In 1831, the French government sent a pair of envoys to America to study the U.S. prison system. One of these envoys, Alexis de Tocqueville, frankly admitted that he took the opportunity to study America itself—and he wrote about it in Democracy in America, publishing the first volume in 1835.
Tocqueville’s writings receive a passing mention in some high school curricula. He is credited with referring to America as a “laboratory for democracy”. But a focus on this phrase can miss many of his points. The American laboratory was, for Tocqueville, less “Albert Einstein” and more “absent-minded professor”—well-intentioned, unique, and likely to succeed, but also fraught with risks and pitfalls.
America was unique, he wrote in his introduction, as “in America…I sought the image of democracy itself,” and he wrote to “discover the evils and the advantages which it produces.” Any claim of American exceptionalism must thus be double-edged. Tocqueville further disputes that America has a monopoly on democracy, and that it is an example of how democracy might be practiced, but not an authoritative model of how it must be done.
In this post, we examine a few of the key themes in Tocqueville’s work. His writing is full of astute observations—predicting the U.S.-Mexican war, suggesting a connection between frequent impeachment and degenerating democratic principles, differences between Anglo-American lawyers and their French counterparts, and contrasting the orderly American ideal of freedom with the anarchic passions which fueled revolutions in France. The work earns a place on my Renaissance Reading List for good reason.
Making Democracy Possible: Bottom-Up Government
Tocqueville clearly spent considerable time in New England, because he spends several pages rhapsodizing on the township system of local government. He first declares that the U.S. is less a single country than twenty-four (the number of states at the time) separate sovereignties, wrapped together in a federal sovereignty—and that these states begin at the local township and county levels.
To him, the township represented government by the people on a local scale. Unlike in France, where agents of the government came to a town when business required it, American local leaders lived in the communities they served. This served to give the township two indispensable advantages to secure the interest of the populace: “independence and authority”. Further, local responsibilities were dispersed among several officials, each with a narrow remit and powers suitable only to carry out the portion of public business entrusted to them. A French maire might hold nearly all powers of local government in the hands of one person, but Tocqueville estimated a typical township to have nineteen different offices of local power.
The unique judicial tradition of England, by which law was based upon precedent and practice rather than government decrees, played a critical role in the foundation of this same bottom-up republicanism. Further, the deference to judicial power represented by the right of federal courts to interpret the laws was seen by Tocqueville as a key check against tyranny.
In multiple places, Democracy in America compares “central government” with “central administration”. The former represents what federal America was meant to have—a single, unified level of government that represents the national interest. The latter represents something more assertive—a single administrative apparatus overseeing local affairs for different parts of the country. Tocqueville saw these two centralities as related, but not necessarily companions. Lauding the importance of a central government for a national identity (with which Alexander Hamilton would doubtless have agreed), he warns against the “enervating” dangers of a central administration in the very next breath.
Acknowledging the proponents of centralization in Europe, Tocqueville admits that central authority is most effective when it is “enlightened, and the local districts are ignorant,” and that this is not the case in America: “In this case, the collective strength of the citizens will always conduce more efficaciously to the public welfare than the authority of the Government.”
Tocqueville speaks plainly about the applicability of America’s system to other countries—in terms reminiscent of debates about U.S. involvements abroad. To him, the federal system “would be ill-adapted to a people which has not been long accustomed to conduct their own affairs”. He singles out the infant Mexican republic as a counterexample, which failed to “create or introduce the spirit which gave [the law] life.” This reinforces his suggestion of the tradition of local self-government which built the foundation for America’s republic.
Anachronistic as it sounds to modern ears, Tocqueville gave credit to women as the “protectors of morals,” given their greater propensity toward religion than men. Despite the separation of church and state, Tocqueville claims that religion, “by regulating domestic life, regulates the State,” and paints a picture of private domestic tranquility that he laments the absence of in Europe—“In Europe, almost all the disturbances of society arise from the irregularities of domestic life.” In contrast, Americans found in their homes and families “the image of order and of peace.”
America’s Democracy in Practice
We won’t dwell much here on Tocqueville’s explanation of how the U.S. Constitution defines our system—this is more expediently done by referring to the Constitution itself. Instead, we’ll explore a few areas where his writings proved either prescient or insightful regarding how it would work in practice.
Tocqueville addresses directly the odd phenomenon of a sitting President being able to remain in office even if Congress is controlled by a rival party or has a hostile stance toward the executive. Beyond the Federalist concept of separate and rival branches of government, Tocqueville claims this allowance is made due to the President’s weakness, not strength. He claims “the President cannot prevent any law from being passed [referencing the Congressional supermajority that overrides the veto], nor can he evade the obligation of enforcing it.” One questions to what extent this remains true, given the executive branch has steadily gained in power since America’s founding, and that recent Presidents have sought to circumvent, browbeat, or simply ignore Congressional actions.
