Volume I, Chapter XV
UNLIMITED POWER OF THE MAJORITY IN THE UNITED STATES,
AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
THE very essence of democratic government consists in the
absolute sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in
democratic states that is capable of resisting it. Most of the
American constitutions have sought to increase this natural
strength
of the majority by artificial means.
Of all political institutions, the legislature is the one that
is most easily swayed by the will of the majority. The
Americans
determined that the members of the legislature should be elected
by the people directly, and for a very brief term, in
order to
subject them, not only to the general convictions, but even to
the daily passions, of their constituents. The members of
both
houses are taken from the same classes in society and nominated
in the same manner; so that the movements of the
legislative
bodies are almost as rapid, and quite as irresistible, as those
of a single assembly...
Custom has done even more than law. A proceeding is becoming
more and more general in the United States which
will, in the
end, do away with the guarantees of representative government: it
frequently happens that the voters, in electing a
delegate,
point out a certain line of conduct to him and impose upon him
certain positive obligations that he is pledged to fulfill.
With the
exception of the tumult, this comes to the same thing as if the
majority itself held its deliberations in the market-place.
Several particular circumstances combine to render the power
of the majority in America not only preponderant, but
irresistible.
The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the
notion that there is more intelligence and wisdom in a
number of
men united than in a single individual, and that the number of
the legislators is more important than their quality. The
theory of
equality is thus applied to the intellects of men; and human
pride is thus assailed in its last retreat by a doctrine which
the
minority hesitate to admit, and to which they will but slowly
assent...
The French under the old monarchy held it for a maxim that the
king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the
blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion made obedience very easy; it
enabled the subject to complain of the law without
ceasing to
love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same
opinion with respect to the majority...
In the United States, political questions cannot be taken up
in so general and absolute a manner; and all parties are
willing to
recognize the rights of the majority, because they all hope at
some time to be able to exercise them to their own
advantage. The
majority in that country, therefore, exercise a prodigious actual
authority, and a power of opinion which is nearly as
great; no
obstacles exist which can impede or even retard its progress, so
as to make it heed the complaints of those whom it
crushes
upon its path. This state of things is harmful in itself and
dangerous for the future. . . .
TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY.
I hold it to be an impious and detestable maxim that,
politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and
yet I have
asserted that all authority originates in the will of the
majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?
When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the
right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the
sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some
have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep
the
boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are
peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be
given to
the majority by which it is represented. But this is the language
of a slave.
A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose
opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to
those of
another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted
that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that
power by
wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to
the same reproach? Men do not change their characters
by
uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence
of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own
part, I
cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should
refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any
number of
them.
Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human
beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion.
God
alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are
always equal to his power. There is no power on earth
so
worthy of honor in itself or clothed with rights so sacred that I
would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant
authority.
When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are
conferred on any power whatever, be it called a
people or a
king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I
say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live
elsewhere,
under other laws.
I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in
America at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure
barrier
against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government
there are to be found in the circumstances and the
manners of the
country more than in its laws.
Volume II, Second Book, Chapter VIII
HOW THE AMERICANS COMBAT INDIVIDUALISM BY THE PRINCIPLE OF
SELF-INTEREST RIGHTLY
UNDERSTOOD
When the world was managed by a few rich and powerful
individuals, these persons loved to entertain a lofty idea
of the duties of man. They were fond of professing that it is
praiseworthy to forget oneself and that good should be
done without hope of reward, as it is by the Deity himself. Such
were the standard opinions of that time in morals.
I doubt whether men were more virtuous in aristocratic ages
than in others, but they were incessantly talking of the
beauties of
virtue, and its utility was only studied in secret. But since the
imagination takes less lofty flights, and every man's
thoughts are
centered in himself, moralists are alarmed by this idea of
self-sacrifice and they no longer venture to present it to the
human
mind.
They therefore content themselves with inquiring whether the
personal advantage of each member of the community
does not
consist in working for the good of all; and when they have hit
upon some point on which private interest and public
interest meet
and amalgamate, they are eager to bring it into notice.
