Tocqueville: Democracy in America

 

In 1831, a young French aristocrat named Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States to make a study of the new country's prison system. While treading the fresh soil, he turned his attention to the character of the country itself. He became enamored by the democratic revolution the nation had undergone since its liberation from England in the war of 1776 and its establishment of its constitution in 1787.

In contrast to his native France and its development following the revolution of 1789 and the ascendancy of Napoleon in 1799, Tocqueville believed there was something much more egalitarian about the democratic character of the States. Moreover, he believed these egalitarian ideals he sensed in the real-life world of the citizens represented a new spirit of the age, one which he believed the whole world would come to emulate. He was not wrong.

At the same time Tocqueville admired the democracy and equality of the New World, he also observed some underdetermined features about the way the country operated which might lead to future malfunction. He was especially critical of how underdetermined legal matters were regarding political crimes as defined in national and state constitutions.

"Nothing could be more alarming," he wrote in Democracy in America (1835/1840), "than the vagueness of American laws when they are defining political crimes properly so called. Article I, section IV of the Constitution of the United States avers: 'The crimes which will involve the impeachment of the president are treason, bribery or other serious crimes and offenses.' Most of the state constitutions are even more obscure." Tocqueville believed unscrupulous politicians would not fear such an ill-defined sort of paper decree. Such "great criminals," he wrote, "will doubtless risk its empty severity."