Chapter XXVI: Some Considerations On War In Democratic Communities
When the principle of equality is in growth, not only amongst a single
nation, but amongst several neighboring nations at the same time, as is
now the case in Europe, the inhabitants of these different countries,
notwithstanding the dissimilarity of language, of customs, and of laws,
nevertheless resemble each other in their equal dread of war and their
common love of peace /26-1/. It is in vain that ambition or anger puts arms
in the hands of princes; they are appeased in spite of themselves by a
species of general apathy and goodwill, which makes the sword drop
from their grasp, and wars become more rare. As the spread of equality,
taking place in several countries at once, simultaneously impels their
various inhabitants to follow manufactures and commerce, not only do
their tastes grow alike, but their interests are so mixed and entangled
with one another that no nation can inflict evils on other nations
without those evils falling back upon itself; and all nations ultimately
regard war as a calamity, almost as severe to the conqueror as to
the conquered. Thus, on the one hand, it is extremely difficult in
democratic ages to draw nations into hostilities; but on the other hand,
it is almost impossible that any two of them should go to war without
embroiling the rest. The interests of all are so interlaced, their
opinions and their wants so much alike, that none can remain quiet when
the others stir. Wars therefore become more rare, but when they break
out they spread over a larger field. Neighboring democratic nations not
only become alike in some respects, but they eventually grow to resemble
each other in almost all /26-2/. This similitude of nations has consequences
of great importance in relation to war.
If I inquire why it is that the Helvetic Confederacy made the greatest
and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the fifteenth century,
whilst at the present day the power of that country is exactly
proportioned to its population, I perceive that the Swiss are become
like all the surrounding communities, and those surrounding communities
like the Swiss: so that as numerical strength now forms the only
difference between them, victory necessarily attends the largest army.
Thus one of the consequences of the democratic revolution which is going
on in Europe is to make numerical strength preponderate on all fields
of battle, and to constrain all small nations to incorporate themselves
with large States, or at least to adopt the policy of the latter. As
numbers are the determining cause of victory, each people ought of
course to strive by all the means in its power to bring the greatest
possible number of men into the field. When it was possible to enlist a
kind of troops superior to all others, such as the Swiss infantry or the
French horse of the sixteenth century, it was not thought necessary to
raise very large armies; but the case is altered when one soldier is as
efficient as another.
The same cause which begets this new want also supplies means of
satisfying it; for, as I have already observed, when men are all alike,
they are all weak, and the supreme power of the State is naturally much
stronger amongst democratic nations than elsewhere. Hence, whilst these
nations are desirous of enrolling the whole male population in the
ranks of the army, they have the power of effecting this object: the
consequence is, that in democratic ages armies seem to grow larger
in proportion as the love of war declines. In the same ages, too,
the manner of carrying on war is likewise altered by the same causes.
Machiavelli observes in "The Prince," "that it is much more difficult to
subdue a people which has a prince and his barons for its leaders,
than a nation which is commanded by a prince and his slaves." To avoid
offence, let us read public functionaries for slaves, and this important
truth will be strictly applicable to our own time.
A great aristocratic people cannot either conquer its neighbors, or be
conquered by them, without great difficulty. It cannot conquer them,
because all its forces can never be collected and held together for a
considerable period: it cannot be conquered, because an enemy meets at
every step small centres of resistance by which invasion is arrested.
War against an aristocracy may be compared to war in a mountainous
country; the defeated party has constant opportunities of rallying its
forces to make a stand in a new position. Exactly the reverse occurs
amongst democratic nations: they easily bring their whole disposable
force into the field, and when the nation is wealthy and populous it
soon becomes victorious; but if ever it is conquered, and its territory
invaded, it has few resources at command; and if the enemy takes the
capital, the nation is lost. This may very well be explained: as
each member of the community is individually isolated and extremely
powerless, no one of the whole body can either defend himself or present
a rallying point to others. Nothing is strong in a democratic country
except the State; as the military strength of the State is destroyed
by the destruction of the army, and its civil power paralyzed by the
capture of the chief city, all that remains is only a multitude without
strength or government, unable to resist the organized power by which it
is assailed. I am aware that this danger may be lessened by the creation
of provincial liberties, and consequently of provincial powers, but this
remedy will always be insufficient. For after such a catastrophe, not
only is the population unable to carry on hostilities, but it may be
apprehended that they will not be inclined to attempt it. In accordance
with the law of nations adopted in civilized countries, the object of
wars is not to seize the property of private individuals, but simply to
get possession of political power. The destruction of private property
is only occasionally resorted to for the purpose of attaining the latter
object. When an aristocratic country is invaded after the defeat of
its army, the nobles, although they are at the same time the
wealthiest members of the community, will continue to defend themselves
individually rather than submit; for if the conqueror remained master
of the country, he would deprive them of their political power, to which
they cling even more closely than to their property. They therefore
prefer fighting to subjection, which is to them the greatest of all
misfortunes; and they readily carry the people along with them because
the people has long been used to follow and obey them, and besides has
but little to risk in the war. Amongst a nation in which equality of
conditions prevails, each citizen, on the contrary, has but slender
share of political power, and often has no share at all; on the other
hand, all are independent, and all have something to lose; so that they
are much less afraid of being conquered, and much more afraid of war,
than an aristocratic people. It will always be extremely difficult to
decide a democratic population to take up arms, when hostilities have
reached its own territory. Hence the necessity of giving to such a
people the rights and the political character which may impart to every
citizen some of those interests that cause the nobles to act for the
public welfare in aristocratic countries.
