Chase 1

“I have already said enough to put the character of Anglo-American civilization in its true light. It is the
product (and this point of departure ought constantly to be present in one’s thinking) of two perfectly
distinct elements that elsewhere have made war with each other, but which, in America, they have
succeeded in incorporating somehow into one another and combining marvelously. I mean to speak of the
spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom” (Tocqueville, Democracy in America).

When Alexis deTocqueville published the first volume of Democracy in America

in 1835, the epoch of Puritan New England was already a distant memory. The

Americans were past the Great Awakening of the early 17th century that broke up the

Puritan stronghold over New England and liberated many of the states from church law.

The churches had already opened their doors to a variety of persons, some of whom held

very non-traditional beliefs. The Puritan churches had gradually backed down from their

privileged status and allowed other religions to establish contacts within society. The old

conservative churches eventually, although not totally, gave in to the new versions of

Protestantism that had been spread by “New Light” preachers throughout New England.

What Tocqueville discovered was a country where a humanized civil religion prevailed

over the vestiges of a puritanical dominion.

Tocqueville was pleased with what he observed in America and was prompted to

write that in this country the “spirit of religion” and the “spirit of freedom” had come

together with a sort of harmony that had heretofore never been witnessed. Marveling at

the success of the Americans, Tocqueville devoted his studies to understanding the

generative facts and principles behind the triumphs of their unique democracy -- mainly

freedom and equality. Ultimately stating that “the nations of our day cannot have it that

conditions within them are not equal,” Tocqueville added that equality itself could lead

humanity to “servitude or freedom, to enlightenment or barbarism, to prosperity or

misery” (Tocqueville, 676).

Democracy in America provides a description of a working democracy and

 Chase 2

analyzes how it will reveal itself in the modern world. Tocqueville remained consistent

in his belief that the destiny of humanity would rest on the choices made by democratic

nations. By discovering the nature of American democracy, Tocqueville believed it

possible to “ponder the future” of democracy everywhere (Tocqueville, 15). Examining

the “spirit of religion” and the “spirit of freedom” is the crucial step in ascertaining the

heart of American democracy.

The first chapter of Democracy in America is limited to a discussion of the

“external configuration” of North America (Tocqueville, 19). In this first chapter

Tocqueville discusses America’s geographical attributes, such as its rivers, mountains,

and forests. His description of the continent hints at a divine plan for the arrangement of

these natural phenomena. Yet, he says that the first inhabitants, the Native Americans,

were incapable of maximizing the lands potential. They were merely biding their time,1

as if the land already knew that it was ordained for a people that “were going to give the

world a spectacle for which the history of the past had not prepared it” (Tocqueville, 27).

The subsequent chapter, entitled “On the Point of Departure,” is “the seed of what is to

follow and the key to almost the whole work” (Tocqueville, 29). Early Puritanism, which

blended together religious and political life, is what Tocqueville observed to be the secret

to preserving freedom and democracy in America. Much more than a religious doctrine,

Puritanism “blended at several points with the most absolute democratic and republican

theories” (Tocqueville, 32). The Puritans’ religious propensity for democratic principles

and self-made religious and political law led to violent persecution in England. To secure

their safety and freedom they would have to leave.

1 “Providence, in placing them in the midst of the New World, seemed to have given them only a short
lease on it; they were there, in a way, only in the meantime” (Tocqueville, 27).
 Chase 3

New England’s God

The Puritans set forth for the New World with the vision that they would be the

people who could make an “idea triumph” (Tocqueville, 32). The idea they longed for

was of a society where they would all be free to worship their God in peace and to live

their lives in accordance with the strict doctrines of Puritanism. Each of them, equal by

class, equal by heritage, and equal under God knew that they would find in America a

land where their principles would be safe to prosper and where they would be free to

worship as they saw best. Sharing a common disgust for religious persecution and

following the guidance and the strength of their religious doctrines, the early colonists

arrived in a world that was far removed from all that the habits and traditions they had

known in Europe and all that they had scorned about the shaky and violent make-up of

European society. The cold and rocky shore of New England was a welcome sight to a

people who had faced death and ruin for the sake of an idea.

