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CHAPTER 7: Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects a - 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.


CHAPTER 7

Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effectsa

Natural strength of the majority in democracies.—Most of the American constitutions have artificially increased this natural strength.—How.—Binding mandates.—Moral dominion of the majority.—Opinion about its infallibility.—Respect for its rights.—What augments it in the United States.

The very essence of democratic governments is that the dominion of the majority be absolute; for, in democracies, nothing outside of the majority can offer resistance.

Most of the American constitutions have also sought to augment this natural strength of the majority artificially.1

Of all political powers, the legislature is the one that most willingly obeys the majority. The Americans have wanted the members of the legislature to be named directly by the people, and for a very short term, in order to force them to submit not only to the general views, but also to the daily passions of their constituents.

They have taken the members of the two houses from the same classes and named them in the same way; in this way, the movements of the legislative body are almost as rapid and no less irresistible than those of a single assembly.c

Within the legislature thus constituted, the Americans gathered together nearly the entire government.

At the same time that the law increased the strength of powers that were naturally strong, it weakened more and more those that were naturally weak. It gave to the representatives of the executive power neither stability nor independence; and, by subjecting them completely to the caprices of the legislature, it took from them the little influence that the nature of democratic government would have allowed them to exercise.d

In several states, the law delivered the judicial power to election by the majority; and in all, it made the existence of the judicial power dependent, in a way, on the legislative power, by leaving to the representatives the right to fix the salaries of judges annually.e

Customs have gone still further than the laws.

In the United States, a custom is spreading more and more that will end by making the guarantees of representative government empty; it happens very frequently that the voters, while naming a deputy, trace a plan of conduct for him and impose on him a certain number of definite obligations from which he cannot deviate in any way. Except for the tumult, it is as if the majority itself deliberated in the public square.

Several particular circumstances in America also tend to make the power of the majority not only predominant, but irresistible.

The moral dominion of the majority is based in part on the idea that there is more enlightenment and wisdom in many men combined than in one man alone, more in the number than in the choice of legislators. It is the theory of equality applied to minds. This doctrine attacks the pride of man in its last refuge. Consequently the minority admits it with difficulty and gets used to it only with time. Like all powers, and perhaps more than any other, the power of the majority thus needs to last in order to seem legitimate. When it is beginning to be established, it makes itself obeyed by force; only after living under its laws for a long time do you begin to respect it.

The idea that the right to govern society belongs to the majority because of its enlightenment was carried to the soil of the United States by the first inhabitants. This idea, which alone would be enough to create a free people, has today passed into the mores, and you find it in the least habits of life.

The French, under the old monarchy, held as a given that the king could do no wrong;f and when he happened to do something wrong, they thought that the fault was with his advisors. This facilitated obedience marvelously. You could murmur against the law, without ceasing to love and respect the law-maker. Americans have the same opinion about the majority.

The moral dominion of the majority is based as well on the principle that the interests of the greatest number must be preferred to those of the few. Now, it is easily understood that the respect professed for this right of the greatest number naturally increases or decreases depending on the state of the parties. When a nation is divided among several great irreconcilable interests, the privilege of the majority is often unrecognized, because it becomes too painful to submit to it.

If a class of citizens existed in America that the legislator worked to strip of certain exclusive advantages, held for centuries, and that he wanted to bring down from an elevated position and restore to the ranks of the multitude, it is probable that the minority would not easily submit to his laws.

But since the United States was populated by men equal to each other, no natural and permanent dissidence is yet found among the interests of the various inhabitants.g

There is such a social state in which the members of the minority cannot hope to attract the majority because to do so it would be necessary to abandon the very object of the struggle that the minority wages against the majority. An aristocracy, for example, cannot become a majority while preserving its exclusive privileges, and it cannot allow its privileges to slip away without ceasing to be an aristocracy. [In these countries, it is almost impossible for the moral power of the majority ever to succeed in being recognized by all.]

In the United States, political questions cannot be posed in as general and absolute a way, and all parties are ready to recognize the rights of the majority, because all hope one day to be able to exercise those rights to their profit.

So in the United States the majority has an immense power in fact and a power of opinion almost as great; and once the majority has formed on a question, there is, so to speak, no obstacle that can, I will not say stop, but even slow its course and leave time for the majority to hear the cries of those whom it crushes as it goes.

The consequences of this state of affairs are harmful and dangeroush for the future.

How the Omnipotence of the Majority in America Increases the Legislative and Administrative Instability That Is Natural to Democracies

How the Americans increase legislative instability, which is natural to democracy, by changing the legislator annually and by arming him with an almost limitless power.—The same effect produced in the administration.—In America a force infinitely greater, but less sustained than in Europe is brought to social improvements.

I spoke previously of the vices that are natural to the government of democracy; there is not one of them that does not grow at the same time as the power of the majority.

And, to begin with the most obvious of all.

Administrative instability is an evil inherent in democratic government, because it is in the nature of democracies to bring new men to power. But this evil is greater or lesser depending on the power and the means of action granted to the legislator.

