Democracy in America

I have always appreciated what America’s Founders did.  George Washington, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Patrick Henry, Nathan Hale, and others were childhood heroes of mine (and remain so today).  They were people that sacrificed much, in some cases their lives, for liberty.  They did so with a lot of uncertainty swirling around them.  They knew they were fighting for the right thing, freedom, but there were so many questions about whether or not the revolution would be won, then whether or not their new country would survive, and whether or not the untried system of government they set up in the U.S. Constitution would work or not.  Would such a government be able to protect the rights of its citizenry?  In other countries, many were anxiously watching to see how the American experiment would turn out.  Many in Great Britain hoped it would fail.  Others watched with hope or out of curiosity.

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (ISBN: 978-0-553-21464-2) are the results of the aristocrat’s observations of the fledgling United States.  He and a companion were assigned by the French government to learn about the prison system in the U.S., which they did, but de Tocqueville came home with extensive notes on all aspects of life in America and wrote about the unique American take on democracy, a subject that was always of interest to de Tocqueville.  The book consists of two volumes and does, in fact, cover just about every aspect of American life.  The author’s discussion includes the following non-exhaustive list of topics: socio-economic upward mobility, sense of community, belief in God, history of the American Indians (especially interesting to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since de Tocqueville’s sources point to all the Indian languages coming from one source), the arm of Providence in the American founding, religion as the foundation of morality, the importance of a judiciary that can be recalled (impeached), the inability of a central power (government) to control every aspect of its citizenry’s lives, centralization’s tendency to promote stagnation, government’s purpose being to secure the welfare of the people and not to establish order and regularity, executive authority’s tendency to abuse power, the negatives of re-elecction being a possibility for politicians, the importance of sound men being appointed to the Supreme Court because of the court’s inherent power, the dangers of political parties (de Tocqueville shared this observation with many of America’s Founders), freedom of the press working best when the media is characterized by a wide variety in sources, the role of individualism and how politics work best when one does not look to the government for solutions of one’s problems, government is a necessary evil, laws’ tendency to prevent wealth, the importance of a strong middle class, lawyers’ negative impact on society, how when one loses one’s religion, one tends to try to take it from others, the pursuit of happiness, the importance of common foundations for society and community to exist, and the relative importance of freedom relative to the opinion of others. 

This book is often touted as being must-read stuff for political scientists, historians, and those interested in early American politics or history.  It lived up to its billing and, in my view, more.  This edition that I read is a mass-market paperback, so tiny print and over 1,000 pages.  It never felt like slogging through even with the old-fashioned language and heavy subject matter.  The book was fascinating.  I made a dozen pages of notes with quotations from the book.  As mentioned above, it touched on just about every aspect of American political life and made a few trips off to the side to talk about some of the social aspects of America, too.  What was particularly interesting was the book’s relevance to today.  The Founders live large in American life not only because they founded a country, but because that country remains today, having withstood almost 250 years, which isn’t too bad for an experiment.  It helps that the experiment was divinely inspired, but it’s not too shabby, nonetheless.  The book’s relevance is heightened because of the adroit commentary provided by de Tocqueville.  It’s not just observations, but also analysis.  I noticed that I didn’t always agree with the analysis provided, but I usually did.  De Tocqueville’s analysis more often than not seemed to agree with a more traditional American approach to government: small, local, by and for the people, and based on a belief in God.  Maybe it was easier for him to see since he wasn’t an American and had less of a stake in it, but de Tocqueville noted on a few occasions in the book that he thought much of the American governmental experiment would be wise to apply elsewhere, even in spite of his self-described Leftist beliefs.  We today would be wise to heed such advice.

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