- On Liberty
Only an ambitious or a foolish man could, after seeing America, maintain that in the actual state of the world,
American political institutions could be applied elsewhere than there. To be convinced of that it is enough to see the
different ways in which republicanism is understood and functions in the various States of the Union according to
different degrees of ___ [word illegible] and experience found there. When I speak of their institutions, I mean
taken as a whole. There is no people but could usefully adopt some parts of them.
Political liberty is a difficult food to digest. It is only extremely robust constitutions that can take it. But when it
has been digested, albeit with pain, it gives the whole body social a nerve and an energy which surprises even those
who expected the most from it.
America created municipal liberty before it created public liberty. We have done and still do exactly the
opposite. Cause of all our ills, we want to erect a column beginning with the capital; to be master-craftsmen before
we are apprentices.
One of the causes which singularly militate in favor of the Union (?)[question mark in book] is that all
outstanding men and all the great political passions have an interest in supporting it.
Fatal influence on the military spirit and military obedience on liberty.
The Americans do not have virtue (vertu), but good bearing.
- On Great and Small Parties
What I call great political parties, those concerned with principles and not their consequences, with general
questions and not with particular cases, wit ideas and not with men, those parties generally have nobler traits, more
generous passions, more real convictions and a look of more frankness and boldness than the others.
Private interest, which always plays a great part in political passions, is here more skillfully concealed under the
veil of public interest; sometimes it even succeeds in escaping the sight of those whom it animates and drives to
action.
The little political parties on the other hand are generally without political faith; their characters are consistent
and stamped with a blatant selfishness shown in all their acts; their anger is cold. Their language is violent, their
progress timid and uncertain. The means they employ are wretched, as is the end they seek; great parties overturn
society, the little ones pester more than they disturb it; the first often make one pity humanity, the second despise it;
both, the one and the other, have one feature in common: they hardly ever employ to reach their ends means which
conscience completely approves. There are men of integrity in almost all parties, but there is no party of
integrity.
America has had great parties, but they exist no longer; there has been a great gain in happiness, but, in morality,
I doubt it. I cannot conceive a more wretched sight in the world than that presented by different coteries (they do not
deserve the name of parties) which now divide the Union. In broad daylight one sees in their breasts the excitement
of all the little shameful passions which ordinarily are careful to keep themselves hidden at the bottom of the human
heart.
As for the country's interest, no one thinks about it, and if it is referred to, that is for form's sake. The parties put
it at the head of their deed of association, just as our fathers printed "by royal permission" on the first page of their
books.
It is a shame to see what coarse insults, what petty
slanders and what impudent calumnies fill the papers that serve as their mouthpieces, and with what unashamed
disregard of all the social decencies they daily arraign before the tribunal of public opinion the honor of families and
the secrets of the domestic hearth.
(Tocqueville, p. 250)
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