The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Foreword
• Preface to the Liberty Fund Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• Part I: Tocqueville’s Second Voyage to America, 1832–1840
• Chapter 1: The Writing of the First Part of the Democracy
• Chapter 2: An Expanding Task Resumed
• Part II: How to Account For America? Tocqueville Looks At Some Particular Causes Physiques
• Chapter 3: An Hypothesis Weighed and Rejected
• Chapter 4: Further Considerations of Environment
• Chapter 5: Was Race a Sufficient Explanation of the American Character?
• Chapter 6: The Transformation of a Continent
• Part III: Tocqueville and the Union: the Nature and Future of American Federalism
• Chapter 7: The Bond Between the States and the Central Government
• Chapter 8: A Prophet In Error
• Chapter 9: How Large Might a Republic Be?
• Part IV: Democracy, Centralization, and Democratic Despotisms
• Chapter 10: Centralization and Local Liberties
• Chapter 11: Where Would Power Accumulate?
• Chapter 12: Administrative Centralization and Some Remedies
• Chapter 13: Tocqueville’s Changing Visions of Democratic Despotism
• Part V: Democracy, the Individual, and the Masses
• Chapter 14: The Tyranny of the Majority
• Chapter 15: The Tyranny of the Majority: Some Paradoxes
• Chapter 16: Would Démocratie Usher In a New Dark Ages?
• Chapter 17: Démocratie and Egoïsme
• Chapter 18: From Egoïsme to Individualisme
• Part VI: What Tocqueville Meant By Démocratie
• Chapter 19: Some Meanings of Démocratie
• Chapter 20: Tocqueville’s Return to America
• Epilogue How Many Democracies ?
• Selected Bibliography

CHAPTER 10

Centralization and Local Liberties

For the great majority of readers, Tocqueville is at his most original and provocative when he struggles with the fundamental concepts of centralization, despotism, liberty, individualism, and democracy itself. These are ideas crucial not only to the American experiment, but also to the broader “democratic” experiment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; here questions raised in the New World merge with those raised in the Old.

In recent decades, few issues have been more troublesome and important than the connection between centralization and freedom. Political, economic, educational, social, and other opportunities have been seen as prerequisites for meaningful freedom in the United States, and the federal government has been cast as the guarantor of those opportunities. Yet the enormous increase in the power and size of the federal government has raised doubts about the reality of citizen participation, the responsiveness of the centers of authority, and the ultimate effect of such pervasive (and always expanding) influence on the lives of individuals. Very different segments of the political spectrum have raised slogans about a New Federalism, about dismantling the Washington bureaucracy, about returning authority and responsibility to the states and localities, about reviving neighborhood control, about empowering the people.

Are centralization and freedom compatible? This uncomfortable dilemma is one which Tocqueville faced, and his insights, warnings, and suggestions continue to have value in the latter part of the twentieth century. He came early to see that démocratie fostered a major threat to liberty: the concentration of power. By the late 1830s, the closely intertwined themes of centralization and despotism became two of the major organizational threads of his book.

During the years of Tocqueville’s American journey and the making of his book, criticisms of excessive centralization and proposals for greater local or provincial freedom of action were a familiar part of French political life. In fact throughout the entire period of the parliamentary monarchy—the Restoration and the July regime (1814–48)—thoughtful Frenchmen turned repeatedly to consideration of the possible dangers and benefits of decentralization.1 In 1831, for example, Le Peletier d’Aunay, a prominent political figure and cousin to Tocqueville, on hearing belatedly of Alexis’s and Gustave’s actual departure for America, wrote a long letter of advice about what particularly to notice in the United States. He singled out centralization for attention.

It should be no surprise therefore that Tocqueville in America was very quick to notice signs of the relative authority of general and local governments and began almost immediately to examine the causes and results of the apparent lack of centralized power.

Several of Tocqueville’s and Beaumont’s earliest letters home reflected their amazement at the seeming absence of government in America. This appearance of nongovernment, they realized, arose from extreme decentralization, and Tocqueville’s epistles of June and July often indicated frustration and irritation at the inefficient results. “In general,” he told his father on 3 June 1831, “this country, as for administration, seems to me to have gone to precisely the opposite extreme as France. With us the government is involved in everything. [Here] there is no, or at least there doesn’t appear to be any government at all. All that is good in centralization seems to be as unknown as what is bad. No central idea whatsoever seems to regulate the movement of the machine.”3

Additional complaints surfaced while the companions visited the prison at Auburn. Temporarily exasperated by the lack of any uniform penal administration, Tocqueville remarked in a letter to Chabrol that only special circumstances permitted the thorough decentralization which prevailed in the United States. He implied that nations like France which found themselves surrounded by powerful potential enemies and beset by complex external pressures needed more centralized authority, if they hoped to survive, than the American republic required.4 And even then, American local government exhibited certain distinct disadvantages when specific projects like prisons or other reform proposals were involved.

By September, however, conversations with prominent Bostonians, such as Josiah Quincy and Francis Lieber, began to divert Tocqueville’s attention from the inconveniences to the benefits of decentralization.