It should never be forgotten by the princes and other leaders of
democratic nations, that nothing but the passion and the habit of
freedom can maintain an advantageous contest with the passion and the
habit of physical well-being. I can conceive nothing better prepared
for subjection, in case of defeat, than a democratic people without free
institutions.
Formerly it was customary to take the field with a small body of troops,
to fight in small engagements, and to make long, regular sieges: modern
tactics consist in fighting decisive battles, and, as soon as a line
of march is open before the army, in rushing upon the capital city, in
order to terminate the war at a single blow. Napoleon, it is said, was
the inventor of this new system; but the invention of such a system did
not depend on any individual man, whoever he might be. The mode in which
Napoleon carried on war was suggested to him by the state of society in
his time; that mode was successful, because it was eminently adapted
to that state of society, and because he was the first to employ it.
Napoleon was the first commander who marched at the head of an army
from capital to capital, but the road was opened for him by the ruin of
feudal society. It may fairly be believed that, if that extraordinary
man had been born three hundred years ago, he would not have derived the
same results from his method of warfare, or, rather, that he would have
had a different method.
I shall add but a few words on civil wars, for fear of exhausting the
patience of the reader. Most of the remarks which I have made respecting
foreign wars are applicable a fortiori to civil wars. Men living in
democracies are not naturally prone to the military character; they
sometimes assume it, when they have been dragged by compulsion to the
field; but to rise in a body and voluntarily to expose themselves to the
horrors of war, and especially of civil war, is a course which the
men of democracies are not apt to adopt. None but the most adventurous
members of the community consent to run into such risks; the bulk of the
population remains motionless. But even if the population were inclined
to act, considerable obstacles would stand in their way; for they can
resort to no old and well-established influence which they are willing
to obey—no well-known leaders to rally the discontented, as well as
to discipline and to lead them—no political powers subordinate to the
supreme power of the nation, which afford an effectual support to the
resistance directed against the government. In democratic countries the
moral power of the majority is immense, and the physical resources
which it has at its command are out of all proportion to the physical
resources which may be combined against it. Therefore the party which
occupies the seat of the majority, which speaks in its name and wields
its power, triumphs instantaneously and irresistibly over all private
resistance; it does not even give such opposition time to exist,
but nips it in the bud. Those who in such nations seek to effect a
revolution by force of arms have no other resource than suddenly to
seize upon the whole engine of government as it stands, which can
better be done by a single blow than by a war; for as soon as there is
a regular war, the party which represents the State is always certain to
conquer. The only case in which a civil war could arise is, if the army
should divide itself into two factions, the one raising the standard
of rebellion, the other remaining true to its allegiance. An army
constitutes a small community, very closely united together, endowed
with great powers of vitality, and able to supply its own wants for some
time. Such a war might be bloody, but it could not be long; for either
the rebellious army would gain over the government by the sole display
of its resources, or by its first victory, and then the war would be
over; or the struggle would take place, and then that portion of the
army which should not be supported by the organized powers of the State
would speedily either disband itself or be destroyed. It may therefore
be admitted as a general truth, that in ages of equality civil wars will
become much less frequent and less protracted /26-3/.
The text of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville continues in Volume Two Part Four
Notes
/1-1/
To feel the point of this joke the reader should recollect
that Madame de Grignan was Gouvernante de Provence.
/8-1/
The Americans, however, have not yet thought fit to strip
the parent, as has been done in France, of one of the chief elements of
parental authority, by depriving him of the power of disposing of his
property at his death. In the United States there are no restrictions on
the powers of a testator. In this respect, as in almost all others, it
is easy to perceive, that if the political legislation of the Americans
is much more democratic than that of the French, the civil legislation
of the latter is infinitely more democratic than that of the former.
This may easily be accounted for. The civil legislation of France
was the work of a man who saw that it was his interest to satisfy the
democratic passions of his contemporaries in all that was not directly
and immediately hostile to his own power. He was willing to allow some
popular principles to regulate the distribution of property and the
government of families, provided they were not to be introduced into
the administration of public affairs. Whilst the torrent of democracy
overwhelmed the civil laws of the country, he hoped to find an easy
shelter behind its political institutions. This policy was at once both
adroit and selfish; but a compromise of this kind could not last; for
in the end political institutions never fail to become the image and
expression of civil society; and in this sense it may be said that
nothing is more political in a nation than its civil legislation.
/9-1/
See Appendix S.
/11-1/
See Appendix T.
