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Democracy in America — Volume 1

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Title: Democracy in America — Volume 1

Author: Alexis de Tocqueville

Translator: Henry Reeve


        
Release date: January 21, 2006 [eBook #815]
                Most recently updated: June 11, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/815

Credits: David Reed and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA — VOLUME 1 ***




DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

By Alexis De Tocqueville

AVOCAT À LA COUR ROYALE DE PARIS
ETC., ETC.

Translated by
Henry Reeve, Esq.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET
1835


Contents

 Book One
 Introductory Chapter
 Chapter I: Exterior Form Of North America
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part I
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part II
 Chapter III: Social Conditions Of The Anglo-Americans
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter IV: The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part I
 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part II
 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part III
 Chapter VI: Judicial Power In The United States
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter VII: Political Jurisdiction In The United States
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part I
 Chapter Summary
 Summary Of The Federal Constitution
 Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part II
 Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part III
 Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part IV
 Chapter VIII: The Federal Constitution—Part V
 Chapter IX: Why The People May Strictly Be Said To Govern In The
  United
 Chapter X: Parties In The United States
 Chapter Summary
 Parties In The United States
 Chapter XI: Liberty Of The Press In The United States
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter XII: Political Associations In The United States
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part I
 Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part II
 Chapter XIII: Government Of The Democracy In America—Part III
 Chapter XIV: Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part I
 Chapter XIV: Advantages American Society Derive From Democracy—Part II
 Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part I
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter XV: Unlimited Power Of Majority, And Its Consequences—Part II
 Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part I
 Chapter Summary
 Chapter XVI: Causes Mitigating Tyranny In The United States—Part II
 Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
  Republic—Part I
 Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
  Republic—Part II
 Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
  Republic—Part III
 Chapter XVII: Principal Causes Maintaining The Democratic
  Republic—Part IV
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races In The United
  States—Part I
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part II
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part III
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part IV
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part V
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VI
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VII
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part VIII
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part IX
 Chapter XVIII: Future Condition Of Three Races—Part X
 Conclusion




 Book One




 Introductory Chapter


Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in
the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general
equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence
which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by
giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to
the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar
habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this
fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the
country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over
the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the
ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from
which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all
my observations constantly terminated.

I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that
I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World
presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily
progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached
in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American
communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence
conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.

It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going
on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and
consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such
may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is
the most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency
which is to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of
France seven hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst
a small number of families, who were the owners of the soil and the
rulers of the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the
family inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only
means by which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole
source of power. Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was
founded, and began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all
classes, to the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality
penetrated into the Government through the Church, and the being who as
a serf must have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a
priest in the midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of
kings.

The different relations of men became more complicated and more
numerous as society gradually became more stable and more civilized.
Thence the want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal
functionaries soon rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their
dusty chambers, to appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of
the feudal barons in their ermine and their mail. Whilst the kings were
ruining themselves by their great enterprises, and the nobles
exhausting their resources by private wars, the lower orders were
enriching themselves by commerce. The influence of money began to be
perceptible in State affairs. The transactions of business opened a new
road to power, and the financier rose to a station of political
influence in which he was at once flattered and despised. Gradually the
spread of mental acquirements, and the increasing taste for literature
and art, opened chances of success to talent; science became a means of
government, intelligence led to social power, and the man of letters
took a part in the affairs of the State. The value attached to the
privileges of birth decreased in the exact proportion in which new
paths were struck out to advancement. In the eleventh century nobility
was beyond all price; in the thirteenth it might be purchased; it was
conferred for the first time in 1270; and equality was thus introduced
into the Government by the aristocracy itself.

In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes happened that
in order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to diminish the power
of their rivals, the nobles granted a certain share of political rights
to the people. Or, more frequently, the king permitted the lower orders
to enjoy a degree of power, with the intention of repressing the
aristocracy. In France the kings have always been the most active and
the most constant of levellers. When they were strong and ambitious
they spared no pains to raise the people to the level of the nobles;
when they were temperate or weak they allowed the people to rise above
themselves. Some assisted the democracy by their talents, others by
their vices. Louis XI and Louis XIV reduced every rank beneath the
throne to the same subjection; Louis XV descended, himself and all his
Court, into the dust.

As soon as land was held on any other than a feudal tenure, and
personal property began in its turn to confer influence and power,
every improvement which was introduced in commerce or manufacture was a
fresh element of the equality of conditions. Henceforward every new
discovery, every new want which it engendered, and every new desire
which craved satisfaction, was a step towards the universal level. The
taste for luxury, the love of war, the sway of fashion, and the most
superficial as well as the deepest passions of the human heart,
co-operated to enrich the poor and to impoverish the rich.

From the time when the exercise of the intellect became the source of
strength and of wealth, it is impossible not to consider every addition
to science, every fresh truth, and every new idea as a germ of power
placed within the reach of the people. Poetry, eloquence, and memory,
the grace of wit, the glow of imagination, the depth of thought, and
all the gifts which are bestowed by Providence with an equal hand,
turned to the advantage of the democracy; and even when they were in
the possession of its adversaries they still served its cause by
throwing into relief the natural greatness of man; its conquests
spread, therefore, with those of civilization and knowledge, and
literature became an arsenal where the poorest and the weakest could
always find weapons to their hand.

In perusing the pages of our history, we shall scarcely meet with a
single great event, in the lapse of seven hundred years, which has not
turned to the advantage of equality. The Crusades and the wars of the
English decimated the nobles and divided their possessions; the
erection of communities introduced an element of democratic liberty
into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized
the villein and the noble on the field of battle; printing opened the
same resources to the minds of all classes; the post was organized so
as to bring the same information to the door of the poor man’s cottage
and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all
men are alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America
offered a thousand new paths to fortune, and placed riches and power
within the reach of the adventurous and the obscure. If we examine what
has happened in France at intervals of fifty years, beginning with the
eleventh century, we shall invariably perceive that a twofold
revolution has taken place in the state of society. The noble has gone
down on the social ladder, and the roturier has gone up; the one
descends as the other rises. Every half century brings them nearer to
each other, and they will very shortly meet.

Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. Whithersoever we turn
our eyes we shall witness the same continual revolution throughout the
whole of Christendom. The various occurrences of national existence
have everywhere turned to the advantage of democracy; all men have
aided it by their exertions: those who have intentionally labored in
its cause, and those who have served it unwittingly; those who have
fought for it and those who have declared themselves its opponents,
have all been driven along in the same track, have all labored to one
end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly; all have been blind
instruments in the hands of God.

The gradual development of the equality of conditions is therefore a
providential fact, and it possesses all the characteristics of a divine
decree: it is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all human
interference, and all events as well as all men contribute to its
progress. Would it, then, be wise to imagine that a social impulse
which dates from so far back can be checked by the efforts of a
generation? Is it credible that the democracy which has annihilated the
feudal system and vanquished kings will respect the citizen and the
capitalist? Will it stop now that it has grown so strong and its
adversaries so weak? None can say which way we are going, for all terms
of comparison are wanting: the equality of conditions is more complete
in the Christian countries of the present day than it has been at any
time or in any part of the world; so that the extent of what already
exists prevents us from foreseeing what may be yet to come.

The whole book which is here offered to the public has been written
under the impression of a kind of religious dread produced in the
author’s mind by the contemplation of so irresistible a revolution,
which has advanced for centuries in spite of such amazing obstacles,
and which is still proceeding in the midst of the ruins it has made. It
is not necessary that God himself should speak in order to disclose to
us the unquestionable signs of His will; we can discern them in the
habitual course of nature, and in the invariable tendency of events: I
know, without a special revelation, that the planets move in the orbits
traced by the Creator’s finger. If the men of our time were led by
attentive observation and by sincere reflection to acknowledge that the
gradual and progressive development of social equality is at once the
past and future of their history, this solitary truth would confer the
sacred character of a Divine decree upon the change. To attempt to
check democracy would be in that case to resist the will of God; and
the nations would then be constrained to make the best of the social
lot awarded to them by Providence.

The Christian nations of our age seem to me to present a most alarming
spectacle; the impulse which is bearing them along is so strong that it
cannot be stopped, but it is not yet so rapid that it cannot be guided:
their fate is in their hands; yet a little while and it may be so no
longer. The first duty which is at this time imposed upon those who
direct our affairs is to educate the democracy; to warm its faith, if
that be possible; to purify its morals; to direct its energies; to
substitute a knowledge of business for its inexperience, and an
acquaintance with its true interests for its blind propensities; to
adapt its government to time and place, and to modify it in compliance
with the occurrences and the actors of the age. A new science of
politics is indispensable to a new world. This, however, is what we
think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid stream, we
obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be described upon
the shore we have left, whilst the current sweeps us along, and drives
us backwards towards the gulf.

In no country in Europe has the great social revolution which I have
been describing made such rapid progress as in France; but it has
always been borne on by chance. The heads of the State have never had
any forethought for its exigencies, and its victories have been
obtained without their consent or without their knowledge. The most
powerful, the most intelligent, and the most moral classes of the
nation have never attempted to connect themselves with it in order to
guide it. The people has consequently been abandoned to its wild
propensities, and it has grown up like those outcasts who receive their
education in the public streets, and who are unacquainted with aught
but the vices and wretchedness of society. The existence of a democracy
was seemingly unknown, when on a sudden it took possession of the
supreme power. Everything was then submitted to its caprices; it was
worshipped as the idol of strength; until, when it was enfeebled by its
own excesses, the legislator conceived the rash project of annihilating
its power, instead of instructing it and correcting its vices; no
attempt was made to fit it to govern, but all were bent on excluding it
from the government.

The consequence of this has been that the democratic revolution has
been effected only in the material parts of society, without that
concomitant change in laws, ideas, customs, and manners which was
necessary to render such a revolution beneficial. We have gotten a
democracy, but without the conditions which lessen its vices and render
its natural advantages more prominent; and although we already perceive
the evils it brings, we are ignorant of the benefits it may confer.

While the power of the Crown, supported by the aristocracy, peaceably
governed the nations of Europe, society possessed, in the midst of its
wretchedness, several different advantages which can now scarcely be
appreciated or conceived. The power of a part of his subjects was an
insurmountable barrier to the tyranny of the prince; and the monarch,
who felt the almost divine character which he enjoyed in the eyes of
the multitude, derived a motive for the just use of his power from the
respect which he inspired. High as they were placed above the people,
the nobles could not but take that calm and benevolent interest in its
fate which the shepherd feels towards his flock; and without
acknowledging the poor as their equals, they watched over the destiny
of those whose welfare Providence had entrusted to their care. The
people never having conceived the idea of a social condition different
from its own, and entertaining no expectation of ever ranking with its
chiefs, received benefits from them without discussing their rights. It
grew attached to them when they were clement and just, and it submitted
without resistance or servility to their exactions, as to the
inevitable visitations of the arm of God. Custom, and the manners of
the time, had moreover created a species of law in the midst of
violence, and established certain limits to oppression. As the noble
never suspected that anyone would attempt to deprive him of the
privileges which he believed to be legitimate, and as the serf looked
upon his own inferiority as a consequence of the immutable order of
nature, it is easy to imagine that a mutual exchange of good-will took
place between two classes so differently gifted by fate. Inequality and
wretchedness were then to be found in society; but the souls of neither
rank of men were degraded. Men are not corrupted by the exercise of
power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a
power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which
they consider to be usurped and oppressive. On one side was wealth,
strength, and leisure, accompanied by the refinements of luxury, the
elegance of taste, the pleasures of wit, and the religion of art. On
the other was labor and a rude ignorance; but in the midst of this
coarse and ignorant multitude it was not uncommon to meet with
energetic passions, generous sentiments, profound religious
convictions, and independent virtues. The body of a State thus
organized might boast of its stability, its power, and, above all, of
its glory.

But the scene is now changed, and gradually the two ranks mingle; the
divisions which once severed mankind are lowered, property is divided,
power is held in common, the light of intelligence spreads, and the
capacities of all classes are equally cultivated; the State becomes
democratic, and the empire of democracy is slowly and peaceably
introduced into the institutions and the manners of the nation. I can
conceive a society in which all men would profess an equal attachment
and respect for the laws of which they are the common authors; in which
the authority of the State would be respected as necessary, though not
as divine; and the loyalty of the subject to its chief magistrate would
not be a passion, but a quiet and rational persuasion. Every individual
being in the possession of rights which he is sure to retain, a kind of
manly reliance and reciprocal courtesy would arise between all classes,
alike removed from pride and meanness. The people, well acquainted with
its true interests, would allow that in order to profit by the
advantages of society it is necessary to satisfy its demands. In this
state of things the voluntary association of the citizens might supply
the individual exertions of the nobles, and the community would be
alike protected from anarchy and from oppression.

I admit that, in a democratic State thus constituted, society will not
be stationary; but the impulses of the social body may be regulated and
directed forwards; if there be less splendor than in the halls of an
aristocracy, the contrast of misery will be less frequent also; the
pleasures of enjoyment may be less excessive, but those of comfort will
be more general; the sciences may be less perfectly cultivated, but
ignorance will be less common; the impetuosity of the feelings will be
repressed, and the habits of the nation softened; there will be more
vices and fewer crimes. In the absence of enthusiasm and of an ardent
faith, great sacrifices may be obtained from the members of a
commonwealth by an appeal to their understandings and their experience;
each individual will feel the same necessity for uniting with his
fellow-citizens to protect his own weakness; and as he knows that if
they are to assist he must co-operate, he will readily perceive that
his personal interest is identified with the interest of the community.
The nation, taken as a whole, will be less brilliant, less glorious,
and perhaps less strong; but the majority of the citizens will enjoy a
greater degree of prosperity, and the people will remain quiet, not
because it despairs of amelioration, but because it is conscious of the
advantages of its condition. If all the consequences of this state of
things were not good or useful, society would at least have
appropriated all such as were useful and good; and having once and for
ever renounced the social advantages of aristocracy, mankind would
enter into possession of all the benefits which democracy can afford.

But here it may be asked what we have adopted in the place of those
institutions, those ideas, and those customs of our forefathers which
we have abandoned. The spell of royalty is broken, but it has not been
succeeded by the majesty of the laws; the people has learned to despise
all authority, but fear now extorts a larger tribute of obedience than
that which was formerly paid by reverence and by love.

I perceive that we have destroyed those independent beings which were
able to cope with tyranny single-handed; but it is the Government that
has inherited the privileges of which families, corporations, and
individuals have been deprived; the weakness of the whole community has
therefore succeeded that influence of a small body of citizens, which,
if it was sometimes oppressive, was often conservative. The division of
property has lessened the distance which separated the rich from the
poor; but it would seem that the nearer they draw to each other, the
greater is their mutual hatred, and the more vehement the envy and the
dread with which they resist each other’s claims to power; the notion
of Right is alike insensible to both classes, and Force affords to both
the only argument for the present, and the only guarantee for the
future. The poor man retains the prejudices of his forefathers without
their faith, and their ignorance without their virtues; he has adopted
the doctrine of self-interest as the rule of his actions, without
understanding the science which controls it, and his egotism is no less
blind than his devotedness was formerly. If society is tranquil, it is
not because it relies upon its strength and its well-being, but because
it knows its weakness and its infirmities; a single effort may cost it
its life; everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy
enough to seek the cure; the desires, the regret, the sorrows, and the
joys of the time produce nothing that is visible or permanent, like the
passions of old men which terminate in impotence.

We have, then, abandoned whatever advantages the old state of things
afforded, without receiving any compensation from our present
condition; we have destroyed an aristocracy, and we seem inclined to
survey its ruins with complacency, and to fix our abode in the midst of
them.

The phenomena which the intellectual world presents are not less
deplorable. The democracy of France, checked in its course or abandoned
to its lawless passions, has overthrown whatever crossed its path, and
has shaken all that it has not destroyed. Its empire on society has not
been gradually introduced or peaceably established, but it has
constantly advanced in the midst of disorder and the agitation of a
conflict. In the heat of the struggle each partisan is hurried beyond
the limits of his opinions by the opinions and the excesses of his
opponents, until he loses sight of the end of his exertions, and holds
a language which disguises his real sentiments or secret instincts.
Hence arises the strange confusion which we are witnessing. I cannot
recall to my mind a passage in history more worthy of sorrow and of
pity than the scenes which are happening under our eyes; it is as if
the natural bond which unites the opinions of man to his tastes and his
actions to his principles was now broken; the sympathy which has always
been acknowledged between the feelings and the ideas of mankind appears
to be dissolved, and all the laws of moral analogy to be abolished.

Zealous Christians may be found amongst us whose minds are nurtured in
the love and knowledge of a future life, and who readily espouse the
cause of human liberty as the source of all moral greatness.
Christianity, which has declared that all men are equal in the sight of
God, will not refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in the
eye of the law. But, by a singular concourse of events, religion is
entangled in those institutions which democracy assails, and it is not
unfrequently brought to reject the equality it loves, and to curse that
cause of liberty as a foe which it might hallow by its alliance.

By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are
turned to the earth more than to Heaven; they are the partisans of
liberty, not only as the source of the noblest virtues, but more
especially as the root of all solid advantages; and they sincerely
desire to extend its sway, and to impart its blessings to mankind. It
is natural that they should hasten to invoke the assistance of
religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be established without
morality, nor morality without faith; but they have seen religion in
the ranks of their adversaries, and they inquire no further; some of
them attack it openly, and the remainder are afraid to defend it.