Observations of this kind are gradually multiplied; what was
only a single
remark becomes a general principle, and it is held as a truth
that man serves himself in serving his fellow creatures and
that his
private interest is to do good.
I have already shown, in several parts of this work, by what
means the inhabitants of the United States almost always
manage
to combine their own advantage with that of their fellow
citizens; my present purpose is to point out the general rule
that enables
them to do so. In the United States hardly anybody talks of the
beauty of virtue, but they maintain that virtue is useful
and prove
it every day. The American moralists do not profess that men
ought to sacrifice themselves for their fellow creatures
because it
is noble to make such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that such
sacrifices are as necessary to him who imposes them
upon
himself as to him for whose sake they are made.
They have found out that, in their country and their age, man
is brought home to himself by an irresistible force; and,
losing all
hope of stopping that force, they turn all their thoughts to the
direction of it. They therefore do not deny that every man
may
follow his own interest, but they endeavor to prove that it is
the interest of every man to be virtuous. I shall not here
enter into
the reasons they allege, which would divert me from my subject;
suffice it to say that they have convinced their fellow
countrymen.
Montaigne said long ago: "Were I not to follow the straight
road for its straightness, I should follow it for having found
by
experience that in the end it is commonly the happiest and most
useful track." The doctrine of interest rightly
understood is not
then new, but among the Americans of our time it finds universal
acceptance; it has become popular there; you may
trace it at
the bottom of all their actions, you will remark it in all they
say. It is as often asserted by the poor man as by the rich. In
Europe
the principle of interest is much grosser than it is in America,
but it is also less common and especially it is less
avowed; among
us, men still constantly feign great abnegation which they no
longer feel.
The Americans, on the other hand, are fond of explaining
almost all the actions of their lives by the principle of
self-interest
rightly understood; they show with complacency how an enlightened
regard for themselves constantly prompts them to
assist
one another and inclines them willingly to sacrifice a portion of
their time and property to the welfare of the state. In
this respect
I think they frequently fail to do themselves justice, for in the
United States as well as elsewhere people are sometimes
seen to
give way to those disinterested and spontaneous impulses that are
natural to man; but the Americans seldom admit that
they
yield to emotions of this kind; they are more anxious to do honor
to their philosophy than to themselves...
The principle of self-interest rightly understood is not a
lofty one, but it is clear and sure. It does not aim at mighty
objects, but it
attains without excessive exertion all those at which it aims. As
it lies within the reach of all capacities, everyone can
without
difficulty learn and retain it. By its admirable conformity to
human weaknesses it easily obtains great dominion; nor is
that
dominion precarious, since the principle checks one personal
interest by another, and uses, to direct the passions, the
very
same instrument that excites them.
The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no
great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts
of
self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous;
but it disciplines a number of persons in habits of
regularity,
temperance, moderation, foresight, self- command; and if it does
not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually
draws
them in that direction by their habits. If the principle of
interest rightly understood were to sway the whole moral world,
extraordinary virtues would doubtless be more rare; but I think
that gross depravity would then also be less common.
The
principle of interest rightly understood perhaps prevents men
from rising far above the level of mankind, but a great
number of
other men, who were falling far below it, are caught and
restrained by it. Observe some few individuals, they are
lowered by it;
survey mankind, they are raised.
I am not afraid to say that the principle of self-interest
rightly understood appears to me the best suited of all
philosophical
theories to the wants of the men of our time, and that I regard
it as their chief remaining security against themselves.
Towards it,
therefore, the minds of the moralists of our age should turn;
even should they judge it to be incomplete, it must
nevertheless be
adopted as necessary.
I do not think, on the whole, that there is more selfishness
among us than in America; the only difference is that there it
is
enlightened, here it is not. Each American knows when to
sacrifice some of his private interests to save the rest...
No power on earth can prevent the increasing equality of
conditions from inclining the human mind to seek out what is
useful or
from leading every member of the community to be wrapped up in
himself. It must therefore be expected that personal
interest
will become more than ever the principal if not the sole spring
of men's actions; but it remains to be seen how each man
will
understand his personal interest. If the members of a community,
as they become more equal, become more ignorant
and
coarse, it is difficult to foresee to what pitch of stupid
excesses their selfishness may lead them; and no one can foretell
into
what disgrace and wretchedness they would plunge themselves lest
they should have to sacrifice something of their
own
well-being to the prosperity of their fellow creatures.