The locality, as an arena for individual and group efforts, was thus a superb place for political education and for development among the people of a sense of responsibility and capacity in public affairs. This focus on the moral, social, and political rather than the administrative effects of decentralization would remain fundamental in all of Tocqueville’s future discussions of centralization.

The very next day he asked State Senator Francis Gray more about local government in Massachusetts and learned another basic feature of American administration. “The general principle is that the whole people by its representatives has the right to look after all local affairs, but it should refrain from exercising that right in everything that relates to the internal management of the localities.... The rule agreed is that as long as the local authority is acting only on its own account and does not injure anybody’s rights, it is all-powerful in its sphere.”6

Gray also warned about the difficulty of maintaining this local independence and alerted Tocqueville to a certain “spirit” which helped to support self-government in the United States. “I think it is even harder to establish municipal institutions among a people than great political assemblies. When I say municipal institutions I speak not of the forms but of the very spirit that animates them. The habit of dealing with all matters by discussion, and deciding them all, even the smallest, by means of majorities, that is the hardest habit of all to acquire. But it is only that habit that shapes governments that are truly free.”7

The value and uniqueness of this attitude was particularly praised by Jared Sparks, who informed the visitors that, in Massachusetts at least, local government predated any central authority. “Almost all societies, even in America, have begun with one place where the government was concentrated, and have then spread out around that central point. Our forefathers on the contrary founded the locality before the State. Plymouth, Salem, Charlestown existed before one could speak of a government of Massachusetts; they only became united later and by an act of deliberate will. You can see what strength such a point of departure must have given to the spirit of locality which so eminently distinguishes us even among other Americans.”8

Tocqueville’s travel diaries quickly disclosed his enthusiastic reaction to these ideas. “Every individual, private person, society, community, or nation, is the only lawful judge of its own interest, and, provided it does not harm the interests of others, nobody has the right to interfere. I think that one must never lose sight of this point.”9

“Another principle of American society of which one must never lose sight,” he continued the day after talking with Sparks: “every individual being the most competent judge of his own interest, society must not carry its solicitude on his behalf too far, for fear that in the end he might come to count on society, and so a duty might be laid on society which it is incapable of performing.... But the useful mean between these theories is hard to grasp. In America free morals (moeurs) have made free political institutions; in France it is for free political institutions to mould morals. That is the end towards which we must strive but without forgetting the point of departure.”10

So Quincy’s and Lieber’s descriptions of town activities (both official and private), and Gray’s rule about local responsibility for local matters, and Sparks’s concept of the “spirit of locality” combined to carry Tocqueville to two ideas that would become permanent parts of his views on decentralization. During the next nine years and beyond, he would consistently attribute the success of decentralization in the United States primarily to American moeurs and repeatedly prescribe vigorous local institutions for France as an essential way to develop habits favorable to liberty.11

These provocative conversations had also encouraged Tocqueville to pursue further the whole troublesome question of centralization. Several persons were now requested to furnish additional details and commentary. On 1 October, Jared Sparks was left with a long list of questions about New England’s towns, one of which touched on the relative merits of centralization and local control. Joseph Tuckerman, while discussing the supervision of schools, had reminded Tocqueville only three days before that the lack of any central authority entailed certain inevitable defects.12 The Frenchman now asked Sparks: “In town affairs have you sometimes felt the need or the utility of a central administration, of what we call centralization? Have you not noticed that this independence of the parts injured the cohesion of the nation, hindered the uniformity of the state, and prevented national enterprises? In a word, what is the bad side of your system, for the best systems have one?”13

Sparks’s journal revealed the specific motives of the visitors. “[Beaumont and Tocqueville] have been very desirous to get some ideas of the municipal or town governments in New England.... The principles are important in regard to any changes that may be contemplated in the municipal establishments of France.”14

Even more significantly, within two weeks of leaving Boston Tocqueville dispatched letters to his father, to Chabrol, and to Ernest de Blosseville asking each for information and his views on the French system of administration. Tocqueville’s objective was to repair gaps in his own knowledge, to compare France and America, and to gain a better understanding of what now became a primary concern: “ce mot de centralisation.”15

It has sometimes been assumed that Tocqueville’s intense interest in American administration and its implications concerning centralization arose largely in response to the Boston experience of September and October.16 His introduction by Quincy, Gray, Sparks, and others to the wonders of town government had clearly stimulated his inquiries to his father, Chabrol, and Blosseville and helped to start him on the road that led by 1835 to an original and fully developed rationale for local liberties. But this interpretation can be overstated. Thoughtful Frenchmen of the times were almost inevitably attracted to the subject. And as early as the beginning of June, some of Tocqueville’s letters from America had touched briefly on centralization and disclosed his interest in the topic. An even more complete and surprising demonstration of his pre-Boston commitment to municipal freedom had appeared in a long missive to Louis de Kergolay dated “Yonkers, 29 June 1831.” In that letter-essay he had unveiled some early impressions about America and discussed the pervasive trend toward démocratie. He had also quite pointedly applied some of his observations to France.

This passage strongly foreshadows the themes and even the language of the 1835 and 1840 Democracy. It demonstrates that at a very early stage in his American journey Tocqueville had already come to see local liberties as an invaluable countermeasure to the dangers of démocratie. This program and this hope predated the visit to Massachusetts by three months and apparently arose more out of current French concerns than out of Tocqueville’s American experience.

