Part 30

Its causes are irremovable; all you can do is to control its effects, and the best prospect of overcoming them is afforded by the representative system and the wide area of the United States with the diversities among its population.

2. Sudden impulses, carrying the people away and inducing hasty and violent measures[151].

Footnote 151:

_The Federalist_, No. LXII.

3. Instability in foreign policy, due to changes in the executive and in public sentiment, and rendering necessary the participation of a comparatively small council or Senate in the management of this department.

4. Ill-considered legislation. ‘Facility and excess of law-making[152],’ and ‘inconstancy and mutability in the laws[153],’ form the ‘greatest blemish in the character and genius of our governments.’

Footnote 152:

_The Federalist_, No. LXI.

Footnote 153:

_The Federalist_, No. LXXII.

5. The Legislature is usually the strongest power in free governments. It will seek, as the example of the English Parliament shows, to encroach upon the other departments; and this is especially to be feared from the House of Representatives as holding the power of the purse[154].

Footnote 154:

‘The Legislative Department is everywhere (_i.e._ in all the States) extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.... It is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the People ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions’ (_The Federalist_, No. XLVII). The people have now begun to resort to precautions; but it is not the ambition of State legislatures that is feared, it is their subserviency to private interests or the party machine.

6. The States, and especially the larger States, may overbear the Federal Government. They have closer and more constant relations with the citizen, because they make and administer the ordinary laws he lives under. His allegiance has hitherto belonged to them, and may not be readily given to the central authority. In a struggle, should a struggle come, State power is likely to prevail against Federal power.

7. There is in republics a danger that the majority may oppress the minority. Already conspicuous in some of the State governments, as for instance in Rhode Island, this danger may be diminished by the application of the federal system to the great area of the Union, where ‘society will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals or of the minority will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority[155].’

Footnote 155:

_The Federalist_, No. L.

8. Another source of trouble is disclosed by the rash and foolish experiments which some States have tried in passing laws which threaten the validity of contracts and the security of property. There are also signs of weakness in the difficulty which State Governments have found in raising revenue by direct taxation[156]. Citizens whose poverty does not excuse their want of public spirit refuse to pay; and the administration fears to coerce them.

Footnote 156:

_The Federalist_, No. XII.

Not less instructive than the fears of _The Federalist_ writers are their hopes. Some of the perils which have since been disclosed are not divined. Some institutions which have conspicuously failed are relied on as full of promise.

The method of choosing the President is recommended with a confidence the more remarkable because it was the point on which the Convention had been most divided and had been latest in reaching an agreement.

‘If the manner of the appointment of the Chief Magistrate be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages the union of which was to be wished for.... The process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any one who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honours in a single State, but it will require other talents and a different kind of merit to establish him in the confidence and esteem of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue[157].’

Footnote 157:

_The Federalist_, No. LXVII. In A.D. 1800, twelve years after Hamilton wrote this passage, the contest for the Presidency lay between Jefferson and Aaron Burr, and Hamilton was compelled by his sense of Burr’s demerits to urge his party to vote (when the choice came before the House of Representatives) for Jefferson, his own bitter enemy. What he thought of Burr, who, but for his intervention, would certainly have obtained the chief magistracy of the nation (and by whose hand he ultimately died), may be inferred from the fact that he preferred as President the man of whom he thus writes: ‘I admit that his (Jefferson’s) politics are tinctured with fanaticism; that he is too much in earnest in his democracy; that he has been a mischievous enemy to the principal measures of our past administration; that he is crafty and persevering in his objects; that he is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth; and that he is a contemptible hypocrite. But, &c.’ (Letter to James A. Bayard, Jan. 16, 1801.)

After this it is superfluous, as it would be invidious, to dwell on the deficiencies of some recent Presidents or Presidential candidates.

It is assumed that America will continue an agricultural and (to a less extent) a commercial country, but that she will not develop manufactures; and also that the fortunes of her citizens will continue to be small[158]. No serious apprehensions regarding the influence of wealth in elections or in politics generally are expressed.

Footnote 158:

‘The private fortunes of the President and Senators, as they must all be American citizens, cannot possibly be sources of danger’ (_The Federalist_, No. LIV).

