The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America s James T. Schleifer The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America Second Edition s james t. schleifer Liberty Fund indianapolis This book is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a foundation established to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. The cuneiform inscription that serves as our logo and as the design motif for our endpapers is the earliest-known written appearance of the word ªfreedomº (amagi), or ªliberty.º It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 b.c. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash. q 2000 Liberty Fund, Inc. All rights reserved First published in 1980 by the University of North Carolina Press Printed in the United States of America 04 03 02 01 00 c 54321 04 03 02 01 00 p 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Schleifer, James T., 1942± The making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-86597-204-4 (hardcover: alk. paper). isbn 0-86597-205-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805±1859. De la deÂmocratie en AmeÂrique. I. Title. jk216 in process 306.280973Ðdc21 99-25721 Liberty Fund, Inc. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 to alison, kate, and meg Mary Mottley, Tocqueville's future wife (ca. 1830) (Courtesy of George W. Pierson) Alexis de Tocqueville (ca. 1830) (Courtesy of George W. Pierson) Contents s List of Illustrations xi Foreword by George W. Pierson xiii Preface to the Liberty Fund Edition xix Preface to the First Edition xxi part i Tocqueville's Second Voyage to America, 1832±1840 1. The Writing of the First Part of the Democracy 3 2. An Expanding Task Resumed 23 part ii How to Account for America? Tocqueville Looks at Some Particular Causes Physiques 3. An Hypothesis Weighed and Rejected 49 4. Further Considerations of Environment 65 5. Was Race a Sufficient Explanation of the American Character? 82 6. The Transformation of a Continent 97 part iii Tocqueville and the Union: The Nature and Future of American Federalism 7. The Bond between the States and the Central Government 115 x Contents 8. A Prophet in Error 135 9. How Large Might a Republic Be? 149 part iv Democracy, Centralization, and Democratic Despotisms 10. Centralization and Local Liberties 161 11. Where Would Power Accumulate? 185 12. Administrative Centralization and Some Remedies 203 13. Tocqueville's Changing Visions of Democratic Despotism 221 part v Democracy, the Individual, and the Masses 14. The Tyranny of the Majority 241 15. The Tyranny of the Majority: Some Paradoxes 265 16. Would DeÂmocratie Usher in a New Dark Ages? 279 17. DeÂmocratie and EgoõÈsme 290 18. From EgoõÈsme to Individualisme 305 part vi What Tocqueville Meant by DeÂmocratie 19. Some Meanings of DeÂmocratie 325 20. Tocqueville's Return to America 340 Epilogue: How Many Democracies? 354 Selected Bibliography 369 Index 387 Illustrations s Mary Mottley v Alexis de Tocqueville vi A page of the original working manuscript 14 M. le Comte Herve de Tocqueville 18 Gustave de Beaumont 19 Title page of De la DeÂmocratie en AmeÂrique, 1835 20 Alexis de Tocqueville 24 From the ªRubishº 26 The Tocqueville ChaÃteau 27 Demander aÁ G. [Gustave] et L. [Louis] 43 Foreword s Tocqueville? In this second half of the twentieth centuryÐin our age of social anxieties and national self-questioningÐthoughtful people have been turning more and more to the complex but extraordinar- ily illuminating work that the young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocque- ville, composed about us almost a century and a half ago. This work was entitled Democracy in America (De la DeÂmocratie en AmeÂrique), and it appeared, as we know, in four volumes. The ®rst two volumes, published in 1835 and translated in England and republished in an American edition in 1838, described and analyzed the American experiment with a clarity, balance, and penetration that were astonishing, and with an overall approval that surprised and delighted American readers. Overnight they became classic and were printed and reprinted, with editions for use in our schools. The second two volumes, only ®nished and translated in 1840, seemed to focus on equality, or egalitarianism in the modern world, at least as much as on American democratic self-government. Obviously they were philosophic and more remote. Less obviously, we were not cul- turally ready to assimilate Tocqueville's pioneering projections into the psychology and sociology of the masses. We regarded ourselves as exceptions, as under a special destiny. So volumes three and four were accepted, but much less read. Then times changed. After the Civil War, as nationalism replaced federalism, and as industrialism took over and the cities grew, Tocque- ville's institutional descriptions of what had been an agrarian repub- lic (volumes one and two) became more and more out of date, while xiv Foreword his anxieties about the democratic masses (volumes three