Democracy in America: In Two Volumes

Chapter 4

1206 s4s4s4s4s4 c h a p t e r 4a a. Appendix of section.—Section IV./ Ideas of the chapter. 1. When liberty has existed before equality, it establishes habits that are opposed to the excessive development of the central power. 2. When equality has developed rapidly with the aid of a revolution, the taste for intermediary powers disappears more quickly. Centralization becomes necessary in a way. 3. Revolution makes hatred and jealousy of the neighbor more intense and leads either the upper or the lower classes to want to centralize. 4. Enlightenment and ignorance. 5. War. 6. Disorder. 7. Democratic nature of the central power. [In the margin: New ideas. 1. Extraordinary talents. 2. Two ideas relative to revolutions and which have not been treated there. 3. When a people has been formed from several peoples, like the Americans. ⫽4. When democratic society is ancient, the permanent ambition of the g[overnment (ed.)] gives it the advantage in the long run, because of the shifting desires of the citizens and of the multitude of (illegible word) into which they are constantly throwing themselves.⫽] The entire vice of this chapter seems to me to reside in this: 1. Definitively, the greatest number and the principal ones of the particularreasons that I give are connected with the particular accident of a revolution. So it would be necessary to put them separately and to announce in advance that I am going to deal with this order of particular causes. It is worth the trouble. 2. It would be necessary to put those causes in a better order so that the mindwould pass better from one to the other. It is on these two points that I must make a final effort while reviewing one last time. 6 November 1839 (YTC, CVk, 1, pp. 74–76). On a page of drafts: Note applicable to all the sections, but principally to section III./ I do not believe that in all this chapter and particularly in this section I have made particular and accidental causes 1207 Of Some Particular and Accidental Causes That End up Leading a Democratic People to Centralize Power or That Turn Them Away from Doing So b sufficient use of America because of the preoccupation that I had that the principal goal of the chapter was to speak about Europe and to Europe. But even with this goal, perhaps it is necessary to show better what is happening in America. I showed a glimpse of it in several places, but perhaps it would be worth more, instead of spreading America around as I have done, to gather it together at one point and show: 1. That we must distinguish between the Union and the states. The national element finding itself only in the state. 2. To show or rather to recall in what way the state is more centralized than the monarchies of Europe and in what way less centralized. The government more, the administration less. There are pages of my first work to reread and perhaps to cite. .-.[what (ed.)].- makes administrative centralization less great in America than in Europe despite equality. If I do not make the reader see America clearly, he will perhaps be invincibly opposed to my ideas, because seen in a haze and considered roughly, America seems in fact to provide an opposite argument. Reflect on all that while reviewing (Rubish, 2). b. In the drafts: Other causes or particular causes that can favor centralization./ To introduce this in the preceding chapters or to put it in a supplementary chapter./ [In the margin: ⫽Perhaps show how the Americans have escaped excessive centralization of powers with the help of favorable particular causes. Separation of colonies. No foreign wars. Few internal troubles. Habits of local government. Principles of aristocratic liberty without mixture of aristocracy. Idea of rights without hatreds that lead to violating rights./ ⫽1. Superior men who all believe they have an interest in centralization. 2. Passions of all political men which lead to centralization. 3. Superficial minds.⫽ 3. External danger. 4. Internal troubles.a 5. Hatred of the remnants of an aristocracy. England. 1208 particular and accidental causes If all democratic peoples are carried instinctively toward centralization of powers, they are led there in an unequal manner. It depends on particular circumstances thatcandeveloporlimitthenaturaleffectsof thesocialstate. These circumstances are in very great number; I will only speak about a few. Among men who have lived free...