In America sovereign power is handed over to the authority that makes the laws. That authority can rapidly and irresistibly abandon itself to each of its desires, and every year it is given other representatives. That is to say, what has been adopted is precisely the combination that most favors democratic instability and that allows democracy to apply its changeable will to the most important objects. [≠We have seen under the National Assembly and the Convention how, by granting omnipotence to the legislative body, the natural instability of law in republics increased more. These extreme consequences of a bad principle cannot recur in the same way in America because American society is not in revolution as French society then was and because there has been a long apprenticeship in liberty in America.≠]

America today is, therefore, the country in the world where laws have the shortest duration. Nearly all the American constitutions have been amended during the last thirty years. So, during this period, there is no American state that has not modified the principle of its laws.j

As for the laws themselves, it is sufficient to glance at the archives of the different states of the Union to be persuaded that in America the activity of the legislator never flags.k Not that the American democracy is by nature more unstable than another, but in the formation of the laws, it has been given the means to follow the natural instability of its inclinations.2

The omnipotence of the majority and the rapid and absolute manner in which its will is executed in the United States not only make the law unstable, but also exercise the same influence on the execution of the law and on the action of public administration.

Since the majority is the only power important to please, the works that it undertakes are ardently supported; but from the moment when its attention goes elsewhere, all efforts cease; whereas in the free States of Europe, in which administrative power has an independent existence and an assured position, the will of the legislator continues to be executed, even when he is occupied by other objects.

In America, much more zeal and activity is brought to certain improvements than is done elsewhere.

In Europe, an infinitely smaller, but more sustained social force is applied to the same things.

[I saw some striking examples of what I am advancing in a matter that I had particular occasion to examine in the United States.]

Several years ago some religious men undertook to improve the condition of prisons. The public was roused by their voice, and the regeneration of criminals became a popular undertaking.

Then new prisons arose. For the first time, the idea of reforming the guilty penetrated the jail at the same time as the idea of punishing him. But the happy revolution that the public joined with so much fervor and that the simultaneous efforts of citizens made irresistible could not be accomplished in one moment.

Alongside some new penitentiaries, the development of which was hastened by the desire of the majority, the old prisons still existed and continued to house a great number of the guilty. The latter seemed to become more unhealthy and more corrupting as the new ones became more reforming and healthier. This double effect is easily understood: the majority, preoccupied by the idea of founding the new establishment, had forgotten the one that already existed. By each person averting his eyes from the object that no longer attracted the regard of the master, supervision had ceased. At first the salutary bonds of discipline were seen to relax and then, soon after, to break. And alongside the prison, lasting monument of the mildness and enlightenment of our time, was found a dungeon that recalled the barbarism of the Middle Ages.

[In France, it would be very difficult to find prisons as good and as bad as in the United States.]

Tyranny of the Majoritym

How the principle of sovereignty of the people must be understood.—Impossibility of conceiving a mixed government.—The sovereign power must be somewhere.—Precautions that must be taken to moderate its action.—These precautions have not been taken in the United States.—What results.

I regard as impious and detestable this maxim that in matters of government the majority of a people has the right to do anything, and yet I consider that the will of the majority is the origin of all powers. Do I contradict myself?

A general law exists that has been made, or at least adopted, not only by the majority of such or such people, but by the majority of all men. This law is justice.

So justice forms the limit of the right of each people [to command].

A nation is like a jury charged with representing universal society and with applying justice, which is its law. Should the jury, which represents society, have more power than the very society whose laws it applies?n

So when I refuse to obey an unjust law, I am not denying the right of the majority to command; I am only appealing from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of the human race.

There are men who are not afraid to say that, in objects that concern only itself, a people could not go entirely beyond the limits of justice and reason, and that we should not be afraid, therefore, to give all power to the majority that represents a people. But that is the language of a slave.

So what is a majority taken as a whole, if not an individual who has opinions and, most often, interests contrary to another individual called the minority. Now, if you admit that an individual vested with omnipotence can abuse it against his adversaries, why would you not admit the same thing for the majority? Have men, by gathering together, changed character? By becoming stronger, have they become more patient in the face of obstacles?3 As for me, I cannot believe it; and the power to do everything that I refuse to any one of my fellows, I will never grant to several.o

Not that I believe that, to preserve liberty, several principles can be mixed together in the same government, in a way that truly opposes them to each other.

The government called mixed has always seemed to me a chimera. Truly speaking, there is no mixed government (in the sense that is given to this term), because, in each society, you eventually discover a principle of action that dominates all the others.

England of the last century, which was particularly cited as an example of this sort of government, was an essentially aristocratic State, although some large elementsp of democracy were found within it; for the laws and the mores there were established in such a way that eventually the aristocracy would always predominate and lead public affairs as it willed.

