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FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF DALLAS VOLUME 5, NUMBER 1 Chronicler of the American Democratic Experiment

The Early Years bring Tocqueville fame and honors. In Born in in 1805, Alexis- 1833, about a year after Tocqueville We are pleased to add this piece on Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville returned to France, the report on Alexis de Tocqueville to our series of profiles entered the world in the early and most American , The U.S. Penitentiary powerful days of Napoleon’s . System and Its Application in France, that began with Frédéric Bastiat and Friedrich His parents were of the nobility and was published. von Hayek. Both Bastiat and Hayek were had taken the historical family name of Things in France changed for Beau- strong and influential proponents of indi- Tocqueville, which dated from the mont and Tocqueville upon their return early and was a region after 10 months in America. Both men vidual and free enterprise. While they of France known previously as the left the . Beaumont was offi- approached those topics from a theoretical Leverrier . cially let go, and Tocqueville resigned perspective, Tocqueville’s views on early Tocqueville’s father supported the in sympathetic protest. Tocqueville then French and played no seri- had ample time to work on his master- American and French were based ous role in public affairs until after piece, . Volume 1 on his keen personal observations and his- Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo, was published in 1835. The English torical analysis. Although Tocqueville was which followed the restoration of the translation appeared later that same year monarchy under the Bourbon king Louis to wide European and American acclaim. Bastiat’s contemporary, even serving with him XVIII in 1814. The elder Tocqueville The more philosophical Volume 2 was in the French during the then served as prefect successively at published in 1840. great turmoil in post- France, , Amiens and Versailles. Alexis fol- From its first appearance, this work lowed his father in civil employment has been considered a masterpiece of he is best known for his travels in the United when, at the age of 21, he was observation, speculation, historical States, where he observed and studied appointed at Versailles. Alexis writing and sound political theorizing. American democracy in action in the 1830s. had studied rhetoric and in Its author was elevated to the League of secondary school and at the College Honor, the Academy of Moral and The result was his two-volume classic, Royale before studying for three Democracy in America. years in Paris. We hope this brief biography of the It was at Versailles that Alexis met , a deputy pub- Is a Democracy Immune man who painted a vivid of the lic prosecutor, who became both his from the Despotic Impulse? American people helps students and others lifelong friend and his traveling com- panion to America. Ostensibly, their I believe that it is easier to establish an better understand the unique character of absolute and despotic among a trip through America was a leave for our democracy and . For a fuller people in which the conditions of are the two men to study the sys- equal than among any other; and I think that if treatment, look up a new book, Tocqueville on tem in the eastern . But such a government were once established among such a people, it not only would oppress American Character, by Michael A. Ledeen of according to Beaumont, behind that pretext lay an interest in and a desire men, but would eventually strip each of them of the American Enterprise Institute, published several of the highest qualities of humanity. to study American democracy more , therefore, appears to me peculiarly by Truman Talley Books. generally. to be dreaded in democratic times. And so, Tocqueville and Beaumont I should have loved freedom, I believe, at — Bob McTeer landed in New York on May 10, 1831, all times, but in the time in which we live, I am President ready to worship it. Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and began what became one of his- ’s most famous journeys. The result —From Democracy in America, Vol. 2, 322 was two books, both of which would tine by the narrowest of margins.) He An Early Advocate of ‘Welfare Reform’ sat on the committee that drafted the There are two kinds of welfare. One leads ity of men can be sufficiently motivated to work new French , but his opin- each individual according to his means, to alleviate only by the first of these incentives. The second is ions in support of both separation of the evils he sees around him. This type is as old effective only with a small minority. Well, the char- powers and were rejected as the world; it began with misfortune. itable institution indiscriminately open to all those by the whole assembly. Tocqueville’s Christianity made a divine virtue of it and called it in need, or a law that gives all the poor a right to effectiveness in the was charity. The other, less instructive, more reasoned, public , whatever the origin of their poverty, greatly hampered by his inability to less emotional, and often more powerful, leads weakens or destroys the first stimulant and leaves compromise. society to concern itself with the misfortunes of its only the second intact. The English peasant, like the members and is ready systematically to alleviate Spanish peasant, if he does not feel the deep desire Having completed the new consti- their sufferings. This type is born of Protestantism to better the position into which he has been born, tution by the end of 1848, France then and has developed only in modern . The and to raise himself out of his misery (a feeble elected its first independent president, first type is a private virtue; it escapes social action; desire which is easily crushed in the majority of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the second, on the contrary, is produced and regu- men)—the peasant of both , I maintain, Napoleon I. Tocqueville distrusted lated by society. It is therefore with the second that has no interest in working, or, if