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Of the Manner in Which American Democracy Conducts the Foreign Affairs of the State - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, vol. 2 [1835]

Edition used:

Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition of De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Eduardo Nolla, translated from the French by James T. Schleifer. A Bilingual French-English editions, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2010). Vol. 2.

Part of: Democracy in America: Historical-Critical Edition, 4 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Of the Manner in Which American Democracy Conducts the Foreign Affairs of the State

Direction given to the foreign policy of the United States by Washington and Jefferson.—Nearly all the natural defects of democracy make themselves felt in the conduct of foreign affairs, and its qualities are felt little there.

We have seen that the federal Constitution places the permanent leadership of the foreign interests of the nation in the hands of the President and of the Senate,16 which to a certain extent puts the general policy of the Union outside of the direct and daily influence of the people. So we cannot say in an absolute manner that, in America, it is democracy that conducts the foreign affairs of the State.

There are two men who gave the policy of the Americans a direction that is still followed today; the first is Washington, and Jefferson is the second.

Washington said, in this admirable letter addressed to his fellow citizens that forms the political testament of this great man:

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence therefore it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships, or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall Counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour or Caprice?

’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances with any portion of the foreign world. So far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements (I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy). I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Previously Washington had expressed this excellent and sound idea: “The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection.”

The political action of Washington always aimed to follow his maxims. He succeeded in keeping his country at peace, when all the rest of the universe was at war, and he established as a point of doctrine that the well understood interest of Americans was never to take part in the internal quarrels of Europe.

Jefferson went still farther, and he introduced to the policy of the Union this other maxim: “That the Americans should never ask for privileges from foreign nations, so that they are never obligated themselves to grant such privileges.”[*]

These two principles, which due to their obvious soundness were easily grasped by the crowd, have extremely simplified the foreign policy of the United States.

Not mixing into Europe’s affairs, the Union has, so to speak, no foreign interests to discuss, for it does not yet have powerful neighbors in America [{it had to be grossly and groundlessly provoked in 1812 for it to consider taking up arms}]. Placed by its situation as much as by its will outside the passions of the Old World, the Union does not have to protect itself from them anymore than to espouse them. As for the passions of the New World, they are still hidden in the future.

[The Union grows constantly larger; it appears different each year, for its prosperity has something revolutionary about it. So the clear interest of the Union, which changes daily, is not to create lasting ties. Ties useful today could soon hamper its course and compromise its future.]

The Union is free from previous commitments; so it profits from the experience of the old peoples of Europe, without being obliged, like them, to make use of the past and to adapt the past to the present;a it is not forced, as they are, to accept an immense heritage handed down by its fathers, a mixture of glory and misery, of national friendships and hatreds. The foreign policy of the United States is eminently one of wait-and-see; it consists much more of refraining from action than of doing.

So it is very difficult to know, for now, what skill American democracy will develop in the conduct of the foreign affairs of the State.b On this point, its adversaries as well as it friends must suspend their judgment.

As for me, I will have no difficulty in saying: it is in the leadership of the foreign interests of society that democratic governments seem to me decidedly inferior to others.[*] In democracy, experience, mores, and education almost always end by creating the sort of everyday practical wisdom and the skill in the small events of life that is called good sense. Good sense suffices for the ordinary routine of society; and among a people whose education is already accomplished, democratic liberty applied to the internal affairs of the State produces greater good than the evil that can be caused by the errors of democratic government. But it is not always so in the relations of one people with another.

Foreign policy requires the use of almost none of the qualities that belong to democracy and, on the contrary, demands the development of nearly all those qualities that it lacks. Democracy favors the growth of the internal resources of the State; it spreads comfort, develops public spirit; strengthens respect for law in the different classes of society; all things that have only an indirect influence on the position of a people vis-à-vis another. But only with difficulty can democracy coordinate the details of a great undertaking, settle on one plan and then follow it stubbornly across all obstacles. It is little capable of devising measures in secret and patiently awaiting their result. These are the qualities that belong most particularly to a man or to an aristocracy. Now, in the long run it is precisely these qualities that make a people, like an individual, predominate in the end.

