John Cotton,
1584-1652
English-born American
cleric who was vicar of
Saint Botolph's Church in
England until he was
summoned to court for
his Puritanism. He fled to
Boston, Massachusetts,
where he became a civil
and religious leader.
John Cotton, The Devine Right to Occupy the Land (1630)
1.
“The placing of a people in this or that country is from the appointment of
the Lord.” In other words, God assigns land to a certain people.
2.
God makes room for people in three ways:
•
He casts out enemies of a people before them by lawful war.
(Heathens)
•
He gives a foreign people favor or rights to a land through purchase
•
He makes available places in a country that are vacant, even if the
land it not totally vacant
3.
“…[N]o nation is to drive out another without special commission from
Heaven, such as the Israelites had, unless the natives do unjustly wrong
them, and will not recompense the wrongs done in a peaceful manner.”
4.
“We (the Puritans) must discern how God appoints us this place.”
5. How do a people know if they should emigrate?
·
Sake of knowledge
·
Gain sake
·
Establish a colony
·
Talents are better employed elsewhere
·
To escape bad authorities and avoid evils
·
When some grievous sins overspread a country
·
When escaping over-burdensome debts and miseries
·
When persecuted
Questions:
Was North America vacant?
Does God really appoint a people land?
John Winthrop
1588-1649
English colonial
administrator who was
the first governor of
Massachusetts Bay
Colony, serving seven
terms between 1629
and 1649.
John Winthrop
A Model of Christian Charity
Main Points:
God has made different classes of men, and, indeed, of all things. All men
are not created equal. The reason hereof:
1.
In conformity to the rest of the world, and demonstrating his wisdom,
God created a great variety and differences in his creatures for the
preservation of the whole.
2.
The differences give humans the opportunity to manifest the work of
the Spirit within them.
3.
•
The poor should be loyal and honest in their service to their
betters and to authorities.
•
The rich and powerful should honestly and loyally dispense with
justice and mercy to the poor.
God made variety and differences so that all men would have a need
of one another. This mutual need knits mankind “more nearly
together in the Bonds of Brotherly affection.” Thus, by serving his
fellow mankind, man serves “the glory of his creator and the common
good of the creature, man.”
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
We have made a covenant with God to form a new colony in a new land and
live as God would want us.

If We Are Good: If we fulfill our covenant (i.e. do justly, love mercy, and
walk humbly with our God) the “Lord will be our God, and delight to
dwell among us, as his own people, and will command a blessing upon
us in all our ways. So that we shall see much more of his wisdom,
power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted. We
shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be
able to resist a thousand of our enemies…” We will be considered to be
a city upon a hill, and the eyes of all peoples will be upon us.

If We are Bad: “…if we shall neglect the observation of these articles
which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling, with our
God, shall fall to embrace the present world and prosecute our carnal
intention, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord
will surely break out in wrath against us; be revenged of such a [sinful]
people and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.”
Questions:
1.
Did the Puritans live up to their ideals?
2.
Why was it necessary for them to leave England?
3.
Does community negate individualism?
John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity
Questions:
1.
In this world, does God always punish the wicked and bless the virtuous?
2.
Are all men created equal or created different? What does God expect us
to do in regard to treating people equally? When should men be considered
equal? When should they be considered unequal?
3.
What were Winthrop’s views of equality?
4.
Winthrop’s views of community?
5.
What was the Puritan covenant?
6.
Were the eyes of the world really on the Puritans? Were they really a city
upon a hill?
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
Opening main point of Governor Winthrop:
Anne Hutchinson has troubled the peace of the
commonwealth and the churches here.
“…[Y]ou have maintained a meeting and an assembly in
your house that hath been condemned by the general
assembly as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of
God nor fitting for your sex….”
Anne Hutchinson:
“I hear not things laid to my charge.”
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
Governor Winthrop’s accusation toward Hutchinson:
You have meetings in which you express opinions different from
the word of God that “may seduce many simple souls that resort
unto you,…”
Hutchinson in her defense:
“Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience
I know to be truth I must commit myself unto the Lord.”
Question from Mr. Nowel:
“How do you know that that was the spirit?
