Revolution and the Republic

by Jeremy Jennings

  itself ’.181 First among these was the federal system of government, which served

  to deprive the majority of the ‘most perfect’ instrument of tyranny. Central

  government had been able to increase neither its power nor prerogatives. Next

  came the absence of a centralized administration, and with that the townships and

  municipal bodies which not only checked the ‘tide of popular determination’ but

  also gave the people ‘a taste for freedom and the art of being free’. The third

  counterweight to democracy came in the shape of judicial power and the character

  of the legal profession. In such a society the latter constituted something of a

  natural aristocracy and the only one with which, without violence, democracy

  could be combined. As a general rule, the members of the legal profession were the

  friends of order and the opponents of innovation, and because of this they had a

  tendency ‘to neutralize the vices inherent in popular government’. Moreover, in

  America, the legal profession had the all-important power of being able to declare

  laws to be unconstitutional.

  More than this, democracy in America was preserved from the tyranny of the

  majority by ‘the manners and customs of the people’. This had many dimensions,

  but Tocqueville primarily focused upon the extensive impact of religion upon

  American life.182 What Tocqueville perceived clearly were the beneficial conse-

  quences of religion as a social force, irrespective of its doctrinal elements. Religion

  acted so as to elevate the aspirations of the majority, thereby making them more

  aware of the significance of human liberty. Secondly, religion diminished the

  element of caprice, of arbitrariness, that could inform the motives of the democratic

  majority. ‘[W]hile the law permits Americans to do everything’, Tocqueville

  180 Ibid. 266.

  181 Manent, Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, 26.

  182 See Agnès Antoine, L’Impensé de la démocratie: Tocqueville, la citoyenneté, et la religion (2003).

  186

  Commerce, Usurpation, and Democracy

  remarked, ‘religion prevents them from conceiving everything and forbids them to

  dare everything.’183

  Tocqueville ended these reflections upon the factors that maintained democracy

  in America with a consideration of their relevance to Europe.184 The most impor-

  tant dimension of these remarks followed from his conclusion that anyone in

  France who wished to revive the monarchies of either Henri IV or Louis XIV

  must be afflicted by mental blindness. Given the present condition of society there

  was but the choice between ‘democratic liberty or the tyranny of the Caesars’. If this

  was our fate, should we not, he asked, incline towards the former rather than

  submit to the latter? Again, Tocqueville did not contend that France should copy

  the American example but he did believe that, unless France could succeed in

  gradually introducing democratic institutions and in securing ‘the peaceable do-

  minion of the majority’, then sooner or later it would ‘fall under the unlimited

  power of one man’.

  To recall: these lines were published in 1835. Five years later, and to much less

  acclaim, the second volume of De la Démocratie en Amérique was published.

  Increasingly aware of the enthusiasm of Americans for physical well-being, Tocque-

  ville now perceived that ‘self-interest rightly understood’ was one of the guiding

  principles of American society.185 Individualism––the ‘calm and considered feeling

  which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and

  withdraw into the circle of his family and friends’––was the chief vice of democratic

  man.186 It sapped ‘public virtues’ and in time produced outright ‘selfishness’.

  Nevertheless it was through the art of association––‘Americans of all ages, all

  conditions, and all persuasions’, Tocqueville wrote, ‘constantly unite’187––that

  America had combated individualism. Association, he admitted, did not call forth

  heroic virtues but it did serve to form ‘a multitude of citizens who are orderly,

  temperate, moderate, farsighted, masters of themselves’.188 Underlying this was an

  awareness that despotism prospered in a situation characterized by the social

  isolation of men.

  This is a dimension of Tocqueville’s argument that has tended to be overlooked.

  Towards the end of the second volume of De la Démocratie en Amérique Tocque-

  ville remarked that ‘the type of oppression with which democratic peoples are

  threatened will be different from anything there has been in the world before. Our

  contemporaries would find no image of it in their memories.’189 As he could not

  name it, Tocqueville continued, he must define it. His description was as follows:

  ‘In past centuries, there has never been a sovereign so absolute and so powerful that,

  without the aid of secondary powers, it undertook to administer every part of a

  great empire. There were none who ever tried to subject all their subjects indis-

  criminately to the details of a uniform rule.’ Had they done so, ‘inadequate

  education, an imperfect administrative machinery, and above all the obstacles raised

  by unequal conditions would soon have put an end to such a grandiose design’.190

  183 Tocqueville, De la Démocratie, i/1. 306.

  184 Ibid. 326–30.

  185 Ibid. i/2. 127–30.

  186 Ibid. 105.

  187 Ibid. 113.

  188 Ibid. 129.

  189 Ibid. 324.

  190 Ibid. 322.

  Commerce, Usurpation, and Democracy

  187

  Despotism in the past, then, ‘was violent but its extent was restricted’. Now,

  however, the State possessed the capacity to administer the entire country and,

  furthermore, did so in a society characterized by near equality. Therefore, as

  Tocqueville wrote, ‘if a despotism should be established among the democratic

  nations of our day, it would have different characteristics. It would be more

  widespread and milder, and it would degrade men rather than torment them.’191

  This ‘immense tutelary power’ would provide for our safety, secure our happiness,

