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dissertation entitled
THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT OF
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

presented by '

Cynthia J. Hinckley

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph.D. degreein Political Science

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THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE SOCIAL AND

POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

BY

Cynthia J. Hinckley

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Political Science

1986

ABSTRACT

THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE SOCIAL AND
POLITICAL THOUGHT OF ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
BY
Cynthia J. Hinckley

Tocqueville observed that individualism and
materialism, the twin effects of equality of conditions,
were threats to the political and moral integrity of
modern democracy. But in America, these dangers were
moderated by religion, specifically Christianity. This
dissertation examines Tocqueville's view of the nature
of religious faith as it pertains to the future of
liberal democracy.

Christianity was an antidote to equality of
conditions because it could appeal from self-interest to
a form of civic responsibility compatible with
democracy. The promise of rewards in the next world
provides impetus for restraint in this world.
Tocqueville was at pains to show that the liberal
democratic citizen in America is motivated not by naked
self-interest but by "self-interest rightly understood."

Tocqueville's doctrine of self-interest rightly
understood has led most commentators to conclude that
Tocqueville's concern for religion was at the same time
indifference to the content of religion. But

Tocqueville was not indifferent to the content of

religion. It is often forgotten that he viewed
Christianity as superior to other types of religions
such as Islam and Hinduism. Tocqueville had some very
specific things to say about the type of religion modern
democracy required -- not only that it be a Christian
religion but that it incorporate, or at least tolerate,
some aspects of Protestantism. This is most apparent in
his treatment of Catholicism, the success of which in
modern times is dependent on the extent to which it
resembles Protestantism more than traditional European
Catholicism.

The common argument is that Tocqueville advocated
myths, and not genuine revealed religions: The former
serves self-interest; the latter transcends it.
However, Tocqueville argued that the logic of
self-interest rightly understood is precisely the heart
of revealed religion as it occurs among common men.
Only the few, such as Pascal or Montaign, are capable of
sounding the depths of divine truths. Organized
religion, based on self-interest rightly understood
translates the profound truths of religion into the
language of the multitude. The religion of America is
neither myth nor civil religion, rather, it is the happy
coincidence of modern times and the eternal dialogue

between God and man.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to my dissertation committee, not only
for their assistance and guidance throughout the
dissertation process, but also for their interest in my
education: Joseph Schlesinger, Alan Grimes and Arthur
Melzer have been generous with their talents. I have
particularly benefited from the skillful instruction of
Jerry Weinberger, who served as chair of my committee; I
owe him more than I can express and properly thank him for.

Suzanne Hinckley, Sandra Oswalt, and Joseph Hinckley
have supplied endless amounts of encouragement and
support. Timothy DeWalt has been unselfish and gracious
in making all the sacrifices that go with having a

spouse absorbed in a dissertation project.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One........................ ..1
Chapter Two..........................25
Chapter Three........................48
Chapter Four.........................78
Chapter Five............. ..... ......lll
Conclusion..........................124

works CitedOOOO00.0.0000000000000000131

Liberal democracy needs religion. Like any other
political order, it depends on its ability to produce
a certain type of citizenry. Consider the origins of
the word democracy: demos meaning citizen body and
kratos meaning rule, or power. Democracy as rule of the
people suggests that the quality of rule in a democratic
society depends on the type of people who live there.
And the character of a people is to some degree
determined by the opinions they hold on such matters as
the existence of a deity and the possibility of life
after death. It is not a coincidence that the greatest
minds to ponder the problematic nature of political life
have found it necessary to grapple with questions
concerning the gods. Religion makes its mark on
democratic politics through its command of the mind and
soul of the citizen as ruler. Because it influences
democracy indirectly, the importance of religion to
democratic society is not always obvious.

Liberal democracy's dependence on religion is also
obscured by the seemingly unresolvable tension between

reason and revelation. Liberalism is the political

2

culmination of a tradition that celebrates the potential
of reason to solve the problems that beset humanity.
This confidence in the powers of the human intellect was
not easily reconciled with the claims of revelation.
Indeed, for the early liberals religion was responsible
for the superstitions that had blocked the progress of
reason.

Despite appearances, liberalism as the hope of the
modern world requires religion. No one knew that better
than Alexis de Tocqueville. When Tocqueville visited
the United States in 1831, he was seeking to understand
more than American politics. As he wrote to John Stuart
Mill of his classic work on American democracy:
"America was only the frame, my picture was Democracy."1
He turned to the United States to glimpse the future of
Europe, and the limitations and possibilities of this
peculiarly modern form of democracy. He concluded that
Americans have proven religion to be just as crucial to
modern democracy as it had been to all previous regimes.

When Tocqueville writes of the influence of religion
in America, he is really referring to the dominance of
Christianity. Christian ideals guided the settling of
the American wilderness, and continue to pervade
American mores. He writes that Christianity commands
"universal consent," and that "there is no country in
the world where the Christian religion retains a greater

influence over the souls of men than in America."2 He

3
argued that Christianity not only shaped democracy, but
holds the key to the eventual success or failure of
democracy in the Western world.

For Tocqueville, the traditional liberal ends are
the standards by which the success or failure of
democracy are measured. Like liberals before him, such
as the American Founders and John Locke, Tocqueville's
priorities included civil peace, material prosperity,
impartial government by law, recognition of fundamental
human equality, ,and first and foremost, liberty.
Tocqueville's conception of liberty is distinctively
liberal - a liberty short of license and one that
presupposes a distinction between the public and private
spheres. Unlike some critics of liberalism, like
Rousseau, Tocqueville thought that certain activities
based on a consideration of private, as opposed to
public, ends can be morally and politically good.3 This
is not to say, however, that Tocqueville was in perfect
agreement with all liberals that preceded him.

Tocqueville's views on Christianity separate him
from other liberals like Hobbes and the philosophe
school. While Tocqueville views Christianity as
indispensable to the modern world, Hobbes and the
philosophes saw it as a major obstacle to liberal goals
such as civil peace and prosperity. This disagreement,
however, is not as fundamental as it seems. Hobbes and

the philosophes objected to the political turmoil

4
Christianity had wrought upon the world, primarily
because of its claim of authority in temporal matters.
Tocqueville, writing after the separation of church and
state was an established fact in America, was actually
benefitting from the work of these earlier liberals.
Tocqueville was able to bring Christianity to bear on
liberal ends only because liberals, starting with
Hobbes, had transformed the relationship between
religion and politics. Tocqueville and these earlier
liberals agreed that the ends of government should be
more narrowly construed than they were in ancient and
medieval times, but could not have agreed on the

compatibility of Christianity with these ends.

5
Conscience and the Liberal Tradition

It may strike the student of liberal democratic
theory as odd that Tocqueville disagreed with Hobbes on
a subject as important as religion. Tocqueville did
accept Hobbes's premise that politics should be grounded
in an understanding of human equality that acknowledges
the corporeal neediness of the human condition. It may
seem that their respective postures toward Christianity
differ, because where Hobbes condemns Christianity for
disrupting political life, Tocqueville stresses the
importance of religion to politics. But their
disagreement is not as deep-rooted as it may seem.
Tocqueville was able to bring religion to the aid of
liberalism only after Hobbes, among others, made
religious conviction safe for politics.

For Hobbes, government comes into being to secure
the lives of those who create it. Men come to civil
society from the state of nature, where each has an
equal natural right to preserve his life and therefore
to anything that will help maintain his life. Hobbes
characterizes natural right as a liberty, that is, a
liberty to do anything one deems necessary for survival.
Only the person living in a body is the proper judge of
what that body requires, because the dire need others
have to preserve their lives prevents them from putting
someone else's interests before their own. Hobbes's

state of nature turns into a state of war because of the

6
conflict that arises from everyone exercising their
natural right to self-preservation.

Stemming from natural right are certain natural
laws, or rules that suggest themselves as a means to
survival. Hobbes defines a law of nature as a precept

or generall Rule, found out by Reason, by
which a man is forbidden to do, that, which
is destructive of his life, or taketh away
the means of preserving the same; and to
omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be
best preserved.

The first natural law is to seek peace whenever
possible, and if not possible to use the advantages of
war. Deriving from the first law of nature is the
second law, which is to relinquish, when everyone else
does, the freedom to act upon natural right. Natural
right and peace are mutually exclusive; where men have
all of the former they by definition have nothing of the
latter. Natural law suggests that men in the state of
nature agree to give up their power to enforce their
natural right to a sovereign power. The sovereign would
then be authorized to settle the controversy that made
the state of nature unbearable. In equally submitting to
the sovereign, they agree for the sake of peace to abide
by the sovereign's political judgment instead of their
own.

Hobbes argues that the power of the sovereign must
be absolute. All natural rights that can be
relinquished must be so for the safety of all; any one

right can be exercised to the detriment of neighbors. In

7
other words, rights are a source of conflict. If
citizens retained rights against one another they would
have to concern themselves with protecting their ability
to exercise their rights, which is the same as a state
of war. Civil society is a refuge from the state of
nature only after all claims of power that can be given
up are transferred to a civil authority. For Hobbes,
power divided is dangerous power.

At the root of "the disorders of the present time,"
Hobbes charges, is Christianity's claim of universality,
or the belief that Christians are bound to obey a law
that transcends the laws of any one sovereign state. The
belief that men's loyalties are divided between a
spiritual and a temporal authority undermines the
purpose of civil sodiety.

The insistence of a spiritual as well as a temporal
authority undermines civil peace. According to Hobbes,
"Men cannot serve two Masters...;" the commands of one
sovereign are bound to conflict with the commands of the
other.5 And when one of the authorities is believed to
be God, then the conflict will be resolved in favor of
conscience (eternal life) over any other concern, be it
"the command even of his lawfull Sovereign (whether a
Monarch, or a soveraign Assembly,) or the command of his
Father."6 The sovereign cannot ensure civil peace when
a whole host of antisocial behaviors can be justified by

appeal to a higher law. Hobbes is galled, not only by

8

the claims of Cromwell and his followers, but by the
frequent interference of Popes in the reign of
legitimate rulers.7 To claim that the Bible commands a
division of power is not to argue from Scripture, "but a
wanton insulting over Princes, that came in fashion
after the time the Popes were growne so secure of their
greatnesse, as to contemne all Christian Kings; and
Treading on the necks of Emperours, to mocke both them,
and the Scripture..."8

To prevent civil society from relapsing into a civil
war, the sovereign has to be recognized as the spiritual
as well as the temporal authority. The sovereign must
have the "power of giving greater rewards than Life; and
of inflicting greater punishments , than Death" in order
to maintain peace.9 Hobbes repeatedly points out that
Moses was a civil sovereign as well as a prophet, and
that such an arrangement appeals to God as well as to
reason.10 He sets out to disprove the view that there is
a Scriptural basis for a distinction between sacerdotal
and civil authority by engaging in a long "battle of
texts" with Cardinal Bellarmine. But more important for
the present is his argument that the proper scope of
civil authority can be discovered through reason. Using
reason as his guide, Hobbes disarms the political claims
of conscience.

Christian peoples should accept their sovereign as

God's prophet, Hobbes argues, because it cannot be

9

determined if anyone else's claim to divine inspiration
is a veiled attempt to grasp political power.

For he that pretends to teach men the way of

so great felicity, pretends to govern them;

that is to say, to rule, and reign over them;

which is a thing, that all men naturally

desire, and is therefore worthy to be

suspected of Ambition and Imposture...
The sovereign, of course, already possesses the power
that others seek, and, according to Hobbes, is the
rightful head of the Church. In recognizing someone
'other than the sovereign as the spiritual head, the
subjects can be bewitched into rebellion, which would
"reduce all Order, Government, and Society, to the first
Chaos of Violence, and Civill warre."12

By naming the sovereign as the religious head,

Hobbes disposes of the obvious problem of opposition
from an independent clergy. The sovereign can
legitimately assume clerical duties such as baptism and
ordination, or delegate these functions to one or an
assembly of pastors.l3 In either event, Hobbes insists
that there be no doubt that the sovereign acts by direct
authority of God. The clergy are to recognize their
dependence on the sovereign, and to take heed of
Hobbes's warning that St. Ambrose committed a capital
crime in excommunicating Theodosius the Emperor.14 Any
claims a religious head or body makes against the
sovereign's rule should be treated as a form of

insubordination or treason.

Having disposed of organized religious opposition,

10

Hobbes turns to subdue a more potentially dangerous
source of strife - the individual conscience. He
confronts the two circumstances under which the
conscience is most likely to rebel against the
sovereign: When Christian kings "erre in deducing a
Consequence" from the precept that "Jesus is the
Christ," or in other words, when they command something
that strikes their citizens as blasphemous, and when the
sovereign is an infidel. Hobbes denies the conscience
grounds for rebellion in either case.

To challenge the sovereign on grounds of heresy is
to attempt to give private opinion political substance.
Yet the sovereign was created precisely to prevent men
from acting on their private opinions, and to serve on
behalf of the citizenry as the final arbiter of
political matters. All have agreed to subordinate their
private opinions to the judgment of the sovereign
because there is no basis for judging one opinion better
than the others in the state of nature, and it is far
better to be subject to the arbitrary will of one than
it is to be subject to the arbitrary will of everyone.
By attending to the security of the commonwealth and
rendering decisions on the good and the bad of politics,
the sovereign is representing the will and interests of
the citizenry. To assert that the sovereign is
heretical is to insist that you know better than the

sovereign what God's will is, and that your opinion of

11

God's will should prevail.15 According to Hobbes,
reflection would reveal that your safety depends on
others' abiding by the sovereign's judgment, and that
their willingness to restrain from imposing their will
on the collective. depends on you doing the same.
Anything less is a state of nature. Hobbes is urging
his readers to tame the passion with which they hold
their opinions by getting them to imagine what it would
be like if everyone acted on their convictions.16 Even
if conscience indicates heresy, reason discloses that
private opinions must be kept private. But Hobbes knows
that reason, or fear of death, is not enough to deter
the most ardent of the faithful; fear of eternal
damnation can overcome the fear of civil disruption that
would result from the imposition of private claims in
the public realm. Martyrs, in the interests of eternal
salvation, have willingly faced probable death to
advance political claims that, in their view, reflect
divine will. Hobbes has to convince believers that they
can follow the counsel of reason without jeopardizing
their souls.

According to Hobbes, faith is required to enter the
gates of heaven, and faith is "internall" and
"invisible."17 No earthly authority can hope to govern
the secret thoughts of subjects. Only God can judge the
convictions of the heart, which is all that matters for

purposes of eternal' salvation. If the citizenry is

12

commanded by the sovereign to engage in a form of
worship that they deem blasphemous, their outward
compliance is not a sin, but "Civill Worship" as opposed
to "Divine Worship."18 The difference between these two
forms of worship is in the intention of the worshipper.
Divine worship is an act of faith, where civil worship
is whatever religious observances are commanded by the
sovereign by threat of punishment. If the civil worship
performed is offensive to God, the sin has been
committed by the sovereign as the supreme earthly judge
of right and wrong. The subjects who in their hearts
conform to the spirit of God's law cannot sin by
submitting to the mandates of their lawful sovereign.
They are responsible only for their convictions, and not
for the public standards of right and wrong. For
Hobbes, therefore, there is no need to overthrow a
sovereign who has committed a religious error; reason
advises against it and conscience does not require it.

This same reasoning applies to sovereigns who are so
unwise as to declare themselves infidels and ban
religious observances. The subjects are free to believe
what they want to, but can be justly punished by the
sovereign for any public display of their faith.
Subjects who follow the dictates of conscience against
their sovereign "ought to expect their reward in
Heaven..."19

For he that is not glad of any just occasion
of Martyrdome, has not the faith he

13

professeth, but pretends it onel , to set
some colour upon his own contumacy.

Again, the subject will be held accountable only for
private conviction, and not for the enforced convictions
of the sovereign.

By making a distinction between private religious
faith ("Naturall" religion) and the religion propagated
by the sovereign ("Positive" religion), Hobbes frees
subjects from the moral implications of politics. He
argues that the public realm is not and should not be
the domain of private consciences, which are nothing
more than private judgments. To advance a political
claim on the grounds of conscience is to defy reason,
and possibly eternal salvation, since any private
account of God's will could be mistaken.21 The only one
who would suffer from a mistaken positive religion is
the sovereign, which makes obeying the sovereign all the
more attractive to subjects who must worry about both
bodies and souls.

It is worthy of note that Hobbes's sovereign retains
control over the general trappings of religion. After
all, Hobbes could have made similar arguments for
excluding conscience from political rule without
constructing a civil religion. He could have
maintained, one could argue, that the civil power is
neutral with regard to various religious faiths, but not
to any threat of civil peace or authority. This way,

religious activity would be constrained from interfering

14

in politics. But such an argument would underestimate
the danger that Hobbes thought religion posed to civil
society. He felt he had to subdue the political claims
of conscience, and then establish public control of
religion to ensure the apolitical nature of conscience.
Religion is too dangerous to be completely beyond state
control because of the ever present threat of religious
faith giving rise to heedless righteousness.

Liberals who followed Hobbes, most notably John
Locke, agreed that private passions must be subdued but
disagreed that a positive religion was necessary or
effective to that end. Unlike Hobbes, Locke thought
that the seditious impulse could be curbed by the love
of property, or in other words, attachment to a
political order that protects private property. Locke's
political teaching, which is a modification of Hobbes's,
draws attention to the political nature of property.