In the autumn of 1831, Tocqueville continued to ruminate upon the lessons of Boston and to weigh the value of local liberties. On 25 October, for example, he observed in his diaries: “When the detractors of popular governments claim that in many points of internal administration, the government of one man is better than the government of all, they are, in my view, incontestably right. It is in fact rare for a strong government not to show more consistency in its undertakings, more perseverance, more sense of the whole, more accuracy in detail, and more discretion even in the choice of men, than the multitude. So a republic is less well administered than an enlightened monarchy; republicans who deny that, miss the point; but if they said that it was there that one must look for the advantages of democracy, they would win back the initiative. The wonderful effect of republican governments (where they can subsist) is not in presenting a picture of regularity and methodical order in a people’s administration, but in the way of life. Liberty does not carry out each of its undertakings with the same perfection as an intelligent despotism, but in the long run it produces more than the latter. It does not always and in all circumstances give the peoples a more skillful and faultless government; but it infuses throughout the body social an activity, a force, and an energy which never exist without it, and which bring forth wonders.... It is there that one must look for its advantages.”18

He still could not forget his frustrations as a prison investigator or the warnings of men like Tuckerman; but these administrative defects, though undeniable, had clearly become secondary to the larger benefits of local control, especially the broader social and moral advantages.

These reflections of 25 October also revealed Tocqueville’s increasing awareness of the possible economic fruits of decentralization; the lack of central administration apparently helped to stimulate prosperity (at least in America). And on New Year’s Day, 1832, he asked Mr. Guillemin, French consul at New Orleans, whether that city owed its prosperity to free institutions. His countryman’s response was ambiguous. Guillemin began by insisting “that prosperity is not due to political institutions, but is independent of them,” but ended by declaring that: “This government ... has the merit of being very weak, and of not hampering any freedom. But here and now there is nothing to fear from freedom. That does not apply only to Louisiana but to the whole of the United States.”19

Three days later Tocqueville wrote: “The greatest merit of the government of the United States is that it is powerless and passive. In the actual state of things, in order to prosper America has no need of skillful direction, profound designs, or great efforts. But need of liberty and still more liberty. It is to nobody’s interest to abuse it. What point of comparison is there between such a state of affairs and our own?”20 And soon he composed the essay entitled “Means of Increasing Public Prosperity” in which he not only highlighted the transportation and communication revolution then taking place in America, but also described the role played in that transformation by decentralization: “The activity of companies, of [towns], and of private people is in a thousand ways in competition with that of the State.... Everything adapts itself to the nature of men and places, without any pretension to bend them to the strictness of an inflexible rule. From this variety springs a universal prosperity spread throughout the whole nation and over each of its parts.”21

Most Americans cherished local control as the bedrock of liberty, and Tocqueville quickly accepted this view. Local self-government seemed an unsurpassed school for politics and for developing an understanding of private and public responsibilities. It helped not only to secure freedom but also to stimulate social energy and to promote prosperity. Tocqueville was now persuaded that such a “spirit of locality” was something for France to emulate. “In America free morals (moeurs) have made free political institutions; in France it is for free political institutions to mould morals.”22

In January 1832, the first lengthy response to Tocqueville’s questions of October about the administration in France came into his hands. “I want to thank you my dear father. Your work has been of great use to me for grasping the nuances which can make the administration of this country understandable. The mind, as you know, becomes clear only by comparison. Your memoir has already been for me the basis for a crowd of highly useful questions.”23 But opportunities for fully digesting his father’s answer and those from Chabrol and Blosseville would not present themselves until the return to France.

Of the three papers, by far the longest, most thoughtful, and stimulating was that of Alexis’s father, the Count Hervé de Tocqueville, who had been a singularly able prefect during the Restoration. His essay, entitled “A Glance at the French Administration,” began grandly (and apparently in a tradition common to father and son) by announcing the underlying rule. “The principle in France is that the King is the head of the administration and directs it.... The Royalty exercises a general tutelage over all the branches of the administration. It appoints, it directs, it approves, it prevents.”24

From there, M. le Comte proceeded to survey the various parts of the French administrative machine and then to present his personal evaluations under the telling phrase: “Centralization. Abuses to reform.” “We see by what precedes that the various branches of the administration form a chain which ends at a principal link which is the Government, and one cannot fail to recognize the regularity and order which result from this whole. In a Monarchy surrounded by powerful and jealous States, a center of unity is necessary. For centuries our Kings have worked to establish this unity.”

The need (recognized by both father and son) for some degree of centralization given the particular geographical situation of France made the Count critical of extreme proposals, such as those made by the legitimist press, for the reestablishment of the old provinces and the creation of provincial assemblies. “It is probable that these assemblies would tend continually to increase their own power and that France would soon be nothing more than a vast federation, the weakest of governments, in the midst of the compact monarchies which surround her.”

So a too thoroughgoing decentralization was dangerous and unacceptable. But the question remained whether the French administration was not perhaps overly centralized, whether “the protective and tutelary power of the Crown has not in certain respects gone beyond the limit of attributions which it must retain for the maintenance of good order and the prosperity of the whole.”

