Democracy in America

Tocqueville explains that his study of American life will concentrate on what struck him most during his stay: “the equality of conditions” (3) that permeates every aspect of society. He notes similar trends in Europe, though they are less developed there and not necessarily popular with those who miss the former system of government.

Tocqueville adopts a historical long view, arguing that equality has been advancing for several centuries, especially in his home country of France. His expansive vision focuses on society more than political events: men who owned property first ruled the entire nation, but the clergy quickly gained social prominence in their own right. Increasingly, society was governed by laws and commercial preoccupations, and more people became literate. Tocqueville sees history largely as a progressive march forward, a continuous evolution toward his own time. Erosion of elite status is a necessary engine of all progress: “discoveries in the arts could not be made, nor improvements in commerce and industry be introduced, without creating almost as many new elements of equality among men” (5). Tocqueville adopts a holistic vision of society and rejects the idea that any sphere of activity is somehow separate from broader social trends. All aspects of human activity “bring progress toward universal leveling” (5), including literature and art.

Tocqueville then asserts that specific events in European history prove his point: The Crusades of the medieval period eroded aristocratic privilege, and the rise of Protestantism brought with it an accompanying insistence on the individual’s own ability to merit salvation. This forward motion did not require deliberation or intent. Instead, Tocqueville argues, “all have worked in common, some despite themselves, others without knowing it, as blind instruments in the hands of God” (6). Democracy and equality, then, are inexorable, foreseen by an omnipotent creator. For Tocqueville, history is like a motor that has already been powered, and humans can be driven along by it regardless of their beliefs.

While he regards this evolutionary process as inevitable, Tocqueville takes care to assert that he is not sanguine about this set of circumstances. Instead, he turned to his current project out of a “religious terror” and a desire to understand a process that he likens to the “sacred character of the sovereign master’s will” (6). He is swept up, just as other individuals have been. The task, for Tocqueville, is to make democracy legible and manageable, to “regulate its movements” (7). He argues that European leaders and elites have not prepared well for these changes or sought to master them, so that democracy has been left to “savage instincts” in absence of leadership (7).

Tocqueville argues that there were positive aspects to aristocratic regimes: Nobles cared for the poor, and serfs did not feel “degraded” by their social position. This only transpires when a governing force is considered “usurped and oppressive” (8). However nostalgic Tocqueville might be for some aspects of this society, he argues that the ultimate goal is to produce a democracy governed by citizens who understand “the law as their work” and an understanding of rights would be so widespread that all citizens “would understand that to profit from society’s benefits, one must submit to its burdens […] the free association of citizens could then replace the individual power of nobles” (9). For all of his regrets about how democracy has historically developed in Europe, Tocqueville is relatively optimistic about human potential: With enough effort, all citizens can come to respect the law and their rights, and to participate in an orderly society. While he argues that a democratic society would lose the “brilliance” that was common in aristocratic ages, the resulting society would be more orderly and peaceful (9).

Tocqueville is careful to emphasize that this improved state of affairs does not yet exist. Instead, aristocratic values have been cast aside without a reliable replacement. Individuals feel weak and powerless. Tocqueville also laments that many supporters of democracy attack religion, and religious individuals attack democracy. This is regrettable, in his view, both because Christianity is a religion of equality and “the reign of freedom cannot be established without that of mores, nor mores founded without beliefs” (11).

If Tocqueville portrays Europe as in chaos and disarray, “where nothing seems any longer to be forbidden or permitted, or honest or shameful” (12), America seems more stable and peaceful, as it has achieved equality by bringing European traditions overseas and expanding on them without a political revolution. Tocqueville argues that the American example is useful because Europeans and Americans have a similar “generative cause of laws and mores” (12), which he does not name but presumably refers to Christianity and shared legal systems.

Tocqueville asserts that his goal is not a “panegyric” or an unqualified embrace of the American system but rather to examine conditions as they are. For him, American democracy is not flawless but a movement away from aristocracy that has “attained the most complete and peaceful development” (13). America is not an ideal but instead serves as a case study of “democracy itself” (13). Tocqueville casts himself as an observer, a scholar, and a social scientist, not as a traveler who merely wished to visit another nation.

Tocqueville then describes the structure of his work. He begins with the influence of democracy in government, both its “goods and ills” (13). Then he moves from government to the influence of democracy in society, including “habits, ideas, and mores” (13). The introduction establishes that Tocqueville’s work spans many disciplines. He is attentive to history and will examine government and its operation, but he is also interested in society and culture. His goal, then, is to study every aspect of America that may be instructive or notable. He concludes by asserting that he did not wish to support any contemporary political agenda in his work, and declares, “I wanted to ponder the future” (16). Tocqueville does not claim objectivity, precisely, so much as disinterest—he claims that his interest is in human progress, and the progress of his own society, more than that of a political party.