Locke's account of civil society, like Hobbes's, is
preceded by a discussion of the state of nature. Men in
the state of nature are equal, that is, equally subject
to concerns of self-preservation. The desperate urge
men have to preserve themselves is innate, or natural,
and each are in a perfect state of freedom to pursue
that end.

An important difference between Locke's state of
nature and Hobbes's is the existence of a natural claim

to property in that of the former. Everyone has

15

property in their body and anything they mix their labor
with. The food men hunt and gather becomes theirs by
virtue of the ownership of their bodies and the fruits
of its labor, because labor is what confers value to
otherwise worthless objects. Wheat, for instance, is of
no use until it is harvested. Once harvested,
"ninety-nine hundredths" of its value is due to the
labor of whoever made it useful, and is therefore the
rightful property of the laborer.

The state of nature is a state of poverty, first of
all, because of spoilage. Most of the things that are
useful for human life spoil. There is no incentive to
work hard, or acquire more than one needs because goods
that have perished are useless. Where there is no
industry there is poverty. What was needed was an
invention to allow men to dispose of surplus crops
before they spoiled, thereby increasing the level of
productivity which would in turn raise the standard of
living.

That invention was money. Tired of the bartering
system, where men exchanged perishable goods for other
perishable goods, an agreement was made in the state of
nature that scarce but durable things such as gold and
silver would be taken in exchange for perishable goods.
The introduction of money revolutionized property in the
sense that it made the accumulation of wealth possible.

No longer was the usefulness of wealth hampered by

l6

spoilage. Once the possibility of wealth is
established, Locke tells us, it is only natural that men
would want to aggrandize their holdings. All human
beings desire to preserve their lives, which means that
they desire everything and anything that makes
preservation easier. And since men can always imagine
an easier life, money unleashed limitless desires, and,
significantly, hastened the end of Locke's state of
nature.

After the invention of money, inequalities of power
arose from the inequality of wealth. Such inequalities
are inevitable, Locke argues, because "different degrees
of Industry were apt to give Men Possessions in
different Proportions."22 For Locke, the inequality of
wealth is justified because those who have the smaller
share in this new era of productivity are much better
off than they were in the original state of nature. He
cites the American Indian, who is rich in land but does
not enjoy one one-thousandth of the wealth that
Englishmen do, as evidence that increased productivity
is the key to a higher standard of living.23 However,
the incentive to increase productivity in the state of
nature is undermined by the inability of men to protect
their lives and property. War breaks out as a result of
the rational response to danger, which is to attack
before being attacked, making life in the state of

nature difficult at best.

l7

Locke's theory of property explains the necessity
for the transition from the state of nature to civil
society.

The great and £212: egg therefore, of

Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting

themselves under Government ie Lee

Pgeservation e: :hei; Property}4
Property, which is to be understood broadly as life and
that which is needed to sustain life, is unsafe in the
state of nature because of the absence of an
established, well-known law, and a judge with authority
and power to settle all disputes according to that law.
Reason suggests civil society as the logical relief from
the inconveniences of the state of nature. By
relinquishing to a civil authority their executive
power, or power to freely enforce their right to self-
preservation, men become politically equal through their
mutual obligation to obey the laws. As in Hobbes's
civil society, civil authority is a product of consent
and was created to act in everyone's behalf by solving
the political problems of the state of nature.
Government comes into being to protect property, and its
powers are limited by that end.

Property cannot be taken in Locke's society without
the consent of the majority or their representatives.
Locke insists that the majority will be willing to pay
taxes in order to maintain a civil authority to protect

their property. However, any tax that is claimed by the

governmental authority without the consent of the

18

majority is an invasion of "the Fundamental Leg of
Property, and..(a subversion of) the end of
Government."25 On this point, Locke differs
significantly from Hobbes. Hobbes claims that wealth is
a social construction solely dependent on the grace of
the sovereign. Locke, on the other hand, views labor
and not civil society as the source of wealth. Civil
society merely referees the pursuit of property and
confers title of ownership in accordance with civil
laws. For Locke, the powers of government should be
limited with respect to the inviolability of property
rights.

Locke elevates property to the end of government,
not just to ensure a comfortable standard of living by
encouraging industry, but to subdue the individual will
to power. In a sense, Locke goes one step beyond
Hobbes. Hobbes discourages rebellion by reminding
citizens of their fear of death, and that civil society,
no matter how troublesome, saves them from certain death
in the state of nature. Locke encourages law-
abidingness by emphasizing the advantages of
citizenship, all of which stem from the security of
property rights, which makes a comfortable life
possible. Locke legitimizes and hence promotes the
acquisitive spirit, knowing that the passion behind the
ambition to rule can be diverted to the pursuit of

economic gain. He tames private opinion by relying on

19

the deep-rooted, insatiable longing for material
comforts that is part and parcel of the human condition.
Locke's conviction that political authority could be
insulated from pretensions to rule by the combination of
representative government and the prospect of material
well-being was so strong that he saw no need to maintain
state control of religion. The religious threat to
order is reduced to the same extent citizens are
reminded of what they have to lose by upsetting the
social order.

Locke argued that disestablishment itself would
further reduce the religious threat to politics. A
policy of toleration, Locke knew, would give rise to a
potentially unlimited number of sects. He believed that
a large number of churches would contribute to political
stability. First of all, members of religions other
than the magistrate's, observing the freedom they enjoy,
will endeavor to protect the commonwealth that respects
their right to worship.26 Secondly, a potential tyrant
who tries to use a church as a means to political power
will incite the wrath of the other congregations.

...and all the several separate
congregations, like so many guardians of the
public peace, will watch one another, that
nothing may be innovated or changed in the
form of the government, because they can hope
for nothing better than what they already
enjoy; that is, an equal condition with their
fellow-subjects under a just and moderate

government.

Locke tries to transform the zeal for religious

20
persecution into a call for "peace and toleration" by
convincing ecclesiastics that it is in their interest to
abstain from politics.28 Although Locke sets out to
persuade church and state that they are better off
separated, he did not seek to totally destroy the social
influence of religion.
Like Tocqueville, Locke thought religion is
essential to liberal society.

A gee; life, in which consists not the
least part of religion and true piety,
concerns also the civil government; and in it
lies the safety both of men's souls and of
the commonwealth.

It is noteworthy that Locke's first explanation of the
"business of true religion" is "to the regulating of
men's lives, according to the rules of virtue and
piety."3O Only later is eternal salvation mentioned as
the "end of a religious society," in a definition he
claims he is repeating.31 Locke's awareness of the
social utility of religion is most evident in his
discussions of the proper limits of toleration. Atheists
are among those who should not be tolerated, Locke
argues, because "Promises, covenants, and oaths, which
are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an
atheist."32 Locke regarded religion as "the Foundation"
or one of "the first Foundations" of virtue.33
Liberalism can best secure rights when citizens have

been morally educated to respect the rights of others.34

Locke, like Tocqueville after him, depended on

21
Christianity to provide the moral fabric of
liberalism.35 These two thinkers were just as aware as
Hobbes was of the political disruption religion was
capable of, and although Hobbes did not agree with them
on the merits of Christianity and disestablishment, he
made their positions possible. Hobbes tamed the
Christian conscience that Locke and Tocqueville depend
on. Only after citizens were willing to check their
private pretensions to rule could Locke and Tocqueville
envision a "reasonable" Christianity. Also, unlike
Hobbes, Locke and Tocqueville recognized the power of
commerce in subduing potentially disruptive passions.
Thus, on the same grounds and within the same tradition,
Hobbes was trying to reduce the influence of
Christianity while Locke and Tocqueville brought

Christianity to bear on liberal ends.

 

1 Alexis de Tocqueville, Memoir, Lettere, and

 

Remains 9; Alexis ee Tocqueville, ed. Gustave de
Beaumont, 2 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1862)
2:38 (Hereafter Memoir).

2 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracv ie America,
trans. Henry Reeve, ed. Phillips Bradley, 2 vols. (New
York: Kropf, 1966) 1:303 (Hereafter Democracy).

3 Arthur M. Melzer, "Rousseau and the Problem of
Bourgeois Society," American Political Science Reviey,
74 no.4 (1980): 1018-1033.

4 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C.B. Macpherson
(New York: Penguin Books, 1983) 189.

5 Hobbes 600.

6 Hobbes 609.

7 Hobbes 183, 600, 715.

3 Hobbes 642.

9 Hobbes 478.

l°Hobbes 464-465, 480-481, 547, 643; 178.

11Hobbes 466.

12Hobbes 469.

13Hobbes 570-571, 575-576.

14Hobbes 608.

22

23

l5Hobbes 604-605.

16Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., "Hobbes and the
Science of Indirect Government," American Political
Scienee Review 65, no.1 (1971): 101.

l7Hobbes 625.

18Hobbes 667.

19Hobbes 625.

20Hobbes 625.

21Hobbes 366.

22John Locke, Two Treatises 9; Government, ed.
Peter Laslett (New York: New American Library, 1963)
343.

23Locke, Two Treatieee 340.

24Locke, Two Treatieee 395.

25Locke, Tye Treatises 408.

26John Locke, A Letter Congerninq Toleration, ed.
Mario Montuori (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1963.) 99.

27Locke, Letter 99-101.

28Locke, Letter 41.

29Locke, Letter 79.

3oLocke, Letter 7.

31Locke, Letter 29.

32Locke, Letter 93.

33Quoted in Nathan Tarcov, Locke's Education for
Liberty (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago
Press, 1984.) 190.

34Nathan Tarcov, "A "Non-Lockean" Locke and the

24
Character of Liberalism," Liberaliem Reconeidered, ed.
Douglas MacLean and Claudia Mills (Totowa: Rowman and
Allanheld, 1983) 136.

35John Locke, The Reasonableness e; Christianitv

 

 

 

Concerning Toleration, ed. I.T. Ramsey (Stanford:

Stanford UP, 1958) pp. 32, 34, 75.

For Tocqueville, Christianity is a remedy for what
is often regarded a major weakness of liberal democracy:
Some critics charge that in lowering the goals of
politics, liberalism cannot justify civic virtue or
foster moral greatness.l They argue that any political
system that emphasizes rights to the extent liberal
democracy does cannot sustain a foundation for duties.
Why should a citizen, they ask, who thinks of his
citizenship in terms of private gain (of protection, of
wealth...) willingly make the personal sacrifices any
regime must demand? Tocqueville was aware of these
dangers to the political and moral well-being of liberal
democracy. Along with other liberals, he was not
insensitive to the need to develop these virtues, which
he describes in all their glory in his account of
aristocracy. Indeed, in his famous book Democracy in
America, Tocqueville celebrates the extent to which
American democracy preserves the type of virtue it and
any society is dependent upon. Tocqueville credited the
success of American democracy in this regard to
Christianity, which nurtures, on a smaller scale, the

25

26
virtues he associates with aristocracy.

Christianity is important for Tocqueville because it
tempers the modern passion for equality that,
ironically, it gave birth to. He argues that the
"unique trait" of Christianity was to introduce
fundamental human ‘equality.2 The notion that all men
are "brothers and equals" is a major departure from
ancient philosophy.3 Indeed, Tocqueville suggests that
the moderns have failed to come up with anything new.
In a letter to Gobineau he asks his friend:

What is there really neg in the works or in
the discoveries of the modern moral
philosophers? By modern I mean not merely
those of the last fifty years but those who
immediately preceded them, those who belong
to that generation which had decisively
broken with the Middle Ages. Did they really
see the obligations of mankind in such a new
light? Did they really discover new motives
for human actions? Did they really establish
new foundations, or even new explanations, for
human duties? Have they placed the sanctions
of moral laws elsewhere? Through the
darkness all I think I can recognize is this:
to me it is Christianity that seems to have
accomplished the revolution - you may prefer
the word change - in all the ideas that
concern duties and rights; ideas which, after
all, are the basic matter of all moral
knowledge.4

For Tocqueville, equality in some form of democracy
is destined to "triumph" around the world. He insists
that a world shaped by equality is "a providential
fact."5 This is not to say that Tocqueville denied
that humans can have some control over their destiny.

Providence has not created mankind entirely

independent or entirely free. It is true
that around every man a fatal circle is

27

traced beyond which he cannot pass; but

within the wide verge of that circle he is

powerful and free; as it is with man, so with

communities.6
Equality has determined the scope of modern politics,
within which men can significantly exercise free will.
Zetterbaum, a prominent Tocqueville scholar, argues that
this "inevitability thesis" is a salutary myth, and that
Tocqueville did not and could not have believed that men
can be both free and not free.7 Tocqueville's point,
however, was that although men cannot stem the tide of
equality, they can determine its course. Humankind is
not entirely free from nor completely enslaved to
historical trends.

The nations of our time cannot prevent

the conditions of men from becoming equal,

but it depends upon themselves whether the

principle of equality is to lead them to

servitude or freedom, to knowledge or

barbarism, to prosperity or

wretchedness.
This passage, which ends Democracy ie America, brings to
light Tocqueville's intention: to teach equal peoples
the dire consequences that can result from unbridled
equality. Equality, as this passsage suggests, can have
unhappy political and moral implications. Democratic
peoples need to be aware of the threats to their

political liberties as well as the threat to their

souls.

28
The Problem e: Eghalihy

Tocqueville observed a type of equality in America
he called l'egalite des conditions. This is translated
as equality of conditions, and is often interpreted in
the literature on Tocqueville as a reference to a large
middle class. The French word condition, however, means
more than a certain distribution of wealth. It has more
to do with how citizens think of themselves and their
potential relative to others - it is a psychological
predisposition found wherever equality has taken root.
This predisposition is to identify oneself, not with a
particular rung on the social ladder, but as one "on the
way up" the social ladder thanks to equality of
opportunity. For Tocqueville, what characterizes
Americans in general is not so much the degree of
economic equality as their firm conviction that under
the right circumstances they are equally likely as
anyone else to break into the next economic rung of the
ladder. This understanding of equality explains for
Tocqueville why the poor do not constitute a
self-identified class as such.

Equality unleashes an "excessive desire for
well-being" in the hearts of equal citizens. Men can
always imagine having more wealth, particularly in the
absence of a class structure to limit their horizon.
Tocqueville notes:

It is strange to see with what feverish ardor
the Americans pursue their own welfare, and

29

to watch that vague dread that constantly

torments them lest they should not have

chosen the shortest path which may lead to
Americans are "restless in the midst of abundance" and
tortured by the thought of what they do not yet own.
Americans are always in a hurry to find, acquire and
enjoy "material comforts" before death comes between
them and thousands of untasted pleasures.

Although equality removes class barriers to
prosperity, it erects another that is just as
formidable. Equality dictates that all have an equal
right to pursue their insatiable desires. This implies
overwhelming competition.

When men are nearly alike and all follow the
same track, it is very difficult for any one
individual to walk quickly and cleave a way
through the dense throng that surrounds and
presses on him.10
The more equal men are, the more "each man feels himself
weaker in regard to all the rest."11 In their furtive
efforts to get ahead, Americans tend to resent those who
appear more successful than they. The slightest
differences in wealth are regarded with great envy.

By inclining men toward the pursuit of wealth and
frustrating that pursuit at the same time, Tocqueville
argued that democracy was in danger of cultivating a
citizenry consumed by the desire for material comforts.
Americans get caught in a vicious circle between their

desire to be unequal (more prosperous than their

neighbor) and their commitment to equality, or distaste

30
for those superior to them. "With their appetites
piqued for what they cannot have, democratic men become
"pre-occupied , caring for the slightest needs of the
body and the trivial conveniences of life.""12
Thus democratic times have given birth to
individualism, which is the impulse to withdraw from
society at large. When individualism takes root in the
mores, democrats focus their attention exclusively on
pleasure, and humankind, to them, shrinks to their
family and personal friends. For Tocqueville,
individualism (l'individualisme) is quite different from
selfishness (eqolsme). Selfishness, which dates back to
the beginning of man, leads men to prefer themselves to
anything else in the world. Individualism, wholly a
product of modern times, is a "mature and peaceful"
sentiment which disposes men to leave the world to fend
for itself.13
A society consumed by individualism cannot maintain
its political liberties. Democrats will always love
equality more than liberty. Political liberty "bestows
exalted pleasures from time to time upon a certain
number of citizens," while the "charms of equality are
every instant felt and are within the reach of all."
Liberty requires more effort on its behalf than
democrats would be willing to exert. Individualism
breeds an annoyance with political participation, and a

despot claiming to be a lover of equality would be more

31

than happy to take over the public affairs that no one
else has time for. Democratic peoples would be favorably
inclined to submit to such a despot.

The sovereign, being necessarily and

incontestably above all the citizens, does

not excite their envy, and each of him thinks

that he strips his equals of the prerogative

that he concedes to the crown.
Tocqueville feared that democrats will prefer a
Hobbesian understanding of equality ("equality in
servitude") to the Lockean view of economic equality of
opportunity as a safeguard to liberty ("inequality in
freedom"). Thus democratic peoples would willingly turn
over their liberty to a despot, and neglect "their chief
business, which is to remain their own masters."15

One of Tocqueville's intentions in writing Democracy

was to teach equal peoples how to avoid tyranny. This,
however, was not his only or even most important
intention. While writing the second volume of

Democracy, Tocqueville wrote his cousin and good friend,

Louis Kergorlay, that the theme (l'idee generale) of his

 

book in progress is to show men how to escape tyranny

and degeneracy (l'abatardissemehh).16 It is important to

 

note that Tocqueville again refers to a political
problem, tyranny, and a moral one, degeneracy. He was
concerned with the modern soul as well as with modern
politics:

I have endeavored to point out, in another

part of this work, the causes to which the

maintenance of the political institutions of
the Americans is attributable, and religion

32
appeared to be one of the most prominent
among them. I am now treating of the
Americans in an individual capacity, and I
again observe that religion is not less
useful to each citizen than to the whole
state.
Tocqueville follows this passage with a discussion of
materialism.

