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• Translator’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Key Terms
• Foreword
• The Manuscripts of Tocqueville
• Some Details Concerning the Present Edition
• Abbreviations and Symbols Used In This Edition
• Note On the Manuscripts
• Acknowledgments
• Illustrations
• Editor’s Introduction
• I: Legacies
• II: To Understand the Revolution
• Democracy In America a (1835), Volume I]: Part I
• Introduction a
• Chapter 1: Exterior Configuration of North America
• Chapter 2: Of the Point of Departure and Its Importance For the Future of the Anglo-americans a
• Reasons For Some Singularities That the Laws and Customs B of the Anglo-americans Present
• Chapter 3: Social State of the Anglo-americans
• That the Salient Point of the Social State of the Anglo-americans Is to Be Essentially Democratic
• Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-americans
• Chapter 4: Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People In America
• Chapter 5: Necessity of Studying What Happens In the Individual States Before Speaking About the Government of the Union a
• Of the Town System In America C
• Town District
• Town Powers In New England
• Of Town Life
• Of Town Spirit In New England
• Of the County In New England
• Of Administration In New England a
• General Ideas On Administration In the United States
• Of the State
• Legislative Power of the State
• Of the Executive Power of the State
• Of the Political Effects of Administrative Decentralization In the United States C
• Chapter 6 A: of the Judicial Power In the United States and Its Action On Political Society B
• Other Powers Granted to American Judges
• Chapter 7: Of Political Jurisdiction In the United States Tn 4
• Chapter 8: Of the Federal Constitution
• Historical Background of the Federal Constitution a
• Summary Picture of the Federal Constitution J
• Attributions of the Federal Government
• Federal Powers
• Legislative Powers: R [difference Between the Constitution of the Senate and That of the House of Representatives]
• Another Difference Between the Senate and the House of Representatives W
• Of Executive Power 16
• How the Position of the President of the United States Differs From That of a Constitutional King In France
• Accidental Causes That Can Increase the Influence of the Executive Power
• Why the President of the United States, to Lead Public Affairs, Does Not Need to Have a Majority In the Chambers
• Of the Election of the President
• Mode of Election
• Election Crisis
• Of the Re-election of the President
• Of the Federal Courts 24
• Way of Determining the Jurisdiction Tn 5 of the Federal Courts
• Different Cases of Jurisdiction
• The Federal Courts’ Way of Proceeding
• Elevated Rank That the Supreme Court Occupies Among the Great Powers of the State
• How the Federal Constitution Is Superior to the State Constitutions
• What Distinguishes the Federal Constitution of the United States of America From All Other Federal Constitutions
• Of the Advantages of the Federal System In General, and of Its Special Utility For America M
• What Keeps the Federal System From Being Within the Reach of All Peoples; and What Has Allowed the Anglo-americans to Adopt It

Reasons for Some Singularities That the Laws and Customsb of the Anglo-Americans Present

[≠From whatever side I envisage the laws and mores of the Anglo-Americans, I rediscover striking traces of their origin {of the point of departure}. The reading of historians, the study of legislation, the sight of things all involuntarily lead my steps back toward the point of departure. {But I despair of making the whole extent of my idea understood by those who have not seen English America with their own eyes.}≠]

The reader must not draw from what precedes consequences that are too general and absolute. The social condition, the religion and the mores of the first emigrants undoubtedly exercised an immense influence over the destiny of their new country. It was not up to them, however, to establish a society whose point of departure was found only within themselves; no one can entirely free himself from the past. With ideas and customs that were their own, they mingled, either voluntarily or unknowingly, other customs and ideas that they got from their education or from the national traditions of their country.

So when you want to know and judge the Anglo-Americans of today, what is of Puritan origin or of English origin must be carefully distinguished.

You often encounter in the United States laws and customs that contrast with all that surrounds them. These laws seem written in a spirit opposed to the dominant spirit of American legislation; these mores seem contrary to the social state as a whole. If the English colonies had been founded in a century of darkness, or if their origin was already lost in the shadows of time, the problem would be insoluble.

I will cite a single example to make my thought understood.

