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• Democracy In America,(1840), Volume Iv
• Third Part a ] Influence of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called
• Chapter 1 A: How Mores Become Milder As Conditions Become Equal
• Chapter 2 A: How Democracy Makes the Habitual Relations of the Americans Simpler and Easier B
• Chapter 3 A: Why the Americans Have So Little Susceptibility In Their Country and Show Such Susceptibility In Ours B
• Chapter 4 A: Consequences of the Three Preceding Chapters
• Chapter 5 A: How Democracy Modifies the Relationships of Servant and Master
• Chapter 6 A: How Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise the Cost and Shorten the Length of Leases
• Chapter 7 A: Influence of Democracy On Salaries
• Chapter 8 A: Influence of Democracy On the Family B
• Chapter 9 A: Education of Young Girls In the United States B
• Chapter 10 A: How the Young Girl Is Found Again In the Features of the Wife
• Chapter 11 A: How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Morals In America
• Chapter 12 A: How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and of Woman B
• Chapter 13 A: How Equality Divides the Americans Naturally Into a Multitude of Small Particular Societies B
• Chapter 14 A: Some Reflections On American Manners B
• Chapter 15 A: of the Gravity of Americans and Why It Does Not Prevent Them From Often Doing Thoughtless Things B
• Chapter 16 A: Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Anxious and More Quarrelsome Than That of the English B
• Chapter 17 A: How the Appearance of Society In the United States Is At the Very Same Time Agitated and Monotonous B
• Chapter 18 A: of Honor In the United States and In Democratic Societies 1
• Chapter 19 A: Why In the United States You Find So Many Ambitious Men and So Few Great Ambitions B
• Chapter 20 A: of Positions Becoming an Industry Among Certain Democratic Nations
• Chapter 21 A: Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare B
• Chapter 22 A: Why Democratic Peoples Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Naturally Desire War
• Chapter 23 A: Which Class, In Democratic Armies, Is the Most Warlike and the Most Revolutionary
• Chapter 24 A: What Makes Democratic Armies Weaker Than Other Armies While Beginning a Military Campaign and More Formidable When the War Is Prolonged B
• Chapter 25 A: of Discipline In Democratic Armies
• Chapter 26 A: Some Considerations On War In Democratic Societies
• Fourth Part a ] of the Influence That Democratic Ideas and Sentiments Exercise On Political Society B
• Chapter 1: Equality Naturally Gives Men the Taste For Free Institutions
• Chapter 2 A: That the Ideas of Democratic Peoples In Matters of Government Naturally Favor the Concentration of Powers B
• Chapter 3: That the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples Are In Agreement With Their Ideas For Bringing Them to Concentrate Power a
• Chapter 4 A: of Some Particular and Accidental Causes That End Up Leading a Democratic People to Centralize Power Or That Turn Them Away From Doing So B
• Chapter 5: That Among the European Nations of Today the Sovereign Power Increases Although Sovereigns Are Less Stable a
• Chapter 6: What Type of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear a
• Chapter 7 A: Continuation of the Preceding Chapters
• Chapter 8 A: General View of the Subject B
• Notes
• Appendix 1: Journey to Lake Oneida a
• Appendix 2: A Fortnight In the Wilderness a
• Appendix 3: Sects In America a
• Appendix 4: Political Activity In America a
• Appendix 5: Letter of Alexis De Tocqueville to Charles Stoffels
• Appendix 6: Foreword to the Twelfth Edition
• Ouvrages Utilisés Par Tocqueville [ Works Used By Tocqueville ]
• Bibliographie [ Bibliography ]

Aristocracy of birth and pure democracy are at the two extremes of the social and political state of nations; in the middle is found the aristocracy of money:a the latter is close to the aristocracy of birth in that it confers great privileges on a small number of citizens; it is close to democracy in that the privileges can be successively acquired by all; it often forms like a natural transition between these two things, and you cannot say if it brings the reign of aristocratic institutions to an end, or if it already opens the new era of democracy.

I find in the journal of my trip the following piece, which will completely reveal the trials to which the women of America who agree to accompany their husbands into the wilderness are subjected. There is nothing that commends this picture to the reader except its great truth.b

The human idea of unity is almost always sterile; that of God, immensely fruitful. Men think to attest to their grandeur by simplifying the means. It is the purpose of God which is simple, His means vary infinitely.c

Bibliographie [Bibliography]

Nous citons ici divers ouvrages qui contiennent des documents intéressants pour la compréhension de la Démocratie en Amérique et qui reproduisent des textes de Tocqueville qui parfois n’ont pasété publiés dans les Œuvres complètes.

Endnotes

This project would not have been possible without the outstanding efforts of the following Editorial Committee, which assisted in the preparation of the English text:

Paul Seaton (Primary Reader)

Christine Dunn Henderson

Peter A. Lawler

Pierre Manent

Eduardo Nolla

Emilio Pacheco

Melvin Richter

Alison Schleifer

James T. Schleifer

Catherine H. Zuckert

[a. ] “≠The aristocracy of money does not seem lasting to me. This form of society has something at the very same time of both aristocracy and democracy, and it leads from the one to the other by a more or less slow but inevitable march≠” (YTC, CVk, 1, p. 86).