Tocqueville frequently incorporates the writings of the early colonial historian

Nathaniel Morton in order to illustrate the strong Biblical and political convictions of the

first settlers. One section of the quoted Morton text sums up the peculiar situation of the

first settlers: “but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked

not much upon these things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country,

where God hath prepared for them a city” (Tocqueville, 34). Tocqueville concludes from

his colonial studies that Puritanism is as “much a political theory as a religious doctrine”

(Tocqueville, 35). His theory is amply supported by the actions of the Puritans. Their

first undertaking in the New World was the establishment of a working society, which

would rely upon a precious mixture of divine and actual law. To these laws the Puritans
 Chase 4

promised, as Morton writes, “all due submission and obedience” (Tocqueville, 35). The

American colonies prospered in the years to come because of their stern devotion to

“internal freedom” and “political independence” (Tocqueville, 36). These criterion set

New England apart from the rest of the world, and when England assumed control over

the colonies in the late 1600s, Parliament had to institute a new form of colonial rule that

would not act in contradiction to the colonials’ inherent love of freedom and hatred of

religious intolerance, which had been the source of their problems in Europe. The

colonies were allowed, despite the occasional encroachments, to act as a sovereign

people. They created their society and enforced their laws as if the codes, systems,

regulations, and constitutions had been handed down to them by God.

Several of the colonial states (Tocqueville uses Connecticut as his example) drew

their laws from Biblical text. Death was the accepted and often the expected punishment

for most serious crimes. Crimes punishable by death in the early colonial period included

“blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and rape” (Tocqueville, 38). Tocqueville also points out

that a person could be put to death for worshipping “any other God but the Lord God”

and for insulting one’s parents. Yet, despite the colonials’ proclivity towards the death

penalty it was seldom needed:

In this way they carried the legislation of a rude and half-civilized people into the

heart of a society whose spirit was enlightened and mores mild; so one never saw

the death penalty laid down more profusely in the laws, or applied to fewer of the

guilty (Tocqueville, 38).

The laws relied on a full faith and acceptance of their sanctity; there was simply no

disputing the origins or the necessity of the law. This fortunate mindset allowed for a
 Chase 5

strict adherence to Biblical morality. The legislators took it upon themselves to uphold

the “moral order” and “good mores” of the society (Tocqueville, 38). There were few

crimes, or sins, that did not fall under the measure of the law. Puritanical laws were

highly pervasive, but they were never imposed on the state without the willing

concurrence of all of the inhabitants. Tocqueville is quite keen to note that these laws

were often less puritanical and less rigorous than the mores that presided over the society.

Tocqueville is critical of the abrasive religious practices and subsequent laws of

the Puritans, but he is in the advantageous position of being an observer to religious

development. Still, there is ample evidence to support his belief that Puritanism was

crude and rustic, even somewhat barbaric: He cites the Boston congregation of 1649 that

banded together for the sole purpose of outlawing “the worldly luxury of long hair”

(Tocqueville, 39). With such intransigent behavior among the colonists it is easy to see

why Tocqueville described Puritan law as “bizarre or tyrannical,” and that the strict

morality of the Puritans attested to the “inferiority of our nature” that is “incapable of

firmly grasping the true and just, is most often reduced to choosing between two

excesses” (Tocqueville, 39). However, Tocqueville understood that it was the early

mores of the Puritan society that allowed them to adopt the pure principles of modern

constitutional government. Europe suffered from the inability to bring its ideas to

substantial fruition because they were unable to establish what the colonies had done,

namely “intervention of the people in public affairs, free voting of taxes, responsibility of

the agents of power” and “individual freedom and judgment by jury” (Tocqueville, 39).

The colonists’ ability to firmly establish these rock-hard democratic principles was

simply a matter of providential fact, and because these principles were under the
 Chase 6

protection of divine law, there was no disputing them.

Colonial education was instituted in order to thwart evil by teaching its citizens

how to read. If they could read, then they could have complete access to the scriptures

and obtain all of the knowledge needed to overcome Satan. Schools were erected across

New England, and colonists who failed to educate their children were often charged stiff

fines. From these educational provisions, Tocqueville draws the idea that “in America, it

is religion that leads to enlightenment; it is the observance of divine laws that guides man

to freedom” (Tocqueville, 42). He sites a particular passage from Cotton Mather’s book,

The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, which makes a substantial contribution to

Tocqueville’s account of American civil religion:

Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a

liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts, to do what

they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint;

by this liberty, Sumus Omnes Deteriores [we are inferior]; ‘tis the grand enemy of

truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it. But there is a

civil, moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end and object of authority; it is

a liberty for that only which is just and good; for this liberty you are to stand with

the hazard of your very live (Mathers, 116-117).

