De Tocqueville’s America
One of the most famous early American texts was by the French politician and historian, Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-1859), who authored the well-known study “Democracy in America” first published in 1835. Most public libraries of any size in the U.S. have a copy of this book, and it has appeared in at least three English translations of the original French text. My small-town local library has a copy, with over 900 pages of small 9- and 10-point type. It is long, but a good read, and I was glad to have taken the time and effort. He was a brilliant man and a superb writer with great knowledge and insight.
The book is full of many pithy and farsighted remarks, of which we can only provide a sample. It is however, odd that the most popular quote attributed to de Tocqueville is a misattribution and was never made by him! Presidents and many others have referenced it, including Hillary Clinton in 2016. The quote says, “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there. In the fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there. In her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits, aflame with righteousness, did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” Although the actual author is unknown, Tocqueville was a devout Christian, and his own comments echo these sentiments.
In the years 1831-32, with a lifetime friend and companion, Tocqueville travelled extensively across the eastern continent, north to south, including to Detroit and by horseback through the forest up to Saginaw in mid-Michigan. On his travels he met with President Andrew Jackson and other statesmen. However, as a qualification, sensitive minds may find that some of his views are today very politically incorrect, but we share them to give a broad and accurate view of his thinking. Here are his remarks on a variety of subjects:
On Christianity: “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other…Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?”
On the importance of parents instilling proper moral values in their children: “Step back in time; look closely at the child in the very arms of his mother; see the external world reflected for the first time in the yet unclear mirror of his understanding; study the first examples which strike his eyes; listen to the first words which arouse within him the slumbering power of thought; watch the first struggles which he has to undergo; only then will you comprehend the source of his prejudices, the habits, and the passions which are to rule his life. The entire man, so to speak, comes fully formed in the wrappings of his cradle.”
On the role of women: “I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it, nowhere does she enjoy a higher station.” He also made this humorous remark: “It is easy to see that, even in the freedom of early youth, an American girl never quite loses control of herself; she enjoys all permitted pleasures without losing her head about any of them, and her reason never lets the reins go, though it may often seem to let them flap.”
On political correctness: “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America…In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.”
Why biblical truths struggle for acceptance: “When an opinion has taken root in a democracy and established itself in the minds of the majority, it afterward persists by itself, needing no effort to maintain it since no one attacks it. Those who at first rejected it as false come in the end to adopt it as accepted, and even those who still at the bottom of their hearts oppose it keep their views to themselves, taking great care to avoid a dangerous and futile contest.”
On the danger of the military establishment: “There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult—to begin a war and to end it…All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.” It has been well said that Truth is the first casualty of war. We are also reminded that the U.S. Income tax law was originally promised to be a temporary WWI measure that would affect only the ultra-rich.
On world politics: “There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. … Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world.”
On the importance of good judges: “The President … may err … Congress may decide amiss … But if the Supreme Court is ever composed of imprudent or bad men, the Union may be plunged into anarchy or civil war.”
On the subject of socialism: “Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom…They call, in fact, for the forfeiture, to a greater or less degree, of human liberty, to the point where, were I to attempt to sum up what socialism is, I would say that it was simply a new system of serfdom…As for me, I am deeply a democrat; this is why I am in no way a socialist. Democracy and socialism cannot go together. You can’t have it both ways…. Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
He foresaw the Civil War: “If there ever are great revolutions there, they will be caused by the presence of the blacks upon American soil.” He also predicted the race riots that have sprung up since the 1960’s: “I am obliged to confess that I do not regard the abolition of slavery as a means of warding off the struggle of the two races in the Southern states. The Negroes may long remain slaves without complaining; but if they are once raised to the level of freemen, they will soon revolt at being deprived of almost all their civil rights; and as they cannot become the equals of the whites, they will speedily show themselves as enemies.”
On racial equality his views were common in that era: “Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.”
Concerning the Muslim religion: “I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.” He further made this prediction: “Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.”
On government thought-control: “It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform…The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting…till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.” He added, “I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.”
Finally, advice for us on the importance of our heritage: “When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”
De Tocqueville came from an illustrious old Norman family line of the ruling class. During the French Revolution several of his immediate relatives were executed by guillotine, while he and his parents only avoided a similar fate by the death of Robespierre. He married an English Protestant lady who converted to Catholicism to mitigate her non-acceptance by his family; during this period the French and English were often bitter political and religious enemies. He suffered for several years with tuberculosis and died at only 54 years of age with no descendants.