Hutchinson’s eventual reply:
“…by an immediate revelation.”
Governor Winthrop’s conclusion:
…[T]he ground work of her revelations is the immediate
revelation of the spirit and not by the ministry of the word and
that is the means by which she hath very much abused the
country….”
The Trial of Anne Hutchinson (1637)
Verdict: Guilty
“Mrs. Hutchinson, the sentence of the court you hear is that
you are banished from out of our jurisdiction as being a
woman not fit for our society, and are to be imprisoned till
the court shall send you away.”
John Winthrop
Little Speech on Liberty
Main Points:
The question addressed: how does the authority of the magistrates stand in
relation to the liberty of the people?
1.
When you see weakness in the leaders (magistrates) you have chosen,
you should reflect upon your own weaknesses since you chose them.
2.
The magistrates try to govern and judge as best as can according to
God’s laws, as well as our own.
3.
If the magistrate’s error is clearly out of wickedness, he must be held
accountable for his transgressions. However, if it is not clear that his
error was due to evil intentions, then the people, who have a covenant
with their leaders, need to bear the consequences of the error.
4. There are two kinds of liberty:
a.
Natural liberty: This is a liberty man shares in common
with beasts. Man, as he stands in relation to man, has the
liberty to do good or evil. The exercise of [natural] liberty
makes men grow more evil, and in time to be worse than
brute beasts…. This is that great enemy of truth and peace,
that wild beast, which all the ordinances [authorities] of God
are bend against, to restrain and subdue it.
b.
Civil or federal liberty: This liberty is in reference to the
covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the
politic covenants and constitutions, amongst men
themselves. This liberty is the proper end and object of
authority…, it is a liberty to that only which is good, just, and
honest. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of
subjection to authority; it is of the same kind of liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free.
Analogy: women’s subjection to her husband’s authority
makes her free.
Conclusion: The best way to preserve our civil liberties is to
uphold and honor the power of authority.
If we quietly and cheerfully subject ourselves to civil liberty,
such as Christ allows us, it will be for our own good. If the
magistrates fail honestly at any time, you should advise
them. Since they are doing their best to follow God’s laws,
the magistrates will hearken good advice. In this way,
upholding and honoring the power of authority will preserve
your liberties.
Remember to study
the questions at the
beginning of each
document.
Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists (1772)
Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Right
Right
Right
Right
to
to
to
to
life
Liberty
Property with support to defend it
enter or leave a society
“Those are evident Branches of…the first Law of Nature—
All men have a Right to remain in a State of Nature as
long as they please: And in case of intollerable Oppression,
Civil or Religious, to leave the Society they belong to, and
enter into another.”
“All positive and civil laws, should conform as far as
possible, to the law of natural reason and equity.”
Samuel Johnson
Taxation No Tyranny (1775)
Main Points:
1.
Americans are able to bear taxation.
2.
Every adult pays taxes:
•
“Of every empire all the subordinate communities are
liable to taxation, because they all share the benefits of
government, and, therefore, ought to all furnish their
proportion of the expense.”
•
“As all are born the subjects of some state or other, we
may be said to have been all born contenting to some
system of government.”
•
“Humanity is very uniform. The Americans have this
resemblance to Europeans, that they do not always know
when they are well.”
Samuel Johnson
Taxation No Tyranny (1775)
3. Americans have no proof that parliament ever ceded to
them exemption from obedience.
•
Now there are only two choices: “to allow their claim
to independence or to reduce them, by force, to
submission and allegiance….
•
“If the subject refuses to obey, it is the duty of
authority to use compulsion. Society cannot subsist
but by the power, first of making laws, and then of
enforcing them….”
4. The American rebels are hypocrites.
•
“If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that
we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the
drivers of negroes?”
Historical Context
About The Author:
Born on January 29, 1737 in
England to an impoverished
Quaker family.
Had many different jobs
including a corset maker,
merchant seaman, a school
teacher, even a job as tax
collector.
With the advise and help from
Benjamin Franklin, Pain
Immigrated to the American
Colonies in 1774.
Main Points of Common Sense
•
The colonies were founded by people from many different
nations, not just Britain.
“Europe, and not England, is the parent country of
America.”