The error arose because, seeing the interests of the great constantly in conflict with those of the people, only the struggle was considered, instead of paying attention to the result of this struggle, which was the important point. When a society truly comes to have a mixed government, that is a government equally divided among contrary principles, it enters into revolution or dissolves.q

So I think that a social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere, but I believe liberty is in danger when this power encounters no obstacle that can check its courser and give it time to moderate itself.

Omnipotence in itself seems to me something bad and dangerous.s Its exercise seems to me beyond the power of man, whoever he may be; and I see only God who can, without danger, be all powerful, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. So there is no authority on earth so respectable in itself, or vested with a right so sacred, that I would want to allow it to act without control or to dominate without obstacles. So when I see the right and the ability to do everything granted to whatever power, whether called people or king, democracy or aristocracy, whether exercised in a monarchy or a republic, I say: the seed of tyranny is there and I try to go and live under other laws.

What I most criticize about democratic government as it has been organized in the United States, is not its weaknesses as many people in Europe claim, but on the contrary, its irresistible strength.t And what repels me the most in America is not the extreme liberty that reigns there; it is the slight guarantee against tyranny that is found.u

When a man or a party suffers from an injustice in the United States, to whom do you want them to appeal? To public opinion? That is what forms the majority. To the legislative body? It represents the majority and blindly obeys it. To the executive power? It is named by the majority and serves it as a passive instrument. To the police? The police are nothing other than the majority under arms. To the jury? The jury is the majority vested with the right to deliver judgments. The judges themselves, in certain states, are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or unreasonable the measure that strikes you may be, you must therefore submit to it [or flee. <What is that if not the very soul of tyranny under the forms of liberty?>].4

Suppose, in contrast, a legislative body composed in such a way that it represents the majority, without necessarily being the slave of the majority’s passions; an executive power that has a strength of its own; and a judicial power independent of the two other powers; you will still have a democratic government, but there will no longer be hardly any chances for tyranny.

[{If the effects of this tyranny are not felt more in America, it is because America is a new country where political passions are still not very deep and where so vast a field for human activity is presented that interests are rarely opposed to each other.}]

I am not saying that at the present time in America tyranny is frequently practiced; I am saying that no guarantee against tyranny is found there, and that the causes for the mildness of government must be sought in circumstances and in mores, rather than in laws.w

Effects of the Omnipotence of the Majority on the Arbitrariness of American Public Officials

Liberty that American law leaves to officials within the circle that it draws.—Their power.

Arbitrariness must be carefully distinguished from tyranny. Tyranny can be exercised by means of the law itself, and then it is not arbitrary; arbitrariness can be exercised in the interests of the governed, and then it is not tyrannical.x

Tyranny usually makes use of arbitrariness, but if necessary it knows how to do without it.

In the United States, the omnipotence of the majority, at the same time that it favors the legal despotism of the legislator, also favors the arbitrariness of the magistrate. Because the majority has absolute control over making the law and supervising its execution, and has equal control over those governing and those governed, it regards public officials as its passive agents and willingly relies on them to take care of serving its designs. So the majority does not enter in advance into the details of the duties of public officials and scarcely takes the trouble to define their rights. It treats them as a master would treat his servants, if, having their behavior always in view, he could direct or correct their conduct at every moment.

In general, the law leaves American officials much more free than ours within the circle that is drawn around them. Sometimes the majority even allows them to go outside of this circle. Guaranteed by the opinion of the greatest number and strong because of their support, they then dare things that a European, accustomed to the spectacle of arbitrariness, still finds astonishing. In this way, habits being formed within liberty that, one day, will be able to become destructive to it.

Of the Power Exercised by the Majority in America over Thought

In the United States, when the majority has irrevocably settled on a question, it is no longer discussed.—Why.—Moral power that the majority exercises over thought.—Democratic republics immaterialize despotism.

When you come to examine how thought is exercised in the United States, you notice very clearly to what extent the power of the majority surpasses all the powers that we know in Europe.

Thought is an invisible and almost imperceptible power that scoffs at all tyrannies [that scoffs amid chains and executioners. {You could say of it what Malherbe said of death: it does not stop at the gates of the Louvre any more than at the door of the poor man}].y Today, the most absolute sovereigns of Europe cannot prevent certain ideas hostile to their authority from circulating silently within their States and even within their courts. It is not the same in America; as long as the majority is uncertain, people speak; but as soon as the majority has irrevocably decided, everyone is silent, and friends as well as enemies then seem to climb on board together. The reason for this is simple. There is no monarch so absolute that he can gather in his hands all of society’s forces and vanquish opposition in the way that a majority vested with the right to make and execute laws can [at will, vested with the right and the force].

A king, moreover, has only a physical power that acts on deeds and cannot reach wills; but the majority is vested with a strength simultaneously physical and moral, which acts on the will as well as on actions and which at the same time prevents the deed and the desire to do it.

I know of no country where, in general, there reigns less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America.

