1520079

Southern Political Science Association
Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion in the Age of Democracy Author(s): Aristide Tessitore Source: The Journal of Politics, Vol. 64, No. 4 (Nov., 2002), pp. 1137-1152 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Southern Political Science Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1520079 . Accessed: 27/10/2013 22:24
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Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion in the Age of Democracy
Aristide Tessitore
FurmanUniversity
Contemporaryscholars,journalists, and politicians are deeply divided with respect to the religious or secular characterof America's founding principles. In sharp contrast to the narrowingtendencies of contemporary intellectual and political life, Tocqueville's classic study of democracy in America is the first of any scope to give weight to America's dual founding-biblical and philosophic. For Tocqueville it is the combination of two different traditions, neither of which can be reduced to the other, that is the hallmarkof the new political science he bequeaths to the dawning democratic age. In this article, I draw out the natural state of religion in a democratic society, particularlyas it comes to light in America, as well as Tocqueville'sattemptsto address the particular problems and possibilities to which it gives rise.
Man's true grandeur lies only in the harmony of the liberal sentiment and religious sentiment, both working simultaneously to animate and to restrain souls, and ... [my] sole political passion for thirty years has been to bring about this harmony.(Tocqueville [1853] 1985, 295)
Shortly after arrivingin the new world, Tocqueville wrote to one of his oldest friends about the flurry of conflicting impressions that greeted him in New York.He was struckby "a mixture of vices and virtues that is ratherdifficult to classify and that does not form a single picture"(Tocqueville 1985, 44). On the one hand, he was taken by the purity of American mores, especially as they pertained to marriageand religion. On the other, he noted a perpetual instability of desires, the most visible expression of which was a pervasive and immoderate preoccupationwith wealth. Notwithstandingthe evolution of Tocqueville's thinking about America, these first impressions remain prescient: the mixture of virtue and vice characteristicof the American people does not form a single picture. As Tocqueville traces these conflicting tendencies to their root, he discovers a nation characterizednot by one, but by two foundings, each of which is drawnfroma radicallydifferentsource-biblical religionand secularphilosophy.
I wish to thank the EarhartFoundationfor their generous supportin the summerof 2000, during which time the body of this essay was written. THEJOURNAL OF POLITICS, Vol. 64, No. 4, November2002, Pp. 1137-1152 ? 2002 Southern PoliticalScience Association
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If the first New England settlers, to whom Tocqueville gives careful attention, were motivated by biblical zeal, the Constitution to which they acceded 170 years later bears the unmistakableimprint of secular developments in the science of politics. This dual parentage of America ensured the persistence of conflict for future generations, a conflict that could cease only with the complete victory of one of the antagonists.As America begins its third century of independentexistence, it is a victory that neither side is willing to concede. Tocqueville'sclassic study of democracy in America is the first of any scope to give weight to America's dual founding-biblical and philosophic. I argue that he is the first student of modern democracy to recognize, not merely the existence of this conflict in the root principles of American democracy, but also and especially the importance of conflict itself for the maintenance of healthy democratic politics, something that leads him to reflect on the natural state of religion in the dawning democratic age. Before turning directly to this topic, it is necessary to provide a brief summary of America's better known Enlightenment inheritance inasmuch as it provides the context against which Tocqueville's distinctive reflections on religion and democracybecome visible.
America's Philosophic Founding

Tocqueville observes that it was especially in the eighteenth century that men of letters began to take the lead in politics (Tocqueville 1955, 138). Both the American and French revolutions drew their inspiration from ideas generated by the Enlightenment,but it was especially in America that "the boldest political theories of the eighteenth-centuryphilosophers"were most effectively put into practice (Tocqueville 1955, 153, 6, 146). Tocqueville observes two distinct and separable features in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The first consisted in new (or resuscitated) opinions regarding human nature and political jurisprudence discovered and defended by the light of reason alone (Tocqueville 1955, 6, 140). The second was the fundamentally antireligious characterof this thought (Tocqueville 1955, 6). Whereas both attributeswere constitutive of the tradition of modern political thought that had developed in Europe, this was not-at least in an obvious way-the case in America. Although the ideas of Enlightenmentthinkersprofoundly shaped the thinking of America's founding generation, the virulently antireligious dimension of this thought failed to make the same kind of headway in the new world, at least among the citizen body as a whole. Tocqueville's explanation for this development (and qualification of these claims) is addressed in the following section. The new discoveries employed in framingthe AmericanConstitutionare wellknown.' American democracy would succeed where others had failed because
'The Federalist Papers explain and defend now axiomatic principles, such as separationof powers, legislative checks and balances, independentjudiciary, elected representatives,and increased scope of the nation (esp. Hamilton, Madison, Jay 1961, 72-73, 81-84).