An excessive love for physical comforts could lead
men to long for nothing more than material goods.
Tocqueville feared that men would lose their "sublimest
faculties, and that while he is busied in improving all
around him, he may at length degrade himself."18 The
ability to rise above bodily concern and even show
contempt for the body is what distinguishes humans from
the brutes.19 As if the threat of degradation were not
enough to alarm democratic peoples, Tocqueville adds the
warning that men can lose themselves in physical
gratification to the point where they could lose the art
of producing that which gratifies them. Should this
happen, men would enjoy their material comforts "like
brutes, without discernment and without improvement."20

Equality and the desires it engenders must be moderated

if human dignity is to survive the age of equality.

33
Democracy and Aristocracy

In setting out to solve the problem equality poses
for modernity, Tocqueville was not merely bowing to
historical inevitability and trying to make the best of
a less than promising situation. He indeed believed
that societies grounded in equality are more just than
aristocratic societies, which are presented as the
alternative to democracy. In general, democracies are
concerned with the "welfare of the greatest possible
number." Although democratic peoples may be misguided
as to what their good is, they would never intentionally
oppress themselves.21 Aristocrats, however, are
inclined to advance their class interests at the expense
of the majority's interest.22 Tocqueville argued that
there is no basis for assuming that some men are better
than others because of nature or birth. He deplored
Gobineau's theory, presented in his book Eeeei §E£
l'ihegalihe gee heeee humaines, that some races are
inherently superior to others.23 In a letter to
Gobineau, Tocqueville bemusedly suggested that Gobineau
would not willingly "offer (his) bare back in order to
render personal confirmation of (his) principles."24
Despite the fact that democratic laws "are almost always
ineffective and inopportune," "the purpose of a
democracy in its legislation is more useful to humanity
than that of an aristocracy."25

The fact that Tocqueville thought democracy to be

34

more just than aristocracy may seem obscured by his
treatment of aristocracy. Instead of openly and
repeatedly denouncing aristocracy as unjust, he takes
every opportunity to point out its admirable qualities.
Aristocracies are superior to democracies in their
ability to cultivate refinement of manners and love of
noble and beautiful things. The cultural achievements
of aristocracy in the arts and letters are unparalleled
in democracies, which are hard-pressed to produce a
decent poet.26 But upon closer inspection, it becomes
apparent that there are theoretical and practical
reasons why Tocqueville would not use Democracy as a
forum to impeach aristocracy, and that his refusal to do
so is part of his presentation of the type of democracy
worth striving for.

On the practical level, Tocqueville would not want
to alienate his audience, which consists both of
aristocrats and ardent fans of equality. As Zetterbaum
notes, Tocqueville was a statesman writing for
statesmen.27 Tocqueville wrote the following to Eugene
Stoffels just after the first volume of Democracy was
published:

I tried to diminish the ardor of (the
Republican party), and without discouraging
them, to show them the only road to take. I
attempted to diminish the terrors of (the
aristocrats), and to bend their will to the
idea of an inevitable future in such a way
that the one being less impetuous, and others
offering less resistance, society could

advance more perfectly toward the necessary
realization of its destiny. Here is the

35
master idea of the work.28
By making his proposals palatable to those with
aristocratic leanings, he was increasing the probability
they would come to be commonly accepted.

On the theoretical level, Tocqueville was pointing
the way to a political form of equality that respects
what is highest in human nature. Democracy, if it is to
show proper regard for human dignity, is dependent on
quasi—aristocratic virtue. Tocqueville is more than
giving aristocracy its fair due by pointing to its
admirable qualities; he is preserving a vision of
virtues that must be imitated in order for a democracy
to remain decent and just.

Aristocracies in their prime avoid the pitfalls of
democracies. Aristocrats are not susceptible to
individualism, but instead feel a strong sense of
connectedness to both their ancestors and descendents,
and their fellow citizens. Aristocratic families
maintain the same station and often live in the same
place for generations, so "all generations become, as it
were, contemporaneous."29 Unlike democrats, who forget
their ancestors and rarely concern themselves with
something as remote as their descendents, aristocrats
feel that they know and love those who came before and
those who will come after them, and willingly make
personal sacrifices on their behalf. An aristocrat,

because he is a member of a fixed class, likewise feels

36

a sense of fellowship with other citizens. He regards
other aristocrats, who are permanently fixed beside him,
as kindred - perhaps more so than the country at large.
All classes in an aristocracy are conscious of classes
above them (whose help they may need) and below them
(whose co-operation they may claim).30

Men living in aristocratic ages are therefore

almost always closely attached to something

placed out of their own sphere, and they are

often disposed to forget themselves. It is

true that in these ages the notion of human

fellowhip is faint and that men seldom think

of sacrificing themselves for mankind; but

they often sacrifice themselves for other

men.
Aristocracies nurture a sense of public-spiritedness
that is superior to that of democracies. Men in
aristocracies identify strongly with their motherland
and fellow citizens, and this sentiment makes them
better suited than democrats for "the prolonged
endurance of the great storms that beset the political
existence of nations."32 Democrats tend to be
ill-suited for anything beyond "a sudden effort of
remarkable vigor," because a prolonged effort would
invite reflection and hence no "distinct view of what
one is fighting for."33 Tocqueville is not blind to the
possibility that aristocrats may perform bold and
brilliant deeds on behalf of their country to secure
glory for themselves.34 Even so, one does not risk life

and fortune for approval from those one despises.

Aristocrats worthy of the name show contempt for

37

material comforts. Their apparent freedom from
necessity is precisely what distinguishes them as fit
for great and noble things. They do not object to work
so much as working to obtain a profit.35

Labor is honorable in itself when it is

undertaken at the bidding of ambition or

virtue.36
Aristocrats take pride in the fact that they do not
grovel before their bodily desires, but instead
entertain ideas of "the dignity, the power, the
greatness of man..(These opinions) facilitate the
natural impulse of the mind to the highest regions of
thought, and they naturally prepare it to conceive a
sublime, almost divine love of truth."37

Although aristocracies are much less likely than
democracies to fall victim to the corrosive influence of
individualism and materialism, Tocqueville does not
prescribe aristocracy in any form for the modern world.
Grounded in a mistaken understanding of human
inequality, aristocracy violates the precepts of natural
justice. Even if aristocracy is desirable, it is not
possible in the- age of equality. Tocqueville
demonstrates this in his analysis of the only two groups
in America he describes in aristocratic terms - the
Indians and the slave owners in the South.
Tocqueville repeatedly describes the Indian as noble

and courageous.38 Like the aristocrat, the Indian

exudes a freedom from bodily concerns, even when

38
confronted with the certain loss of his life.
We learn from President Jefferson (Notes
eh Vir inia, p. 148), that among the
Iroquois, when attacked by a superior force,
aged men refused to fly, or to survive the
destruction of their country; and they braved
death like the ancient Romans when their
capital was sacked by the Gauls. Further on
(p. 150), he tells us that "there is no
example of an Indian, who, having fallen into
the hands of his enemies, begged for his
life; on the contrary, the captive sought to
obtain death at the hands of his con erors
by the use of insult and provocation.3
Also similar to aristocratic sentiment is the disgust
the Indian feels towards laboring for a living; "he
considers the cares of industry as degrading
occupations," and the life of the hunter and warrior the
only one worth living.40
The Indian, in the dreary solitudes of his
woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same
opinions, as the noble of the Middle Ages in
his castle; and he needs to become a
conqueror to complete the
resemblance.41
The Indians are "doomed to perish," argued
Tocqueville, because their aristocratic way of life is
wholly incompatible with that of the Europeans, who are
literally taking over the continent. The only
alternatives the Indians have are to destroy the
Europeans, or assimilate into their culture.42 Both are
impossible. The greater number and superior weaponry of
the Europeans would make them an easy victor in a war
against the Indians.43 In order to "become the equals"
of the Europeans, the Indians would have to take up

agriculture, and suffer, in their eyes, disgrace and

39

degradation.44 The few tribes who submit to such a life
only so far as their survival requires find themselves
in futile competition with the Europeans, who are more
acquainted than the Indians with the science of farming
and the habits tillage require.45 If the Indians were
not so proud, independent, fiercely courageous and tied
to tradition, in short, aristocratic, their culture
could survive in a land re-shaped by the spirit of
equality.

The slave owners in the South constitute the only
other group in America that Tocqueville refers to
aristocratic terms.

In the South of the United States the whole

race of whites formed an aristocratic body

headed by a certain number of privileged

individuals, whose wealth was permanent and

whose leisure was hereditary.46
Both the Indians and the slave owners believed
themselves to be inherently superior to other men, but
the effect of such a belief on the moral character of
each group was quite different. While the aristocratic
sentiment of the Indians brought out the best in man,
the same sentiment aroused in the slave owners the worst
traits latent in human nature. The Indians resemble
aristocracy at its finest and noblest hour, where the
slave owners represent a corrupted aristocracy that has
failed to justify its injustices by producing human

greatness. Democracy, however, cannot harbor

aristocracy in any form, good or bad.

40

Slavery, as well as an English heritage, explains
the "social condition of the South."47 Americans in the
South, having slaves to perform menial labor, abhor the
general idea of work. Slave owners are fond of
"grandeur, luxury, and renown, of gayety, pleasure, and
above all, of idleness; nothing obliges him to exert
himself in order to subsist; and as he has no necessary
occupations, he gives way to indolence and does not even
attempt that would be useful."48 Unlike his Northern
neighbor, he is more interested in the pursuit of
pleasure than in the pursuit of wealth, which explains
why the North is more industrious, more prosperous, and
more enlightened than the South.49

Slavery, Tocqueville argued, threatens the Union,
not because it gave the North and South different
interests, "but because it has modified the character
and changed the habits of the natives of the South."50
Thinking of himself as a "domestic dictator," the
Southerner tends to be "a haughty and hasty man,
irascible, violent, ardent in his desires, impatient of
obstacles, but easily discouraged if he cannot succeed
upon his first attempt."51 He is not capable of the
practical virtues necessary to bring prosperity to the
South. Added to this is the cost of keeping slaves, who
produce much less than a free laborer and who must be
supported in their unproductive years of infancy and old

age.52

41

Thus, slavery prevents the whites not only

from becoming opulent, but even from desiring

to become so.
The North will continue to advance and flourish,
Tocqueville predicts, widening the gap between it and
the South. Herein lies the source of conflict:

It is difficult to imagine a durable union of

a nation that is rich and strong with one

that is poor and weak, even if it were proved

that the strength and wealth of the one are

not the causes of the weakness and poverty of

the other. But union is still more difficult

to maintain at a time when one party is

losggg strength and the other is gaining

it.
The North, being the stronger and therefore likely
victor in such a conflict, would have every economic
incentive to abolish slavery in the South. Slavery
threatens the Union indirectly, not by inflaming
Northern passions against the cruelty of slavery, but
through mores.55

Tocqueville noted that the slave population, unlike

the Indian population, is growing steadily.56 Rather
than perishing in isolation like the Indians are
destined to, the fate of the blacks, he argued, is
intertwined with that of the whites.57 One thing is
certain, one way or another slavery will be abolished.58
A haughty disdain for hard work cannot survive in a land
of industry. If the expense of slavery does not
undermine the life the Southerner takes for granted, the

tension from the growing disparity of wealth between the

North and South will. While an idle aristocrat can

42
lounge in the protection of a fixed distribution of
wealth, the slave owner will fall prey to an
ever changing and ever expanding economic system.

As demonstrated by the fate of the Indians and the
slave owners , aristocracy is fundamentally incompatible
with democracy. Noble aristocrats, like the Indians,
could not subordinate their honor to democratic ends.
They could feel nothing less than repugnance towards the
democratic way of life, which is characterized by
mundaneness in the service of neediness. Only if they
could secure their way of life by the force of arms
could they escape moral destruction. The slave owners
cannot comprehend democracy, not because it would keep
them from performing great deeds, but because they are
selfish and lazy. Their sense of superiority in no way
benefits humanity, nor, ultimately, themselves. Their
refusal to adapt .to conditions of equality would,
Tocqueville predicted, dissolve slavery - the very
institution their status depends on. Neither extreme of
aristocracy can survive in a democracy, nor a form
somewhere in the middle, as demonstrated by the case of
Indian tribes who took up farming.

Although Christianity is the source of equality, it
is also the source of the aristocratic corrective to
equality. Christianity influences democracy in a way
aristocracy cannot. According to Tocqueville, the

establishment of an aristocracy in America is not

43
possible or desirable, but he did think that something
like aristocratic virtue could combat individualism and
materialism in modern democracies. Tocqueville's praise
of aristocracy is more than what pleasing his audience
would require; he was portraying a type of nobility that
the modern world must imitate to remain decent and just.
Tocqueville turned to Christianity to inspire quasi—
aristocratic virtue, that is, the impulse to rise above
one's personal concerns and to love liberty and one's
country.
The greatest advantage of religion is to

inspire diametrically contrary principles.

There is no religion that does not place the

object of man's desires above and beyond the

treasures of earth and that does not

naturally raise his soul to regions far above

those of senses. Nor is there any which does

not impose on man some duties towards his

kind and thus draw him at times from the

contemplation of himself. This is found in

the most false and dangerous religions.

Religious nations are therefore naturally

strong on the very point on which democratic

nations are weak; this shows of what

importance it is for men to preserve their

religion as their conditions become more

equal.59
Although democracy properly influenced by religion
cannot inspire the same greatness of soul or degree of
patriotism an aristocracy can, it can inspire enough of
each to keep from sinking into tyranny and degeneracy.
Democracy is "perhaps less elevated, but it is more
just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its

beauty."60

 

1 For a summary of the types of criticisms most
often made of liberalism, see Rogers Smith, Liberalism
ehg American Constitutional Lem (Cambridge and London:
Harvard UP, 1985) 36-59.

2 Alexis de Tocqueville, The European Revolution
and Correepondence yith Gobineeh, ed. and trans. John
Lukacs (Gloucester: Doubleday, 1968) 305. (Hereafter
European Bevolution.); see also Tocqueville, Democracy
1:5, 12: 2:15.

3 Tocqueville, Eumopean Revolution 305. See also
191, 205.

4 Tocqueville, European Revolution 190-1.

5 Tocqueville, Qemocracy 1:6.

5 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:334.

7 Marvin Zetterbaum, Tocqueville and phe Problem
pf Democracy (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1967) 19.

3 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:334. see also 1:53.

9 Tocqueville, Democraey 2:136.

10Tocqueville, Qemocracy 2:138.

11Tocqueville, Democraey 2:261.

12Stephen Baron, " Morality and Politics in

Modern Life: Tocqueville and Solzhenitsyn on the

44

45

Importance of Religion to Liberty," Polity 14 (Spring,
1982): 400.

13Tocqueville, Democmacy 2:98.

14Tocqueville, Democracy 2:295.

15Tocqueville, Democracy 2:141.

16Alexis de Tocqueville, Oeuvres Complehe, ed.
J.P. Mayer (Paris: Gallimard, 1951-) 13 no. 1:431.
(Hereafter Oeuvres).

17Tocqueville, Democracy 2:143.

18Tocqueville, Democracy 2:144-45.

19Tocqueville, Democracy 2:148.

20Tocqueville, Democracy 2:148.

21Tocqueville, Democracy 1:238.

22Tocqueville, Democracy 1:240; see also 2:323.

23Tocqueville, European Revolution, pp. 224, 227,
231, 291, 308.

24Tocqueville, European Revolution 309.

25Tocqueville, Democracy 1:238.

26Tocqueville, Democracy 2:35, 1:315.

27Zetterbaum 19.

28Quoted in Zetterbaum, 21.

29Tocqueville, Democracy 2:98.

30Tocqueville, pemocracy 2:99.

31Tocqueville, Democracy 2:99.

32Tocqueville, Democracy 1:228.

33Tocqueville, Democracy 1:229.

34Tocqueville, Democracy 1:229.

46

35Tocqueville, Democracy 2:152.

36Tocqueville, Democracy 2:152.

37Tocqueville, Democracy 2:44.

38Tocqueville, Democracy 1:23, 334, 340, 344.

39Tocqueville, Democracy 1:23.

4oTocqueville, Democracy 1:343, 244, see ffl3.

41Tocqueville, Democracy 1:344.

42Tocqueville, Democracy 1:342.

43Tocqueville, Democracy 1:342.

44Tocqueville, Democracy 1:343.

45Tocqueville, Democracy 1:348.

46Tocqueville, Democracy 1:366.

47Tocqueville, Democracv 1:30.

48Tocqueville, Democracv 1:395.

49Tocquev111e, Democracy 1:364, 363, 368.

50Tocqueville, Democracy 1:394.

51Tocqueville, Democracy 1:394.

52Tocqueville, Democracy 1:363.

53Tocqueville, Democracy 1:364.

54Tocqueville, Democracy 1:401.

55Tocqueville, Democracy 1:395.

56Tocqueville, Democracy 1:371, 373, 377-8.

57Tocqueville, Democracy 1:356.

58"Slavery, now confined to a single tract of the
civilized earth, attacked by Christianity as unjust and
by political economy as prejudicial, and now contrasted

with democratic liberty and the intelligence of our age,

47
cannot survive." Democraey 1:381.
59Tocqueville, Democracy 2:22.