he works, has no Louis Napoleon, and his misgivings we must be especially concerned. interest in saving. He therefore remains idle or were shortly borne out. At first glance, there is no idea that seems thoughtlessly squanders the fruits of his labors. more beautiful and grander than that of public char- Both these countries, by different causal patterns, Tocqueville became a member of ity. Society is continually examining itself, probing arrive at the same result: the most generous, the the new in 1849 and its wounds, and undertaking to cure them. At the most active, the most industrious part of the the new government’s emissary to same time that it assures the rich the enjoyment of devotes its resources to furnishing the means of Germany. He was named foreign min- their wealth, society guarantees the poor against existence for those who do nothing or who make ister as Louis Napoleon sought, without excessive misery. It asks some to give of their sur- bad use of their labor….Is it possible to escape the subtlety, to secure Tocqueville’s sup- plus in order to allow others the basic necessities. fatal consequences of a good principle? For myself port. But when Louis dissolved the This is certainly a moving and elevating sight…. I consider them inevitable….Any measure that Almost two and a half centuries have passed since establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and National Assembly in 1851 because the principle of legal charity was fully embraced by gives it an administrative form thereby creates an under the constitution he could not our neighbors [England], and one may now judge idle and lazy class, living at the expense of the be re-elected, Tocqueville withdrew his the fatal consequences that flowed from the adop- industrial and working class. This, at least, is its guarded support. Louis staged a mili- tion of this principle….Since the poor have an inevitable consequence if not the immediate result. tary coup. For his vocal to absolute right to the help of society, and have a It reproduced all the vices of the monastic system, this act of political usurpation, Tocque- organized to provide it every- minus the high ideals of morality and that ville was imprisoned overnight. He where, one can observe in a Protestant often went along with it. Such a law is a bad seed the immediate rebirth and generalization of all the planted in the legal structure. Circumstances, as in wrote an account of his ordeal and a abuses with which its reformers rightly reproached America, can prevent the seed from developing strong criticism of Louis Napoleon’s some Catholic countries. Man, like all socially orga- rapidly, but they cannot destroy it, and if the pre- tactics that was smuggled out of France nized beings, has a natural passion for idleness. sent generation escapes its influence, it will devour and published in Britain’s London Times. There are, however, two incentives to work: the the well-being of generations to come. In general, Tocqueville was more effec- need to live and the desire to improve the condi- tive as an observer–writer than as a tions of life. Experience has proven that the major- —From Memoir on Pauperism, 51–58 . The Final Years Political and finally, in 1841, of 1848, which Tocqueville In the spring of 1849, Tocqueville to the French Academy. Democracy in alone predicted a month before it became ill and was diagnosed with America was translated into all major occurred, he was elected to the Con- . By 1852, he was forced languages at the time and sold all over stituent Assembly in Paris. With Louis- to withdraw from public affairs be- the world. Philippe’s abdication, the so-called cause he refused to take a loyalty Second died in 1848. oath to the new regime and also The Political Years Although Tocqueville had little because he was in failing health. He Tocqueville ran for the Chamber of love for the departed monarchy, he went into “internal exile.”1 But he con- Deputies, losing in 1837 but winning in feared the Parisian tinued to write until his death at 54 in 1839 and then serving continuously because he considered all a 1859. His book Souvenirs (1851) was until 1848, as an independent threat to general liberty as they un- a mirror through which he observed constitutionalist. He married Mary Mott- folded. (His view, no doubt, was influ- himself.2 ley in 1835 and, upon his mother’s enced by his own family’s tribulations Another celebrated work, The death the following year, inherited the during the . His Ancient Regime and the Origins of family estates in Tocqueville. After the father and mother escaped the guillo- the French Revolution (1856), demon- remains one of the most reliable An Amazing Prediction sources on the early of the A Timely Reminder About About America and Russia United States, for unlike so many of Wealth, Freedom and Public his literary contemporaries, he harbored Life, with a Sober Prediction There are at the present time two great no animus toward the country and was in the world, which started from differ- Thus the men of democratic times require ent points, but seem to tend towards the same an honest observer. Over the years, some commenta- to be free in order to procure more readily those end. I allude to the Russians and the Americans. physical enjoyments for which they are always Both of them have grown up unnoticed; and tors have raised questions about longing. It sometimes happens, however, that while the attention of mankind was directed Tocqueville’s visit to America, mostly the excessive taste they conceive for these same elsewhere, they have suddenly placed them- centered on its timing and execution. enjoyments makes them surrender to the first selves in the front rank among the nations, and master who appears. The passion for worldly the world learned their existence and their great- For example, the entire trip lasted 286 days, a short period given the scope of welfare then defeats itself and, without their per- ness at almost the same time. ceiving it, throws the object of their desires to a All other nations seem to have nearly his planned travel and the of pub- greater distance. There is, indeed, a most