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it could harness ingenious institutional solutions to check the debilitating tendencies of popular government. More deeply, the framers of the Constitution had learned to abandon the quixotic attempt to reform human beings and to build government instead on a sober, even harsh, understandingof human nature.2The most effective solution to the problem of governmentwas to accept human beings as they are and to channel self-interest, passion, greed, and ambition in such a way as to avert the politically destructive consequences of these tendencies.3 Although the architects of the Constitution would prefer to have enlightened and virtuous leaders at the helm, the chances of success for the Americanenterprisewere increasedby institutionalmeasuresdirecting,even employing, the darkerand more self-interestedmotives of the human heart. By emphasizing the radical characterof its break with historical antecedents,Publius throws into relief the extent to which the American founding drew its inspiration from "wholly new discoveries" in the science of politics, discoveries that had been forged in the fire of religious controversy. Although Enlightenmentthinkers and their precursorsdiffered on many important issues, they were unified in their concern to wrest the notion of legitimate government from its religious, particularly Christian, foundations.4 Notwithstanding the fact that there was and continues to be debate about the proper place of religion in the American republic, the legitimacy of the republic itself does not presuppose belief in a particulargod or any god at all.5 The Constitution is not based on the sovereignty of God, but ratheron the sovereignty of the people. As Tocqueville later writes, "The people reign over the American political world as does God over the universe"(55).6 If it is possible to recognize in Tocqueville's analysis of the Constitution some of the optimism of the Enlightenmentthinkers, his considerationreveals as well ways in which the framersdrew upon the darkerinsights characteristic
Hamilton maintains that human beings are "ambitious,vindictive, and rapacious"and that as a consequence, the causes of war arise from the unalterableground of human nature itself (Hamilton, Madison, Jay 1961, 54). Madison famously echoes these sentiments when he explains that the causes of faction cannot be removed because they are sown into the nature of man (Hamilton, Madison, Jay 1961, 79). He adds that it is vain to rely on enlightened statesmen and that moral or religious motives are insufficient to curb the base tendencies of the human heart (Hamilton, Madison, Jay 1961, 79-81). 3Again echoing Hamilton, who summons his reader to wake from the dangerous dream of "a happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue" (Hamilton, Madison, Jay 1961, 59), Madison explains that opposite and rival interests will supply the dearthof lofty motives because the Constitution is arrangedso as to use ambitionto counteractambition(Hamilton,Madison, Jay 1961, 322). 4This argumentis developed in the trenchantanalyses of WalterBerns (1977) and Harvey Mansfield (1991, esp. 101-114). In his Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson famously argues: "The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god" (Jefferson [1975] 1977, 210). 6Unmodified citations refer to Tocqueville 2000. Page numbers to this edition are given in the text.
2
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of early modern political thought.Tocqueville notes that legislators in America have little confidence in the honesty of citizens, preferringinstead to appeal to personal interest, "the great principle one constantly finds when studying the laws of the United States" (74). Although the doctrine of self-interest well understood derives from the tradition of modern political thought (Tocqueville specifically cites the early modern thinker and essayist Montaigne), what is distinctive about America is its universal acceptance of this principle (501). As Tocqueville explains, self-interest well understood is a notion that is "marvelously accommodating to the weaknesses of men" (502). In the measure that this doctrine comes to dominate moral thinking, Tocqueville expects that both vice will diminish. Although some indivirtue and extraordinary extraordinary viduals will be lowered in the process, humankind in general will be raised. Tocqueville's study of America convinces him that "of all philosophical theories" self-interest well understood"is the most appropriate to the needs of men in our time," and he expects that "individual interest will become more than ever the principal if not the unique motive of men's actions" (502-03).7 Justice, public-spiritedness,and political prudenceare difficult virtues to nurture in citizens. It is distinctive of modern political thought to teach that a sufficient and reliable simulacrum for these virtues could be grounded in the appeal to self-interest and greed.8 Indeed, as Tocquevillecontemplatesthis mixture of vice and virtue in America, he is inspiredto pen a new beatitude:"What a happy country is the New World, where man's vices are almost as useful to society as his virtues!" (272). If this is in some part due to the fortuitous circumstances of history and geography, it is more deeply indebted to law or, more precisely, the wisdom of those who made the laws. Tocqueville marvels at the astuteness of the work of the founding generation and appreciatesas well the novelty of their accomplishments.However,he was at the same time concerned about dangers to which their handiworkcould give rise: most deeply, the complete loss of any real distinction between virtue and vice as a standardfor political practice. Tocqueville gives qualified and cautious endorsement to a frameworkof laws that however ingenious, effectively sanctions self-interest, greed, envy, and ambition. He writes,
7Delba Winthrop (1991) argues forcefully on behalf of Tocqueville's awareness of the inadequacy of the doctrine of "self-interest well understood"and his attempt to supplement it with an essentially aristocratic appreciation for honor (appropriatelymodified for democracy). My own essay emphasizes the place that Tocqueville's analysis gives to religion in providing the needed antidote. 8Ratherthan depend on lofty notions of justice, Americans are motivated by the perception that it is in their own best interest to abide by the law (230-31). In place of heroic examples of publicspiritedness, a less generous but more rational patriotism engendered by enlightenment and mingled with self-interest is widespread in America (225). The insatiable passion for well-being gives rise to commercial habits that foster characteristicallyAmerican expressions of prudence; appreciation for order, regularity in mores, and sober good sense arise from a pervasive and frenetic American concern to accumulate wealth (270-73).