In former ages slavery has been advocated by the venal and
slavish-minded, whilst the independent and the warm-hearted were
struggling without hope to save the liberties of mankind. But men of
high and generous characters are now to be met with, whose opinions are
at variance with their inclinations, and who praise that servility
which they have themselves never known. Others, on the contrary, speak
in the name of liberty, as if they were able to feel its sanctity and
its majesty, and loudly claim for humanity those rights which they have
always disowned. There are virtuous and peaceful individuals whose pure
morality, quiet habits, affluence, and talents fit them to be the
leaders of the surrounding population; their love of their country is
sincere, and they are prepared to make the greatest sacrifices to its
welfare, but they confound the abuses of civilization with its
benefits, and the idea of evil is inseparable in their minds from that
of novelty.

Not far from this class is another party, whose object is to
materialize mankind, to hit upon what is expedient without heeding what
is just, to acquire knowledge without faith, and prosperity apart from
virtue; assuming the title of the champions of modern civilization, and
placing themselves in a station which they usurp with insolence, and
from which they are driven by their own unworthiness. Where are we
then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of
liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate
subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence;
honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men
without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of
civilization and of intelligence. Has such been the fate of the
centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a
world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue
is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is
confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom
with a contempt of law; where the light thrown by conscience on human
actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or
allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true? I cannot, however,
believe that the Creator made man to leave him in an endless struggle
with the intellectual miseries which surround us: God destines a calmer
and a more certain future to the communities of Europe; I am
unacquainted with His designs, but I shall not cease to believe in them
because I cannot fathom them, and I had rather mistrust my own capacity
than His justice.

There is a country in the world where the great revolution which I am
speaking of seems nearly to have reached its natural limits; it has
been effected with ease and simplicity, say rather that this country
has attained the consequences of the democratic revolution which we are
undergoing without having experienced the revolution itself. The
emigrants who fixed themselves on the shores of America in the
beginning of the seventeenth century severed the democratic principle
from all the principles which repressed it in the old communities of
Europe, and transplanted it unalloyed to the New World. It has there
been allowed to spread in perfect freedom, and to put forth its
consequences in the laws by influencing the manners of the country.

It appears to me beyond a doubt that sooner or later we shall arrive,
like the Americans, at an almost complete equality of conditions. But I
do not conclude from this that we shall ever be necessarily led to draw
the same political consequences which the Americans have derived from a
similar social organization. I am far from supposing that they have
chosen the only form of government which a democracy may adopt; but the
identity of the efficient cause of laws and manners in the two
countries is sufficient to account for the immense interest we have in
becoming acquainted with its effects in each of them.

It is not, then, merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I have
examined America; my wish has been to find instruction by which we may
ourselves profit. Whoever should imagine that I have intended to write
a panegyric will perceive that such was not my design; nor has it been
my object to advocate any form of government in particular, for I am of
opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in any
legislation; I have not even affected to discuss whether the social
revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is advantageous or
prejudicial to mankind; I have acknowledged this revolution as a fact
already accomplished or on the eve of its accomplishment; and I have
selected the nation, from amongst those which have undergone it, in
which its development has been the most peaceful and the most complete,
in order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be possible,
to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered profitable. I
confess that in America I saw more than America; I sought the image of
democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices,
and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or to hope
from its progress.

In the first part of this work I have attempted to show the tendency
given to the laws by the democracy of America, which is abandoned
almost without restraint to its instinctive propensities, and to
exhibit the course it prescribes to the Government and the influence it
exercises on affairs. I have sought to discover the evils and the
advantages which it produces. I have examined the precautions used by
the Americans to direct it, as well as those which they have not
adopted, and I have undertaken to point out the causes which enable it
to govern society. I do not know whether I have succeeded in making
known what I saw in America, but I am certain that such has been my
sincere desire, and that I have never, knowingly, moulded facts to
ideas, instead of ideas to facts.

Whenever a point could be established by the aid of written documents,
I have had recourse to the original text, and to the most authentic and
approved works. I have cited my authorities in the notes, and anyone
may refer to them. Whenever an opinion, a political custom, or a remark
on the manners of the country was concerned, I endeavored to consult
the most enlightened men I met with. If the point in question was
important or doubtful, I was not satisfied with one testimony, but I
formed my opinion on the evidence of several witnesses. Here the reader
must necessarily believe me upon my word. I could frequently have
quoted names which are either known to him, or which deserve to be so,
in proof of what I advance; but I have carefully abstained from this
practice. A stranger frequently hears important truths at the fire-side
of his host, which the latter would perhaps conceal from the ear of
friendship; he consoles himself with his guest for the silence to which
he is restricted, and the shortness of the traveller’s stay takes away
all fear of his indiscretion. I carefully noted every conversation of
this nature as soon as it occurred, but these notes will never leave my
writing-case; I had rather injure the success of my statements than add
my name to the list of those strangers who repay the generous
hospitality they have received by subsequent chagrin and annoyance.

I am aware that, notwithstanding my care, nothing will be easier than
to criticise this book, if anyone ever chooses to criticise it. Those
readers who may examine it closely will discover the fundamental idea
which connects the several parts together. But the diversity of the
subjects I have had to treat is exceedingly great, and it will not be
difficult to oppose an isolated fact to the body of facts which I
quote, or an isolated idea to the body of ideas I put forth. I hope to
be read in the spirit which has guided my labors, and that my book may
be judged by the general impression it leaves, as I have formed my own
judgment not on any single reason, but upon the mass of evidence. It
must not be forgotten that the author who wishes to be understood is
obliged to push all his ideas to their utmost theoretical consequences,
and often to the verge of what is false or impracticable; for if it be
necessary sometimes to quit the rules of logic in active life, such is
not the case in discourse, and a man finds that almost as many
difficulties spring from inconsistency of language as usually arise
from inconsistency of conduct.

I conclude by pointing out myself what many readers will consider the
principal defect of the work. This book is written to favor no
particular views, and in composing it I have entertained no designs of
serving or attacking any party; I have undertaken not to see
differently, but to look further than parties, and whilst they are
busied for the morrow I have turned my thoughts to the Future.




 Chapter I: Exterior Form Of North America




 Chapter Summary


North America divided into two vast regions, one inclining towards the
Pole, the other towards the Equator—Valley of the Mississippi—Traces of
the Revolutions of the Globe—Shore of the Atlantic Ocean where the
English Colonies were founded—Difference in the appearance of North and
of South America at the time of their Discovery—Forests of North
America—Prairies—Wandering Tribes of Natives—Their outward appearance,
manners, and language—Traces of an unknown people.

Exterior Form Of North America

North America presents in its external form certain general features
which it is easy to discriminate at the first glance. A sort of
methodical order seems to have regulated the separation of land and
water, mountains and valleys. A simple, but grand, arrangement is
discoverable amidst the confusion of objects and the prodigious variety
of scenes. This continent is divided, almost equally, into two vast
regions, one of which is bounded on the north by the Arctic Pole, and
by the two great oceans on the east and west. It stretches towards the
south, forming a triangle whose irregular sides meet at length below
the great lakes of Canada. The second region begins where the other
terminates, and includes all the remainder of the continent. The one
slopes gently towards the Pole, the other towards the Equator.

The territory comprehended in the first region descends towards the
north with so imperceptible a slope that it may almost be said to form
a level plain. Within the bounds of this immense tract of country there
are neither high mountains nor deep valleys. Streams meander through it
irregularly: great rivers mix their currents, separate and meet again,
disperse and form vast marshes, losing all trace of their channels in
the labyrinth of waters they have themselves created; and thus, at
length, after innumerable windings, fall into the Polar Seas. The great
lakes which bound this first region are not walled in, like most of
those in the Old World, between hills and rocks. Their banks are flat,
and rise but a few feet above the level of their waters; each of them
thus forming a vast bowl filled to the brim. The slightest change in
the structure of the globe would cause their waters to rush either
towards the Pole or to the tropical sea.

The second region is more varied on its surface, and better suited for
the habitation of man. Two long chains of mountains divide it from one
extreme to the other; the Alleghany ridge takes the form of the shores
of the Atlantic Ocean; the other is parallel with the Pacific. The
space which lies between these two chains of mountains contains
1,341,649 square miles. *a Its surface is therefore about six times as
great as that of France. This vast territory, however, forms a single
valley, one side of which descends gradually from the rounded summits
of the Alleghanies, while the other rises in an uninterrupted course
towards the tops of the Rocky Mountains. At the bottom of the valley
flows an immense river, into which the various streams issuing from the
mountains fall from all parts. In memory of their native land, the
French formerly called this river the St. Louis. The Indians, in their
pompous language, have named it the Father of Waters, or the
Mississippi.

a
[ Darby’s “View of the United States.”]


The Mississippi takes its source above the limit of the two great
regions of which I have spoken, not far from the highest point of the
table-land where they unite. Near the same spot rises another river, *b
which empties itself into the Polar seas. The course of the Mississippi
is at first dubious: it winds several times towards the north, from
whence it rose; and at length, after having been delayed in lakes and
marshes, it flows slowly onwards to the south. Sometimes quietly
gliding along the argillaceous bed which nature has assigned to it,
sometimes swollen by storms, the Mississippi waters 2,500 miles in its
course. *c At the distance of 1,364 miles from its mouth this river
attains an average depth of fifteen feet; and it is navigated by
vessels of 300 tons burden for a course of nearly 500 miles.
Fifty-seven large navigable rivers contribute to swell the waters of
the Mississippi; amongst others, the Missouri, which traverses a space
of 2,500 miles; the Arkansas of 1,300 miles, the Red River 1,000 miles,
four whose course is from 800 to 1,000 miles in length, viz., the
Illinois, the St. Peter’s, the St. Francis, and the Moingona; besides a
countless multitude of rivulets which unite from all parts their
tributary streams.

b
[ The Red River.]


c
[ Warden’s “Description of the United States.”]


The valley which is watered by the Mississippi seems formed to be the
bed of this mighty river, which, like a god of antiquity, dispenses
both good and evil in its course. On the shores of the stream nature
displays an inexhaustible fertility; in proportion as you recede from
its banks, the powers of vegetation languish, the soil becomes poor,
and the plants that survive have a sickly growth. Nowhere have the
great convulsions of the globe left more evident traces than in the
valley of the Mississippi; the whole aspect of the country shows the
powerful effects of water, both by its fertility and by its barrenness.
The waters of the primeval ocean accumulated enormous beds of vegetable
mould in the valley, which they levelled as they retired. Upon the
right shore of the river are seen immense plains, as smooth as if the
husbandman had passed over them with his roller. As you approach the
mountains the soil becomes more and more unequal and sterile; the
ground is, as it were, pierced in a thousand places by primitive rocks,
which appear like the bones of a skeleton whose flesh is partly
consumed. The surface of the earth is covered with a granite sand and
huge irregular masses of stone, among which a few plants force their
growth, and give the appearance of a green field covered with the ruins
of a vast edifice. These stones and this sand discover, on examination,
a perfect analogy with those which compose the arid and broken summits
of the Rocky Mountains. The flood of waters which washed the soil to
the bottom of the valley afterwards carried away portions of the rocks
themselves; and these, dashed and bruised against the neighboring
cliffs, were left scattered like wrecks at their feet. *d The valley of
the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling-place
prepared by God for man’s abode; and yet it may be said that at present
it is but a mighty desert.

d
[ See Appendix, A.]


On the eastern side of the Alleghanies, between the base of these
mountains and the Atlantic Ocean, there lies a long ridge of rocks and
sand, which the sea appears to have left behind as it retired. The mean
breadth of this territory does not exceed one hundred miles; but it is
about nine hundred miles in length. This part of the American continent
has a soil which offers every obstacle to the husbandman, and its
vegetation is scanty and unvaried.

Upon this inhospitable coast the first united efforts of human industry
were made. The tongue of arid land was the cradle of those English
colonies which were destined one day to become the United States of
America. The centre of power still remains here; whilst in the
backwoods the true elements of the great people to whom the future
control of the continent belongs are gathering almost in secrecy
together.

When the Europeans first landed on the shores of the West Indies, and
afterwards on the coast of South America, they thought themselves
transported into those fabulous regions of which poets had sung. The
sea sparkled with phosphoric light, and the extraordinary transparency
of its waters discovered to the view of the navigator all that had
hitherto been hidden in the deep abyss. *e Here and there appeared
little islands perfumed with odoriferous plants, and resembling baskets
of flowers floating on the tranquil surface of the ocean. Every object
which met the sight, in this enchanting region, seemed prepared to
satisfy the wants or contribute to the pleasures of man. Almost all the
trees were loaded with nourishing fruits, and those which were useless
as food delighted the eye by the brilliancy and variety of their
colors. In groves of fragrant lemon-trees, wild figs, flowering
myrtles, acacias, and oleanders, which were hung with festoons of
various climbing plants, covered with flowers, a multitude of birds
unknown in Europe displayed their bright plumage, glittering with
purple and azure, and mingled their warbling with the harmony of a
world teeming with life and motion. *f Underneath this brilliant
exterior death was concealed. But the air of these climates had so
enervating an influence that man, absorbed by present enjoyment, was
rendered regardless of the future.

e
[ Malte Brun tells us (vol. v. p. 726) that the water of the Caribbean
Sea is so transparent that corals and fish are discernible at a depth
of sixty fathoms. The ship seemed to float in air, the navigator became
giddy as his eye penetrated through the crystal flood, and beheld
submarine gardens, or beds of shells, or gilded fishes gliding among
tufts and thickets of seaweed.]


f
[ See Appendix, B.]


North America appeared under a very different aspect; there everything
was grave, serious, and solemn: it seemed created to be the domain of
intelligence, as the South was that of sensual delight. A turbulent and
foggy ocean washed its shores. It was girt round by a belt of granite
rocks, or by wide tracts of sand. The foliage of its woods was dark and
gloomy, for they were composed of firs, larches, evergreen oaks, wild
olive-trees, and laurels. Beyond this outer belt lay the thick shades
of the central forest, where the largest trees which are produced in
the two hemispheres grow side by side. The plane, the catalpa, the
sugar-maple, and the Virginian poplar mingled their branches with those
of the oak, the beech, and the lime. In these, as in the forests of the
Old World, destruction was perpetually going on. The ruins of
vegetation were heaped upon each other; but there was no laboring hand
to remove them, and their decay was not rapid enough to make room for
the continual work of reproduction. Climbing plants, grasses, and other
herbs forced their way through the mass of dying trees; they crept
along their bending trunks, found nourishment in their dusty cavities,
and a passage beneath the lifeless bark. Thus decay gave its assistance
to life, and their respective productions were mingled together. The
depths of these forests were gloomy and obscure, and a thousand
rivulets, undirected in their course by human industry, preserved in
them a constant moisture. It was rare to meet with flowers, wild
fruits, or birds beneath their shades. The fall of a tree overthrown by
age, the rushing torrent of a cataract, the lowing of the buffalo, and
the howling of the wind were the only sounds which broke the silence of
nature.

To the east of the great river, the woods almost disappeared; in their
stead were seen prairies of immense extent. Whether Nature in her
infinite variety had denied the germs of trees to these fertile plains,
or whether they had once been covered with forests, subsequently
destroyed by the hand of man, is a question which neither tradition nor
scientific research has been able to resolve.

These immense deserts were not, however, devoid of human inhabitants.
Some wandering tribes had been for ages scattered among the forest
shades or the green pastures of the prairie. From the mouth of the St.
Lawrence to the delta of the Mississippi, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific Ocean, these savages possessed certain points of resemblance
which bore witness of their common origin; but at the same time they
differed from all other known races of men: *g they were neither white
like the Europeans, nor yellow like most of the Asiatics, nor black
like the negroes. Their skin was reddish brown, their hair long and
shining, their lips thin, and their cheekbones very prominent. The
languages spoken by the North American tribes are various as far as
regarded their words, but they were subject to the same grammatical
rules. These rules differed in several points from such as had been
observed to govern the origin of language. The idiom of the Americans
seemed to be the product of new combinations, and bespoke an effort of
the understanding of which the Indians of our days would be incapable.
*h

g
[ With the progress of discovery some resemblance has been found to
exist between the physical conformation, the language, and the habits
of the Indians of North America, and those of the Tongous, Mantchous,
Mongols, Tartars, and other wandering tribes of Asia. The land occupied
by these tribes is not very distant from Behring’s Strait, which allows
of the supposition, that at a remote period they gave inhabitants to
the desert continent of America. But this is a point which has not yet
been clearly elucidated by science. See Malte Brun, vol. v.; the works
of Humboldt; Fischer, “Conjecture sur l’Origine des Americains”; Adair,
“History of the American Indians.”]


h
[ See Appendix, C.]


The social state of these tribes differed also in many respects from
all that was seen in the Old World. They seemed to have multiplied
freely in the midst of their deserts without coming in contact with
other races more civilized than their own. Accordingly, they exhibited
none of those indistinct, incoherent notions of right and wrong, none
of that deep corruption of manners, which is usually joined with
ignorance and rudeness among nations which, after advancing to
civilization, have relapsed into a state of barbarism. The Indian was
indebted to no one but himself; his virtues, his vices, and his
prejudices were his own work; he had grown up in the wild independence
of his nature.

If, in polished countries, the lowest of the people are rude and
uncivil, it is not merely because they are poor and ignorant, but that,
being so, they are in daily contact with rich and enlightened men. The
sight of their own hard lot and of their weakness, which is daily
contrasted with the happiness and power of some of their
fellow-creatures, excites in their hearts at the same time the
sentiments of anger and of fear: the consciousness of their inferiority
and of their dependence irritates while it humiliates them. This state
of mind displays itself in their manners and language; they are at once
insolent and servile. The truth of this is easily proved by
observation; the people are more rude in aristocratic countries than
elsewhere, in opulent cities than in rural districts. In those places
where the rich and powerful are assembled together the weak and the
indigent feel themselves oppressed by their inferior condition. Unable
to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up
to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human
nature.