•
America will constantly be at war with Britain’s enemies and
will never be at peace.
“That she did not protect us from our enemies on our
account, but from her enemies on her own account, from
those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and
who will always be our enemies on the same account.”
•
America is to big to be ruled by an island.
“There is something very absurd, in supposing a continent
to be perpetually governed by an island.”
“For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free
countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be
no other.”
Main Points OF Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
•
THERE IS NO GOING BACK AFTER BLOOD HAS BEEN SPILT. Any attempts
to work with Great Britain before the “nineteenth of April, i.e., to the
commencement of hostilities, are…useless now…” “The blood of the slain, the
weeping voice of nature cries, ‘tis time to part.”
 WE CAN SURVIVE ECONOMICALLY WELL WITHOUT THE BRITAIN. “I challenge
the warmest advocate for reconciliation to show, a single advantage that this continent can
reap, by being connected with Great Britain.”
•
•
We should look at the many injuries that the colonies have undergone and will
continue to undergo as long as we are connected with Great Britain. (3rd¶)
BRITAIN IS PROTECTING HER OWN INTEREST, NOT OURS. We don’t need
Britain for protection against her enemies nor do we need her for commerce.
 “…whenever a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America
goes to ruin, because of her connection with Britain.”
 WE DO NOT NEED A KING TO GOVERN OURSELVES. Do away with
monarchies because the divine law (of God) should be “King of America” and the
people should form a government of their own (a republican charter).
 “…let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on
the divine law the word of God…law ought to be king”
•
England is not run by France even though the king is a descendant from France.
•
AMERICA HAS GROWN UP. Children cannot survive on milk alone and never
get any meat....The colonies have grown up and need to be set free to live on their
own just as children do.
Thomas Jefferson
• Born in 1743
•Albemarle County, Virginia
•Died July 4, 1826
• Monticello in Virginia
•Married to Martha Jefferson
•United States Third President
•Third President 1801-1809
Author of The Deceleration of
Independence
MAIN POINTS
• All men are created equal with the same
equal rights.
• In the end it’s up to the people to alter or
abolish them.
• Among the rights are life, liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness
Grievances toward Britain (Crimes)
–
•
Interferences with the right of representation in the
legislature.
• King George does not want to pass laws until he
looks at them, however he does not want to look
at them (they never get passes)
• He refuses to pass other law to help large
districts of people, unless those people give up
their right to representative in the legislature.
King George picks meeting place in far off place so
everyone will be to exhausted and be more agreeable
for his terms
Interferences With King George In
Establishing The Judiciary Powers
•
•
•
He had made judges depended upon them for
their salaries and the length of their term.
He brings troops over here in times of peace and
forces us to put them up in our houses.
The troops are protected through mock trial even
if they kill the innocent.
No Communication equals Separation
eminent
– Every time they tried to communicate with
them the reply was always violence.
– This left the Colonies with no other choice,
but to separate themselves from Great
Britain.
Historical Significance
• Declares Independence from Great Britain
• Sovereignty changes from being the right
of a monarch to being codified in a
constitution.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
• Independence is declared.
• All men are created equal. “All men are created equal. We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….”
• Men have unalienable Rights: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.
• Governments derive their authority from the consent of the
people. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed.”
• When a government acts despotically, the people have a right and
a duty to overthrow it. “But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is
their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new
Guards for their future security.”
• We have tried to compromise, but King George has persistently
been a tyrant.
Thomas Jefferson is
believed to have fathered
children with his slave,
Sally Hemings
http://www.cnn.com/US/99
05/17/jefferson.reunion/
http://www.michaelcosm.com/sub_feat/feat_jeff.html
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
Main Points:
1. Do to the deep rooted discontent of the black race during slavery
reconciliation between the two races would be futile. Deportation of the
black race would be the only option.
“…To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act…” “…That
they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then they
should be brought up, at the public expense, to tillage, arts or
sciences, according to their geniuses, till the females should be
eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should
be colonized to such places as the circumstances of the times
should render most proper…”
“…Why not retain and incorporate the blacks into the state…”
“Deep rooted prejudices entertained by the whites; ten thousand
recollections by the blacks of injuries they have sustained…
produce convulsions which will probably never end but in the
extermination of one race or the other race.”
