Chamber Lin

8/2/2019 Chamber Lin

1/7

The Prophet De Tocqueville

W I L L I A M H E N R Y C H A M B E R L I N

THEGIFT of foreseeing in one century thepolitical, economic, and social shape of thenext is very sparingly given. But a strikingexception to this rule is Alexis de Tocque-ville, the liberal conservative French polit-ical scientist. His Democracy in America,published after a long trip in the UnitedStates in the 1830s, is quite as remarkablefor its clairvoyan t vision of so me of the fu -ture problems of America an d the Westernworld as for its keen insights into Americaas it was in the time of Andrew Jackson.

Himself an aristocrat, de Tocquevillesaw in democracy the wave of the future.He realized that the sun of absolute mon-archs and privileged nobilities was setting.The prospect of the triumph of democracydid not inspire in him either unqualified

enthusiasm or fanatical repulsion. For de-mocracy, as he believed, would be good orbad insofar as it offered adequate safe-gu ard s for indiv idual liberty. At a timewhen most mem bers of his class regard eddemocracy as portending anarchy and thebreakdown of all legitimate authority deTocqueville anticipated that the realdanger to be anticipated from democraticgovern ment w as not excessive weakness bu texcessive strength, capable of crushing, orbending and softening the will to freedomof the individual. To Alexis de Tocquevillefalls the credit, in an a ge of hered itarymonarchy and laissez-faire economics, ofapprehending the possibility of the totali-tarian state and the welfare society. It wasin the collapse or disappea rance of tradi-

5.2 Winter 196566


2/7


3/7

At the time when de Tocqueville com-posed h is classical work L ondon and Paris,to the ordinary observer, seemed muchcloser to the hu b of wo rld politic tha nWashington and St. Petersburg. The UnitedStates, under the Monroe Doctrine, hadrenounced all concern with European quar-rels and alliances while posting up a NoTrespassing sign (with no navy to backit up) for the American continent againstthe possible predatory designs of Europ eancolonialist powers. The young Republicscarcely figured in European diplomaticand military calculations.

As for Russia, it was a grea t power whichshared with England the achievement ofNapoleons downfall. But it was only one offive such powers, the others being GreatBritain, France, Prussia, and Austria.Outside the m ainstream of Europ ean cul-ture, the E mp ire of the Tsars was not re-garded as such a threat a s to require a gen-eral alliance of other Europ ean pow ers forthe purpose of imposing restraints on its ag-gressive designs. Some twenty years laterGreat Britain and France were to launchan invasion of Russia in the Crimean pen-insula, an enterprise that would be fan-tastically unimaginable for those two pow-ers today. But de Tocqueville voiced whatis perhaps his best known prophecy, andthe o ne which was most conspicuously vin-dicated after the second Wo rld Wa r:

There are, at the present time, twogreat nations in the world whichseem to tend toward the same end, al-though they started from differentpoints. I allude to the Russians and theAm ericans. Both of them have grow nup unnoticed and, while the attention ofmankind was directed elsewhere, theyhave suddenly assumed a most promi-nent place among the nations; and theworld learned their existence and theirgreatness a t almost the sam e time.

All other nations seem to have nearly

reached their natural limits, and only tobe c harged w ith the mainten ance of theirpower; but these are still in the act ofgrowth. All the others are stopped, orcontinue to advance with extreme diffi-culty; these ar e proceeding with ease an dcelerity along a path to which the hum aneye can assign no term. The Americanstruggles against the natural obstacleswhich oppose him ; the adversaries ofthe Russian are men. The former com-bats the wilderness and savage life; thelatter, civilization, with all its weaponsa n d its ar ts; the conquests of th e oneare therefore gained by the plowshare;those of the othe r by the sword.

