?

Therefore when I am told that the laws are weak and the governed turbulent; that passions are lively and virtue without power, and that in this situation one must not think of augmenting the rights of democracy, I respond that it is because of these very things that I believe one must think of it;

Despotism often presents itself as the mender of all ills suffered; it is the support of good law, the sustainer of the oppressed, and the founder of order. Peoples fall asleep in the bosom of the temporary prosperity to which it gives birth; and when they awaken, they are miserable.

Freedom, in contrast, is ordinarily born in the midst of storms, it is established painfully among civil discords, and only when it is old can one know its benefits.

ON RESPECT FOR THE LAW IN THE U...

in the United States each finds a sort of personal interest in everyone’s obeying the laws;

the respect that he professes now for the will of the legislator he will soon have occasion to require for his.

ACTIVITY REIGNING IN ALL PARTS OF THE BODY POLITIC OF THE UNITED STATES; INFLUENCE THAT IT EXERTS ON SOCIETY

To meddle in the government of society and to speak about it is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows.

This agitation, constantly reborn, that the government of democracy has introduced into the political world, passes afterwards into civil society. I do not know if, all in all, that is not the greatest advantage of democratic government, and I praise it much more because of what it causes to be done than for what it does.

Democratic freedom does not execute each of its undertakings with the same perfection as intelligent despotism;

Democracy does not give the most skillful government to the people, but it does what the most skillful government is often powerless to create; it spreads a restive activity through the whole social body, a superabundant force, an energy that never exists without it, and which, however little circumstances may be favorable, can bring forth marvels.

if, finally, the principal object of a government, according to you, is not to give the most force or the most glory possible to the entire body of the nation, but to procure the most well-being for each of the individuals who compose it and to have each avoid the most misery, then equalize conditions and constitute the government of a democracy.

Chapter 7 ON THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY IN THE UNITED STATES AND ITS EFFECTS

HOW THE OMNIPOTENCE OF THE MAJORITY IN AMERICA INCREASES THE LEGISLATIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE INSTABILITY THAT IS NATURAL TO DEMOCRACIES

of the vices that are natural to the government of democracy;

grow at the same time as the power of the majority.

Legislative instability

The omnipotence of the majority and the rapid and absolute manner in which its will is executed in the United States not only renders the law unstable, it also exerts the same influence on the execution of the law and on the action of public administration.

TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY

Justice therefore forms the boundary of each people’s right.

A nation is like a jury charged with representing the universal society and with applying the justice that is its law.

when I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not deny to the majority the right to command; I only appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of the human race.

What therefore is a majority taken collectively, if not an individual who has opinions and most often interests contrary to another individual that one names the minority?

if you accept that one man vested with omnipotence can abuse it against his adversaries, why not accept the same thing for a majority?

one must always place somewhere one social power superior to all the others, but I believe freedom to be in peril when that power finds no obstacle before it that can restrain its advance and give it time to moderate itself.

when I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to any power whatsoever, whether it is called people or king, democracy or aristocracy, whether it is exercised in a monarchy or in a republic, I say: there is the seed of tyranny, and I seek to go live under other laws.

what is most repugnant to me in America is not the extreme freedom that reigns there, it is the lack of a guarantee against tyranny.

ON THE POWER THAT THE MAJORITY IN AMERICA EXERCISES OVER THOUGHT

in America: as long as the majority is doubtful, one speaks; but when it has irrevocably pronounced, everyone becomes silent

there is no monarch so absolute that he can gather in his hands all the strength of society and defeat resistance, as can a majority vested with the right to make the laws and execute them.

I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.

In America the majority draws a formidable circle around thought.

in democratic republics,