Jorge Lagunas
History 100
March 6, 2012
Tyranny in America
When Alexis de Tocqueville came to the United States he was going to study the prison system but he was attracted to the quality of conditions and democracy. Since he saw the democratic government fail in his homeland, France, he wanted to study and learn about how it worked in America. His studies brought him to realize that democracy and condition of equality was going to expand throughout America and was not going to stop. Seeing as democracy was unstoppable he studied the government to see the positive and negative or good and bad in the system. De Tocqueville found a number of problems with the democratic government such as the equality of condition, power of the majority and individualism. But not all is bad. De Tocqueville argues that there are still some positive aspects in the Democratic government and ways to prevent the negative.
One big problem that de Tocqueville discusses is the idea of equality among Americans.
If everyone believes in the idea of equality than everyone will believe that no man should rule or have power over the rest of the people. The best way to keep order or run the country will be for everyone to have part in it. This is where the idea of power of majority comes from. The problem is not the power of majority but fact that it can lead the majority to become too powerful and no way to prevent it. “What I most fault democratic government for, as it is organized in the United
States, is not its weakness, as many in Europe claim, but the opposite, its irresistible power. And what I detest most in America is not the extreme liberty that prevails there, but the few protections against tyranny (de Tocqueville, 74).

One negative aspect that de Tocqueville sees is the power or tyranny of the majority and the few protections against it. “If there is one country in the world where one can hope to appreciate the full value of the principle of popular sovereignty, and to study both benefits and dangers of applying it in the affairs of society, surely that country is America” (de Tocqueville,
54). The majority has all the power in democracy and if not used right the power can become tyrannical and abuse the minority. De Tocqueville argues that if an individual can abuse his power and harm his opponents, so can a majority. If men can be corrupt do their character change when they are put with others and form a majority (de Tocquveille,73). One should not give power to only one person but neither to many. De Tocqueville stated allowing the majority with too much power is a weakness in government because when an individual or party suffers at the hands of the majority there is nowhere to go. They cannot go to the neither the legislative or executive branch because they both serve the majority (de Tocqueville,74).
The legislative branch is also a weakness de Tocqueville sees. “Legislative instability is an inherent weakness of democratic government because it is in the nature of democracies to bring inexperienced people to power. This weakness is more or less important depending on the power and means given to the legislators” (de Tocqueville, 71). The branch represents the people so it usually has more power than the other branches. If there is no one or nothing from keeping its power from becoming too great it can become quickly tyrannical without trouble. By increasing its power it makes the executive branch weaker. This weakens the president’s power in a certain way but however gives him the change to be in power more. In order to remain in power or be re-elected he must follow what the people say and cannot make any decisions for himself (de Tocqueville,75). The reason why this works is that the people now decide who is going to run the country and they want someone that will grant them what they want. So if a
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president is elected he has to technically obey to the people because he does not he will not be in office any longer. The president is now as de Tocqueville will call a “passive agent” of the government (de Tocqueville, 75).
De Tocqueville has a great argument in which he discusses how the power of the majority is very dangerous. The power of the majority can control parts of the government but even worse than that is the control of a mind of an individual. If all men are equal then the opinion of the majority will be the greatest than anyone else’s. So to think differently than the majority is to basically go against the majority, which than leads to losing freedom of thought.
He states that a king can only control what you do but not your will or what you think, but a majority does. He explains that the majority can do this because “there is no power so absolute that it can hold in one hand all social forces and overcome all resistance except a majority armed with the right both to make and to execute laws” (de Tocqueville, 76). This basically means that a majority has physical, behavior and moral authority on an individual or group. He further explains that the tyranny of the majority in America is far worse than the tyranny of a king because “A single ruler, despotism attacked the spirit by attacking the body; and spirit, escaping the blows, rose gloriously above them; but in the democratic republic, this is not how tyranny proceeds; it leaves the body alone and goes straight for the spirit” (de Tocqueville, 77). In translation a king wanting to crush the spirit of a man will crush the body but not his spirit making his spirit stronger. However, the majority will attack the spirit which will also cause harm to the body. Not only does the democratic republic attack the spirit but everything around it such as privileges of citizenship and right to humanity (de Tocqueville, 77). De Tocqueville stated “the greatest threat to the American republics is the omnipotence of the majority.
Governments perish from weakness or from tyranny” (de Tocqueville, 80). “If Americans ever
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lose their freedom, it will be the fault of the omnipotent majority that will have driven the minority to despair and forced them to take up arms. We will then see anarchy, the consequence of despotism” (de Tocqueville, 81). So what de Tocqueville realized is that the tyranny of the majority is a serious and dangerous aspect that needs to be prevented.
The last problem that de Tocqueville argues that equality causes is individualism. When there is equality the chances of individualism occurring rises (de Tocqueville, 110). The reason this happens is because “As social equality expands, many people have never acquired or held onto enough education and property to be self-sufficient. They owe nothing to anymore, they expect nothing from anyone; they are accustomed to thinking of themselves as solitary, and naturally they assume that destiny is in their own hands” (de Tocqueville, 111). Individualism causes to tyranny because since everyone isolates themselves they lose attention to public affairs which allows tyranny to continue. Even worse than tyranny happening is the fall of a government from anarchy. Equality makes people feel independent and there will be nothing to hold them together. This can lead to the government to anarchy. “Since citizens have a little influence over each other, it seems that without the national government holding them together, there would soon be chaos, with every citizen going his separate ways, and society will quickly reduce to dust
(de Tocqueville, 162).
Just as de Tocqueville found many negative aspects of the democratic government he also found ways to prevent it. One way to prevent tyranny of the people was with a judicial system that is not dependent on the majority and power of judicial review. This is the only way to prevent the power of majority from becoming too great and becoming tyrannical. Before the president will make laws under the influence of the majority. But now the judicial system can check if the laws are constitutional. Judges also help against the tyranny of the people because
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they are not elected they are pointed which means they make their own decisions with influence from the majority. But more important than judges are juries. Juries are also way to protect independence and freedom. “A jury teaches all citizens to think like judges, to acquire some of their ways of thinking, and these are the very way of thinking that best prepare a people for freedom” (de Tocqueville, 82). It teaches and spreads the concepts of justice, fairness, responsibility and love of independence. Having juries eliminates the possibly of individualism because “On a jury everyone becomes a magistrate; all men are made aware of their obligations to society and the duty to participate in government. By obliging men to be responsible for more than personal affairs, individual egoism, which corrodes society, is checked (de Tocqueville, 82).
A jury is one the most important assets to the people it is like free education and it also the most efficient means of teaching them how to rule (de Tocqueville, 84).
Another way that de Tocqueville found a way to fight individualism was the newspapers.
When people forgot about public affairs the newspaper brought it back to their attentions. It also brought people together. “If there were no papers, there would be almost no communal activity”
(de Tocqueville, 120). The paper also brought people together by communicating with each other. Just when they thought they could not find anyone the paper comes and helps. When a large number of people desire or need to get together, they are often unable to do so but then the newspaper appears and becomes a guiding light for those who had been looking for each other in the darkness and who now are able to meet and unite (de Tocqueville, 120).
In conclusion, De Tocqueville provides the negatives of democracy: conditions of equality and tyranny of majority. But he also gave the positive ways to prevent it such as newspaper and a judicial institution. He states democracy important because “To instruct democracy, is to revive beliefs, purify morals, regulate its movements; substitute experience for
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inexperience, knowledge of true interests for blind instincts; adapt government to time and place and modify it according to the circumstances of the people” (de Tocqueville, 38).
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