The Anglo-American relies upon per-sonal interest to accom plish his ends, an dgives free scope to the unguided exer-tions and commonsense of the citi-zens; the Russian centers all the author-ity of society in a single arm; the prin-cipal instrument of the former is free-dom, of the latter, servitude. Theirstarting points are different and theircourses are not the same; yet each ofthem seems to be marked out by the willof heaven to sway the destinies of halfthe globe.a

This striking prophecy follows two otherjudicious observations: that the time willcome when 150 million men will be livingin North America and that mean6 of intel-lectual intercourse will unite the most re-mote parts of the earth. There is less dif-ference , de T ocque ville suggests, betwe enthe Europeans and their descendants in theNew World than there was between certaintowns, separated by only a river, in thethirteenth century. Since that time thetrans-Atlantic cable, the airplane, radio andtelevision, the communications satellite havestrongly speeded up this process of closecommunication among the peoples of theworld, without, unfortunately, making theirgovernments more friendly.

De Tocquevilles anticipation of Amer-

54 Winter I96546


4/7

icas future stature. as a world power growsnaturally out of the process which h e hadseen at first hand, the build-up of a con-tinent by a pioneer population. What ledhim to his insight about Russia, the futurepartn er of the United Sta tes in world dom -ination, is not so clear. Perhaps he was apremature geo-politician, reckoning thatthe enormo us spaces of Russia cre ated op -portunities for a growing population thatwere lacking in the closely settled lands ofWestern Europe. At any rate, more than acentury before Yalta and Potsdam, thisFrench political scientist offered a blue-print of a world oriented toward Americaan d Russia, the kind of prediction th at israrely fulfilled more than a century afterit is made. De Tocqueville also sensed theideological contrast between the Russianand Anglo-American systems in his re-mark that the instrument of one is servi-tude, of the other, freedom.At the time of de Tocquevilles visit thepersonal income tax was unknown in theUnited States and taxation in general waslight, compared with what is now taken forgranted. He notes that high governmentofficials are sparingly rem unerated, b y Eu-ropean standards, but that enormous sumsare lavished to meet the exigencies or tofacilita te the en joym ents of the people.H e foresees the s hap e of things to come inAmerica and registers another of his un-cannily accurate prophecies of what maybe expected in future generations when hewrites :

Whenever the poor direct public af-fairs and dispose of the natural resourc-es, it appears certain that, as they profitby the expend iture of the state, they ar eap t to augment that expen diture.I conclude, therefore. . that the dem-ocratic government of the Americansis not a cheap government, as is some-times asserted. And I have no hesitationin predicting that, if the people of the

United States is ever involved in E-rious difficulties, its taxation will speed-ily be increased to the rate of tha t whichprevails in the greater part of thearisto crac ies an d mon archies of Europe.It would have been impossible for m y -

one in the early nineteenth century toforesee the precise nature of the seriousdifficulties in which the American peo-ple became involved in the twentieth, twoworld wars and a major depression, plusa situation between war and peace at theend of the second W orld Wa r. Yet the pre-diction stands up remarkably well, forti-fied by the shrewd observation that, as aresult of universal suffrage, with morevotes at th e disp osal of the poo r th an ofthe well-to-do, taxation might be expectedt o a s u m e a more an d more levelling char-acter. Which, of course, is exactly whathas happened.

Survey ing the new institutions of theyoung American Republic, de Tocque-ville assigned key importance to the SU-preme Court.5 The peace, the prosperity,and the very existence of the Union, hebelieves, are vested in the hands of itsjudges. The President, who exercises alimited power (here, to be sure, he mayhave overlooked the immense unspecifiedpower of the Chief Executive as command-er-in-chief) may err without causinggreat mischief in th e state. Congress ma ydecide wrongly without destroying the Un-ion, because Congress is subject to changeby action of the voters. But, he continues,if the Supreme Court is ever composed ofimprudent men or bad citizens, the Unionmay be plunged into anarchy or civil war.

Recent decisions of the Court in suchfields as school integration, compulsory re-app ortio nm ent of legislative districts, an dother subjects indicate the possibility thatthis body, when composed of judges whoare inclined to decree what they regard asreform rather than construe the wording

Modem Age 55


5/7

of the Constitution strictly, may tend,perhaps unconsciously, to assume thefunctions of what Judge Learned Hand re-ferred to as a third legislative chamber,or Platonic guardians.De Tocqueville, although not in princi-ple opposed to democracy and favorablyimpressed by much that he saw in theUnited States (especially by the tendency,which has abated in modern times, of theindividual citizen to rely on himself, or oncooperative effort, not on the central gov-ernm ent, for the carryin g out of economicenterprises) did not believe that a democ-racy was well qualified for the conduct offoreign affairs.