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
2. “Besides those of color, figure and hair, there are other physical distinctions
proving a different race.”
Smell
More tolerable to heat
Inferior in reason and imagination
Skilled in music, but lacking in ability to compose
Misery and love exist only in senses, not in their imagination
Griefs
3. Blacks are inferior to whites.
“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct
race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the
endowments, both of body and mind.”
Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson on Slavery (1784)
4.
Because our nation has taken the blacks unalienable rights, we will incur
God’s wrath.
“Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice
cannot sleep for ever; that considering numbers nature and natural means only,
a revolution in the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible
events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The
Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.”
5. Slavery is harmful to the slave owners and their posterity.
“Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal.” ”From
his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent
could fine no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the
intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one
that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient.”
Edmund Burke’s Conciliation with America
Document Analysis: Main Points
1.
Use of force is not the best option
– Not the British way
– Last resort. The use of force leads to uncertain
consequences.
•
–
–
“ My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the
effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not
succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force
remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is
left….”
More destruction than good, alienation
•
“A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your
very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the
thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted and
consumed in the contest….”
A temporary measure: subdue, but not govern
•
“the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a
moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again:
and a nation is not governed , which is perpetually to be
conquered.”
Main Points continued:
2. American colonies are different from Britain
and as such requires their own government
–
–
–
Liberty
Geographically remote
Only its own government can cope with
problems
3. Britain should respect rights of its colony
Edmund Burke, A Founder of
Conservatism
• Founder of Conservatism: “Burke maintained that society
was a contract, but ‘the state ought not to be considered as
nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of
pepper and coffee, to be taken up for a temporary interest
and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties.’ The state
was a partnership but one ‘not only between those who are
living, but between those who are living, those who are
dead and those who are to be born.’ No one generation
therefore has the right to destroy this partnership; instead,
each generation has the duty to preserve and transmit it to
the next. Burke advised against the violent overthrow of a
government by revolution, but he did not reject the
possibility of change. Sudden change was unacceptable,
but that did not eliminate gradual or evolutionary
improvements.” (Spielvogel, p. 612)
America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)
By: Adam Smith
Main Points
1. There should be a union between Britain and all of its colonies, because close
economic ties and commerce are in all parties’ best interest.
“By uniting, in some measure, the most distant parts of the world, enabling them to relieve
one another’s wants, to increase one another’s enjoyments, and to encourage one another’s
industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial.”
2. The balance of power will equal out because of trade.
“Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe
may grow weaker, and the inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at
that equality…”
“But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality of force than that mutual
communication of knowledge and of all sorts of improvements which an extensive
commerce from all countries to all countries naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along
with it.”
America and the Wealth of Nations (1776)
By: Adam Smith
Main Points
3. The Mercantile System was elevated because of Britain putting so much
emphasis on trading only with their colonies.
“…one of the principle effects of those discoveries has been to raise the mercantile
system to a degree of splendor and glory which it could never otherwise have attained
to. It is the object of that system to enrich a great nation rather by trade and
manufactures than by the improvement and cultivation of land, rather by industry of
towns than by that of the country.”
4. The way to really prosper is to allow free trade with colonies and other
countries.
“After all the unjust attempts, therefore, of every country in Europe to engross to itself
the whole advantage of the trade of its own colonies, no country has yet been able to
engross to itself any thing but the expense of supporting in time of peace and of
defending in time of war the oppressive authority which it assumes over them.”
James Madison, Federalist #10 (1787-1788)
Human nature is selfish and passionate, and when combined
with reason, individuals have “liberty.”
Liberty = pursuit of property => classes and factions (everyone
cannot have equal property).
Classes
Factious Majority
Factious Minority
REMOVE CAUSES: People could remove the causes of faction, but this would
destroy liberty. This solution is worse than the problem.
SOLUTION: The Federalists sought to work with human nature. They
advocated letting factions run their course, arguing that in a large
republic they would compete with one another and effectively cancel
each other out.
