OHIO

After coasting along for hours beside a dark forest that only ends where the lake begins, one suddenly sees a church tower, elegant houses, fine villages, with an appearance of wealth and industry. Nothing but nature is savage here; man fights against her everywhere armed with all the resources of civilization. One goes without transition from the wilds into a city street, from the most savage scenes to the most smiling pictures of civilized life. If you are not caught by nightfall and forced to lodge at the foot of a tree, you are sure to come to a place where you will find everything, even French fashions and Palais Royal caricatures.

At 7 o'clock we left Cleveland. Lovely night. The moon lighting the forest and reflected in the waters of the lake.

(Tocqueville, p. 130)

The Founder is the leader not answerable for the undertaking. He directs the common efforts and presents no accounts. All the other members of the society are only agents who have but a possible claim to the common fund, if the association is broken up. But until that event they only get enough to live on in comfort. If some of them want to withdraw, they can,but they leave their stake. If the whole society should wish to be dissolved, it can do it. But it has not yet wanted to, and its affairs prosper incredibly. It already owns an immense tract of land.

(p. 227)
***

[written] Nov. 26; cont. Nov. 28, 1831

(Pierson, p. 545)

[published] Dec. 8, 1831

In France the middle classes have very narrow prejudices against the upper classes, but perhaps the upper classes, too, have much too strong an unfavorable impression based on the vulgarity which they note in the others' manners and the turn of their thoughts.

They deduce from the incontestable fact conclusions about political incapacity which are not justified, at least not to the extent that it is supposed.

Another point which America demonstrates is that virtue is not, as has long been claimed, the only thing that maintains republics, but that enlightenment, more than any other thing, makes this social condition easy.

The Americans are scarcely more virtuous than others; but they are infinitely more enlightened (I speak of the masses) than any other people I know; I do not want to say that there are more people there who know how to read and write (a matter to which perhaps more importance is attached than is due), but the body of people who have understanding of public affairs, knowledge of the laws and of precedents, feeling for the well-understood interests of the nation and the faculty to understand them is greater there than in any other place in the world.

On Democracy
In America it is extremely interesting to observe the inclinations and instincts of democracy left to itself, and to see to what social state it must of necessity lead the society it dominates. Such a study is particularly interesting for us, the French, who are going perhaps towards despotism, perhaps towards a republic, but certainly towards a democracy without limits.

(Tocqueville, p. 272)

Public education; care of the United States in forming new States.

Criminal laws.

Blacks legally driven out of Ohio, in fact living there.

Are there political innovations?

There are in civil and criminal matters.

Finally, our last reason for lengthening our circuit thus would be that, to go from New Orleans to Charleston, we would have to cross the States of Alabama and Georgia, where are to be found some Indian tribes, the Creeks, Cherokees, and Chactas, whose customs and ways of life are curious and well worth examining.

[written] Dec. 1, 1831

(Pierson, p. 570)

Q. Your judicial institutions are different from those of other States?
A. In one point especially: our judges are appointed by the legislature and for a term of seven years only. I think that in the whole Union there is only Vermont that has done the same.

Q. Do you think that innovation good?
A. I think it very pernicious. The judges ought to be independent of political passions. That is the greatest safeguard of our liberties. Here they are under the yoke of party spirit.

Q. Is the evil felt by the masses?
A. I think it is. We hope soon to change that part of our Constitution. But for that one must call a convention together, and we are afraid that with the existing political passions it might not be well composed. That which made our present Constitution in 1802 was composed very badly. Ohio then was populated by people not at all to be recommended, and the morality of the voters was reflected in their choice. We have granted too much to democracy here.

(Tocqueville, p. 82)

Tocqueville's interview with Mr. Walker, an attorney

Mr. Walker, a very distinguished young lawyer from Ohio

Q. Do you think that your system of appointment for the judges is good?
A. I think it very dangerous, and experience has already shown up its vices. In general our Constitution tends towards too unlimited democracy. It has other defects too; for our legislative body is too small in number, and that takes away some of its moral standing; one is never certain that it really represents the will of the people.

Q. I have heard talk of the extreme fertility of this part of your territory; is what is said about it true?
A. Yes; I was born and have spent part of my life in Massachusetts. There an acre yields 25 to 30 bushels a year. Here, from 70 to 80.

Q. Is it true that part of the population of Ohio is already getting under way to cross to the right bank of the Mississippi?
A. Yes. This is what is happening: those who possess land generally keep it and stay here. But their sons go to seek their fortune further West in the States where the land is still uninhabited. Moreover every year a crowd of workmen, proletarians from other States or from Europe, arrive in our towns. These men stop here for two or three years. The price of labor is so high (one third more than in New England ) and the cost of living so low, that in two or three years they can put by some capital.
Then they leave us and go West to buy lands and become landowners.