60Tocqueville, Democracy 2:333.

The numerous Christian sects in America were
included in Tocqueville's analysis of "civil"
associations: "those associations that are formed in
civil life without reference to political objects."l
Tocqueville was astonished at the number of moral and
intellectual associations he found in America. Americans
form associations not only to launch missionary
endeavors, neighborhood improvements and commercial
ventures, but also for purposes Tocqueville hadn't
previously imagined the need to organize interested
parties for.2 Indeed, he thought it a joke when he
first heard that a hundred thousand men had vowed
publicly to abstain from liquor.3 He came to realize,
however, that this was a typical case of an association
assuming the same function as the nobility in an
aristocracy.

By making a public vow of abstinence, these men,
like "men of rank" in England, were attempting to
influence public opinion by example.4 Where
aristocrats have the social influence and visibility
necessary to undertake such endeavors single-handedly,

48

49
democrats command power in numbers.5 In democratic
nations, all the citizens are equally "independent and
feeble," and "powerless if they do not learn voluntarily
to help one another."6

Voluntary associations constitute the most important
check on equality. The democratic impulse to withdraw
into one's personal concerns is countered by the
experience of association, where democrats learn
beneficence and the art of cooperation.

Feelings and opinions are recruited, the
heart is enlarged, and the human mind is
developed only by the reciprocal influence of
men upon one another. I have shown that
these influences are almost null in
democratic countries; they must therefore be
artificially created, and this can only be
accomplished by associations.
Associations can inspire a type of moral aspiration and
public-spiritedness that is reminiscent of the best
aristocracy. In a democracy where the justice of
equality is balanced by a conception of duty,
(t)he voluntary association of the citizens
might then take the place of the individual
authority of the nobles, and the community
would be protected from tyranny and license.

But a difficulty arises. Associations are most
needed, yet least likely to form, in democratic nations
where equality of conditions has eroded the belief that
one can and should attempt to have a social impact.
Citizens can be easily discouraged from associating by

the realization that they must be very numerous to have

any power. The weaker each feels the more futile

50

associations seem, and the more likely they are to
believe that "the government ought to be rendered (more
able and active) in order that society at large may
execute what individuals can no longer accomplish."9 By
not exercising their right to organize, democrats sink
further into isolationism and closer to tyranny and
disgrace. There is, however, one type of association
that even the weak and enfeebled have incentive to join
- moral associations. Democrats cannot easily ignore
the possibility that they have souls that will outlive
their bodies.

Tocqueville believed that all humans are predisposed
to take refuge in religious beliefs. The probability of
death looms in front of everyone and provides a natural
basis for religious speculation.

Man alone, of all created beings, displays a
natural contempt of existence, and yet a
boundless desire to exist; he scorns life,
but he dreads annihilation. These different
feelings incessantly urge his soul to the
contemplation of a future state, and religion
directs his musings thither.10
Although humans cannot comfortably live with the
uncertainty of existence after death, the problems of
human destiny are too difficult for them to solve
alone.11 Great philosophers, despite their intellectual
superiority, have "discovered as yet only a few
conflicting notions" on the subject.12 Even if the

average intellect were capable of probing these

questions, everyday life interferes with the leisure

51
time such an enterprise demands. Humans have everything
to gain by placing faith in a moral authority, and
Tocqueville reminds his readers of that fact by
recounting Pascal's wager.13 Tocqueville's lesson is
that religion is just as important to earthly felicity
as it may be to eternal salvation.

For any religion to survive in a democracy it must
respect the passion for well-being, which is "the
prominent and indelible feature of democratic times."14
Any attempt to overturn such a "deep-seated" passion is
doomed to failure. The most any religion can hope to do
is to "purify" and to "regulate" the acquisitive spirit,
because "(m)en cannot be cured of the love of riches,
but they may be persuaded to enrich themselves by none
but honest means."15 Likewise, the American clergy take
care not to contradict this dominant passion. Their
outright enthusiasm for productive industry and the
liberty and public tranquility it requires led
Tocqueville to comment that "it is often difficult to
ascertain from their discourses whether the principal
object of religion is to procure eternal felicity in the
other world or prosperity in this."16

Religion in America not only tolerates and applauds
self-interested passion, but appeals to it to promote
moral ends. Tocqueville observed that the basis for
morality in America is "self-interest rightly

understood," that is, the belief that self-denial can be

52

in one's interest.

The American moralists do not profess that

men ought to sacrifice themselves for their

fellow creatures because it is noble to make

such sacrifices, but they boldly aver that

such sacrifices are as necessary to him who

imposes them upon himself as to him for whose

sake they are made.
Aristocrats spoke of the beauty of forgetting oneself,
and of doing virtuous acts to be virtuous rather than
for the sake of reward.18 Equality, however, fosters a
self-centeredness that cannot comprehend such lofty
ideals as these. Democrats speak of the utility of
virtue, and delight to point out how their private
advantage is one with the common good.19 This is not to
say that Tocqueville thought aristocrats were wholly
unaware of the utility of virtue - this they studied in
secret.20 He did believe, though, that virtue in modern
times must be grounded in self-interest, since "the age
of implicit self—sacrifice and instinctive virtues is
already flitting far away from us."21

I am not afraid to say that the principle

of self-interest rightly understood appears

to me the best suited of all philosophical

theories to the wants of the men of our time,

and that I regard it as their chief remaining

security against themselves.22
Applied to "religious matters," self-interest rightly
understood combines the fundamental fact of modernity
with the fundamental fact of human mortality: Eternal
life is in everyone's interest. The promise of rewards

in the next world provides impetus for restraint in this

world. Accordingly, Tocqueville observed in the

53
religious devotion of Americans "something so
indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate that
it would seem as if the head far more than the heart
brought them to the foot of the alter."23

Christianity offers a bargain, Tocqueville argues,
that few Americans can refuse. Not only do they gain
eternal life, but they do so at little cost to
themselves. The restraints they impose on their
self-interested passion become habits, which require
little effort. So Americans at once pursue wealth in
accordance with their self-interest, secure eternal life
at little or no cost, and contribute to the moral
stability of society.

Self-interest rightly understood anchors religious
conviction in fears that are part of the human
condition, and the detachment of religion from everyday
politics insures its continuing influence. Equally
important is the content of religion in America, which

directly confronts individualism and materialism.

54

Individualiem and Materialism
Religion in America takes no direct part in
the government of society, but it must be
regarded as the first of their political
institutions; for if it does not impart a
tasge for freedom, it facilitates the use of
it.

The above passage points to the two-pronged role of
religion in Tocqueville's thought: Christianity in
America combats individualism by stimulating a love of
political freedom, and combats materialism by educating
democrats of the proper use of that freedom. Underlying
all of Tocqueville's work is an ardent love of
liberty.25 The purpose of Democracy 1h America, he
never tired of explaining, was to elucidate the dangers
to liberty inherent in modern society so as to mitigate
them.26 Nearing the end of his life, he wrote the
following to Beaumont:

I have never been more profoundly convinced

that (liberty) alone can give to human

societies in general, and to the individuals

who compose them in particular, all the

prosperity and greatness of which our species

is capable.
His passion for freedom equalled, and to some extent
inspired, John Stuart Mill's love of liberty.28 A brief
comparison of their views on liberty is useful for
shedding light on Tocqueville's conception of liberty
and his preoccupation with preserving it.

Both Mill and Tocqueville define liberty in

distinctively liberal terms, or, what is commonly called

a "negative" conception of liberty.29 That is to say

55
that liberty consists of the ability to act as one
pleases, unimpeded by the will of others, in an area
limited by the rights of others. The closest
Tocqueville came to defining liberty was in an article
that was translated by Mill for the Westminster Review:
According to the modern, the democratic, and,
we venture to say, the only just notion of
liberty, every man, being presumed to have
received from nature the intelligence
necessary for his own general guidance, is
inherently entitled to be uncontrolled by his
fellows in all that only concerns himself,
and to re ulate at his own will his own
destiny.3
Mill echoes this sentiment in his famous essay 9h

Liberty:

The only freedom which deserves the name is

that of pursuing our own good in our own way,

so long as we do not attempt to deprive

others of theirs or impede their efforts to

obtain it.31
It is not surprising, then, that Mill and Tocqueville's
discussions of liberty are often discussions about
political rights.32 Implicit in the notion of rights is
a negative understanding of liberty; For instance, the
liberal right to property is a freedom to accumulate or
dispose of property as one sees fit as long as no one
else's property rights are violated. Although Mill and
Tocqueville were in fundamental agreement on the meaning
of liberty, and, for that matter, that liberty needs to
be informed by standards that are self-imposed by the

individual as opposed to government, they appear to

defend the necessity of freedom for different reasons.

56
For Mill, liberty is a means to an end. It is
noteworthy that the epigram and dedication which begin
gm Liberty make no mention of liberty. The epigram
informs the reader that the following argument is guided
by "The absolute and essential importance of human
development in its richest diversity."33 Mill goes on to
defend liberty as necessary for intellectual progress
and the development of individuality, specifically,
individual potential. Never once does Mill claim that
liberty is an inalienable right. Instead, we learn over
and over again that individual and social improvement
depend on the maximum amount of liberty a social order
can afford its members without collapsing into anarchy.
Tocqueville never denies that liberty is useful for all
types of advancement. His defense of liberty, however,
is premised on the inseparability of virtue and freedom.
Tocqueville says the following while writing of
political rights in America:
After the general idea of virtue, I know of
no higher principle than that of rights; or
rather these two ideas are united in one.
The idea of rights is simply that of virtue
introduced into the political world.34
In order to be virtuous one has to prefer the good to
the bad, which also means that one must be free to
choose between the good and the bad to be virtuous.
Freedom is, in truth, a sacred thing.
There is only one thing else that better
deserves the name: that is virtue. But then

what is virtue if not the free choice of what
is good.35

 

57
For Tocqueville, morality cannot be separated from the
possibility of free choice.

It would be reasonable to argue that for
Tocqueville, like Mill, liberty is a means to an end.
After all, freedom is a necessary but not a sufficient
condition for virtue - one can freely choose the bad.
But such an analysis of liberty in Tocqueville's thought
would not do justice to the rhetorical purpose of his
work. Freedom cannot be preserved in the modern world
unless it is pursued as an end in itself. Not even the
inducement of material rewards can prompt the passionate
commitment that liberty requires to survive.36

The man who asks of freedom anything other
than itself is born to be a slave.

In the spirit of true statesmanship, Tocqueville is
attempting to influence opinion by example. He reveres
liberty in the same manner he exhorts others to.

One of the threats to liberty in the modern age is
individualism. Unlike aristocratic peoples, democratic
citizens feel isolated from each other and from their
ancestors and descendants. Their inclination is to
concern themselves with their private affairs and to
leave public business to the state.38 Democratic
citizens are predisposed to augment the powers of the
state for two reasons according to Tocqueville: Feeling
weak and helpless as individuals, they "are willing to
acknowledge that the power which represents the

community has far more information and wisdom than any

58

of the members of that community; and that it is the
duty, as well as the right, of that power to guide as
well as govern each private citizen."39 Also, their
preoccupation with improving their own lot will make
them even more sensitive to any existing social
inequalities. Their greed and envy will lead them to
concede powers to a central authority in the hopes of
depriving their neighbors of a path to a privileged
position.4o Whether it be by way of neglect or envy,
democrats consumed by a love of equality are all to
willing to abdicate their political liberties.

For Tocqueville, the principle check of
individualism in America is religion, where love of
liberty is intertwined with Christianity.

The Americans combine the notions of
Christianity and of liberty so intimately in
their minds that it is impossible to make
them conceive the one without the other; and
with them this conviction does not spring
from that barren, tradionary faith which
seems to vegetate rather than to live in the
soul.
Tocqueville demonstrates this point by relating a speech
similar to one he witnessed in Boston that was given by
a priest to elicit support for the Poles and their
struggle for independence:
Almighty God! the God of armies! Thou who
didst strengthen the hearts and guide the
arms of our fathers when they were fighting
for the sacred rights of their national
independence! Thou who didst make them
triumph over a hateful oppression, and hast
granted to our people the benefits of liberty

and peace, turn, 0 Lord, a favorable eye upon
the other hemisphere; pitifully look down

59

upon an heroic nation which is even now
struggling as we did in the former time, and
for the same rights. Thou, who didst create
man in the same image, let not tyranny mar
thy work and establish inequality upon the
earth. Almighty God! do thou watch over the
destiny of the Poles, and make them worthy to
be free....

Lord, turn not thou thy face from us, and
grant that we may always be the most
religious, as well as the freest, people of
the earth.42

Unlike in France, where "the spirit of religion and the
spirit of freedom (are almost always) marching in
opposite directions," religion and liberty in America
are inseparable. This integration of religion and
liberty can be traced to the Puritans. They believed
that every nation owed its existence to a covenant
between God and the community, which states that the
community will obey His commandments.43 Because England
was violating its covenant with God, the Puritans were
compelled to embark for the New World to establish a
political order that would be the model for the rest of
the world. They sought not only the freedom to worship
as they pleased, but the opportunity to establish a
political authority that would properly acknowledge the
covenant between God and the community. Such a society
would afford its members the purest type of liberty
known to the world. Tocqueville approvingly recounts
John Winthrop's definition of this highest form of
liberty:
This liberty is the proper end and object of

authority, and cannot subsist without it; and
it is a liberty to that only which is good,

60

just, and honest.44
Both the Puritans and the priest speaking on behalf of
the Poles perceived an intimate connection between
religious conviction and the liberty required for
self-determination. In America, Tocqueville observed,
"(1)iberty regards religion as its companion in all its
battles and its triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy
and the divine source of its c1aims."45

Religion not only stimulates a love of liberty, but
regulates the use thereof. Equality can be too
compatible with materialism, which is the belief that
"all perishes with the body."45 When a taste for
material comforts is combined with the perception that
there can be no purpose to life higher than the pursuit
and enjoyment of these comforts, then human aspiration
is reduced to a "mad impatience" for wealth. Democracy
could become nothing more than Socrates' city of pigs.47
For Tocqueville, to become enslaved to one's desires

is to deny an integral part of what it means to be
human. The possibility of greatness, or virtue, is just
as much a part of human life as the capacity for
insatiable desires.48

Whatever we do we cannot prevent men from

having a body as well as a soul, as if an

angel occupied the form of an animal..."49
Tocqueville was far from insensitive to the beauty of
the angel; Trying to convince Gobineau of the merits of

Christianity, Tocqueville asks him, "Don't you see the

61

incomparable beauty of that rare, open struggle of the
spirit against the ruling flesh?"50 Tocqueville argues
that this longing for the "eternal" can be suppressed or
distorted, but never eradicated. He attributes the
sudden bursts of spiritual fanaticism he witnessed in
the United States to a revolt of the soul against
tyranny of the body.

The soul has wants which must be satisfied;

and whatever pains are taken to divert it

from itself, it soon grows weary, restless,

and disquieted amid the enjoyments of sense.

If ever the faculties of the great majority

of mankind were exclusively bent upon the

pursuit of material objects, it might be

anticipated that an amazing reaction would

take place in the souls of some men.
That "amazing reaction" is "religious insanity," which
strikes, most likely, the souls of the men with the
strongest yearning, and hence greatest capacity, for
human excellence.

Christianity in America prevents the citizenry from
sinking into the moral depravity of materialism.
Americans know that it is in their interest to follow
the two fundamental teachings of Christianity: to "love
God with all your heart, and love your neighbor like
yourself."52 Religion urges democrats to occasionally
pry their attention from their petty affairs and to cast
"a transient and distracted glance to heaven." For the
sake of eternal salvation, democrats learn to moderate

their acquisitive passions and to take an interest in

their neighbor's welfare. This is not to say that

62
Christianity inspires the majority of democrats in
America to lofty deeds.

The principle of self-interest rightly
understood produces no great acts of
self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small
acts of self denial. By itself it cannot
suffice to make a man virtuous; but it
disciplines a number of persons in habits of
regularity, temperance, moderation,
foresight, self-command; and if it does not
lead men straight to virtue by the will, it
gradually draws them in that direction by
their habits. If the principle of interest
rightly understood were to sway the whole
moral world, extraordinary virtues would
doubtless be more rare, but I think that
gross depravity would then also be less
common.

In a letter to Kergorlay, Tocqueville remarks that a
decent materialism (materialisme honnete) may be "all
that one can expect, not of any particular man, but of
the species in general."54 Although great deeds will be
more rare in democracies like the United States, they
will not necessarily become extinct.