There is no religious or political theory that may not be freely preached in the constitutional States of Europe and that does not penetrate into the others [{and I do not know of} ≠a European people so powerful and so strong that it is not forced from time to time to hear hard truths. It is not this way in America.≠]; for there is no country in Europe so subject to a single power that someone who wants to speak the truth does not find some support capable of insuring him against the results of his independence. If he has the misfortune to live under an absolute government, he often has the people for him; if he lives in a free country, he can find shelter, as needed, behind royal authority. The aristocratic part of society sustains him in democratic countries, and democracy in the others. But within a democracy organized as that of the United States, only a single power is found, a single element of strength and success, and nothing outside of it.z

In America, the majority draws a formidable circle around thought. Within these limits, the writer is free; but woe to him if he dares to go beyond them. It isn’t that he has to fear an auto-da-fé, but he is exposed to all types of distasteful things and to everyday persecutions. A political career is closed to him; he has offended the only power that has the ability to open it to him. Everything is denied him, even glory. Before publishing his opinions, he believed he had some partisans; it seems to him that he has them no longer, now that he has revealed himself to all; for those who censure him speak openly, and those who think as he does, without having his courage, keep quiet and distance themselves. He gives in; finally, under the daily effort, he yields and returns to silence, as though he felt remorse for having told the truth.

Chains and executioners, those are the crude instruments formerly used by tyranny; but today civilization has perfected even despotism itself, which seemed however to have nothing more to learn.

Princes had, so to speak, materialized violence; the democratic republics of today have made violence as entirely intellectual as the human will that it wants to constrain. Under the absolute government of one man, despotism, to reach the soul, crudely struck the body; and the soul, escaping from these blows, rose gloriously above it; but in democratic republics, tyranny does not proceed in this way; it leaves the body alone and goes right to the soul. The master no longer says: You will think like me or die; he says: You are free not to think as I do; your life, your goods, everything remains with you; but from this day on you are a stranger among us. You will keep your privileges as a citizen, but they will become useless to you. If you aspire to be the choice of your fellow citizens, they will not choose you, and if you ask only for their esteem, they will still pretend to refuse it to you. You will remain among men, but you will lose your rights to humanity. When you approach your fellows, they will flee from you like an impure being. And those who believe in your innocence, even they will abandon you, for people would flee from them in turn. Go in peace; I spare your life, but I leave you a life worse than death.

Absolute monarchies had dishonored despotism. Let us be careful that democratic republics do not rehabilitate it, and that, while making despotism heavier for some, they do not, in the eyes of the greatest number, remove its odious aspect and its degrading character.

Among the proudest nations of the Old World, books have been published that intended faithfully to portray the vices and absurdities of their contemporaries. La Bruyère lived at the palace of Louis XIV when he composed his chapter on the great, and Molière criticized the court in the plays that he had performed before the courtiers. But the dominating power in the United States does not understand being played in this way. The slightest reproach wounds it; the smallest biting truth shocks it, and everything from the forms of its language to its most solid virtues must be praised. No writer, no matter how famous, can escape this obligation to heap praise upon his fellow citizens. So the majority lives in perpetual self-adoration; only foreigners or experience can bring certain truths to the ears of Americans.

If America has not yet had great writers, we do not have to look elsewhere for the reasons: literary genius does not exist without freedom of the mind, and there is no freedom of the mind in America.a

The Inquisition was never able to prevent the circulation in Spain of books opposed to the religion of the greatest number. The dominion of the majority does better in the United States: it has removed even the thought of publishing such books. Unbelievers are found in America, but unbelief finds, so to speak, no organ there.b

You see governments that strive to protect morals by condemning the authors of licentious books. In the United States, no one is condemned for this kind of work; but no one is tempted to write them. It is not that all citizens have pure morals, but the majority is steady in its morals.

Here, the use of power is undoubtedly good. I am, consequently, speaking only about the power itself. This irresistible power is an unremitting fact, and its good usage is only an accident. [Doesn’t the majority in Paris acquire a taste for the filth that sullies our theatres daily?]

Effect of Tyranny of the Majority on the National Character of the Americans; Of the Courtier Spirit in the United States

Until now the effects of tyranny of the majority are felt on mores more than on the running of society.—They arrest the development of men of great character.—Democratic republics organized like those of the United States put the courtier spirit within reach of the greatest number.—Evidence of this spirit in the United States.—Why there is more patriotism among the people than among those who govern in their name.

The influence of what precedes is still felt only weakly in political society; but its harmful effects are already noticeable on the national character of the Americans. I think that the small number of outstanding men who appear today on the political stage must be attributed, above all, to the always increasing action of the despotism of the majority in the United States.

When the American Revolution broke out, outstanding men appeared in large number; then public opinion led and did not tyrannize over wills. The famous men of this period, freely joining the movement of minds, had a grandeur of their own; they shed their brilliance on the nation and did not derive it from the nation.