Tocqueville realized that in America, “the bosom of that obscure democracy,” a certain

definition of freedom arose that beautifully combined freedom with another of the human

spirits: religion. The early New Englanders were able to do this because they were “at

once ardent sectarians and exalted innovators” (Tocqueville, 43). They held fast to their

religious beliefs and never missed the opportunity to reinforce belief with education.
 Chase 7

Their goal in both religion and education was to turn their society away from evil and to

embrace the good. Necessarily, the colonists were free of the political preconceptions

that threatened Europe at the time. Freedom did not trouble them as it did the Europeans;

it simply existed along with them and entrenched itself within the mores of the religion.

Freedom and religion were finally able to course together and look after one another in

pursuit of their common goals. There is a Revolutionary War song that seems to offer the

definitive word on the spirit of religion and freedom in the American colonies. It reads:

“Let tyrants shake their iron rod / And slav’ry clank her galling chains. / We fear them

not, we trust in God. / New England’s God forever reigns.”2 The Puritan faith in God

proved strong enough to save the colonists from the moral and political turmoil of Europe

not once, but twice.

In their extreme isolation and their moral arrogance, the early colonies maintained

an amazing consistency between religious and political authority. Being completely

devoted to religion allowed them to center their social and political lives completely

around the church. This societal ideal is the “point of departure” for Tocqueville

(Tocqueville, 27). By examining the colonies in their infancy and delving deep into the

internal configuration of their mores, one can discover the very spirit of America. We see

that their religious fervor, although detrimental in some ways, did allow them to nurture a

unique spirit of freedom, which combined forces with religion to animate their civic

mindedness and nurture the perpetuation of undisputed democratic ideals. Church and

state acted as one entity that was entirely devoted to the preservation of moral order. “In

the laws of Connecticut, as in those of New England, one sees arise and develop the

2 From the song “Chester,” written by William Billings around 1776.

 Chase 8

township independence that in our day still forms the principle and the life of American

freedom” (Tocqueville, 40). The vitality of the colonial community is to be found in the

grave but undaunted commitment of its members to morality and society. Americans are

the product of a highly unique, although tentative, mixture of religion and politics, which

has allowed them to uphold the laws of the state as if they had been handed down to them

from God.

Civil Religion

Volume I of Democracy in America discusses democracy in its collective

character and reflects on the commanding authority of democratic virtues in the American

political system. Two sections of the penultimate chapter of Volume I, part II hint at a

relationship between Tocqueville’s work and that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.3 Tocqueville

draws a large part of his understanding of freedom and equality from Rousseau.

Tocqueville’s own acknowledgment of the importance of obedience to self-made law, as

explained in the chapters on Puritan New England, can be traced back to Rousseau’s

thoughts in Book IV of The Social Contract. In Book IV, Rousseau discusses the volition

of man toward religion and describes the necessary correlation between self-made law

and religion’s edification of freedom. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville lauds the

features of the American citizenry, which enable them to be law-abiding citizens, without

3 In the most recent translation of Democracy in America Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop cite a
letter that was sent from Tocqueville to his friend, Louis de Kergorlay. In it Tocqueville says, “There are
three men with whom I live a little every day; they are Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.” In their
introductory essay, Mansfield and Winthrop write that Rousseau and Tocqueville, “share the general
outlook that aristocracy is dead, democracy is inevitable, and the question of modern politics is between
egalitarian democracy and egalitarian tyranny” (p.xxxvi). Tocqueville is indebted to Rousseau for much of
his political thought. In regards to civil religion, both men looked at the “mix of religion with democracy,
and of democracy with religion.” Unlike Rousseau, Tocqueville did not explicitly adopt a concrete civil
religion, nor was he as critical of Christianity as Rousseau. Mansfield and Winthrop state succinctly that
Tocqueville, “praises religion as much for producing healthy, capable individuals as for strengthening
community” (p.xxxix).
 Chase 9

falsely interpreting their love of freedom. Because of this, Tocqueville, like Rousseau, is

extremely concerned with the tentative relationship between political freedom and the

encroachment of tyrannical legislation. The two extremes are constantly at odds with one

another, and both Tocqueville and Rousseau make the suppression of tyranny a central

part of their respective political philosophies. Religion is crucial to both men’s theories

and is an important factor in the relationship between law and freedom.