Christianity not only rescues equal peoples from
degradation, but provides scope for disinterested
virtue. Tocqueville observed that although
self-interest rightly understood is the medium for
religious sentiment in the "multitude," it is not the
"sole motive of religious men."55

It would be unjust to supppose that the
patriotism and the zeal that every American
displays for the welfare of his fellow
citizens are wholly insincere. Although
private interest directs the greater part of
human actions in the United States as well as
elsewhere, it does not regulate them all. I

must say that I have often seen Americans
make great and real sacrifices to the public

63

welfare;..."56
Tocqueville refers to the Christian teaching that "men
ought to benefit their fellow creatures for the love of
God" as a "sublime expression." He implies that some
democrats can be inspired to sacrifice their "personal
interests" for the love of God, expecting "no other
recompense than the pleasure of contemplating it."57

There is no doubt that, for Tocqueville, modern

democracy is dependent on its ability to produce
virtuous citizens.58 If democracy is to show proper
regard for what is highest in human nature, then its
citizens must be led by otherworldly concerns to either
restrain worldly self-interest or to renounce it. Those
who subscribe to self-interest rightly understood
develop habits that contribute to the moral stability of
society. Those few who are able to renounce
self-interest in favor of lofty designs are needed to
perpetuate and invigorate the moral climate democracy
depends upon. Tocqueville appeals to "all the virtuous
and enlightened men" of democracies to "raise the souls
of their fellow citizens and keep them lifted up towards
heaven."59

It is necessary that all who feel an

interest in the future destinies of

democratic society should unite, and that all

should make joint and continual efforts to

diffuse the love of the infinite, lofty

aspirations, and a love of pleasures not of

earth.60

Religious faith insures the compatibility of democratic

64

self-governance with human greatness; As Tocqueville
remarks, "...what can be done with a people who are
their own masters if they are not submissive to the
Deity?"61

Lively and Zetterbaum, two of the major commentators
on Tocqueville, maintain that Tocqueville's position on
religion is untenable. Part of their argument is that
Tocqueville emphasized the political utility of religion
to the point of undermining the possibility of religious
faith. His virtual indifference to the content of
religion, they argue, is proof of his willingness to
propogate "myths" that are socially useful. Lively
writes that "It is only a short move from emphasizing
the importance of the persuasive effects of a theory to
viewing it solely from the point of view of those
effects, and only a short move again to advocating
social myths on the grounds of their social benefits.
It is impossible to deny that Tocqueville made these
moves when discussing religion."62 He concludes, as did
Zetterbaum, that Tocqueville was making an "appeal for
any system of religious belief no matter what its
nature..."63 The problem from their point of view is
that the "myth" is an inadequate substitute for true
religion.

Tocqueville was not, however, indifferent to the
content of religion. It is often forgotten that he

viewed Christianity as superior to other types of

65

religions. He did not argue or imply that modern society
was in need of "any religion"64 or "anything passing for
religion."65 Instead, he writes that "I am... convinced
that Chpistianity must be maintained at any cost in the
bosom of modern democracies."66 Goldstein calls
attention to Tocqueville's unequivocal statements that
Christianity is the source of all public and private
morality.67 In a letter to Kergorlay he expresses his
astonishment that a certain acquaintance of his could
regard the Koran as "an advance upon the gospel," when
in reality there is "no comparison between them."68 -
the religion of Mohammed "is the primary cause of the
now visible decadence of the Islamic world"69 where
Christianity is an "admirable moral system."7o
Christianity is also an improvement over ancient Western
polytheism, which Tocqueville describes as more absurd
but less decadent than Mohammedanism.71 But Tocqueville
reserves his harshest criticism for Hinduism, the cause,
in his view, of the social stagnation of India.72 Its
repudiation of human equality in favor of the caste
system and reliance on moral precepts that are mostly
"gross absurdities“3 led Tocqueville to regard Hinduism
as a "religion worth less than belief."74

As evidence that Tocqueville was not concerned with
the content of religion, Zetterbaum cites the passage
where he states that it is better for citizens to

believe that their souls "will pass into the carcass of

66
a hog than by believing that the soul of man is nothing
at all."75 Tocqueville's point, however, is not that
metempsychosis is just as acceptable as any other
religious belief, but that a belief in the immortality
of the soul is indispensable to "man's greatness."76 He
is arguing that belief in the soul is so important that

if he were forced to choose between metempsychosis and

materialism, he would choose the former. Tocqueville
presents this argument only after‘ denigrating
metempsychosis as "assuredly not more rational

than...materialism."77

The content of religion is very important to
Tocqueville. For a religion to impart a taste for
freedom and point the way to the noble use of freedom,
it must show proper regard for freedom in general. Not
all religions are compatible with the social order that
Tocqueville has in mind. But Christianity as practiced
in America does provide the type of moral climate that
Tocqueville found so favorable to liberty. And that
climate is largely attributable to the settlers of

Massachusetts Bay Colony.

67

The Puritans

Tocqueville frequently lauded the happy coincidence
of Puritanism and the American founding. The Puritans
who settled New England, unlike settlers of most
colonies, were educated, and led by an "intellectual
craving" to forsake their comfortable homes in England
to carve a new life out of the harsh American
wilderness. They brought their families, talents, and
"the best elements of order and morality" to the shores
of the New World, Tocqueville writes, all for "the
triumph of an idea:" to "live according to their own
opinions and worship God in freedom."78 They were
destined to influence the whole confederation, like a
"beacon lit upon a hill, which, after it has diffused
its warmth immediately around it, also tinges the
distant horizon with its glow."79

Puritanism in America was just as much a political
theory as a religious doctrine.80 In accordance with
Calvin's teachings, Puritans everywhere concerned
themselves with the theory and practice of politics.
Calvin believed that humans are alienated from God and
from knowing God's will, and that the only way to
properly serve Him is to reconstruct God's kingdom on
earth. In this view, government has a divine mandate to
promote strict observance of the Scriptures.81 It is not
surprising, then, that the first act of the Puritans

upon arrival to the New World was to form a political

68

society.82 As will be shown, the political principles
and associated social principles embodied in Puritanism
had left their indelible mark on the equality of
conditions that Tocqueville observed. But it is also
the case that the experience of settling New England
left its imprint on the Puritan approach to faith and
politics.

The Puritans, like other European groups arriving in
the New World, found themselves in a condition of
equality for two reasons: their common social origins
and the difficulties entailed in clearing and living off
the land. First, the Puritans were alike in many
respects: they spoke the same language, worshipped the
same God, faced the same odds of survival in the
American wilderness, and most important, traced their
origins to the middle-classes of England.83 As
Tocqueville remarks, "The happy and the powerful do not
go into exile." Since the Puritans came from the same
social class in England there was no basis to establish
a social hierarchy in the New World.84 Second, it
quickly became apparent that nothing less than the
inducement of ownership could prompt the individual
efforts required to clear the land. This led to the
parceling of land in portions small enough to be cleared
by owners, but too small to sustain an owner and a
tenant farmer.85 Furthermore, the laws of inheritance

that were adopted in America insured that upon the death

69
of the owner, the land would be divided amongst the
heirs.86 This endless division of land precluded a
"true" aristocracy, which is characterized by the
passing down of landed property, intact, from one
generation to the next.87 The stark equality the
Puritans experienced in America, along with their
conviction that obedience to God entails civic
participation lent their political life a "thoroughly
democratic and republican" character.88
For Tocqueville, the laws adopted by the various New
England colonies reflected the relative equality of the
settlers.89 Principles such as the participation by the
people in rule, the free voting of taxes, the
responsibility of political representatives, personal
liberty and trial by jury were "imperfectly known" in
Europe, but accepted without discussion in America.90
These laws, as well as the equality they reflect, became
so much a part of life in America that no subsequent
Christian sect would dream nor dare to repudiate them.
Indeed, the limits of religion in America are what
distinguish it from religion elsewhere.
Tocqueville notes that no Christian sect in America

counters "democratic and republican principles."91

The clergy of all the different sects there

(in America) hold the same language; their

opinions are in agreement with the laws, and

the human mind flows onwards, so to speak, in

one undivided current.92

Religion in America is so tied up with notions of

70
political rights that it curbs revolutionary ambition.
Tocqueville observed that the revolutionaries "are
obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian

morality and equity, which does not permit them he

 

yTeTehe wantonly the laws that oppose their

 

 

designs...”3 In short, Christianity lends moral
authority to the principles of modern constitutionalism.

Tocqueville attributes the permanence of
Christianity in American mores to the religious nature
of the American founding, and to the eventual separation
of church and state. Tocqueville argued that religion
powerfully contributes to political stability in America
because it plays no direct part in rule, and therefore
is not fatally tied to the rise and decline of ruling
parties94 The clergy take pride in their refusal to
seek political office or openly favor candidates and
causes.95 Except for a few general principles, religion
considers the political sphere to be separate and open
to human experimentation.96

Christianity in America is well-suited to check the
vices of modern democracy. It developed free of a
history of aristocracy and was in some ways shaped by
equality of conditions.97 But there is another aspect
of Tocqueville's account of religion in America that is
often overlooked: The religious consensus that
Tocqueville described is Protestant in character. The

political innovations that the Puritans introduced into

71
American culture were derived from the teachings of
Calvin just as much as they were the result of
circumstances surrounding the founding. Tocqueville had
some very specific things to say about the type of
religion that modern democracy required - not only that
it be a Christian religion but that it incorporate, or
at least tolerate, some aspects of Protestantism. This
is most apparent in Tocqueville's treatment of

Catholicism.

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

 

Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
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Democracy
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QQEQQEQQX
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Democracy
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72

2:106.
2:106.
2:109.
2:110.
2:107.
2:107.
2:108-109.
1:9.
2:108.
1:309.
2:20-21.
2:20.
2:126.
2:26, 128-30.
2:26.
2:127. See also 2:27.
2:121-122.
2:121.
2:122.
2:121.
2:124.

2:123.

See also 1:313.

73

23 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:126.

24 Tocqueville, Democmacy 1:305.

25 Tocqueville wrote the following in a letter to
J. S. Mill: "I love liberty by taste, and equality by
instinct and reason. These two passions, which so many
people pretend to have, I believe I truly feel in
myself, and I am ready to make great sacrifices for
them." Quoted in Jack Lively, The Social and Political
Thought e; Alexis he Tocqpeville (London: Clarendon
Press, 1962) 18-19.' See also Alexis de Tocqueville, The
pig Regime ehe phe French Revolution, trans. Stuart
Gilbert (Garden City: Doubleday, 1955) xii (Hereafter
Die Regime) and Tocqueville, Democracy 1:246-247.

26 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:293, Tocqueville,
Deuvres 13 no. 1:431; see also J. 8. Mill, Diseertatione
ehe Discussions, 2 vols. (London: Parker and Son, 1859)
2:56-57.

27 Quoted in Lively 12-13.

28 For the following comparison of liberty in
Tocqueville and Mill's thought, I am indebted to Jack
Lively's excellent discussion of this subject in Lively
1-22.

29 Cf. Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty,"
Political Philosophy, ed. Anthony Quinton (London:
Oxford UP, 1967) 141-148.

3° Quoted in Lively 12.

31 John Stuart Mill, Dh Liberty (Indianapolis and

74
New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956) 16-17.

32 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:246-247, 2:295 and
Mill, Dh Liberty 16, 91.

33 Mill, Dh Liberty xxviv.

34 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:244. The translation
has been altered to retain Tocqueville's emphasis on
rights as opposed to right. See Zetterbaum 39-40.

35 Quoted in Lively 13.

36 Tocqueville, Die Regime 168.

37 Tocqueville, Dig Regime 169.

38 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:98, 293.

39 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:290.

40 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:295.

41 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:306. See also 1:43,
308; 2:6.

42 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:302-303. For another
account of this meeting see George Wilson Pierson,
Tocqueville ih America (Garden City: Doubleday, 1959)
234-238.

43 Morgan 69. See also Alan P. Grimes, American
Political Thought (New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, 1964) 24-25.

44 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:42. See also 1:44.

45 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:44.

‘5 Tocqueville, Demoeracy 2:145.

‘7 Plato, The Republic e; Plato, trans. Allan Bloom

 

(New York and London: Basic Books Inc., 1968)

75
369c-3728.

48 Tocqueville, Dempcmecy 2:134.

49 Tocqueville, Memei; 1:304. Tocqueville uses
this same metaphor in Tocqueville, Democracy 2:148.

5° Tocqueville, European _Bevolution 207.

51 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:134. See also
2:146-147.

52 Tocqueville, European Revolutioh 205. See also
Tocqueville, Democracy 2:125.

53 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:123.

54 Tocqueville, Oeuvres 13 no. 1:389 and
Tocqueville, Memoir 1:305.

55 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:126.

55 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:105; see also 1:122,
125, 142.

57 Tocqueville, Dempepeey 2:125-126.

58 Peter A. Lawler, "Tocqueville on Religion and
Human Excellence," The Somhheestern Political Review, 11
(Fall, 1983): 139-160.

59 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:145.

50 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:145.

51 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:307.
52 Lively 197.

53 Lively 197. See Zetterbaum 121.
54 Zetterbaum 121.
55 Zetterbaum 121.

55 Tocqueville, Democzecy 2:147 (my emphasis).

76

57 Doris Goldstein, "Tocqueville's Concept of
Citizenship," Rmeeeegihge pf the hmericah Philosophical
Society 108, no.1 (February, 1964) 51 (Hereafter
"Citizenship.").

53 Tocqueville, Memoir 1:325.

59 Tocqueville, European Revolution 212.

7° Tocqueville, Europeah Revolution 192.

71 Tocqueville, Europeah Revolution 212.

72 Doris Goldstein, Tmiei pf Faith: Reiigion ehg

Rolitics ih Tocgpeville's Thought (New York: Elsevier
North Holland Publishing Co., 1975) 113-117.

 

73 Quoted in Goldstein, Trial pf Faith 114.

 

 

74 Goldstein, Trial 9; Faith 125.
75 Zetterbaum 119.

76 Zuckert 278-279.

77 Tocqueville, Demeemeey 2:146.

73 Tocqueville, Demoemecy 1:32.

79 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:31.

80 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:32, 40.

81 Michael Walzer, The Revolution e; he Saints:

 

h Rhmgy ih hhe Origins p; Radical Politics (Cambridge:
Harvard UP, 1965) 25-30. Edmund S. Morgan, The Puritan
Dilemma: The eppmy pm John Winthrop (Boston and
Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1958) 18-19, 69-83.

82 Tocqueville, Demeemeey 1:35.

83 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:35.

84 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:28-29.

85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93

94

Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

77

Democmacy
Demgeraey
Democracy
Democracy
Democracy
W
Democmacy
DEEQQIQQX

Democracy

Democrac

1:29.

1:48-49.

1:29, 48.

1:32, 40.

1:40.

1:39.

1:301.

1:302. See also 2:27.
1:305 (my emphasis).

1:308-314; 2:6, 23, 147.

See also Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville,

pm the Renitentiary System ih the United Statee

and Its Application ih France, trans. Francis Lieber

(Carbondale and Edwardsville:

1964) 122.

Southern Illinois UP,

95 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:304, 309, 312; 2:27.

95 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:44; 2:27.

97 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:23. See also

Tocqueville, European Revolution 192-194.

Of all the Christian sects in America that
Tocqueville observed, the only one he singles out for
special attention in the Democracy is Catholicism.
Tocqueville believed that of all the countries in
Europe, the "great social revolution" that culminated in
modern democracy had made the most headway in France.1
Given the need he felt modern democracies had for
religion, his love of his homeland, and the profoundly
Catholic nature of France, it is not surprising that he
took a special interest in the plight of Catholicism in
America. Tocqueville made it clear in a letter to
Kergorlay that he wrote Democracy with France in mind.

Though I seldom mentioned France (in
Democracy ih America), I did not write a page
without thinking of her, and placing her as
it were before me.
His analysis of Catholicism in America is guided by his
concern for the future of France, and recognition of
that fact is necessary to understand Tocqueville's
treatment of Catholicism as it pertains to liberal

democracy.

Tocqueville had cause for concern about the state of

78

79

religion in France. The French Revolution was an effort
to dismantle the power of the Roman Catholic Church just
as much as it was a revolt against oppressive rule. Not
surprisingly, antireligious sentiment was running high
during the Revolution.

One of the earliest enterprises of the

revolutionary movement was a concerted attack

on the Church, and among the many passions

inflamed by it the first to be kindled and

the last to be extinguished was of an anti-

religious nature.
Although Catholicism had been restored as the dominant
faith at the time Tocqueville was writing, its authority
had been weakened by its affiliation with the corrupt
institutions of the ancien regime.4 If equality of
conditions was destined to overtake France, then a
religious influence to moderate equality would be just
as necessary in France as it was in the United States.
Tocqueville takes every opportunity to defend the Church
against those who insist on the incompatibility of the
Church with liberty, equality and fraternity.

The first chapter that Tocqueville devotes to
religion is entitled "Religion Considered as a Political
Institution Which Powerfully Contributes to the
Maintenance of a Democratic Republic Among the
Americans.” In the beginning of this chapter,
Tocqueville makes the unsurprising observation that
"(t)he greatest part of British America was peopled by
men who, after having shaken off the authority of the

Pope, acknowledged no other religious supremacy..." What

80

follows, however, is a discussion of Catholicism that
dominates the rest of the chapter. This should strike
even the casual reader as odd in light of the fact that
Tocqueville emphasized the significance of Puritan
origins for the social state of America earlier in the
volume. Furthermore, only about eight percent of the
American population was Catholic at the time of
Tocqueville's visit.5 It is highly unlikely that
Tocqueville believed that such a small and relatively
new group wielded the kind of influence suggested in the
title of the chapter. Instead, Tocqueville is anxious
to demonstrate to the French that Catholicism can be
compatible with democracy.

I think that the Catholic religion has
erroneously been regarded as the natural
enemy of democracy. Among the various sects
of Christians, Catholicism seems to me, on
the contrary, to be one of the most favorable
to equality of condition among men.6

This same theme carries over into his work on the French
Revolution, where he attempts to convince the French
that the Church was attacked because of its political
role in French society and not because of any flaws in
her doctrine.7 Tocqueville is seeking to reconcile
France and religion, and his analysis of the nature of
religious faith in a democracy points to the reason why
he thought that only Catholicism could thrive in France.