I do not think that the system of self-interest as it is
professed in America is in all its parts self- evident, but it
contains a
great
number of truths so evident that men, if they are only educated,
cannot fail to see them. Educate, then, at any rate, for
the age of
implicit self-sacrifice and instinctive virtues is already
flitting far away from us, and the time is fast approaching when
freedom,
public peace, and social order itself will not be able to exist
without education.
Volume II, Third Book, Chapter V
HOW DEMOCRACY AFFECTS THE RELATIONS OF MASTERS AND
SERVANTS
No communities have ever yet existed in which social conditions have been so equal that
there
were neither rich nor poor, and, consequently, neither masters nor servants. Democracy does not
prevent the existence of these two classes, but it changes their dispositions and modifies their
mutual relations.
Among aristocratic nations servants form a distinct class, not more variously composed than
that
of their masters. A settled order is soon established; in the former as well as in the latter class a
scale is formed, with numerous distinctions or marked gradations of rank, and generations
succeed one another thus, without any change of position. These two communities are superposed
one above the other, always distinct, but regulated by analogous principles. This aristocratic
constitution does not exert a less powerful influence on the notions and manners of servants than
on those of masters; and although the effects are different, the same
cause may easily be traced.
. . . .
Among aristocratic nations it was by no means rare to find men of noble and vigorous minds
in
the service of the great, who did not feel the servitude they bore and who submitted to the will of
their masters without any fear of their displeasure.
But this was hardly ever the case among the inferior ranks of domestic servants. It may be
imagined that he who occupies the lowest stage of the order of menials stands very low indeed.
The French created a word on purpose to designate the servants of the aristocracy; they called
them "lackeys." This word lackey served as the strongest expression, when all others were
exhausted, to designate human meanness. Under the old French monarchy to denote by a single
expression a low-spirited, contemptible fellow it was usual to say that he had the soul of a
lackey; the term was enough to convey all that was intended.
The permanent inequality of conditions not only gives servants certain peculiar virtues and
vices, but places them in a peculiar relation with respect to their
masters. Among aristocratic nations the poor man is familiarized from his childhood with the
notion of being commanded; to whichever side he turns his eyes, the graduated structure of
society and the aspect of obedience meet his view. Hence in those countries the master readily
obtains prompt, complete, respectful, and easy obedience from his servants, because they revere
in him not only their master, but the class of masters. He weighs down their will by the whole
weight of the aristocracy. He orders their actions; to a certain extent, he even directs their
thoughts. In aristocracies the master often exercises, even without being aware of it, an amazing
sway over the opinions, the habits, and the manners of those who obey him, and his influence
extends even further than his authority.
. . . When social conditions are nearly equal, men are constantly changing their situations in
life; there is still a class of menials and a class of masters but these classes are not always
composed of the same individuals, still less of the same families; and those who command are not
more secure of perpetuity than those who obey. As servants do not form a separate class, they
have no habits, prejudices, or manners peculiar to themselves; they are not remarkable for any
particular turn of mind or moods of feeling. They know no vices or virtues of their condition, but
they partake of the education, the opinions, the feelings, the virtues, and the vices of their
contemporaries; and they are honest
men or scoundrels in the same way as their masters are.
. . . .
In democracies servants are not only equal among themselves, but it may be said that they
are, in
some sort, the equals of their masters. This requires explanation in order to be rightly understood.
At any moment a servant may become a master, and he aspires to rise to that condition; the
servant is therefore not a different man from the master. Why, then, has the former a right to
command, and what compels the latter to obey except the free and temporary consent of both
their wills? Neither of them is by nature inferior to the other; they only become so for a time, by
covenant. Within the terms of this covenant the one is a servant, the other a master; beyond it they
are two citizens of the commonwealth, two men.
I beg the reader particularly to observe that this is not only the notion which servants
themselves
entertain of their own condition, domestic service is looked upon by masters in the same light, and
the precise limits of authority and obedience are as clearly settled in the mind of the one as in that
of the other.