dan- reached their natural limits, and they have only lic and private transportation. Of those gerous passage in the history of a democratic to maintain their power; but these are still in the days, 271 of which were in the United people. When the taste for physical gratifications act of growth. All the others have stopped, or among them has grown more rapidly than their continue to advance with extreme difficulty; States, 140 were spent in cities—mostly in the North and West—and only 40 education and their experience of free institu- these alone are proceeding with ease and celer- tions, the time will come when men are carried ity along a path to which no limit can be per- were spent in the South. Is Tocque- away and will lose all self-restraint at the sight of ceived. The American struggles against the ville’s analysis biased by Northern the new possessions that they are about to obstacles that nature opposes to him; the adver- urbanity? Biographer Andre Jardin best obtain. In their intense and exclusive anxiety to saries of the Russian are men. The former com- make a fortune they lose sight of the close con- bats the wilderness and savage life; the latter, sums up this unfortunate, if accidental, allocation of travel time: “It was during nection that exists between the private fortune of with all its arms. The conquests of each and the prosperity of all. It is not necessary the American are therefore gained by the plow- these years [specifically, 1836] that to do violence to such a people in order to strip share; those of the Russian by the sword. The Michael Chevalier made the distinction, them of the they enjoy; they themselves Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to which has remained classic, between willingly loosen their hold. The discharge of accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the political duties appears to them to be a trouble- unguided strength and of the two types of Americans, the Yankee and the Virginian. Tocqueville observed some impediment which diverts them from their people; the Russian centers all the of occupations and . If they are required to society in a single arm. The principal instrument and listened to the first much more elect representatives, to support the government of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. than to the second. This was not delib- by personal service, to meet on public business, Their starting point is different and their courses erate—the latter part of their stay was they think they have no time, they cannot waste are not the same; yet each of them seems disrupted...and unforeseen incidents their precious hours in useless engagements; marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the such amusements are unsuited to serious forced them to change their plans so destinies of half the globe. men who are engaged with the more important that they were not able to remain in —From Democracy in America, Vol. 1, 434 interests of life. These people think they are fol- Charleston, where they had intended to lowing the principle of self-interest, but the idea study Southern society, or to visit James they entertain of that principle is a very crude Madison, the former president, now in one; and the better to look after what they call strated that the strongly implied egali- retirement at Montpelier, his home near their own business, they neglect their chief 5 business, which is to remain their own tarian leanings of Democracy in America Charlottesville, Virginia.” masters….By such a nation [a wealthy, self- had become tempered by an equally To what extent Tocqueville might absorbed one] the despotism of faction is not intense distrust of popular revolution- have produced a different work had he less to be dreaded than the despotism of an indi- ary periods. spent more time in the American South, vidual. When the bulk of the are Tocqueville traveled widely and with its major cultural differences when engrossed by private concerns, the smallest par- ties need not despair of getting the upper hand saw a great deal of political intrigue compared with the industrial North, in public affairs. At such times it is not rare to during his productive middle years, must remain speculative. But given his see on the great stage of the world, as we see in and he left us a rich legacy of early time and travel limitations, Tocqueville our theaters, a multitude represented by a few sociological insights.3 He was an accu- produced a magnificent account of players, who alone speak in the name of an rate observer, even though he was the “essence of America” as he saw and absent or inattentive crowd; they alone are in action, while all others are stationary; they regu- passionately intense toward all his felt it. late everything by their own caprice; they subjects. Yet, despite his zeal, as a his- Democracy in America is a classic change the and tyrannize at will over the torian and chronicler he managed to of both historiography and . manners of the country; and then men wonder remain virtually dispassionate.4 In this Tocqueville is much more a 19th cen- to see into how small a number of weak and approach, Tocqueville set a standard tury interpreter of America—and its worthless hands a great people may fall. that modern social scientists and his- various possible futures—than a detail- —From Democracy in America, Vol. 2, 140–42 torians would do well to emulate. He oriented diarist on a long field trip. His work elucidates why he admired America but doesn’t omit those aspects A New and Unique Despotism—Democratic he didn’t admire. He lists in detail some I think, then, that the species of oppression they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happi- of his fears for the new nation’s possi- by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike ness such a government willingly labors, but it ble future. Americans can still profit im- anything that ever before existed in the world; our chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of mensely from his discourses on the contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their that happiness; it provides for their security, fore- problematic nature of pure, majority- memories. I seek in vain for an expression that will sees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their accurately convey the whole of the idea I have pleasures, manages their principal concerns, driven power, a fear shared by the formed of it; the old words despotism and tyranny directs their industry, regulates the descent of founders who wrote the U.S. Consti- are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since , and subdivides their : what tution. I cannot name, I must attempt to define it. remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking Like Lafayette before him, Tocque- I seek to trace the novel features under which and the trouble of living?