Q. Is it true that there is never a man of leisure in your towns?
A. I know no one who does not have a profession and work at it.

Q. How do you stand with regard to public education in Ohio?
A. The State of Ohio which contains about 25,000,000 acres, is methodically divided up into townships each comprising the same acreage. When Congress registered Ohio as a territory, it ordained that one 32nd or 36th part of all the land in each township should not be sold but should provide funds for public education. It established the same rule in favor of religious worship. We already find that these funds supply our greatest provision for the establishment of schools. What holds up the progress of education with us is the lack of good teachers.

Q. Does the government concern itself with education?
A. One must make a distinction: everyone is free to establish a school or a college; in that respect the State has nothing to do with education. But you see that for its part the State is concerned to provide free education, and so it reserves control, indirectly it is true. So the schools are subjected to inspectors, not central ones but inspectors appointed by each locality, and they examine the masters, their methods and the progress of the pupils.

Q. With what State does your local government system have most analogy?
A. With the local government system of Pennsylvania which is the neighboring State.

Tocqueville's interview with Mr. Chase, an attorney

Mr. Chase, a Cincinnati lawyer, said to me today: "We have carried democracy here right to its ultimate limits. The suffrage is universal. The result is very bad choices, in the towns especially. Thus the four last members elected for the county of Cincinnati are absolutely unworthy to hold the position to which they have been elevated."

Q. But how did they manage to get appointed?
A. By flattering everybody, a thing which men of character will never do; by mixing with the mob; by basely flattering its emotions; by drinking together. But it is not generally to the State assemblies that the people send people like that. One sees a lot of them in Congress. In spite of all however it is still the influence of men of talent that governs us.

Q. But do you not think that when the electoral franchise is so widespread, the people must necessarily often make a bad choice?
A. I think, and I am convinced that there is not a man of distinction in the Union but feels that a very extended suffrage is a fatal thing. But they cannot fight against the flood of public opinion which is flowing perpetually in this direction. We have seen an example in Virginia. Virginia was the State of the Union where the landowners had succeeded in maintaining an electoral property qualification up till now. A year ago at last they were overcome. They began to lower their property qualifications.

Now they have no power to stop themselves. It is only in New England and particularly in Massachusetts, of which I can speak as my family comes from there, that the people are sufficiently enlightened and masters enough of their passions always to elect the most remarkable men. But I believe that is an exception.

Q. What is the ordinary revenue of the State of Ohio?
A. About half a million francs. But it often makes extraordinary outlays. The canals have already cost 6,000,000. It has covered that expense by a loan. Just to indicate how poor America is in capital, to find that sum it had to go to Europe.

Q. Do you in Ohio have the local government system of New England?
A. No. Our system is more like that of Pennsylvania. We have townships, but they do not as in New England form a single, constant entity having but one will and one government. In Ohio one often finds in the township a town having its own separate government, independent of the township. I find the system in New England simpler and more consistent.

Q. Do you not think that in Ohio you have done something dangerous in having the judges appointed by the legislature and limited their term of office to seven years?

A. Yes. I think that measure is dangerous. The judges in America are there to hold the balance between all parties, and their function is particularly to oppose the impetuosity and mistakes of democracy. Springing from it, depending on it for the future, they cannot have that independence. Moreover Vermont goes even further than we as it has them elected every year.

(Tocqueville, p. 84)


Tocqueville's interview with Mr. MacLean, a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States

He said to us: What I find most favorable with us to the establishment and maintenance of republican institutions is our division into States. I do not think that with our democracy we could govern the whole Union for long, if it formed but one single people. That is all the more true for the great nations of Europe. I hold too that the federal system is peculiarly favorable to the happiness of peoples.

The legislature of a great nation can never enter into the details of local interests as the legislature of a small nation can. By our federal organization we have the happiness of a small people and the strength of a great nation.

Q. Do you know how many voters there are in Ohio?
A. About 150,000. At General Jackson's election 130,000 voted. Election time is much less stormy that you would expect, because of the extreme care taken to avoid large assemblies of people. Each township has an electoral college. In six hours the election is finished for the whole State, without disturbance, without travelling and without expense.

Q. Do you know why there are so few banks in Ohio?
A. Ten years ago there were some forty, but they all went bankrupt, and the people have certainly lost confidence in them. Besides the large quantity of paper that they issued gave a distorted value to the various consumer goods. Now scarcely any notes are accepted except those of the Bank of the United States.

Q. Is there not an urge to abolish the privilege of the Bank of the United States?
A. Yes. Party politicians exploit for their own benefit the instinctive hatred to which the thought of privilege or monopoly always give rise. I do not trust the good faith of the enemies of the Bank. The effects of its operations are clearly beneficial especially in the West where it provides a trustworthy, portable currency. Apart from its other advantages, it scores by preventing the establishment of bad banks. It refuses to accept their notes, and so discredits them on the spot.