This unfortunate effect of the disparity of conditions is not
observable in savage life: the Indians, although they are ignorant and
poor, are equal and free. At the period when Europeans first came among
them the natives of North America were ignorant of the value of riches,
and indifferent to the enjoyments which civilized man procures to
himself by their means. Nevertheless there was nothing coarse in their
demeanor; they practised an habitual reserve and a kind of aristocratic
politeness. Mild and hospitable when at peace, though merciless in war
beyond any known degree of human ferocity, the Indian would expose
himself to die of hunger in order to succor the stranger who asked
admittance by night at the door of his hut; yet he could tear in pieces
with his hands the still quivering limbs of his prisoner. The famous
republics of antiquity never gave examples of more unshaken courage,
more haughty spirits, or more intractable love of independence than
were hidden in former times among the wild forests of the New World. *i
The Europeans produced no great impression when they landed upon the
shores of North America; their presence engendered neither envy nor
fear. What influence could they possess over such men as we have
described? The Indian could live without wants, suffer without
complaint, and pour out his death-song at the stake. *j Like all the
other members of the great human family, these savages believed in the
existence of a better world, and adored under different names, God, the
creator of the universe. Their notions on the great intellectual truths
were in general simple and philosophical. *k

i
[ We learn from President Jefferson’s “Notes upon Virginia,” p. 148,
that among the Iroquois, when attacked by a superior force, aged men
refused to fly or to survive the destruction of their country; and they
braved death like the ancient Romans when their capital was sacked by
the Gauls. Further on, p. 150, he tells us that there is no example of
an Indian who, having fallen into the hands of his enemies, begged for
his life; on the contrary, the captive sought to obtain death at the
hands of his conquerors by the use of insult and provocation.]


j
[ See “Histoire de la Louisiane,” by Lepage Dupratz; Charlevoix,
“Histoire de la Nouvelle France”; “Lettres du Rev. G. Hecwelder;”
“Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” v. I; Jefferson’s
“Notes on Virginia,” pp. 135-190. What is said by Jefferson is of
especial weight, on account of the personal merit of the writer, of his
peculiar position, and of the matter-of-fact age in which he lived.]


k
[ See Appendix, D.]


Although we have here traced the character of a primitive people, yet
it cannot be doubted that another people, more civilized and more
advanced in all respects, had preceded it in the same regions.

An obscure tradition which prevailed among the Indians to the north of
the Atlantic informs us that these very tribes formerly dwelt on the
west side of the Mississippi. Along the banks of the Ohio, and
throughout the central valley, there are frequently found, at this day,
tumuli raised by the hands of men. On exploring these heaps of earth to
their centre, it is usual to meet with human bones, strange
instruments, arms and utensils of all kinds, made of metal, or destined
for purposes unknown to the present race. The Indians of our time are
unable to give any information relative to the history of this unknown
people. Neither did those who lived three hundred years ago, when
America was first discovered, leave any accounts from which even an
hypothesis could be formed. Tradition—that perishable, yet ever renewed
monument of the pristine world—throws no light upon the subject. It is
an undoubted fact, however, that in this part of the globe thousands of
our fellow-beings had lived. When they came hither, what was their
origin, their destiny, their history, and how they perished, no one can
tell. How strange does it appear that nations have existed, and
afterwards so completely disappeared from the earth that the
remembrance of their very names is effaced; their languages are lost;
their glory is vanished like a sound without an echo; though perhaps
there is not one which has not left behind it some tomb in memory of
its passage! The most durable monument of human labor is that which
recalls the wretchedness and nothingness of man.

Although the vast country which we have been describing was inhabited
by many indigenous tribes, it may justly be said at the time of its
discovery by Europeans to have formed one great desert. The Indians
occupied without possessing it. It is by agricultural labor that man
appropriates the soil, and the early inhabitants of North America lived
by the produce of the chase. Their implacable prejudices, their
uncontrolled passions, their vices, and still more perhaps their savage
virtues, consigned them to inevitable destruction. The ruin of these
nations began from the day when Europeans landed on their shores; it
has proceeded ever since, and we are now witnessing the completion of
it. They seem to have been placed by Providence amidst the riches of
the New World to enjoy them for a season, and then surrender them.
Those coasts, so admirably adapted for commerce and industry; those
wide and deep rivers; that inexhaustible valley of the Mississippi; the
whole continent, in short, seemed prepared to be the abode of a great
nation, yet unborn.

In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of
the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there,
for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed
impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not
been prepared by the history of the past.




 Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part I




 Chapter Summary


Utility of knowing the origin of nations in order to understand their
social condition and their laws—America the only country in which the
starting-point of a great people has been clearly observable—In what
respects all who emigrated to British America were similar—In what they
differed—Remark applicable to all Europeans who established themselves
on the shores of the New World—Colonization of Virginia—Colonization of
New England—Original character of the first inhabitants of New
England—Their arrival—Their first laws—Their social contract—Penal code
borrowed from the Hebrew legislation—Religious fervor—Republican
spirit—Intimate union of the spirit of religion with the spirit of
liberty.

Origin Of The Anglo-Americans, And Its Importance In Relation To Their
Future Condition.

After the birth of a human being his early years are obscurely spent in
the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he grows up the world receives
him, when his manhood begins, and he enters into contact with his
fellows. He is then studied for the first time, and it is imagined that
the germ of the vices and the virtues of his maturer years is then
formed. This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must begin
higher up; we must watch the infant in its mother’s arms; we must see
the first images which the external world casts upon the dark mirror of
his mind; the first occurrences which he witnesses; we must hear the
first words which awaken the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by
his earliest efforts, if we would understand the prejudices, the
habits, and the passions which will rule his life. The entire man is,
so to speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child.

The growth of nations presents something analogous to this: they all
bear some marks of their origin; and the circumstances which
accompanied their birth and contributed to their rise affect the whole
term of their being. If we were able to go back to the elements of
states, and to examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt
not that we should discover the primal cause of the prejudices, the
habits, the ruling passions, and, in short, of all that constitutes
what is called the national character; we should then find the
explanation of certain customs which now seem at variance with the
prevailing manners; of such laws as conflict with established
principles; and of such incoherent opinions as are here and there to be
met with in society, like those fragments of broken chains which we
sometimes see hanging from the vault of an edifice, and supporting
nothing. This might explain the destinies of certain nations, which
seem borne on by an unknown force to ends of which they themselves are
ignorant. But hitherto facts have been wanting to researches of this
kind: the spirit of inquiry has only come upon communities in their
latter days; and when they at length contemplated their origin, time
had already obscured it, or ignorance and pride adorned it with
truth-concealing fables.

America is the only country in which it has been possible to witness
the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where the influences
exercised on the future condition of states by their origin is clearly
distinguishable. At the period when the peoples of Europe landed in the
New World their national characteristics were already completely
formed; each of them had a physiognomy of its own; and as they had
already attained that stage of civilization at which men are led to
study themselves, they have transmitted to us a faithful picture of
their opinions, their manners, and their laws. The men of the sixteenth
century are almost as well known to us as our contemporaries. America,
consequently, exhibits in the broad light of day the phenomena which
the ignorance or rudeness of earlier ages conceals from our researches.
Near enough to the time when the states of America were founded, to be
accurately acquainted with their elements, and sufficiently removed
from that period to judge of some of their results, the men of our own
day seem destined to see further than their predecessors into the
series of human events. Providence has given us a torch which our
forefathers did not possess, and has allowed us to discern fundamental
causes in the history of the world which the obscurity of the past
concealed from them. If we carefully examine the social and political
state of America, after having studied its history, we shall remain
perfectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, I may
even say not an event, is upon record which the origin of that people
will not explain. The readers of this book will find the germ of all
that is to follow in the present chapter, and the key to almost the
whole work.

The emigrants who came, at different periods to occupy the territory
now covered by the American Union differed from each other in many
respects; their aim was not the same, and they governed themselves on
different principles. These men had, however, certain features in
common, and they were all placed in an analogous situation. The tie of
language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite
mankind. All the emigrants spoke the same tongue; they were all offsets
from the same people. Born in a country which had been agitated for
centuries by the struggles of faction, and in which all parties had
been obliged in their turn to place themselves under the protection of
the laws, their political education had been perfected in this rude
school, and they were more conversant with the notions of right and the
principles of true freedom than the greater part of their European
contemporaries. At the period of their first emigrations the parish
system, that fruitful germ of free institutions, was deeply rooted in
the habits of the English; and with it the doctrine of the sovereignty
of the people had been introduced into the bosom of the monarchy of the
House of Tudor.

The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian world were
then rife. England had plunged into the new order of things with
headlong vehemence. The character of its inhabitants, which had always
been sedate and reflective, became argumentative and austere. General
information had been increased by intellectual debate, and the mind had
received a deeper cultivation. Whilst religion was the topic of
discussion, the morals of the people were reformed. All these national
features are more or less discoverable in the physiognomy of those
adventurers who came to seek a new home on the opposite shores of the
Atlantic.

Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion to recur, is
applicable not only to the English, but to the French, the Spaniards,
and all the Europeans who successively established themselves in the
New World. All these European colonies contained the elements, if not
the development, of a complete democracy. Two causes led to this
result. It may safely be advanced, that on leaving the mother-country
the emigrants had in general no notion of superiority over one another.
The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer
guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune. It
happened, however, on several occasions, that persons of rank were
driven to America by political and religious quarrels. Laws were made
to establish a gradation of ranks; but it was soon found that the soil
of America was opposed to a territorial aristocracy. To bring that
refractory land into cultivation, the constant and interested exertions
of the owner himself were necessary; and when the ground was prepared,
its produce was found to be insufficient to enrich a master and a
farmer at the same time. The land was then naturally broken up into
small portions, which the proprietor cultivated for himself. Land is
the basis of an aristocracy, which clings to the soil that supports it;
for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but by landed property
handed down from generation to generation, that an aristocracy is
constituted. A nation may present immense fortunes and extreme
wretchedness, but unless those fortunes are territorial there is no
aristocracy, but simply the class of the rich and that of the poor.

All the British colonies had then a great degree of similarity at the
epoch of their settlement. All of them, from their first beginning,
seemed destined to witness the growth, not of the aristocratic liberty
of their mother-country, but of that freedom of the middle and lower
orders of which the history of the world had as yet furnished no
complete example.

In this general uniformity several striking differences were however
discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two branches may be
distinguished in the Anglo-American family, which have hitherto grown
up without entirely commingling; the one in the South, the other in the
North.

Virginia received the first English colony; the emigrants took
possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold and silver are
the sources of national wealth was at that time singularly prevalent in
Europe; a fatal delusion, which has done more to impoverish the nations
which adopted it, and has cost more lives in America, than the united
influence of war and bad laws. The men sent to Virginia *a were seekers
of gold, adventurers, without resources and without character, whose
turbulent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony, *b and
rendered its progress uncertain. The artisans and agriculturists
arrived afterwards; and, although they were a more moral and orderly
race of men, they were in nowise above the level of the inferior
classes in England. *c No lofty conceptions, no intellectual system,
directed the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was
scarcely established when slavery was introduced, *d and this was the
main circumstance which has exercised so prodigious an influence on the
character, the laws, and all the future prospects of the South.
Slavery, as we shall afterwards show, dishonors labor; it introduces
idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury
and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind, and benumbs the
activity of man. The influence of slavery, united to the English
character, explains the manners and the social condition of the
Southern States.

a
[ The charter granted by the Crown of England in 1609 stipulated,
amongst other conditions, that the adventurers should pay to the Crown
a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines. See Marshall’s
“Life of Washington,” vol. i. pp. 18-66.] [Footnote b: A large portion
of the adventurers, says Stith (“History of Virginia”), were
unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were glad to ship
off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees; and
others of the same class, people more apt to pillage and destroy than
to assist the settlement, were the seditious chiefs, who easily led
this band into every kind of extravagance and excess. See for the
history of Virginia the following works:—


“History of Virginia, from the First Settlements in the year 1624,” by
Smith.

“History of Virginia,” by William Stith.

“History of Virginia, from the Earliest Period,” by Beverley.]

c
[ It was not till some time later that a certain number of rich English
capitalists came to fix themselves in the colony.]


d
[ Slavery was introduced about the year 1620 by a Dutch vessel which
landed twenty negroes on the banks of the river James. See Chalmer.]


In the North, the same English foundation was modified by the most
opposite shades of character; and here I may be allowed to enter into
some details. The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of
the social theory of the United States were first combined in the
Northern English colonies, more generally denominated the States of New
England. *e The principles of New England spread at first to the
neighboring states; they then passed successively to the more distant
ones; and at length they imbued the whole Confederation. They now
extend their influence beyond its limits over the whole American world.
The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit upon a hill,
which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges the distant
horizon with its glow.

e
[ The States of New England are those situated to the east of the
Hudson; they are now six in number: 1, Connecticut; 2, Rhode Island; 3,
Massachusetts; 4, Vermont; 5, New Hampshire; 6, Maine.]


The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and all the
circumstances attending it were singular and original. The large
majority of colonies have been first inhabited either by men without
education and without resources, driven by their poverty and their
misconduct from the land which gave them birth, or by speculators and
adventurers greedy of gain. Some settlements cannot even boast so
honorable an origin; St. Domingo was founded by buccaneers; and the
criminal courts of England originally supplied the population of
Australia.

The settlers who established themselves on the shores of New England
all belonged to the more independent classes of their native country.
Their union on the soil of America at once presented the singular
phenomenon of a society containing neither lords nor common people,
neither rich nor poor. These men possessed, in proportion to their
number, a greater mass of intelligence than is to be found in any
European nation of our own time. All, without a single exception, had
received a good education, and many of them were known in Europe for
their talents and their acquirements. The other colonies had been
founded by adventurers without family; the emigrants of New England
brought with them the best elements of order and morality—they landed
in the desert accompanied by their wives and children. But what most
especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking. They
had not been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social
position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of
subsistence were certain. Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve
their situation or to increase their wealth; the call which summoned
them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual; and in
facing the inevitable sufferings of exile their object was the triumph
of an idea.

The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the Pilgrims,
belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose principles had
acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puritanism was not merely a
religious doctrine, but it corresponded in many points with the most
absolute democratic and republican theories. It was this tendency which
had aroused its most dangerous adversaries. Persecuted by the
Government of the mother-country, and disgusted by the habits of a
society opposed to the rigor of their own principles, the Puritans went
forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, where they
could live according to their own opinions, and worship God in freedom.

A few quotations will throw more light upon the spirit of these pious
adventures than all we can say of them. Nathaniel Morton, *f the
historian of the first years of the settlement, thus opens his subject:

f
[ “New England’s Memorial,” p. 13; Boston, 1826. See also “Hutchinson’s
History,” vol. ii. p. 440.]


“Gentle Reader,—I have for some length of time looked upon it as a duty
incumbent, especially on the immediate successors of those that have
had so large experience of those many memorable and signal
demonstrations of God’s goodness, viz., the first beginners of this
Plantation in New England, to commit to writing his gracious
dispensations on that behalf; having so many inducements thereunto, not
onely otherwise but so plentifully in the Sacred Scriptures: that so,
what we have seen, and what our fathers have told us (Psalm lxxviii. 3,
4), we may not hide from our children, showing to the generations to
come the praises of the Lord; that especially the seed of Abraham his
servant, and the children of Jacob his chosen (Psalm cv. 5, 6), may
remember his marvellous works in the beginning and progress of the
planting of New England, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth;
how that God brought a vine into this wilderness; that he cast out the
heathen, and planted it; that he made room for it and caused it to take
deep root; and it filled the land (Psalm lxxx. 8, 9). And not onely so,
but also that he hath guided his people by his strength to his holy
habitation and planted them in the mountain of his inheritance in
respect of precious Gospel enjoyments: and that as especially God may
have the glory of all unto whom it is most due; so also some rays of
glory may reach the names of those blessed Saints that were the main
instruments and the beginning of this happy enterprise.”

It is impossible to read this opening paragraph without an involuntary
feeling of religious awe; it breathes the very savor of Gospel
antiquity. The sincerity of the author heightens his power of language.
The band which to his eyes was a mere party of adventurers gone forth
to seek their fortune beyond seas appears to the reader as the germ of
a great nation wafted by Providence to a predestined shore.

The author thus continues his narrative of the departure of the first
pilgrims:—

“So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, *g which had
been their resting-place for above eleven years; but they knew that
they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on
these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest
country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. xi. 16), and
therein quieted their spirits. When they came to Delfs-Haven they found
the ship and all things ready; and such of their friends as could not
come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to
see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent
with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and
Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.
The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where
truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear
what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did
gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart,
that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators
could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man)
calling them away, that were thus loth to depart, their Reverend Pastor
falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks
commended them with most fervent prayers unto the Lord and his
blessing; and then, with mutual embraces and many tears they took their
leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of
them.”

g
[ The emigrants were, for the most part, godly Christians from the
North of England, who had quitted their native country because they
were “studious of reformation, and entered into covenant to walk with
one another according to the primitive pattern of the Word of God.”
They emigrated to Holland, and settled in the city of Leyden in 1610,
where they abode, being lovingly respected by the Dutch, for many
years: they left it in 1620 for several reasons, the last of which was,
that their posterity would in a few generations become Dutch, and so
lose their interest in the English nation; they being desirous rather
to enlarge His Majesty’s dominions, and to live under their natural
prince.—Translator’s Note.]


The emigrants were about 150 in number, including the women and the
children. Their object was to plant a colony on the shores of the
Hudson; but after having been driven about for some time in the
Atlantic Ocean, they were forced to land on that arid coast of New
England which is now the site of the town of Plymouth. The rock is
still shown on which the pilgrims disembarked. *h

h
[ This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I
have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union.
Does not this sufficiently show how entirely all human power and
greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a
few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it
is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic: and
what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces?]