Regarding the selection of cabinet and other federal officials, Tocqueville expresses the impermanence that this executive power—a power ceded to it by Congress in many cases—imposes on government. “At every new election, the fate of all the Federal public officers is in suspense.” He recounts the “midnight judges” appointed by John Adams on the eve of Jefferson’s inauguration, and the wholesale sacking of officials implemented by Andrew Jackson. Contemporaries will relate when considering the Supreme Court and other Presidential appointments, and how salient such issues are when evaluating candidates for the highest office.
Wealth is no friend of democracy—Tocqueville thought as much, and Karl Marx might be inclined to agree. The wealthy citizens “entertain a hearty distaste to the democratic institutions of their country”, and the rich seek to conceal their wealth to all but their own. Indeed, these erstwhile aristocrats abandon attempts for political office, and likely contain monarchical sympathies. These arguments feel anachronistic to us now, as independent wealth has spurred several political amateurs to the White House (Donald Trump, most notably), and America’s growing government has spawned a political class with considerable wealth of its own. Tocqueville’s phrase “an aristocracy is more intent upon the means of maintaining its influence than upon the means of improving its condition” is, to me, a suitable definition of what aristocracy means.
Prior to the early 20th century, America had no income tax, and government revenues were chiefly from tariffs and property taxes. Because of this, Tocqueville saw a society dominated by a middle class as likely the “most economical” of free governments. He further warns that if a majority of citizens are not subject to any tax bills, their incentives will be to impose the greatest possible taxes on their countrymen for their own benefit. To him, America was better suited to avoid this pitfall than were France and England at the time—but the advent of a complex progressive income tax has widened the gap between those who do and don’t pay. Only 43% of Americans paid income taxes in 2021. It’s unclear how Tocqueville would see local sales taxes in this light, or whether he would see the parallel between America and the ancient democracies “in which the public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent citizens.”
Tocqueville includes an interesting idea of Thomas Jefferson’s when describing the unstable nature of American legislation—let an entire year pass before introduced legislation can be voted on. This suggestion would likely fail muster in truly urgent cases where action is needed—in war, for instance—but may produce less gyrations. Cases like Trump’s repealing of the Affordable Care Act and Biden’s prompt reinstatement of it a week into his term may be avoidable and reduce costs of compliance and administration for all manner of businesses & institutions.
Americans are but humans. Tocqueville describes the lack of self-control in American society, which points predominantly to drunkenness and bankruptcies, weaknesses which government reluctantly condones. Yet he held out hope on the same point, that “a democracy can only obtain truth as the result of experience,” providing avenues by which America and its people would ultimately right their missteps.
The place of great and influential powers was reserved, in Tocqueville’s mind, for aristocratic nations and institutions. He cities examples from the British Empire to the Roman. Washington’s farewell address warning against permanent alliances is echoed here, but added to it is a warning: “A democracy is unable to regulate the details of an important undertaking, to persevere in a design.” He cites American responses to the French Revolution, in which the public “declared themselves with so much violence in behalf of France”, to demonstrate the democratic tendency “to obey the impulse of passion rather than the suggestions of prudence.”
A Step from Tyranny: Risks to Democracy
At one point, Tocqueville summarizes dangers to democracy as having two forms: a legislature subject to the whims of the electorate (tyranny of the majority), or a legislature having acquired all powers of government unto itself.
A revisiting of the great democracies and republics of old (Athens and Rome) is unambiguous for Tocqueville. No great nation retains republican government for long, and “a great republic will always be exposed to far greater perils than a small one.” The passions that destroy republics expand as does the nation, which the virtues and character that preserves it “do not augment in the same proportion.” The history of Caesar and other ambitious Romans provided a case in point. Yet the necessity of physical strength as a condition of “happiness and even existence” of nations creates a paradox that defines the tenuous nature of free societies.
War brought risk for democracy greater than the risk to the nation itself. Any long and serious warfare, Tocqueville insisted, could not be sustained without increasingly authoritarian governments. The unprecedented steps of suspending habeus corpus during the Civil War and imposing price controls and rations during World War 2 suggest in part how wars concentrate power in the hands of the central authority—power which they often retain after hostilities cease. By such means as these, nations are either “abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success.”
Democracy was, to him, more fit for peace than for war—and the shorter the war, the better: an “occasional effort of remarkable vigor” rather than “hardy and prolonged endurance.” This, along with his doubts that conscription would ever find staying power in the U.S., seem corroborated by American successes in the World Wars and American failures in Vietnam. In war, as in peace, a democracy cannot long outlast the patience of its people.
The best protection from such risks were intrinsic to America’s geographic position. Canada was a sparsely-populated and divided land, and Mexico was too weak to be a threat. Writing just one year before the Battle of the Alamo, he admitted that with Mexico, “serious hostilities may one day be expected to arise.”
