Chapter XXI: Of Parliamentary Eloquence In The United States
Amongst aristocratic nations all the members of the community are
connected with and dependent upon each other; the graduated scale of
different ranks acts as a tie, which keeps everyone in his proper place
and the whole body in subordination. Something of the same kind always
occurs in the political assemblies of these nations. Parties naturally
range themselves under certain leaders, whom they obey by a sort of
instinct, which is only the result of habits contracted elsewhere. They
carry the manners of general society into the lesser assemblage.
In democratic countries it often happens that a great number of citizens
are tending to the same point; but each one only moves thither, or at
least flatters himself that he moves, of his own accord. Accustomed to
regulate his doings by personal impulse alone, he does not willingly
submit to dictation from without. This taste and habit of independence
accompany him into the councils of the nation. If he consents to connect
himself with other men in the prosecution of the same purpose, at least
he chooses to remain free to contribute to the common success after his
own fashion. Hence it is that in democratic countries parties are so
impatient of control, and are never manageable except in moments of
great public danger. Even then, the authority of leaders, which under
such circumstances may be able to make men act or speak, hardly ever
reaches the extent of making them keep silence.
Amongst aristocratic nations the members of political assemblies are
at the same time members of the aristocracy. Each of them enjoys high
established rank in his own right, and the position which he occupies
in the assembly is often less important in his eyes than that which
he fills in the country. This consoles him for playing no part in
the discussion of public affairs, and restrains him from too eagerly
attempting to play an insignificant one.
In America, it generally happens that a Representative only becomes
somebody from his position in the Assembly. He is therefore perpetually
haunted by a craving to acquire importance there, and he feels a
petulant desire to be constantly obtruding his opinions upon the House.
His own vanity is not the only stimulant which urges him on in this
course, but that of his constituents, and the continual necessity
of propitiating them. Amongst aristocratic nations a member of the
legislature is rarely in strict dependence upon his constituents: he is
frequently to them a sort of unavoidable representative; sometimes they
are themselves strictly dependent upon him; and if at length they reject
him, he may easily get elected elsewhere, or, retiring from public life,
he may still enjoy the pleasures of splendid idleness. In a democratic
country like the United States a Representative has hardly ever
a lasting hold on the minds of his constituents. However small an
electoral body may be, the fluctuations of democracy are constantly
changing its aspect; it must, therefore, be courted unceasingly. He
is never sure of his supporters, and, if they forsake him, he is
left without a resource; for his natural position is not sufficiently
elevated for him to be easily known to those not close to him; and,
with the complete state of independence prevailing among the people, he
cannot hope that his friends or the government will send him down to be
returned by an electoral body unacquainted with him. The seeds of his
fortune are, therefore, sown in his own neighborhood; from that nook of
earth he must start, to raise himself to the command of a people and
to influence the destinies of the world. Thus it is natural that in
democratic countries the members of political assemblies think more of
their constituents than of their party, whilst in aristocracies they
think more of their party than of their constituents.
But what ought to be said to gratify constituents is not always what
ought to be said in order to serve the party to which Representatives
profess to belong. The general interest of a party frequently demands
that members belonging to it should not speak on great questions which
they understand imperfectly; that they should speak but little on those
minor questions which impede the great ones; lastly, and for the most
part, that they should not speak at all. To keep silence is the
most useful service that an indifferent spokesman can render to the
commonwealth. Constituents, however, do not think so. The population of
a district sends a representative to take a part in the government of
a country, because they entertain a very lofty notion of his merits.
As men appear greater in proportion to the littleness of the objects
by which they are surrounded, it may be assumed that the opinion
entertained of the delegate will be so much the higher as talents are
more rare among his constituents. It will therefore frequently happen
that the less constituents have to expect from their representative, the
more they will anticipate from him; and, however incompetent he may be,
they will not fail to call upon him for signal exertions, corresponding
to the rank they have conferred upon him.
Independently of his position as a legislator of the State, electors
also regard their Representative as the natural patron of the
constituency in the Legislature; they almost consider him as the proxy
of each of his supporters, and they flatter themselves that he will not
be less zealous in defense of their private interests than of those
of the country. Thus electors are well assured beforehand that the
Representative of their choice will be an orator; that he will speak
often if he can, and that in case he is forced to refrain, he will
strive at any rate to compress into his less frequent orations an
inquiry into all the great questions of state, combined with a statement
of all the petty grievances they have themselves to complain to; so
that, though he be not able to come forward frequently, he should on
each occasion prove what he is capable of doing; and that, instead of
perpetually lavishing his powers, he should occasionally condense them
in a small compass, so as to furnish a sort of complete and brilliant
epitome of his constituents and of himself. On these terms they will
vote for him at the next election. These conditions drive worthy men of
humble abilities to despair, who, knowing their own powers, would never
voluntarily have come forward. But thus urged on, the Representative
begins to speak, to the great alarm of his friends; and rushing
imprudently into the midst of the most celebrated orators, he perplexes
the debate and wearies the House.