The former prefect felt that it had. A primary fault seemed to be that officials appointed by the King were frequently unacquainted with the regions under their jurisdiction and thus all too often misunderstood local interests and problems. Moreover, even the smallest affairs were wastefully, but inexorably, shunted upward to the Ministry of the Interior for decision. “[Centralization] becomes particularly painful to endure when it is exerted on the portion of private interests which are debated and regulated administratively.”

Clearly some modification or limited dismantling of the system was needed, but the nobleman remained pessimistic about the possibility of reform. “There exist too many persons for whom centralization is profitable, or who hold a position [in the centralized bureaucracy] that they would seek in vain elsewhere, for these abuses to be uprooted for a long time. These people have established as an article of faith that nothing is done well except by the government itself, and they will defend this dogma with obstinacy.”

On several crucial points this essay matched the positions which Tocqueville would later take. First, the Count implied a key distinction between government and administration. And father and son would share, as well, both the view that history had long driven France toward centralization and the conviction that no federal system, however admirable, was suitable for France. The feature of American decentralization which captivated Tocqueville would always be more the vigor of the localities than the prerogatives of the states; he apparently believed that American federalism, despite its originality, was too bound to the peculiar historical and physical situation of the United States to be of much use to France. Father and son would also insist, nonetheless, that France was now overly centralized and that some moderate reform—probably involving more local responsibility—was essential for the greater good and prosperity of all. Finally, Alexis would agree with his father’s pessimistic assessment that, despite arguments for change, government bureaucrats would strive doggedly to preserve their swollen prerogatives.

The papers by Chabrol and Blosseville contained fewer generalizations and judgments. (Blosseville, in particular, offered little more than an unorganized catalogue of details.) But both friends criticized the degree of centralization which existed and voiced support for reform. Chabrol called more specifically for the simplification of bureaucratic procedures and recommended the good example of England. He also illustrated his complaint that red tape often damaged local interests by including an amusing hypothetical example.

The contrast between this portrait of how town buildings were repaired in France and the descriptions given by Quincy and Lieber of how local projects were undertaken in America could not have been more complete. After reading Chabrol’s letter Tocqueville must have marveled even more at the advantages of American local independence and private initiative.

In 1833 a chapter from Du système pénitentiaire aux Etats-Unis et de son application en France surveyed some of the difficulties which the authors feared would hinder any effort to apply the American prison system to France. Among hindrances cited was “the too great extent to which the principle of centralization has been carried [among us], forming the basis of our political society.” Beaumont, presumably reflecting ideas common to the two companions, argued further:

This attempt by Beaumont to draw some logical limit to centralization, this call for greater local responsibility and initiative amounted to another faithful preview of Tocqueville’s 1835 Democracy.

After helping to complete the Penitentiary System but before beginning the composition of his other American book, Tocqueville visited England for the first time. There he saw for himself the English system of decentralization. On 24 August 1833, John Bowring offered a long explanation of the English approach and possibly also helped to lead Tocqueville toward a distinction which would become crucial in the 1835 Democracy.

“Dr. Bowring said to me today ... ‘England is the country of decentralization. We have got a government, but we have not got a central administration. Each county, each town, each parish looks after its own interests.... I consider that nothing is more difficult than to accustom men to govern themselves. There however is the great problem of your future. Your centralization is a magnificent idea, but it cannot be carried out. It is not in the nature of things that a central government should be able to watch over all the needs of a great nation. Decentralization is the chief cause of the substantial progress we have made in civilization. You will never be able to decentralize. Centralization is too good a bait for the greed of the rulers; even those who once preached decentralization, always abandon their doctrine on coming into power. You can be sure of that.’ ”27

The gentleman thus deepened earlier impressions about both the link between decentralization and prosperity and the unlikelihood that centralization, once done, could ever be undone. He also criticized the failure of France to realize that a system good in the abstract did not necessarily fit the reality of a large and varied country. Finally, Bowring distinguished between government and administration and so probably helped to keep Tocqueville thinking in those terms.

After the discussion, Tocqueville mused: “England illustrates a truth I had often noticed before; that the uniformity of petty legislation instead of being an advantage is almost always a great evil, for there are few countries all of whose parts can put up with legislation which is the same right down to its details. Beneath this apparent diversity which strikes the view of the superficial observer and shocks him so strongly, is to be found real political harmony derived from government appropriate to the needs of each locality.

“But in France this is not appreciated in the least. The French genius demands uniformity even in the smallest details.... We should thank heaven for being free, for we have all the passions needed to smooth the path to tyranny.”28

This was not the first or the last time that Tocqueville speculated about the connection between excessive administrative centralization and despotism.

At home in Paris, Tocqueville plunged into further study of American administrative and governmental structures, taking additional notes from various collections of state laws, Goodwin’s Town Officer, Sparks’s essay on towns, the Federalist Papers, and other works.29 As already noted, he soon resolved to begin with an examination of the New England town, then to turn to the states, and finally to consider the American federal system. A perusal and comparison of the histories, laws, and constitutions of many of the states eventually led to a decision to take five as models or types: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio.30 From a thorough examination of these five, and especially of Massachusetts, Tocqueville attempted to grasp the fundamentals of American administration.