The necessity of religion in government makes itself known in Tocqueville’s

opening statement to chapter nine,4 which deals with religion as a political institution.

Here, Tocqueville reveals his belief that if one allows “the human mind to follow its

tendency” then the mind will surely want to “regulate political society and the divine city

in a uniform manner; it will seek, if I dare say it, to harmonize the earth with Heaven”

(Tocqueville, 275). The conclusion logically follows from his assertion that there ought

to be a connection between religious and political opinion. In America, the connection

lies in the fact that “there is no single religious doctrine that shows itself hostile to

democratic and republican institutions” (Tocqueville, 277). Law and religion, perhaps in

the ultimate expression of the harmonization of earth and Heaven, have mollified the

influence of their respective powers.

Like Rousseau, Tocqueville believes in the sanctity of the social contract and

understands that in order for the laws of a society to be upheld, they must appear as

authoritative as the word of God. Tocqueville mentions the early connection between

political freedom and the bizarre, somewhat tyrannical, legislation of the early New

Englanders as an example of the fundamental connection between religious zeal and its

4 Chapter nine of volume II is entitled “On Religion Considered as a Political Institution; How It Serves
Powerfully the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic among Americans.”
 Chase 10

political expression through law. The religious enthusiasm of the Puritans, which

Tocqueville observed some two-hundred years later, produced a great reverence for “the

general principles on which constitutions rest” (Tocqueville, 39). He lists among these

principles: “intervention of the people in public affairs, free voting of taxes, responsibility

of the agents of power, individual freedom and judgment by jury,” and he adds that all of

these were established in the New England states “without discussion and in fact”

(Tocqueville, 39).

The early New Englanders established a community life based upon shared

equality. Each colonist, being of similar origin, religion, and class desired to live in close

proximity to those of like interest. They formed small and isolated societies where

equality could manifest itself purely and unrestrained. Their common interests could be

seen in their laws, their God, and their way of life. Unfortuantely, what they had created

was a vision of the world that was so essentially arrogant and so committed to the idea of

itself that the perfect origin of their laws religion and freedom could not withstand the

social, demographical, industrial, and intellectual pressures of a developing society.

Gradually their love of freedom would translate itself into something more

democratically appealing, mainly the love of equality. This manifestation of the love of

equality is a bastardization of the original spirit of freedom that Tocqueville praises in the

early New Englanders.

Tocqueville writes Democracy in America based upon his observations of the

“equality of the conditions” in the United States (Tocqueville, 3). He recognized that the

Americans’ interest in equality extended beyond the mere political realm and invaded all

levels of society. He refers to the equality of the conditions as “the generative fact”
 Chase 11

because from this first fact all others seem to spring (Tocqueville, 3). His recognition of

the love of equality in the United States led him to the following remarks on the political

“consequences” of this unique aspect of the American social state:

There is in fact a manly and legitimate passion for equality that incites men to

want to all be strong and esteemed. This passion tends to elevate the small to

the rank of the great; but one also encounters a depraved taste for equality in the

human heart that brings the weak to want to draw the strong to their level and that

reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.

(Tocqueville, 52).

Tocqueville borrows from Rousseau the theory that all systems of legislation are

reducible into two main objects: “liberty and equality” (Rousseau, 204). Rousseau writes

that legislation must tend towards equality because “liberty cannot exist without it”

(Rousseau, 204). Tocqueville extends this remark in order to deal more specifically with

the nature of equality as he sees it developing in the world. He uses Rousseau’s comment

as a basis for the warning contained in the above passage and as the precursor to the first

part of Democracy in America; for it is in this first part that Tocqueville explains the

principles of American sovereignty, the judicial system, political judgment, and the

federal constitution.