If, on the contrary, you pay attention to the natural defects of aristocracy,c you will find that the effect that these defects can produce can be felt hardly at all in the leadership of the foreign affairs of the State. The capital vice for which the aristocracy is reproached is to work only for itself alone and not for the mass. In foreign policy, it is very rare for the aristocracy to have an interest distinct from that of the people.

The inclination that leads democracy in policy matters to obey sentiments rather than reasoning, and to abandon a long developed plan for the satisfaction of a momentary passion, clearly revealed itself in America when the French Revolution broke out. The simplest insights of reason would suffice then, as today, to make the Americans understand that it was not in their interest to get engaged in the struggle that was going to cover Europe in blood, and from which the United States could suffer no harm.

The sympathies of the people in favor of France came out with such violence, however, that nothing less was required to prevent a declaration of war against England than the unyielding character of Washington and the immense popularity that he enjoyed.d And yet, the efforts made by the austere reason of this great man to combat the generous but unthinking passions of his fellow citizens very nearly deprived him of the only recompense that he had ever expected, the love of his country. The majority pronounced against his policy; now, the whole people approve it.17

If the Constitution and public favor had not given Washington the leadership of the foreign affairs of the State, the nation would certainly have done then precisely what it condemns today.e

Nearly all the peoples who have acted strongly on the world, those who have conceived, followed and executed great designs, from the Romans to the English, were led by an aristocracy; and how can you be surprised [≠when you see the part that must be attributed to the continuous effect of the same will in human events≠]?

In this world, what is most steady in its views is an aristocracy. The mass of people can be seduced by its ignorance or its passions. You can catch the mind of a king unawares and make him vacillate in his plans; and, besides, a king is not immortal. But an aristocratic body is too numerous to be won over, too few in number to yield easily to the intoxication of unthinking passions. An aristocratic body is a firm and enlightened man who does not die.f

CHAPTER 6a

What Are the Real Advantages That American Society Gains from the Government of Democracy?

[Before beginning this chapter I feel the need to explain myself. I do not want my thought enclosed within limits that I have not set.

When I speak generally about the advantages of {that a country can gain from} the government of democracy, I am not talking only about the government that democracy has provided for itself in America, but about all types of government that emanate from democracy.

Every time that the government of a people is the sincere and permanent expression of the will of the greatest number, that government, whatever the forms, is democratic.b

So democracy can rule over a unified nation as over a confederation, in a monarchy as in a republic.

I admit that of all governments the one that seems to me most natural to democracy is republican government. When the social state of a people turns toward democracy, the republic becomes for them a probable consequence of this social state; but I do not believe that it is a necessary consequence.

If the majority of all the citizens do violence to the instincts of equality that are natural to them and, favoring order and governmental stability, consent to vest the attributes of executive power in a family or a man who, while still leading, depends on them, there is nothing in that that shocks reason. So the rule of all and the government [v: the administration] of one man can be seen at the same time. I confess that this much reduces royal majesty, but the time is coming when, if kings do not want to take the places left [v: still offered] to them, they will no longer find any to take.]c

Before beginning the present chapter, I feel the need to remind the reader of what I have already pointed out several times in the course of this book.

The political constitution of the United States seems to me one of the forms that democracy can give to its government; but I do not consider American institutions as either the only or the best that a democratic people should adopt.

So by making known what good things the Americans gain from the government of democracy, I am far from claiming or thinking that such advantages can only be obtained with the help of the same laws.

[16. ] “[The President],” says the Constitution, art. 2, sect. II, paragraph 2, “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties.” The reader must not lose sight of the fact that the term of Senators lasts six years, and that, chosen by the legislators of each state, they are the result of indirect election.

[[*]. ] Washington had already indicated this maxim, but Jefferson put it into practice and introduced it into the ideas and mores of his country.