In absolute governments, the great who are near the throne flatter the passions of the master and willingly bow to his caprices. But the mass of the nation does not lend itself to servitude; it often submits out of weakness, habit or ignorance, sometimes out of love of royalty or the king. We have seen peoples take a type of pleasure or pride in sacrificing their will to that of the prince and, in this way, give a kind of independence of soul to the very act of obedience. Among these peoples much less degradation than misery is found. There is, moreover, a great difference between doing what you do not approve or pretending to approve what you do; the one is done by a weak man, but the other belongs only to the habits of a valet.c

In free countries, in which each person is more or less called to give his opinion on matters of State; in democratic republics, in which public life is constantly mingled with private life, in which the sovereign is approachable from all sides, and in which it is only a matter of raising one’s voice to reach the sovereign’s ear, many more people are found who seek to bank on the sovereign’s weaknesses and to live at the expense of the sovereign’s passions, than in absolute monarchies. Not that men there are naturally worse than elsewhere, but temptation is stronger and is offered to more people at the same time. A much more general debasing of souls results.

Democratic republics put the courtier spirit within reach of the greatest number and make it penetrate into all classes at the same time. It is one of the principal reproaches that can be made against them.

That is true, above all, in democratic states organized like the American republics, in which the majority possesses such absolute and irresistible dominion, that, in a way, you must renounce your rights as a citizen and, so to speak, your position as a man when you want to deviate from the road marked out by the majority.

Among the immense crowd, in the United States, that pushes into a political career, I saw very few men who showed this virile candor, this manly independence of thought, that often distinguished Americans in former times and that, wherever it is found, forms the salient feature of great characters. At first view, you would say that in America minds have all been formed on the same model because they so exactly follow the same paths. Sometimes, it is true, the foreigner will encounter some Americans who deviate from the rigor of the formulas; these Americans happen to deplore the vice of the laws, the variableness of democracy and its lack of enlightenment; often they even go so far as to notice the defects that are spoiling the national character, and they indicate the measures that could be taken to correct those defects. But no one, except you, is listening to them; and you, to whom they confide these secret thoughts, you are only a passing foreigner. They willingly give you truths that are useless to you, and, coming into the public square, they use another language.

If these lines ever reach America, I am sure of two things: first, that readers will all raise their voices to condemn me; second, that many among them will absolve me deep down in their conscience.d

I have heard country spoken about in the United States. I have encountered true patriotism among the people; I have often searched in vain for these two things among those who lead the people. This is easily understood by analogy: despotism depraves the one submitted to it much more than the one who imposes it. In absolute monarchies, the king often has great virtues; but the courtiers are always vile.

[≠What I blame democratic republics for is putting the courtier spirit within reach of such a large number.≠]

It is true that courtiers, in America, do not say: Sire and Your Majesty, a grand and capital difference; but they talk constantly about the natural enlightenment of their master. They do not raise the question of knowing which one of the virtues of the prince most merits adoration; for they assert that he possesses all virtues, without having acquired them and, so to speak, without wanting to do so. They do not give him their wives and daughters so that he would deign to elevate them to the rank of his mistresses; but by sacrificing their opinions to him, they prostitute themselves.

Moralists and philosophers in America are not forced to envelop their opinions in veils of allegory; but, before hazarding an annoying truth, they say: We know that we are speaking to a people too far above human weaknesses ever to lose control of itself. We would not use such language, if we did not address men whose virtues and enlightenment make them alone, among all others, worthy of remaining free.

How could those who flattered Louis XIV do better?

As for me, I believe that in all governments, whatever they are, baseness will attach itself to strength and flattery to power. And I know only one way to prevent men from degrading themselves: it is to grant to no one, with omnipotence, the sovereign power to debase them.

That the Greatest Danger to the American Republics Comes from the Omnipotence of the Majority

Democratic republics risk perishing by the bad use of their power, and not by powerlessness.—The government of the American republics more centralized and more energetic than that of the monarchies of Europe.—Danger that results.—Opinion of Madison and of Jefferson on this subject.

Governments usually perish by powerlessness or by tyranny. In the first case, power escapes from them; in the other, it is wrested from them.e

Many men, seeing democratic Statesf fall into anarchy, have thought that government in these States was naturally weak and powerless. The truth is that, once war has flared up there among the parties, government loses its effect on society. But I do not think that the nature of a democratic power is to lack strength and resources; I believe, on the contrary, that it is almost always the abuse of its forces and the bad use of its resources that make it perish. Anarchy is almost always born out of its tyranny or its lack of skill, but not out of its powerlessness.

Stability must not be confused with strength, the greatness of something with its duration. In democratic republics, the power that leads5 society is not stable, for it often changes hands and objectives. But, wherever it goes, its strength is nearly irresistible.

The government of the American republics seems to me as centralized and more energetic than that of the absolute monarchies of Europe. So I do not think that they will perish from weakness.6

If liberty is ever lost in America, it will be necessary to lay the blame on the omnipotence of the majority that will have brought minorities to despair and will have forced them to appeal to physical force. Then you will see anarchy, but it will arrive as a consequence of despotism.

President James Madison expressed the same thoughts (see the Federalist, No 51.)