[b. ] See pp. 1314-16 of Appendix II.

[c. ] “Every uniform rule is necessarily tyrannical because men are never alike” (unity, centralization, administrative despotism,Rubish, 2).

[e. ] In the manuscript this note appears above, at the word “path.” At this place you find, instead, this other note:

Pieces that probably must be put in notes at the bottom of the pages of this chapter./ Note (B)./ I know that something analogous to what I have just said shows itself in England, one of the countries in the world where until today aristocracy has preserved the most dominion, and paternal authority the least power. From this juxtaposition you could conclude that the sentiment of independence in children is more English than democratic, and that it is due less to the habits of equality that have been contracted in the United States than to the political liberty that reigns there. I do not think that it is so. The bonds that hold together the various elements of the family seem to me still much less tight among the Americans than among the English, and they loosen visibly among the latter as their laws and their mores become more democratic. The result, it seems to me, is that if it is true that a certain sentiment of independence can exist within a family without equality reigning in the State, at least it must be recognized that democracy favors and develops it. You must not forget, moreover, that England is a very aristocratic country in the middle of which a great number of democratic ideas have circulated from time immemorial and whose laws have always been intermingled with some institutions appropriate only to democracy. What is the sovereign rule of public [v: national] opinion to which all the English of the last [century (ed.)] constantly declared that you must submit, if not a still obscure notion of the democratic dogma of the sovereignty of the people? What does this general principle mean that the money of those paying taxes, whoever they are, can only be taxed when the latter have themselves or by their representatives voted the tax, if not the explicit recognition of the democratic right of all to participate in the government? If I glance generally at English society, I see clearly that the aristocracy leads the State and directs the provinces, but if I look within the administration of the parishes, I discover that there at least the entire society governs itself; I see that everythingcomes from it [v: the people] and returns to it.1

I notice officers who, freely elected by the universality of citizens, are occupied with the poor, inspect the roads, direct the affairs of the church, administer in an almost sovereign way common property. The authority created in this way is very limited, I admit, but it is essentially democratic. Expand the circle of attributions and you will believe yourself suddenly transported to one of the towns of Massachusetts {New England}. These reflections, which came in relation to a detail, could serve to explain many important things that are happening at this moment before our eyes.

So nothing that is taking place today among the English is an entirely new development. The English are not creating democracy, they are expanding in England the democratic spirit and democratic customs.

[(1) ] <Here a note. Ask Reeve.>

See the letter of Henry Reeve to Tocqueville (London, 29 March 1836, YTC, CVa, pp. 41-44); published by James T. Schleifer in “Tocqueville and Centralization: Four Previously Unpublished Manuscripts,” Yale University Library Gazette 58, nos. 1-2(1983): 33-36; and Tocqueville’s response (Correspondance anglaise, OC, VI, 1, pp. 29-30).

[(1) ] Édouard observes rightly that it is not all love of wealth and among all people who have this character, but in certain circumstances and among certain nations, among certain men, and that that must be made apparent (Rubish, 2).

[1. ] Can you say that originality is a habit? (YTC, CVk, 1, pp. 8-9).

[m. ] In the drafts: “I am speaking principally about the Americans of New England and of the states without slaves” (Rubish, 2).

[c. ] The manuscript says: “. . . than within aristocracies.”

[b. ] In the manuscript, this note is part of the text and continues in this way:

[(1). ] Be very careful that it is not a matter of showing what is happening among these peoples, but the ideas that they are forming in the matter of government” (relative to the idea of unity in general,Rubish, 2).

[a. ] [All centralizing geniuses love war and all warrior minds love centralization.]

[d. ] “See piece of Beaumont on property in England and above all on the immense place that the last will and testament occupies. 2nd volume of L’Irlande.

“Individual power of the man. Very important aristocratic character which manifests itself very strongly in what is related to the will” (with drafts of the chapter that follows,Rubish, 2).

[y. ] Unity, centralization, administrative despotism./

Discussion relative to the mines of Gier (2 .-.- March 1838) have just suggested to me.—[the (ed.)].—following ideas:

The new world will see industrial property augment incessantly. That is indeed the new property par excellence, the democratic property.

Now, I see clearly the means by which the government takes hold of the direction and of the management of this property and in this way augments its influence in proportion as this property develops. It does not lack pretexts and even reasons for that.

[In the margin: Begin by showing how the government itself will become a great industrialist, will do immense enterprises in industry, at the same time that it becomes the master and the director of all the other industrialists. It attracts all the industrial capital by great enterprises and by centralized savings banks.]

The first reason is that this type of property, just coming into existence so to speak, is [not (ed.)] defended like all the others by an old respect for custom and allows itself to be regulated much more.