• [1] Put somewhere, either in front or in back, how the administration functions in the United States. This will fit into the great theme of the advantages and the inconveniences of decentralization.
• [2] We saw in the United States that no administrative centralization existed.... You can even say that decentralization has been brought to a level that no European nation could endure without uneasiness and that produces harmful results even in America.31
• [3] No hierarchy and no centralization, characteristic of the American administration. So in the town, more powers and more officials than in the communes of France, but all independent.
• [4] Rights and duties in the town are multiplied in order to attach men by benefits, the way religions do by observances. Town life makes itself felt at every moment. Duty flexible and easy to fulfill; social importance which that spreads about (éparpille).32
• [5] Europeans believe that to achieve liberty, power in the hands of those who hold it must be reduced and they end up in disorder. The Americans do not decrease power but divide it (important). Division of administrative power; concentration of legislative power. American principle (important).33

So in the United States, local governments and officials enjoyed great authority and independence, and everywhere in America administrative authority was distributed among as many hands as possible. The result was not chaos, but a social and political wonder. That such a fragmentation of power worked (without undue costs) testified not only to the unique position of the United States, but also to something in the American spirit. “It is obvious that the political and administrative laws of the towns [in America] assume other moeurs than our own.”34

After distilling these and other essential principles, Tocqueville penned a brief three-point outline to guide his thoughts and composition.

• 1. Difference between centralization of the government and administrative centralization.
• 2. Difficulty of decentralizing the administration once it is [centralized]. Europe.
• 3. Advantages of decentralization when it exists.35

Expanding on his first point he wrote: “When we speak of centralization we are always fighting in the shadows because of a failure to make the distinction between governmental and administrative centralization.”36

In another draft, he elaborated: “Governmental centralization and administrative centralization attract one another. But one can consider them as separate however. Indeed they often have been (under Louis XIV for example). What I call governmental centralization is the concentration of great social powers in a single hand or in a single place. The power to make the laws and the force to compel obedience to them. What I call administrative centralization is the concentration in the same hand or in the same place of a power to regulate the ordinary affairs of the society, to dictate and to direct the everyday details of its existence.... The first however is far more necessary to the society than the other. And I can not believe that they are inseparable. That seems to me [to be] the problem of a strong government reigning over a free people.... In the United States, there is a government; there is not any administration as we understand it.”37

How had Tocqueville arrived at this notion of the two centralizations? Both Hervé de Tocqueville and Bowring had distinguished between administration and government. But the peculiarities of American centralization and decentralization also clearly had a part in Tocqueville’s musings. It was not that the United States had no government (as he had too hastily declared in some early letters), or that there was simply less centralization in the New World republic than in France. The concentration of powers which existed in America tended to be legislative in nature. The authority which was so relentlessly divided tended to be executive. “Division of administrative power; concentration of legislative power. American principle (important).” So Tocqueville was at times inclined to explain the crucial difference not as governmental versus administrative, but as legislative versus executive (or administrative).

When Tocqueville defined administrative and governmental in his 1835 book, he would emphasize not who or what branch held power, but which powers were exercised. If an assembly passed statutes dealing with the everyday details of local affairs, that was administrative centralization, even though legislative in origin. And if an executive (like Louis XIV) determined all issues of general importance but was unable to rule in detail, a high degree of governmental centralization prevailed with relatively little administrative centralization. Apparently, however, his perception of certain unusual American attitudes toward executive and legislative functions had helped to stimulate his theoretical insight about the two different sorts of centralization.

The draft definitions of the two centralizations quoted above also echoed Tocqueville’s simultaneous efforts, while considering the future of the Union, to distinguish two types of sovereignty. “Sovereignty is nothing other than the right of free will applied to a society instead of being applied to an individual. A people, like a man, can do all to itself. Every time that a people acts, it thus undertakes an act of sovereignty.... What one can do is to designate among the habitual actions of the sovereign the most important and the least. The most important acts of the sovereign will are those that directly touch the interests of all the members of the society, such as peace, war, treaties, taxes, civil and political rights, justice. The lesser acts are those that directly touch only a part of the members of the group, such as the direction of provincial and local affairs or finally, in the last instance, individual affairs.”38

The major acts of sovereignty cited here were apparently nothing more than the powers exercised under governmental centralization, called in his drafts “great social powers” and mentioned in the 1835 text as “Certain interests, such as the enactment of general laws and the nation’s relations with foreigners,... common to all parts of the nation.” And a centralized administration might be identified, in turn, by its control over even the lesser acts of sovereignty: “interests of special concern to certain parts of the nation, such, for instance, as local enterprises.”39 So possibly this brief examination of the old puzzle of sovereignty had also helped to lead the author toward his distinction between governmental and administrative centralization.40

Some commentators have chided Tocqueville for the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of his concept of two centralizations.41 But it is instructive to recognize that distinctions between legislative and executive functions and between lesser and greater acts of sovereignty also went into the final definitions of the 1835 text. Tocqueville had wrestled not only with centralization, but also with the equally profound issues of sovereignty and the separation of powers. Any lack of precision in the Democracy’s descriptions may thus presumably be laid, in part, to an intellectual boldness which shaded into foolhardiness.

