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Of Public Spirit in the United States o - 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 Public Spirit in the United Stateso

Instinctive love of country.—Thoughtful patriotism.—Their different characters.—That peoples must tend with all their might toward the second when the first disappears.—Efforts that the Americans have made to succeed in doing so.—The interest of the individual intimately bound to that of the country.

There exists a love of country that has its source principally in the unthinking, disinterested and indefinable sentiment that binds the heart of the man to the places where the man was born. This instinctive love is mingled with the taste for ancient customs, with respect for ancestors, and the memory of the past; those who experience it cherish their country as one loves the paternal home. They love the tranquillity that they enjoy there; they are fond of the peaceful habits that they contracted there; they are attached to the memories that it offers, and even find some sweet pleasure in living there in obedience. Often this love of country is intensified even more by religious zeal, and then you see it accomplish miracles. It is itself a kind of religion; it does not reason, it believes; it feels; it acts. Some peoples have been found who have, in some way, personified the country and have caught sight of it in the prince. So they have transferred to him a part of the sentiments that compose patriotism; they have boasted about his triumphs and have been proud of his power. There was a time, under the old monarchy, when the French felt a sort of joy in feeling themselves given, without recourse, to the arbitrariness of the monarch, and said with pride: “We live under the most powerful king in the world.”p

Like all unthinking passions, this love of country encourages great episodic efforts rather than continuity of efforts. After saving the State in time of crisis, it often leaves it to decline amid peace. [≠This love of country is found in the cradle of societies; it presides during the early ages of peoples.≠]

When peoples are still simple in their mores and firm in their beliefs; when society rests gently upon an old order of things, whose legitimacy is uncontested, you see this instinctive love of country reign.q

There is another love of country more rational than that one; less generous, less ardent perhaps, but more fruitful and more durable; this one arises from enlightenment; it develops with the help of laws; it grows with the exercise of rights; and it ends up merging, in a way, with personal interest. A man understands the influence that the well-being of the country has on his own; he knows that the law allows him to contribute to bringing this well-being into being, and he interests himself in the prosperity of his country, first as something useful to him and then as his work.

But sometimes, in the life of peoples, a moment occurs when ancient customs are changed, mores destroyed, beliefs shaken, the prestige of memories has vanished, yet when enlightenment has remained incomplete and political rights poorly guaranteed or limited. Then men no longer see the country except in a weak and doubtful light; they no longer locate it either in the soil, which in their eyes has become an inanimate land, or in the customs of their ancestors, which they have been taught to regard as a burden; or in religion, which they doubt; or in the laws, which they do not make, or in the legislator, whom they fear and scorn. So they see it nowhere, not under its own features any more than under any other, and they withdraw into a narrow and unenlightened egoism. These men escape prejudices without recognizing the empire of reason; they have neither the instinctive patriotism of monarchy, nor the thoughtful patriotism of the republic; but they have stopped between the two, in the middle of confusion and misery.

What is to be done in such a state? Go back. But peoples do not return to the sentiments of their youth any more than men to the innocent tastes of early years; they can regret them, but not make them come again. So it is necessary to move ahead and hasten to unite, in the eyes of the people, individual interest and the interest of the country, for disinterested love of country flies away never to return.r

I am surely far from claiming that to reach this result we must suddenly grant the exercise of political rights to all men; but I say that the most powerful means, and perhaps the only one remaining to us, to interest men in the fate of their country, is to make them participate in its government. Today, civic spirit seems to me inseparable from the exercise of political rights; and I think that from now on, we will see the number of citizens in Europe increase or decrease in proportion to the extension of these rights.

How is it that in the United States, where the inhabitants arrived yesterday on the soil that they occupy, where they brought neither customs, nor memories; where they meet for the first time without knowing each other; where, to put it in a word, the instinct for native land can hardly exist; how is it that each person is involved in the affairs of his town, of his district, and of the entire State as his very own? Because each person, in his sphere, takes an active part in the government of society.

The common man in the United States has understood the influence that general prosperity exercises over his own happiness, an idea so simple and yet so little known by the people. He has, moreover, become accustomed to regarding this prosperity as his work. So, in public fortune, he sees his own, and he works for the good of the State, not only by duty or by pride, but I would almost dare to say by cupidity.

[He values his rights as a citizen as his rights as a proprietor, and he takes an interest in the State as in his cottage or in the field that his labors have made fruitful.]