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. [. . . (ed.) . . .] Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature, where the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger; and as, in the latter state, even the stronger individualsg are prompted, by the uncertainty of their condition, to submit to a government which may protect the weak as well as themselves; so, in the former state, will the more powerful factions or parties be gradually induced, by a like motive, to wish for a government which will protect all parties, the weaker as well as the more powerful. It can be little doubted that if the State of Rhode Island was separated from the Confederacy and left to itself, the insecurity of rights under the popular form of government within such narrow limits would be displayed by such reiterated oppressions of factious majorities that some power altogether independent of the people would soon be called for by the voice of the very factions whose misrule had proved the necessity of it.

[In another place he said: “[The] facility of lawmaking seems to be the disease to which our government is most liable.”]

Jefferson also said: “The executive power, in our government, is not the only, and perhaps not the principal object of my concern. The tyranny of legislators is now and will be for many years to come the most formidable danger. That of the executive power will come in its turn, but in a more distant period.”7

In this matter, I like to cite Jefferson in preference to all others, because I consider him the most powerful apostle democracy has ever had.j

[a. ] Hervé de Tocqueville:

Before beginning the notes on this chapter, I want to make two general reflections:

1. Isn’t there a kind of contradiction between this chapter and the last paragraph of page 3 of the second volume, where the author expresses himself this way: “In the United States, as in all countries where the people rule, the majority governs in the name of the people. This majority is composed principally of a mass of men who, either by taste or by interest, sincerely desire the good of the country; agitating around this quite peaceful mass, parties work to draw it toward them and gain its support”?

2. I do not know if this chapter is well placed in the book. In one of the preceding chapters, entitled Of the Right of Association, the author says, p. 67: “In our time, the right of association has become a guarantee against the tyranny of the majority.”

The logical order of ideas demands that the disadvantages be cited before the remedy. I observe, moreover, that the author must revise the sentence I have just transcribed and make it less absolute, if he does not want it to harm singularly the effect of the chapter on omnipotence (YTC, CIIIb, 1, pp. 81-83).

It seems that the idea of the tyranny of the majority is mentioned for the first time on the occasion of a conversation with Sparks, 29 September 1831 (non-alphabetic notebooks 1 and 2, YTC, BIIa, and Voyage, OC, V, 1, p. 96). John Stuart Mill, following Tocqueville, will take up this expression again and use it in his famous essay On Liberty. Nonetheless, as Joseph Hamburger points out (“Mill and Tocqueville on Liberty,” in John M. Robson and M. Laine, eds., James and John Stuart Mill. Papers of the Centenary Conference, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976, pp. 111-25), if Mill uses the term, the consequences he derives from it are quite far removed from those of Tocqueville. H. O. Pappe as well is skeptical about the possible influence of Tocqueville on Mill (“Mill and Tocqueville,” Journal of the History of Ideas 25, no. 2 (1964): 217-44).

Ludovic, the protagonist in Marie, also insists on the sway of opinion in America (I, pp. 165, 172-74, and 203),.

[c. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “If this is so, we do not see clearly why the American constitutions created two houses; it is probable that there is something too absolute in the author’s phrasing” (YTC, CIIIb, 1, p. 83).

[d. ] “In America executive power is nothing and can do nothing. The entire strength of government is entrusted to society itself, organized under the most democratic form that has ever existed. In America all danger comes from the people; it is never born outside” (YTC, CVh, 5, p. 21).

[e. ] “Importance of the judicial power as barrier to democracy, its weakness. See Federalist, p. 332 [No. 78 (ed.)].

“In most states, judges are dependent upon the legislature for their salaries; in several, elected by the legislature or by the people. Growing causes of tyranny” (YTC, CVe, p. 64). Cf. conversations with Mr. Storer, Spencer, and Judge MacLean (non-alphabetic notebooks 1, 2 and 3, YTC, BIIa, and Voyage, OC, V, 1, pp. 69, 124 and 127).

[f. ] Hervé de Tocqueville: “I do not know why Alexis applies to the old monarchy the principle that the king could do no wrong. The Charter of 1814 and that of 1830 have this principle as a basis” (YTC, CIIIb, 1, p. 83).

[g. ] Majority./

The moral dominion of the majority is established with more difficulty than another because it is based upon ideas of equality shocking to many minds that have not become accustomed to it.

Like all other empires, it is lost by abuse. Tyranny of the majority leads to appeals by minorities to physical force. From that, confusion, anarchy and the despotism of one man. The American republics, far from raising the fear of anarchy at the present moment, raise only the fear of despotism of the majority; anarchy will come only as a consequence of this tyranny.

There is such a social state in which the minorities can never become majorities, without losing enormously or even ceasing to be. In these countries, the dominion of the majority can only be established with great difficulty and can only be maintained with even more difficulty. France in this case./

In America, the dominion of the majority will be overturned not because it lacks strength, but wisdom. The government is centralized in such a way that the governing majority is omnipotent. It will lack not physical force, but moral force. In all power exercised by the people, there is something variable, something of scant wisdom.