In Rousseau’s chapter on civil religion in The Social Contract,5 he warns his

readers that a “national religion” is dangerous and requires permanent intervention

(Rousseau, 277). Rousseau purports that it would be impossible for supposedly equal

citizens to live in harmony with each other when they are found to be theologically

5 Chapter VIII of Book IV is entitled “Civil Religion.” Besides a brief concluding paragraph, this chapter
ends The Social Contract.
 Chase 12

opposed. This can be better summed up by his compelling statement that “It is

impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to

hate God who punishes them” (Rousseau, 276). So, only religions that are wholly

tolerant of each other and that support no peculiar dogmas, which might be detrimental to

civil society, are to be permitted. Tocqueville reports that the Americans have adapted to

Rousseau’s requirements. Their religions, although mixed and infinitely varying, all

support one common religious dogma. They all “agree on the duties of men toward one

another” (Tocqueville, 278). Religious and political opinion meld together beautifully in

the United States to form one natural idea about the direction of mankind. To deny that

one American has no connection and no responsibility to another would not only be

politically callous and un-democratic, it would be blasphemous.

Tocqueville devotes several chapters throughout Volumes I and II to

understanding the “heroism” of American commerce and the “doctrine of self-interest” as

it is understood in the United States (Tocqueville, 387, 500). Americans are imprinted

with the idea of self-interest, but never allow it to develop into rampant individualism.

Their sense of duty toward one another prevents the plague of individualism that

constantly threatens to destroy democratic peoples. In a democracy the democratic

citizen is constantly battling against being led back into his/herself and being trapped

“wholly in the solitude” of one’s “own heart” (Tocqueville, 484). The Americans hold off

this tendency through their free institutions. The more actively they participate in

government and the stronger the calling of their civic virtues, the less apt they are to be

caught entirely within the confines of their “own hearts.” The doctrine of self-interest, as

understood by every American, is irrevocably linked to their sense of civic virtue. In a

 Chase 13

sense, they never make a complete distinction between private and public duties. Their

personal dreams, goals, and above all their ideas were never totally unraveled from that

of the community.

The aforementioned principles comprise the basic elements of American

democratic thought and practice. These principles were earlier defined by the Puritan

version of the general will that flourished in the provincial communities of early New

England. Due to the extreme isolation of these communities, the social bond between

individuals was greatly enhanced and the communities prospered under their shared sense

of unity. The image that Tocqueville captures of early New England communities is

remarkably similar to that of the State described by Rousseau in Book IV of The Social

Contract:

As long as several men in assembly regard themselves as a single body, they have

only a single will which is concerned with their common preservation and general

well-being. In this case, all the springs of the State are vigorous and simple and

its rules clear and luminous; there are no embroilments or conflicts of interests;

the common good is everywhere clearly apparent, and only good sense is needed

to perceive it (Rousseau, 247).

The “good sense” of the early New Englanders appears in the form of their laws and the

balance they struck between religion and human life. Tocqueville admires the noticeably

fervent religious attitude that the New Englanders brought to the political realm. He

noticed that they were fully engaged in the social contract and never suffered from a

feeling of lawful oppression. The New Englanders had adopted the “positive” dogma of

Rousseau’s civil religion: “The existence of a mighty, intelligent, and beneficent Divinity,
 Chase 14

possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the

punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws” (Rousseau,

276).

Tocqueville’s desire for the first volume of Democracy in America is to

demonstrate to the modern world how Rousseau’s theories in The Social Contract could

be put to use. America provided a convenient model for Tocqueville, which he used in

order to discern how the general will could reveal itself in one country, but still be

applicable to all. By the end of Volume I, Tocqueville had already begun to comment on

how the entire structure of American life had begun to shift; the small provincial way of

life that had been so crucial to the perpetuation of Puritan law and religion was

disappearing. The freedom that the Puritans enjoyed through self-made law had not

eroded, but it had undergone changes. Tocqueville was aware of many of the distinctions

between modern Americans and their Puritan ancestors and he was particularly attune to

the new religions that were springing up across the country.