It is not necessary to study the institutions and the history of the Americans to know the truth of the preceding; the mores alert you to it well enough. The American, taking part in all that is happening in this country, believes it is in his interest to defend all that you criticize there; for it is not only his country that you then attack, it is himself. Consequently, you see his national pride resort to all the artifices and descend to all the puerilities of individual vanity.

[An American in his country resembles a lover of gardens on his grounds. Don’t you admire this rock? Is there anything more graceful than the contour of this stream? Aren’t these trees planted well and to good effect? Whatever you say, do not hope to satisfy him. The reason is simple. You admire what is good, and he admires his work.]

There is nothing more annoying in the experience of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. The foreigner would gladly agree to praise a great deal in their country; but he would want them to allow him to find fault with something, and that is what they absolutely refuse.

So America is a country of liberty, where, to hurt no one, the foreigner must not speak freely about individuals, nor the State, nor the governed, nor those who govern, nor public enterprises, nor private enterprises, about nothing in fact that you find there, except perhaps for climate and soil; even then you find some Americans ready to defend the one and the other as if they had taken part in their formation.s

Today it is necessary to know how to make up your mind and dare to choose between the patriotism of all and the government of a few, for you cannot at the same time combine the social strength and activity given by the first with the guarantees of tranquillity sometimes provided by the second.

[o. ] To the side: “{Mr. Parier [?(ed.)] will leave blank what I} enclosed in lines.” (It probably involves the copyist of the manuscript. Here and there fragments in his hand are found in the manuscript.)

[p. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “All of this piece is charming; nonetheless the words caught sight of are not good” (YTC, CIIIb, 1, p. 95).

[q. ] “If God had granted me the power to change societies at will, and if I found along my way a people who had remained in this state, I would hesitate a long time, I admit, before trying to draw them out of that state” (YTC, CVh, 3, p. 5).

[r. ] I see in Europe an innumerable multitude that finds itself entirely excluded from the administration of its country. I think at first that these men, seeing themselves reduced to such a state [v: bondage] are going to become indignant, but no, they rejoice in it.

For my part, what I most reproach despotism for are not its rigors. I would pardon it for tormenting men if it did not corrupt them. Despotism creates in the soul of those who are subjected to it a blind passion for tranquillity, a kind of depraved taste for obedience, a sort of inconceivable self-contempt that ends up making them indifferent to their interests and enemies of their own rights.

Then they wrongly persuade themselves that by losing in this way all the privileges of civilized man, they escape all his burdens and evade all his duties. So they feel free and count in society like a lackey [v: valet] in the house of his master; and think that they have only to eat the bread that is left for them, without concerning themselves about the cares of the harvest.

When a man has reached this point, I will call him, if you want, a peaceful inhabitant, an honest settler, a good family man. I am ready for everything, provided that you do not force me to give him the name of citizen.

I am surely far from claiming that the exercise of political rights can be suddenly granted to all men. But I say that civic spirit is nearly inseparable from the exercise of political rights. So the number of citizens always increases or decreases in a country in proportion to the extension of these rights, and where the exercise can be granted to all, the development of civic spirit is nearly without limits (YTC, CVh, 1, pp. 2-4).

A note dated 1840, when Tocqueville was a deputy and was occupied in the Chamber with the electoral issue, specified, however: “As for electoral reform, here is my sentiment. The mode of election: I absolutely refuse all lowering of the electoral qualification or equivalent additions.—I do not want a more radical election law, but a more moral one—an electoral system that makes corruption by patronage more difficult—1840.” Note reproduced in Pierre Roland-Marcel, Essai politique sur Alexis de Tocqueville, Paris: Félix Alcan, 1910, p. 211.

[s. ] American patriotism is already mentioned in the first letter that Tocqueville sent to his family during his voyage to the United States: “These people seem to me to stink of national pride; it pokes through all of their politeness” (Letter to his mother, 26 April 1831, YTC, BIa2; this sentence does not appear in the edition of Tocqueville’s works done by Beaumont). Beaumont, on his side, writes in his novel: “The writers, in the United States, who want to find readers are obliged to praise all that belongs to the Americans, even their rigorous climate, about which they can assuredly change nothing. In this way, Washington Irving, despite all of his intelligence, believes himself forced to admire the temperate heat of the summers and the mildness of the winters in North America” (Marie, I, pp. 360-61).