Obviously the world was not made safefor democracy; communism and fascismwere the emergent forces of the wars aft-ermath. Wilsons Fourteen Points, putforward as prerequisites of a just peace,had been so distorted and repudiated inthe postwar settlements that a Europeansour joke represented Wilson as receivingthe Nobel Pri ze fo r mathematics-for hav -ing made fourteen equal zero.

Technically the war broke out becausethe German submarine war caused the loss ofAm erica n lives (almost all of them fromthe sinking of allied ships), threatenedAmerican trade with Great Britain andFrance and the security of private loansto these belligerent governments. But inForeign politics demand scarcely any the thirties the American people were soof those qualities which a democracy fe d up with the disillusioning sequel topossesses; and they require, on the con-trar y, the perfec t use of almost all those their crusade that were andfaculties in which it is deficient . . . .A eager to pass legislation renouncing in ad-democracy is unable to regulate the &- vance the alleged rights which had servedtails of an important undertaking, topersevere in a design, and to work out

its execution in the presence of seriousobstacles. It cannot combine its meas-ures with secrecy, and it will not awaittheir consequences with patience!The contrast between military success

and polit ical failure in two world warsseems to confirm the justice of de Tocque-villes comments on the inability of a de-mocracy to conduct foreign policy withwisdom, foresight, and discretion. Fifteenyears after the United States had thrownitself enthusiastically into Woodrow Wil-sons crusade to make the world safe fordemocracy the average American wouldhave found considerable difficulty in de-fining what had been achieved by thisreckless abandonment of the Monroe Doc-trine principle that, as European powersshould keep hands off the American con-tinent, the United States would refuse toinvolve itself in the quarrels and alliancesof Europe.

as the pretext for involvement in WorldW a r I.

Nor has the sequel to World War I1been an impressive testimonial to demo-cratic abili ty to make foreign policy wise-ly, consistently, and effectively. The posi-tive ideals of this conflict, set forth in theso-called Atlantic Charter, were trampledunder foot even more flagrantly and bru-tally than Wilsons Fourteen Points.Roosevelts foreign policy, so f a r a s i t pos-sessed any coherent pattern, was based onthe assumption that Germany and Japanshould be stripped of all political and mili-tary power.This would have made sense only on thereckoning that the Soviet Union cherishedno aggressive designs against the vacuumthat was created in Europe and Asia bythe elimination of Germany and Japan.But such a reckoning was quite unwar-ranted in the light of Russias record asan expansionist power in the past, aggra-vated by the unlimited ambition of com-

56 Winter 1965-66


6/7

munism as a world revolutionary faith.Equally absurd and unworkable was theconcep tion of the peace-keep ing ma chin eryin the United Nations which would havebeen workable only if there had been aclose commu nity of interes t betweenW ashin gton an d iVIoscow.

De Tocquevilles case for the ineptn ess ofdemocracy in foreign affairs has beenstrengthened by a development which hesensed, but of which he could not foreseethe full scope: the war-time propagandapotentialities of m ode rn mea ns of com-mun ication. It was the absence, in the past,of organized war propag and a that mad eit easier for the d iplomats at the C ongressof Vienna to work out a fairly reasonablepeace settlement, one that did not containthe seeds of future wars.