The publication of Volume II of Democracy in America in 18406 allowed

Tocqueville to delve deeper into the American psyche and unearth the intellectual habits,

mores, and sentiments that were shaping the American social system and the American

spirit. In Volume II, he writes about the new spirit of religion, which he had not seriously

discussed in the original volume. In order to understand why Tocqueville is wary of the

new religions, and why he devotes so much effort to understanding the long-term affects

6 There is a five year difference in publication dates. Mansfield and Winthrop write that the first
volume,“with its lively picturing of America, was a sensation and made Tocqueville famous.” However,
the second volume, “with its somber analysis of democracy was received without enthusiasm.” This
unfortunate reception was “an event that somewhat disconcerted the author.” (All quotes are from p.xli).
 Chase 15

of them on the Americans, one must briefly return to Tocqueville’s argument for the

necessity of religion in human life.

Tocqueville stresses that the need for religion exists because people have an

immense interest in cementing ideas about themselves, their souls, their God, and the

“general duties toward their Creator” because to doubt “these first points would deliver

all their actions to chance and condemn them to a sort of disorder and impotence”

(Tocqueville, 417). He understood that humanity on a grand scale, and at the individual

level, is incapable of envisioning itself as a nothingness, devoid of content and apart from

the rest of the world. Religion gives man a common sense of belonging and delivers all

peoples from the seemingly inescapable fears of meaninglessness and death:

When religion is destroyed in a people, doubt takes hold of the highest portions of

the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Each becomes accustomed to

having only confused and changing notions about matters that most interest those

like him and himself; one defends one’s opinions badly or abandons them, and as

one despairs of being able to resolve by oneself the greatest problems that human

destiny presents, one is reduced, like a coward, to not thinking about them at all.

(Tocqueville, 418).

If religion is taken away from humanity, the doors to “limitless independence” are thrust

open and restless agitation takes hold (Tocqueville, 418). The response to such

independence is the creation of new ways to secure the human situation in the cosmos: to

erect new masters and to face the possibility of handing oneself over to servitude and

tyranny. Tocqueville observes that it is the civil religion of the Americans that teaches

them how to live in freedom.

 Chase 16

In considering the primary causes that make religion powerful in America,

Tocqueville says that “disbelief is an accident; faith alone is the permanent state of

humanity” (Tocqueville, 284). Only two real dangers can threaten the existence of

religion: “schism and indifference” (Tocqueville, 286). How does one keep “schism and

indifference” from overpowering the religious institutions of America? The answer,

according to Tocqueville, is in the separation of church and state:

Insofar as a nation takes on a democratic social state, and societies are seen to

incline towards republics, it becomes more and more dangerous for religion to

unite with authority; for the time approaches when power is going to pass from

hand to hand, when political theories will succeed one another, when men, laws,

and constitutions themselves will disappear or be modified daily - and this lasting

not only for a time, but constantly (Tocqueville, 285).

By separating the power of the church from that of the state, religion can survive as the

force that gives meaning to human life when all that surrounds humanity is changing. If

religion were as unstable as politics, than it would lose the permanence and stability of its

being. Religion should retain the vestiges of immortality in a thoroughly political and

mortal world. If religion were to ally with political institutions, it would forfeit the

eternality of its strength. Tocqueville approves of the Americans’ efforts to preserve the

decency of religious faith in the face of political indifference.

Tocqueville feared that a religion such as pantheism, could take advantage of

equal human conditions and warp the foundations of human greatness. By “enclosing

God and the universe within a single whole,” pantheistic doctrine makes an appeal to the

equality-loving character of democratic peoples. Pantheism thoroughly connects all that

 Chase 17

is in the universe and brings it under the reign of one philosophical and theological

system. It effectively scraps individuality for the existence of the whole; an idea that

equality lovers have no difficulty in adopting. Democratic peoples are left with two

choices: adopt pantheism or remain faithful to the idea that man is indefinitely

perfectible. According to Tocqueville, the Americans’ idea of equality has led them to

believe in the indefinite perfectibility of man. They have been led to understand that man

“perfects himself” (Tocqueville, 427). In the United States, Tocqueville has observed

how old ideas have come and gone, how generations have left their varied marks on

society, and how laws and customs have been continuously reexamined. Yet, despite the

great fluctuations of their society, “the image of an ideal and always fugitive perfection is

presented to the human mind” (Tocqueville, 427). The Americans are like the man, or

perhaps the child,7 that Tocqueville describes as “always seeking, falling, righting

himself, often disappointed, never discouraged” as “he tends ceaselessly toward the

immense greatness that he glimpses confusedly at the end of the long course that

humanity must traverse” (Tocqueville, 427). The Americans’ conception of equality has

not constrained their ability to create beauty, to be noble, to be productive, and to seek

with an eternal optimism the greatness in human nature. Faith in human perfectibility

constitutes the heart of American civil religion.

