Alexis de Tocqueville on Christianity in AMERICA by Bill Federer
Alexis de
Tocqueville was born JULY 29, 1805. He was a French social scientist,
who traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work,
Democracy in America (1835; 1840), which has been described as:
"the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship
between character and society in America that has ever been written."
In it, de Tocqueville wrote: "Upon my arrival in the United States the
religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my
attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great
political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to
which I was unaccustomed.
"In France I had almost always seen the
spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite
directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that
they reigned in common over the same country...
"They brought
with them...a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than
by styling it a democratic and republican religion... From the earliest
settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an
alliance which has never been dissolved."
De Tocqueville wrote further:
"Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the
political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a
taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it...This opinion is not
peculiar to a class of citizens or a party, but it belongs to the whole
nation.
"The sects that exist in the United States are
innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to
the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due
from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner,
but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God...Moreover,
all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity
of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same
"In the United States the sovereign authority is religious... There is
no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a
greater influence than in America...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 the widest sway is both the most
enlightened and the freest.
"In the United States the influence
of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the
intelligence of the people...Christianity, therefore reigns without
obstacle, by universal consent...The Americans combine the notions of
Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is
impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with
them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith
which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live."
In Book Two of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville wrote:
"Christianity has therefore retained a strong hold on the public mind
in America...In the United States...Christianity itself is a fact so
irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to
defend it."
In August of 1831, while traveling through Chester
County, New York, Alexis de Tocqueville observed a court case: "While I
was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of
the county of Chester, declared that he did not believe in the existence
of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit
his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand
all confidence of the court in what he was about to say...
"The newspapers related the fact without any further comment.
The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in the following terms:
'The court of common pleas of Chester county (New York), a few days
since rejected a witness who declared his disbelief in the existence of
God.
The presiding judge remarked, that he had not before been
aware that there was a man living who did not believe in the existence
of God; that this belief constituted the sanction of all testimony in a
court of justice: and that he knew of no case in a Christian country,
where a witness had been permitted to testify without such belief.'"
"Religion in America is not only a moral institution but also a
political institution... In the United States, the law is never
atheistic...All of the American constitutions proclaim freedom of
conscience and the liberty and equality of all the confessions..."
Gustave de Beaumont
The Constitution of Massachusetts proclaims
the freedom of the various faiths in the sense that it does not wish to
persecute any of them; but it recognizes within the state only
Christians and protects only the Protestants.
Maryland's
Constitution also declares that all of the faiths are free, and that no
one is forced to contribute to the maintenance of a particular church.
However, it gives the legislature the right to establish a general tax,
according to the circumstances, for the support of the Christian
religion.
The Constitution of Vermont recognizes only the
Christian faiths, and says specifically that every congregation of
Christians should celebrate the Sabbath or the Lord's Day, and observe
the religious worship which seems to it most pleasing to the will of
God, manifested by revelation.
Sometimes the American
constitutions offer religious bodies some indirect assistance: thus,
Maryland law declares that, to be admitted to public office, it is
necessary to be a Christian..."
"The Pennsylvania Constitution
requires that one believe in the existence of God and in a future life
of punishment or rewards ...
The law ... confirms the power of
religion ...The religious sects ... are far from showing themselves
indifferent to political interests and to the government of the country.
They all take a lively interest in the maintenance of American
institutions through the voice of their ministers in the sacred pulpit
and even in the political assemblies ..."
"In America, Christian
religion is always at the service of freedom. It is a principle of the
United States legislature that, to be good citizen, it is necessary to
be religious; and it is a no less well-established rule that, to fulfill
one's duty toward God, it is necessary to be a good citizen...
In general, anyone who adheres to one of the religious sects, whose
number is immense in the United States, enjoys all of his social and
political rights in peace.
But the man who would claim to have
neither a church nor religious beliefs would not only be excluded from
all civil employment and from all political offices ... but ... would be
an object of moral persecution of all kinds. No one would care to have
any social relations with him ...No one in the United States believes
that a man without religion could be an honest man." Gustave de
Beaumont
