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De
Tocqueville has long been recognized as an important observer
of the American society. His observations regarding religion
in America are no less so.
RJ&L
Religious Institutions Group
Every
religion has some political opinion linked to it by affinity.
The spirit of man, left to follow its bent, will regulate
political society and the City of God in uniform fashion;
it will, if I dare put it so, seek to harmonize earth
with heaven.
Most
of English America was peopled by men who, having shaken
off the pope's authority, acknowledged no other religious
supremacy; they therefore brought to the New World a Christianity
which I can only describe as democratic and republican;
this fact singularly favored the establishment of a temporal
republic and democracy. From the start politics and religion
agreed, and they have not since ceased to do so.
About
fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a Catholic population
into the United States. Also American Catholicism made converts.
There are now in the United States more than a million Christians
professing the truths of the Roman Church.
These
Catholics are very loyal in the practice of their worship
and full of zeal and ardor for their beliefs. Nevertheless,
they form the most republican and democratic of all classes
in the United States. At first glance this is astonishing,
but reflection easily indicates the hidden causes therefore.
I think
one is wrong in regarding the Catholic religion as a natural
enemy of democracy. Rather, among the various Christian
doctrines Catholicism seems one of those most favorable
to equality of conditions. For Catholics religious society
is composed of two elements: priest and people. The priest
is raised above the faithful; all below him are equal.
In
matters of dogma the Catholic faith places all intellects
on the same level; the learned man and the ignorant, the
genius and the common herd, must all subscribe to the same
details of belief; rich and poor must follow the same observances,
and it imposes the same austerities upon the strong and
the weak; it makes no compromise with any mortal, but applying
the same standard to every human being, it mingles all classes
of society at the foot of the same altar, just as they are
mingled in the sight of God.
Catholicism
may dispose the faithful to obedience, but it does not prepare
them for inequality. However, I would say that Protestantism
in general orients men much less toward equality than toward
independence.
Catholicism
is like an absolute monarchy. The prince apart, conditions
are more equal there than in republics.
It
has often happened that a Catholic priest has left his sanctuary
to become a power in society, taking his place in the social
hierarchy; he has then sometimes used his religious influence
to assure the duration of a political order of which he
is part; then, too, one has found Catholic partisans of
the aristocracy from religious motives.
But
once priests are excluded or exclude themselves from the
government, as happens in the United States, no men are
more led by their beliefs than are Catholics to carry the
idea of equality of conditions over into the political sphere.
So
while the nature of their beliefs may not give the Catholics
of the Unites States any strong impulsion toward democratic
and republican opinions, they at least are not naturally
contrary thereto, whereas their social position and small
numbers constrain them to adopt them.
Most
of the Catholics are poor, and unless all citizens govern,
they will never attain to the government themselves. The
Catholics are in a minority, and it is important for them
that all rights should be respected so that they can be
sure to enjoy their own in freedom. For these two reasons
they are led, perhaps in spite of themselves, toward political
doctrines which maybe, they would adopt with less zeal were
the rich and predominant.
The
Catholic clergy in the United States has made no effort
to strive against this political tendency but rather seeks
to justify it. American Catholic priests have divided the
world of the mind into two parts; in one are revealed dogmas
to which they submit without discussion; political truth
finds its place in the other half which they think God has
left to man's free investigation. Thus American Catholics
are both the most obedient of the faithful and the most
independent citizens.
Therefore
one can say that there is not a single religious doctrine
in the United States hostile to democratic and republican
institutions. All the clergy there speak the same language;
opinions are in harmony with the laws, and there is, so
to say, only one mental current.
While
I was temporarily living in one of America's great cities,
I was invited to attend a political meeting designed to
aid the Poles by helping them to get arms and money.