I would like someone to explain to me what is meant when this banal phrase is put forth: that an entire people cannot completely go beyond the limits of reason.

It is undoubtedly rare for an entire people to go beyond those limits. But what generally does the will of the people mean? A majority; but what is a majority taken as a whole if not an individual who has opinions and, most often, interests contrary to another individual called the minority?

Now, if you admit that an individual vested with omnipotence can abuse it against his adversaries, why would you not admit the same thing for the majority? As for me, I see only God who can be vested with omnipotence without disadvantage (YTC, CVj, 2, pp. 2-3).

[h. ] The manuscript says: “. . . very harmful and highly dangerous for the future.”

[j. ] In this place in the manuscript three paragraphs are found that Tocqueville will later add to chapter V of this second part. (It concerns the passage that begins with: “Many Americans consider . . .” and that concludes with the citation of Number 73 of the Federalist, pp. 155-56.)

[k. ] To the side: “≠The omnipotence of the majority is not the first cause of the evil, but it infinitely increases it.≠”

[2. ] The legislative acts promulgated in the state of Massachusetts alone, from 1780 to today, already fill three thick volumes. It must be noted as well that the collection of which I speak was revised in 1823, and that many former or pointless laws were discarded. Now, the state of Massachusetts, which is no more populated than one of our departments, can pass for the most stable state in the entire Union, and the one that puts the most coherence and wisdom into its enterprises.

[m. ] Title in the manuscript: tyrannical effects of the omnipotence of the majority.

Concerning the idea of tyranny of the majority, Morton Horwitz (“Tocqueville and the Tyranny of the Majority,” Review of Politics, 28, 1966, pp. 293-307) defends the idea that Tocqueville, when speaking of the majority in numerical terms, is thinking about France, not about America, and that he thinks about America only when he considers the moral tyranny of the majority. Also see David Spitz, “On Tocqueville and the Tyranny of Public Sentiment,” Political Science 9, no. 2 (1957): 3-13.

[n. ] In the margin: “≠Its effects:

on actions,

on words,

on character and thoughts.

“That it is by the abuse of the strength of their government and not by its weakness that the American republics are threatened with perishing.≠”

[3. ] No one would want to maintain that a people is not able to abuse strength vis-à-vis another people. Now, parties are like small nations within a large one; in relation to each other, they are like foreigners.

If you agree that a nation can be tyrannical toward another nation, how can you deny that a party can be so toward another party?

[o. ] Democracy./

Tyranny of democracy. Confusion of all powers in the hands of the assemblies. Weakness of the executive power to react against these assemblies of which it is only an instrument. See very curious article of the Federalist on this subject, p. 213 [No. 48 (ed.)]; id., p. 205 [No. 46 (ed.)]; id., p. 224 [No. 51 (ed.)]./

Moreover, that is a required result of the rule of democracy. There is strength only in the people; there can only be strength in the constitutional power that represents the people./

In America the executive and judicial powers are absolutely dependent upon the legislative power. It fixes their salaries in general, modifies their organization; and nothing is provided for them to be able to resist its encroachments [word in English in the original (ed.)]. Federalist, p. 205 [No. 46 (ed.)]./

Necessity of taking measures to avoid the abuse of all powers, even those that seem most legitimate. Federalist, p. 223 [No. 51 (ed.)] (YTC, CVb, pp. 25-26).

[p. ] The manuscript says, on the other hand: “some democratic institutions.”

This paragraph makes direct reference to Montesquieu. Cf. note n of p. 28.

[q. ] If here Tocqueville denies the existence of mixed government, he is, nonetheless, about to explain in the following paragraphs his theory of a social and political organization in which every principle must necessarily be opposed by another. (The idea has been mentioned in the editor’s introduction.)

[r. ] In the manuscript: “that can, if not entirely stop, at least check its course . . .”

[s. ] “Despotism is at the two ends of sovereignty, when one man rules and when the majority governs. Despotism is attached to omnipotence, whoever the representative may be” (YTC, CVe, p. 65).

Guizot defends a similar idea:

The partisans of divine right had said: there is only one God; so there should be only one king, and all power belongs to him because he is the representative of God. The partisans of sovereignty of the people have said: there is only one people; so there should be only one legislative assembly; for it represents the people. In both cases the error is the same, and it leads equally to despotism. There is only one God and there is only one people, that is certain; but this God is nowhere on earth, for neither one man nor the whole people is God, knows his law perfectly and wants it constantly. So no de facto power should be unique, for unity of the de facto power assumes complete de jure power which no one possesses or can possess (Journal des cours publics, Paris: au bureau du Journal, 1821-1822, II, p. 293).

In another place, Guizot refers to Pascal for his argument: “ ‘Unity that is not multiple,’ says Pascal, ‘is tyranny.’ From that follows the necessity for two chambers” (ibid, p. 17). The principle of Guizot’s representative system is nothing other than the destruction of all absolute power. This principle requires the provision of the jury, freedom of the press, the division of powers and the organization of the legislative power into two chambers. These elements are repeated in Tocqueville’s theory.

