Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2)

A >> Alexis de Toqueville >> Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2)


Thus, in the midst of the uncertain future, one event at least is sure.
At a period which may be said to be near (for we are speaking of the
life of a nation), the Anglo-Americans will alone cover the immense
space contained between the polar regions and the tropics, extending
from the coasts of the Atlantic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. The
territory which will probably be occupied by the Anglo-Americans at
some future time, may be computed to equal three-quarters of Europe in
extent. *o The climate of the Union is upon the whole preferable to
that of Europe, and its natural advantages are not less great; it
is therefore evident that its population will at some future time be
proportionate to our own. Europe, divided as it is between so many
different nations, and torn as it has been by incessant wars and the
barbarous manners of the Middle Ages, has notwithstanding attained a
population of 410 inhabitants to the square league. *p What cause can
prevent the United States from having as numerous a population in time?

[Footnote o: The United States already extend over a territory equal to
one-half of Europe. The area of Europe is 500,000 square leagues, and
its population 205,000,000 of inhabitants. ("Malte Brun," liv. 114. vol.
vi. p. 4.)

[This computation is given in French leagues, which were in use when the
author wrote. Twenty years later, in 1850, the superficial area of the
United States had been extended to 3,306,865 square miles of territory,
which is about the area of Europe.]]

[Footnote p: See "Malte Brun," liv. 116, vol. vi. p. 92.]

Many ages must elapse before the divers offsets of the British race in
America cease to present the same homogeneous characteristics: and the
time cannot be foreseen at which a permanent inequality of conditions
will be established in the New World. Whatever differences may arise,
from peace or from war, from freedom or oppression, from prosperity or
want, between the destinies of the different descendants of the great
Anglo-American family, they will at least preserve an analogous social
condition, and they will hold in common the customs and the opinions to
which that social condition has given birth.

In the Middle Ages, the tie of religion was sufficiently powerful
to imbue all the different populations of Europe with the same
civilization. The British of the New World have a thousand other
reciprocal ties; and they live at a time when the tendency to equality
is general amongst mankind. The Middle Ages were a period when
everything was broken up; when each people, each province, each
city, and each family, had a strong tendency to maintain its distinct
individuality. At the present time an opposite tendency seems to
prevail, and the nations seem to be advancing to unity. Our means of
intellectual intercourse unite the most remote parts of the earth; and
it is impossible for men to remain strangers to each other, or to be
ignorant of the events which are taking place in any corner of the
globe. The consequence is that there is less difference, at the present
day, between the Europeans and their descendants in the New World, than
there was between certain towns in the thirteenth century which were
only separated by a river. If this tendency to assimilation brings
foreign nations closer to each other, it must a fortiori prevent the
descendants of the same people from becoming aliens to each other.

The time will therefore come when one hundred and fifty millions of men
will be living in North America, *q equal in condition, the progeny of
one race, owing their origin to the same cause, and preserving the same
civilization, the same language, the same religion, the same habits, the
same manners, and imbued with the same opinions, propagated under the
same forms. The rest is uncertain, but this is certain; and it is a fact
new to the world--a fact fraught with such portentous consequences as to
baffle the efforts even of the imagination.

[Footnote q: This would be a population proportionate to that of Europe,
taken at a mean rate of 410 inhabitants to the square league.]

There are, at the present time, two great nations in the world which
seem to tend towards the same end, although they started from different
points: I allude to the Russians and the Americans. Both of them have
grown up unnoticed; and whilst the attention of mankind was directed
elsewhere, they have suddenly assumed a most prominent place amongst the
nations; and the world learned their existence and their greatness at
almost the same time.

All other nations seem to have nearly reached their natural limits, and
only to be charged with the maintenance of their power; but these are
still in the act of growth; *r all the others are stopped, or continue
to advance with extreme difficulty; these are proceeding with ease and
with celerity along a path to which the human eye can assign no term.
The American struggles against the natural obstacles which oppose
him; the adversaries of the Russian are men; the former combats the
wilderness and savage life; the latter, civilization with all its
weapons and its arts: the conquests of the one are therefore gained by
the ploughshare; those of the other by the sword. The Anglo-American
relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free
scope to the unguided exertions and common-sense of the citizens;
the Russian centres all the authority of society in a single arm: the
principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter servitude.
Their starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same;
yet each of them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway
the destinies of half the globe.

[Footnote r: Russia is the country in the Old World in which population
increases most rapidly in proportion.]