Both the second point in Tocqueville’s brief outline and his draft discussion of the two types of centralization repeated an observation made by the Count de Tocqueville and by John Bowring and demonstrated by the history of France as Tocqueville understood it: “prove for Europe that it is always easy to centralize the administration and almost impossible to decentralize it, even though that seems easy.”42

In a passage stricken from the original working manuscript and therefore unpublished until now, he elaborated:

In the margin, Tocqueville debated: “Perhaps delete all that as not related.” For whatever reason, the piece would be cut in the later stages of revision.

Tocqueville’s designation between 1833 and 1835 of two varieties of centralization helped immensely to clarify his thoughts about the future. He now came to the third point in his outline: “Advantages of [administrative] decentralization when it exists.” By 1835 the Democracy would propose a bold program of local liberties as part of Tocqueville’s hopes for France.44

In the small section entitled “The American System of Townships” Tocqueville would rhapsodize “The strength of free peoples resides in the local community. Local institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they put it within the people’s reach; they teach people to appreciate its peaceful enjoyment and accustom them to make use of it. Without local institutions a nation may give itself a free government, but it has not got the spirit of liberty. Passing passions, momentary interest, or chance circumstances may give it the external shape of independence, but the despotic tendencies which have been driven into the interior of the body social will sooner or later break out on the surface.45 ...

“It often happens in Europe that governments themselves regret the absence of municipal spirit, for everyone agrees that municipal spirit is an important element in order and public tranquillity, but they do not know how to produce it. In making municipalities strong and independent, they fear sharing their social power and exposing the state to risks of anarchy. However, if you take power and independence from a municipality, you may have docile subjects but you will not have citizens.”46

He would summarize: “For my part, I cannot conceive that a nation can live, much less prosper, without a high degree of centralization of government. But I think that administrative centralization only serves to enervate the peoples that submit to it, because it constantly tends to diminish their civic spirit (esprit de cité).”47

Administrative centralization, Tocqueville insisted, was pernicious; it opened the doors to tyranny and eventually destroyed both individual and national strength. But local liberties, in contrast, nurtured both “a taste for freedom and the art of being free.”48 It was there that Tocqueville placed his hopes for France.

Still facing Tocqueville as he shaped the first volumes of his book was the difficult problem of the relationship between centralization and démocratie. In America he had seen full democracy side by side with extreme administrative decentralization, and one draft fragment seemed to indicate that he would portray centralization and démocratie as mutually antagonistic. As he considered the nature of the Union and the forces which bound or splintered federations, he stated that two basic principles undergirded American political society: “The first, Sovereignty of the people, Democracy, the principle of which divides and dissolves; the second, Federation, the principle of which unites and conserves.”49

This view of démocratie as a force for social disintegration and, by implication, for decentralization apparently arose from Tocqueville’s understanding of the corrosive rivalry between the American states and the federal government. The pressures and jealousies which had weakened and threatened eventually to destroy the Union were especially potent in the western and southwestern states where excessive democracy flourished.

But such an analysis was short-lived. In another draft Tocqueville declared: “One must not be deceived on this. It is democratic governments which arrive the fastest at administrative centralization while losing their political liberty.”50

One probable source of this conviction was once again the Federalist Papers. While reading Paper Number 51, Tocqueville had apparently been captivated by Madison’s exposition of the connection between democracy, centralization, and despotism. “How démocratie leads to tyranny and will happen to destroy liberty in America. See the beautiful theory on this point exposed in the Federalist. [p.] 225. It is not because powers are not concentrated; it is because they are too much so that the American republics will perish.”51

The 1835 Democracy would read:

So the drafts and text of the 1835 Democracy would clearly argue that democracy and centralization went forward together. Even early versions of the 1835 Democracy expressed the conviction that democracy encouraged centralization—both governmental and administrative—and this thesis would run throughout both halves of Tocqueville’s masterpiece.53

As Frenchmen, Tocqueville and Beaumont came to the New World already concerned about the issue of centralization and therefore strongly predisposed to examine the details of the governmental and administrative structures in the United States. Unlike some other ideas which arose primarily from the stimulus of the American experience, the question of centralization seems to have occupied Tocqueville’s thoughts primarily because of preexistent French concerns. France both stimulated his awareness of the disadvantages of excessive centralization and persuaded him of the wisdom of limited reforms which, though utopian to some, seemed moderate enough to Tocqueville. Given the French context, it should also be noted that his praise for local liberties was not in itself remarkable; what made his views new and refreshing to Frenchmen in the 1830s was his bold theory that such decentralization could serve, not as the final refuge of aristocratic privilege, but as a primary means of furthering popular participation and of reconciling advancing equality with social and political stability.54

But Tocqueville’s fascination with decentralization, his original effort to distinguish two fundamental types of centralized authority, and his continuing examination of the links between démocratie and centralization also resulted from the inherently interesting nature of the American experiment. (How strange for a European to behold a large nation apparently running itself.) It was the American journey, and particularly his stay in Boston, that so irrevocably fixed Tocqueville’s attention on the benefits—especially political, social, and moral—of local liberty and taught him about the subtle, fragile, and crucial nature of the “spirit of locality.” The New World republic introduced him to a novel approach to political authority: “The Americans do not decrease power but divide it (important). Division of administrative power; concentration of legislative power. American principle (important).” And Madison’s “beautiful theory” apparently helped him to see the way in which democracy, by encouraging centralization, might lead to despotism. By 1833 or 1834, as he composed the first half of his work, Tocqueville had already captured a sense of one of the most significant tensions of démocratie: the very local liberties which could help to avoid democratic flaws were discouraged by democracy’s affinity for concentrated power.

