TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY.

How the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People is to be understood. · Impossibility of conceiving a Mixed Government. The Sovereign

Power must exist somewhere. - Precautions to be taken to control its Action. - These Precautions have not been taken in the United States.

Consequences.

I HOLD it to be an impious and detestable maxim, that, politically speaking, the people have a right to do anything; and yet I have asserted that all authority originates in the will of the majority. Am I, then, in contradiction with myself?

A general law, which bears the name of justice, has been made and sanctioned, not only by a majority of this or that people, but by a majority of mankind. The rights of every people are therefore confined within the limits of what is just. A nation may be considered as a jury which is empowered to represent society at large, and to apply justice, which is its law. Ought such a jury, which represents society, to have more power than the society itself, whose laws it executes?

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. Some have not feared to assert that a people can never outstep the boundaries of justice and reason in those affairs which are peculiarly its own; and that consequently full power may be given to the majority by which they are represented. But this is the language of a slave.

A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same

reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with each other; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength.* For my own. part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything, which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.

I do not think that, for the sake of preserving liberty, it is possible to combine several principles in the same government so as really to oppose them to one another. The form of government which is usually termed mixed has always appeared to me a mere chimera. Accurately speaking, there is no such thing as a mixed government, in the sense usually given to that word, because, in all communities, some one principle of action may be discovered which preponderates over the others. England, in the last century, — which has been especially cited as an example of this sort of government, was essentially an aristocratic state, although it comprised some great elements of democracy; for the laws and customs of the country were such that the aristocracy could not but preponderate in the long run, and direct public affairs according to its own will. The error arose from seeing the interests of the nobles perpetually contending with those of the people, without considering the issue of the contest, which was really the important point. When a community actually has a mixed government, that is to say, when it is equally divided between adverse principles, it must either experience a revolution, or fall into anarchy.

I am therefore of opinion, that social power superior to all others must always be placed somewhere; but I think

* No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong another people; but parties may be looked upon as lesser nations within a great one, and they are aliens to each other: if, therefore, it be admitted that a nation can act tyrannically towards another nation, it cannot be denied that a party may do the same towards another party.

that liberty is endangered when this power finds no obstacle which can retard its course, and give it time to moderate its own vehemence.

Unlimited power is in itself a bad and dangerous thing. Human beings are not competent to exercise it with discretion. God alone can be omnipotent, because his wisdom and his justice are always equal to his power. There is no power on earth so worthy of honor in itself, or clothed with rights so sacred, that I would admit its uncontrolled and all-predominant authority. When I see that the right and the means of absolute command are conferred on any power whatever, be it called a people or a king, an aristocracy or a democracy, a monarchy or a republic, I say there is the germ of tyranny, and I seek to live elsewhere, under other laws.

In my opinion, the main evil of the present democratic institutions of the United States does not arise, as is often asserted in Europe, from their weakness, but from their irresistible strength. I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns in that country, as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.

When an individual or a party is wronged in the United States, to whom can he apply for redress? If to public opinion, public opinion constitutes the majority; if to the legislature, it represents the majority, and implicitly obeys it; if to the executive power, it is appointed by the majority, and serves as a passive tool in its hands. The public force consists of the majority under arms; the jury is the majority invested with the right of hearing judicial cases; and in certain States, even the judges are elected by the majority. However iniquitous or absurd the measure of which you complain, you must submit to it as well as you can.*

* A striking instance of the excesses which may be occasioned by the despotism of the majority occurred at Baltimore during the war of 1812

If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be so constituted as to represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions, an executive so as to retain a proper share of authority, and a judiciary so as to remain independent of the other two powers, a government

At that time, the war was very popular in Baltimore. A journal which had taken the other side excited by its opposition the indignation of the inhabitants. The mob assembled, broke the printing-presses, and attacked the house of the editors. The militia was called out, but did not obey the call; and the only means of saving the wretches who were threatened by the frenzy of the mob, was to throw them into prison as common malefactors. But even this precaution was ineffectual; the mob collected again during the night; the magistrates again made a vain attempt to call out the militia; the prison was forced, one of the newspaper editors was killed upon the spot, and the others were left for dead. The guilty parties, when

they were brought to trial, were acquitted by the jury.

I said one day to an inhabitant of Pennsylvania, "Be so good as to explain to me how it happens, that in a State founded by Quakers, and celebrated for its toleration, free Blacks are not allowed to exercise civil rights. They pay taxes; is it not fair that they should vote?"

"You insult us," replied my informant, "if you imagine that our legislators could have committed so gross an act of injustice and intolerance."

"Then the Blacks possess the right of voting in this country?"

"Without doubt."

"How comes it, then, that at the polling-booth, this morning, I did not perceive a single Negro in the meeting?"

"This is not the fault of the law: the Negroes have an undisputed right of voting; but they voluntarily abstain from making their appearance." "A very pretty piece of modesty on their part!" rejoined I.

Why, the truth is, that they are not disinclined to vote, but they aru afraid of being maltreated; in this country, the law is sometimes unable to maintain its authority, without the support of the majority. But in this case, the majority entertains very strong prejudices against the Blacks, and the magistrates are unable to protect them in the excrcise of their legal rights."

"Then the majority claims the right not only of making the laws, but of breaking the laws it has made?"

[In Massachusetts, and some other States, free Blacks vote as regularly as any other class of citizens. - AM. ED.]

would be formed which would still be democratic, without incurring hardly any risk of tyranny.

I do not say that there is a frequent use of tyranny in America at the present day; but I maintain that there is no sure barrier against it, and that the causes which mitigate the government there are to be found in the circumstances and the manners of the country, more than in its laws.*

*This whole chapter is a glowing description of the evils which are to be feared in the United States from an abuse of the immense power of the majority. In the main, it is a truthful picture; and yet the author allows himself to be so far heated by his own rhetoric as to forget the checks and limitations of this dominant power which he has himself elsewhere noticed. The very complexity of our frame of government enables us to set off and balance the strength of one majority against another. Thus the Federal and the State governments mutually restrain and limit cach other, while cach is restricted by many provisions in its own written Constitution, which are of the nature of a Bill of Rights. No law can be passed by the Federal Legislature without the concurrence of a majority of the States represented in the Senate, wherein little Delaware, with only one hundred thousand inhabitants, has as potent a voice as the Empire State of New York, with its three and a half millions. Even the sturdy little New England township, so admirably described elsewhere by M. de Tocqueville, succeeds in causing its rights to be respected in the State Legislature, where it is immensely outnumbered, because the other townships would make common cause with it against any crying injustice, fearing that its case may become their own at some future day. Moreover, the majority in a State, or even in the United States, though a mighty, is also an unwieldy power, acting only at long intervals, once a year, or once in four years, and then through so many agents, and so much machinery, that the force of its blows is greatly impaired before they reach their object. It is only a figure of speech to say that the majority of the people make the laws, because they choose the members of the Legislature. The delegates thus chosen respect their constituents, it is true, and strive in the main to conform to their wishes; and yet they act very differently from what those constituents would do, if allowed to come together whenever they pleased, and directly enact any law that pleased them, upon any subject. The necessary delays in law-making, the compliance with established forms, the suspensive veto of a Governor or a President, the fear which cach individual legislator entertains lest the proposed enactment, though it may gratify his present