  and provide for our needs. Rather than destroy and tyrannize, it would hinder,

  restrain, enervate, stifle, and stultify, and so much so that, in the end, each nation

  would be ‘no more than a flock of timid and hard-working animals with the

  government as its shepherd’.192

  Here was a form of despotism that had been unfamiliar to both Montesquieu

  and Constant. Moreover, one of the principal sources of this new kind of

  despotism had arguably been overlooked by Tocqueville himself in the first

  volume of his study of America.193 At its outset, the main thrust of Tocqueville’s

  argument had been that the equality of conditions favoured the centralization of

  power, and from this much by way of despotism sprang. This, he now saw, was

  not the whole picture. ‘In the modern nations of Europe’, Tocqueville wrote in

  1840, ‘there is one great cause . . . which constantly contributes to extending the

  action of the sovereign and to increasing its prerogatives. . . . This cause is the

  development of industry, which is favoured by the progress of equality.’194 By
<
br />   bringing a multitude of people together in the same place, new relations between

  men were created: ‘The industrial class, more than other classes, needs to be

  regulated, supervised, and restrained, and it naturally follows that the functions of

  government grow with it.’195 Not only this, but as nations industrialized they felt

  the need for roads, canals, ports, and ‘other semi-public works’. In such circum-

  stances, not only did the government become the leading industrialist but it

  tended also to be the master of all others. Governments thus came to appropriate

  the greater part of the produce of industry and to employ enormous numbers of

  people. State control became ever more intrusive and minute and, little by little,

  all initiative was taken away from the private individual and handed over to a

  government that constantly extended its reach and functions.

  We might conclude this discussion of De la Démocratie en Amérique with two

  observations from Tocqueville. The first is his comment that, for all the faults of the

  system of soft despotism, it was still ‘infinitely preferable to [a constitution] which,

  after having concentrated all powers, would hand them over to one irresponsible

  man or body of men’.196 The worst of all despotisms remained that of arbitrary and

  indiscriminate rule by fear. Second, Tocqueville commented that ‘in the dawning

  centuries of democracy, individual independence and local liberties will always be

  191 Ibid. 323.

  192 Ibid. 325.

  193 See Boesche, Tocqueville’s Road Map, 59–84, 189–210.

  194 Tocqueville, De la Démocratie, i/2. 315.

  195 Ibid. 315–16.

  196 Ibid. 325.

  188

  Commerce, Usurpation, and Democracy

  a product of art’.197 In short, whether the equality of conditions would lead to

  servitude or liberty depended upon the actions of men themselves.

  In 1839 Tocqueville entered parliament, where he remained until 1851, sitting

  on the centre-left of the parliamentary chamber. In 1841, at the tender age of 36, he

  was elected to the Académie Française. That same year, he visited the French colony

  of Algeria, and although he criticized military practices, stoutly defended the

  French imperial project.198 In 1844–5 he, along with several friends, edited the

  daily newspaper, Le Commerce, a short-lived experiment that brought little success

  or prestige.199 In political terms he found himself increasingly disenchanted with

  the policies pursued by the governments of the July Monarchy, and even less

  impressed by what he saw as a decline in the standards of public life.200 Although

  opposed to the Revolution of 1848, Tocqueville believed initially that the new

  regime would give ‘more liberty to individuals’. He persisted in stating that France

  had something to learn from American constitutional forms.201 What followed

  dashed these illusions. Having been first removed from government, with the coup

  d’état of 2 December 1851 Tocqueville was briefly imprisoned. After this he retired

  from public life. In the few years remaining to him Tocqueville wrote, but did not

  complete, L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution.

  A letter written to one of his many American correspondents reveals how quickly

  Tocqueville discerned the nature of the regime headed by Louis Napoleon. All of

  those, he commented, ‘who have received a liberal education and who have

  involved themselves either directly or indirectly in public affairs understand and

  clearly see that in the name of the sovereignty of the nation all public liberties have

  been destroyed, that the appearance of a popular election has served to establish a

  despotism which is more absolute than any of those which have appeared in France

  before’.202 Tocqueville did not waiver from this view, although presumably he took

  no pleasure in seeing his prediction come true.

  The 1850s were bleak years for Tocqueville, his failing health accompanied by

  mounting political pessimism. More generally, this decade and the one following

  proved to be extremely difficult for those who entertained liberal opinions and for

  those who viewed France’s willing embrace of Bonapartist despotism with dismay.