Deprived of family tradition and of a class
identity, democrats tend to turn to their own judgment

as the source of their opinions and beliefs. Tocqueville

81
describes the philosophic method of Americans in the
following terms:
To evade the bondage of system and habit,
of family maxims, class opinions, and, in
some degree, of national prejudices; to
accept tradition only as a means of
information, and existing facts only as a
lesson to be used in doing otherwise and
doing better; to seek the reason of things
for oneself, and in oneself alone; to tend to
results without being bound to means, and to
strike through the form to the substance..."8
Tocqueville believed that this type of philosophic
individualism was more pronounced in France because of
the recent Revolution.9 Over and above the
independence of mind fostered by a belief in equality,
the French Revolution, like any revolution, threw
"doubts over commonly received ideas." A people
experiencing a revolution "mistrust the judgment of one
another, and...seek the light of truth nowhere but in
themselves." Tocqueville concludes that philosophic
individualism is greatest in nations where equality of
conditions is establishing itself after a social
upheavel, which is an accurate description of France at
the time Tocqueville was writing.10
During times such as post-Revolutionary France, it
would be practically impossible to introduce a new
religion. Such an attempt, Tocqueville argues, would be
"not only impious, but absurd and irrational."
It may be foreseen that a democratic people
will not easily give credence to divine
missions; that they will laugh at modern

prophets; and that they will seek to discover
the chief arbiter of their belief within, and

82
not beyond, the limits of their kind.11

The only type of religion that could maintain authority
when the very nature of authority is under attack is a
religion whose origins are shrouded in the mists of
time. Even then, if it is a faith that is unknown to a
democracy, its credibility will be suspect. This
explains Tocqueville's exhortations to nurture any
religion that has "struck its roots deep into a
democracy" and to regard it as "the most precious
bequest of aristocratic ages."12 Not only would a new
religion run into resistance, but any effect it would
have would likely be to inspire religious skepticism
rather than converts. Tocqueville worries that in the
process of conversion, the soul would not progress
beyond the point where it is "stripped of all belief."l3
Once a religious conviction has been overthrown, the
possibility of religious faith is necessarily called
into question.

If religion were to save France from equality, it
would have to be Catholicism. Although the roots of
Catholicism in France had been damaged, they had not
been destroyed. In the interests of promoting a
religious influence, it would be better to restore the
credibility of the Catholic Church than to hazard the
risks associated with introducing a new religion. But
to say that the Catholic religion is the only religion

that could save modern France from disgrace is not the

83
same as saying that Catholicism is the one best suited
to do so. Indeed, tensions between Catholicism and
liberal democratic principles are implicit in
Tocqueville's treatment of these two subjects. This
points to a deeper level of Tocqueville's intention: He
worked to restore the influence of Catholicism, and to
restore it in such a manner that it could be made safe
for liberal democracy. Hence the special attention
Catholicism receives in Democracy.l4 Catholicism in
America, which does not counter democratic and
republican principles, could be used as a model for

France.

84
Catholicism ehd Egpality

Tocqueville believed that equality of conditions,
the distinguishing feature of modern democracy, fosters
a love of commerce and industry.15 Certainly the United
States was a case in point. Although it is true that
Tocqueville sought to moderate the commercial spirit of
democrats, he did not seek to extinguish it. Commercial
activity, when regulated by such things as religious
mores, is politically beneficial. One advantage of a
commercial society is that it ensures "the greatest
enjoyment and...avoid(s) the most misery to each of the
individuals who compose it..."16 In a passage that
could have come from Locke, Tocqueville argues that the
presence of a propertied middle-class discourages the
majority from plundering the wealth of the rich, saving
them from "the general impoverishment which (would)
ensue" if the rich were eliminated.17 A business-minded
nation may not be brilliant and glorious, but it will be
prosperous -- and there is justice in prosperity.

Commercial activity can also be a good preparation
for freedom.18 A people who are politically free must
have incentive for self-restraint if the bare
requirements of political life, such as public order,
are to be met. Planning one's estate requires foresight
and frugality.

(Material) pursuits...cannot prosper without
strictly regular habits and a long routine of

petty uniform acts. The stronger the passion
is, the more regular are these habits and the

85

more uniform are these acts.19
The prospect of fortune encourages a commercial people
to acquire habits that contribute to political
stability. For instance, the habit of obeying the law
in general can grow from obedience to laws that protect
private property. The prospect of wealth explains for
Tocqueville why revolutions will become more rare in
modern times: The effort and discipline that are
expended on behalf of one's present and future fortune
would be wasted in the event of a revolution. A
revolutionary would not be able to inflame the multitude
with a passion for great changes.

To his vehemence they secretly oppose their

inertia, to his revolutionary tendencies

their conservative interests, their homely

tastes to his adventurous passions, their

good sense to the flights of his genius, to

his poetry their prose. 0
For Tocqueville, the Americans are an example of a
people who are bold, but bold within limits that protect
their opportunities for enterprise.21 In America, "the
ambition of power yields to the less refined and less
dangerous desire for well-being."22 Tocqueville was not
insensitive to the social utility of what is often
called capitalistic or bourgeois instincts.

If I had been born in an aristocratic

age, in the midst of a nation where the

hereditary wealth of some and the

irremediable penury of others equally

diverted men from the idea of bettering their

condition and held the soul, as it were, in a

state of torpor, fixed on the contemplation

of another world, I should then wish that it
were possible for me to rouse that people to

86

a sense of their wants; I should seek to

discover more rapid and easy means for

satisfying the fresh desires that I might

have awakened; and, directing the most

strenuous efforts of the citizens to physical

pursuits, I should endeavor to stimulate them

to promote their own well-being.23
The Church of Rome, however, does not share
Tocqueville's enthusiasm for the enterprising spirit.

Tocqueville must have been aware of the fact that,

generally speaking, Catholic orthodoxy disapproves of
material success. For the Catholic, all human activity,
including economic activity, either furthers or hinders
one's chances of securing eternal salvation. No actions
are indifferent to this end, and therefore none should
be performed withouth the glorification of God in
mind.24 This includes labor. Having to labor is a
consequence of original sin, the cause of the fall of
human beings from the state of grace. Labor is even
honorable insofar as it maintains the body and hence the
possibility of efforts to redeem the soul. In this
view, working to obtain goods should be secondary to and
limited by the more important end of being worthy of
God's grace. The proper pursuit of material goods is
limited by need, or more specifically, what the body
needs to facilitate the spiritual growth of the soul.25
Pursuing material goods may be unlawful, according to
St. Thomas Aquinas, under three conditions:

(F)irst on the part of the object of

solicitude, that is, if we seek temporal

things as an end...Secondly...through too
much earnestness in endeavouring to obtain

87

temporal things, the result being that man is

drawn away from spiritual things which ought

to be the chief object of his

search...Third1y, through overmuch fear,

when, to wit, a man fears to lack necessagy

things if he does what he ought to do.
Among the economic incentives that the Church regards as
signs of "avarice, sensuality, or pride, and therefore
necessarily to be condemned" are the desire to improve
one's social position and to secure for one's children a
better life than their parents knew.27 In other words,
the same instincts that equality foSters and that
Tocqueville (qualifiedly) applauds are regarded by the
Church as sinful. Accordingly, the Church's first
official comment on the modern age was made by Pope Pius
IX in his famous Syllabus 9; Errors, where he declared
it a "damnable error" to assert that "the Roman Pontiff
can and should ' reconcile himself with progress,
liberalism and modern civilization."28

This is not to say that the Church unreservedly

condemns the wealthy. Indeed, many of her saints were
rich. At issue is not wealth per se but instead how one
views the accumulation of wealth and how one spends it.
Bound up in the Church's understanding of wealth is the
notion that those who have more than they need have a
duty to aid the poor.29

Your plenty at the present time should supply

their need so that their surplus may one day

supply 3your need, with equality as the

result.

As long as the rich become so without pursuing wealth as

88

an end, and as long as they spend it on the less
fortunate, their social position is not cause for
eternal damnation. But these conditions are a tall
order for mere mortals, and the Church's pessimism in
this regard is underscored by her emphasis on Jesus's
warning that "It is easier for a camel to pass through a
needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of
God."31

These two strands - the belief that humans need a
limited amount of property for salvation and that they
have a correlative duty to aid the poor - have
characterized Catholic social teaching from Aquinas to
the present day.32 In 1891, Pope Leo XIII restated this
position in his encyclical Rempm Novarum, which was the
first systematic statement of the Church's position on
the "social question" posed by liberalism and
industrialization. Although the encyclical was written
after Tocqueville's death, it reflected convictions that
the Church had held for centuries and applied them to
modern times. The Rempm Novarum is useful for
determining the Church's reaction to the same state of
affairs that Tocqueville observed.

In the Rempm, Leo XIII charted what came to be
called the Catholic "middle way," which is a position
critical of both liberalism and socialism. Because of
the Catholic tradition favoring limited government and

private property, Leo XIII rejected socialism as

89

contrary to natural justice and civil peace.33 His
defense of private property, however, stops short of the
classical liberal claim that the prospect of increased
property holdings can be a foundation for freedom and
therefore a good thing.

Whoever has received from the Divine bounty a

large share of blessings, whether they be

external and corporal, or gifts of the mind,

has received them for the purpose of using

them for perfecting his own nature, and, at

the same time, that he may employ them, as

the minister of God's Providence, for the

benefit of others.34
Pope Pius XI, writing forty years later in commemoration

of the Rerum Novarum, was more blunt than Leo XIII in

 

his hostility to the liberal premise of economic liberty
as a basic component of freedom.
Just as the unity of human society cannot be
built upon "class" conflict, so the proper
ordering of economic affairs cannot be left
to the free play of rugged competition. From
this source, as from a polluted spring, have
proceeded all the errors of the
"individualistic" school.35
Catholic orthodoxy has always regarded material wealth
and the desire for material prosperity with grave
suspicion. Protestant thinkers, although in agreement
with the Catholic view that wealth should not be pursued
as an end in itself, did not find worldly prosperity as

embarrassing as the Roman Catholic Church has.

90
Protestantism ehd Egpaiity

In Protestant thought, the act of laboring takes on
a new importance. Rather than something to be endured
to the point where the soul can seek salvation, labor
becomes "the highest form which the moral activity of
the individual could assume."36 It was Luther first,
and then Calvin who developed the notion of a calling.
In his classic discussion of this point, Weber defines a
calling as "a religious conception, that of a task set
by God..."37 A calling is one's vocation, which is
performed in service of God, one's community and one's
family, in that order. By earnestly dedicating
themselves to their calling, followers of Calvin were
proving their choseness by God by exercising a
self-discipline that was to be their means of triumph
over worldly temptation. Industry became a virtue, an
end in itself.38 The Catholic notion of good works gave
way to an understanding of the work ethic, where the
former emphasizes the efficacy of individual deeds, the
latter requires continued labor in a calling.39

As the Puritans soon found out, material prosperity
is not an uncommon result of such a dedication to hard
work. Indeed, worldly success came to be sign of Divine
approbation. The Puritans had no objections to amassing
wealth as long as it was wholly incidental to the
glorification of God through labor. This is not to

suggest that Calvinists were more sympathetic than

91

Catholics towards the human passion for comfort; they
were not. But unlike the Catholics, Calvinists believed
worldly prosperity to be a sign of salvation rather than
a hindrance to it. This explains the radically
different vieWpoints of the Catholics and the Calvinists
towards the poor: Catholicism not only maintains that
charity is a primary virtue, but that the poor have a
special place in the heart of Christ.40 Calvinists,
however, were suspicious of the poor, particularly the
poor who could not find work. Their poverty was seen as
proof of their unwillingness to dedicate themselves to a
calling, and therefore proof of their ungodliness.41 For
these reasons Calvinism, and more generally
Protestantism, is easily reconciled with the uneven
distribution of wealth that is so repugnant to the
Catholic Church.

Tocqueville knew that Catholicism and Protestantism
were not equally amenable to what he regarded as the
best type of liberal democracy. Every religion, he
thought, has a "political opinion" which is "connected
with it by affinity."42 In his notebook he kept while
in America, Tocqueville states that Catholicism does not
necessarily lead to the "democratic spirit."43 By his
own description of the Catholic faith, Catholicism is
more compatible with democratic tyranny than the kind of
liberal democracy he admired in America.

Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if
the sovereign be removed, all the other

92

classes of society are more equal than in
republics.44

Just as the "priest alone rises above the rank of his
flock, and all below him are equal," so is a democratic
despot "incontestably above all the citizens," who stand
in equal dependence to their master. The decline of a
democracy, according to Tocqueville, would start with
the allure the centralization of power holds for
democrats. Likewise, he argues that democrats are drawn
to Catholicism because it is "single and uniform."

It is evident that all the naturally

religious minds among the Protestants, the

men of strong and serious opinions, disgusted

by the vagueness of Protestantism, yet

ardently desirous to have a faith, give up in

despair the search after truth, and submit to

the yoke of authority. They throw off, with

pleasure, the heavy burden of reason, and

they become Catholics.45

Religious powers not radiating from a common

center are naturally repugnant to their

minds...
The "political opinion" linked to Catholicism is an
understanding of equality that Tocqueville was warning
the modern world against - "equality in servitude."47
Protestantism, on the other hand, is linked to a
political understanding of equality that can countenance
the social inequality that results from free commercial
activity.

If Catholicism predisposes the faithful to

obedience, it certainly does not prepare them

for inequality; but the contrary may be said

of Protestantism, which generally tends to

make men independent more than to render them
equal.48 .

93
Although Tocqueville recognized a tension between
Catholicism and decent government, he did not think the
two were wholly irreconcilable. Indeed, the future of
France depended on the possibility of Catholicism
coexisting with democratic and republican priciples as
it does in America.

This account of Catholicism in Tocqueville's thought
differs significantly from the prevailing view in the
scholarship on Tocqueville. Most commentators argue
that Tocqueville thought Catholicism is "fundamentally
compatible" with and hence good for modern democracy, so
much so, according to some, that he predicted that
Americans would increasingly convert to Catholicism.49
Certainly Tocqueville believed that there was a
connection between the Catholic faith and the spirit of
equality that animates modern democracy - Catholicism
gave birth to equality. But he also believed that
equality in its modern form could host moral and
political servitude or freedom and human excellence, and
that Catholicism is more consistent with the former than
the latter. Tocqueville never says that it is a good
thing that democrats are easily charmed by the unitary
nature of the Catholic Church. If anything, the
attraction of democrats to a centralized religious
authority would signal their openness to the
centralization of political authority. As for the

argument that Tocqueville predicted that Americans would

94

increasingly become Catholic: First of all, he was
aware of the massive immigration of Catholics to America
during the time he visited, which would at least partly
explain his statement that America is "the country in
which the Roman Catholic religion makes most
progress."50 Secondly, the following passage has been
repeatedly and mistakenly cited as evidence that
Tocqueville thought that Catholicism is more compatible
with American liberal democracy that Protestantism, and
that Americans will tend to become either Catholics or
atheists.

But I am inclined to believe...that our

posterity will tend more and more to a

division into only two parts, some

relinquishing Christianity entirely and

others returning to the Church of Rome.
Tocqueville is not referring to Americans in the passage
but to "our posterity" (pee neveux) - the descendants
of the French people. It is important to recall the
Tocqueville was writing for a French audience. The fact
that his thoughts had shifted to France is evident from
the paragraph preceeding the passage in question, where
he insists that if the Catholic Church could disentagle
itself from "the political animosities to which it has
given rise," then it could demonstrate its ability to
coexist with modern political principles.52 According to
Tocqueville, this was already the case in America.53 He
was thinking of France, where the Catholic Church had

been tied to secular powers and with dire

95
consequences.54 Tocqueville sought to reconcile French
Catholicism with modernity, taking his bearings from the

example of religion in America.

96
Making Catholiciem Dege Te; Democpacy

In making his recommendations for the modernization
of the Catholic religion, Tocqueville urged the Church
to disavow, not only its ties to secular authority, but
any claims that Catholicism cannot admit a separation of
church and state.

(At the time of the French Revolution,) the
Church was, if not the most oppressive, the
chief of all the powers in the land, and
though neither her vocation nor her nature
called for this, co-operated with the secular
authority, often condoning vices in it that
in other spheres she would have reprobated.55
In order for Catholicism in France to regain and
maintain some semblance of its former moral authority,
it must separate itself from everyday politics. Only
when the Church can convince the French people that it
is not a front for the ancien regime will it find
wholehearted acceptance, and only by insulating itself
from the vicissitudes of the political realm will it
maintain authority.

Through his description of Catholicism in America,
Tocqueville suggests modifications of Catholic doctrine
and ritual that would make it more amenable to equality
of conditions in France. The careful reader will notice
that Tocqueville is encouraging the Church to
de-emphasize those aspects of Catholicism that
contradict the commercial spirit in particular, and

modern democracy in general. According to Tocqueville,

for any religion to have an impact in modern times it

97

must come to terms with the modern temperament. The
more conditions become equal, the more important it is
for religion to never needlessly "run counter to the
ideas that generally prevail or to the permanent
interests that exist in the mass of the people."56
Public opinion is so powerful in democracies that no
religion could survive without its support.57 Likewise,
the clergy in America preach with an eye to majority
opinion.

All the American clergy know and respect the

intellectual supremacy exercised by the

majority; they never sustain any but

necessary conflicts with it.
The concessions that Tocqueville implies the Church of
France must make to democracy are big ones, as the
nature of Catholicism in America attests.

