On Tocqueville and Democracy in America
I have, lately, been reading a wide variety of literature relating to the founding of the United States.
Right now, I'm in the middle of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Tocqueville's prescience and insight have been roundly and correctly lauded, but there are some things that even Tocqueville gets wrong.
Late in the first volume of his work, Tocqueville states:
A general ascendency of federal government has taken place in the 150 years since Tocqueville's work has been published, and history has shown that United States citizens have a variety of things to fear from both the state and federal governmnents that unite them. Minorities within any given state, for example, generally have more to fear from their state rather than their federal government (both state-sanctioned Jim Crow laws and anti-gay state constitutional amendments serve as useful examples of this trend), though, of course this is not always the case (think federally-mandated Japanese Internment during WWII). Additionally, citizens of individual states, overall, tend to have more to fear from the federal than their state governments, for two important reasons.
In the first case, as the Anti-Federalists point out, the federal government is large, prohibitively complex and sits a long distance away from the people it governs. All of these things contribute to a federal tendency of abuse, neglect and corruption by making it difficult for the citizens to successfully police it. Corruption on the state level is more easily detected, in general, simply because by virtue of its nature state government is far smaller than its federal counterpart, generally less complex and therefor less opaque, and the citizens, living in daily contact with their state government, are more familiar with it and the people who run it.
Agents of the federal government, by comparison, do not govern from the heart of their constituencies and their distance from them weakens the natural bonds of affection they feel for their individual states, inclining them further towards abuse of their positions.
Secondly, individual federal legislators, in their federal capacity, purportedly govern in the interest of the full body of U.S. citizens, but are accountable only to the citizens of a given state or district. This, sometimes, and perhaps often, inclines them to partiality in the governance of the nation as a whole. The recent conflict of interest in the budget between bridges in the State of Alaska and hurricane relief in Louisiana serves as a good example of this tendency. The weakness of these states, politically, and their position as victims in the current debacle, serves further to illustrate the partiality of various factions in the federal government.
Tocqueville's last claim, above, relating directly to state secession is simply mistaken. One of the primary Anti-Federalists arguments against the Federal Constitution was the fact that it wasn't a compact between sovereign states, but rather a compact between the people of the states and a national government. The implications of this, the Anti-federalists claimed, was a reduction in state sovereignty, including the capacity to secede.
Right now, I'm in the middle of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Tocqueville's prescience and insight have been roundly and correctly lauded, but there are some things that even Tocqueville gets wrong.
Late in the first volume of his work, Tocqueville states:
"The Union guarantees the independence and greatness of the nation, things which do not impinge immediately on private individuals. The state preserves the freedom, regulates rights, safeguards property, protects the life and entire future of each citizen.Later, Tocqueville continues, predicting the decline of the federal government and the ascendency of state governments:
The federal government stands at a great distance from its subjects; the regional government is within the reach of all. All you need to do for it to hear you is to raise your voice. Central governemnt has on its side the passions of a few outstanding men who are ambitious to direct it; regional government is supported by the self-interest of men of lower rank who hope to achieve power only in their own state. These are the men who, being close to the people, exercise the most power over them.
American have, therefore, much more to expect and fear from the state than from the Union and, according to the natural emotions of the human mind, they are bound to feel a closer attachement ot the former than to the latter."
"If the sovereignty of the union were to come into confliect with that of the states, one can readily foresee that it would be defeated; I doubt whether the fight would ever be undertaken in serious fashion. Whenever determined resistance is offered to the federal government, it will be found to yield. Experience has shown so far that whenever a state has been stubbornly determined on anything and was resolute in its demands, it never failed to obtain it and when it has flatly refused to act it was left to do what it wanted ...Such broad statements of fact are common in the literature of the time, and it is clear that Tocqueville is confused about a number of things and disregarding quite a few others.
Besides, however strong a governemnt, it cannot escape the consequences of a principle once it has been established as the foundeation of its public constitution. The confederation was formed by the free will of the states which, by uniting together, did not forfeit their nationality nor become fused into one and the same nation. If, today, one of these same states wished to withraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to prove that it could not do so. The federal governent would not be able in any obvious way to rely upon either forc or law to overcome it."
A general ascendency of federal government has taken place in the 150 years since Tocqueville's work has been published, and history has shown that United States citizens have a variety of things to fear from both the state and federal governmnents that unite them. Minorities within any given state, for example, generally have more to fear from their state rather than their federal government (both state-sanctioned Jim Crow laws and anti-gay state constitutional amendments serve as useful examples of this trend), though, of course this is not always the case (think federally-mandated Japanese Internment during WWII). Additionally, citizens of individual states, overall, tend to have more to fear from the federal than their state governments, for two important reasons.
In the first case, as the Anti-Federalists point out, the federal government is large, prohibitively complex and sits a long distance away from the people it governs. All of these things contribute to a federal tendency of abuse, neglect and corruption by making it difficult for the citizens to successfully police it. Corruption on the state level is more easily detected, in general, simply because by virtue of its nature state government is far smaller than its federal counterpart, generally less complex and therefor less opaque, and the citizens, living in daily contact with their state government, are more familiar with it and the people who run it.
Agents of the federal government, by comparison, do not govern from the heart of their constituencies and their distance from them weakens the natural bonds of affection they feel for their individual states, inclining them further towards abuse of their positions.
Secondly, individual federal legislators, in their federal capacity, purportedly govern in the interest of the full body of U.S. citizens, but are accountable only to the citizens of a given state or district. This, sometimes, and perhaps often, inclines them to partiality in the governance of the nation as a whole. The recent conflict of interest in the budget between bridges in the State of Alaska and hurricane relief in Louisiana serves as a good example of this tendency. The weakness of these states, politically, and their position as victims in the current debacle, serves further to illustrate the partiality of various factions in the federal government.
Tocqueville's last claim, above, relating directly to state secession is simply mistaken. One of the primary Anti-Federalists arguments against the Federal Constitution was the fact that it wasn't a compact between sovereign states, but rather a compact between the people of the states and a national government. The implications of this, the Anti-federalists claimed, was a reduction in state sovereignty, including the capacity to secede.
posted by Anonymous at 6:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home