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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

CHAPTER 4

Of the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America

When you want to talk about the political laws of the United States, you must always begin with the dogma of the sovereignty of the people.a

The principle of the sovereignty of the people, which is more or less always found at the base of nearly all human institutions, ordinarily remains there as if buried. It is obeyed without being recognized, or if sometimes it happens, for a moment, to be brought into the full light of day, people soon rush to push it back into the shadows of the sanctuary.

The national will is one of those terms abused most widely by schemers of all times and despots of all ages. Some have seen it expressed in votes bought from the brokers of power; others in the votes of an interested or fearful minority. There are even some who have discovered it fully formulated in the silence of the people and who have thought that from the fact of obedience came, for them, the right of command.b

In America, the principle of the sovereignty of the people is not hidden or sterile as it is in certain nations [a vain show and a false principle as among certain others; it is a legal and omnipotent fact that rules the entire society; that spreads freely and reaches its fullest consequences without obstacles]; it is recognized by the mores, proclaimed by the laws; it spreads freely and reaches its fullest consequences without obstacles.

If there is a single country in the world where the true value of the dogma of the sovereignty of the people can hope to be appreciated, where its application to the affairs of society can be studied and where its advantages and dangers can be judged, that country is assuredly America.

I said before that, from the beginning, the principle of the sovereignty of the people had been the generative principle of most of the English colonies of America.

It then fell far short, however, of dominating the government of society as it does today.

Two obstacles, one external, one internal, slowed its invasive march.

It could not appear openly in the laws because the colonies were still forced to obey the home country; so it was reduced to hiding in the provincial assemblies and especially in the town. There it spread in secret.

American society at that time was not yet ready to adopt it in all its consequences. For a long time, learning in New England and wealth south of the Hudson, exercised, as I showed in the preceding chapter, a sort of aristocratic influence that tended to confine the exercise of social powers to a few hands. It still fell far short of electing all public officials and of making all citizens, voters. Everywhere the right to vote was restricted to certain limits and subordinated to the existence of a property qualification which was very low in the North and more considerable in the South.c

The American Revolution broke out. The dogma of the sovereignty of the people emerged from the town and took over the government;d all classes took risks for its cause; they fought and triumphed in its name; it became the law of laws.e

A change almost as rapid was carried out within the interior of society. The law of inheritance completed the dismantling of local influences.

At the moment when this effect of the laws and of the revolution began to be evident to all, victory had already been irrevocably declared in favor of democracy. Power was in fact in its hands. Even struggling against it was no longer permitted. So the upper classes submitted without a murmur and without a fight to an evil henceforth inevitable. What usually happens to powers that are in decline happened to them: individual egoism took hold of the members of the upper classes.f Since force could no longer be wrested from the hands of the people and since they did not detest the multitude enough to take pleasure in defying it, they came to think only of winning its good will at any cost. [≠Moreover, men have at their disposal such a deep reservoir of baseness, that it is always found more or less the same in the service of all despots, whether people or king.≠] In an effort to outdo each other, the most democratic laws were then voted by the men whose interests were most damaged by them. In this way, the upper classes did not incite [{implacable}] popular passions against themselves; but they themselves hastened the triumph of the new order. So, a strange thing! The democratic impulse showed itself that much more irresistible in the states where aristocracy had more roots.

The state of Maryland, which had been founded by great lords, was the first to proclaim universal suffrage1 and introduced the most democratic forms into its whole government.g

When a people begins to tamper with the electoral qualification, you can foresee that, after a more or less long delay, it will make that qualification disappear completely. That is one of the most invariable rules that govern societies. As the limit of electoral rights is pushed back, the need grows to push it further; for, after each new concession, the forces of democracy increase and its demands grow with its new power. [It is the history of the Romans buying peace with gold.h ] The ambition of those left below the electoral qualification is aroused in proportion to the great number of those who are found above. Finally, the exception becomes the rule; concessions follow one after the other without letup, and there is no more stopping until universal suffrage is reached.j

Today in the United States the principle of the sovereignty of the people has attained all the practical developments that imagination can conceive. It has been freed from all the fictions that have been carefully placed around it elsewhere; it is seen successively clothed in all forms according to the necessity of the case. Sometimes the people as a body make the laws as at Athens; sometimes the deputies created by universal suffrage represent the people and act in their name under their almost immediate supervision.

There are countries where a power, in a way external to the social body, acts on it and forces it to follow a certain path.