De Tocqueville foresaw as two nega-tive consequences of democracy excessivematerialism and a new kind of tyranny,oppression by the majority. In one of hismost brilliant passages he describes therestless accumulative instinct which hefound in the United States and which im-pressed him more strongly because he wasa citizen of a country where ancestral rootsare usually deep:

A native of the U nited States clingsto this worlds goods as if he were cer-tain never to die; and he is so hasty ingrasping at all within his reach that onewould suppose he was constantly afraidof not living long enough to enjoythem. He clutches everything, he holdsnothing fast, but soon loosens his graspto pursue fresh gratifications.In the United States a man builds ahouse to spend his later years in it ,and he sells it before the roof is on;he plants a garden and lets it just whenthe trees are beginning to be ar; h ebrings a field into cultivation andleaves other men to gather the crops.He embraces a profession and gives it

up. He settles in a place, which he soonafterward leaves, to carry his change-able longings elsewhere. . . . Death atlength overtakes him, but it is beforehe is wea ry of the fut ile chas e of th atcomplete happiness which is forever onthe wing.Still more deeply thoughtful, and prophet-

ic, is his fea r of th e tyran ny of th e majo r-ity that is latent in a democracy withoutchecks and balances. The marked trend inthe United States in the twentieth centuryto dispense with these checks and bal-ances, indirect election of United StatesSenators, for instance, and allowanc e instate legislatures for factors apart fromarithmetical proportionality, and aboli-tion of literacy tests for voters, lends anespecially topical quality to de Tocque-villes reflections on this subject:

I can never willingly invest any num-be r of m y fellow creatu res with that un -limited authority which I should refuseto any one of them. . . . I a m of theopinion that some one social powermust always be made to predominateover. the othe rs; but I think that lib-erty is endangered when this power ischecked by no obstacles which may re-tard its course, and force it to moderateits own vehemence.No power upon earth is so worthy ofhon or fo r itself, or of reverential obe-dience to the rights which it representsthat I would consent to admit its u n -controlled and all-predominant author-ity. When I see that the right and themeans of absolute command are con-ferred on a people or upon a king, uponan aristocracy or a democracy, a mon-archy or a republic, I recognize thegerm of tyranny, and I journey on-wa rd to a land of m ore hopeful insti-tutions.*

Both fascism, now obsolete in theoryand practice, and the more permanent tyr-

Modem Age 57


7/7

an ny of comm unism are perversions of de-mocracy. Both of these systems achieve pow-er by abuse of the freedom of speech,press, and propaganda which, once inpower, they deny to all dissenters. It wouldbe impossible to say with accuracy whatproportion of the Russians approved theBolshevik take-over in November, 1917,or how many Italians sympathized withMussolinis March on Rome, or what per-centage of Germans favored Hitlers graspfor power. What is certain is that neitherRussians nor Italians nor Germans hadanything to say about their own destinyafter the three dictatorships had been es-tablished.

Even wh ere there is no qu estion of c re-ating an outright totalitarian state it is adanger signal when a democracy begins toscrap all the brakes on the functioning ofits governmental power. It is one of manyof de Tocquevilles merits as a profoundand prophetic thinker that he recognizedthis danger signal at a time when democ-racy was, in the main, a prospect of thefuture.

At the time of the second World Warthere was an obsession, especially in

France, with the rhymed predictions of asixteenth-centu ry French astrologer namedNostradamus. People professed to see inthese am bigu ous forecasts of th e shap e ofthings to come precise references to whatwas happening in Europe four centurieslater. The difficulty with this theory wasthat the obscure pronouncements of Nos-tradamus could be interpreted in scores ofways. He has long gone out of fashion.

But Alexis de Tocquevilles claim to beconsidered a major prophet rests on a farsurer foundation. Lord Acton said of him:He is always right, always wise and asjust a s Aristides.9

The striking number of his predictionsthat have been realized is not a result ofaccident or lucky guesswork or inspira-tional intuition. It is a natural conse-quence of a powerful, creative mind, en-larged by vast erudition and a sensitiveunderstanding of the nature of man andsociety, projecting the lessons of the pastand the present to illuminate the future.His Democracy in America is one of thefew truly Great Books, a work to be readand reread with ever renewed appreciationof its ins ights and v isions.

Democracy in America (Oxford University Press,19471, pp. 218, 219.Ibid., pp. 489-91.lbid., pp. 242, 243.Ybid., pp. 86, 7.

Vbid., p. 138.lbid., pp. 344, 345.Ibid., pp. 161, 162Lord Acton, Lectures on The French Revolution,41bid., p. 135. p. 357.

58 Tinter 1965-66

Documents

Chamber Lin