Democracy in America: In Two Volumes

Chapter 5. Necessity of Studying What Happens in the Individual States before Speaking about the Government of the Union

98 s4s4s4s4s4 c h a p t e r 5 Necessity of Studying What Happens in the Individual States before Speaking about the Government of the Uniona The following chapter is intended to examine what form government founded on the principle of sovereignty of the people takes in America, what its means of action, difficulties, advantages and dangers are.b A first difficulty arises: the United States has a complexconstitution.You notice two distinct societies there, bound together and, if I can explain it in this way, nested like boxes one inside the other. Two completely separate and nearly independent governments are seen: the one, habitual and undefined , which answers to the daily needs of the society; the other, exceptional and circumscribed, which applies only to certain general interests. Theyare, inaword,twenty-foursmallsovereignnations,thattogetherform the great body of the Union. To examine the Union before studying the state is to embark on a path strewn with difficulties. The form of the federal government in the United States appeared last; it was only a modification of the republic, a summary of political principles spread throughout the entire society before the federal government existed, and subsisting there independently of it. As Ihave just said, the federal government is, moreover, only an exception; the government of the states is the common rule. The writer who would like to a. According to a rough draft (YTC, CVh, 3, p. 83), this section would at first have constituted an independent chapter. b. In the margin: “⫽Perhaps immediately after having treated the sovereignty of the people, it would be necessary to talk about election, which is its first and most complete application to the government of society.⫽” government of the states 99 show such a picture as a whole before pointing out its details would necessarily lapse into obscurities and repetitions. There can be no doubt that the great political principles that govern American society today arose and developed in the state. So to have the key to all the rest, the state must be understood. The states that make up the American Union today all look the same with regard to the external appearance of institutions. Political and administrative life there is found concentrated in three centers of action that could be compared to the various nerve centers that make the human body move. At the first level is found the town;TN 3 higher, the county; finally, the state. Of the Town System in Americac Why the author begins the examination of political institutions with the town.—The town is found among all peoples.— Difficulty of establishing and maintaining town liberty.— Translator’s Note 3: I have translated commune, when it refers to America, as town rather than township. Town is, by far, the more common term in the UnitedStates, especially in New England. And American historians almost unanimously use the term town. When commune refers to France, I have usually left it in French, italicized. c. When he starts on the study of the American administration, Tocqueville realizes that he hardly knows that of his own country. In the month of October 1831, he asks his father and two of his colleagues, Ernest de Chabrol and Ernest de Blosseville,todraw up for him a summary sketch of the French administration. Tocqueville writes to his father: Nothing would be more useful to me for judging America well than to know France. But it is thislast pointthat ismissing;Iknowingeneralthatamongusthegovernment gets into nearly everything; a hundred times people have blared into my ears theword centralization, without explaining it to me. . . . If you could, my dear papa, analyze for me this word centralization, you would help me immensely (letter to his father, New York, 7 October 1831, YTC, BIa2). In reply, Hervé de Tocqueville sends his son a long report bearing the title Coup d’oeil sur l’administration française [Brief View of the French Administration].Theretheformer prefect develops several of the ideas presented in De la charte provinciale (Paris: J. J. Blaise, 1829, 62 pp.). After several pages devoted to description of the administration, 100 government of the states Its importance.—Why the author has chosen the town organization of New England as the principal object of his examination. Not by chance do I first examine the town. [⫽The town is the first element of the societies out of which peoples take form; it is the social molecule; if I can express myself...