Democracy in America: Chapter 14 Summary & Analysis

Although Tocqueville has described the institutions that maintain freedom in America, he also suggests that the democracy is successfully maintained by chance features, such as geographical isolation, the lack of financial crises, and the lack of a great capital city that would extend its influence everywhere. Subjecting the provinces to the rule of a capital city would mean placing the nation’s fate in the hands of an independent group with no regard for the welfare of the rest of the country. This is how ancient republics fell.

Tocqueville reflects that the first Puritan emigrants left their stamp on the American national character for the better, in their embrace of equality and freedom. The vast geography of the nation has also proved beneficial to prosperity and thus to stability. The lush natural habitat of the continent has enabled regular waves of settlers to set out alone for the center of the country and, eventually, create a life and fortune for themselves there. Tocqueville recalls seeing the vestiges of log-houses in the American wilderness while traveling, signs of Americans’ constant movement. Once he was traveling in the woods of New York State when he encountered a small island in a lake, with a column of smoke the only sign of human presence. After investigating, he found the ruins of a log cabin, which nature was already re-conquering, and he noted that America already had ruins.

While restlessness and desire for wealth are considered dangerous in Europe, Tocqueville notes that these qualities have ensured peace and prosperity in America. Still, he maintains that laws are more important than physical circumstances, and manners more important than either, in the development of the American national character. Comparing North American geography to South American geography, Tocqueville remarks on the difficulty of implementing democratic institutions in South America. It’s thus necessary to study what the Americans have chosen to do with their given circumstances in order to understand what Europe might learn from democratization.

Tocqueville notes that Europe is lost if democracy is only possible in vast, uncultivated geographical spaces. It’s useless to will a non-democratic system back into being in Europe because democratization is an inexorable force. The loss of religious authority and of the moral guidance of kings, as well as a series of long revolutions, have all eaten away at Europeans’ tolerance for monarchies. The only possible paths are democracy or total despotism—including the despotism that comes from the tyranny of the majority. Involving people in the functioning of their own government will be difficult, but it’s the only true way forward. If complete equality is inevitable, he argues that it’s better to be levelled by democratic institutions than by a tyrant.

Tocqueville states that it hasn’t been his purpose to propose that all democratic communities adopt the laws and customs of the Americans. Instead, he has hoped to show that laws and manners allow a democratic people to retain their freedom. Still, the country is so unique that there’s no point in attempting to replicate its features wholesale. Still, unless democratic institutions are gradually introduced into France, he fears that the country will soon fall under the unlimited authority of a despot.