The civil and criminal legislation of the Americans knows only two means of action: prison or bail.c The first action in proceedings consists of obtaining bail from the defendant or, if he refuses, of having him incarcerated; afterwards the validity of the evidence or the gravity of the charges is discussed.

Clearly such legislation is directed against the poor and favors only the rich.

A poor man does not always make bail, even in civil matters, and if he is forced to await justice in prison, his forced inactivity soon reduces him to destitution.d

A wealthy man, on the contrary, always succeeds in escaping imprisonment in civil matters; even more, if he has committed a crime, he easily evades the punishment awaiting him: after providing bail, he disappears. So it can be said that for him all the penalties of the law are reduced to fines.42 What is more aristocratic than such legislation?e

In America, however, it is the poor who make the law, and usually they reserve the greatest advantages of society for themselves.

It is in England where the explanation for this phenomenon must be found: the laws I am speaking about are English.43 The Americans have not changed them, even though they are repugnant to their legislation as a whole and to the mass of their ideas.

The thing that people change the least after their customs is their civil legislation. The civil laws are familiar only to jurists, that is, to those who have a direct interest in keeping them as they are, good or bad, because they know them. The bulk of the nation knows them hardly at all; they see them in action only in individual cases, grasp their tendency only with difficulty, and submit to them without thinking about it.

I have cited an example; I could have pointed out many others.

The picture that American society presents is, if I can express myself in this way, covered by a democratic layer beneath which from time to time you catch a glimpse of the old colors of the aristocracy.

CHAPTER 3

Social State of the Anglo-Americans

[Definition of the words social state.a /

I will speak so frequently about the social state of the Anglo-Americans that, first and foremost, I need to say what I mean by the words social state.

In my view, the social state is the material and intellectual condition in which a people finds itself in a given period.]

The social state is ordinarily the result of a fact, sometimes of laws, most often of these two causes together. But once it exists, it can itself be considered the first cause of most of the laws, customs and ideas that regulate the conduct of nations; what it does not produce, it modifies.b

So to know the legislation and the mores of a people, it is necessary to begin by studying its social state.c

[b. ] In an early draft, the title said: “. . . that the social state of the anglo-americans presents.” This section was initially at the beginning of chapter III (YTC, CVh, 3, p. 82).

[c. ] “Ask Mr. Livingston about prisons and bail” (YTC, CVb, p. 33). Probably Edward Livingston. See note 2 of Tocqueville’s introduction (p. 30).

[d. ] “For prison ruins him by preventing him from working and bail makes him give up the fruit of his work.

“To develop. Opinion of Mr. Duponceau.

“Little guarantee that the poor have against the oppression of municipal magistrates.

“Unwritten law that puts justice into the hands of the privileged class of lawyers” (YTC, CVj, 2, pp. 4-5). The conversation with Mr. Duponceau is found in portable notebook 3 (YTC, BIIa, and Voyage, OC, V, 1, p. 182); see the conversation with [Alexander] Everett (ibid., p. 95).

[42. ] There are certainly crimes for which there is no bail, but they are very few in number.

[e. ] Cf. Beaumont, Marie, I, pp. 197, 367-70.

[43. ] See Blackstone and Delolme, book I, chap. X.

[a. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “I do not know if this definition is very useful. It slows the transition from the second to the third chapter.

In any case, mores should be put before the other causes that modify social state. Mores come before the fact whatever it may be. They precede laws. Example: Puritan mores precede and lead to the fact of emigration.”

Édouard de Tocqueville: “I do not share this opinion” (YTC, CIIIb, 2, p. 92).

[b. ] “Among a people property is divided in a certain way, enlightenment is more or less equal, morality is more or less high, that is what I call its social state./

“In general the social state is the result of a fact predating the laws, but the laws develop its consequences and modify it” (YTC, CVh, 5, p. 9).

The social state according to Tocqueville recalls Montesquieu’s concept of the general spirit of the nation (cf. L’esprit des lois, book XIX, chapters IV and V). On this question, see Anna Maria Battista, “Lo stato sociale democratico nella analisi di Tocqueville,” Pensiero Politico 4, no. 3 (1973): 336-95.

[c. ] In the margin, in pencil: “Vague, indeterminate. Perhaps examples instead of definitions.”