I found
two or three thousand people in a vast hall prepared for
their reception. Soon a priest dressed in his ecclesiastical
habit came forward onto the platform. The audience took
off their hats and stood in silence while he spoke as follows:
"Almighty
God! Lord of Hosts! Thou who didst strengthen the hearts
and guide the arms of our fathers when they fought for the
sacred tights of their national independence! Thou who didst
make them triumph over a hateful oppression and didst grant
to our people the blessings of peace and of liberty, look
with favor, Lord, upon the other hemisphere; have pity upon
a heroic people fighting now as we fought before for the
defense of these same rights! Lord, who hast created all
men in the same image, do not allow despotism to deform
Thy work and maintain inequality upon the earth. Almighty
God! Watch over the destinies of the Poles and make them
worthy to be free; may Thy wisdom prevail in their councils
and Thy strength in their arms; spread terror among their
enemies; divide the powers that contrive their ruin; and
do not allow that injustice which the world has witnessed
for fifty years to be consummated in our time. Lord, who
holdest in Thy strong hand the hearts of peoples and of
men, raise up allies to the sacred cause of true right;
arouse at last the French nation, that, forgetting the apathy
in which its leaders lull, it may fight once more for the
freedom of the world.
"O
Lord! Turn not Thou Thy face from us, and grant that we
may always be the most religious and the most free nation
upon earth.
"God
Almighty, hear our applications this day and save the Poles.
We beseech Thee in the name of Thy beloved son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation
of all men. Amen."
The
whole assembly answered reverently, "Amen."
I have
just pointed out the direct action of religion on politics
m the United States. Its indirect action seems to me much
greater still, and it is just when it is not speaking of
freedom at all that it best teaches the Americans the art
of being free.
There
is an innumerable multitude of sects in the United States.
They are all different in the worship they offer to the
Creator, but all agree concerning the duties of men to one
another. Each sect worships God in its own fashion, but
all preach the same morality in the name of God. Though
it is very important for man as an individual that his religion
should be true, that is not the case for society. Society
has nothing to fear or hope from another life, what is most
important for it is not that all citizens should profess
the true religion but that they should profess religion.
Moreover, all the sects in the United States belong to the
great unity of Christendom, and Christian morality is everywhere
the same.
One
may suppose that a certain number of Americans, in the worship
they offer to God, are following their habits rather than
their convictions. Besides, in the United States the sovereign
authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy should
be common. Nonetheless, America is still the place where
the Christian religion has kept the greatest real power
over men's souls; and nothing better demonstrates how useful
and natural it is to man, since the country where it now
has widest sway is both the most enlightened and the freest.
I have
said that American priests proclaim themselves in general
terms in favor of civil liberties without excepting even
those who do not admit religious freedom; but none of them
lend their support to any particular political system. They
are at pains to keep out of affairs and not mix in the combinations
of parties. One cannot therefore say that in the United
States religion influences the laws or political opinions
in detail, but it does direct mores, and by regulating domestic
life it helps to regulate the state.
I do
not doubt for an instant that the great severity of mores
which one notices in the United States has its primary origin
in beliefs. There religion is often powerless to restrain
men in the midst of innumerable temptations which fortune
offers. It cannot moderate their eagerness to enrich themselves,
which everything contributes to arouse, but it reigns supreme
in the souls of the women,
and
it is women who shape mores. Certainly of all countries
in the World America is the one in which the marriage tie
is most respected and where the highest and truest conception
of conjugal happiness has been conceived.
In
Europe almost all the disorders of society are born around
the domestic hearth and not far from the nuptial bed. It
is there that men come to feel scorn for natural ties and
legitimate pleasures and develop a taste for disorder, restlessness
of spirit, and instability of desires. Shaken by the tumultuous
passions which have often troubled his own house, the European
finds it hard to submit to the authority of the state's
legislators. When the American returns from the turmoil
of politics to the bosom of the family, he immediately finds
a perfect picture of order and peace. There all his pleasures
are simple and natural and his joys innocent and quiet,
and as the regularity of life brings him happiness, he easily
forms the habit of regulating his opinions as well as his
tastes.
Whereas
the European tries to escape his sorrows at home by troubling
society, the American derives from his home that love of
order which he carries over affairs of state.
In
the United States it is not only mores that are controlled
by religion, but its sway extends even over reason.
Among
the Anglo-Americans there are some who profess Christian
dogma because they believe them and others who do so because
they are afraid to look as though they did not believe in
them. So Christianity reigns without obstacles, by universal
consent; consequently, as I have said elsewhere, everything
in the moral field is certain and fixed, although the world
of politics seems given over to argument and experiment.
