Part 21 (1/2)

The circle of novel ideas is, however, soon terminated; the torch of experience is upon them, and the doubt and mistrust which their uncertainty produces, become universal. We may rest a.s.sured that the majority of mankind will either believe they know not wherefore, or will not know what to believe. Few are the beings who can ever hope to attain that state of rational and independent conviction which true knowledge can beget, in defiance of the attacks of doubt.

It has been remarked that in times of great religious fervor, men sometimes change their religious opinions; whereas, in times of general scepticism, every one clings to his own persuasion. The same thing takes place in politics under the liberty of the press. In countries where all the theories of social science have been contested in their turn, the citizens who have adopted one of them, stick to it, not so much because they are a.s.sured of its excellence, as because they are not convinced of the superiority of any other. In the present age men are not very ready to die in defence of their opinions, but they are rarely inclined to change them; and there are fewer martyrs as well as fewer apostates.

Another still more valid reason may yet be adduced: when no abstract opinions are looked upon as certain, men cling to the mere propensities and external interest of their position, which are naturally more tangible and more permanent than any opinions in the world.

It is not a question of easy solution whether the aristocracy or the democracy is most fit to govern a country. But it is certain that democracy annoys one part of the community, and that aristocracy oppresses another part. When the question is reduced to the simple expression of the struggle between poverty and wealth, the tendency of each side of the dispute becomes perfectly evident without farther controversy.

Notes:

[161] They only write in the papers when they choose to address the people in their own name; as, for instance, when they are called upon to repel calumnious imputations, and to correct a mis-statement of facts.

[162] See Appendix P.

[163] It may, however, be doubted whether this rational and self-guiding conviction arouses as much fervor or enthusiastic devotedness in men as their first dogmatical belief.

CHAPTER XII.

POLITICAL a.s.sOCIATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES.

Daily use which the Anglo-Americans make of the Right of a.s.sociation.--Three kinds of political a.s.sociation.--In what Manner the Americans apply the representative System to a.s.sociations.--Dangers resulting to the State.--Great Convention of 1831 relative to the Tariff. Legislative character of this Convention.--Why the unlimited Exercise of the Right of a.s.sociation is less dangerous in the United States than elsewhere.--Why it may be looked upon as necessary.--Utility of a.s.sociations in a democratic People.

In no country in the world has the principle of a.s.sociation been more successfully used, or more unsparingly applied to a mult.i.tude of different objects, than in America. Beside the permanent a.s.sociations which are established by law under the names of towns.h.i.+ps, cities, and counties, a vast number of others are formed and maintained by the agency of private individuals.

The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest infancy to rely upon his own exertions, in order to resist the evils and the difficulties of life; he looks upon the social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, and he only claims its a.s.sistance when he is quite unable to s.h.i.+ft without it. This habit may even be traced in the schools of the rising generation, where the children in their games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves established, and to punish misdemeanors which they have themselves defined. The same spirit pervades every act of social life. If a stoppage occurs in a thoroughfare, and the circulation of the public is hindered, the neighbors immediately const.i.tute a deliberative body; and this extemporaneous a.s.sembly gives rise to an executive power, which remedies the inconvenience, before anybody has thought of recurring to an authority superior to that of the persons immediately concerned. If the public pleasures are concerned, an a.s.sociation is formed to provide for the splendor and the regularity of the entertainment. Societies are formed to resist enemies which are exclusively of a moral nature, and to diminish the vice of intemperance: in the United States a.s.sociations are established to promote public order, commerce, industry, morality, and religion; for there is no end which the human will, seconded by the collective exertions of individuals, despairs of attaining.

I shall hereafter have occasion to show the effects of a.s.sociation upon the course of society, and I must confine myself for the present to the political world. When once the right of a.s.sociation is recognized, the citizens may employ it in several different ways.

An a.s.sociation consists simply in the public a.s.sent which a number of individuals give to certain doctrines; and in the engagement which they contract to promote the spread of those doctrines by their exertions.

The right of a.s.sociating with these views is very a.n.a.logous to the liberty of unlicensed writing; but societies thus formed possess more authority than the press. When an opinion is represented by a society, it necessarily a.s.sumes a more exact and explicit form. It numbers its partisans, and compromises their welfare in its cause; they, on the other hand, become acquainted with each other, and their zeal is increased by their number. An a.s.sociation unites the efforts of minds which have a tendency to diverge, in one single channel, and urges them vigorously toward one single end which it points out.

The second degree in the right of a.s.sociation is the power of meeting.

When an a.s.sociation is allowed to establish centres of action at certain important points in the country, its activity is increased, and its influence extended. Men have the opportunity of seeing each other; means of execution are more readily combined; and opinions are maintained with a degree of warmth and energy which written language cannot approach.

Lastly, in the exercise of the right of political a.s.sociation, there is a third degree: the partisans of an opinion may unite in electoral bodies, and choose delegates to represent them in a central a.s.sembly.

This is, properly speaking, the application of the representative system to a party.

Thus, in the first instance, a society is formed between individuals professing the same opinion, and the tie which keeps it together is of a purely intellectual nature: in the second case, small a.s.semblies are formed which only represent a fraction of the party. Lastly, in the third case, they const.i.tute a separate nation in the midst of the nation, a government within the government. Their delegates, like the real delegates of the majority, represent the entire collective force of their party; and they enjoy a certain degree of that national dignity and great influence which belong to the chosen representatives of the people. It is true that they have not the right of making the laws; but they have the power of attacking those which are in being, and of drawing up beforehand those which they may afterward cause to be adopted.

If, in a people which is imperfectly accustomed to the exercise of freedom, or which is exposed to violent political pa.s.sions, a deliberating minority, which confines itself to the contemplation of future laws, be placed in juxtaposition to the legislative majority, I cannot but believe that public tranquillity incurs very great risks in that nation. There is doubtless a very wide difference between proving that one law is in itself better than another, and proving that the former ought to be subst.i.tuted for the latter. But the imagination of the populace is very apt to overlook this difference, which is so apparent in the minds of thinking men. It sometimes happens that a nation is divided into two nearly equal parties, each of which affects to represent the majority. If, in immediate contiguity to the directing power, another power be established, which exercises almost as much moral authority as the former, it is not to be believed that it will long be content to speak without acting; or that it will always be restrained by the abstract consideration of the nature of a.s.sociations, which are meant to direct, but not to enforce opinions, to suggest but not to make the laws.

The more we consider the independence of the press in its princ.i.p.al consequences, the more are we convinced that it is the chief, and, so to speak, the const.i.tutive element of freedom in the modern world. A nation which is determined to remain free, is therefore right in demanding the unrestrained exercise of this independence. But the _unrestrained_ liberty of political a.s.sociation cannot be entirely a.s.similated to the liberty of the press. The one is at the same time less necessary and more dangerous than the other. A nation may confine it within certain limits without forfeiting any part of its self-control; and it may sometimes be obliged to do so in order to maintain its own authority.

In America the liberty of a.s.sociation for political purposes is unbounded. An example will show in the clearest light to what an extent this privilege is tolerated.