All laws which tend to make the Representative more dependent on the
elector, not only affect the conduct of the legislators, as I
have remarked elsewhere, but also their language. They exercise a
simultaneous influence on affairs themselves, and on the manner in which
affairs are discussed.
There is hardly a member of Congress who can make up his mind to go home
without having despatched at least one speech to his constituents;
nor who will endure any interruption until he has introduced into
his harangue whatever useful suggestions may be made touching the
four-and-twenty States of which the Union is composed, and especially
the district which he represents. He therefore presents to the mind of
his auditors a succession of great general truths (which he himself only
comprehends, and expresses, confusedly), and of petty minutia, which he
is but too able to discover and to point out. The consequence is that
the debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed,
and that they seem rather to drag their slow length along than to
advance towards a distinct object. Some such state of things will, I
believe, always arise in the public assemblies of democracies.
Propitious circumstances and good laws might succeed in drawing to the
legislature of a democratic people men very superior to those who are
returned by the Americans to Congress; but nothing will ever prevent the
men of slender abilities who sit there from obtruding themselves with
complacency, and in all ways, upon the public. The evil does not appear
to me to be susceptible of entire cure, because it not only originates
in the tactics of that assembly, but in its constitution and in that
of the country. The inhabitants of the United States seem themselves to
consider the matter in this light; and they show their long experience
of parliamentary life not by abstaining from making bad speeches, but by
courageously submitting to hear them made. They are resigned to it, as
to an evil which they know to be inevitable.
We have shown the petty side of political debates in democratic
assemblies—let us now exhibit the more imposing one. The proceedings
within the Parliament of England for the last one hundred and fifty
years have never occasioned any great sensation out of that country; the
opinions and feelings expressed by the speakers have never awakened much
sympathy, even amongst the nations placed nearest to the great arena of
British liberty; whereas Europe was excited by the very first debates
which took place in the small colonial assemblies of America at the
time of the Revolution. This was attributable not only to particular
and fortuitous circumstances, but to general and lasting causes. I can
conceive nothing more admirable or more powerful than a great orator
debating on great questions of state in a democratic assembly. As no
particular class is ever represented there by men commissioned to defend
its own interests, it is always to the whole nation, and in the name of
the whole nation, that the orator speaks. This expands his thoughts,
and heightens his power of language. As precedents have there but
little weight-as there are no longer any privileges attached to certain
property, nor any rights inherent in certain bodies or in certain
individuals, the mind must have recourse to general truths derived from
human nature to resolve the particular question under discussion. Hence
the political debates of a democratic people, however small it may be,
have a degree of breadth which frequently renders them attractive to
mankind. All men are interested by them, because they treat of man, who
is everywhere the same. Amongst the greatest aristocratic nations, on
the contrary, the most general questions are almost always argued on
some special grounds derived from the practice of a particular time, or
the rights of a particular class; which interest that class alone, or at
most the people amongst whom that class happens to exist. It is owing
to this, as much as to the greatness of the French people, and the
favorable disposition of the nations who listen to them, that the great
effect which the French political debates sometimes produce in the
world, must be attributed. The orators of France frequently speak to
mankind, even when they are addressing their countrymen only.
The text of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville continues in Volume Two Part Two
Notes
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In all religions there are some ceremonies which are
inherent in the substance of the faith itself, and in these nothing
should, on any account, be changed. This is especially the case with
Roman Catholicism, in which the doctrine and the form are frequently so
closely united as to form one point of belief.
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All this is especially true of the aristocratic countries
which have been long and peacefully subject to a monarchical government.
When liberty prevails in an aristocracy, the higher ranks are constantly
obliged to make use of the lower classes; and when they use, they
approach them. This frequently introduces something of a democratic
spirit into an aristocratic community. There springs up, moreover, in a
privileged body, governing with energy and an habitually bold policy, a
taste for stir and excitement which must infallibly affect all literary
performances.