and four) appeared to have been refuted by the dazzling expansion and pros- perity of the nation. In 1888 James Bryce published his American Commonwealth. And in short order this new classic replaced the old Democracy in schools or private libraries. So Tocqueville was almost forgottenÐbut has now been revived. A part of the Tocqueville revival (which began about 1938 and which bids fair to continue for many years) was the rediscovery of the Democracy in America, and especially of the second two volumes. What Tocqueville had had to say about American materialism and money-mindedness, about the cultural shallowness of an activist and problem-oriented society, about the instincts and jealous mediocrity of the masses, about the tyranny of the majority and suffocation by sheer numbers, about what wars might do to substitute centraliza- tion for freedom, or about the risks of despotism from a democra- tized bureaucracy, or about the loss of private energy in a welfare stateÐindeed about an astonishing range of contemporary discom- forts and anxietiesÐrather suddenly and irresistibly, after the Great Depression and World War II and the disillusionments of our world- wide responsibilities, came to seem prophetic, and not only prophetic but challenging and profoundly instructive. So the DeÂmocratie has been partially or wholly retranslated in two important new editions, has reentered the curriculum in our colleges and universities, and is resorted to and quoted by writers of all parties and persuasions (see the able analysis by Robert Nisbet, ªMany Tocquevilles,ºin American Scholar, winter 1976±77). A second element contributing to the Tocqueville revival on both sides of the Atlantic has been the recovery, publication, and study of a fascinating variety of Tocqueville and Tocqueville-related manu- scripts. This began with the discovery of the existence of the U.S. travel notes and diaries and letters home of Alexis de Tocquevilleand his friend and traveling companion Gustave de Beaumont. These were ®rst used in my Tocqueville and Beaumont in America and have now in considerable part been printed in the Oeuvres compleÁtes d' Alexis de Tocqueville: a still-growing edition which since 1951 has been in the process of republishing all of Tocqueville's works, together with his published and unpublished papers and conversations and letters. Recently the head of the editorial working committee, Andre Jardin, and I have also brought out Beaumont's Lettres d' AmeÂrique, 1831± Foreword xv 1832. And over the years a collection has been forming at Yale which includes not only the many other surviving Beaumont documents but copies of lost Tocqueville materials and the original drafts and the working manuscript of the Democracy itself. So there has come into existence, or been recovered, a wide and informative range of materials on the background, circumstances, composition, and re- ception of Tocqueville's masterpiece. Rediscovery of TocquevilleÐrecovery of his papersÐyet there has been one thing missing. Critics and commentators have reread him. Scholars and students have been focusing on particular aspects of Tocqueville's life, his experiences in England or the revolution of 1848, his religious beliefs or his social and political thoughtÐalmost to the point of generating a small but ¯ourishing Tocqueville industry. Yet up until now no one has had the courage to tackle the great vol- ume (I should say the formidable mass) of Tocqueville's difficult and sometimes almost indecipherable notes and drafts and essays and working manuscript for his celebrated masterpieceÐto ®nd out how and why it was put together. This study of the manufacture, or rather of the creation, of the Democracy is what James T. Schleifer has at- tempted, and with impressive results. The ®rst clear gain for students of Tocqueville and of his DeÂmocra- tie is a many-sided enlargement of our information. Schleifer shows not only when Tocqueville wrote the different parts of his bookÐ and where and under what in¯uences or pressures of circumstanceÐ but what books he read, or used, or rejectedÐwhose conversations and ideas most in¯uenced himÐwhom he consulted for substance or for styleÐhow his four volumes began and grew and gradually shifted in focusÐbut also what difficulties the author encountered and what frustrations. With Schleifer's aid each of us will make his own discoveries, both great and small. I found Tocqueville's (here documented) use of the Federalist Papers, and his borrowings or re- jections of James Madison, particularly illuminating. Schleifer will surprise many by his demonstration that Tocqueville paid consider- ably more attention to the American economy than I and others have supposed. Schleifer not only con®rms Tocqueville's multiple mean- ings for his key themes of democracy, individualism, centralization, and despotism, and demonstrates the confusion that sometimes re- sulted, but points out the bene®ts that Tocqueville realized from this practice.