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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

Historical Background of the Federal Constitutiona

[≠I am not among those who profess a blind faith in legal prescriptions and who think that it is sufficient to change the laws of a people in order to modify easily their social and political state. Laws act only in two ways, either by their long duration, when a power superior to society manages to impose them over many years, or by their perfect harmony with the mores, habits and civilization of the people. In this last case, the laws are only the conspicuous and legal manifestation of a preexistent fact.b

But I admit that when laws are found to be in harmony with the needs {the social state} of a country, its mores and its habits, their effect is often something of a miracle.

No country on earth more than America has ever given a greater example of the power of laws on the life of political society.≠]

The thirteen colonies that simultaneously threw off the yoke of England at the end of the last century had, as I have already said, the same religion, the same language, the same mores, nearly the same laws; they struggled against a common enemy. So they must have had strong reasons to unite closely together, and to be absorbed into one and the same nation.

But each of them, having always had a separate existence and a government close at hand, had created particular interests as well as customs; and each found repugnant a solid and complete union that would have made its individual importance disappear within a common importance. From that, two opposing tendencies: one that led the Anglo-Americans to unite; the other that led them to separate.

As long as the war with the mother country lasted, necessity made the principle of union prevail. And, although the laws that constituted the union were defective, the common bond continued to exist in spite of them.2

But as soon as peace was concluded, the vices of the legislationc became clear; the State seemed to dissolve all at once. Each colony, having become an independent republic, seized full sovereignty. The federal government, condemned by its very constitution to weakness, and no longer supported by the feeling of public danger, saw its flag abandoned to the outrages of the great peoples of Europe. At the same time, it could not find sufficient resources to stand up to the Indian nations and to pay the interest on debts contracted during the war for independence. About to perish, it officially declared its own impotence and summoned the constituent power.3

If ever America was capable of rising for a few moments to the high level of glory that the proud imaginationd of its inhabitants would like constantly to show us, it was at this supreme moment when the national power had, in a way, just abdicated authority.

For a people to struggle energetically to conquer its independence is a spectacle that every century has been able to provide. The efforts made by the Americans to escape from the yoke of the English have, moreover, been much exaggerated. Separated from their enemies by 1,300 leagues of ocean, aided by a powerful ally, the United States owed their victory to their position much more than to the merit of their armies or to the patriotism of their citizens.e Who would dare to compare the American war to the wars of the French Revolution, and the efforts of the Americans to ours? France, the object of attacks from the whole of Europe, without money, credit, allies, threw one-twentieth of its population before its enemies, with one hand putting out the conflagration that devoured its bowels and with the other carrying the torch abroad.f But what is new in the history of societies is to see a great people, warned by its legislators that the gears of government are grinding to a halt, turn its attention to itself, without rushing and without fear; sound the depth of the trouble; keep self-control for two whole years, in order to take time to find the remedy; and, when this remedy is indicated, voluntarily submit to it without costing humanity either a tear or a drop of blood.

When the insufficiency of the first federal constitution made itself felt, the excitement of the political passions that had given birth to the revolution was partially calmed, and all the great men that it had created still lived. This was double good fortune for America. The small assembly,4 which charged itself with drafting the second constitution, included the best minds and most noble characters that had ever appeared in the New World. George Washington presided over it.h

This national commission, after long and mature deliberations, finally offered to the people for adoption the body of organic laws that still governs the Union today. All the states successively adopted it.5 The new federal government began to operate in 1789, after two years of interregnum. So the American Revolution finished precisely at the moment when ours began.

[a. ] In the margin: “≠Where to find the outline of the first federation?

“Bad result of the first federation. See Federalist, p. 60 [No. 15 (ed.)].≠”

The Federalist is, without any doubt, the work that Tocqueville cites most often. Its decisive influence on the drafting of this chapter must be recognized, even if such an influence on the whole book is difficult to define and remains to be determined. When Tocqueville reads the Federalist, he certainly has in mind, and at hand, Montesquieu and Rousseau. He rediscovers many of their ideas in the American work. An initial examination of the citations taken from the work seems to indicate that, above all, Tocqueville found in it a confirmation of his own ideas. This does not mean, as has often been asserted, that he intentionally omitted citations of the text in other chapters. If undeniable similarities exist between the American text and the Democracy, they demonstrate the result of a shared origin of ideas between the two texts more than a direct influence of the first book on the second. Another important work concerning information on the political organization of the United States is the commentaries on the Constitution by Justice Joseph Story. In a letter to Francis Lieber of May 9, 1840, Story, apparently unable to recognize the significance of the Democracy, judges that Lieber’s knowledge of the American political system is much superior to that of Tocqueville; according to Story, Tocqueville simply took his ideas from the Federalist and from Story’s own book on the American Constitution (Life and Letters of Joseph Story, Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851, vol. II, p. 330). John W. Henry Canoll (“The Authorship of Democracy in America,” Historical Magazine 8, no. 9 (1864): 332-33), who reports the words of Mgr. Alexander Vattemare, asserts that the American author who had a direct influence on Tocqueville’s thought is John C. Spencer. According to Canoll, Tocqueville would have shown Spencer a plan of his work; the latter would have reviewed and criticized it and, after numerous interviews, would have given the canvas of the Democracy to the author.

[b. ] In the margin:

[2. ] See the articles of the first confederation formed in 1778. This federal constitution was adopted by all the States only in 1781.

Also see the analysis that the Federalist makes of this constitution, from No. 15 to No. 22 inclusive, and Mr. Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, pp. 85 [84 (ed.)]-115.

[c. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “I do not know if you shouldn’t say: of the constitution” (YTC, CIIIb, 3, pp. 9-10).

[3. ] Congress made this declaration on February 21, 1787.

[d. ] The manuscript says: “. . . that the vain imagination . . .”

Hervé de Tocqueville: “I would cross out the word vain in order not to shock the Americans among whom the book should have a great deal of success” (YTC, CIIIb, 3, p. 10).

[e. ] In the margin: “≠If you want to know what a people can do for its independence, it is not America that you must look at.≠”

[f. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “If you keep this paragraph, you must suppress this last sentence which is declamatory, vague and could be interpreted as praise for violence in the manner of Thiers” (YTC, CIIIb, 3, p. 10).

In a bundle of notes where Tocqueville had gathered information for new chapters, the following title is found: Of the Great Men of America and of Washington in Particular (YTC, CVh, 1, p. 1).

[5. ]It was not the legislators who adopted it. The people named deputies for this express purpose. In each of these assemblies the new Constitution was the object of thorough discussion.