The notion that the people can do no wrong became widely held. Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment,” in The Portable Enlightenment Reader, edited by Isaac Kramnick (London: Penguin Classics, 1995), 1. Ibid., 240 [I.2.7]. In his introduction, Tocqueville writes: “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 1852, Tocqueville believed that American democracy had “nothing more to fear than from itself, from the abuse of democracy, the spirit of adventure and conquest, from the sense and exaggerated pride in its strength, and from the impetuosity of youth.” Have men changed in character by being united? After attending college in Metz, Tocqueville studied law in Paris and was appointed a magistrate in Versailles, where he met his future wife and befriended a fellow lawyer named Gustave de Beaumont. 2221 S Clark Street, 12th Floor, Arlington, VA 22202. The need for a political majority has become virtually the only limit on government. Alexis de Tocqueville’s four-volume Democracy in America (1835-1840) is commonly said to be among the greatest works of nineteenth-century political writing. There are a great number of theories on matters of philosophy, morality, or politics that everyone thus adopts without examination, on the faith of the public.[5]. As Tocqueville writes “The master no longer says to [an individual]: You shall think as I do or you shall die; he says: You are free not to think as I do, your life, your goods, everything remains to you; but from this day on, you are a stranger among us.”[7]. … Unfortunately, 21st-century America seems not to be immune from the tendency of majorities to impose their views on others. First political career. Alexis de Tocqueville: 15 Quotes on Democracy and Liberty. Ibid.,244 [I.2.7]. Alexis de Tocqueville's Warning About Presidential Elections. De Tocqueville was warning about impeachment being used as a political tool to remove presidents purely on partisan grounds—as the authors of the piece and Hare's original quote explained. Learn Liberty is your resource for exploring the ideas of a free society. He describes the government as being a “slave to its passions,” because if the majority feels one thing is … In Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 7, “ Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its … De Tocqueville’s warning of the “tyranny of the majority” can be described as the unlimited power of determining the law, and justice, as granted to the people in the US Constitution. “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with … The power of the democratic majority arises from the fact that every individual is assumed to be competent to guide his own life and is politically the equal of every other individual. A complex informational text such as this poses an invigorating challenge to high school students. July 29 marks the birth of Alexis de Tocqueville. But he also saw and criticized the way white majorities supported the institution of slavery and the unjust treatment of free blacks and Native Americans. In 1831, an ambitious and unusually perceptive twenty-five-year-old French aristocrat, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited the United States. Congestion tax in Manhattan: Readers speak! For example, when people fear for their security: He argued that a mild, stagnant despotism was the greatest threat to democracy. The book is influential both for its study of American society in the Jacksonian period and for its analysis of democracy. Above all else, Tocqueville was a sociologist, and he attributes to social structure the emergence of the moral empire of the majority. Since then, every president has governed under increasing threat of politically-driven administrative removal. Whigs. Historical factors contributed to America reaching this political point. Tocqueville’s prediction waited only 33 years for confirmation. From the founding period to the time of his visit, Americans had become increasingly more egalitarian and democratic. Ibid., 244 [I.2.7]. The three lessons in this unit comprise key selections from the chapter. Because American democracy lacks such intermediary institutions, it has “no lasting obstacles” in the way of the opinions, prejudices, interests, and momentary passions of the majority and tends towards an unthinking despotism over unpopular minorities. In this situation, the greatest legitimate power will always be with the majority. There is an assessment that offers a series of questions for students to answer in well-thought-out, short essays. The foregoing point notwithstanding, Tocqueville argued that the majority’s greatest power lay not in the halls of the legislature but in the chamber of the mind. The frst daughter weighed in on her father’s impeachment Thursday evening with a quote from 19th century French historian Alexis de Tocqueville warning that impeachment could be used politically. One can easily imagine an Iranian Tocqueville today issuing the same warning with regard to Shi’a Islam and cautioning his