“But before we pass on,” continues our historian, “let the reader with
me make a pause and seriously consider this poor people’s present
condition, the more to be raised up to admiration of God’s goodness
towards them in their preservation: for being now passed the vast
ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectation, they had now
no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no
houses, or much less towns to repair unto to seek for succour: and for
the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country
know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms,
dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown
coasts. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate
wilderness, full of wilde beasts, and wilde men? and what multitudes of
them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned
their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or
content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all
things stand in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the whole
country full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew;
if they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had
passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all
the civil parts of the world.”

It must not be imagined that the piety of the Puritans was of a merely
speculative kind, or that it took no cognizance of the course of
worldly affairs. Puritanism, as I have already remarked, was scarcely
less a political than a religious doctrine. No sooner had the emigrants
landed on the barren coast described by Nathaniel Morton than it was
their first care to constitute a society, by passing the following Act:

“In the name of God. Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal
subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, etc., etc., Having
undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian
Faith, and the honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the
first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; Do by these presents
solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant
and combine ourselves together into a civil body politick, for our
better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends
aforesaid: and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute and frame such
just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and officers,
from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the
general good of the Colony: unto which we promise all due submission
and obedience,” etc. *i

i
[ The emigrants who founded the State of Rhode Island in 1638, those
who landed at New Haven in 1637, the first settlers in Connecticut in
1639, and the founders of Providence in 1640, began in like manner by
drawing up a social contract, which was acceded to by all the
interested parties. See “Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42 and 47.]


This happened in 1620, and from that time forwards the emigration went
on. The religious and political passions which ravaged the British
Empire during the whole reign of Charles I drove fresh crowds of
sectarians every year to the shores of America. In England the
stronghold of Puritanism was in the middle classes, and it was from the
middle classes that the majority of the emigrants came. The population
of New England increased rapidly; and whilst the hierarchy of rank
despotically classed the inhabitants of the mother-country, the colony
continued to present the novel spectacle of a community homogeneous in
all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than any which antiquity had
dreamt of, started in full size and panoply from the midst of an
ancient feudal society.




 Chapter II: Origin Of The Anglo-Americans—Part II


The English Government was not dissatisfied with an emigration which
removed the elements of fresh discord and of further revolutions. On
the contrary, everything was done to encourage it, and great exertions
were made to mitigate the hardships of those who sought a shelter from
the rigor of their country’s laws on the soil of America. It seemed as
if New England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and the
unrestrained experiments of innovators.

The English colonies (and this is one of the main causes of their
prosperity) have always enjoyed more internal freedom and more
political independence than the colonies of other nations; but this
principle of liberty was nowhere more extensively applied than in the
States of New England.

It was generally allowed at that period that the territories of the New
World belonged to that European nation which had been the first to
discover them. Nearly the whole coast of North America thus became a
British possession towards the end of the sixteenth century. The means
used by the English Government to people these new domains were of
several kinds; the King sometimes appointed a governor of his own
choice, who ruled a portion of the New World in the name and under the
immediate orders of the Crown; *j this is the colonial system adopted
by other countries of Europe. Sometimes grants of certain tracts were
made by the Crown to an individual or to a company, *k in which case
all the civil and political power fell into the hands of one or more
persons, who, under the inspection and control of the Crown, sold the
lands and governed the inhabitants. Lastly, a third system consisted in
allowing a certain number of emigrants to constitute a political
society under the protection of the mother-country, and to govern
themselves in whatever was not contrary to her laws. This mode of
colonization, so remarkably favorable to liberty, was only adopted in
New England. *l

j
[ This was the case in the State of New York.]


k
[ Maryland, the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were in this
situation. See “Pitkin’s History,” vol. i. pp. 11-31.]


l
[ See the work entitled “Historical Collection of State Papers and
other authentic Documents intended as materials for a History of the
United States of America, by Ebenezer Hasard. Philadelphia, 1792,” for
a great number of documents relating to the commencement of the
colonies, which are valuable from their contents and their
authenticity: amongst them are the various charters granted by the King
of England, and the first acts of the local governments.


See also the analysis of all these charters given by Mr. Story, Judge
of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Introduction to his
“Commentary on the Constitution of the United States.” It results from
these documents that the principles of representative government and
the external forms of political liberty were introduced into all the
colonies at their origin. These principles were more fully acted upon
in the North than in the South, but they existed everywhere.]

In 1628 *m a charter of this kind was granted by Charles I to the
emigrants who went to form the colony of Massachusetts. But, in
general, charters were not given to the colonies of New England till
they had acquired a certain existence. Plymouth, Providence, New Haven,
the State of Connecticut, and that of Rhode Island *n were founded
without the co-operation and almost without the knowledge of the
mother-country. The new settlers did not derive their incorporation
from the seat of the empire, although they did not deny its supremacy;
they constituted a society of their own accord, and it was not till
thirty or forty years afterwards, under Charles II. that their
existence was legally recognized by a royal charter.

m
[ See “Pitkin’s History,” p, 35. See the “History of the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay,” by Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 9.] [Footnote n: See
“Pitkin’s History,” pp. 42, 47.]


This frequently renders its it difficult to detect the link which
connected the emigrants with the land of their forefathers in studying
the earliest historical and legislative records of New England. They
exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates,
concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted
laws as if their allegiance was due only to God. *o Nothing can be more
curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of
that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem
which the United States now present to the world is to be found.

o
[ The inhabitants of Massachusetts had deviated from the forms which
are preserved in the criminal and civil procedure of England; in 1650
the decrees of justice were not yet headed by the royal style. See
Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 452.]


Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic,
the code of laws promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in
1650. *p The legislators of Connecticut *q begin with the penal laws,
and, strange to say, they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy
Writ. “Whosoever shall worship any other God than the Lord,” says the
preamble of the Code, “shall surely be put to death.” This is followed
by ten or twelve enactments of the same kind, copied verbatim from the
books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Blasphemy, sorcery,
adultery, *r and rape were punished with death; an outrage offered by a
son to his parents was to be expiated by the same penalty. The
legislation of a rude and half-civilized people was thus applied to an
enlightened and moral community. The consequence was that the
punishment of death was never more frequently prescribed by the
statute, and never more rarely enforced towards the guilty.

p
[ Code of 1650, p. 28; Hartford, 1830.]


q
[ See also in “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. i. pp. 435, 456, the
analysis of the penal code adopted in 1648 by the Colony of
Massachusetts: this code is drawn up on the same principles as that of
Connecticut.]


r
[ Adultery was also punished with death by the law of Massachusetts:
and Hutchinson, vol. i. p. 441, says that several persons actually
suffered for this crime. He quotes a curious anecdote on this subject,
which occurred in the year 1663. A married woman had had criminal
intercourse with a young man; her husband died, and she married the
lover. Several years had elapsed, when the public began to suspect the
previous intercourse of this couple: they were thrown into prison, put
upon trial, and very narrowly escaped capital punishment.]


The chief care of the legislators, in this body of penal laws, was the
maintenance of orderly conduct and good morals in the community: they
constantly invaded the domain of conscience, and there was scarcely a
sin which was not subject to magisterial censure. The reader is aware
of the rigor with which these laws punished rape and adultery;
intercourse between unmarried persons was likewise severely repressed.
The judge was empowered to inflict a pecuniary penalty, a whipping, or
marriage *s on the misdemeanants; and if the records of the old courts
of New Haven may be believed, prosecutions of this kind were not
unfrequent. We find a sentence bearing date the first of May, 1660,
inflicting a fine and reprimand on a young woman who was accused of
using improper language, and of allowing herself to be kissed. *t The
Code of 1650 abounds in preventive measures. It punishes idleness and
drunkenness with severity. *u Innkeepers are forbidden to furnish more
than a certain quantity of liquor to each consumer; and simple lying,
whenever it may be injurious, *v is checked by a fine or a flogging. In
other places, the legislator, entirely forgetting the great principles
of religious toleration which he had himself upheld in Europe, renders
attendance on divine service compulsory, *w and goes so far as to visit
with severe punishment, ** and even with death, the Christians who
chose to worship God according to a ritual differing from his own. *x
Sometimes indeed the zeal of his enactments induces him to descend to
the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same
Code which prohibits the use of tobacco. *y It must not be forgotten
that these fantastical and vexatious laws were not imposed by
authority, but that they were freely voted by all the persons
interested, and that the manners of the community were even more
austere and more puritanical than the laws. In 1649 a solemn
association was formed in Boston to check the worldly luxury of long
hair. *z

s
[ Code of 1650, p. 48. It seems sometimes to have happened that the
judges superadded these punishments to each other, as is seen in a
sentence pronounced in 1643 (p. 114, “New Haven Antiquities”), by which
Margaret Bedford, convicted of loose conduct, was condemned to be
whipped, and afterwards to marry Nicholas Jemmings, her accomplice.]


t
[ “New Haven Antiquities,” p. 104. See also “Hutchinson’s History,” for
several causes equally extraordinary.]


u
[ Code of 1650, pp. 50, 57.]


v
[ Ibid., p. 64.]


w
[ Ibid., p. 44.]


*
[ This was not peculiar to Connecticut. See, for instance, the law
which, on September 13, 1644, banished the Anabaptists from the State
of Massachusetts. (“Historical Collection of State Papers,” vol. i. p.
538.) See also the law against the Quakers, passed on October 14, 1656:
“Whereas,” says the preamble, “an accursed race of heretics called
Quakers has sprung up,” etc. The clauses of the statute inflict a heavy
fine on all captains of ships who should import Quakers into the
country. The Quakers who may be found there shall be whipped and
imprisoned with hard labor. Those members of the sect who should defend
their opinions shall be first fined, then imprisoned, and finally
driven out of the province.—“Historical Collection of State Papers,”
vol. i. p. 630.]


x
[ By the penal law of Massachusetts, any Catholic priest who should set
foot in the colony after having been once driven out of it was liable
to capital punishment.]


y
[ Code of 1650, p. 96.]


z
[ “New England’s Memorial,” p. 316. See Appendix, E.]


These errors are no doubt discreditable to human reason; they attest
the inferiority of our nature, which is incapable of laying firm hold
upon what is true and just, and is often reduced to the alternative of
two excesses. In strict connection with this penal legislation, which
bears such striking marks of a narrow sectarian spirit, and of those
religious passions which had been warmed by persecution and were still
fermenting among the people, a body of political laws is to be found,
which, though written two hundred years ago, is still ahead of the
liberties of our age. The general principles which are the groundwork
of modern constitutions—principles which were imperfectly known in
Europe, and not completely triumphant even in Great Britain, in the
seventeenth century—were all recognized and determined by the laws of
New England: the intervention of the people in public affairs, the free
voting of taxes, the responsibility of authorities, personal liberty,
and trial by jury, were all positively established without discussion.
From these fruitful principles consequences have been derived and
applications have been made such as no nation in Europe has yet
ventured to attempt.

In Connecticut the electoral body consisted, from its origin, of the
whole number of citizens; and this is readily to be understood, *a when
we recollect that this people enjoyed an almost perfect equality of
fortune, and a still greater uniformity of opinions. *b In Connecticut,
at this period, all the executive functionaries were elected, including
the Governor of the State. *c The citizens above the age of sixteen
were obliged to bear arms; they formed a national militia, which
appointed its own officers, and was to hold itself at all times in
readiness to march for the defence of the country. *d

a
[ Constitution of 1638, p. 17.]


b
[ In 1641 the General Assembly of Rhode Island unanimously declared
that the government of the State was a democracy, and that the power
was vested in the body of free citizens, who alone had the right to
make the laws and to watch their execution.—Code of 1650, p. 70.]


c
[ “Pitkin’s History,” p. 47.]


d
[ Constitution of 1638, p. 12.]


In the laws of Connecticut, as well as in all those of New England, we
find the germ and gradual development of that township independence
which is the life and mainspring of American liberty at the present
day. The political existence of the majority of the nations of Europe
commenced in the superior ranks of society, and was gradually and
imperfectly communicated to the different members of the social body.
In America, on the other hand, it may be said that the township was
organized before the county, the county before the State, the State
before the Union. In New England townships were completely and
definitively constituted as early as 1650. The independence of the
township was the nucleus round which the local interests, passions,
rights, and duties collected and clung. It gave scope to the activity
of a real political life most thoroughly democratic and republican. The
colonies still recognized the supremacy of the mother-country; monarchy
was still the law of the State; but the republic was already
established in every township. The towns named their own magistrates of
every kind, rated themselves, and levied their own taxes. *e In the
parish of New England the law of representation was not adopted, but
the affairs of the community were discussed, as at Athens, in the
market-place, by a general assembly of the citizens.

e
[ Code of 1650, p. 80.]


In studying the laws which were promulgated at this first era of the
American republics, it is impossible not to be struck by the remarkable
acquaintance with the science of government and the advanced theory of
legislation which they display. The ideas there formed of the duties of
society towards its members are evidently much loftier and more
comprehensive than those of the European legislators at that time:
obligations were there imposed which were elsewhere slighted. In the
States of New England, from the first, the condition of the poor was
provided for; *f strict measures were taken for the maintenance of
roads, and surveyors were appointed to attend to them; *g registers
were established in every parish, in which the results of public
deliberations, and the births, deaths, and marriages of the citizens
were entered; *h clerks were directed to keep these registers; *i
officers were charged with the administration of vacant inheritances,
and with the arbitration of litigated landmarks; and many others were
created whose chief functions were the maintenance of public order in
the community. *j The law enters into a thousand useful provisions for
a number of social wants which are at present very inadequately felt in
France. [Footnote f: Ibid., p. 78.]

g
[ Ibid., p. 49.]


h
[ See “Hutchinson’s History,” vol. i. p. 455.]


i
[ Code of 1650, p. 86.]


j
[ Ibid., p. 40.]


But it is by the attention it pays to Public Education that the
original character of American civilization is at once placed in the
clearest light. “It being,” says the law, “one chief project of Satan
to keep men from the knowledge of the Scripture by persuading from the
use of tongues, to the end that learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth, the Lord
assisting our endeavors. . . .” *k Here follow clauses establishing
schools in every township, and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of
heavy fines, to support them. Schools of a superior kind were founded
in the same manner in the more populous districts. The municipal
authorities were bound to enforce the sending of children to school by
their parents; they were empowered to inflict fines upon all who
refused compliance; and in case of continued resistance society assumed
the place of the parent, took possession of the child, and deprived the
father of those natural rights which he used to so bad a purpose. The
reader will undoubtedly have remarked the preamble of these enactments:
in America religion is the road to knowledge, and the observance of the
divine laws leads man to civil freedom.

k
[ Ibid., p. 90.]


If, after having cast a rapid glance over the state of American society
in 1650, we turn to the condition of Europe, and more especially to
that of the Continent, at the same period, we cannot fail to be struck
with astonishment. On the Continent of Europe, at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, absolute monarchy had everywhere triumphed over
the ruins of the oligarchical and feudal liberties of the Middle Ages.
Never were the notions of right more completely confounded than in the
midst of the splendor and literature of Europe; never was there less
political activity among the people; never were the principles of true
freedom less widely circulated; and at that very time those principles,
which were scorned or unknown by the nations of Europe, were proclaimed
in the deserts of the New World, and were accepted as the future creed
of a great people. The boldest theories of the human reason were put
into practice by a community so humble that not a statesman
condescended to attend to it; and a legislation without a precedent was
produced offhand by the imagination of the citizens. In the bosom of
this obscure democracy, which had as yet brought forth neither
generals, nor philosophers, nor authors, a man might stand up in the
face of a free people and pronounce the following fine definition of
liberty. *l

l
[ Mather’s “Magnalia Christi Americana,” vol. ii. p. 13. This speech
was made by Winthrop; he was accused of having committed arbitrary
actions during his magistracy, but after having made the speech of
which the above is a fragment, he was acquitted by acclamation, and
from that time forwards he was always re-elected governor of the State.
See Marshal, vol. i. p. 166.]


“Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty.
There is a liberty of a corrupt nature which is effected both by men
and beasts to do what they list, and this liberty is inconsistent with
authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty ‘sumus omnes
deteriores’: ’tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the
ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a civil, a moral, a
federal liberty which is the proper end and object of authority; it is
a liberty for that only which is just and good: for this liberty you
are to stand with the hazard of your very lives and whatsoever crosses
it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is
maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set
over you will, in all administrations for your good, be quietly
submitted unto by all but such as have a disposition to shake off the
yoke and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honor and
power of authority.”

The remarks I have made will suffice to display the character of
Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the result (and
this should be constantly present to the mind of two distinct
elements), which in other places have been in frequent hostility, but
which in America have been admirably incorporated and combined with one
another. I allude to the spirit of Religion and the spirit of Liberty.

The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians and
daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious
opinions were, they were entirely free from political prejudices. Hence
arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are constantly
discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of the country.

It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their
family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed
in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at
so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the
acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as
liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which they
devoted themselves to Heaven.

Political principles and all human laws and institutions were moulded
and altered at their pleasure; the barriers of the society in which
they were born were broken down before them; the old principles which
had governed the world for ages were no more; a path without a turn and
a field without an horizon were opened to the exploring and ardent
curiosity of man: but at the limits of the political world he checks
his researches, he discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable
faculties, he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully
abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields with
submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss. Thus, in the
moral world everything is classed, adapted, decided, and foreseen; in
the political world everything is agitated, uncertain, and disputed: in
the one is a passive, though a voluntary, obedience; in the other an
independence scornful of experience and jealous of authority.