/11-2/
The literature of Europe sufficiently corroborates this
remark. When a European author wishes to depict in a work of imagination
any of these great catastrophes in matrimony which so frequently occur
amongst us, he takes care to bespeak the compassion of the reader by
bringing before him ill-assorted or compulsory marriages. Although
habitual tolerance has long since relaxed our morals, an author could
hardly succeed in interesting us in the misfortunes of his characters,
if he did not first palliate their faults. This artifice seldom fails:
the daily scenes we witness prepare us long beforehand to be indulgent.
But American writers could never render these palliations probable to
their readers; their customs and laws are opposed to it; and as they
despair of rendering levity of conduct pleasing, they cease to depict
it. This is one of the causes to which must be attributed the small
number of novels published in the United States.
/16-1/
See Appendix U.
/18-1/
The word "honor" is not always used in the same sense
either in French or English. I. It first signifies the dignity, glory,
or reverence which a man receives from his kind; and in this sense a
man is said to acquire honor. 2. Honor signifies the aggregate of those
rules by the assistance of which this dignity, glory, or reverence is
obtained. Thus we say that a man has always strictly obeyed the laws
of honor; or a man has violated his honor. In this chapter the word is
always used in the latter sense.
/18-2/
Even the word "patrie" was not used by the French writers
until the sixteenth century.
/18-3/
I speak here of the Americans inhabiting those States where
slavery does not exist; they alone can be said to present a complete
picture of democratic society.
/20-1/
As a matter of fact, more recent experience has shown that
place-hunting is quite as intense in the United States as in any country
in Europe. It is regarded by the Americans themselves as one of the
great evils of their social condition, and it powerfully affects their
political institutions. But the American who seeks a place seeks not so
much a means of subsistence as the distinction which office and public
employment confer. In the absence of any true aristocracy, the public
service creates a spurious one, which is as much an object of ambition
as the distinctions of rank in aristocratic countries.—Translator's
Note.
/21-1/
If I inquire what state of society is most favorable to the
great revolutions of the mind, I find that it occurs somewhere between
the complete equality of the whole community and the absolute separation
of ranks. Under a system of castes generations succeed each other
without altering men's positions; some have nothing more, others nothing
better, to hope for. The imagination slumbers amidst this universal
silence and stillness, and the very idea of change fades from the human
mind. When ranks have been abolished and social conditions are almost
equalized, all men are in ceaseless excitement, but each of them stands
alone, independent and weak. This latter state of things is excessively
different from the former one; yet it has one point of analogy—great
revolutions of the human mind seldom occur in it. But between these two
extremes of the history of nations is an intermediate period—a period
as glorious as it is agitated—when the conditions of men are not
sufficiently settled for the mind to be lulled in torpor, when they are
sufficiently unequal for men to exercise a vast power on the minds of
one another, and when some few may modify the convictions of all. It is
at such times that great reformers start up, and new opinions suddenly
change the face of the world.
/24-1/
See Appendix V.
/26-1/
It is scarcely necessary for me to observe that the dread
of war displayed by the nations of Europe is not solely attributable
to the progress made by the principle of equality amongst them;
independently of this permanent cause several other accidental causes of
great weight might be pointed out, and I may mention before all the rest
the extreme lassitude which the wars of the Revolution and the Empire
have left behind them.
/26-2/
This is not only because these nations have the same social
condition, but it arises from the very nature of that social condition
which leads men to imitate and identify themselves with each other. When
the members of a community are divided into castes and classes, they not
only differ from one another, but they have no taste and no desire to be
alike; on the contrary, everyone endeavors, more and more, to keep his
own opinions undisturbed, to retain his own peculiar habits, and to
remain himself. The characteristics of individuals are very strongly
marked. When the state of society amongst a people is democratic—that
is to say, when there are no longer any castes or classes in the
community, and all its members are nearly equal in education and in
property—the human mind follows the opposite direction. Men are much
alike, and they are annoyed, as it were, by any deviation from that
likeness: far from seeking to preserve their own distinguishing
singularities, they endeavor to shake them off, in order to identify
themselves with the general mass of the people, which is the sole
representative of right and of might to their eyes. The characteristics
of individuals are nearly obliterated. In the ages of aristocracy even
those who are naturally alike strive to create imaginary differences
between themselves: in the ages of democracy even those who are not
alike seek only to become so, and to copy each other—so strongly is the
mind of every man always carried away by the general impulse of mankind.
Something of the same kind may be observed between nations: two nations
having the same aristocratic social condition, might remain thoroughly
distinct and extremely different, because the spirit of aristocracy
is to retain strong individual characteristics; but if two neighboring
nations have the same democratic social condition, they cannot fail
to adopt similar opinions and manners, because the spirit of democracy
tends to assimilate men to each other.
/26-3/
It should be borne in mind that I speak here of sovereign
and independent democratic nations, not of confederate democracies; in
confederacies, as the preponderating power always resides, in spite of
all political fictions, in the state governments, and not in the
federal government, civil wars are in fact nothing but foreign wars in
disguise.