[1. ]For elaboration, consult the standard works by Felix Ponteil, Les Institutions de la France de 1814 à 1870, hereafter cited as Ponteil, Institutions; F. Ponteil, La Monarchie parlementaire: 1815–1848, hereafter cited as Ponteil, Monarchie parlementaire; and Dominique Bagge, Le Conflit des idées politiques en France sous la Restauration, hereafter cited as Bagge, Idées politiques. Also see in an old but still valuable work, Edouard Laboulaye, L’Etat et ses limites, the essay entitled “Alexis de Tocqueville,” pp. 138–201, especially pp. 160–71 where Laboulaye discusses the originality of Tocqueville’s ideas on centralization; hereafter cited as Laboulaye, L’Etat.

[2. ]Le Peletier d’Aunay to Tocqueville, August 1831, copy, Letters from French Friends: 1831–32, Yale Toc. Ms., BId.

[3. ]Toc. to M. le Comte de Tocqueville, Sing Sing, 3 June 1831, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa1, Paquet 15, pp. 2–3. Also see Tocqueville’s letter to Ernest de Chabrol, New York, 20 June 1831, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa2. And compare the 1835 text: Democracy (Mayer), p. 72.

[4. ]Toc. to Ernest de Chabrol, Auburn, 16 July 1831, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa1. Also see a similar comment by Beaumont, Beaumont to his father, New York, 16 May 1831, Bt. Lettres, pp. 39–46.

[5. ]“Note” to a conversation with Mr. Quincy, 20 September 1831, Non-Alphabetic Notebooks 2 and 3, Mayer, Journey, pp. 51–52. See in the 1835 Democracy an almost exact reproduction of these remarks, Democracy (Mayer), p. 95. Also compare a conversation with Mr. Lieber, 22 September 1831, Non-Alph. Notebooks 2 and 3, Mayer, Journey, pp. 51–52, and its echo in the 1835 Democracy, Democracy (Mayer), p. 189.

[6. ]Conversation with Mr. Gray, 21 September 1831, Non-Alph. Notebooks 2 and 3, Mayer, Journey, p. 52.

[7. ]28 September 1831, ibid., p. 57. Compare the 1835 volumes, Democracy (Mayer), p. 189.

[8. ]29 September 1831 (date in Yale copy), Mayer, Journey, p. 59. Cf. the 1835 portion of Tocqueville’s book, Democracy (Mayer), pp. 67, 68–70.

[9. ]30 September 1831, Pocket Notebook 3, Mayer, Journey, p. 149.

[10. ][1 October 1831], ibid., p. 150. Cf. 1835 volumes, Democracy (Mayer), p. 96.

[11. ]During discussion of the 1848 Constitution, for example, Tocqueville would again call for greater local liberties; consult Edward Gargan, Alexis de Tocqueville: The Critical Years, 1848–1851, pp. 98–99; hereafter cited as Gargan, Critical Years.

[12. ]“Centralization,” 27 September 1831, Alphabetic Notebook 2, Mayer, Journey, p. 213.

[13. ]“Questions left by MM. Beaumont and Tocqueville,” 1 October 1831, Relations with Americans, 1831–32, Yale, BIc.

[14. ]Quoted from Herbert Baxter Adams, “Jared Sparks and Alexis de Tocqueville,” p. 570.

[15. ]Toc. to his father, Hartford, 7 October 1831, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa2. Also see inquiries to Chabrol, Hartford, 7 October 1831, and to Blosseville, New York, 10 October 1831, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa2.

[16. ]For example, see Pierson, Toc. and Bt., pp. 397–416; and André Jardin, “Tocqueville et la décentralisation,” pp. 91–92; hereafter cited as Jardin, “Décentralisation.”

[17. ]Toc. to Louis de Kergolay, Yonkers, 29 June 1831, O.C. (Mayer), Jardin and Lesourd, 13:1, pp. 233–34.

[18. ]Philadelphia, 25 October 1831, Pocket Notebook 3, Mayer, Journey, pp. 155–56. Cf. the 1835 volumes, Democracy (Mayer), pp. 92–93.

[19. ]Conversation with Mr. Guillemin, New Orleans, 1 January 1832, Non-Alph. Notebooks 2 and 3, Mayer, Journey, pp. 104–5; also see “Coup d’oeil of New Orleans,” ibid., pp. 381–83.

[20. ]4 January 1832, Pocket Notebook 3, ibid., p. 166.

[21. ]“Means of Increasing Public Prosperity,” Notebook E, ibid., p. 272.

