Democracy in America: In Two Volumes

Chapter 5.a Of the Use That Americans Make of Association in Civil Lifeb

895 s4s4s4s4s4 c h a p t e r 5a Of the Use That Americans Make of Association in Civil Life b I do not want to talk about those political associations by the aid of which men seek to defend themselves against the despotic action of a majority or against theencroachmentsof royalpower.Ihavealreadytreatedthissubject elsewhere. It is clear that, if each citizen, as he becomes individuallyweaker and therefore more incapable of preserving his liberty by himself alone, did not learn the art of unitingwithhisfellowstodefendhisliberty,tyranny a. 1. Here it is not a matter of political associations. I treated this subject in the first work. 2. The Americans are at the very same time the most democratic people and the ones who have made the most use of association. These two things go together, in fact. 1. In aristocratic countries there are permanent and established associations, composed of a few powerful men and of all those who depend on them. 2. In democratic countries, where all citizens are equal and weak, temporary and voluntary associations must be formed, or civilization is in danger. 3. Not only are industrial associations necessary, but moral and intellectual associations . Why: 1. In order for sentiments and ideas to be renewed and for the human mind to develop, men must act constantly upon each other. 2. Now, in democratic countries, only the government naturally has this power of action. And it exercises it always incompletely and tyrannically. 3. So there associations must come to replace the powerful individuals who in aristocracies take charge of bringing sentiments and ideas to light. 4. Summary. In order for men to remain civilized or to become so, the art of association among them must be developed and perfected in the same proportion as equality (illegible word) (YTC, CVf, pp. 24–25). b. “⫽Remark of Édouard: chapter weakly written⫽” (Rubish, 1). 896 association in civil life would necessarily grow with equality.c Here it is a matter only of the associations that are formed in civil life and whose aim has nothing political about it. The political associations that exist in the United States form only a detail amid the immense tableau that associations as a whole present there. Americans of all ages, of all conditions, of all minds, constantly unite. Not only do they have commercialandindustrialassociationsinwhichthey all take part, but also they have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, [intellectual,] serious ones, useless ones, very general and very particular ones, immense and very small ones;d Americans associate to celebrate holidays , establish seminaries, build inns, erect churches, distribute books, send missionaries to the Antipodes; in this way they create hospitals, prisons , schools. If, finally, it is a matter of bringing a truth to light or of developing a sentiment with the support of a good example, they associate. Wherever, at the head of a new undertaking, you see in France the government , and in England, a great lord, count on seeingintheUnitedStates, an association. c. A great publicist of today has said: It is not by exterminating the civilized men of the IVth century that thebarbarians managed to destroy the civilization of that time. It was enough for them to come between them so to speak and by separating them to make them like strangers to one another. [To the side: To finish associations there, to turn G[uizot (ed.)] against himself.] It is by a similar path that the men of today could well return to barbarism, if they were not careful. [In another place] M. G[uizot (ed.)]. wants to speak about the prevention of communicating with rather than about the impossibility of acting on each other. These ideas are close but different. In order to act on each other, theymustfirstcommunicate with each other. But you can communicate without acting. This is the case of men in democratic countries. [To the side: If a government forbid citizens to associate or undertook to takeaway their taste for doing so, it would behave precisely as the barbarians./ to communicate-----newspaper to act-----association.] (Rubish, 1). See note a of p. 18 of the first volume. d. “A thousand types of associations in America. Harmony.C.B.2.Shakingquakers” (Rubish, 1 and YTC, CVa, p. 4). association in civil life 897 I found in America some kinds of associationse of which, I confess, I had not even the idea, and I often admired the infinite art with which the...