These two tendencies, apparently so discrepant, are far from
conflicting; they advance together, and mutually support each other.
Religion perceives that civil liberty affords a noble exercise to the
faculties of man, and that the political world is a field prepared by
the Creator for the efforts of the intelligence. Contented with the
freedom and the power which it enjoys in its own sphere, and with the
place which it occupies, the empire of religion is never more surely
established than when it reigns in the hearts of men unsupported by
aught beside its native strength. Religion is no less the companion of
liberty in all its battles and its triumphs; the cradle of its infancy,
and the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of morality is
religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest
pledge of freedom. *m

m
[ See Appendix, F.]


Reasons Of Certain Anomalies Which The Laws And Customs Of The
Anglo-Americans Present

Remains of aristocratic institutions in the midst of a complete
democracy—Why?—Distinction carefully to be drawn between what is of
Puritanical and what is of English origin.

The reader is cautioned not to draw too general or too absolute an
inference from what has been said. The social condition, the religion,
and the manners of the first emigrants undoubtedly exercised an immense
influence on the destiny of their new country. Nevertheless they were
not in a situation to found a state of things solely dependent on
themselves: no man can entirely shake off the influence of the past,
and the settlers, intentionally or involuntarily, mingled habits and
notions derived from their education and from the traditions of their
country with those habits and notions which were exclusively their own.
To form a judgment on the Anglo-Americans of the present day it is
therefore necessary to distinguish what is of Puritanical and what is
of English origin.

Laws and customs are frequently to be met with in the United States
which contrast strongly with all that surrounds them. These laws seem
to be drawn up in a spirit contrary to the prevailing tenor of the
American legislation; and these customs are no less opposed to the tone
of society. If the English colonies had been founded in an age of
darkness, or if their origin was already lost in the lapse of years,
the problem would be insoluble.

I shall quote a single example to illustrate what I advance. The civil
and criminal procedure of the Americans has only two means of
action—committal and bail. The first measure taken by the magistrate is
to exact security from the defendant, or, in case of refusal, to
incarcerate him: the ground of the accusation and the importance of the
charges against him are then discussed. It is evident that a
legislation of this kind is hostile to the poor man, and favorable only
to the rich. The poor man has not always a security to produce, even in
a civil cause; and if he is obliged to wait for justice in prison, he
is speedily reduced to distress. The wealthy individual, on the
contrary, always escapes imprisonment in civil causes; nay, more, he
may readily elude the punishment which awaits him for a delinquency by
breaking his bail. So that all the penalties of the law are, for him,
reducible to fines. *n Nothing can be more aristocratic than this
system of legislation. Yet in America it is the poor who make the law,
and they usually reserve the greatest social advantages to themselves.
The explanation of the phenomenon is to be found in England; the laws
of which I speak are English, *o and the Americans have retained them,
however repugnant they may be to the tenor of their legislation and the
mass of their ideas. Next to its habits, the thing which a nation is
least apt to change is its civil legislation. Civil laws are only
familiarly known to legal men, whose direct interest it is to maintain
them as they are, whether good or bad, simply because they themselves
are conversant with them. The body of the nation is scarcely acquainted
with them; it merely perceives their action in particular cases; but it
has some difficulty in seizing their tendency, and obeys them without
premeditation. I have quoted one instance where it would have been easy
to adduce a great number of others. The surface of American society is,
if I may use the expression, covered with a layer of democracy, from
beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.

n
[ Crimes no doubt exist for which bail is inadmissible, but they are
few in number.]


o
[ See Blackstone; and Delolme, book I chap. x.]




 Chapter III: Social Conditions Of The Anglo-Americans




 Chapter Summary


A Social condition is commonly the result of circumstances, sometimes
of laws, oftener still of these two causes united; but wherever it
exists, it may justly be considered as the source of almost all the
laws, the usages, and the ideas which regulate the conduct of nations;
whatever it does not produce it modifies. It is therefore necessary, if
we would become acquainted with the legislation and the manners of a
nation, to begin by the study of its social condition.

The Striking Characteristic Of The Social Condition Of The
Anglo-Americans In Its Essential Democracy.

The first emigrants of New England—Their equality—Aristocratic laws
introduced in the South—Period of the Revolution—Change in the law of
descent—Effects produced by this change—Democracy carried to its utmost
limits in the new States of the West—Equality of education.

Many important observations suggest themselves upon the social
condition of the Anglo-Americans, but there is one which takes
precedence of all the rest. The social condition of the Americans is
eminently democratic; this was its character at the foundation of the
Colonies, and is still more strongly marked at the present day. I have
stated in the preceding chapter that great equality existed among the
emigrants who settled on the shores of New England. The germ of
aristocracy was never planted in that part of the Union. The only
influence which obtained there was that of intellect; the people were
used to reverence certain names as the emblems of knowledge and virtue.
Some of their fellow-citizens acquired a power over the rest which
might truly have been called aristocratic, if it had been capable of
transmission from father to son.

This was the state of things to the east of the Hudson: to the
south-west of that river, and in the direction of the Floridas, the
case was different. In most of the States situated to the south-west of
the Hudson some great English proprietors had settled, who had imported
with them aristocratic principles and the English law of descent. I
have explained the reasons why it was impossible ever to establish a
powerful aristocracy in America; these reasons existed with less force
to the south-west of the Hudson. In the South, one man, aided by
slaves, could cultivate a great extent of country: it was therefore
common to see rich landed proprietors. But their influence was not
altogether aristocratic as that term is understood in Europe, since
they possessed no privileges; and the cultivation of their estates
being carried on by slaves, they had no tenants depending on them, and
consequently no patronage. Still, the great proprietors south of the
Hudson constituted a superior class, having ideas and tastes of its
own, and forming the centre of political action. This kind of
aristocracy sympathized with the body of the people, whose passions and
interests it easily embraced; but it was too weak and too short-lived
to excite either love or hatred for itself. This was the class which
headed the insurrection in the South, and furnished the best leaders of
the American revolution.

At the period of which we are now speaking society was shaken to its
centre: the people, in whose name the struggle had taken place,
conceived the desire of exercising the authority which it had acquired;
its democratic tendencies were awakened; and having thrown off the yoke
of the mother-country, it aspired to independence of every kind. The
influence of individuals gradually ceased to be felt, and custom and
law united together to produce the same result.

But the law of descent was the last step to equality. I am surprised
that ancient and modern jurists have not attributed to this law a
greater influence on human affairs. *a It is true that these laws
belong to civil affairs; but they ought nevertheless to be placed at
the head of all political institutions; for, whilst political laws are
only the symbol of a nation’s condition, they exercise an incredible
influence upon its social state. They have, moreover, a sure and
uniform manner of operating upon society, affecting, as it were,
generations yet unborn.

a
[ I understand by the law of descent all those laws whose principal
object is to regulate the distribution of property after the death of
its owner. The law of entail is of this number; it certainly prevents
the owner from disposing of his possessions before his death; but this
is solely with the view of preserving them entire for the heir. The
principal object, therefore, of the law of entail is to regulate the
descent of property after the death of its owner: its other provisions
are merely means to this end.]


Through their means man acquires a kind of preternatural power over the
future lot of his fellow-creatures. When the legislator has regulated
the law of inheritance, he may rest from his labor. The machine once
put in motion will go on for ages, and advance, as if self-guided,
towards a given point. When framed in a particular manner, this law
unites, draws together, and vests property and power in a few hands:
its tendency is clearly aristocratic. On opposite principles its action
is still more rapid; it divides, distributes, and disperses both
property and power. Alarmed by the rapidity of its progress, those who
despair of arresting its motion endeavor to obstruct it by difficulties
and impediments; they vainly seek to counteract its effect by contrary
efforts; but it gradually reduces or destroys every obstacle, until by
its incessant activity the bulwarks of the influence of wealth are
ground down to the fine and shifting sand which is the basis of
democracy. When the law of inheritance permits, still more when it
decrees, the equal division of a father’s property amongst all his
children, its effects are of two kinds: it is important to distinguish
them from each other, although they tend to the same end.

In virtue of the law of partible inheritance, the death of every
proprietor brings about a kind of revolution in property; not only do
his possessions change hands, but their very nature is altered, since
they are parcelled into shares, which become smaller and smaller at
each division. This is the direct and, as it were, the physical effect
of the law. It follows, then, that in countries where equality of
inheritance is established by law, property, and especially landed
property, must have a tendency to perpetual diminution. The effects,
however, of such legislation would only be perceptible after a lapse of
time, if the law was abandoned to its own working; for supposing the
family to consist of two children (and in a country people as France is
the average number is not above three), these children, sharing amongst
them the fortune of both parents, would not be poorer than their father
or mother.

But the law of equal division exercises its influence not merely upon
the property itself, but it affects the minds of the heirs, and brings
their passions into play. These indirect consequences tend powerfully
to the destruction of large fortunes, and especially of large domains.
Among nations whose law of descent is founded upon the right of
primogeniture landed estates often pass from generation to generation
without undergoing division, the consequence of which is that family
feeling is to a certain degree incorporated with the estate. The family
represents the estate, the estate the family; whose name, together with
its origin, its glory, its power, and its virtues, is thus perpetuated
in an imperishable memorial of the past and a sure pledge of the
future.

When the equal partition of property is established by law, the
intimate connection is destroyed between family feeling and the
preservation of the paternal estate; the property ceases to represent
the family; for as it must inevitably be divided after one or two
generations, it has evidently a constant tendency to diminish, and must
in the end be completely dispersed. The sons of the great landed
proprietor, if they are few in number, or if fortune befriends them,
may indeed entertain the hope of being as wealthy as their father, but
not that of possessing the same property as he did; the riches must
necessarily be composed of elements different from his.

Now, from the moment that you divest the landowner of that interest in
the preservation of his estate which he derives from association, from
tradition, and from family pride, you may be certain that sooner or
later he will dispose of it; for there is a strong pecuniary interest
in favor of selling, as floating capital produces higher interest than
real property, and is more readily available to gratify the passions of
the moment.

Great landed estates which have once been divided never come together
again; for the small proprietor draws from his land a better revenue,
in proportion, than the large owner does from his, and of course he
sells it at a higher rate. *b The calculations of gain, therefore,
which decide the rich man to sell his domain will still more powerfully
influence him against buying small estates to unite them into a large
one.

b
[ I do not mean to say that the small proprietor cultivates his land
better, but he cultivates it with more ardor and care; so that he makes
up by his labor for his want of skill.]


What is called family pride is often founded upon an illusion of
self-love. A man wishes to perpetuate and immortalize himself, as it
were, in his great-grandchildren. Where the esprit de famille ceases to
act individual selfishness comes into play. When the idea of family
becomes vague, indeterminate, and uncertain, a man thinks of his
present convenience; he provides for the establishment of his
succeeding generation, and no more. Either a man gives up the idea of
perpetuating his family, or at any rate he seeks to accomplish it by
other means than that of a landed estate. Thus not only does the law of
partible inheritance render it difficult for families to preserve their
ancestral domains entire, but it deprives them of the inclination to
attempt it, and compels them in some measure to co-operate with the law
in their own extinction.

The law of equal distribution proceeds by two methods: by acting upon
things, it acts upon persons; by influencing persons, it affects
things. By these means the law succeeds in striking at the root of
landed property, and dispersing rapidly both families and fortunes. *c

c
[ Land being the most stable kind of property, we find, from time to
time, rich individuals who are disposed to make great sacrifices in
order to obtain it, and who willingly forfeit a considerable part of
their income to make sure of the rest. But these are accidental cases.
The preference for landed property is no longer found habitually in any
class but among the poor. The small landowner, who has less
information, less imagination, and fewer passions than the great one,
is generally occupied with the desire of increasing his estate: and it
often happens that by inheritance, by marriage, or by the chances of
trade, he is gradually furnished with the means. Thus, to balance the
tendency which leads men to divide their estates, there exists another,
which incites them to add to them. This tendency, which is sufficient
to prevent estates from being divided ad infinitum, is not strong
enough to create great territorial possessions, certainly not to keep
them up in the same family.]


Most certainly it is not for us Frenchmen of the nineteenth century,
who daily witness the political and social changes which the law of
partition is bringing to pass, to question its influence. It is
perpetually conspicuous in our country, overthrowing the walls of our
dwellings and removing the landmarks of our fields. But although it has
produced great effects in France, much still remains for it to do. Our
recollections, opinions, and habits present powerful obstacles to its
progress.

In the United States it has nearly completed its work of destruction,
and there we can best study its results. The English laws concerning
the transmission of property were abolished in almost all the States at
the time of the Revolution. The law of entail was so modified as not to
interrupt the free circulation of property. *d The first generation
having passed away, estates began to be parcelled out, and the change
became more and more rapid with the progress of time. At this moment,
after a lapse of a little more than sixty years, the aspect of society
is totally altered; the families of the great landed proprietors are
almost all commingled with the general mass. In the State of New York,
which formerly contained many of these, there are but two who still
keep their heads above the stream, and they must shortly disappear. The
sons of these opulent citizens are become merchants, lawyers, or
physicians. Most of them have lapsed into obscurity. The last trace of
hereditary ranks and distinctions is destroyed—the law of partition has
reduced all to one level. [Footnote d: See Appendix, G.]

I do not mean that there is any deficiency of wealthy individuals in
the United States; I know of no country, indeed, where the love of
money has taken stronger hold on the affections of men, and where the
profounder contempt is expressed for the theory of the permanent
equality of property. But wealth circulates with inconceivable
rapidity, and experience shows that it is rare to find two succeeding
generations in the full enjoyment of it.

This picture, which may perhaps be thought to be overcharged, still
gives a very imperfect idea of what is taking place in the new States
of the West and South-west. At the end of the last century a few bold
adventurers began to penetrate into the valleys of the Mississippi, and
the mass of the population very soon began to move in that direction:
communities unheard of till then were seen to emerge from the wilds:
States whose names were not in existence a few years before claimed
their place in the American Union; and in the Western settlements we
may behold democracy arrived at its utmost extreme. In these States,
founded off-hand, and, as it were, by chance, the inhabitants are but
of yesterday. Scarcely known to one another, the nearest neighbors are
ignorant of each other’s history. In this part of the American
continent, therefore, the population has not experienced the influence
of great names and great wealth, nor even that of the natural
aristocracy of knowledge and virtue. None are there to wield that
respectable power which men willingly grant to the remembrance of a
life spent in doing good before their eyes. The new States of the West
are already inhabited, but society has no existence among them. *e

e
[ This may have been true in 1832, but is not so in 1874, when great
cities like Chicago and San Francisco have sprung up in the Western
States. But as yet the Western States exert no powerful influence on
American society.—-Translator’s Note.]


It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in America; even
their requirements partake in some degree of the same uniformity. I do
not believe that there is a country in the world where, in proportion
to the population, there are so few uninstructed and at the same time
so few learned individuals. Primary instruction is within the reach of
everybody; superior instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any. This
is not surprising; it is in fact the necessary consequence of what we
have advanced above. Almost all the Americans are in easy
circumstances, and can therefore obtain the first elements of human
knowledge.

In America there are comparatively few who are rich enough to live
without a profession. Every profession requires an apprenticeship,
which limits the time of instruction to the early years of life. At
fifteen they enter upon their calling, and thus their education ends at
the age when ours begins. Whatever is done afterwards is with a view to
some special and lucrative object; a science is taken up as a matter of
business, and the only branch of it which is attended to is such as
admits of an immediate practical application. In America most of the
rich men were formerly poor; most of those who now enjoy leisure were
absorbed in business during their youth; the consequence of which is,
that when they might have had a taste for study they had no time for
it, and when time is at their disposal they have no longer the
inclination.

There is no class, then, in America, in which the taste for
intellectual pleasures is transmitted with hereditary fortune and
leisure, and by which the labors of the intellect are held in honor.
Accordingly there is an equal want of the desire and the power of
application to these objects.

A middle standard is fixed in America for human knowledge. All approach
as near to it as they can; some as they rise, others as they descend.
Of course, an immense multitude of persons are to be found who
entertain the same number of ideas on religion, history, science,
political economy, legislation, and government. The gifts of intellect
proceed directly from God, and man cannot prevent their unequal
distribution. But in consequence of the state of things which we have
here represented it happens that, although the capacities of men are
widely different, as the Creator has doubtless intended they should be,
they are submitted to the same method of treatment.

In America the aristocratic element has always been feeble from its
birth; and if at the present day it is not actually destroyed, it is at
any rate so completely disabled that we can scarcely assign to it any
degree of influence in the course of affairs. The democratic principle,
on the contrary, has gained so much strength by time, by events, and by
legislation, as to have become not only predominant but all-powerful.
There is no family or corporate authority, and it is rare to find even
the influence of individual character enjoy any durability.

America, then, exhibits in her social state a most extraordinary
phenomenon. Men are there seen on a greater equality in point of
fortune and intellect, or, in other words, more equal in their
strength, than in any other country of the world, or in any age of
which history has preserved the remembrance.

Political Consequences Of The Social Condition Of The Anglo-Americans

The political consequences of such a social condition as this are
easily deducible. It is impossible to believe that equality will not
eventually find its way into the political world as it does everywhere
else. To conceive of men remaining forever unequal upon one single
point, yet equal on all others, is impossible; they must come in the
end to be equal upon all. Now I know of only two methods of
establishing equality in the political world; every citizen must be put
in possession of his rights, or rights must be granted to no one. For
nations which are arrived at the same stage of social existence as the
Anglo-Americans, it is therefore very difficult to discover a medium
between the sovereignty of all and the absolute power of one man: and
it would be vain to deny that the social condition which I have been
describing is equally liable to each of these consequences.