The contingency of a division of the States into two antagonistic groups is not contemplated. When the possibility of State combinations is touched on, it is chiefly with reference to the action of small and of large States respectively. In particular no hint is dropped as to the likelihood of the institution of slavery becoming a bond to unite the Southern States and a cause of quarrel between them and the Northern. Yet slavery had given trouble in the Philadelphia Convention, and an opposition of North and South grounded upon it soon emerged.

Although the mischiefs of faction are dwelt on, nothing indicates that its embodiment in highly developed party systems, whose organizations might overshadow the legal government, had occurred to any one’s mind. Still less, of course, is there any anticipation of the influence to be exerted on politics by the distribution of offices. Not till long afterwards were they treated as ‘spoils of war.’

III. CRITICISM OF THE PREDICTIONS OF 1788.

Let us now see which of these views and forecasts have been verified by the event.

Of those put forth by the opponents of the Constitution not one has proved true. The States are still strong, the President is not a despot, though for a time during the Civil War he came near being one, nor has he ever fallen under the influence of any European power. The House does not consist of the ‘wealthy and well-born.’ The larger States do not combine against nor press hardly on the smaller. No great country has had so few wars or indeed so few foreign complications of any kind[159]. The Senate is still often called ‘an oligarchy,’ but this means only that it consists of comparatively few persons, most of them wealthy, and that it has a strong corporate feeling in favour of the personal interests of each of its members. It is really as dependent on public opinion as the House, perhaps even more afraid of public opinion, and as directly the creature of party machinery, though less directly of popular election.

Footnote 159:

Three wars since 1789: that of 1812, that of 1845, and that of 1898. Every one of these might no doubt have been avoided with honour, and two of them savoured of aggression, but the same may be said of nearly all the wars of European States.

One is surprised to find that of the many arrows of accusation levelled at the Constitution, all should have flown wide of the mark.

The deeper insight and more exact thinking of Hamilton and Madison fastened upon most of the real and permanent weaknesses in popular government. Yet even they could not foresee the particular forms which those weaknesses would assume in the new nation. To examine in detail the eight points specified above would involve an examination of American history for a century. I shall therefore simply indicate in a word or two the extent to which, in each case, the alarms or predictions of _The Federalist_ may be deemed well grounded.

1. The spirit of faction has certainly, as Madison expected, proved less intense over the large area of the Union than it did in the Greek republics of antiquity or in the several States from 1776 to 1789. On the other hand, the bonds of sympathy created by the Federal system have at times enabled one State to infect another with its own vehemence. But for South Carolina, there would have been no secession in 1861. Since 1880 the ‘demon of faction’ has been less powerful in the parties than at any previous date since the so-called ‘Era of Good Feeling’ in 1820.

2. Sudden popular impulses there have been. But finding a ready and constitutional expression in elections, they do not induce a resort to arms, while the elaborate system of checks on legislation seldom allows them to result in the passing of dangerous measures by Congress. In some States the risk of bad laws is serious, but it is lessened by the provisions of the Federal Constitution as well as by the veto power of the State Governor and the restrictions of recent State Constitutions.

3. The early history of the Union furnishes illustrations of feebleness and inconstancy in foreign policy, yet not greater than those which mark most monarchies. Royal caprice, or the influence of successive favourites, has proved more pernicious in absolute kingdoms or principalities than popular fickleness in republics. That the foreign policy of the United States was singularly consistent down till 1898, when it suddenly took an entirely ‘new departure’ was not due to the Senate. It must be credited partly to the good sense of the people, partly to the fact that the position and interests of the nation prescribed certain broad and simple lines.

4. Whatever may be thought of its handling of private bills, Congress was seldom prone to haste or reckless expenditure in legislation on public matters, until it passed the amazing Pensions Act of 1890. Nor has it given the country too many laws. It has been on the whole more blameable for what it neglects or postpones than for what it enacts. The censure is more true of the States, especially the newer Western States.

5. The House of Representatives has doubtless sought to extend its sway at the expense of other departments. Whether it has succeeded is a question on which competent observers in America itself differ; but the fact of their differing proves that the encroachments have not been considerable. Whenever the President is weak or unpopular, Congress seems to be gaining on the Executive Chief. When the latter is or seems strong, he can keep the Legislature at bay.