So the human spirit never sees an unlimited field before
itself, however bold it is, from time to time it feels that
it must halt before insurmountable barriers. Before innovating,
it is forced to accept certain primary assumptions and to
submit its boldest conceptions to certain formalities which
retard and check it.
The
imagination of the Americans, therefore, even in its greatest
aberrations, is circumspect and hesitant; it is embarrassed
from the start and leaves its work unfinished. These habits
of restraint are found again in political society and singularly
favor the tranquillity of the people as well as the durability
of the institutions they have adopted. Nature and circumstances
have made the inhabitant of the United States a bold man,
as is sufficiently attested by the enterprising spirit with
which he seeks his fortune. If the spirit of the Americans
were free of all impediment, one would soon find among them
the boldest innovators and the most implacable logicians
in the world. but American revolutionaries are obliged ostensibly
to profess a certain respect for Christian morality and
equity, and that does not allow them easily to break the
laws when those are opposed to the executions of their designs;
nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of
their partisans even if they were able to get over their
own. Up till now no one in the United States has dared to
profess the maxim that everything is allowed in the interests
of society, an impious maxim apparently invented in an age
of freedom in order to legitimatize every future tyrant.
Thus,
while the law allows the American people to do everything,
there are things which religion prevents them from imagining
and forbids them to dare.
Religion,
which never intervenes directly in the government of American
society, should therefore be considered as the first of
their political institutions, for although it did not give
them the taste for liberty, it singularly facilitates their
use thereof.
The
inhabitants of the United States themselves consider religious
beliefs from this angle. I do not know if all Americans
have faith in their religion--for who can read the secrets
of the heart?--but I am sure that they think it necessary
to the maintenance of republican institutions. That is not
the view of one class or party among the citizens, but of
the whole nation; it is found in all ranks.
In
the United States, if a politician attacks a sect, that
is no reason why the supporters of that very sect should
not support him; but if he attacks all sects together, everyone
shuns him, and he remains alone.
While
I was in America, a witness called at assizes of the county
of Chester (state of New York) declared that he did not
believe in the existence of God and the immortality of the
soul. The judge refused to allow him to be sworn in, on
the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all
possible confidence in this testimony. Newspapers reported
the fact without comment.
For
the Americans the ideas of Christianity and liberty are
so completely mingled that it is almost
impossible
to get them to conceive of the one without the other; it
is not a question with them of sterile beliefs bequeathed
by the past and vegetating rather than living in the depths
of the soul.
I have
known Americans to form associations to send priests out
into the new states of the West and
establish
schools and churches there; they fear that religion might
be lost in the depths of the forest and that the people
growing up there might be less fitted for freedom than those
from whom they sprang. I have met rich New Englanders who
left their native land in order to establish the fundamentals
of Christianity and of liberty by the banks of the Missouri
or on the prairies of Illinois. In this way, in the United
States, patriotism continually adds fuel to the fires of
religious zeal. You will be mistaken if you think that such
men are guided only by thoughts of the future life; eternity
is only one of the things that concern them. If you talk
to these missionaries of Christian civilization you will
be surprised to hear them so often speaking of the goods
of this world and to meet a politician where you expected
to find a priest. "There is a solidarity between all the
American republics," they will tell you; "if the republics
of the West were to fall into anarchy or to be mastered
by a despot, the republican institutions now flourishing
on the Atlantic coast would be in great danger; we therefore
have an interest in seeing that the new states are religious
so that they may allow us to remain free."
That
is what the Americans think, but our pedants find it an
obvious mistake; constantly they prove to me that all is
fine in America except just that religious spirit which
I admire; I am informed that on the other side of the ocean
freedom and human happiness lack nothing but Spinoza's belief
in the eternity of the world and Cabanis' contention that
thought is a secretion of the brain. To that I have really
no answer to give, except that those who talk like that
have never been in America and have never seen either religious
peoples or free ones. So I shall wait till they come back
from a visit to America.
