Democracy In America, vol 2 | Page 8

of their common
resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost unbounded
confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would not seem
probable, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, but that
the greater truth should go with the greater number.
When the inhabitant of a democratic country compares himself
individually with all those about him, he feels with pride that he is the

equal of any one of them; but when he comes to survey the totality of
his fellows, and to place himself in contrast to so huge a body, he is
instantly overwhelmed by the sense of his own insignificance and
weakness. The same equality which renders him independent of each of
his fellow-citizens taken severally, exposes him alone and unprotected
to the influence of the greater number. The public has therefore among
a democratic people a singular power, of which aristocratic nations
could never so much as conceive an idea; for it does not persuade to
certain opinions, but it enforces them, and infuses them into the
faculties by a sort of enormous pressure of the minds of all upon the
reason of each.
In the United States the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of
ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved
from the necessity of forming opinions of their own. Everybody there
adopts great numbers of theories, on philosophy, morals, and politics,
without inquiry, upon public trust; and if we look to it very narrowly, it
will be perceived that religion herself holds her sway there, much less
as a doctrine of revelation than as a commonly received opinion. The
fact that the political laws of the Americans are such that the majority
rules the community with sovereign sway, materially increases the
power which that majority naturally exercises over the mind. For
nothing is more customary in man than to recognize superior wisdom
in the person of his oppressor. This political omnipotence of the
majority in the United States doubtless augments the influence which
public opinion would obtain without it over the mind of each member
of the community; but the foundations of that influence do not rest
upon it. They must be sought for in the principle of equality itself, not
in the more or less popular institutions which men living under that
condition may give themselves. The intellectual dominion of the
greater number would probably be less absolute amongst a democratic
people governed by a king than in the sphere of a pure democracy, but
it will always be extremely absolute; and by whatever political laws
men are governed in the ages of equality, it may be foreseen that faith
in public opinion will become a species of religion there, and the
majority its ministering prophet.
Thus intellectual authority will be different, but it will not be
diminished; and far from thinking that it will disappear, I augur that it

may readily acquire too much preponderance, and confine the action of
private judgment within narrower limits than are suited either to the
greatness or the happiness of the human race. In the principle of
equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; the one leading the mind
of every man to untried thoughts, the other inclined to prohibit him
from thinking at all. And I perceive how, under the dominion of certain
laws, democracy would extinguish that liberty of the mind to which a
democratic social condition is favorable; so that, after having broken all
the bondage once imposed on it by ranks or by men, the human mind
would be closely fettered to the general will of the greatest number.
If the absolute power of the majority were to be substituted by
democratic nations, for all the different powers which checked or
retarded overmuch the energy of individual minds, the evil would only
have changed its symptoms. Men would not have found the means of
independent life; they would simply have invented (no easy task) a new
dress for servitude. There is - and I cannot repeat it too often - there is
in this matter for profound reflection for those who look on freedom as
a holy thing, and who hate not only the despot, but despotism. For
myself, when I feel the hand of power lie heavy on my brow, I care but
little to know who oppresses me; and I am not the more disposed to
pass beneath the yoke, because it is held out to me by the arms of a
million of men.
Book One - Chapters III-V

Chapter III
: Why The Americans Display More Readiness And More Taste For
General Ideas Than Their Forefathers, The English The Deity does not
regard the human race collectively. He surveys at one glance and
severally all the beings of whom