But the greatest danger to democracy was, far and away, the tyranny of the majority. Tocqueville felt that “liberty is endangered” when any predominant power is unchecked. He cites the “sovereignty of mankind” as something beyond the sovereignty of any nation, as something to appeal to. To him, a legislature “constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions” would be the best check against unmitigated majority power.
American majorities garner moral authority from the idea that the crowd can do no wrong—much as the king could do no wrong in old England. To Tocqueville, this results in “the theory of equality” being “applied to the intellect of man,” defying the possibility that any minority viewpoint may have intellectual merit. This has real consequences even in a free society—“The majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion.” These barriers are not structural, but social. “Within these barriers, an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever step beyond them.” Such susceptibility to groupthink appears evident in the American tendencies to never question the general consensus on critical issues, and to banish to hinterlands any who dare oppose them. Because of this, America would fail to gain the host of intellectual social critics that Europe fostered. Indeed, “the majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause.” By the same token, literary genius does not exist in America because “freedom of opinion does not exist in America.” In a book regarding democracy, these lines do not mince words about the human struggles to accept opposing views—even in an ostensibly free country.
“Insurmountable Barriers”? Tocqueville on Race
Despite the touchiness of the subject and my own relative ignorance of it, I do not feel I can do Tocqueville’s work justice without summarizing his views on race in America. Tocqueville devotes nearly a fifth of his first volume solely to this topic in a ten-part chapter, “Future Conditions of the Three Races.” He wrote this section despite a lack of obvious tangency with the rest of his subject matter—he did not make clear the cruel distinction between America’s founding vision and the troubling treatment of African slaves and native tribes. His language is enlightened for his time—a more prejudiced person might have bypassed the subject entirely—but is unacceptable to our modern sensitivities. This appears motivated less by hatred than by arrogance: he saw his subjects as less civilized than the Anglo-Americans, but not less human.
From their colonial origins, Tocqueville observed that “slavery dishonors labor”, and contributed to a sense of idleness, pride, and ignorance in the Southern states. This, to him, was a key source of the different evolutions between the North and South that would culminate in the Civil War. Tocqueville rightly saw the origins of slavery as indifferent toward race—slaves of antiquity were often captured prisoners, and the very word comes from the Slavic peoples of eastern Europe who were enslaved in great numbers. But while “Christianity suppressed slavery,” the “Christians of the sixteenth century re-established it—as an exception, indeed, to their social system, and restricted to one of the races of mankind.” Here Tocqueville recognizes the racial component of modern slavery, which united the “abstract and transient fact of slavery” to “the physical and permanent fact of color,” creating a perpetual, separate class of slaves reminiscent of Sparta.
Tocqueville did not predict ultimate sectional conflict over slavery—instead, he saw conflict between the blacks and whites as “a danger which, however remote it may be, is inevitable.” The only two alternatives he could foresee were emancipation and subsequent assimilation, or a perpetuation of slavery “as long as possible.” He warned that any “intermediate measures” would result “perhaps in the extirpation of one or other of the two races.”
The fact that such an idea strikes us as so appalling should be a recognition that America’s troubled history of slavery played out far better than was even imaginable prior to the Civil War. Much contemporary history tends to focus on the slow, unsteady, and incomplete nature of our country’s pursuit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideal of racial equality—and these criticisms shouldn’t be ignored. But if Tocqueville is correct, a cold assessment of human nature would conclude that America’s racial outcomes are well in the right-tail of all possibilities.
Tocqueville’s description of the Native Americans provides little encouragement in hindsight. To him, the tribes were as flush with personal liberties as the slaves were deprived of it, and “might succeed to a certain extent” had they attempted to assimilate into American society. Yet he claims they were too proud to make the attempt. This doesn’t square with the fact that many Indian nations in the American South did seek to adopt many of the constitutional and societal trappings of the Anglo-Americans, only to be driven from their lands anyway. In all, Tocqueville appears significantly less sympathetic toward the Native Americans, and even denies that settlers did not drive the natives from their homes, but rather the famine caused by proximity to the settlers (less available game to hunt) compelled them to seek new grounds. Again, this inconsistency with today’s generally accepted views must induce us to either call Tocqueville’s knowledge into question, or demand further evidence to support the consensus view.
Is America Special?
While Tocqueville does not directly address this question, his entire work answers it indirectly with an emphatic “yes”. But this exceptionalism is less a chance for Americans to boast than to heed warnings. While the federal system and common law tradition gave America unique advantages over ancient peers in Greece and Rome, the same risks and pitfalls those nations faced remain with us—some of them we are in the process of succumbing to.
The laboratory is still producing democracy, but we must be ever vigilant for exploding chemicals.