There
are people in France who look on republican institutions
as a temporary expedient for their own aggrandizement. They
mentally measure the immense gap separating their vices
and their poverty from power and wealth, and they would
like to fill this abyss with ruins in an attempt to bridge
it. Such people stand toward liberty much as the medieval
condottieri stood toward the kings; they make war
on their own account, no matter whose colors they wear:
the republic, they calculate, will at least last long enough
to lift them from their present degradation. It is not to
such as they that I speak, but there are others who look
forward to a republican form of government as a permanent
and tranquil state and as the required aim to which ideas
and mores are constantly steering modern societies. Such
men sincerely wish to prepare mankind for liberty. When
such as these attack religious beliefs, they obey the dictates
of their passions, not their interests. Despotism may be
able to do without faith, but freedom cannot. Religion is
much more needed in the republic they advocate than in the
monarchy they attack, and in democratic republics most of
all. How could society escape destruction if, when political
ties are relaxed, moral ties are not tightened? And what
can be done with a people master of itself if it is not
subject to God?
Eighteenth-century
philosophers had a very simple explanation for the gradual
weakening of beliefs. Religious zeal, they said, was bound
to die down as enlightenment and freedom spread. It is tiresome
that the facts do not fit this theory at all.
There
are sections of the population in Europe where unbelief
goes hand in hand with brutishness and ignorance, whereas
in America the most free and enlightened people in the world
zealously perform all the external duties of religion.
The
religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing
that struck me on arrival in the United States. The longer
I stayed in the country, the more conscious I became of
the important political consequences resulting from this
novel situation.
In
France I had seen the spirits of religion and of freedom
almost always marching in opposite directions. In America
I found them intimately linked together in joint reign over
the same land.
My
longing to understand the reason for this phenomenon increased
daily.
To
find this out, I questioned the faithful of all communions;
I particularly sought the society of clergymen, who are
the depositaries of the various creeds and have a personal
interest in their survival. As a practicing Catholic I was
particularly dose to the Catholic priests, with some of
whom I soon established a certain intimacy. I expressed
my astonishment and revealed my doubts to each of them;
I found that they all agreed with each other except about
details; all thought that the main reason for the quiet
sway of religion over their country was the complete separation
of church and state. I have no hesitation in stating that
throughout my stay in America I met nobody, lay or cleric,
who did not agree about that.
This
led me to examine more closely than before the position
of American priests in political society. I was surprised
to discover that they held no public appointments. There
was not a single one in the administration, and I found
that they were not even represented in the assemblies.
In
several states the law, and in all the rest public opinion,
excludes them from a career in politics.
When
I finally came to inquire into the attitudes of the clergy
themselves, I found that most of them seemed voluntarily
to steer dear of power and to take a sort of professional
pride in claiming that it was no concern of theirs.
I heard
them pronouncing anathemas against ambition and bad faith,
under whatsoever political opinions laws those were at pains
to hide. But I learned from their discourses that men are
not guilty in the sight of God because of these very opinions,
provided they are sincere, and that it is no more a sin
to make a mistake in some question of government than it
is a sin to go wrong in building one's house or plowing
one's field.
I saw
that they were careful to keep dear of all parties, shunning
contact with them with all the anxiety attendant upon personal
interest.
These
facts convinced me that I had been told the truth. I then
wished to trace the facts down to their causes. I wondered
how it could come about that by diminishing the apparent
power of religion one increased its real strength, and I
thought it not impossible to discover the reason.
The
short space of sixty years can never shut in the whole of
man's imagination; the incomplete joys of this world will
never satisfy his heart. Alone among all created beings,
man shows a natural disgust for existence and an immense
longing to exist; he scorns life and fears annihilation.
These different instincts constantly drive his soul toward
contemplation of the next world, and it is religion that
leads him thither. Religion, therefore, is only one particular
form of hope, and it is as natural to the human heart as
hope itself. It is by a sort of intellectual aberration,
and in a way, by doing moral violence to their own nature,
that men detach themselves from religious beliefs; an invincible
inclination draws them back. Incredulity is an accident;
faith is the only permanent state of mankind.