[a. ] In the margin: “≠America appears amid the civilized world with the strength of {youth and the experience of mature age.}≠” Cf. conversation with Mr. Latrobe, 3 November 1831 (non-alphabetic notebooks 2 and 3, YTC, BIIc, and Voyage, OC, V, 1, p. 120).

[b. ] To the side: “≠So we must wait until matters become complicated and difficulties appear in order to be able to judge the degree to which American democracy will be capable of conducting the public affairs of society.≠”

Tocqueville’s short experience at the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from June to October 1849, confirmed his fears about the inferiority of democracies in foreign affairs (see his Souvenirs, OC, XII, p. 246). On this question, see Stephen A. Garrett, “Foreign Policy and the Democracies: De Tocqueville Revisited,” Virginia Quarterly Review 48, no. 4 (1972): 481-500.

[[*]. ] ≠Note, moreover, that the federal Constitution places the permanent leadership of the foreign interests of the nation in the hands of the President and the Senate, which to a certain extent places the general policy of the Union outside the daily influence of the democracy.≠

[c. ] Hervé de Tocqueville:

It is absolutely necessary to add the words in internal administration in order to establish clearly the division between internal and external, so that the author cannot be accused of praising here the institution that he blamed above. In fact, history proves that the aristocracy, very strong externally, because it is led solely by the interest of the State, commits many mistakes internally, because its personal interest misleads it. The aristocracy of Rome had been absolute in regard to the plebeians. That of France committed enormous mistakes, and that of England for fifty years has not been much wiser (YTC, CIIIb, 2, p. 3).

[d. ] In the margin: “{see the History of Pitkin.}”

[17. ] See the fifth volume of the Life of Washington by Marshall. “In a government established as that of the United States,” he says, page 314, “the chief executive, whatever his firmness, cannot long present a barrier to the torrent of popular opinion; and the popular opinion that then prevailed seemed to lead to war. In fact, in the session of Congress held at this time, it was seen very frequently that Washington had lost the majority in the House of Representatives. Outside, the violence of the language used against him was extreme; in a political meeting, some were not afraid to compare him indirectly with the traitor Arnold (p. 265). Those who belonged to the opposing party,” says Marshall again (p. 353), “claimed that the partisans of the administration were an aristocratic faction that was submissive to England and, wanting to establish a monarchy, was therefore the enemy of France; a faction whose members constituted a kind of nobility, that had shares of the Bank as titles, and that was so afraid of any measure that could influence its capital, that it was insensitive to the insults that both the honor and the interest of the nation demanded to be rejected.”

[e. ] Cf. note h for p. 190.

[a. ] Édouard de Tocqueville:

I criticize this whole chapter for being very favorable to the government of democracy at the expense of other governments. It seems to me that America is too young, that its society is too new and, you could even say, still too incomplete to draw arguments so positively advantageous to the government that it is attempting; it cannot be denied that the basis of your thought in this chapter seems to be sympathetic to American institutions; now, it would be unfortunate if someone were to believe that you came back from America American, following the usual inclination of men, and of Frenchmen above all, who greatly admire what they go to seek far away, while deprecating what is found at home. So I believe it would perhaps be good to show democratic government a little less favorably and make a bit more use of the dubitative form, perhaps to be a bit more severe as well about the bad things and the vicious aspects of this government, which would make your impartiality emerge more fully; finally, remove all the expressions that seem like those of a young man and that do not constitute true warmth of style (YTC, CIIIb, 1, pp. 101-2).

[b. ] To the side: “To retouch all of this small chapter. According to L[ouis (ed.)] my purpose is not seen clearly enough. One doesn’t know if this isn’t a carefully phrased remark in favor of despotism or of L[ouis (ed.)]. P[hilippe (ed.)].”

[c. ] This fragment also appears in YTC, CVh, 3, pp. 38-39, accompanied (p. 38) by the following comment in the margin: “All of this preamble seems to me of questionable utility, because the thought that led to writing it does not emerge clearly. As I am going to say things favorable to democracy, I am afraid that someone might suppose that I wanted to praise the American republic, and given this fear, I wanted to extend what I said about America to democracy in general. But I do not know if my intention is grasped.”