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| Kevin Grout |
By Kevin Grout, Class of 2016
This semester, the McConnell Scholars have focused diligently on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. After a year-long survey of American social and political structures, Tocqueville wrote a 1,500-page description of the Jacksonian United States for a French audience. Every time we discuss a section of the work, one question always comes forward: “Is this still relevant? Do we still live in Tocqueville’s America?”
After reflection, I believe we still live in the America as seen through the eyes of Alexis de Tocqueville. Here are five essential American characteristics identifiable – then and now.
1. American Parties, the Press, and Associations
From the American Founding, parties, the press, and associations have built upon the freedoms of assembly, speech, and the press. Parties formed to speak up against majorities, and today the two party system is extremely strong, well-funded, and a defining factor in political discourse. The press, either vulgar or academic, served as a watchdog over government and its actors. Associations that began as communities turned into national interest groups. These three channels of expression of the people require immense public energy. While many today feel alienated from politics and policy, many more fight for their beliefs in every local, state, and national election. The Internet has opened innumerable channels for political participation and opinion making to anyone with a computer. Just as in Tocqueville’s account, today’s America views these three channels as part of the Acceptance of Conflict. The people know that disagreement and strife is to come from parties, the press, and associations. Only through the fervent action of the people in these communities will democracy continue to function. That’s how Tocqueville did it, and that’s how we do it today.
2. Mores
According to Merriam- Webster, mores are “the fixed morally binding customs of a particular group.” More than anything else, the mores give the people of a nation the energy and agency to accomplish major feats. The legal system and natural resources are aiding factors in the growth of a nation, but the moral beliefs and intellectual aspirations of a community determine so much more. At the Founding, Americans held values like liberty and personal responsibility. They fiercely defended their public virtues and community centralization as the best possible vehicle to prosperity.
In today’s world, it is difficult to access the values and beliefs of distant generations. Because of the United States’ position as a “marketplace of ideas,” it may even be argued that there are no mores felt by all Americans. Religion, national origin, socioeconomic status, education level, region, and even age are predictors and reasons behind many of America’s different beliefs. However, I believe that Americans still adhere to the same mores that Tocqueville observed years ago. We, as a people, still hold everyone equal before the law. The United States offers no titles of nobility or higher status (we are even more equal in this idea with expanded suffrage). No legal aristocracy exists or has existed in this nation. Today, the battle continues over the centralization of government. These bedrock principles (and many more) are traceable all the way back to the America Tocqueville saw when he travelled the continent. Our fundamental mores have remained immune to the innovation of time and technology.
3. Religion and Liberty
Tocqueville’s discussion of religion is extremely interesting. He argued that religion initially bound the United States together because of the similar traditions throughout the Thirteen Colonies. In fact, he judged this as one of the best attributes for the unification of the United States. He saw that the wall of separation between religion and government kept religious and civil observances strong. Coming from the context of France immediately after the Revolution and the fall of both the government and the Church, Tocqueville recognized that independence guarded the religious organizations from corruption and decay.
Later, Tocqueville uses the example of the Catholic Church in America to show increased piety and civil energy. In aristocracies, the people are separated by birth and class; however, the United States saw all people from the wealthy to the poor, as equals before the priest. Instead of the numerous Estates of France, American Catholicism identified only the clergy and the laity. Along with reforms of practice and pageantry, the American Church connected with the people as a spiritual foundation, not a government institution. The equality and liberty found in and from religious traditions deeply affected American mores and development.
The modern America experiences an interesting relationship with religion. Even more, perhaps, than in Tocqueville’s age, the United States is vehemently against religious influence in government. While the majority of Americans ascribe to a faith, they agree of the benefits of separation between religion and government. As seen for generations, when people react against a government, they will also abandon religions connected to it. However, secular governmental discourse allows Americans to vote against a person without risking damnation.
4. Leveling and Community
One of the beauties of democracy is the equality it provides. Americans have no king, no rule by birthright that demands a bended knee. The levelling effects of democracy came economically and politically. The abundance of prosperous land gave generations of settlers the ability to become landowners and increase their family’s wealth. This bore “The American Dream,” the idea that hard work would earn a better life for oneself and their kin. This didn’t mean that a man could rise from rags to riches – instead it meant that his children could afford better rags. Over successive generations, the great land grants would be divided up until thousands of men each owned small plots of land. If liberty and economic prosperity are tied to property, as most scholars attribute, then this practice theoretically guaranteed that all men could discover economic prosperity. By nature of democracy, all legal voters held the same legal authority in the ballot box. Therefore, no man could claim a greater right to the selection of leadership because of status or power. This may have been the greatest leveling effect of democracy.
Since the time of Tocqueville, political and economic equality provide for a community. Some claim that America has seen the rise of a ‘moneyed’ class that asserts authority over society and politics. Despite the progression toward the extremely wealthy in America, the American Dream perpetuates. The values of hard-work, determination, and self-devotion drive the economy. People acknowledge their socioeconomic mobility, just like Tocqueville’s Americans. Voting has been expanded and protected in every way. More groups are being opened to the political community. Today’s America, although not level in every manner, still shares these values of the past.
5. Liberty and Equality
The main tension in American and Tocqueville’s Democracy is between liberty and equality. Civics lessons tell us that this nation was founded upon both principles, and some even consider them synonymous. However, these contrasting forces have pushed against one another for centuries. Neither virtue can reasonably be accepted in absolute. For example, a completely equal state is socialist or communist. Absolute liberty promotes anarchy and chaos. Instead, a middle ground is needed. By this point, we see Tocqueville’s argument for the advantages of equality. However, individual rights and freedoms were codified and protected since the 1787 Constitution. In the United States, the forces of liberty and equality coexist in a manner approaching paradox.
Tocqueville defined democracy as an inevitable marching force that continues to equalize populations. The American system developed certain republican principles to slow this advance. Structures like the indirect election of U.S. Senators and the President, life terms of the Supreme Court with the power to review and overturn law, and limitations on the universality of suffrage stopped the tide of complete equality. Restrictions on absolute liberty include police power and taxation, but they too are necessary for the prosperity of the nation. Both in Tocqueville’s time and our own, it is the duty of the people and the government to decide the proportions of equality and liberty. This may include higher taxes on the wealth to redistribute it to the poor (equality), or allow Super PACS to make unlimited donations in a political election (liberty). There is no set standard in America, and maybe that’s been our greatest tradition. There have been mistakes made, and they are easily traceable throughout American history, but the controlled conflict continues.
One of my history professors this semester, Dr. Thomas Mackey, often reminds us that “The past is a foreign country.” Although we have a certain vision of America and its values, we cannot expect the America of the past to have the same ideas. After exploring Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, I think we can find that some things have remained. I believe that we still live in Tocqueville’s America. These five reasons transcend time because they perpetuate to 2014. These struggles, mores, and organizations created the United States, and they still make and remake America today.
Kevin Grout, of Florence, Ky., is a sophomore McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying political science and history.