In an earlier selection from Benjamin Constant, we encountered
Constant denouncing Hobbes and Rousseau for vesting an absolute authority in
the state. Constant, reacting to the French Revolution and the sovereignty it
vested in the people, denounced the idea that any government, formed of
whatever components, could be absolute: “When you establish that the
sovereignty of the people is unlimited, you create and toss at random into
human society a degree of power which is too large in itself, and which is
bound to constitute an evil, in whatever hands it is placed.” Objecting to the
monarchs of the old regime, the people had directed their wrath “against the
holders of the power rather than against the power itself. Instead of
destroying it, they have simply thought of replacing it. It was a curse, yet
they have regarded it as a conquest.”
These selections from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America come from his
famous fifteenth chapter on “Unlimited Power of the Majority in the United
States and Its Consequences.” They eloquently restate Constant’s fundamental
propositions. Tocqueville does not explore here, in his defense of checks and
balances on majoritarian democracy, the need for similar checks and balances at
the international level, but his thoughts are perfectly consonant with the defense of the balance of power given by Fenelon.
* * *
I do not think that, for the sake
of preserving liberty, it is possible to combine several principles in the same
government so as really to oppose them to one another. The form of government
that is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me a mere chimera.
Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixed government in the sense
usually given to that word, because in all communities some one principle of
action may be discovered which preponderates over the others. England in the
last century, which has been especially cited as an example of this sort of
government, was essentially an aristocratic state, although it comprised some
great elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the country were such
that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the long run and direct
public affairs according to its own will. The error arose from seeing the
interests of the nobles perpetually contending with those of the people,
without considering the issue of the contest, which was really the important point.
When a community actually has a mixed government--that is to say, when it is
equally divided between adverse principles--it must either experience a
revolution or fall into anarchy.
I am therefore of the opinion that
social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I
think that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can
retard its course and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.
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.
In my opinion, the main evil of the
present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is
often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible
strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in
that country as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against
tyranny. an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can
he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the
majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority and implicitly
obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority and serves
as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under
arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial
cases; and in certain states even the judges are elected by the majority.
However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit
to it as well as you can.
If, on the other hand, a
legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without
necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a
proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the
other two powers, a government would be formed which would still be democratic
while incurring scarcely any risk of tyranny.
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.
* * *
In free countries, where everyone
is more or less called upon to give his opinion on affairs of state, in
democratic republics, where public life is incessantly mingled with domestic
affairs, where the sovereign authority is accessible on every side, and where
its attention can always be attracted by vociferation, more persons are to be
met with who speculate upon its weaknesses and live upon ministering to its
passions than in absolute monarchies. Not because men are naturally worse in
these states than elsewhere, but the temptation is stronger and at the same
time of easier access. The result is a more extensive debasement of character.
Democratic republics extend the
practice of currying favor with the many and introduce it into all classes at
once; this is the most serious reproach that can be addressed to them. This is
especially true in democratic states organized like the American republics,
where the power of the majority is so absolute and irresistible that one must
give up one's rights as a citizen and almost abjure one's qualities as a man if
one intends to stray from the track which it prescribes.
In that immense crowd which throngs
the avenues to power in the United States, I found very few men who displayed
that manly candor and masculine independence of opinion which frequently
distinguished the Americans in former times, and which constitutes the leading
feature in distinguished characters wherever they may be found. It seems at first
sight as if all the minds of the Americans were formed upon one model, so
accurately do they follow the same route. A stranger does, indeed, sometimes
meet with Americans who dissent from the rigor of these formulas, with men who
deplore the defects of the laws, the mutability and the ignorance of democracy,
who even go so far as to observe the evil tendencies that impair the national
character, and to point out such remedies as it might be possible to apply; but
no one is there to hear them except yourself, and you, to whom these secret
reflections are confided, are a stranger and a bird of passage. They are very
ready to communicate truths which are useless to you, but they hold a different
language in public.
If these lines are ever read in
America, I am well assured of two things: in the first place, that all who
peruse them will raise their voices to condemn me; and, in the second place,
that many of them will acquit me at the bottom of their conscience.
I have heard of patriotism in the
United States, and I have found true patriotism among the people, but never
among the leaders of the people. This may be explained by analogy: despotism
debases the oppressed much more than the oppressor: in absolute monarchies the
king often has great virtues, but the courtiers are invariably servile. It is
true that American courtiers do not say "Sire," or "Your
Majesty," a distinction without a difference. They are forever talking of
the natural intelligence of the people whom they serve; they do not debate the
question which of the virtues of their master is pre-eminently worthy of
admiration, for they assure him that he possesses all the virtues without
having acquired them, or without caring to acquire them; they do not give him
their daughters and their wives to be raised at his pleasure to the rank of his
concubines; but by sacrificing their opinions they prostitute themselves.
Moralists and philosophers in America are not obliged to conceal their opinions
under the veil of allegory; but before they venture upon a harsh truth, they
say: "We are aware that the people whom we are addressing are too superior
to the weaknesses of human nature to lose the command of their temper for an
instant. We should not hold this language if we were not speaking to men whom
their virtues and their intelligence render more worthy of freedom than all the
rest of the world." The sycophants of Louis XIV could not flatter more
dexterously.
For my part, I am persuaded that in
all governments, whatever their nature may be, servility will cower to force,
and adulation will follow power. The only means of preventing men from
degrading themselves is to invest no one with that unlimited authority which is
the sure method of debasing them.
* * *
If ever the free institutions of
America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the
majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and
oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the
result, but it will have been brought about by despotism.
* * *
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy
in America, etext
at University of Virginia. From the
Henry Reeve translation, revised and corrected, 1899.