. . . .
In the French army the common soldier is taken from nearly the same class as the officers and
may
hold the same commissions-out of the ranks he considers himself entirely equal to his military
superiors, and in point of fact he is so; but when under arms, he does not hesitate to obey, and his
obedience is not the less prompt, precise, and ready, for being voluntary and defined. This exam-
ple may give a notion of what takes place between masters and servants in democratic
communities.
It would be preposterous to suppose that those warm and deep-seated affections which are
sometimes kindled in the domestic service of aristocracy will ever spring up between these two
men, or that they will exhibit strong instances of self-sacrifice. In aristocracies masters and
servants live apart, and frequently their only intercourse is through a third person; yet they
commonly stand firmly by one another. In democratic countries the master and the servant are
close together: they are in daily personal contact, but their minds do not intermingle; they have
common occupations, hardly ever common interests.
Among such a people the servant always considers himself as a sojourner in the dwelling of
his
masters. He knew nothing of their forefathers; he will see nothing of their descendants; he has
nothing lasting to expect from them. Why, then, should he identify his life with theirs, and whence
should so strange a surrender of himself proceed? The reciprocal position of the two men is
changed; their mutual relations must be so, too.
In all that precedes I wish that I could depend upon the example of the Americans as a whole;
but
I cannot do this without drawing careful distinctions regarding
persons and places. In the South of the Union slavery exists;
all that I have just said is consequently inapplicable there.
In the North the majority of servants are either freedmen or the children of freedmen; these
persons occupy an uncertain position in the public estimation; by the laws they are brought up to
the level of
their masters; by the manners of the country they are firmly kept below it. They do not themselves
clearly know their proper place and are almost always either insolent or craven.
But in the Northern states, especially in New England, there are a certain number of whites who
agree, for wages, to yield a temporary obedience to the will of their fellow citizens. I have heard
that these servants commonly perform the duties of their situations with punctuality and
intelligence and that, without thinking themselves naturally inferior to the person who orders
them, they submit without reluctance to obey him. They appeared to me to carry into service
some of those manly habits which independence and equality create. Having once selected a hard
way of life, they do not seek to escape from it by indirect means; and they have sufficient respect
for themselves not to refuse to their masters that obedience which they have freely promised. On
their part, masters require nothing of their servants but the faithful and rigorous performance of
the covenant: they do not ask for marks of respect, they do not claim their love or devoted
attachment; it is enough that, as servants, they are exact and honest.
Volume II, Third Book, Chapter XII
HOW THE AMERICANS UNDERSTAND THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES
I have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the different inequalities that originate in
society; but is this all, or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of man and woman
which has seemed, up to the present day, to be eternally based in human nature? I believe that the
social changes that bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the master and servant, and,
in general, superiors and inferiors will raise woman and make her more and more the equal of
man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of making myself clearly understood; for there
is no subject on which the coarse and lawless fancies of our age have taken a freer range.
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the
sexes,
would make man and woman into beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the
same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would
mix them in all things--their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be con-
ceived that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from so
preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and dis-
orderly women.
It is not thus that the Americans understand that species of democratic equality which may be
established between the sexes. They admit that as nature has appointed such wide differences
between the physical and moral constitution of man and woman, her manifest design was to give a
distinct employment to their various faculties; and they hold that improvement does not consist in
making beings so dissimilar do pretty nearly the same things, but in causing each of them to fulfill
their respective tasks in the best possible manner. The Americans have applied to the sexes the
great principle of political economy which governs the manufacturers of our age, by carefully
dividing the duties of man from those of woman in order
that the great work of society may be the better carried on.
In no country has such constant care been taken as in America to trace two clearly distinct
lines of
action for the two sexes and to make them keep pace one with the other, but in two pathways that
are always different. American women never manage the outward concerns of the family or
conduct a business or take a part in political life; nor are they, on the other hand, ever compelled
to perform the rough labor of the fields or to make any of those laborious efforts which demand
the exertion of physical strength. No families are so poor as to form an exception to this rule. If,
on the one hand, an American woman cannot escape from the quiet circle of domestic
employments, she is never forced, on the other, to go beyond it. Hence it is that the women of
America, who often exhibit a masculine strength of understanding and a manly energy, generally
preserve great delicacy of personal appearance and always retain the manners of women although
they sometimes show that they have the hearts and minds of men.
