Democracy in America — Volume 1Tocqueville, Alexis de
History
Democracy in America — Volume 1
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Democracy -- United States; United States -- Politics and government; United States -- Social conditions
The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They all
differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his Creator,
but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to
man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all the
sects preach the same moral law in the name of God. If it be of the
highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should
be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future
life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a
religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little
importance to its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the
United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and
Christian morality is everywhere the same.
It may be believed without unfairness that a certain number of
Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than from
conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is religious,
and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in
the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no
greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature,
than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most
enlightened and free nation of the earth.
I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in general,
without even excepting those who do not admit religious liberty, are
all in favor of civil freedom; but they do not support any particular
political system. They keep aloof from parties and from public affairs.
In the United States religion exercises but little influence upon the
laws and upon the details of public opinion, but it directs the manners
of the community, and by regulating domestic life it regulates the
State.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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