Democracy in America

Tocqueville admits that while he fears “despotism” from democracy, society can no longer be based on aristocratic rule. The amount of individual freedom will necessarily be less, for the freedom aristocrats enjoyed was due only to a system where “society is often sacrificed to the individual and the prosperity of the greatest number to the greatness of a few” (666-67). Central power is therefore necessary, but it must be constrained from its worst excesses. Rather than deputizing aristocrats, democracies will depend on “bodies formed temporarily of plain citizens” (667), like American town meetings. Tocqueville also returns to his support for associations of citizens on political and social topics as a means to defend “its particular rights against the exigencies of power, saves common freedoms” (668). Newspapers are another means of maintaining freedom, as “the press places at the side of each of them a very powerful arm that the weakest and most isolated can make use of” (668). A strong judiciary is another necessary force to protect the individual. In short, institutions that protect individual rights, support local traditions, and allow for defense of particular needs are the cure for despotism.

Tocqueville argues that citizens of democracies scorn “forms”—by which he seems to mean legal procedures and the rule of law—and do not often seek to protect individual rights (669). The key task for lawmakers in democratic periods will be to protect these rights and “elevate him [the individual] beside society and to sustain him before it” (672). Tocqueville argues that it is possible to preserve individual freedom by supporting the “taste for independence” (672) common to democratic citizens and remaining vigilant against threats to it.

Tocqueville concludes his work with the observation that this age of revolutions is unprecedented: “although the revolution operating in the social state, the laws, the ideas, the sentiments of men is still very far from being completed, already one cannot compare its works with anything previously seen in the world” (673). Overall, human prosperity is increasing, though human endeavors are less grandiose: “If one encounters few great devotions, few very lofty, very brilliant, and very pure virtues, habits are orderly, violence rare, cruelty almost unknown. Men’s existence is becoming longer and their property surer” (674). Tocqueville, then, considers the loss of greatness acceptable if humanity’s lot as a whole is improving.

He freely admits that his regret for the lost ages of the past is because he cannot see with a universal eye which he equates with God:

It is natural to believe that what most satisfies the regard of this creator and preserver of men is not the singular prosperity of some, but the greatest well-being of all: what seems to me decadence is therefore progress in his eyes; what wounds me is agreeable to him (674-75).

Tocqueville is resigned to the democratic age because he recognizes that his personal perspective is limited. He calls democracy and aristocracy “two distinct humanities” (675) that cannot be judged according to the standards of the other. Tocqueville argues that the success or failure of democracy depends on what citizens choose, not on fixed factors like climate or geography. He concludes, “it depends on them whether equality leads them to servitude or freedom, to enlightenment or barbarism, to prosperity or misery” (676). For all of his awareness of democracy’s faults, and his fears that it will merely lead to more forms of despotism and a deliberate loss of freedom, Tocqueville ultimately emphasizes the power of institutions to defend individuals and the power of individuals to shape their own lives. He may be nostalgic for aristocracy, but Tocqueville is a consistent supporter of individual rights and human reason.