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which
excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored. This passion tends
to elevate the humble to the rank of the great; but there exists also
in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak
to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to
prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom. Not that those
nations whose social condition is democratic naturally despise liberty;
on the contrary, they have an instinctive love of it. But liberty is
not the chief and constant object of their desires; equality is their
idol: they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty, and if they
miss their aim resign themselves to their disappointment; but nothing
can satisfy them except equality, and rather than lose it they resolve
to perish.

On the other hand, in a State where the citizens are nearly on an
equality, it becomes difficult for them to preserve their independence
against the aggressions of power. No one among them being strong enough
to engage in the struggle with advantage, nothing but a general
combination can protect their liberty. And such a union is not always
to be found.

From the same social position, then, nations may derive one or the
other of two great political results; these results are extremely
different from each other, but they may both proceed from the same
cause.

The Anglo-Americans are the first nations who, having been exposed to
this formidable alternative, have been happy enough to escape the
dominion of absolute power. They have been allowed by their
circumstances, their origin, their intelligence, and especially by
their moral feeling, to establish and maintain the sovereignty of the
people.




 Chapter IV: The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America




 Chapter Summary


It predominates over the whole of society in America—Application made
of this principle by the Americans even before their
Revolution—Development given to it by that Revolution—Gradual and
irresistible extension of the elective qualification.

The Principle Of The Sovereignty Of The People In America

Whenever the political laws of the United States are to be discussed,
it is with the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people that we must
begin. The principle of the sovereignty of the people, which is to be
found, more or less, at the bottom of almost all human institutions,
generally remains concealed from view. It is obeyed without being
recognized, or if for a moment it be brought to light, it is hastily
cast back into the gloom of the sanctuary. “The will of the nation” is
one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the
wily and the despotic of every age. To the eyes of some it has been
represented by the venal suffrages of a few of the satellites of power;
to others by the votes of a timid or an interested minority; and some
have even discovered it in the silence of a people, on the supposition
that the fact of submission established the right of command.

In America the principle of the sovereignty of the people is not either
barren or concealed, as it is with some other nations; it is recognized
by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; it spreads freely, and
arrives without impediment at its most remote consequences. If there be
a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the
people can be fairly appreciated, where it can be studied in its
application to the affairs of society, and where its dangers and its
advantages may be foreseen, that country is assuredly America.

I have already observed that, from their origin, the sovereignty of the
people was the fundamental principle of the greater number of British
colonies in America. It was far, however, from then exercising as much
influence on the government of society as it now does. Two obstacles,
the one external, the other internal, checked its invasive progress. It
could not ostensibly disclose itself in the laws of colonies which were
still constrained to obey the mother-country: it was therefore obliged
to spread secretly, and to gain ground in the provincial assemblies,
and especially in the townships.

American society was not yet prepared to adopt it with all its
consequences. The intelligence of New England, and the wealth of the
country to the south of the Hudson (as I have shown in the preceding
chapter), long exercised a sort of aristocratic influence, which tended
to retain the exercise of social authority in the hands of a few. The
public functionaries were not universally elected, and the citizens
were not all of them electors. The electoral franchise was everywhere
placed within certain limits, and made dependent on a certain
qualification, which was exceedingly low in the North and more
considerable in the South.

The American revolution broke out, and the doctrine of the sovereignty
of the people, which had been nurtured in the townships and
municipalities, took possession of the State: every class was enlisted
in its cause; battles were fought, and victories obtained for it, until
it became the law of laws.

A no less rapid change was effected in the interior of society, where
the law of descent completed the abolition of local influences.

At the very time when this consequence of the laws and of the
revolution was apparent to every eye, victory was irrevocably
pronounced in favor of the democratic cause. All power was, in fact, in
its hands, and resistance was no longer possible. The higher orders
submitted without a murmur and without a struggle to an evil which was
thenceforth inevitable. The ordinary fate of falling powers awaited
them; each of their several members followed his own interests; and as
it was impossible to wring the power from the hands of a people which
they did not detest sufficiently to brave, their only aim was to secure
its good-will at any price. The most democratic laws were consequently
voted by the very men whose interests they impaired; and thus, although
the higher classes did not excite the passions of the people against
their order, they accelerated the triumph of the new state of things;
so that by a singular change the democratic impulse was found to be
most irresistible in the very States where the aristocracy had the
firmest hold. The State of Maryland, which had been founded by men of
rank, was the first to proclaim universal suffrage, and to introduce
the most democratic forms into the conduct of its government.

When a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily be
foreseen that sooner or later that qualification will be entirely
abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of society:
the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need of
extending them; for after each concession the strength of the democracy
increases, and its demands increase with its strength. The ambition of
those who are below the appointed rate is irritated in exact proportion
to the great number of those who are above it. The exception at last
becomes the rule, concession follows concession, and no stop can be
made short of universal suffrage.

At the present day the principle of the sovereignty of the people has
acquired, in the United States, all the practical development which the
imagination can conceive. It is unencumbered by those fictions which
have been thrown over it in other countries, and it appears in every
possible form according to the exigency of the occasion. Sometimes the
laws are made by the people in a body, as at Athens; and sometimes its
representatives, chosen by universal suffrage, transact business in its
name, and almost under its immediate control.

In some countries a power exists which, though it is in a degree
foreign to the social body, directs it, and forces it to pursue a
certain track. In others the ruling force is divided, being partly
within and partly without the ranks of the people. But nothing of the
kind is to be seen in the United States; there society governs itself
for itself. All power centres in its bosom; and scarcely an individual
is to be meet with who would venture to conceive, or, still less, to
express, the idea of seeking it elsewhere. The nation participates in
the making of its laws by the choice of its legislators, and in the
execution of them by the choice of the agents of the executive
government; it may almost be said to govern itself, so feeble and so
restricted is the share left to the administration, so little do the
authorities forget their popular origin and the power from which they
emanate. *a [Footnote a: See Appendix, H.]




 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part I


Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States Before That Of The
Union At Large.

It is proposed to examine in the following chapter what is the form of
government established in America on the principle of the sovereignty
of the people; what are its resources, its hindrances, its advantages,
and its dangers. The first difficulty which presents itself arises from
the complex nature of the constitution of the United States, which
consists of two distinct social structures, connected and, as it were,
encased one within the other; two governments, completely separate and
almost independent, the one fulfilling the ordinary duties and
responding to the daily and indefinite calls of a community, the other
circumscribed within certain limits, and only exercising an exceptional
authority over the general interests of the country. In short, there
are twenty-four small sovereign nations, whose agglomeration
constitutes the body of the Union. To examine the Union before we have
studied the States would be to adopt a method filled with obstacles.
The form of the Federal Government of the United States was the last
which was adopted; and it is in fact nothing more than a modification
or a summary of those republican principles which were current in the
whole community before it existed, and independently of its existence.
Moreover, the Federal Government is, as I have just observed, the
exception; the Government of the States is the rule. The author who
should attempt to exhibit the picture as a whole before he had
explained its details would necessarily fall into obscurity and
repetition.

The great political principles which govern American society at this
day undoubtedly took their origin and their growth in the State. It is
therefore necessary to become acquainted with the State in order to
possess a clue to the remainder. The States which at present compose
the American Union all present the same features, as far as regards the
external aspect of their institutions. Their political or
administrative existence is centred in three focuses of action, which
may not inaptly be compared to the different nervous centres which
convey motion to the human body. The township is the lowest in order,
then the county, and lastly the State; and I propose to devote the
following chapter to the examination of these three divisions.

The American System Of Townships And Municipal Bodies

Why the Author begins the examination of the political institutions
with the township—Its existence in all nations—Difficulty of
establishing and preserving municipal independence—Its importance—Why
the Author has selected the township system of New England as the main
topic of his discussion.

It is not undesignedly that I begin this subject with the Township. The
village or township is the only association which is so perfectly
natural that wherever a number of men are collected it seems to
constitute itself.

The town, or tithing, as the smallest division of a community, must
necessarily exist in all nations, whatever their laws and customs may
be: if man makes monarchies and establishes republics, the first
association of mankind seems constituted by the hand of God. But
although the existence of the township is coeval with that of man, its
liberties are not the less rarely respected and easily destroyed. A
nation is always able to establish great political assemblies, because
it habitually contains a certain number of individuals fitted by their
talents, if not by their habits, for the direction of affairs. The
township is, on the contrary, composed of coarser materials, which are
less easily fashioned by the legislator. The difficulties which attend
the consolidation of its independence rather augment than diminish with
the increasing enlightenment of the people. A highly civilized
community spurns the attempts of a local independence, is disgusted at
its numerous blunders, and is apt to despair of success before the
experiment is completed. Again, no immunities are so ill protected from
the encroachments of the supreme power as those of municipal bodies in
general: they are unable to struggle, single-handed, against a strong
or an enterprising government, and they cannot defend their cause with
success unless it be identified with the customs of the nation and
supported by public opinion. Thus until the independence of townships
is amalgamated with the manners of a people it is easily destroyed, and
it is only after a long existence in the laws that it can be thus
amalgamated. Municipal freedom is not the fruit of human device; it is
rarely created; but it is, as it were, secretly and spontaneously
engendered in the midst of a semi-barbarous state of society. The
constant action of the laws and the national habits, peculiar
circumstances, and above all time, may consolidate it; but there is
certainly no nation on the continent of Europe which has experienced
its advantages. Nevertheless local assemblies of citizens constitute
the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary
schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they
teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a
system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal
institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty. The transient
passions and the interests of an hour, or the chance of circumstances,
may have created the external forms of independence; but the despotic
tendency which has been repelled will, sooner or later, inevitably
reappear on the surface.

In order to explain to the reader the general principles on which the
political organization of the counties and townships of the United
States rests, I have thought it expedient to choose one of the States
of New England as an example, to examine the mechanism of its
constitution, and then to cast a general glance over the country. The
township and the county are not organized in the same manner in every
part of the Union; it is, however, easy to perceive that the same
principles have guided the formation of both of them throughout the
Union. I am inclined to believe that these principles have been carried
further in New England than elsewhere, and consequently that they offer
greater facilities to the observations of a stranger. The institutions
of New England form a complete and regular whole; they have received
the sanction of time, they have the support of the laws, and the still
stronger support of the manners of the community, over which they
exercise the most prodigious influence; they consequently deserve our
attention on every account.

Limits Of The Township

The township of New England is a division which stands between the
commune and the canton of France, and which corresponds in general to
the English tithing, or town. Its average population is from two to
three thousand; *a so that, on the one hand, the interests of its
inhabitants are not likely to conflict, and, on the other, men capable
of conducting its affairs are always to be found among its citizens.

a
[ In 1830 there were 305 townships in the State of Massachusetts, and
610,014 inhabitants, which gives an average of about 2,000 inhabitants
to each township.]


Authorities Of The Township In New England

The people the source of all power here as elsewhere—Manages its own
affairs—No corporation—The greater part of the authority vested in the
hands of the Selectmen—How the Selectmen act—Town-meeting—Enumeration
of the public officers of the township—Obligatory and remunerated
functions.

In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people is the only
source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of
citizens exercise a more immediate influence. In America the people is
a master whose exigencies demand obedience to the utmost limits of
possibility.

In New England the majority acts by representatives in the conduct of
the public business of the State; but if such an arrangement be
necessary in general affairs, in the townships, where the legislative
and administrative action of the government is in more immediate
contact with the subject, the system of representation is not adopted.
There is no corporation; but the body of electors, after having
designated its magistrates, directs them in everything that exceeds the
simple and ordinary executive business of the State. *b

b
[ The same rules are not applicable to the great towns, which generally
have a mayor, and a corporation divided into two bodies; this, however,
is an exception which requires the sanction of a law.—See the Act of
February 22, 1822, for appointing the authorities of the city of
Boston. It frequently happens that small towns as well as cities are
subject to a peculiar administration. In 1832, 104 townships in the
State of New York were governed in this manner.—Williams’ Register.]


This state of things is so contrary to our ideas, and so different from
our customs, that it is necessary for me to adduce some examples to
explain it thoroughly.

The public duties in the township are extremely numerous and minutely
divided, as we shall see further on; but the larger proportion of
administrative power is vested in the hands of a small number of
individuals, called “the Selectmen.” *c The general laws of the State
impose a certain number of obligations on the selectmen, which they may
fulfil without the authorization of the body they represent, but which
they can only neglect on their own responsibility. The law of the State
obliges them, for instance, to draw up the list of electors in their
townships; and if they omit this part of their functions, they are
guilty of a misdemeanor. In all the affairs, however, which are
determined by the town-meeting, the selectmen are the organs of the
popular mandate, as in France the Maire executes the decree of the
municipal council. They usually act upon their own responsibility, and
merely put in practice principles which have been previously recognized
by the majority. But if any change is to be introduced in the existing
state of things, or if they wish to undertake any new enterprise, they
are obliged to refer to the source of their power. If, for instance, a
school is to be established, the selectmen convoke the whole body of
the electors on a certain day at an appointed place; they explain the
urgency of the case; they give their opinion on the means of satisfying
it, on the probable expense, and the site which seems to be most
favorable. The meeting is consulted on these several points; it adopts
the principle, marks out the site, votes the rate, and confides the
execution of its resolution to the selectmen.

c
[ Three selectmen are appointed in the small townships, and nine in the
large ones. See “The Town-Officer,” p. 186. See also the principal laws
of the State of Massachusetts relative to the selectmen:


Act of February 20, 1786, vol. i. p. 219; February 24, 1796, vol. i. p.
488; March 7, 1801, vol. ii. p. 45; June 16, 1795, vol. i. p. 475;
March 12, 1808, vol. ii. p. 186; February 28, 1787, vol. i. p. 302;
June 22, 1797, vol. i. p. 539.]

The selectmen have alone the right of calling a town-meeting, but they
may be requested to do so: if ten citizens are desirous of submitting a
new project to the assent of the township, they may demand a general
convocation of the inhabitants; the selectmen are obliged to comply,
but they have only the right of presiding at the meeting. *d

d
[ See Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 150, Act of March 25, 1786.]


The selectmen are elected every year in the month of April or of May.
The town-meeting chooses at the same time a number of other municipal
magistrates, who are entrusted with important administrative functions.
The assessors rate the township; the collectors receive the rate. A
constable is appointed to keep the peace, to watch the streets, and to
forward the execution of the laws; the town-clerk records all the town
votes, orders, grants, births, deaths, and marriages; the treasurer
keeps the funds; the overseer of the poor performs the difficult task
of superintending the action of the poor-laws; committee-men are
appointed to attend to the schools and to public instruction; and the
road-surveyors, who take care of the greater and lesser thoroughfares
of the township, complete the list of the principal functionaries. They
are, however, still further subdivided; and amongst the municipal
officers are to be found parish commissioners, who audit the expenses
of public worship; different classes of inspectors, some of whom are to
direct the citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers, haywards,
chimney-viewers, fence-viewers to maintain the bounds of property,
timber-measurers, and sealers of weights and measures. *e

e
[ All these magistrates actually exist; their different functions are
all detailed in a book called “The Town-Officer,” by Isaac Goodwin,
Worcester, 1827; and in the “Collection of the General Laws of
Massachusetts,” 3 vols., Boston, 1823.]


There are nineteen principal officers in a township. Every inhabitant
is constrained, on the pain of being fined, to undertake these
different functions; which, however, are almost all paid, in order that
the poorer citizens may be able to give up their time without loss. In
general the American system is not to grant a fixed salary to its
functionaries. Every service has its price, and they are remunerated in
proportion to what they have done.

Existence Of The Township

Every one the best judge of his own interest—Corollary of the principle
of the sovereignty of the people—Application of those doctrines in the
townships of America—The township of New England is sovereign in all
that concerns itself alone: subject to the State in all other
matters—Bond of the township and the State—In France the Government
lends its agent to the Commune—In America the reverse occurs.

I have already observed that the principle of the sovereignty of the
people governs the whole political system of the Anglo-Americans. Every
page of this book will afford new instances of the same doctrine. In
the nations by which the sovereignty of the people is recognized every
individual possesses an equal share of power, and participates alike in
the government of the State. Every individual is, therefore, supposed
to be as well informed, as virtuous, and as strong as any of his
fellow-citizens. He obeys the government, not because he is inferior to
the authorities which conduct it, or that he is less capable than his
neighbor of governing himself, but because he acknowledges the utility
of an association with his fellow-men, and because he knows that no
such association can exist without a regulating force. If he be a
subject in all that concerns the mutual relations of citizens, he is
free and responsible to God alone for all that concerns himself. Hence
arises the maxim that every one is the best and the sole judge of his
own private interest, and that society has no right to control a man’s
actions, unless they are prejudicial to the common weal, or unless the
common weal demands his co-operation. This doctrine is universally
admitted in the United States. I shall hereafter examine the general
influence which it exercises on the ordinary actions of life; I am now
speaking of the nature of municipal bodies.

The township, taken as a whole, and in relation to the government of
the country, may be looked upon as an individual to whom the theory I
have just alluded to is applied. Municipal independence is therefore a
natural consequence of the principle of the sovereignty of the people
in the United States: all the American republics recognize it more or
less; but circumstances have peculiarly favored its growth in New
England.

In this part of the Union the impulsion of political activity was given
in the townships; and it may almost be said that each of them
originally formed an independent nation. When the Kings of England
asserted their supremacy, they were contented to assume the central
power of the State. The townships of New England remained as they were
before; and although they are now subject to the State, they were at
first scarcely dependent upon it. It is important to remember that they
have not been invested with privileges, but that they have, on the
contrary, forfeited a portion of their independence to the State. The
townships are only subordinate to the State in those interests which I
shall term social, as they are common to all the citizens. They are
independent in all that concerns themselves; and amongst the
inhabitants of New England I believe that not a man is to be found who
would acknowledge that the State has any right to interfere in their
local interests. The towns of New England buy and sell, sue or are
sued, augment or diminish their rates, without the slightest opposition
on the part of the administrative authority of the State.

