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 remarks I have made will suffice to display the character of
Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the result (and
this should be constantly present to the mind of two distinct
elements), which in other places have been in frequent hostility, but
which in America have been admirably incorporated and combined with one
another. I allude to the spirit of Religion and the spirit of Liberty.
The settlers of New England were at the same time ardent sectarians and
daring innovators. Narrow as the limits of some of their religious
opinions were, they were entirely free from political prejudices. Hence
arose two tendencies, distinct but not opposite, which are constantly
discernible in the manners as well as in the laws of the country.
It might be imagined that men who sacrificed their friends, their
family, and their native land to a religious conviction were absorbed
in the pursuit of the intellectual advantages which they purchased at
so dear a rate. The energy, however, with which they strove for the
acquirement of wealth, moral enjoyment, and the comforts as well as
liberties of the world, is scarcely inferior to that with which they
devoted themselves to Heaven.
Political principles and all human laws and institutions were moulded
and altered at their pleasure; the barriers of the society in which
they were born were broken down before them; the old principles which
had governed the world for ages were no more; a path without a turn and
a field without an horizon were opened to the exploring and ardent
curiosity of man: but at the limits of the political world he checks
his researches, he discreetly lays aside the use of his most formidable
faculties, he no longer consents to doubt or to innovate, but carefully
abstaining from raising the curtain of the sanctuary, he yields with
submissive respect to truths which he will not discuss. Thus, in the
moral world everything is classed, adapted, decided, and foreseen; in
the political world everything is agitated, uncertain, and disputed: in
the one is a passive, though a voluntary, obedience; in the other an
independence scornful of experience and jealous of authority.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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