Considering
religions from a purely human point of view, one can then
say that all religions derive an element of strength which
will never fail from man himself, because it is attached
to one of the constituent principles of human nature.
I know
that, apart from influence proper to itself, religion can
at times rely on the artificial strength of laws and the
support of the material powers that direct society. There
have been religions intimately linked to earthly governments,
dominating men's souls both by terror and by faith; but
when a religion makes such an alliance, I am not afraid
to say that it makes the same mistake as any man might;
it sacrifices the future for the present, and by graining
a power to which it has no claim, it risks its legitimate
authority.
When
a religion seeks to found its sway only on the longing for
immortality equally tormenting every human heart, it can
aspire to universality; but when it comes to uniting itself
with a government, it must adopt maxims which apply only
to certain nations. Therefore, by allying itself with any
political power, religion increases its strength over some
but forfeits the hope of reigning over all.
As
long as religion relies only upon the sentiments which are
the consolation of every affliction, it can draw the heart
of mankind to itself. When it is mingled with the bitter
passions of this world, it is sometimes constrained to defend
allies who are such from interest rather than from love;
and it has to repulse as adversaries men who still love
religion, although they are fighting against religion's
allies. Hence religion cannot share the material strength
of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity
roused against them.
Even
those political powers that seem best established have no
other guarantee of their permanence beyond the opinions
of a generation, the interests of a century, or often the
life of one man. A law can modify that social state which
seems most fixed and assured, and everything changes with
it.
Like
our years upon earth, the powers of society are all more
or less transitory; they follow one another quickly, like
the various cares of life; and there has never been a government
supported by some invariable disposition of the human heart
or one founded upon some interest that is immortal.
So
long as a religion derives its strength from sentiments,
instincts, and passions, which are reborn in like fashion
in all periods of history, it can brave the assaults of
time, or at least it can only be destroyed by another religion.
But when a religion chooses to rely on the interests of
this world, it becomes almost as fragile as all earthly
powers. Alone, it may hope for immortality; linked to ephemeral
powers, it follows their fortunes and often falls together
with the passions of a day but sustaining them.
Hence
any alliance with any political power whatsoever is bound
to be burdensome for religion. It does not need their support
in order to live, and in serving them it may die.
The
danger I have just pointed out exists at all times but is
not always equally obvious.
There
are centuries when governments appear immortal and others
when society’s existence seems frailer than that of a man.
Some
constitutions keep the citizens in a sort of lethargic slumber,
while others force them into feverish agitation.
When
governments seem so strong and laws so stable, men do not
see the danger that religion may run by allying itself with
power.
When
governments are clearly feeble and laws changeable, the
danger is obvious to all, but often then there is no longer
time to avoid it. One must therefore learn to perceive it
from afar.
When
a nation adopts a democratic social state and communities
show republican inclinations, it becomes increasingly dangerous
for religion to ally itself with authority. for the time
is coming when power will pass from hand to hand, political
theories follow one another, and men, laws, and even constitutions
vanish or alter daily, and that not for a limited time but
continually. Agitation and instability are natural elements
in democratic republics, just as immobility and somnolence
are the rule in absolute monarchies.
If
the Americans, who change the head of state every four years,
elect new legislators every two years and replace provincial
administrators every year, and if the Americans, who have
handed over the world of politics to the experiments of
innovators, had not placed religion beyond their reach,
what could it hold on to in the ebb and flow of human opinions?
Amid the struggle of parties, where would the respect due
to it be? What would become of its immortality when everything
around it was perishing?
The
American clergy were the first to perceive this truth and
to act in conformity with it. They saw that they would have
to give up religious influence if they wanted to acquire
political power, and they preferred to lose the support
of authority rather than to share its vicissitudes.
In
America religion is perhaps less powerful than it has been
at certain times and among certain peoples, but its influence
is more lasting. It restricts itself to its own resources,
of which no one can deprive it; it functions in one sphere
only, but it pervades it and dominates there without effort.
On
every side in Europe we hear voices deploring the absence
of beliefs and asking how religion can be given back some
remnant of its former power.