They are bound, however, to comply with the demands of the community.
If the State is in need of money, a town can neither give nor withhold
the supplies. If the State projects a road, the township cannot refuse
to let it cross its territory; if a police regulation is made by the
State, it must be enforced by the town. A uniform system of instruction
is organized all over the country, and every town is bound to establish
the schools which the law ordains. In speaking of the administration of
the United States I shall have occasion to point out the means by which
the townships are compelled to obey in these different cases: I here
merely show the existence of the obligation. Strict as this obligation
is, the government of the State imposes it in principle only, and in
its performance the township resumes all its independent rights. Thus,
taxes are voted by the State, but they are levied and collected by the
township; the existence of a school is obligatory, but the township
builds, pays, and superintends it. In France the State-collector
receives the local imposts; in America the town-collector receives the
taxes of the State. Thus the French Government lends its agents to the
commune; in America the township is the agent of the Government. This
fact alone shows the extent of the differences which exist between the
two nations.

Public Spirit Of The Townships Of New England

How the township of New England wins the affections of its
inhabitants—Difficulty of creating local public spirit in Europe—The
rights and duties of the American township favorable to
it—Characteristics of home in the United States—Manifestations of
public spirit in New England—Its happy effects.

In America, not only do municipal bodies exist, but they are kept alive
and supported by public spirit. The township of New England possesses
two advantages which infallibly secure the attentive interest of
mankind, namely, independence and authority. Its sphere is indeed small
and limited, but within that sphere its action is unrestrained; and its
independence gives to it a real importance which its extent and
population may not always ensure.

It is to be remembered that the affections of men generally lie on the
side of authority. Patriotism is not durable in a conquered nation. The
New Englander is attached to his township, not only because he was born
in it, but because it constitutes a social body of which he is a
member, and whose government claims and deserves the exercise of his
sagacity. In Europe the absence of local public spirit is a frequent
subject of regret to those who are in power; everyone agrees that there
is no surer guarantee of order and tranquility, and yet nothing is more
difficult to create. If the municipal bodies were made powerful and
independent, the authorities of the nation might be disunited and the
peace of the country endangered. Yet, without power and independence, a
town may contain good subjects, but it can have no active citizens.
Another important fact is that the township of New England is so
constituted as to excite the warmest of human affections, without
arousing the ambitious passions of the heart of man. The officers of
the country are not elected, and their authority is very limited. Even
the State is only a second-rate community, whose tranquil and obscure
administration offers no inducement sufficient to draw men away from
the circle of their interests into the turmoil of public affairs. The
federal government confers power and honor on the men who conduct it;
but these individuals can never be very numerous. The high station of
the Presidency can only be reached at an advanced period of life, and
the other federal functionaries are generally men who have been favored
by fortune, or distinguished in some other career. Such cannot be the
permanent aim of the ambitious. But the township serves as a centre for
the desire of public esteem, the want of exciting interests, and the
taste for authority and popularity, in the midst of the ordinary
relations of life; and the passions which commonly embroil society
change their character when they find a vent so near the domestic
hearth and the family circle.

In the American States power has been disseminated with admirable skill
for the purpose of interesting the greatest possible number of persons
in the common weal. Independently of the electors who are from time to
time called into action, the body politic is divided into innumerable
functionaries and officers, who all, in their several spheres,
represent the same powerful whole in whose name they act. The local
administration thus affords an unfailing source of profit and interest
to a vast number of individuals.

The American system, which divides the local authority among so many
citizens, does not scruple to multiply the functions of the town
officers. For in the United States it is believed, and with truth, that
patriotism is a kind of devotion which is strengthened by ritual
observance. In this manner the activity of the township is continually
perceptible; it is daily manifested in the fulfilment of a duty or the
exercise of a right, and a constant though gentle motion is thus kept
up in society which animates without disturbing it.

The American attaches himself to his home as the mountaineer clings to
his hills, because the characteristic features of his country are there
more distinctly marked than elsewhere. The existence of the townships
of New England is in general a happy one. Their government is suited to
their tastes, and chosen by themselves. In the midst of the profound
peace and general comfort which reign in America the commotions of
municipal discord are unfrequent. The conduct of local business is
easy. The political education of the people has long been complete; say
rather that it was complete when the people first set foot upon the
soil. In New England no tradition exists of a distinction of ranks; no
portion of the community is tempted to oppress the remainder; and the
abuses which may injure isolated individuals are forgotten in the
general contentment which prevails. If the government is defective (and
it would no doubt be easy to point out its deficiencies), the fact that
it really emanates from those it governs, and that it acts, either ill
or well, casts the protecting spell of a parental pride over its
faults. No term of comparison disturbs the satisfaction of the citizen:
England formerly governed the mass of the colonies, but the people was
always sovereign in the township where its rule is not only an ancient
but a primitive state.

The native of New England is attached to his township because it is
independent and free: his co-operation in its affairs ensures his
attachment to its interest; the well-being it affords him secures his
affection; and its welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his future
exertions: he takes a part in every occurrence in the place; he
practises the art of government in the small sphere within his reach;
he accustoms himself to those forms which can alone ensure the steady
progress of liberty; he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for
order, comprehends the union or the balance of powers, and collects
clear practical notions on the nature of his duties and the extent of
his rights.

The Counties Of New England

The division of the countries in America has considerable analogy with
that of the arrondissements of France. The limits of the counties are
arbitrarily laid down, and the various districts which they contain
have no necessary connection, no common tradition or natural sympathy;
their object is simply to facilitate the administration of justice.

The extent of the township was too small to contain a system of
judicial institutions; each county has, however, a court of justice, *f
a sheriff to execute its decrees, and a prison for criminals. There are
certain wants which are felt alike by all the townships of a county; it
is therefore natural that they should be satisfied by a central
authority. In the State of Massachusetts this authority is vested in
the hands of several magistrates, who are appointed by the Governor of
the State, with the advice *g of his council. *h The officers of the
county have only a limited and occasional authority, which is
applicable to certain predetermined cases. The State and the townships
possess all the power requisite to conduct public business. The budget
of the county is drawn up by its officers, and is voted by the
legislature, but there is no assembly which directly or indirectly
represents the county. It has, therefore, properly speaking, no
political existence.

f
[ See the Act of February 14, 1821, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p.
551.]


g
[ See the Act of February 20, 1819, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p.
494.]


h
[ The council of the Governor is an elective body.] A twofold tendency
may be discerned in the American constitutions, which impels the
legislator to centralize the legislative and to disperse the executive
power. The township of New England has in itself an indestructible
element of independence; and this distinct existence could only be
fictitiously introduced into the county, where its utility has not been
felt. But all the townships united have but one representation, which
is the State, the centre of the national authority: beyond the action
of the township and that of the nation, nothing can be said to exist
but the influence of individual exertion.


Administration In New England

Administration not perceived in America—Why?—The Europeans believe that
liberty is promoted by depriving the social authority of some of its
rights; the Americans, by dividing its exercise—Almost all the
administration confined to the township, and divided amongst the
town-officers—No trace of an administrative body to be perceived,
either in the township or above it—The reason of this—How it happens
that the administration of the State is uniform—Who is empowered to
enforce the obedience of the township and the county to the law—The
introduction of judicial power into the administration—Consequence of
the extension of the elective principle to all functionaries—The
Justice of the Peace in New England—By whom appointed—County officer:
ensures the administration of the townships—Court of Sessions—Its
action—Right of inspection and indictment disseminated like the other
administrative functions—Informers encouraged by the division of fines.

Nothing is more striking to an European traveller in the United States
than the absence of what we term the Government, or the Administration.
Written laws exist in America, and one sees that they are daily
executed; but although everything is in motion, the hand which gives
the impulse to the social machine can nowhere be discovered.
Nevertheless, as all peoples are obliged to have recourse to certain
grammatical forms, which are the foundation of human language, in order
to express their thoughts; so all communities are obliged to secure
their existence by submitting to a certain dose of authority, without
which they fall a prey to anarchy. This authority may be distributed in
several ways, but it must always exist somewhere.

There are two methods of diminishing the force of authority in a
nation: The first is to weaken the supreme power in its very principle,
by forbidding or preventing society from acting in its own defence
under certain circumstances. To weaken authority in this manner is what
is generally termed in Europe to lay the foundations of freedom. The
second manner of diminishing the influence of authority does not
consist in stripping society of any of its rights, nor in paralyzing
its efforts, but in distributing the exercise of its privileges in
various hands, and in multiplying functionaries, to each of whom the
degree of power necessary for him to perform his duty is entrusted.
There may be nations whom this distribution of social powers might lead
to anarchy; but in itself it is not anarchical. The action of authority
is indeed thus rendered less irresistible and less perilous, but it is
not totally suppressed.

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and
dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving
for independence. It contracted no alliance with the turbulent passions
of anarchy; but its course was marked, on the contrary, by an
attachment to whatever was lawful and orderly.

It was never assumed in the United States that the citizen of a free
country has a right to do whatever he pleases; on the contrary, social
obligations were there imposed upon him more various than anywhere
else. No idea was ever entertained of attacking the principles or of
contesting the rights of society; but the exercise of its authority was
divided, to the end that the office might be powerful and the officer
insignificant, and that the community should be at once regulated and
free. In no country in the world does the law hold so absolute a
language as in America, and in no country is the right of applying it
vested in so many hands. The administrative power in the United States
presents nothing either central or hierarchical in its constitution,
which accounts for its passing, unperceived. The power exists, but its
representative is not to be perceived.

We have already seen that the independent townships of New England
protect their own private interests; and the municipal magistrates are
the persons to whom the execution of the laws of the State is most
frequently entrusted. *i Besides the general laws, the State sometimes
passes general police regulations; but more commonly the townships and
town officers, conjointly with justices of the peace, regulate the
minor details of social life, according to the necessities of the
different localities, and promulgate such enactments as concern the
health of the community, and the peace as well as morality of the
citizens. *j Lastly, these municipal magistrates provide, of their own
accord and without any delegated powers, for those unforeseen
emergencies which frequently occur in society. *k

i
[ See “The Town-Officer,” especially at the words Selectmen, Assessors,
Collectors, Schools, Surveyors of Highways. I take one example in a
thousand: the State prohibits travelling on the Sunday; the
tything-men, who are town-officers, are specially charged to keep watch
and to execute the law. See the Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 410.


The selectmen draw up the lists of electors for the election of the
Governor, and transmit the result of the ballot to the Secretary of the
State. See Act of February 24, 1796: Id., vol. i. p. 488.]

j
[ Thus, for instance, the selectmen authorize the construction of
drains, point out the proper sites for slaughter-houses and other
trades which are a nuisance to the neighborhood. See the Act of June 7,
1785: Id., vol. i. p. 193.]


k
[ The selectmen take measures for the security of the public in case of
contagious diseases, conjointly with the justices of the peace. See Act
of June 22, 1797, vol. i. p. 539.]


It results from what we have said that in the State of Massachusetts
the administrative authority is almost entirely restricted to the
township, *l but that it is distributed among a great number of
individuals. In the French commune there is properly but one official
functionary, namely, the Maire; and in New England we have seen that
there are nineteen. These nineteen functionaries do not in general
depend upon one another. The law carefully prescribes a circle of
action to each of these magistrates; and within that circle they have
an entire right to perform their functions independently of any other
authority. Above the township scarcely any trace of a series of
official dignitaries is to be found. It sometimes happens that the
county officers alter a decision of the townships or town magistrates,
*m but in general the authorities of the county have no right to
interfere with the authorities of the township, *n except in such
matters as concern the county.

l
[ I say almost, for there are various circumstances in the annals of a
township which are regulated by the justice of the peace in his
individual capacity, or by the justices of the peace assembled in the
chief town of the county; thus licenses are granted by the justices.
See the Act of February 28, 1787, vol. i. p. 297.]


m
[ Thus licenses are only granted to such persons as can produce a
certificate of good conduct from the selectmen. If the selectmen refuse
to give the certificate, the party may appeal to the justices assembled
in the Court of Sessions, and they may grant the license. See Act of
March 12, 1808, vol. ii. p. 186.


The townships have the right to make by-laws, and to enforce them by
fines which are fixed by law; but these by-laws must be approved by the
Court of Sessions. See Act of March 23, 1786, vol. i. p. 254.]

n
[ In Massachusetts the county magistrates are frequently called upon to
investigate the acts of the town magistrates; but it will be shown
further on that this investigation is a consequence, not of their
administrative, but of their judicial power.]


The magistrates of the township, as well as those of the county, are
bound to communicate their acts to the central government in a very
small number of predetermined cases. *o But the central government is
not represented by an individual whose business it is to publish police
regulations and ordinances enforcing the execution of the laws; to keep
up a regular communication with the officers of the township and the
county; to inspect their conduct, to direct their actions, or to
reprimand their faults. There is no point which serves as a centre to
the radii of the administration.

o
[ The town committees of schools are obliged to make an annual report
to the Secretary of the State on the condition of the school. See Act
of March 10, 1827, vol. iii. p. 183.]




 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part II


What, then, is the uniform plan on which the government is conducted,
and how is the compliance of the counties and their magistrates or the
townships and their officers enforced? In the States of New England the
legislative authority embraces more subjects than it does in France;
the legislator penetrates to the very core of the administration; the
law descends to the most minute details; the same enactment prescribes
the principle and the method of its application, and thus imposes a
multitude of strict and rigorously defined obligations on the secondary
functionaries of the State. The consequence of this is that if all the
secondary functionaries of the administration conform to the law,
society in all its branches proceeds with the greatest uniformity: the
difficulty remains of compelling the secondary functionaries of the
administration to conform to the law. It may be affirmed that, in
general, society has only two methods of enforcing the execution of the
laws at its disposal: a discretionary power may be entrusted to a
superior functionary of directing all the others, and of cashiering
them in case of disobedience; or the courts of justice may be
authorized to inflict judicial penalties on the offender: but these two
methods are not always available.

The right of directing a civil officer presupposes that of cashiering
him if he does not obey orders, and of rewarding him by promotion if he
fulfils his duties with propriety. But an elected magistrate can
neither be cashiered nor promoted. All elective functions are
inalienable until their term is expired. In fact, the elected
magistrate has nothing either to expect or to fear from his
constituents; and when all public offices are filled by ballot there
can be no series of official dignities, because the double right of
commanding and of enforcing obedience can never be vested in the same
individual, and because the power of issuing an order can never be
joined to that of inflicting a punishment or bestowing a reward.

The communities therefore in which the secondary functionaries of the
government are elected are perforce obliged to make great use of
judicial penalties as a means of administration. This is not evident at
first sight; for those in power are apt to look upon the institution of
elective functionaries as one concession, and the subjection of the
elected magistrate to the judges of the land as another. They are
equally averse to both these innovations; and as they are more
pressingly solicited to grant the former than the latter, they accede
to the election of the magistrate, and leave him independent of the
judicial power. Nevertheless, the second of these measures is the only
thing that can possibly counterbalance the first; and it will be found
that an elective authority which is not subject to judicial power will,
sooner or later, either elude all control or be destroyed. The courts
of justice are the only possible medium between the central power and
the administrative bodies; they alone can compel the elected
functionary to obey, without violating the rights of the elector. The
extension of judicial power in the political world ought therefore to
be in the exact ratio of the extension of elective offices: if these
two institutions do not go hand in hand, the State must fall into
anarchy or into subjection.

It has always been remarked that habits of legal business do not render
men apt to the exercise of administrative authority. The Americans have
borrowed from the English, their fathers, the idea of an institution
which is unknown upon the continent of Europe: I allude to that of the
Justices of the Peace. The Justice of the Peace is a sort of mezzo
termine between the magistrate and the man of the world, between the
civil officer and the judge. A justice of the peace is a well-informed
citizen, though he is not necessarily versed in the knowledge of the
laws. His office simply obliges him to execute the police regulations
of society; a task in which good sense and integrity are of more avail
than legal science. The justice introduces into the administration a
certain taste for established forms and publicity, which renders him a
most unserviceable instrument of despotism; and, on the other hand, he
is not blinded by those superstitions which render legal officers unfit
members of a government. The Americans have adopted the system of the
English justices of the peace, but they have deprived it of that
aristocratic character which is discernible in the mother-country. The
Governor of Massachusetts *p appoints a certain number of justices of
the peace in every county, whose functions last seven years. *q He
further designates three individuals from amongst the whole body of
justices who form in each county what is called the Court of Sessions.
The justices take a personal share in public business; they are
sometimes entrusted with administrative functions in conjunction with
elected officers, *r they sometimes constitute a tribunal, before which
the magistrates summarily prosecute a refractory citizen, or the
citizens inform against the abuses of the magistrate. But it is in the
Court of Sessions that they exercise their most important functions.
This court meets twice a year in the county town; in Massachusetts it
is empowered to enforce the obedience of the greater number *s of
public officers. *t It must be observed, that in the State of
Massachusetts the Court of Sessions is at the same time an
administrative body, properly so called, and a political tribunal. It
has been asserted that the county is a purely administrative division.
The Court of Sessions presides over that small number of affairs which,
as they concern several townships, or all the townships of the county
in common, cannot be entrusted to any one of them in particular. *u In
all that concerns county business the duties of the Court of Sessions
are purely administrative; and if in its investigations it occasionally
borrows the forms of judicial procedure, it is only with a view to its
own information, *v or as a guarantee to the community over which it
presides. But when the administration of the township is brought before
it, it always acts as a judicial body, and in some few cases as an
official assembly.

p
[ We shall hereafter learn what a Governor is: I shall content myself
with remarking in this place that he represents the executive power of
the whole State.]


q
[ See the Constitution of Massachusetts, chap. II. sect. 1. Section 9;
chap. III. Section 3.]


r
[ Thus, for example, a stranger arrives in a township from a country
where a contagious disease prevails, and he falls ill. Two justices of
the peace can, with the assent of the selectmen, order the sheriff of
the county to remove and take care of him.—Act of June 22, 1797, vol.
i. p. 540.