Tocqueville opens Democracy in America by illustrating the great debt that the

19th century Americans owe to the first colonists. It was the early Puritan New

Englanders who established the firm foundation of what would become American

democracy. For it was the early New Englanders who were the first people to ever

7 A possible allusion to the young child of Rousseau’s Emile.

 Chase 18

establish a lawful consistency between religion and politics. Tocqueville makes it clear

that the strict Puritanism of New England led the Americans to discover their current

definition of freedom. He concludes his preliminary examination of Puritan New

England with the following: “Freedom sees in religion the companion of its struggles and

its triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, the divine source of its rights. It considers religion

as the safeguard of mores; and mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its own

duration” (Tocqueville, 44).

The Paradox

As previously mentioned, Tocqueville’s interpretation of civil religion closely

mirrors that of Rousseau. Rousseau’s own phrasing offers a more concise examination of

civil religion and adds greater clarity to the understanding of the paradox. More so than

Tocqueville, he makes it easier to evaluate the ironic consistency that exists between

religion and politics. Rousseau makes it clear that there is a “purely civil profession of

faith” that the sovereign should attempt to affix certain social sentiments to. Although

these sentiments are not precisely religious by nature, they do draw upon the individuals’

dogmatic inclinations toward being “a good citizen and a faithful subject” (Rousseau,

276). Without a religious foundation to rest these sentiments upon, they would be wasted

on an intolerant and un-marshaled people. Civil religion itself would be useless if it did

not accept the notion of a wholly tolerant God. To reiterate what was said before, “it is

impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned” (Rousseau, 276). This leads

to Rousseau’s final statement on civil religion: “tolerance should be given to all religions

that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of

citizenship” (Rousseau, 277). He finishes his statement by adding that salvation is still
 Chase 19

possible outside of the church unless, of course, the church and the state are inseparable.

Rousseau endorses a politics that is neutral towards religion. This is possible only

because of a belief in a God who is hostile to intolerance. Therefore, it makes no

difference what religion one chooses as long as the social order is maintained. It

logically follows that the only true sin, against God and the state, would be that of

intolerance. To violate the new civil religion dogma of no intolerance would be

blasphemous in itself.

While Tocqueville draws many of his theories from Rousseau, one must bear in

mind that Rousseau is not the authority on the specific political situation found in

America. Here, one must rely on Democracy in America for an informative depiction of

the unmatched American way of life. Tocqueville explains that in the United States, civil

religion is deeply contradictory, being neither a true orthodoxy, nor a strict political

doctrine, and ultimately lacks resolute content. While discussing matters of religion in

Volume II, he notices that the Americans are markedly more religiously tranquil than

traditional European societies. They seem to be following their reason as opposed to a

passionate desire for religious indoctrination. Even the Protestant preachers seem to be

roped into the confusion:

But American preachers constantly come back to earth and only with great trouble

can they take their eyes off it. To touch their listeners better, they make them see

daily how religious beliefs favor freedom and public order, and it is often difficult

to know when listening to them if the principal object of religion is to procure

eternal felicity in the other world or well-being in this one (Tocqueville, 506).

This quotation describes the perversion of religion in democratic life. There is no longer a
 Chase 20

clear and distinct division between what constitutes religious life and what harbors

democratic freedom. Americans seem to live somewhere in between salvation and

freedom.

Americans tend toward an unfettered spirituality. Their search for meaning,

which is only whetted by their expression of civil religion, gets perverted into a multitude

of spiritualistic tendencies, such as the Pantheistic doctrines that Tocqueville describes.