THREE FACTORS THAT WILL CHECK THE TYRANNY OF A FACTION:
1. LARGE POLITY: Thousands of factions will result in a diffusion of factions
that will tend to cancel each other out.
2. REPRESENTATION: Representative government will act as a filter,
protecting the republic form the passions of the masses.
3. SEPARATION OF POWERS: A federal government and a separation of
powers will result in a system checks and balances in power.
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur
“Letters from an American Farmer”
Main Points:
1. Describes that the “American” is a new man who is establishing his own country
based on a common set of ideals.
“What then is the American, this new man? He is either an European, or the descendant of
an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I
could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was
Dutch, whose son married a French woman, and whose present four sons have now four
wives of different nations. He is an American, who leaving behind him all his ancient
prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the
new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.”
“The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he
or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the
progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it
want a stronger allurement?”
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur
“Letters from an American Farmer”
2. There is a sense of “one social class” unlike in Europe. Because of the personal control a
man gains by owning land. He is free from kings and monarchs.
“It is not composed, as in Europe, of great lords who possess every thing and of a herd of people
who have nothing. Here are no aristocratical families, no courts, no kings, no bishops, no
ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving to a few a very visible one; no great
manufacturers employing thousands, no great refinements of luxury. The rich and the poor are
not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted, we are all
tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida. We are a people of cultivators, scattered
over an immense territory communicating with each other by means of good roads and
navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws, without
dreading their power, because they are equitable. We are all animated with the spirit of an
industry which is unfettered.”
3. “Ubi panis ibi patria” (The land I work is my country) is the motto of the emigrants he
says.
“The laws, the indulgent laws, protect them as they arrive, stamping on them the symbol of
adoption; they receive ample rewards for their labours; these accumulated rewards procure
them lands; those lands confer on them the title of freemen, and to that title every benefit is
affixed which men can possibly require.”
Michel St. John De Crevecoeur
“Letters from an American Farmer”
4. First to describe the “melting pot concept.” Peoples from different lands have come to
America to start over. By blending their backgrounds together they “melt” together.
“The next wish of this traveller will be to know whence came all these people? they are
mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this
promiscuous breed, that race now called Americans have arisen.”
“Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and
posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”
How do we choose the best leaders?
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on Aristocracy
(1813)
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on
Aristocracy (1813)
Some Main Points
•Adams: Aristocracy and democracy are always at
odds. …whig and Tory belong to natural history.”
•There is a natural aristocracy based on virtue and
talents.
Adams: “…there is a natural aristocracy among
men, the grounds of which are virtue and
talents.”
Jefferson: “…there is a natural aristocracy
among men. The grounds of this are virtue and
talents.”
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams on Aristocracy (1813)
Some Main Points
• Adams: Aristocracy has its pitfalls, but entrusting power to the
people may be worse.
“When I consider the weakness, the folly, the pride, the vanity, the
selfishness, the artifice, the low craft and mean cunning, the
want of principle, the avarice, the unbounded ambition, the unfair
cruelty of the majority of those (in all nations) who are allowed an
aristocratical influence, and, on the other hand the stupidity with
which the more numerous multitude not only become their dupes,
but even love to be taken by their tricks, I feel a stronger
disposition to weep at their destiny, than to laugh at their folly.”
• Adams: Although a natural aristocracy is difficult to determine, we
have done a pretty good job, and the virtuous, public-spirited leaders
of the United States will preserve the federative republic.
“Your distinction between natural and artificial aristocracy, does
not appear to me founded.”
“Our pure, virtuous, public-spirited, federative republic will last
forever, govern the globe, and introduce the perfection of man…”
• Jefferson: We should have faith in democracy and in the people’s ability
to elect the natural aristocracy to positions of power. “I think the best
remedy is exactly that provided by all our constitutions, to leave to the
citizens the free election and separation of the [aristocrats] from the
pseudo-[aristocrats], of the wheat from the chaff. In general they will
elect the real good and wise: in some instances, wealth may corrupt, and
birth blind them; but not in sufficient degree to endanger the society….”
Jefferson on property and democracy: “Every one, by his property, or
by his satisfactory situation, is interested in the support of law and
order.”
Jefferson on Europe: “Science had liberated the ideas of those who
read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of
right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun, of
science, talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen
into contempt.”