In general the justices interfere in all the important acts of the
administration, and give them a semi-judicial character.] [Footnote s:
I say the greater number, because certain administrative misdemeanors
are brought before ordinary tribunals. If, for instance, a township
refuses to make the necessary expenditure for its schools or to name a
school-committee, it is liable to a heavy fine. But this penalty is
pronounced by the Supreme Judicial Court or the Court of Common Pleas.
See Act of March 10, 1827, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. iii. p. 190. Or
when a township neglects to provide the necessary war-stores.—Act of
February 21, 1822: Id., vol. ii. p. 570.]

t
[ In their individual capacity the justices of the peace take a part in
the business of the counties and townships.] [Footnote u: These affairs
may be brought under the following heads:—1. The erection of prisons
and courts of justice. 2. The county budget, which is afterwards voted
by the State. 3. The distribution of the taxes so voted. 4. Grants of
certain patents. 5. The laying down and repairs of the country roads.]


v
[ Thus, when a road is under consideration, almost all difficulties are
disposed of by the aid of the jury.]


The first difficulty is to procure the obedience of an authority as
entirely independent of the general laws of the State as the township
is. We have stated that assessors are annually named by the
town-meetings to levy the taxes. If a township attempts to evade the
payment of the taxes by neglecting to name its assessors, the Court of
Sessions condemns it to a heavy penalty. *w The fine is levied on each
of the inhabitants; and the sheriff of the county, who is the officer
of justice, executes the mandate. Thus it is that in the United States
the authority of the Government is mysteriously concealed under the
forms of a judicial sentence; and its influence is at the same time
fortified by that irresistible power with which men have invested the
formalities of law.

w
[ See Act of February 20, 1786, Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 217.]


These proceedings are easy to follow and to understand. The demands
made upon a township are in general plain and accurately defined; they
consist in a simple fact without any complication, or in a principle
without its application in detail. *x But the difficulty increases when
it is not the obedience of the township, but that of the town officers
which is to be enforced. All the reprehensible actions of which a
public functionary may be guilty are reducible to the following heads:

x
[ There is an indirect method of enforcing the obedience of a township.
Suppose that the funds which the law demands for the maintenance of the
roads have not been voted, the town surveyor is then authorized, ex
officio, to levy the supplies. As he is personally responsible to
private individuals for the state of the roads, and indictable before
the Court of Sessions, he is sure to employ the extraordinary right
which the law gives him against the township. Thus by threatening the
officer the Court of Sessions exacts compliance from the town. See Act
of March 5, 1787, Id., vol. i. p. 305.]


He may execute the law without energy or zeal;

He may neglect to execute the law;

He may do what the law enjoins him not to do.

The last two violations of duty can alone come under the cognizance of
a tribunal; a positive and appreciable fact is the indispensable
foundation of an action at law. Thus, if the selectmen omit to fulfil
the legal formalities usual at town elections, they may be condemned to
pay a fine; *y but when the public officer performs his duty without
ability, and when he obeys the letter of the law without zeal or
energy, he is at least beyond the reach of judicial interference. The
Court of Sessions, even when it is invested with its official powers,
is in this case unable to compel him to a more satisfactory obedience.
The fear of removal is the only check to these quasi-offences; and as
the Court of Sessions does not originate the town authorities, it
cannot remove functionaries whom it does not appoint. Moreover, a
perpetual investigation would be necessary to convict the officer of
negligence or lukewarmness; and the Court of Sessions sits but twice a
year and then only judges such offences as are brought before its
notice. The only security of that active and enlightened obedience
which a court of justice cannot impose upon public officers lies in the
possibility of their arbitrary removal. In France this security is
sought for in powers exercised by the heads of the administration; in
America it is sought for in the principle of election.

y
[ Laws of Massachusetts, vol. ii. p. 45.]


Thus, to recapitulate in a few words what I have been showing: If a
public officer in New England commits a crime in the exercise of his
functions, the ordinary courts of justice are always called upon to
pass sentence upon him. If he commits a fault in his official capacity,
a purely administrative tribunal is empowered to punish him; and, if
the affair is important or urgent, the judge supplies the omission of
the functionary. *z Lastly, if the same individual is guilty of one of
those intangible offences of which human justice has no cognizance, he
annually appears before a tribunal from which there is no appeal, which
can at once reduce him to insignificance and deprive him of his charge.
This system undoubtedly possesses great advantages, but its execution
is attended with a practical difficulty which it is important to point
out.

z
[ If, for instance, a township persists in refusing to name its
assessors, the Court of Sessions nominates them; and the magistrates
thus appointed are invested with the same authority as elected
officers. See the Act quoted above, February 20, 1787.]


I have already observed that the administrative tribunal, which is
called the Court of Sessions, has no right of inspection over the town
officers. It can only interfere when the conduct of a magistrate is
specially brought under its notice; and this is the delicate part of
the system. The Americans of New England are unacquainted with the
office of public prosecutor in the Court of Sessions, *a and it may
readily be perceived that it could not have been established without
difficulty. If an accusing magistrate had merely been appointed in the
chief town of each county, and if he had been unassisted by agents in
the townships, he would not have been better acquainted with what was
going on in the county than the members of the Court of Sessions. But
to appoint agents in each township would have been to centre in his
person the most formidable of powers, that of a judicial
administration. Moreover, laws are the children of habit, and nothing
of the kind exists in the legislation of England. The Americans have
therefore divided the offices of inspection and of prosecution, as well
as all the other functions of the administration. Grand jurors are
bound by the law to apprise the court to which they belong of all the
misdemeanors which may have been committed in their county. *b There
are certain great offences which are officially prosecuted by the
States; *c but more frequently the task of punishing delinquents
devolves upon the fiscal officer, whose province it is to receive the
fine: thus the treasurer of the township is charged with the
prosecution of such administrative offences as fall under his notice.
But a more special appeal is made by American legislation to the
private interest of the citizen; *d and this great principle is
constantly to be met with in studying the laws of the United States.
American legislators are more apt to give men credit for intelligence
than for honesty, and they rely not a little on personal cupidity for
the execution of the laws. When an individual is really and sensibly
injured by an administrative abuse, it is natural that his personal
interest should induce him to prosecute. But if a legal formality be
required, which, however advantageous to the community, is of small
importance to individuals, plaintiffs may be less easily found; and
thus, by a tacit agreement, the laws may fall into disuse. Reduced by
their system to this extremity, the Americans are obliged to encourage
informers by bestowing on them a portion of the penalty in certain
cases, *e and to insure the execution of the laws by the dangerous
expedient of degrading the morals of the people. The only
administrative authority above the county magistrates is, properly
speaking, that of the Government.

a
[ I say the Court of Sessions, because in common courts there is a
magistrate who exercises some of the functions of a public prosecutor.]


b
[ The grand-jurors are, for instance, bound to inform the court of the
bad state of the roads.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 308.]


c
[ If, for instance, the treasurer of the county holds back his
accounts.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 406.] [Footnote d: Thus, if
a private individual breaks down or is wounded in consequence of the
badness of a road, he can sue the township or the county for damages at
the sessions.—Laws of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 309.]


e
[ In cases of invasion or insurrection, if the town-officers neglect to
furnish the necessary stores and ammunition for the militia, the
township may be condemned to a fine of from $200 to $500. It may
readily be imagined that in such a case it might happen that no one
cared to prosecute; hence the law adds that all the citizens may indict
offences of this kind, and that half of the fine shall belong to the
plaintiff. See Act of March 6, 1810, vol. ii. p. 236. The same clause
is frequently to be met with in the law of Massachusetts. Not only are
private individuals thus incited to prosecute the public officers, but
the public officers are encouraged in the same manner to bring the
disobedience of private individuals to justice. If a citizen refuses to
perform the work which has been assigned to him upon a road, the road
surveyor may prosecute him, and he receives half the penalty for
himself. See the Laws above quoted, vol. i. p. 308.]


General Remarks On The Administration Of The United States Differences
of the States of the Union in their system of administration—Activity
and perfection of the local authorities decrease towards the
South—Power of the magistrate increases; that of the elector
diminishes—Administration passes from the township to the county—States
of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania—Principles of administration applicable
to the whole Union—Election of public officers, and inalienability of
their functions—Absence of gradation of ranks—Introduction of judicial
resources into the administration.

I have already premised that, after having examined the constitution of
the township and the county of New England in detail, I should take a
general view of the remainder of the Union. Townships and a local
activity exist in every State; but in no part of the confederation is a
township to be met with precisely similar to those of New England. The
more we descend towards the South, the less active does the business of
the township or parish become; the number of magistrates, of functions,
and of rights decreases; the population exercises a less immediate
influence on affairs; town meetings are less frequent, and the subjects
of debate less numerous. The power of the elected magistrate is
augmented and that of the elector diminished, whilst the public spirit
of the local communities is less awakened and less influential. *f
These differences may be perceived to a certain extent in the State of
New York; they are very sensible in Pennsylvania; but they become less
striking as we advance to the northwest. The majority of the emigrants
who settle in the northwestern States are natives of New England, and
they carry the habits of their mother country with them into that which
they adopt. A township in Ohio is by no means dissimilar from a
township in Massachusetts.

f
[ For details see the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, part
i. chap. xi. vol. i. pp. 336-364, entitled, “Of the Powers, Duties, and
Privileges of Towns.”


See in the Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania, the words Assessors,
Collector, Constables, Overseer of the Poor, Supervisors of Highways;
and in the Acts of a general nature of the State of Ohio, the Act of
February 25, 1834, relating to townships, p. 412; besides the peculiar
dispositions relating to divers town-officers, such as Township’s
Clerk, Trustees, Overseers of the Poor, Fence Viewers, Appraisers of
Property, Township’s Treasurer, Constables, Supervisors of Highways.]

We have seen that in Massachusetts the mainspring of public
administration lies in the township. It forms the common centre of the
interests and affections of the citizens. But this ceases to be the
case as we descend to States in which knowledge is less generally
diffused, and where the township consequently offers fewer guarantees
of a wise and active administration. As we leave New England,
therefore, we find that the importance of the town is gradually
transferred to the county, which becomes the centre of administration,
and the intermediate power between the Government and the citizen. In
Massachusetts the business of the county is conducted by the Court of
Sessions, which is composed of a quorum named by the Governor and his
council; but the county has no representative assembly, and its
expenditure is voted by the national legislature. In the great State of
New York, on the contrary, and in those of Ohio and Pennsylvania, the
inhabitants of each county choose a certain number of representatives,
who constitute the assembly of the county. *g The county assembly has
the right of taxing the inhabitants to a certain extent; and in this
respect it enjoys the privileges of a real legislative body: at the
same time it exercises an executive power in the county, frequently
directs the administration of the townships, and restricts their
authority within much narrower bounds than in Massachusetts.

g
[ See the Revised Statutes of the State of New York, part i. chap. xi.
vol. i. p. 340. Id. chap. xii. p. 366; also in the Acts of the State of
Ohio, an act relating to county commissioners, February 25, 1824, p.
263. See the Digest of the Laws of Pennsylvania, at the words
County-rates and Levies, p. 170. In the State of New York each township
elects a representative, who has a share in the administration of the
county as well as in that of the township.]


Such are the principal differences which the systems of county and town
administration present in the Federal States. Were it my intention to
examine the provisions of American law minutely, I should have to point
out still further differences in the executive details of the several
communities. But what I have already said may suffice to show the
general principles on which the administration of the United States
rests. These principles are differently applied; their consequences are
more or less numerous in various localities; but they are always
substantially the same. The laws differ, and their outward features
change, but their character does not vary. If the township and the
county are not everywhere constituted in the same manner, it is at
least true that in the United States the county and the township are
always based upon the same principle, namely, that everyone is the best
judge of what concerns himself alone, and the most proper person to
supply his private wants. The township and the county are therefore
bound to take care of their special interests: the State governs, but
it does not interfere with their administration. Exceptions to this
rule may be met with, but not a contrary principle.

The first consequence of this doctrine has been to cause all the
magistrates to be chosen either by or at least from amongst the
citizens. As the officers are everywhere elected or appointed for a
certain period, it has been impossible to establish the rules of a
dependent series of authorities; there are almost as many independent
functionaries as there are functions, and the executive power is
disseminated in a multitude of hands. Hence arose the indispensable
necessity of introducing the control of the courts of justice over the
administration, and the system of pecuniary penalties, by which the
secondary bodies and their representatives are constrained to obey the
laws. This system obtains from one end of the Union to the other. The
power of punishing the misconduct of public officers, or of performing
the part of the executive in urgent cases, has not, however, been
bestowed on the same judges in all the States. The Anglo-Americans
derived the institution of justices of the peace from a common source;
but although it exists in all the States, it is not always turned to
the same use. The justices of the peace everywhere participate in the
administration of the townships and the counties, *h either as public
officers or as the judges of public misdemeanors, but in most of the
States the more important classes of public offences come under the
cognizance of the ordinary tribunals.

h
[ In some of the Southern States the county courts are charged with all
the details of the administration. See the Statutes of the State of
Tennessee, arts. Judiciary, Taxes, etc.]


The election of public officers, or the inalienability of their
functions, the absence of a gradation of powers, and the introduction
of a judicial control over the secondary branches of the
administration, are the universal characteristics of the American
system from Maine to the Floridas. In some States (and that of New York
has advanced most in this direction) traces of a centralized
administration begin to be discernible. In the State of New York the
officers of the central government exercise, in certain cases, a sort
of inspection or control over the secondary bodies. *i

i
[ For instance, the direction of public instruction centres in the
hands of the Government. The legislature names the members of the
University, who are denominated Regents; the Governor and
Lieutentant-Governor of the State are necessarily of the
number.—Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 455. The Regents of the University
annually visit the colleges and academies, and make their report to the
legislature. Their superintendence is not inefficient, for several
reasons: the colleges in order to become corporations stand in need of
a charter, which is only granted on the recommendation of the Regents;
every year funds are distributed by the State for the encouragement of
learning, and the Regents are the distributors of this money. See chap.
xv. “Instruction,” Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 455.


The school-commissioners are obliged to send an annual report to the
Superintendent of the Republic.—Id. p. 488.

A similar report is annually made to the same person on the number and
condition of the poor.—Id. p. 631.]

At other times they constitute a court of appeal for the decision of
affairs. *j In the State of New York judicial penalties are less used
than in other parts as a means of administration, and the right of
prosecuting the offences of public officers is vested in fewer hands.
*k The same tendency is faintly observable in some other States; *l but
in general the prominent feature of the administration in the United
States is its excessive local independence.

j
[ If any one conceives himself to be wronged by the
school-commissioners (who are town-officers), he can appeal to the
superintendent of the primary schools, whose decision is final.—Revised
Statutes, vol. i. p. 487.


Provisions similar to those above cited are to be met with from time to
time in the laws of the State of New York; but in general these
attempts at centralization are weak and unproductive. The great
authorities of the State have the right of watching and controlling the
subordinate agents, without that of rewarding or punishing them. The
same individual is never empowered to give an order and to punish
disobedience; he has therefore the right of commanding, without the
means of exacting compliance. In 1830 the Superintendent of Schools
complained in his Annual Report addressed to the legislature that
several school-commissioners had neglected, notwithstanding his
application, to furnish him with the accounts which were due. He added
that if this omission continued he should be obliged to prosecute them,
as the law directs, before the proper tribunals.]

k
[ Thus the district-attorney is directed to recover all fines below the
sum of fifty dollars, unless such a right has been specially awarded to
another magistrate.—Revised Statutes, vol. i. p. 383.]


l
[ Several traces of centralization may be discovered in Massachusetts;
for instance, the committees of the town-schools are directed to make
an annual report to the Secretary of State. See Laws of Massachusetts,
vol. i. p. 367.]


Of The State

I have described the townships and the administration; it now remains
for me to speak of the State and the Government. This is ground I may
pass over rapidly, without fear of being misunderstood; for all I have
to say is to be found in written forms of the various constitutions,
which are easily to be procured. These constitutions rest upon a simple
and rational theory; their forms have been adopted by all
constitutional nations, and are become familiar to us. In this place,
therefore, it is only necessary for me to give a short analysis; I
shall endeavor afterwards to pass judgment upon what I now describe.




 Chapter V: Necessity Of Examining The Condition Of The States—Part III

Legislative Power Of The State

Division of the Legislative Body into two Houses—Senate—House of
Representatives—Different functions of these two Bodies.

The legislative power of the State is vested in two assemblies, the
first of which generally bears the name of the Senate. The Senate is
commonly a legislative body; but it sometimes becomes an executive and
judicial one. It takes a part in the government in several ways,
according to the constitution of the different States; *m but it is in
the nomination of public functionaries that it most commonly assumes an
executive power. It partakes of judicial power in the trial of certain
political offences, and sometimes also in the decision of certain civil
cases. *n The number of its members is always small. The other branch
of the legislature, which is usually called the House of
Representatives, has no share whatever in the administration, and only
takes a part in the judicial power inasmuch as it impeaches public
functionaries before the Senate. The members of the two Houses are
nearly everywhere subject to the same conditions of election. They are
chosen in the same manner, and by the same citizens. The only
difference which exists between them is, that the term for which the
Senate is chosen is in general longer than that of the House of
Representatives. The latter seldom remain in office longer than a year;
the fo

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