[t. ] How democracy leads to tyranny and will succeed in destroying liberty in America. See the beautiful theory presented on this point in the Federalist, p. 225 [No. 51 (ed.)]. It is not because powers are not concentrated; it is because they are too concentrated that the American republics will perish. The tyranny of one man will appear more tolerable than the tyranny of the majority.

“A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities; most governments are deficient in the first. [I (ed.)] Scruple not to assert that, in the American governments, too little attention has been paid to the last. The federal Constitution avoids this error.” Federalist, p. 268 [No. 62 (ed.)].

Tendency of republics to make the executive power only a passive agent, without any strength whatsoever, id., p. 207 [No. 47 (ed.)] (YTC, CVb, p. 26).

[u. ] “≠It is very much easier to contest a principle than its consequences. You easily prove to a king that he does not have the right to sacrifice the interest of the State to his own, but when the majority oppresses you, you are forced to recognize its right before attacking the use of that right≠” (YTC, CVh, 4, p. 81).

[w. ] “≠The omnipotence of the majority seems to me the most serious disadvantage attached to democratic governments and the source of their greatest dangers≠” (YTC, CVh, 4, p. 81).

[x. ] In the manuscript: “≠Arbitrariness must be carefully distinguished from tyranny, and tyranny from arbitrariness. Arbitrariness can be not tyrannical, and tyranny can be not arbitrary. In the United States there is almost never arbitrariness, but sometimes there is tyranny.≠”

To the side: “≠When Louis XIV regulated by himself and with sovereign power the commercial rights [doubtful reading (ed.)] of his subjects, he committed an arbitrary but not a tyrannical act.

“When the National Assembly ordered [blank space in the manuscript (ed.)], it committed a tyrannical act but not an arbitrary act.≠”

[y. ] In Consolation à Monsieur Du Périer, gentilhomme d’Aix-en-Provence, sur la mort de sa fille.

[z. ] In the margin: “<≠Base circumlocutions of the Federalists.≠>”

[a. ] Cf. chapter XIII of the first part of the third volume.

[b. ] The ideas of this paragraph were suggested to Tocqueville by a doctor in Baltimore, Mr. Stuart (non-alphabetic notebooks 2 and 3, YTC, BIIa, and Voyage, OC, V, 1, p. 115).

A note on a slip of paper attests to Tocqueville’s dissatisfaction concerning this part of the chapter:

I have put two distinct ideas within the same expressions, which is a great defect./

That tyranny in America acts directly on the soul and does not torment the body results from two causes:

1. Because it is exercised by a majority and not by a man. A man, never able to obtain the voluntary support of the mass, cannot inflict on his enemy the moral torment that arises from isolation and public scorn. He is forced to act directly in order to reach his enemy.

2. Because in fact mores have become milder and that despotism has been perfected and intellectualized.

This same note also exists in YTC, CVh, 3, p. 59; (the copyist indicates that the original is not in Tocqueville’s hand).

[c. ] The manuscript says “lackey.”

Hervé de Tocqueville: “Trivial expression that, moreover, attacks an entire class that at present is no less proud than another” (YTC, CIIIb, 1, p. 87).

[d. ] Democracy./

The greatest moral evil that results from the dominion of democracy is that it puts the courtier spirit within reach of everyone.

[In the margin: Here the character of courtiers.]

In democratic republics the number of courtiers is immense; the only difference from monarchies is that these are courtiers with bad taste.

The Americans have only two means to gain the truth, the voice of foreigners and experience (YTC, CVe, pp. 62-63).

[e. ] Washington, 15 January 1832.

There are two ways for a government to perish:

1. By lack of power (like the first Union, for example).

2. By bad use of power, like all tyrannies.

It is by this last evil that the American republics will perish.

The first mode is more rapid than the second. The latter is no less certain (YTC, BIIb, p. 13).

This note does not appear in YTC, CVe and has not been published in Voyage, OC, V, 1. YTC, BIIb, and YTC, CVe are two different copies of the same original, but copy BIIb, which is later, contains texts that do not appear in the first copy.

[f. ] The manuscript says “free States.”

[5. ] Power can be centralized in an assembly; then it is strong, but not stable. It can be centralized in a man; then it is less strong, but it is more stable.

[6. ] It is useless, I think, to warn the reader that here, as in all the rest of the chapter, I am speaking, not about the federal government, but about the individual governments of each state that the majority leads despotically.

[g. ] In the manuscript: “the strongest individuals.”

[j. ] Édouard de Tocqueville: “In this chapter, very well written moreover and of great interest, you completely avoid the defect for which I reproached you in the notes for the preceding chapter. Here you coldly judge democracy, without admiration and without weakness; you tell the truth about it, all the while recognizing its qualities and its advantages” (YTC, CIIIb, 1, p. 90).