6. In the struggle which never quite ceases, though it is often scarcely noticed, between the States and the Federal Government, the States have on the whole lost ground. Nor are the larger States practically more formidable than the small ones. The largest is small compared with the immense Union. No State would now venture to brave the Federal Judiciary as Georgia did, and for a time did successfully (1832), in one of the painful cases regarding the Cherokee Indians.

7. The so-called Tyranny of the Majority, a subject too large to be fully examined here[160], has not hitherto proved a serious evil in America. This, however, is due rather to the character and habits of the people and their institutions generally than to the mere extent and population of the Union, on which the _Federalist_ writers relied.

Footnote 160:

The subject is discussed in the author’s _American Commonwealth_, chaps. lxxxiv and lxxxv.

8. There has been some unwise Congressional legislation, especially in currency matters, and, of course, much more of unwise State legislation. But property is secure, and the sense of civic duty seems, on the whole, to be improving.

It will appear from this examination, and from the fact (noted a few pages back) that some remarkable developments which political life has taken never crossed the minds of the authors of _The Federalist_, that these wisest men of their time did not foresee what strike us to-day as the specially characteristic virtues and faults of American democracy. Neither the spoils system nor the system of party nominations by wire-pullers crossed their minds. They did not foresee the inordinate multiplication of elections, nor the evils of confining eligibility for a seat in the legislature to a person resident in the electing district, nor the disposition to ‘play down’ to the masses by seductive proposals. That the power which money might come to exert lay quite out of their view is not to be wondered at, for no large fortunes then existed. No student of history will deem that these omissions detract from their greatness, for history teaches nothing more plainly than the vanity of predictions in the realm of what we call the moral and political sciences, in religion, in ethics, in sociology, in government and politics. Deep thinkers help us when they unfold those permanent truths of human nature which come everywhere into play. Historians help us when, by interpreting the past, they demonstrate what are the tendencies that have gone to create the present. Observers keen enough to interpret the underlying phenomena of their own time may help us by showing which of the tendencies now at work are likely to become ruling factors in the near future. But beyond the near future—that is to say, beyond the lifetime of the generation which already holds power—no true philosopher will venture. He may indulge his fancy in picturing the details of the remoter landscape; but he knows that it is a region fit for fancy, not for science. In the works of great thinkers there are to be found some happy guesses about times to come; but these are few indeed, compared with the prophecies whose worthlessness was so soon revealed that men forgot they had ever been made, or the dreams which, like those of Dante, idealized an impossible future from an irrevocable past.

As regards the views of Hamilton and Madison, who, be it remembered, do not present themselves as prophets, but as the censors of present evils which they are seeking to remedy, it may be added that the Constitution which they framed and carried checked some of these very evils (_e.g._ the unjust law-making and reckless currency experiments of the State legislatures); and that it was obviously impossible till the Federal government had begun to work to say how the existing forces could adapt themselves to it. Hamilton remarks in one of his letters that he holds with Montesquieu that a nation’s form of government ought to be fitted to it as a suit of clothes is fitted to its wearer[161]. He would doubtless have added that one cannot make sure of the fit until the suit has been tried on.

Footnote 161:

‘I hold with Montesquieu that a government must be fitted to a nation as much as a coat to the individual; and consequently that what may be good at Philadelphia may be bad at Paris and ridiculous at Petersburgh.’ To Lafayette, Jan. 6, 1799.

We must remember, moreover, that the causes which have affected the political growth of America are largely causes which were in 1788 altogether beyond human ken. The cotton gin, Napoleon’s willingness to sell Louisiana, steam communications by water and land, Irish and German immigration, have swayed the course of that history; but even the first of these factors had not risen over the horizon in that year, and the last did not become potent till halfway through the nineteenth century[162].

Footnote 162:

The first cargo of cotton was sent from America to Europe in 1791, and the cotton gin invented in 1793.

What the sages of the Convention do show us are certain tendencies they discern in their contemporaries, viz.:—

Recklessness and unwisdom in the masses, producing bad laws.

Unwillingness to submit to or support a strong government.

Abuse by the majority of its legal power over the minority.

Indifference to national as compared with local and sectional interests, and consequent preference of State loyalty to national loyalty.

