DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA VOLUME I

Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay
in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general
equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence
which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by
giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to
the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar
habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this
fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the
country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over
the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the
ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce.
The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I
perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from
which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all
my observations constantly terminated.

I then turned my thoughts to our own hemisphere, where I imagined that
I discerned something analogous to the spectacle which the New World
presented to me. I observed that the equality of conditions is daily
progressing towards those extreme limits which it seems to have reached
in the United States, and that the democracy which governs the American
communities appears to be rapidly rising into power in Europe. I hence
conceived the idea of the book which is now before the reader.

It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is
going on amongst us; but there are two opinions as to its nature and
consequences. To some it appears to be a novel accident, which as such
may still be checked; to others it seems irresistible, because it is the
most uniform, the most ancient, and the most permanent tendency which is
to be found in history. Let us recollect the situation of France seven
hundred years ago, when the territory was divided amongst a small number
of families, who were the owners of the soil and the rulers of
the inhabitants; the right of governing descended with the family
inheritance from generation to generation; force was the only means by
which man could act on man, and landed property was the sole source of
power. Soon, however, the political power of the clergy was founded, and
began to exert itself: the clergy opened its ranks to all classes, to
the poor and the rich, the villein and the lord; equality penetrated
into the Government through the Church, and the being who as a serf must
have vegetated in perpetual bondage took his place as a priest in the
midst of nobles, and not infrequently above the heads of kings.

The different relations of men became more complicated and more numerous
as society gradually became more stable and more civilized. Thence the
want of civil laws was felt; and the order of legal functionaries soon
rose from the obscurity of the tribunals and their dusty chambers, to
appear at the court of the monarch, by the side of the feudal barons in
their ermine and their mail. Whilst the kings were ruining themselves
by their great enterprises, and the nobles exhausting their resources
by private wars, the lower orders were enriching themselves by commerce.
The influence of money began to be perceptible in State affairs. The
transactions of business opened a new road to power, and the financier
rose to a station of political influence in which he was at once
flattered and despised. Gradually the spread of mental acquirements, and
the increasing taste for literature and art, opened chances of success
to talent; science became a means of government, intelligence led to
social power, and the man of letters took a part in the affairs of the
State. The value attached to the privileges of birth decreased in the
exact proportion in which new paths were struck out to advancement. In
the eleventh century nobility was beyond all price; in the thirteenth
it might be purchased; it was conferred for the first time in 1270;
and equality was thus introduced into the Government by the aristocracy
itself.

In the course of these seven hundred years it sometimes happened that in
order to resist the authority of the Crown, or to diminish the power of
their rivals, the nobles granted a certain share of political rights to
the people. Or, more frequently, the king permitted the lower orders
to enjoy a degree of power, with the intention of repressing the
aristocracy. In France the kings have always been the most active and
the most constant of levellers.