Nor have the Americans ever supposed that one consequence of democratic principles is the
subversion of marital power or the confusion of the natural authorities in families. They hold that
every association must have a head in order to accomplish its object, and that the natural head of
the conjugal association is man. They do not therefore deny him the right of directing his partner,
and they maintain that in the smaller association of husband and wife as well as in the great social
community the object of democracy is to regulate and legalize the powers that are necessary, and
not to subvert all power.
This opinion is not peculiar to one sex and contested by the other; I never observed that the
women of America consider conjugal authority as a fortunate usurpation of their rights, or that
they thought themselves degraded by submitting to it. It appeared to me, on the contrary, that
they attach a sort of pride to the voluntary surrender of their own will and make it their boast to
bend themselves to the yoke, not to shake it off. Such, at least, is the feeling expressed by the
most virtuous of their sex; the others are silent; and in the United States it is not the practice for a
guilty wife to clamor for the rights of women while she is trampling on her own holiest duties.
It has often been remarked that in Europe a certain degree of contempt lurks even in the
flattery
which men lavish upon women; although a European frequently affects to be the slave of woman,
it may be seen that he never sincerely thinks her his equal. In the United States men seldom
compliment women, but they daily show how much they esteem them. They constantly display an
entire confidence in the understanding of a wife and a profound respect for her freedom; they have
decided that her mind is just as fitted as that of a man to discover the plain truth, and her heart as
firm to embrace it; and they have never sought to place her virtue, any more than his, under the
shelter of prejudice, ignorance, and fear.
It would seem in Europe, where man so easily submits to the despotic sway of women, that
they
are nevertheless deprived of some of the greatest attributes of the human species and considered
as seductive but imperfect beings; and (what may well provoke astonishment) women ultimately
look upon themselves in the same light and almost consider it as a privilege that they are entitled
to show themselves futile, feeble, and timid. The women of America claim no such privileges.
Again, it may be said that in our morals we have reserved strange immunities to man, so that
there
is, as it were, one virtue for his use and another for the guidance of his partner, and that,
according to the opinion of the public, the very same act may be punished alternately as a crime or
only as a fault. The Americans do not know this iniquitous division of duties and rights; among
them the seducer is as much dishonored as his victim.
It is true that the Americans rarely lavish upon women those eager attentions which are
commonly
paid them in Europe, but their conduct to women always implies that they suppose them to be
virtuous and refined; and such is the respect entertained for the moral freedom of the sex that in
the presence of a woman the most guarded language is used lest her ear should be offended by an
expression. In America a young unmarried woman may alone and without fear undertake a long
journey.
The legislators of the United States, who have mitigated almost all the penalties of criminal
law,
still make rape a capital offense, and no crime is visited with more inexorable severity by public
opinion. This may be accounted for; as the Americans can conceive nothing more precious than a
woman's honor and nothing which ought so much to be respected as her independence, they hold
that no punishment is too
severe for the man who deprives her of them against her will. In France, where the same offense is
visited with far milder penalties, it is frequently difficult to get a verdict from a jury against the
prisoner. Is this a consequence of contempt of decency or contempt of women? I cannot but
believe that it is a contempt of both.
Thus the Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to
perform
the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their
lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value. They do not give to the
courage of woman the same form or the same direction as to that of man, but they never doubt
her courage; and if they hold that man and his partner ought not always to exercise their intellect
and understanding in the same manner, they at least believe the understanding of the one to be as
sound as that of the other, and her intellect to be as clear. Thus, then, while they have allowed the
social inferiority of woman to continue, they have done all they could to raise her morally and
intellectually to the level of man; and in this respect they appear to me to have excellently
understood the true principle of democratic improvement.
As for myself, I do not hesitate to avow that although the women of the United States are
confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of
extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were
asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many
important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of
that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