There are others where force is divided, being simultaneously inside and outside the society. Nothing of the sort is seen in the United States; there society acts by itself and on itself. Power exists only inside it;k hardly anyone may even be found who dares to conceive and especially to express the idea of seeking power elsewhere. The people participate in the composition of the lawsm by the choice of the legislators, in their application by the election of the agents of executive power. It can be said that they govern themselves, so weak and restricted is the part left to the administration, so much does the administration feel its popular origin and obey the power from which it emanates. The people rule the American political world as God rules the universe. They are the cause and the end of all things; everything arises from them and everything is absorbed by them.^H

[a. ]“Sovereignty of the people and democracy are two perfectly correlative words; the one represents the theoretical idea, the other its practical realization” (YTC, CVh, 1, p. 22).

[b. ] In the margin, with a bracket enclosing the entire paragraph: “≠{This seems trite to me.}≠”

[c. ] To the side, with a note: “{Know exactly the state of things on this point.}”

[d. ] The manuscript says: “{and occupied the throne}.” A note in pencil in the margin specifies: “≠The word throne does not seem to me the right word since it concerns a republic.≠”

[e. ] Of the sovereignty of the people./

I draw a great difference between the right of a people to choose its government, and the right that each individual among this people would have to take part in the government.

The first proposition seems to me to contain an incontestable truth; the second, a manifest error.

I cannot acknowledge the absolute right of each man to take an active part in the affairs of his country, and I am astonished that this doctrine, so contradictory to the ordinary course of human affairs, could be proposed.

What is more precious to man than his liberty? It is recognized, however, that society can take liberty away from one of its members who makes poor use of it.

What is more natural [than (ed.)] to manage your own property? All peoples have recognized, however, that, before a certain age and in certain [missing word (ed.)], this control could be withdrawn, because it was thought [that (ed.)] these individuals either did not yet have or had never had the judgment necessary to make good use of this power. And would this faculty of judgment that some individuals are found to lack for conducting themselves then be granted to everyone for conducting the affairs of society? The constitutions that have apparently been founded on the doctrine that I am combating have never dared to admit all of its consequences. Even in the United States the poor man who pays no taxes obeys laws to which he has consented neither directly nor indirectly. How does that happen if the right to be involved in the affairs of government is a right inherent in the nature of man?

So all questions of democracy and aristocracy (aristocracy as a ruling body), of monarchy and republic, are not questions of right, but questions of fact, or rather the question of fact always precedes the other. Show me a people in which all the citizens may be involved in the government and, in my eyes, this people will have the right to govern itself democratically. Imagine another, if you can, in which no class or citizen may have the required capacity; and although I hardly like the power of one man alone, I will grant that it is legitimate and will take care to live elsewhere.

[In the margin: How so? If you recognize that some of the individuals who compose a people are incapable of taking part in its government, how even more would they be able to make a good choice? Now, if you remove some from this choice, it is no longer the people who choose. Moreover, from the moment you recognize that some can be incapable of choosing well, you must imagine a social state where no one could choose well; and then you are moving even further from the maxim that all people have the right to choose their government. Everything is reduced to this: to choose a government and to take part in government, these are two analogous products of human judgment. It is difficult entirely to concede the one while entirely refusing the other.

Response:

Judgment is necessary to choose a good government. But only intelligence and experience are needed to find that an existing government is not suitable and that it should be changed.] (YTC, CVh, 5, pp. 4-6). Cf. Guizot, tenth lecture, entitled De la représentation, in Journal des cours publics de jurisprudence, histoire et belles-lettres (Paris: au bureau du journal, 1821-1822, vol. II, especially pages 131-33). Also see note c of pp. 99-100.

[f. ] Hervé de Tocqueville:

Édouard de Tocqueville: “Doesn’t inequality come from the lack of inheritance laws?” (YTC, CIIIb, 2, pp. 89-90).

Was Hervé thinking here of Montesquieu? Cf. Considérations sur la cause de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Pléiade, 1951), II, chapter XIII, p. 142.

[1. ] Amendments made to the constitution of Maryland in 1801 and 1809.

[g. ] Hervé de Tocqueville

[h. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “The example does not seem to me to relate to the subject” (YTC, CIIIb, 2, p. 90). These are the very words of Montesquieu. Considération sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Pléiade, 1951), II, chapter XVIII, p. 171.

[j. ] In a letter to an unknown recipient, Tocqueville again takes up some arguments expressed at the time of a conversation with Charles Carroll:

[k. ] A symbol in the text refers to the following note: “Place a chapter here explaining what is called a constitution in America. Say that it is only a changing expression of the sovereignty of the people, that has nothing of the perpetual, that binds only until it is amended. Difference from what is understood by constitution in Europe, even in England.

[In the margin: Ask advice here.]”

[m. ] In the manuscript: “The people enter into the composition of the laws ...”

Hervé de Tocqueville:

Édouard de Tocqueville: “I understand the preceding objection when it involved explaining the successive formation of American society; but here it isn’t the same thing anymore. Alexis describes the government of democracy, and in this case the word people is appropriate and is perfectly understood. This entire passage seems remarkable to me” (YTC, CIIIb, 2, p. 90).