Jefferson on education and democracy: “Every folly must run its
round; and so, I suppose, must that of self-learning, and self
sufficiency; of rejecting the knowledge acquired in past ages, and
starting on the new ground of intuition. When sobered by experience
I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of
education.”
How does Jefferson hope to avoid unenlightened mob rule in a democratic society?
Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)
Daniel Webster
Main Points:
1. Government is and should be bound to property.
Property ensures our right to life and liberty
Property must be represented & respected in government to maintain proper order
Propertied people naturally will posses the political power
“It seems to me to be plain, that, in the absence of military
force, political power naturally and necessarily goes into
the hands which hold the property.”
Against Universal Manhood Suffrage (1820)
Daniel Webster
Main Points:
2. Limiting political participation is the right and choice of those creating or defining a
government.
Holding office is not a right to be extended to every member of a social contract
Voters are licensed to choose one candidate over another on a ballot. Therefore,
preventing candidates from ever appearing on a ballot is rightly the voters prerogative
as well.
George Bancroft
The Office of the People (1835)
* Common judgment is the highest authority.
If it be true, that the gifts of mind and heart are universally diffused, if the
sentiment of truth, justice, love, and beauty exists in every one, then it
follows, as a necessary consequence, that the common judgment in taste,
politics, and religion is the highest authority on earth, and the nearest
possible approach to an infallible decision.
* Truth is one.
Truth is one. It never contradicts itself: One truth cannot contradict another
truth. Hence truth is a bond of union. But error not only contradicts truth,
but may contradict itself; so that there may be many errors, and each at
variance with the rest. Truth is therefore of necessity an element of
harmony; error as necessarily an element of discord. Thus there can be no
continuing universal judgment but a right one. Men cannot agree in an
absurdity; neither can they agree in a falsehood.
* Truth has been passed on by the collective truth of humanity through the
ages, and even today, the public is wiser than the wisest critic.
► …every sect that has ever flourished has benefited Humanity; for the
errors of a sect pass away and are forgotten; its truths are received into the
common inheritance.
► For who are the best judges in matters of taste? Do you think the
cultivated individual? Undoubtedly not; but the collective mind. The public is
wiser than the wisest critic.
George Bancroft, The Office of the People (1835)
* True genius is inspired by reflecting and satisfying the wisdom of humanity,
and not by reflecting or satisfying particular tastes.
[Genius] yearns for larger influences; it feeds on wide sympathies; and its
perfect display can never exist except in an appeal to the general sentiment
for the beautiful….
* The moral intelligence of the community should rule.
• A government of equal rights must…rest upon the mind; not wealth, not
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brute force, the sum of the moral intelligence of the community should rule
the State.
…the common mind [is] the true material for a commonwealth.
The world can advance only through the culture of the moral and
intellectual powers of the people.
The duty of America is to secure the culture and the happiness of the
masses by their reliance on themselves.
…we have made Humanity our lawgiver and our oracle…
The government by the people is in very truth the strongest government in
the world. Discarding the implements of terror, it dares to rule by moral
force, and has its citadel in the heart….
…the measure of the progress of civilization is the progress of the people.
…the opinion which we respect is not the opinion of one or a few, but the
sagacity of the many.
Alexis de Toqueville
Democracy in America
(1835)
“The majority lives in the perpetual
practice of self-applause, and there
are certain truths which the
Americans can only learn from
strangers or from experience.”
•
Main Points:
Democratic government = sovereignty of the majority
•The very essence of government consists in the absolute
sovereignty of the majority; for there is nothing in democratic
states which is capable of resisting it.
•
The moral and intellectual authority of the majority.
•The moral authority of the majority is partly based upon the
notion, that there is more intelligence and more wisdom in a great
number of men collected together than in a single individual, and
that the quantity of legislators is more important than their quality.
The theory of equality is in fact applied to the intellect of man….”
•
The majority can do no wrong.
•The French, under the old monarchy, held it for a maxim (which is
still a fundamental principle of the English Constitution) that the
King could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion was highly favorable to habits
of obedience, and it enabled the subject to complain of the law
without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans
entertain the same opinion with respect to the majority.