… ville left America the better for having despotism may appear in the world. The first thing After having thus successively taken each that strikes the observation is an innumerable mul- member of the community in its powerful grasp been here. His body rests today on his titude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then old estate in the village of Tocqueville, endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleas- extends its arm over the whole community. It cov- near modern-day . ures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, ers the surface of society with a network of small living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the complicated rules, minute and uniform, through — Robert L. Formaini rest; his children and his private friends constitute which the most original minds and the most ener- to him the whole of mankind. As for the rest of his getic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the Senior fellow citizens, he is close to them, but he does not crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but soft- see them; he touches them, but he does not feel ened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by Notes them; he exists only in himself and for himself it to act, but they are constantly restrained from 1 Jardin (1988), Part V. alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it pre- 2 be said at any rate to have lost his country. vents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it com- Jardin (1988), 453. 3 Above this race of men stands an immense presses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a Barzun (2000), 538. and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better 4 Barzun (2000), 537. secure their gratifications and to watch over their than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of 5 Jardin (1988), 107. fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, prov- which the government is the shepherd…. ident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a Our contemporaries are constantly excited by References parent if, like that authority, its object was to pre- two conflicting passions: they want to be led and pare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the con- they wish to remain free. [Emphasis added] Barzun, Jacques (2000), From Dawn to trary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well Decadence (New York: Harper Collins). content that the people should rejoice, provided —From Democracy in America, Vol. 2, 318–19 Jardin, Andre (1988), Tocqueville: A Biography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press).

Tocqueville, Alexis de (1990), Democracy in America, Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage Books), Why Does Democratic Government Always Grow? orig. pub. 1835. In democratic nothing but the his own benefit, although he would restrict it on ——— (1990), Democracy in America, Vol. 2 central power has any stability in its position or any all other occasions. If a large number of men (New York: Vintage Books), orig. pub. 1840. permanence in its undertakings. All the citizens are applies this particular exception to a great variety in ceaseless stir and transformation. Now, it is in of different purposes, the sphere of the ——— (1997), Memoir on Pauperism the nature of all to seek constantly to central power extends itself imperceptibly in all (Chicago: Ivan Dee), orig. pub. 1835. enlarge their sphere of action; hence it is almost directions, although everyone wishes it to be impossible that such a government should not ulti- circumscribed. mately succeed, because it acts with a fixed princi- Thus a democratic government increases its ple and a constant will upon men whose position, power simply by the fact of its permanence. Time is ideas, and desires are constantly changing. on its side; every incident befriends it; the passions It frequently happens that the members of the of individuals unconsciously promote it; and it may Economic Insights is a publication of the community promote the influence of the central be asserted that the older a democratic community Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The views power without intending to. Democratic eras are is, the more centralized will its government expressed are those of the authors and should periods of experiment, and adventure. become….The foremost or indeed the sole condi- not be attributed to the Federal Reserve System. There is always a multitude of men engaged in dif- tion required in order to succeed in centralizing the ficult or novel undertakings, which they follow by supreme power in a democratic community is to Please address all correspondence to themselves without shackling themselves to their love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Economic Insights fellows. Such persons will admit, as a general prin- Thus the of despotism, which was once so Public Affairs Department ciple, that the public authority ought not to interfere complex, is simplified, and reduced, as it were, to a Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in private concerns; but, by an exception to that single principle. P.O. Box 655906 rule, each of them craves its assistance in the par- Dallas, TX 75265-5906 ticular concern on which he is engaged and seeks —From Democracy in America, Visit our web site at www.dallasfed.org. to draw upon the influence of the government for Vol. 2, 294 and 302