That each of these tendencies then existed, and might have been expected to work for evil, admits of no doubt. But if we ask American history what it has to say about their subsequent course, the answer will be that the second and third tendencies have declined, and do not at present menace the public welfare, while the first, though never absent and always liable to marked recrudescence, as the annals of the several States prove, has done comparatively little harm in the sphere of national government. As to the fourth, which Hamilton seems to have chiefly feared, it ultimately took the form, not of a general centrifugal force, impelling each State to fly off from the system, but of a scheme for the separation of the Southern or slave-holding States into a separate Confederacy, and in this form it received, in 1865, a crushing and apparently final defeat[163].

Footnote 163:

When we come to Tocqueville, we shall find him touching but lightly on the two first of the above tendencies (partly, perhaps, because he attends too little to the State governments), but emphasizing the third and fearing from the fourth the dissolution of the Union.

IV. TOCQUEVILLE AND HIS BOOK.

Fifty-one years after the recognition of the independence of the United States, sixty-seven years before the beginning of the twentieth century, Alexis de Tocqueville published his _Democracy in America_, one of the few treatises on the philosophy of politics which has risen to the rank of a classic. His book, therefore, stands rather further than halfway back between our own days and those first days of the Republic which we know from the writings of the Fathers, of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Madison. It offers a means of measuring the changes that had passed on the country during the half-century from the birth of the Union to the visit of its most famous European critic, and again from the days of that critic to our own.

It is a classic, and because it is a classic, one may venture to canvas it freely without the fear of seeming to detract from the fame of its author. The more one reads Tocqueville, the more admiration does one feel for the acuteness of his observation, for the delicacy of his analysis, for the elegant precision of his reasonings, for the limpid purity of his style; above all, for his love of truth and the elevation of his character. He is not only urbane, but judicial; not only noble, but edifying. There is perhaps no book of the generation to which he belonged which contains more solid wisdom in a more attractive dress.

We have here, however, to regard the treatise, not as a model of art and a storehouse of ethical maxims, but as a picture and criticism of the government and people of the United States. And before using it as evidence of their condition seventy years ago, we must appraise the reliance to be placed upon it[164].

Footnote 164:

Some interesting remarks upon Tocqueville’s tour in America and upon his views of American affairs may be found in President Gilman’s Introduction to a recent edition (1898) of the English translation of Tocqueville’s book.

First let it be observed that not only are Tocqueville’s descriptions of democracy as displayed in America no longer true in many points, but that in certain points they never were true. That is to say, some were true of America, but not of democracy in general, while others were true of democracy in general, but not true of America. It is worth while to attempt to indicate the causes of such errors as may be discovered in his picture, because they are errors which every one who approaches a similar task has to guard against. Tocqueville is not widely read in the United States, where the scientific, historical, and philosophical study of the institutions of the country, apart from the legal study of the Constitution, is of comparatively recent growth. He is less read than formerly in England and even in France. But his views of the American government and people have so passed into the texture of our thoughts that we cannot shake off his influence, and, in order to profit by it, are bound to submit his conclusions and predictions to a searching though always respectful examination.

The defects of the book are due to three causes. He had a strong and penetrating intellect, but it moved by preference in the _a priori_ or deductive path, and his power of observation, quick and active as it was, did not lead but followed the march of his reasonings. It will be found, when his method is closely scrutinized, that the facts he cites are rather the illustrations than the sources of his conclusions. He had studied America carefully and thoroughly. But he wanted the necessary preparation for that study. His knowledge of England, while remarkable in a native of continental Europe, was not sufficient to show him how much in American institutions is really English, and explainable only from English sources.

He wrote about America, and meant to describe it fully and faithfully. But his heart was in France, and the thought of France, never absent from him, unconsciously coloured every picture he drew. It made him think things abnormal which are merely un-French; it made him attach undue importance to phenomena which seemed to explain French events or supply a warning against French dangers.

He reveals his method in the introduction to his book. He draws a fancy sketch of a democratic people, based on a few general principles, passes to the condition of France, and then proceeds to tell us that in America he went to seek the type of democracy—democracy pure and simple—in its normal shape.

‘J’avoue que dans l’Amérique, j’ai vu plus que l’Amérique; j’y ai cherché une image de la démocratie elle-même, de ses penchants, de son caractère, de ses préjugés, de ses passions.’