[22. ][1 October 1831], Pocket Notebook 3, ibid., p. 150. An additional American attitude should also be noted here. Repeatedly Tocqueville and Beaumont noticed a deep American fear of centralized power and especially of great cities or political capitals. For elaboration see chapter 8 above.

[23. ]Toc. to M. le Comte de Tocqueville (father), Washington, 24 January 1832, Toc. letters, Yale, BIa1, Paquet 15, pp. 72–73.

[24. ]This and following passages from “Coup d’oeil sur l’administration française,” Essays by Father, Chabrol, and Blosseville, Yale Toc. Ms., CIIIa, Paquet 16, pp. 23–47.

[25. ]Letter-essay from Chabrol, Yale, CIIIa, Paquet 16, pp. 57–58. The complete contributions from Chabrol and Blosseville are found on pp. 48–59 and pp. 59–69, respectively.

[26. ]On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application in France, pp. 125, 128; hereafter cited as Penitentiary System. This is another excellent illustration of how closely Tocqueville and Beaumont worked as an intellectual team.

[27. ]My emphasis; “Centralization,” 24 August 1833, Mayer, Journeys to England, pp. 61–62. Also see Conversation with Lord Radnor, Longford Castle, 1 September 1833, ibid., p. 58.

[28. ]“Uniformity,” undated, ibid., pp. 65–66. Compare these remarks to the 1835 volumes, Democracy (Mayer), pp. 91–92, 161–63.

[29. ]At one time he planned a single large chapter entitled “Du gouvernement et de l’administration aux Etats-Unis.” See Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13.

[30. ]For his study of the states, see Drafts, Yale, CVh, Paquet 3, cahier 1, pp. 27–28, where he listed various titles of state histories, and pp. 97–114, where he discussed some other sources and ideas on administration. For his decision about five models, consult pp. 85 and 91. This choice had obvious dangers; it was unbalanced in terms of old/new, east/west, and north/south. Only one of the five was not among the original thirteen states, yet eleven new states had joined the Union. And Tocqueville included no state from the deep South or from the Southwest. In the 1835 work, Tocqueville would particularly single out Massachusetts; see Democracy (Mayer), p. 63.

[31. ]Nos. 1 and 2, drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, pp. 1–2.

[32. ]Nos. 3 and 4, ibid., pp. 16–17. Compare Democracy (Mayer), pp. 69, 72.

[33. ]Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, p. 15; also see p. 12. Cf. Democracy (Mayer), pp. 71, 72.

[34. ]Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, p. 15.

[35. ]Ibid., p. 24.

[36. ]Drafts, Yale, CVe, Paquet 17, pp. 57–58. Cf. in the 1835 volumes, Democracy (Mayer), p. 87.

[37. ]Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, pp. 11–12; compare in the 1835 work, Democracy (Mayer), pp. 87–88.

[38. ]Drafts, Yale, CVh, Paquet 3, cahier 1, pp. 78–79. Cf. Democracy (Mayer), pp. 363–68, especially pp. 364–65.

[39. ]Democracy (Mayer), p. 87.

[40. ]Ponteil, Institutions, pp. 159–64, demonstrates the particularly high level of interest, during the early and mid-1830s, in the issue of decentralization and notes that by the middle of the decade several participants in the literary debate were writing about two types of centralization, administrative and governmental. Whether Tocqueville’s 1835 Democracy influenced these theorists or whether the distinction was already fairly common among French political thinkers (and merely borrowed by Tocqueville) is not entirely clear.

[41. ]See, for example, Jardin’s criticism about how Tocqueville’s distinction remains imprecise, Jardin, “Décentralisation,” pp. 105 note, 105–6.

[42. ]Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, pp. 11–12. Compare Democracy (Mayer), pp. 87–89.

[43. ]“Political Effects of Administrative Decentralization,” Original Working Ms., Yale, CVIa, tome 1. See Democracy (Mayer), pp. 88–89. Also compare pp. 97, 723–24.

[44. ]Later Laboulaye would describe Tocqueville’s call for greater freedom for the French commune as utopian for the year 1835; see Laboulaye, L’Etat, pp. 166–70.

[45. ]Democracy (Mayer), pp. 62–63.

[46. ]Ibid., pp. 68–69.

[47. ]Ibid., p. 88.

[48. ]Democracy (Bradley), 1:310.

[49. ]Drafts, Yale, CVh, Paquet 3, cahier 1, p. 24; also see pp. 23–26.

[50. ]Drafts, Yale, CVe, Paquet 17, p. 60.

[51. ]Drafts, Yale, CVb, Paquet 13, p. 26.

[52. ]Democracy (Mayer), pp. 96–97. Also consult Drafts, Yale, CVh, Paquet 3, cahier 1, p. 77, and cahier 2, pp. 48–49.

[53. ]For a different opinion on this question, see Seymour Drescher, Tocqueville and England, p. 78, and “Tocqueville’s Two Démocraties.”

[54. ]On the originality of Tocqueville’s views, consult particularly J.-J. Chevallier, “De la Distinction des sociétés aristocratiques et des sociétés démocratiques,” p. 18. Also see Laboulaye, L’Etat, pp. 160–71.