readers about the politicization of Islam in his country. Tocqueville does not mean that the majority in a democracy will always act tyrannically, only that nothing can prevent it from so doing. We tackle big questions about what makes society free or prosperous and how we can improve the world we live in. 5). We can fairly summarize Tocqueville’s complex and lengthy reasoning on this point by saying that democratic society tends to make people rely first on their own reason and second on the reason of the democratic multitude that is so much like oneself. But are Tocqueville’s insights on this matter still relevant? In more recent times, Tocqueville’s warnings about democracy’s capacity to generate its own forms of despotism have been portrayed as prefiguring a political dynamic associated with the welfare state: i.e., people voting for politicians who promise to give them more things in return for which voters voluntarily surrender more and more of their freedom. Democracy in America was pu… His scholarly interests include the political thought of the American… read more. As for me, I cannot believe it; and I shall never grant to several the power of doing everything that I refuse to a single one of those like me.[1]. Jailed Joshua Wong Vows Hong Kong's Struggle Will Continue. In times of equality because of their similarity, men have no faith in one another, but this same similarity gives them an almost unlimited trust in the judgment of the public, for it does not seem plausible to them that when all have the same enlightenment, truth is not found on the side of the greatest number.… In the United States, the majority takes charge of furnishing individuals with a host of ready-made opinions, and it thus relieves them of the obligation to form their own. Others side with Tocqueville, who was as determined to oppose tyranny in monarchies as he was to ensure liberty in democracies: If you accept that one man vested with omnipotence can abuse it against his adversaries, why not accept the same thing for a majority? When the mob leaders were brought before a jury, they were acquitted. Any college student familiar with Alexis de Tocqueville knows his warning against the tyranny of the majority in democracies. 7. Alexis de Tocqueville's phrase warning of the dangers of American democracy. Share. As Tocqueville writes “The master no longer says to [an individual]: You shall think as I do or you shall die; he says: You are free not to think as I do, your life, your goods, everything remains to you; but from this day on, you are a stranger among us.”[7] The notion that the people can do no wrong became widely held. His chapters on democratic individualism and centralization in Democracy in America contained a new warning based on these observations. Students For Liberty Next Up: Editor's Pick. In the second lesson, students consider the argument that unchecked political power will lead to tyranny. de tocqueville, totalitarian, democracy. In Europe, with its complex hierarchical societies, the majority has little or no power. Tocqueville, in the light of his “new political science,” calls this an “impious and detestable maxim.”. Alexis de Tocqueville was born in 1805 into an aristocratic family recently rocked by Frances revolutionary upheavals. Yet the best room in the château, Alexis de Tocqueville’s erstwhile library, was saved in a miraculous way. We have provided teaching guides and glossaries for the academic vocabulary, as well. It is rather the aristocracy, the clergy, the legal profession, and the rising merchant class—the independent centers of powers—that will resist and even oppose the sovereign. In America, he saw and praised a people who enjoyed an unprecedented equality of conditions and political and civil liberty without endangering order or prosperity. This muscular democratic vision also captures the very core of what makes the United States the place of profound vision that foreigners Thomas Paine and Alexis De Tocqueville wrote of so powerfully. Paradoxically, when a whole society protects freedom of speech, thought, and judgment, people tend to believe that truth is “found on the side of the greatest number.” Tocqueville’s reasoning on this point is worth citing at some length: Not only is common opinion the sole guide that remains for individual reason among democratic peoples; but it has an infinitely greater power among these peoples than among any other. Let’s consider some words of wisdom — and warning — from a Frenchman who last visited the United States in the 1830s. According to Tocqueville, these “intermediary” institutions that exist in aristocracies serve as a “dike” against the force of dominant political power and a vital protection for human dignity and liberty. Ibid., 237 [I.2.7]. His nine-month sojourn led to the writing of Democracy in America, universally regarded as one of the most influential books ever written. This is a position particularly attractive to those who think that there can never be danger in having more democracy. This is the same