Democracy In America, vol 1 | Page 7

level of the lowest, are no longer considered. The violence of
party spirit has been mitigated, and the judgment of the wise is not
subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant.
Other dangers have come. Equality of conditions no longer exists.
Prophets of evil predict the downfall of democracy, but the student of
M. de Tocqueville will find consolation and encouragement in the
reflection that the same spirit which has vanquished the perils of the
past, which he foresaw, will be equally prepared for the responsibilities
of the present and the future.
The last of the four volumes of M. de Tocqueville's work upon
American institutions appeared in 1840.
In 1838 he was chosen member of the Academy of Moral and Political
Sciences. In 1839 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He
became a member of the French Academy in 1841. In 1848 he was in
the Assembly, and from June 2nd to October 31st he was Minister of
Foreign Affairs. The coup d'etat of December 2, 1851 drove him from
the public service. In 1856 he published "The Old Regime and the
Revolution." He died at Cannes, April 15, 1859, at the age of fifty-four.
Hon. John J. Ingalls
Introductory
Chapter
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