  Tocqueville’s own political evolution was symptomatic of this. At this point we

  will leave aside his justly famous analysis of the nature of French society and

  197 Tocqueville, De la Démocratie, 303.

  198 See Seymour Drescher, Dilemmas of Democracy, Tocqueville and Moderation (1968), 151–95,

  and Jennifer Pitts (ed.), Alexis de Tocqueville: Writings on Empire and Slavery (Baltimore. Md.,

  2003).

  199 The prospectus published by the new editors indicated that they would support ‘political liberty

  and equality before the law’ as well as constitutional government: see ‘[Manifeste pour la nouvelle équipe]

  du Commerce’, Œuvres complètes, iii/2. Écrits et discours politiques (1985), 122–5.

  200 See Alexis de Tocqueville, Souvenirs (1999).

  201 Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, iii/3. Écrits et discours politiques (1990), 55–166. In a letter to

  George Bancroft, dated 15 June 1849, Tocqueville explained that he had accepted a ministerial

  position because he sought to ‘re-establish order’ and to strengthen ‘the moderate and constitutional

  republic’: Œuvres complètes, vii. Correspondance étrangère d’Alexis de Tocqueville: Amérique, Europe

  continentale (1986), 125–6.

  202 Ibid. 144.

  Commerce, Usurpation, and Democracy

  189

  government prior to the Revolution of 1789, but we should note that it was in this

  text that Tocqueville gave his clearest statement of what he understood by liberty.

  Freedom, he wrote, ‘is the pleasure of being able to speak, act and breathe without

  constraint, under the government of God and the laws alone’. Next, liberty was to

  be valued only as an end in itself. ‘Whoever seeks for anything from freedom but

  itself’, Tocqueville observed, ‘is made for slavery.’203 Nor was liberty to be confused

  with what Tocqueville termed ‘a narrow individualism’. This he described as ‘the

  desire to enrich oneself at any price, the preference for business, the love of profit,

  the search for material pleasure and comfort’.204 Under the ancien régime, he

  observed, there existed ‘an unusual kind of freedom’. People managed to keep

  ‘their soul free in the midst of the most extreme subjection’. France had not yet

  become ‘the deaf place where we live today’.205 Only liberty, he concluded, could

  bring citizens out of their isolation; only freedom could ‘substitute higher and

  stronger passions for the love of well-being’.206

  Tocqueville’s fascination with America did not diminish.207 He was, he told

  one of his American correspondents, ‘half Yankee’. Nevertheless, as his numerous

  letters reveal, he came to have serious doubts about the society he had once so

  strongly praised and recommended. Writing a week after the proclamation of the

  Second Empire, Tocqueville wrote to Jared Sparks that America had nothing to

  fear but its own excesses––the abuse of democracy, the spirit of adventure and

  conquest, an exaggerated pride in its strength, the impetuosity of youth––and he

  therefore strongly recommended the virtu
es of moderation. But in subsequent

  years he saw mounting levels of political corruption, increasing mob violence

  and lawlessness, the first signs of a reckless imperialism, and declining morals

  and customs. In part he attributed these regrettable developments to the

  growing levels of immigration from outside the English race and thus to the

  relative decline of those whom he always regarded as the ‘Anglo-Americans’.

  He also started to appreciate that American capitalism, with its adventurous,

  gambler spirit, was underpinning the foundations of American democracy.

  Driven forward by men with ‘the instincts of a savage’, he could not imagine

  where it might lead if such people were to gain the upper hand in public affairs. All

  those institutions and practices that had characterized American democracy, the

  artifices that had sustained and nourished it, appeared to be losing their force.

  The election to the presidency of James Buchanan in 1856 only confirmed this

  impression. What Tocqueville now perceived was that, in all probability, slavery

  was to be extended to new states as America moved westwards. The entire prospect

  filled him with horror and despair. Such a development would be ‘a crime against

  humanity’. He saw too that the future of the Union could no longer be taken for

  granted. Writing in 1856, Tocqueville announced sadly that America risked

  203 Tocqueville, Œuvres complètes, ii/1. L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution (1952), 217.

  204 Ibid. 74.

  205 Ibid. 168–77.

  206 Ibid. 75.

  207 See Aurelian Craiutu and Jeremy Jennings (eds.), Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and

  Other Writings (Cambridge, 2009).

  190

  Commerce, Usurpation, and Democracy

  disappointing the hopes of millions of people for a better future, because it offered

  in reality the disquieting spectacle of an unstable regime led by incompetent and

  dishonest leaders, relying on corrupt institutions, and incapable of controlling the

  spirit of excess. ‘Viewed from this side of the ocean’, he told Theodore Sedgwick in

  1856, ‘you have become the puer robustus of Hobbes.’208 The country Tocqueville

  had once seen as a stable and mature democracy, he now regarded as a child who

  responded only to the blandishments of the stick and the carrot.