Alexis de Tocqueville … In Europe, de Tocqueville observed, the people merely watched as the authorities tracked down a criminal, while in America "...everyone thinks he has an interest in furnishing proof of an offense and in arresting t… In my view, Tocqueville’s argument on this matter remains relevant for our own time. Nevertheless, he warns that this democracy carries within it … Tocqueville presents democracy as a new form of freedom that displaced the servitude of the ancient and medieval world. On the other hand, those who chose to violate the law were immediately branded as outcasts by the law-abiding majority. Alexis de Tocqueville There is a natural prejudice which prompts men to despise whomsoever has been their inferior long after he is become their equal; Slavery received, but the prejudice to which it has given birth remains stationary. 268. In 1831 an ambitious and unusually perceptive twenty-five-year-old French aristocrat visited the United States. Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville , colloquially known as Tocqueville (/ˈtɒkvɪl, ˈtoʊk-/), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. William Reddinger is Associate Professor of Government at Regent University, where he teaches courses in political theory and American politics. In both, he analysed the improved living standardsand social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. a political party that emerged in the early 1830s to oppose what members saw as President Andrew Jackson's abuses of power. Tocqueville's Warning to America: The Dangers of Despotism. There are at least two reasons to think that they are. As Americans gather to celebrate the anniversary of our nation’s freedom, we contemplate, on the one hand, the revolution in Egypt, where people crying out for freedom could only appeal to the military, having lost any power of self-government; and, on the other, the slow imposition of Obamacare in the United States, delayed only so … With this challenge in mind, we have developed a new unit that focuses on one of the most famous and controversial of Tocqueville’s arguments. Alexis de Tocqueville’s official purpose was to study the American penal system, but his real interest was America herself.He spent nine months criss-crossing the young country, traveling mostly by steamboat, but also sometimes on horseback and by foot. His warnings about and solutions to despotic attempts at ruling democracies shine a light on the dangerous tendencies of certain governing practices. The following statement regarding the tyranny of the majority is one of the most famous quotes from Tocqueville’s entire book: “I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.”[2] To understand this quote, one must first understand why there existed in America what Tocqueville called “the moral empire of the majority.”[3]. He further argues that tendency to acquiesce in the rightness of majority opinion has negative long-term consequences on national character and culture. Throughout, students are challenged to read carefully, think critically, and draw analogies between Tocqueville’s statements and their own experience and knowledge. Motivated by his “love of liberty and human dignity,” his Democracy in America has been called “one of the wisest works of modern thought,” that for understanding and preserving liberty, “the … Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 409 [II.1.2]. voting rights for all male adults. First, Tocqueville argued that the rule of majorities can be just as dangerous to liberty as the rule of one man for the simple reason that man does not become benevolent simply by being joined together with others. Some of these groups do exist in democracies, but they have little or no independent legitimacy. Alexis de Tocqueville tells this chilling story in "Democracy in America," and warns that the greatest threat the United States faces is the tyranny of the majority, a phrase he is credited with coining. In the extension activities, students are asked to bring to bear the knowledge that they have acquired in the unit on Tocqueville’s next chapter, in which he discusses the factors that might mitigate the tyranny of the majority. Undoubtedly, the United States’ size and diversity means that our nation “is partitioned among several great irreconcilable interests” such that “the privilege of the majority is often unrecognized.”[6] Yet, social phenomena ranging from safe spaces to the use of public opinion polls in the place of argument in news reportage suggest that advocates of a free society must remain vigilant against the pressure to conform to the moral empire of the majority still today. 1. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). Gen. Barr recalled de Tocqueville’s warning that, in the absence of key checks that have protected our nation from the dangers of "totalitarian democracy," we would inevitably be reduced to the tyrannical rule of an intolerant majority. Tocqueville, in the light of his “new political science,” calls this an “impious and detestable maxim.” In Volume 2, Part 2, Chapter 7, “Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument against this view. The first lesson introduces students to Tocqueville’s thesis about the omnipotence, i.e., the all-powerful character, of the majority in a democracy and his way of developing an argument through well-chosen historical examples. Moreover, this vigilance may require courage, for the cost of independent thought may be great. EDSITEment is a project of theNational Endowment for the Humanities, Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects, Alexis de Tocqueville on the Tyranny of the Majority, Democracy in America: Alexis de Tocqueville's Introduction. His name was Alexis de Tocqueville. Kant famously argued in his essay “What is Enlightenment?” that enlightened people have the courage to rely first on their own reason and do not trust in the reason of another. “First Blood.” This 1812 political cartoon shows the warring Federalists and Republicans planning to attack. 3. I wanted to know democracy, if only to know at least what we must hope or fear from it.”. During this period … In the third lesson, students confront and evaluate Tocqueville’s most shocking claim—that there is less freedom of discussion and independence of mind in America than in Europe, with negative consequences for American character and culture. 6. Equipped with a deep understanding of the achievements and failures of European civilization and an equally deep passion for liberty and human dignity, Tocqueville was able to bring his complex perspective to bear on his subject. While Tocqueville was a strong supporter of the separation of Church and State, he was also a … This is why the philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville continues to be important today. EDSITEment’s new unit, Tocqueville on Tyranny of the Majority, breaks down Tocqueville’s argument into its component parts. To understand Tocqueville’s teaching on the tyranny of the majority completely, one must consult not only the portions from Volume I on that topic but also Volume II, Part 1, which is titled “Influence of Democracy on Intellectual Movement in the United States,” and from which this extended block quote is taken. Anyone who would defend liberty must have the courage to support checks and limitations not only on the power of executives and courts but also on the power of majorities. 4. De Tocqueville found a deep respect for the law in America. universal manhood suffrage. I, Ch. Have they become more patient before obstacles by becoming stronger? Some may be tempted to think that Tocqueville went overboard in his discussion of the dangers of majority tyranny. There, Tocqueville argued, the opinion of the democratic majorities on matters of truth and morality often come to rest without examination. Over the past year, lots of people, I suspect, have been reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835/1840) as they ask themselves how the United States could have found itself having to choose in 2016 between two of the most unpopular candidates ever to face off for the office of president.. Tocqueville was a great thinker, a philosopher greater even than his admirers believe, and Trump is great mainly in the amazing extent of his pettiness and willingness to level insults at his rivals. The reason, he felt, was that the American citizens themselves held the ultimate power to change any laws they disliked. Four years ago, when the present Comte de Tocqueville, a lateral descendant, was making some repairs, a blowtorch started a blaze and the central part burned out. Atty. Tocqueville offers two gripping and illuminating examples: mob violence against anti-war journalists in the War of 1812; and the way free blacks are preventing from voting in the Northern states. Both of his parents had been jailed during the Reign of Terror. The organic industry is a case study in rent-seeking. Anyone suspicious of the power of a king ought likewise to be suspicious of the power of a majority. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. 5. In 1868, the House impeached Andrew Johnson for purely partisan reasons, and he was acquitted in the Senate. FrankGaffney. In fact, the greatest danger Americans faced was inherent in their treatment of unpopular minorities. Ibid., 236-237 [I.2.7]. 2. Still, Tocqueville has rightly been called prophetic for warning about the threat to liberty posed by the democratic tendency toward centralizing power (Democracy in America, Vol. Alexis de Tocqueville raised that point in his treatise, Democracy in America, where he warned that democracy could be destroyed by two forms of dictatorship: the despotism of a single ruler, and the tyranny of the majority. He came to study the American system. [4] Tocqueville would say that this is good as far as it goes, but can only go so far, because everyone from farmers to philosophers must rely on some intellectual authority for much of what they believe. 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