I think
we should first consider attentively what ought to be the
natural state of man with regard to religion at the
present day; then, knowing what we can hope and what we
must fear, we can clearly see the aim to which our efforts
should be directed.
Two
great dangers threaten the existence of religion: schism
and indifference.
In
ages of fervor it sometimes happens that men abandon their
religion, but they only escape from its yoke in order to
submit to that of another. Faith changes its allegiance
but does not die. Then the former religion rouses in all
hearts ardent love or implacable hatred; some leave it in
anger, others cling to it with renewed ardor: beliefs differ,
but irreligion is unknown.
But
this is not the case when a religious belief is silently
undermined by doctrines which I shall call negative because
they assert the falseness of one religion but do not establish
the truth of any other.
Then
vast revolutions take place in the human mind without the
apparent cooperation of the passions of man and almost without
his knowledge. One sees some men lose, as from forgetfulness,
the object of their dearest hopes. Carried away by an imperceptible
current against which they have not the courage to struggle
but to which they yield with regret, they abandon the faith
they love to follow the doubt that leads them to despair.
In
such ages beliefs are forsaken through indifference rather
than from hate; without being rejected, they fall away.
The unbeliever, no longer thinking religion true, still
considers it useful. Paying attention to the human side
of religious beliefs, he recognizes their sway over mores
and their influence over laws. He understands their power
to lead men to live in peace and gently to prepare them
for death. Therefore he regrets his faith after losing it,
and deprived of a blessing whose value he fully appreciates,
he fears to take it away from those who still have it.
On
the other hand, he who still believes is not afraid openly
to avow his faith. He looks on those who do not share his
hopes as unfortunate rather than as hostile; he knows he
can win their esteem without following their example; hence
he is at war with no man; for him society is not an arena
where religion has to fight a relentless battle against
a thousand enemies, and he loves his contemporaries, while
condemning their weaknesses and sorrowing over their mistakes.
With
unbelievers hiding their incredulity and believers avowing
their faith, a public opinion favorable to religion takes
shape; religion is loved, supported, and honored, and only
by looking into the depths of men's souls will one see what
wounds it has suffered.
The
mass of mankind, never left without religious feeling, sees
no impediments to established beliefs. The instinctive sense
of another life without difficulty leads them to the foot
of the altar and opens their hearts to the precepts and
consolations of faith.
Why
does this picture not apply to us?
There
are some among us who have ceased to believe in Christianity
without adopting any other religion.
There
are others in a permanent state of doubt who already pretend
no longer to believe.
Yet
others are still believing Christians but do not dare to
say so.
Amid
these tepid friends and ardent adversaries there are finally
a very few faithful ready to brave all obstacles and scorn
all dangers for their beliefs. These have triumphed over
human weakness to rise above common opinion. Carried away
by the very force of this effort, they no longer know precisely
where to stop. Since they have seen m their country that
the first use made of independence has been to attack religion,
they dread their contemporaries and recoil in alarm from
the freedom which they seek. Imagining unbelief to be something
new, they comprise all that is new in one indiscriminate
animosity. They are at war with their age and country and
see each opinion professed as a necessary enemy of faith.
That
should not now be the natural state of men with regard to
religion.
Therefore
with us there must be some accidental and particular cause
preventing the human spirit from following its inclination
and driving it beyond those limits within which it should
naturally remain.
I am
profoundly convinced that this accidental and particular
cause is the close union of politics and religion.
Unbelievers
in Europe attack Christians more as political than as religious
enemies; they hate the faith as the opinion of a party much
more than as a mistaken belief, and they reject the clergy
less because they are the representatives of God than because
they are the friends of authority.
European
Christianity has allowed itself to be intimately united
with the powers of this world. Now that these powers are
falling, it is as if it were buried under their ruins. A
living being has been tied to the dead; cut the bonds holding
it and it will arise.
I do
not know what is to be done to give back European Christianity
the energy of youth. God alone could do that, but at least
it depends on men to leave faith the use of all the strength
it still retains.
Alexis
De Tocqueville, from Democracy in America, 3rd
ed., by Alexis de Tocqueville. Copyright © 1863 by
Sever & Francis.
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