Main Points (continued):
• The majority is not immune to misusing absolute power.
•“If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that
power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to
the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by
agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles
increase with the consciousness of their strength.”
• The system of checks and balances merely through a separation of powers is
a delusion.
•“The form of government which is usually termed mixed has always
appeared to me to be a mere chimera. Accurately speaking there is no
such thing as a mixed government, (with the meaning usually given to that
word), because in all communities some one principle of action may be
discovered, which preponderates over the others.”
• The main evil of the present the democratic institutions of the United States
arise from their overpowering strength.
•“In my opinion the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the
United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their
weakness, but from their overpowering strength; and I am not so much
alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as at the very
inadequate securities which exist against tyranny.”
Main Points (continued):
• What Tocqueville would prefer: “If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so
constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its
passions; an executive so as to retain a certain degree of uncontrolled authority; and a
judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two other powers; a government would be
formed which would still be democratic, without incurring any risk tyrannical abuse.”
• Unlike monarchies, the authority of the majority is both moral and physical.
• “The authority of a king is purely physical, and it controls the actions of the subject
without subduing his private will; but the majority possesses a power which is
physical and moral at the same time; it acts upon the will as well as upon the actions
of men, and it represses not only all contest, but all controversy. I know no country
in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in
America. I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and
freedom of discussion as in America.”
• If one goes outside the barriers of acceptable public opinion, as deemed by the majority,
there is very little liberty of opinion.
• “In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion:
within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it
if he ever step beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe,
but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy.”
• Auto-da-fe: (1) public announcement of the sentences imposed on persons tried by the Inquisition and the public
execution of those sentences by the secular authorities. (2) The burning of a heretic at the stake.
• Obloquy: (1) abusively detractive language or utterance; calumny. (2) The condition of disgrace suffered as a result of
abuse or vilification; ill repute.
Main Points (continued):
•Democratic Republics enslave the souls of their citizens through oppressive
pressures to conform.
• “The excesses of monarchical power had devised a variety of physical
means of oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have
rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind as that will which it is
intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the
body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the
blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but
such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there
the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The sovereign can no longer
say, “You shall think as I do on pain of death;” but he says, “You are free to
think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that
you possess; but if such be your determination, you are henceforth an
alien among your people….”
• “Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and those who
are most persuaded of Your innocence will abandon you too, lest they
should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life,
but it is in an existence incomparably worse than death.”
•The majority lives in the perpetual practice of self-applause, and there are
certain truths which the Americans can only learn from strangers or from
experience.
Main Points (continued):
• Lawyers are an important check against the passions of the
majority.
• In visiting the Americans and in studying their laws, we
perceive that the authority they have entrusted to members of
the legal profession, and the influence which these individuals
exercise in the Government, is the most powerful existing
security against the excesses of democracy.
• Lawyers are attached to public order beyond every other
consideration, and the best security of public order is
authority.
• Lawyers: the American Aristocracy. “In America there are no
nobles or men of letters, and the people is apt to mistrust the
wealthy; lawyers consequently form the highest political class,
and the most cultivated circle of society. They have therefore
nothing to gain by innovation, which adds a conservative interest
to their natural taste for public order. If I were asked where I
place the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation
that it is not composed of the rich, who are united together by no
common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and the bar.”
Main Points (continued):
•An expansive frontier makes American democracy viable in practice.
• Their ancestors gave them love of equality and of freedom; but God
himself gave them the means of remaining equal and free, by placing
them upon a boundless continent, which is open to their exertions.
• Millions of men are marching at once towards the same horizon; their
language, their religion, their manners differ, their object is the same.
The gifts of fortune are promised in the West, and to the West they
bend their course.
• The passions which agitate the Americans most deeply are not their
political but their commercial passions; or, to speak more correctly,
they introduce the habits they contract in business into their political
life. They love order, without which affairs do not prosper; and they
set an especial value upon a regular conduct, which is the foundation
of a solid business; they prefer the good sense which amasses large
fortunes to that enterprising spirit which frequently dissipates them;
general ideas alarm their minds, which are accustomed to positive
calculations, and they hold practice in more honor than theory.