First of all, the Church needs to harness
hagiolatry, which conflicts with the democratic
propensity for general ideas. Because democrats can
accept as truth only what they investigate for
themselves, they avail themselves of general ideas,
which "enable the human mind to pass a rapid judgment on
a great many objects at once."59

...thus it is that the craving to discover
general laws in everything, to include a
great number of objects under the same
formula, and to explain a mass of facts by a
single cause becomes an ardent and sometimes
an undiscerning passion in the human mind.60

Democrats tend to think that "all the truths that are

applicable to himself appear to him equally and

98

similarly applicable to each of his fellow citizens and
fellow men."61 This way of thinking extends into the
nature of their religious beliefs.62

Men who are similar and equal in the world

readily conceive the idea of the one God,

governing every man by the same laws and

granting to every man future happiness on the

same conditions. 3
This view of an impartial Deity collides with the
Catholic belief that "secondary agents," specifically
saints, can secure special Providential consideration
for individuals who properly request it. The
proposition that there may be "a thousand private roads
to heaven" is offensive to the democratic sense of
fairness. Equal men find it hard to countenance the
thought that the Deity, the Maker of the universe, would
stoop to the level of showing partiality for some
beacuse of their heavenly connections. Tocqueville goes
so far as to imply that the idea of sainthood was a
corruption of Christianity brought on by the shattering
of the Roman Empire into "a thousand fragments."64 Each
society sought to rebuild its identity and to "win the
favor of an especial protector near the throne of
grace."65

Unable to subdivide the Deity, they

multiplied and unduly enhanced the importance

of his agents. The homage due to saints and

angels became an almost idolatrous

worship... 6

Accordingly, Tocqueville argues that it is "particularly
important not to allow the homage paid to secondary

99

agents to be confused with the worship due to the
Creator alone."67 Such confusion does not exist in
America, he approvingly notes, where the stricture
against improper worship of saints is "clearly
inculcated" and "generally followed."68 By emphasizing
what is not due to the saints, Tocqueville is
eliminating a source of conflict between Catholicism and
modernity to the extent that the status of the saints in
Catholic dogma is reduced. He could not expect or even
hope that the Church would repudiate its teachings
regarding sainthood. But he did hope to convince the
French Church to follow the example of American
Catholicism, and downplay the importance of the saints
to eternal salvation.

Tocqueville also argued that modern religions would
need to keep the ritual formalities simple and few in
number. Since democrats are compelled to rely on their
own judgment for their opinions, they insist on a clear
view of the object they are trying to discern. This
leads them to regard forms as "useless and inconvenient
veils placed between them and the truth."69 They have
little patience for elaborate rituals, and any religion
that was inflexible on this point would "soon find
itself limited to a band of fanatic zealots in the midst
of a skeptical multitude."7o Again, America is the
model.

There are no Roman Catholic priests who show
less taste for the minute individual

100

observances, for extraordinary or peculiar

means of salvation, or who cling more to the

spirit and less to the letter of the law than

the Roman Catholic priests of the United

States.71
Tocqueville acknowledges that in Catholicism, "the
doctrine and the form are frequently so closely united
as to form but one point of belief; nothing in these
ceremonies should be changed."72 All other rituals
should be trimmed so as to bring French Catholicism in
line with its American counterpart and the spirit of
equality.

Most important, the Catholic Church must respect the
passion for well-being. For Tocqueville, any religion
that would seek to overthrow such a "deep-seated"
passion as the love of wealth in democratic times "would
in the end be destroyed by it; and if it attempted to
wean men entirely from the contemplation of the good
things of this world in order to devote their faculties
exclusively to the thought of another, it may be
foreseen that the minds of men would at length escape
its grasp, to plunge into the exclusive enjoyment of
present and material pleasures."73 He goes on to argue
that the most any religion can hope to do in such times
is "to purify, to regulate, and to restrain" the love of
material comforts.

Men cannot be cured of the love of riches,
but they may be persuaded to enrich

themselves by none but honest means.74

All of the clergy in America, Tocqueville observed, have

101

learned this lesson well. There the clergy "do not
attempt to draw or to fix all the thoughts of man upon
the life to come; they are willing to surrender a
portion of his heart to the cares of the present,
seeming to consider the goods of this world as
important, though secondary, objects."75 Although they
take no part in "productive labor," they are
enthusiastic about its progress.

...and while they never cease to point to the

other world as the great object of the hopes

and fears of the believer, they do not forbid

him honestly to court prosperity in this

(one).
By relaxing the stricture against earning more than what
survival requires, the Church in America was ensuring
its survival by showing necessary regard for "the
intellectual supremacy exercised by the majority."

Tocqueville's advice to the Church of France is

implicit in his description of Catholicism in America.

Thus it is that by respecting all democratic

tendencies not absolutely contrary to herself

and by making use of several of them for her

own purposes, religion sustains a successful

struggle (in America) with that spirit of

individual independence which is her most

dangerous opponent.
According to Tocqueville's analysis, in order for the
Church to coexist harmoniously with modern equality, it
will have to retreat from some of its central tenets.
These modifications, it should be noted, serve to

minimize the differences between Catholicism and

Protestantism. The doctrines that Tocqueville suggests

102
the Church de-emphasize are the ones that irritate
Protestants the most: the belief in saints, the
emphasis on ritual, and the general disapproval of
worldly success and the motives it requires. If the
example of Catholicism in America can be taken for
Tocqueville's prescription for the Church in France,
then the success of Catholicism in modern times is
dependent on the extent to which it resembles
Protestantism more than traditional European

Catholicism.

According to Tocqueville's account, the felicitous
cooperation between religion and politics in America is
due to the religious legacy of the Puritan settlers - a
legacy that is Protestant. It is the case that the
development of Protestantism in America was affected by
equality of conditions. But it is equally clear that
Protestantism is the religion that is most healthy in
equality of conditions. Referring to the Puritans,
Tocqueville remarks that they "brought with them" to the
New World "a form of Christianity which I cannot better
describe than by styling it a democratic and republican
religion."78 Puritanism was good for democracy even
before it arrived in America. Given Tocqueville's
remarks on religions other than Protestantism, it is

doubtful that he believed America would have become a

103

commercial republic if it had been founded by
non-Protestants. Catholicism is a case in point.79
Tocqueville reports that American Catholics respect the
republican and democratic principles fostered by
Puritanism, although they do so because of their social
ranking (most are poor) and minority status, and not
because of their consistency with Catholic orthodoxy.80
Tocqueville surmises that Catholics would support these
principles "with less zeal if they were rich and
preponderant."81 Similarly, Tocqueville never commends
a non-Christian religion for its compatibility with
democratic principles.

At least part of the reason that Tocqueville
prescribed Christianity to the modern world is that the
Western world was already predominately Christian and
the introduction of new religions would be largely
unsuccessful. However, Tocqueville's preference for one
type of Christianity suggests that he indeed paid close
attention to the content of religion. Lively and
Zetterbaum argue that he is advocating a very general
and vague religion for democratic society, one that is
"pared down to simple and uniform generalizations about
God and human nature."82 As this chapter shows,
Tocqueville did believe that religion must respect
certain boundaries if it is to survive in a democracy.
But these boundaries designate the minimum, and not sum

total, of the religion or religions Tocqueville has in

104
mind. According to Tocqueville, all the Christian sects
in America meet these minimum requirements. He has no
need to discuss the myriad differences between the
Protestant sects because he is considering religion from
a "purely human point of view."83 Tocqueville discusses
only those aspects of religion that democratic society
needs and depends on. Anything beyond these
requirements is left to the discretion of the
worshipper. Tocqueville does not go further than
recommending a religion that is largely Protestant
because his task does not require him to. To narrow the
list of acceptable religions any further would be to
introduce considerations other than those of social
utility, such as prophecy, which is something
Tocqueville bluntly denies he is willing to do.
Tocqueville describes the model democratic religion only
to the point that democratic society needs him to, and
does not rule out the possibility of further
elaborations. Indeed, full-blown religions that have
incorporated his guidelines are exactly what he has in

mind.

 

1 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:7. See Tocqueville,
Memoi; 1:296.

2 Tocqueville, Memoir 1:342. See Cushing Strout,
"Tocqueville's Duality: Describing America and Thinking
of Europe," American Quarterly XXI, no.1 (Spring, 1969).

3 Tocqueville, Dig Regime 5.

4 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:12, 314. See
Tocqueville, Dig Regime 6-7.

5 Tocqueville, Democracy

6 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:300. See Tocqueville,
Dig Regime 7.

7 Tocqueville, Dig Regime 6.

8 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:3.

9 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:6-7.

1° Tocqueville, Democracy 2:7.

11 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:9.

12 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:145.

13 Tocqueville, Democpacy 2:145.

14 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:300-303, 2:29-30.

15 Tocqueville, Demeepeey 2:154.

15 Tocqueville, Democpacy 1:253.

17 Tocqueville, emo 1:214-215.

105

106

18 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:254.

19 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:229.

20 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:255.

21 Tocqueville, Democmecy 2:255.

22 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:163.

23 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:144.

24 Amintore Fanfani, Catholicism, Protestantism ehg
Capitalism (Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press,
1984) 121.

25 Fanfani 128-129. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the
Riee p: gapipalism: h Hispomical Shpey (New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952) 31-36.

25 Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, q.55, art 6.

 

Quoted in Fanfani 128-129.

27 Fanfani 129.

28 Quoted in Renzo Bianchi, Liberalism _hg The
Critics (Northfield: College City Press) 53.

29 Fanfani 126.

3° 2 Corinthians 8:14.

31 Mark 10:25. See also Pope Leo XIII, Rerum

 

Rovarum in Seven Great Encyclicals (Glen Rock, N.J.:

 

 

Paulist Press, 1963) 10-11 (Hereafter Encyclicals).

32 For a summary of Catholic social teaching see
Franz H. Mueller, "The Church and the Social Question,"
in The Challenge p; hepem eh Ma istra, eds. Joseph N.
Moody and Justus George Lawler (New York: Herder and

Herder, 1963) 13-154; Michael Novak, The Spirit p;

 

107

Democratic Capitalism (New York: Touchstone Edition,
1983) 242-250; Bianchi 52-76. For a current statement
of the Church's position on the "social question" see
the "Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation,"
excerpts of which were published in The Rey Tpmh Timee,
4-6-86, 10A.

33 Encyclicale 2-3, 6-7.

34 Encyclicale 11.

35 Encyclicals 149.
35 Max Weber, The Proteetant Ethic and the Spirit

 

e; Ca italism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958) 80.

37 Weber 79.

33 Weber 62.

39 Walzer 211.

4° Matthew 5:3-6; Tawney 260-261.

41 Walzer 217-219.

42 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:300.

43 Alexis de Tocqueville, Journey he Ameriee,
trans. George Lawrence, ed. J.P. Mayer (New Haven and
London: Yale UP, 1959) 150 (Hereafter Joumney).

44 Tocqueville, Democraey 1:301.

45 Tocqueville, Memoim 1:294.

46 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:29.

47 Tocqueville, Memoir 2:328. See Tocqueville,

Democracy 2:97.
43 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:301.

108
49 Joachim Wach, "The Role of Religion in the
Social Philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville," Journal pi

the History pp Ideas VII, no.1 (Jan. 1946): 77, 84;

 

Catherine Zuckert, "Not by Preaching: Tocqueville on
the Role of Religion in American Democracy," The Review
pp Politics 42(April 1981): 260n3; Maxims Leroy, "Leroy
on Tocqueville" in Poiitical Thought ih Pers ective, ed.
William Ebenstein (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company,
Inc., 1957): 480; Lawler 145; Lively 189. John
Koritansky, "Two Forms of the Love of Equality in
Tocqueville's Practical Teaching for Democracy," Polity
6, no.4(1974): 497. Koritansky recognizes
Tocqueville's critical stance towards Catholicism, but
concludes that Tocqueville thought that the Church can
be compatible with freedom only in America, because of
the unique continental advantages found there.
Goldstein parenthetically suggests that Tocqueville had
to come to terms with the fact that it is Protestanism
and not Catholicism that is the "source of, and a
guarantee for, American democracy." Goldstein,
"Citizenship" 40.

5° Tocqueville, Democracy 2:29; Pierson 43. For an
account of the immigration of European Catholics in the
early nineteenth century and the religious prejudice
they faced see John Tracy Ellis, American Catholicism
(Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,

1969) 41-83.

109
51 Tocqueville, Democpacy 2:30.
52 Tocqueville, Democpacy 2:29.
53 Tocqueville, Dempemeey 1:300-302, 312.
54 Tocqueville, Democpaey 1:12, 314; Tocqueville
Old Regime 6-7; Beaumont 122.

55 Tocqueville, Dig Regime 151.

55 Tocqueville, Dempcracy 2:26.

57 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:26; 1:254-270.

58 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:27.

59 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:13, 16-17.

50 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:15.

51 Tocqueville, Dempcracy 2:15.

52 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:23.

53 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:23. See 2:24.

54 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:24. See Lively
193-194.

55 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:24.

55 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:24.

57 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:24.

58 Tocqueville, Demoerecy 2:27.

59 Tocqueville, Demoerecy 2:4. See 2:325-326.
a contemporary statement of the democratic dislike of
forms see Harvey Mansfield, Jr., "The Forms and
Formalities of Liberty," The Public Interest n.70
(Winter, 1983): 121-131.

7° Tocqueville, Demeemeey 2:25.
71 Tocqueville, Demogracy 2:27.

I

For

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

110

Dempcracy
or c
Democmacy
Democracy
Democraey
Democracy
Democracy

2:25n.l.

2:26. See also 2:97.
2:26.

2:27.

2:27. See 2:126-127.
2:28.

1:300.

It is a source of embarrassment to conservative

Catholics such as Michael Novak that Catholic countries

are very slow to develop capitalistic economies and

democratic institutions.

See Novak 249.

3° Tocqueville, Democracy 1:301. See Tocqueville,

Journey 150.

81 Tocqueville, Democracy 1:301.

82 Zetterbaum 120.

See Lively 197.

33 Tocqueville, Democracy 2:22.

W

Tocqueville thought that the quality of modern
democracy depended on established religions such as
those he encountered during his visit to America. His
assessment of religion and democracy, however, is often
judged an insufficient attempt to reconcile the demands
of democracy with revealed religion. At issue is the
political utility of religious faith. His critics argue
that genuine belief requires more than a conviction that
religion is socially useful. Indeed, a religion
understood to be socially useful is not and cannot be
more than a "species" of religion as opposed to genuine
religion.1 As Manent puts it, "la difficulte centrale
de l'interpretation tocquevillienne des rapports de la
democratie et de la religion" is that "La religion des
Americains perd de son utilite a proportion qu'ils
s'attachent a elle en raison de cette utilite." 2 The
vast majority of the scholarship on religion in
Tocqueville's thought is divided between those who
remonstrate him for being a hypocrite, that is, for
advocating intellectual liberty and myths at the same
time3, and those who sympathize with his attempt to

111

112

establish a democratic "civil religion."4 Both camps
share the assumption that Tocqueville is encouraging
belief in something less than a traditional and
organized religion. Although Tocqueville did think
there were two types of religion, his understanding of
the nature of religious faith does not countenance
myth-making.

Most commonly, religious faith is expressed through
organized, established religions. The religious zeal
that Tocqueville observed in America was not only
Christian in spirit but sectarian in form. For
Tocqueville, Americans embrace Christian morality
according to the tenets of their professed faith. From
a social standpoint, the details of their religious
belief are less important than the fact that they are
Christians.5 Happily for Americans, their various sects
share the general precepts that Tocqueville found so
important for democracy. Americans learn of the truth
of these precepts through participation in worship at
whatever Christian church they attend.6 They are
believers in the usual sense of the term; Tocqueville
writes that America is a religious nation and he means
it.7 He remarks that Christianity maintains its hold on
the public mind in America as "not only that of a
philosophical doctrine which has been adopted upon
inquiry, but of a religion which is believed (empih)

without discussion."8 It is not inconceivable that one

113

could believe one's religion to be true and socially
beneficial. This analysis sheds light on the following
oft-cited passage:

If it be of the highest importance to man, as

an individual, that his religion should be

true, it is not so to society. Society has

no future life to hope for or to fear; and

provided the citizens profess religion, the

peculiar tenets of that religion are of

little importance to its interests.9
As this passage indicates, believers concern themselves
first and foremost with religious truth. The
"innumerable" Christian sects in America, which are the
subject of the paragraph the above passage appears in,
all believe their religion to be the true religion and
not salutary myths. However, society has no need to
determine which religion is true - particularly American
society, since all the sects "are comprised within the
great unity of Christianity..."10 Far from interfering
with liberty, Tocqueville is protecting freedom of
conscience. The Western world is Christian already and
has nothing further to gain by favoring one form of
Christianity over others. Society does not need true
religion, but the individual does.

As we saw in Chapter Three, Tocqueville believed
that all men have need of dogmatic belief in religious
matters. Fear of death fosters a desire for
immortality, which is the natural basis for religion.

In hopes of eternal salvation men abide by a religious

creed that they regard as sactioned by the Deity, which

114

is a line of reasoning that Tocqueville called
self-interest rightly understood. An important
assumption behind the myth thesis is that the principle
of self-interest rightly understood, as Tocqueville
observed it in America, is a "species" of religion as
opposed to genuine religion.11 Genuine religion, so the
argument goes, transcends any consideration of
self-interest.12 Americans do not have genuine faith
because of the self-interested calculations that fuel
their belief.