But there are reasons of detail of which I am going to detail a few. Coal, iron and minerals in general are the great sources of commercial wealth. These riches were formerly patrimonial. The top carried ownership of the bottom. The government, putting forward this plausible enough reason that such riches are more national than individual, dispossesses the one who holds them, unless he exploits them, and grants them to others (decree of 1810). Great abuses have taken place since in the practice of concession. The government claims to oblige the new owners, who are nothing more in its eyes than concessionaires, to exploit as it wants, to do the work that it indicates, or it takes back the concession and gives it to another.1

All this immense population that owns or exploits the mines, a population constantly growing in number and above all in importance, becomes by a single deed composed of administrativeagents and nothing more. The government not owning the mines, but the miners.

[All that will be appropriate, and even just, if the judicial power were introduced there. Its absence causes the whole evil. The principle of the absolute and continuous division of the administrative and judicial power is irreconcilable with the liberty and the prosperity of the State. If the administration does not get involved in this commercial property, public prosperity is in danger; and liberty, if it alone is involved in it. The problem to resolve is to unite them.]

Other example. The owners of land along the river do not agree on what to do to guarantee the banks of the river. The government forces them to associate in order to do the necessary work in common. Nothing better. But it directs the association and forces it to save the land. So it has all the riverside residents in its hands. But that gets away from commercial property which I want .-.-.-

[In the margin: Bonaparte said in 1810 concerning .-.-.- by dint of multiplying the obstacles, you make France take big steps toward tyranny. That you saw a prefect prevent the building of a house because the owner refused to .-.-.- his plan. It was only a matter of the rules of the .-.-.- He added: the concessionaire must only be despoiled of his property when he himself agrees to cede it. There is no difference from this perspective between a mine and a farm. Napoleon does not deny that the concessionaire be subjected to conditions, he only wants the non-compliance with these conditions not to carry the loss of the concession. Courts will sentence, he says, the concessionaire to executing them, as is practiced in regard to other contracts.]

.-.-.-.-.-.- there are immense commercial enterprises that in civilized countries cannot be carried out without the authorization of the social power, administration or legislature. Such particularly are the great works that necessitate the destruction of particular properties and that must respond to a public need, such as toll road, canal, bridge, port.... This gives an opening to the same argument as for the mines. The State, having granted concessions, claims to have the right to direct and, if someone does [not (ed.)] obey its directives, to dispossess. And among the social powers, it is the administration alone that claims the right in order not to mix legislative and administrative powers, and it wants to do it alone in order not to mix the administrative and judicial powers.

In England it is Parliament that authorizes. See in the work of Simon the charter of the railroad of Birmingham.

So that apart from the canals, roads, bridges that it owns, builds or directs by its agents, it is master of those who own, make or direct all the others.

Third example.

Among democratic peoples all commercial enterprises of some value can be carried out only by associations, but association is a means of which you .- .- to abuse. A collective owner is a new being that merits less consideration than individual owners who have been known since the beginning of the world and that at the same time is more frightening because it is more powerful. Under the pretext of gathering capital for a useful enterprise, the credulity of the public is misled, and capital is amassed in order to turn it to the profit of the inventor of the project. Society must be protected against such a trap. The remedy is to charge the administration with examining in advance the bases of the association and to grant or to refuse the right to associate, which puts in the hands of the government the most active passions and the most energetic needs of future generations. For, I repeat, commercial property is called to become the first and the most important of all.

I go further and I would be very .-.-.-.- not a step further, and if after having obtained the right to authorize .-.-.- association, you soon asked me for the right to direct them, if not in all cases, at least in a great number, with the threat of withdrawing the authorization for associating in case of refusal. So that after having put in its hands all those who have the desire to associate, you would also put there all those who have associated, that is to say, nearly the entire society in democratic centuries.

You would leave free only non-commercial property, which every day loses its importance, and individual commercial property, which cannot have any importance among democratic nations.

Again, if you reached the owners of this latter by a thousand regulations .-.-.- of public utility that the administration promulgates, interprets and applies alone without recourse [variant: in the name of order, of the healthiness of morals, of tranquillity, of public prosperity or in the interest of even those you coerce]” (unity, centralization, administrative despotism,Rubish, 2).

During his journey to England in 1835, Tocqueville already remarked: “The necessity of introducing the judicial power into the administration is one of these central ideas to which I am led by all my research about what has allowed and can allow men to have political liberty” (Voyage en Angleterre, OC, V, 2, p. 68).

[1. ] The idea is found again in L’Ancien régime et la Révolution. In chapter 4 of the second book (OC, II, 1, p. 125), after having spoken about the number of special courts and of the judicial rights of the intendant, he concluded: “The intervention of the judicial system in the administration harms only affairs, while the intervention of the administration in the judicial system depraves men and tends to make them at the very same time revolutionary and servile.”

[(1). ] <Apply myself to finding a name for it. That is important> (Rubish, 2).

This difficulty in finding new words recalls Montesquieu who, in the foreword ofL’Esprit des lois (Œuvres complètes, Paris: Pléiade, 1951, II, p. 227), writes: “I had new ideas; it was very necessary to find new words, or to give new meanings to old ones.”

On the origins of paternal despotism, see Rousseau, chapter IV, book I, of the Contrat social and his Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (Œuvres complètes, Paris: Pléiade, 1964, III, p. 182).

[1. ] Those two terms are not in natural opposition, but I do not have the time to clarify my thought (Rubish, 2).