Like their exalted materialism, the Americans spirituality often “runs without stopping

beyond the bounds of common sense” (Tocqueville, 511). The tolerance of their God

often prohibits them from partaking in a close examination of right and wrong. The only

right they understand is religious and political tolerance. This, however, creates a serious

self-contradiction because with no other standard of right than tolerance, anything a

person dares must be permissible. Simply put, civil religion makes it a sin to be

intolerant of intolerance. In turn, the law supports tolerance and adds political defense to

the confusion.

American Spirit

Tolerance has always been a silent issue for Americans, but rarely have they had

to test its bounds. It has never made them uneasy. The tolerant civil religion encouraged

by both Tocqueville and Rousseau as the necessary requirement for the establishment of a

liberal democracy seems to have guided America safely through two centuries. Yet, have

the circumstances of the modern world begun to reveal the limitations of civil religion?

Tocqueville’s writing suggests that he is not unaware of the contradiction inherent to

civil religion, but despite his recognition of it, he never considers the paradox to be

detrimental to society. Ultimately, he suggests to his readers that democratic nations

 Chase 21

depend on religion and self-made law in order to guarantee freedom. This leaves modern

readers left to wonder whether the Tocqueville-Rousseau solution will be a sufficient

answer for an impending future?

Modern philosophy and the intellectual enlightenment of the past few centuries

have effectively scraped off the patina of the early colonial interlude in American

development. Yet in looking back, one is compelled to admire a people who braved death

to make “an idea triumph.” The early New Englanders, devoid of pretension and filled

with the sort of contentment that possibility brings, founded a society that was incapable

of buying itself a slave. No citizen was forced to enter into the contract under false

pretenses and because of this no one harbored a desire to opt out. All spiritual and

political needs were fulfilled.

But the Americans that Tocqueville describe no longer adhere to the Puritan

doctrines of the past; they are the product of a strict religion that they no longer practice.

Already one begins to see that the religious paradox has infected the American spirit.

Religion, which made American democratic freedom possible, is no longer able to sustain

itself against the demands of the modern world. This is even more apparent in the 21st

century than it was in Tocqueville’s day. One need only consider the out of control

commitment of the Americans to social, cultural, and religious diversity to see that they

are no longer fully capable of sustaining the balance between religion and freedom. Any

claims to a current harmony between these two spirits are no more than a sort of

sophistry.

Religions that preach the indefinite perfectibility of man are formally unclear

about religious (let alone political) virtues. In a time that grapples with the shaky effects
 Chase 22

of such religions and the advancement of new, more worldly and concessionary faiths,

one wonders how and why the Americans can remain true to their principle religious and

political virtues? Or perhaps it is accurate to say that they are loyal to neither? If

Americans were truly prudent in their political virtues, their need for religion would be

satiated by the definitive answers they received from the law. Likewise, if they were a

genuinely religious based society, politics and law could never speak as openly to their

hearts as revelation; they would have no need for a political community.

Daily, each American bears witness to the struggle between religious freedom and

political freedom brought on by a fundamental disagreement between liberals and

conservatives. Tocqueville’s own text is touted by both sides as the definitive answer to

the respective sides of their disagreement. However, one should be painfully aware that

the Tocqueville-Rousseau solution lacks a definitive answer. The circumstances of the

modern world have made the paradox of American civil religion transparent. This

transparency has led some Americans to see that civil religion is caught in an almost

circular argument. The Americans are forced to ask themselves whether it is religion that

supports freedom and equality or whether it is political freedom and equality that

supports religion? Both sides understand the argument but are silent as to the answer. It

remains to be seen whether the current inconsistency between religion and freedom will

be able to resolve itself. One certainty though, which Tocqueville does remind his reader

of, is that the burden of decades to come will be bore on the backs of democratic nations.

America will bear the greatest burden of all because its struggles will be internal.

America’s greatest war will be fought intellectually. To sustain itself in the future it must

discover what it was, what it is, and what it can be.

 Chase 23

WORKS CITED

Mather, Cotton. (1820). The Ecclesiastical History of New-England. (Vol. 1). Hartford.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. (1973). The Social Contract and Discourses. (G.D.H Cole,
Trans.). London: Everyman’s Library. (Original work published 1762).

Tocqueville, Alexis de. (2000). Democracy in America. (Harvey Mansfield and Delba
 Chase 24

Winthrop, Trans.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Original work

published 1835 and 1840).