This view is only partially correct and consequently
very misleading. Americans as a people are not capable
of genuine belief. But Americans are no less capable of
genuine belief than any other people. It takes the rare
intellect of a Pascal or a Montaign to sound the depths
of divine truths and thus to appreciate them solely for
what they are. Such knowledge of the divine comes at a
high price even to great minds. Pascal, for instance,
renounced every consideration of self-interest "to rally
all the powers of his mind...for the better discovery of
the most hidden things of the Creator."13 The amount of
effort he had to expend was so extraordinary that it
wore out his body; he died of old age before he was
forty.14 Only the very few are capable of genuine
belief. The rest of humanity has no choice but to
accept religious dogma on faith, summoning as much

belief as one can for that which one can never know.

115

Unable to partake of the highest form of religion,
the greater part of humanity turns to organized religion
for spiritual direction. They cannot solve the riddles
of human destiny alone, but they cannot escape their
fear of mortality.15 This is why Tocqueville defines
religion as "another form of hope...(that is) no less
natural to the human heart than hope itself."l6 Most
Americans, like most people, hope to find immortality
through organized religion. It is important to note
that for Tocqueville "The founders of eimpeh eii
religions have held to the same language," which is the
logic of self-interest rightly understood.17 This
necessarily implies that most believers are drawn to
their faith by the prospect of rewards in the next
world. The religion of the Americans is not a salutary
myth or a civil religion, but religion for the many,
which is organized religion as we know it and that for
Tocqueville is a species of genuine religion, or
religion for the few.

This analysis of Tocqueville's views on religion is
born out in an exchange that took place between
Kergorlay and Tocqueville in 1837, which is worth
quoting at length. Kergorlay writes the following from
Berlin:

As limited to my narrow observations as I
am, and wanting to use this scrap of paper, I
revert to the topic of women. And I beg you
to tell me whether or not American women and

English women have uniformly in all social
ranks, an external affectation of passiveness

116

and a kind of prudishness cf style which
makes a woman say to me: "my neck hurts"
when she has a sore throat, and when a woman
is pregnant, one says: "she is expecting."
Finally, does proper etiquette demand in
those countries that a woman doesn't look
like it even when she is in an impressionable
state caused by any feeling, be it the most
honest, the most chaste. The woman appears
to absolutely ignore the fact that she has a
throat, a stomach etc.? All these things are
obligatory in Berlin, mainly in the
fashionable society which has, as you know,
ideas very different from ours on what truly
good manners consist of. I would like to
know whether they are the general and
necessary fruits of Protestantism, as I am
inclined to believe. It seems to me that
Protestantism has eliminated good-heartedness
and naivety in all places where it
establishes itself; furthermore, I believe
that naivety is one of the most fecund
sources of imagination and intellectual
achieVement. Don't you think as I am inclined
to do, that Deism, which is improperly called
"natural religion" etc., is more naturally in
agreement with good manners and naivety than
Protestantism, and is then more favorable
from this point of view (let alone many
others) to the development of the faculties
of the nind?18

Tocqueville responds:

You ask me, if in America and England I find
the same prudery and affectation which so
justly disgust you in Berlin. Yes; and
especially in England, where it is easier to
enter a woman's bedroom in order to make love
to her than for any other purpose. Still I
must say, that in those two countries, where
the affectation of virtue and propriety is
carried by women to an absurd extent, there
is more real virtue than with us. Is this
the case in Berlin? The discovery of this
good result made me indulgent towards the
accompanying evil, though I naturally have
not much indugence in the matter, and at last
I thought that all that external and
conventional parade of propriety was,
perhaps, to female virtue, what an
established worship is to religion - a form
which powerful minds, whether for good or for
evil, break through, but which serves as a

117

protecting barrier to the weak and ordinary.
So I thought that all the pretence of
modesty, and rules of affected delicacy,
which are unnecessary for a really virtuous
woman, may perhaps be of use to the majority.
As to your remark upon Protestantism, I am
much inclined to share your opinion. But it
is a sub ect that one cannot discuss fasting
as I am.

Tocqueville only partly agreesv with Kergorlay's
views on Protestantism. 'Protestantism as an organized
religion is a type of form; something to be
distinguished from genuine (or as Kergorlay writes,
natural) religion., Kergorlay shows the same impatience
with forms that Tocqueville describes in Demoeracy as
concomitant with a belief in equality: To say that a
woman is "expecting" rather than "pregnant" is for
Kergorlay to be needlessly abstract and ambiguous about
an incontrovertible fact of female biology. Like modern
democrats, Kergorlay regards such abstraction as
"puerile artifices used to conceal or to set off truths
that should more naturally be bared to the light of
day..."20 Protestantism is a.form itself which begets
the use of forms in social life. For Kergorlay, the
removal of forms would: promote clear-sighted
intellectual progress, which springs from unfettered
naivete. Protestantism distorts naivete wherever it is
the established religion, as demonstrated in Berlin. If
the women of Berlin were free from ’Protestantism they

would also be free from the need to appear unflappable

in public. Kergorlay prefers Deism, which dispenses

118
with the need for revelation in favor of the light of
reason. Regretting the pejorative connotation
associated with Deism as a natural religion, he suggests
that it is superior to Protestantism in that it
stimulates the intellect, whereas Protestantism
obstructs the path of reason.

Tocqueville agrees that Protestantism is a form, but
disagrees that forms are useless. The "weak and
ordinary" cannot come to religious conviction through
reason. They need to rely on the spiritual direction
provided by an organized religion. Just as women who
lack in feminine virtue can imitate the truly virtuous
by relying on social standards of propriety, so can the
average worshipper attain some semblence of genuine
religion through an established church. Tocqueville
avoids a direct confrontation with his cousin. He
disagrees with Kergorlay on the usefulness of forms,
which include Protestantism, but does not pursue his
disagreement beyond qualified approval; he writes that
he is "much inclined to share" Kergorlay's opinion (1e
epie egee hephe d'etme he ppm eyie) - a far from
unequivocal endorsement. But Tocqueville cannot pursue
the disagreement any further. It would offend God. His
reference to fasting implies that it would be impious to
continue his line of reasoning. Judging from the tenor
of Tocqueville's correspondence with Kergorlay, it is

more likely that he feared jeopardizing his relationship

119

with his cousin than with God. Tocqueville and
Kergorlay had developed differing opinions on political
matters over the years, and Tocqueville consistently
expresses his concern that their political differences
will interfere with their friendship. The letter which
ends with this fasting comment deals at length with this
concern.21 Regardless of his reasons for playing down
his disagreement with Kergorlay, it is clear from the
passages cited that their differences are more than
superficial.

Tocqueville's references to religion for the many
and the few are not limited to his correspondence. The
most notable passage on this point in Democraey can be
found in one of his chapters on religion:

Among the sciences there are some that are

useful to the mass of mankind and are within

its reach; others can be approached only by

the few and are not cultivated by the many,

who require nothing beyond their more remote

applications: but the daily practice of the

science I speak of (religion) is

indispensable to all, although the study of

it is inaccessible to the greater number. 2
This does not mean, however, that since the many cannot
be genuine believers they necessarily are believers in
myths in the form of organized religions. Tocqueville's
comment that "Most religions are only general, simple,
and practical means of teaching men the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul"23 is not a declaration that
most religions are phony. Instead, it points to the

fact that organized religions are eternal truths

120
rendered intelligible to the crowd. For Tocqueville,
the essential truths are Christian truths and the
various Christian sects are various means of relating
these truths. Established religion may not be the
highest form of religion, but unlike genuine religion,
it links the many to the divine.

The many and the few need Christianity in order to
be free. Tocqueville consistently ‘maintained that
political liberty can thrive only among the enlightened.
The enlightened includes those who have knowledge of the
proper limits and divine origins of freedom. Religion
imparts the type of knowledge that Tocqueville thought
necessary to liberty.24

...in America religion is the road to

knowledge, and the observance of the divine

laws leads man to civil freedom.25
Christianity teaches that "civil liberty affords a noble
exercise to the faculties of man..."26 The Puritans
could acknowledge their choseness only after liberating
themselves from Charles I. According to Tocqueville,
Americans felt the need to establish Christianity in the
Western frontier to educate the settlers to the merits
of free institutions.27 A Christian education is
invaluable to modern democracy because it lends

legitimacy to liberal goals such as freedom, which

provides scope for greatness, and aids in the

121
preservation of freedom by preventing a free society
from collapsing into anarchy or despotism. Both of
these are brought, on by the failure of citizens to
properly appreciate liberty. Christianity supplies
moral ties where the political ties have been relaxed,
thereby preventing anarchy.28 It combats despotism by
reminding the faithful that their freedom is a gift from
God and therefore something to be taken seriously and
used wisely. Tocqueville holds out little hope for
liberty in democracies where religion has lost its sway.
Speculating on whether man can support ”religious
independence" and "political freedom" at the same time,
he writes that "if faith be wanting in him, he must be

subject; and if he be free, he must believe."29

1

2

 

Zetterbaum 147. See Lively 197.

Pierre Manent, Tocqueville eh Te nature

he T_ democratie (Paris: Julliard, 1982) 129.

3

4

Zetterbaum 147, Lively 197.

Koritansky 146; Alfred Balitzer, "Some Thoughts

16 (Winter, 1974): 31-50.

5

6

2:143.

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Tocqueville, Democracy 1:303.

Tocqueville, Memoir 1:293-294 and Democracy

Cf. Tocqueville, Democracy 1:303-308.
Tocqueville, Democracy 2:6.
Tocqueville, Democracy 1:303.
Tocqueville, Democracy 1:303.

Cf. Zetterbaum 111, Lively 199-200.
Cf. Zetterbaum 123, Lively 198-199.
Tocqueville, Democracy 2:44.
Tocqueville, Democracy 2:44.
Tocqueville, Democracy 1:301.
Tocqueville, Democracy 1:309-310.

Tocqueville, Democracy 2:125 (my emphasis). See

also Tocqueville, Eurppean Revolution 206.

122

123

13 Tocqueville, Oeuvpes 13 no.1: 439-440.

Translated with the assistance of Mamadou Gueye.

19

Tocqueville,

2° Tocqueville,

21 Tocqueville,

no.1: 445.

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,
Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Tocqueville,

Memoir 1:316-317.

Democracy 2:25.
Memoir 1:315-316 and Oeuvres 13

Democracy 2:21.
Democracy 2:145.
Democmacy 1:12, 2:22.
Democracy 1:41.
Democracy 1:44.
Democracy 1:306-307.
Democmacy 1:307.
Democracy 2:22.

CONCLUSION

Tocqueville, like Locke before him, recognized the
extent to which liberal democracy needs Christianity.
This view could not have been shared by earlier
liberals. Liberalism was in part a reaction to the
political havoc caused by medieval Christianity, which,
from the early liberals point of view, had plunged the
Western world into an ever-deepening abyss between moral
obligation and civic duty. The universal religion
established a new type of a commonwealth that
encompassed all political societies. Just as authority
was divided between the spiritual and temporal domain,
so were the loyalties of men divided between their
duties to God and their duties to their country. Not
only was human loyalty divided, Hobbes argued, but
divided unfairly. The claims of the spiritual authority
were much more powerful than that of the temporal
authority. In the event of having to make a hard choice
between the conflicting demands of each, reasonable men
would be foolish to fear punishment from the king more
than eternal damnation. This explained for Hobbes why
age of Christianity had born witness to centuries of

124

125
religious wars. Hobbes knew and respected the power of
religion and even made use of it to bolster the rule of
the sovereign. But Christianity as Hobbes knew it had
to be rendered politically impotent if civil society was
to serve the lower but rational goal of human
preservation.

Hobbes was successful, to a remarkable degree, in
convincing the modern liberal citizen that it is
inappropriate and undesirable to insist that one's
opinion should prevail the public realm. Commonplace
remarks such as "But, that's only my opinion" testify to
a willingness to consider one's opinion as no more
worthy than someone else's. This line of thinking
extends to religious beliefs. Americans, for instance,
generally disapprove of any attempts to link public
policy with the preferences of any particular Christian
sect or group of sects. Even the groups who are willing
to impose their version of morality on the public try to
do so within the established constitutional framework.
Part of the reason for this is Hobbes's success in
releasing the conscience from moral responsibility for
the political actions of representatives. Those with
the greatest urge to impose their religious views on
public policy confine such attempts within the
boundaries of established democratic procedures, such as
electing or appealing to like-minded representatives, as

opposed to overthrowing the state in the name of moral

126
obligation. Once the conscience was convinced to
respect social order, later liberals were able to build
on the social benefits of Christianity.

Following Hobbes's lead, Locke and Tocqueville
agreed that private passions had to be restrained, but
they did not agree that state control of religion was
desirable or necessary. Where Hobbes thought religion
too dangerous to be outside the reach of the sovereign,
Locke and Tocqueville thought that Christianity (as
transformed by Hobbes) could serve liberal ends best if
it were freed from the auspices of the state. Their
confidence in disestablishment was fortified by their
confidence in the pursuit of property as a diversion
from the pursuit of political power. Thanks to Hobbes's
taming of the conscience and the human desire for bodily
comfort, Locke and Tocqueville were able to rely on
Christianity to develop a dimension of liberalism they
felt Hobbes had neglected, or at least left
underdeveloped.

Hobbes revolutionized political thought with the
notion that the need for self-preservation renders all
men politically equal. The notion that men are
fundamentally equal became a premise of the liberal
tradition and an indisputable fact. But Tocqueville
emphasized that liberalism should also concern itself
with freedom and human dignity. Equality threatens to

exhalt the well-being of the individual at the expense

127

of the common good and any notion of human greatness
through individualism and materialism. These threats to
the moral and political integrity of democracy are not
enough to prompt Tocqueville to call for a halt to the
democratic revolution. Tocqueville knows that it is
impossible to prevent democracy from shaping modern
politics. Democracy leaves no room for its predecessor,
aristocracy. As the examples of the American Indians
and slave owners show, no form of aristocracy can
survive in a democracy. For all {the advantages of
aristocracy, among them its inhospitality to materialism
and individualism, Tocqueville would not have returned
it to its former glory if he could have. Democracy is
more just than aristocracy. Aristocracy necessarily
sacrifices the many for the few. Democracy does not
necessarily sacrifice the few for the many. Democracy
can provide scope for the great and for what is highest
in the many as long as it is informed by Christianity.

In America, Tocqueville observed that the Christian
sects, like other voluntary associations, combat
individualism and materialism. Through participation in
groups Americans learn to contemplate matters beyond
their personal welfare and the enjoyment of creature
comforts. Their views become enlarged as they consider
such things as the public good and God's will.
Associations require incentive to join before they can

work their charms. In this regard, moral associations

128

have an advantage over other types of associations. Men
can more easily ignore the public good than they can the
inevitability of death. Fear of death and the hope of
life after death is part of what it means to be a human
being. Incentive to turn to religion is natural to man
and consistent with the urgings of equality. Equality
encourages men to become self-interested, and nothing
could be more in their interest than eternal salvation.
This notion of self-interest rightly understood has led
to some confusion in the scholarship on Tocqueville.

Tocqueville has been wrongly accused of prescribing
myths in a clumsy attempt at social engineering. The
argument commonly made is that belief rooted in self-
interest cannot be belief in traditional organized
religion, which ' transcends self-interest. Yet
Tocqueville takes every opportunity to remind the reader
that religion is indispensible to modern democracy.
Therefore, the argument concludes, Tocqueville was
advocating myths that are socially beneficial. His
emphasis on the social utility of faith is evidence that
he was indifferent to the content of religion: his only
concern is that something like religion inculcates the
right habits. Almost all of the commentators on
Tocqueville agree that he was encouraging myth-making;
they disagree as to whether such efforts are
commendable, and whether such efforts can be successful.

Tocqueville was not, however, indifferent to the

129

content of religion. For Tocqueville, Christianity as a
form of worship is superior to other types of religion.
As evidenced by its influence in America, it shows
proper regard for human equality and liberty, unlike
other types of religions such as Islam and Hinduism.
Not only did Tocqueville declare a preference for
Christianity, but he implicitely suggests that liberal
democracy can benefit most from a religion that is
Protestant in character, or one that at least tolerates
some aspects of Protestantism. This is evident in his
treatment of Catholicism. The belief in saints,
intolerance of the commercial spirit and excessive
ritual are very specific things that Tocqueville
declares to be inconsistent with the spirit of liberal
democracy. In order to maintain its influence in modern
times, Catholicism needs to retreat from those doctrines
that collide with liberal democratic sentiment, to the
effect of looking more like Protestantism. Not only did
Tocqueville specify Christianity as the hope of liberal
democracy, he did so in a manner that took nothing away
from Christianity as a revealed religion.

Americans believe their religion to be true and
socially necessary. Tocqueville gives no indication
that social and individual calculations play a larger
role in religious faith in America than elsewhere.
Americans may not be disinterested believers, but

neither are most people. His references to religions as

130
a form and as a way of teaching men about the
immortality of the soul are not references to a civil
religion or a myth, but to his belief that organized
religions are not the highest form of religion.
Organized religions serve the spiritual needs of the
many, who are unable to experience the highest form of
religion. They translate the eternal for the multitude.
Scholars have mistaken the distinction between genuine
religion and organized religion for a distinction
between organized religion and civil (mythical)
religion. For Tocqueville, religious faith is not a
matter of genuinely believing or not believing at all;
instead it is a matter of believing as much as one is
capable of. This explains how Tocqueville can refer to
Americans as religious and as self-interested regarding
religious matters: Americans are religious to the
extent that they are capable of religious faith.
Tocqueville never thought that belief in the social
utility of religion could substitute for faith. His
message is that liberal democracy needs religion, that

is, citizens who believe their religion to be true.

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