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Up to now no one has been encountered in the United States who dared to advance the maxim that everything is permitted in the interest of society (280, emphasis mine).
The belief that everything is permitted for the good of society is dangerously close to Machiavelli'snotoriousteachingthatthe end excuses the means (Machiavelli 1996, 1.9; Machiavelli 1985, 18),9 as well as more contemporaryarticulations of this principle in the thought of both the English utilitariansand Karl Marx. America in the 1830s had so far managed to resist this conclusion, and Tocqueville is unambiguous about the reason. The salutary restraintpracticed by Americans did not arise from the profound insight or clever institutional design of the Constitution, but from the indirect influence of religious belief on mores in America (279-80). Notwithstandingthe fact that "the law permits the American people to do everything, religion prevents them from conceiving everything and forbids them to dare everything"(280). Although religion does not intervene directly in government,Tocqueville insists that it should nevertheless be considered "the first of their political institutions"(280) because of its powerful and salutary effect on the mind and imagination of the American people. This does not, however, imply that American religiosity is above criticism. Tocqueville's own study of America is framed by an awareness of the uneasy combination of Enlightenmentprinciples with an earlier, even ancient, biblical tradition.For Tocqueville it is the reciprocal influence of two different traditions, neither of which is reducible to the other, that becomes the centerpiece for the new political science he bequeathsto the dawningdemocraticage.10
America's Biblical Founding

If the crucial and precariousperiod after the war for independence incorporatedthe philosophic principles of the Enlightenmentinto America's fundamental law, this was preceded by a first founding that was emphatically religious. Tocqueville insists that the infancy of a nation is particularly important for gaining an understandingof the prejudices, habits, and passions that give rise to its distinctive national character.Many of the apparentlyinconsistent opinions, customs, and laws that persist in a society can be renderedintelligible by a properunderstandingof its origins (27-29). In the case of America, this early
9Tocqueville read The Prince and The History of Florence "with reflection and deliberateness." While Tocqueville is critical of Machiavelli'steachings in these books, he maintainsthat ThePrince is a "good book to have at the present time" since it, like The History of Florence, reflects the sentiments of "so many people of our day" (Tocqueville 1985, 109-111). '?Ceaser (1990, esp. pp. 166-69) offers a lucid argument on the disparate theoretical foundations of American liberal democracy and, following Tocqueville, the kind of political science that might best address and preserve this complexity. Rogers Smith's (1993) sympathetic critique of "the Tocquevillianthesis" in favor of a "multipletraditionsthesis of American identity"concludes with the assertion that America is best analyzed "as the ongoing product of often conflicting multiple traditions"(563). Although focused on a very different issue (Smith focuses on the political status of racial, ethnic, and gender groups in America), my essay finds the presence of "a multiple traditionsthesis" in Tocqueville himself.
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period provides "the passwordto the great social enigma that the United States presents to the world in our day" (37). Indeed, early in Democracy in America, Tocqueville claims that his discussion of the Puritanimmigrationto America is "the seed of what is to follow and the key to almost the whole work" (29).1
America's First Founding

It was especially in the English colonies of New England that the basic social theory of the United States first emerged (31). Although originally limited in scope, this influence gradually extended to the entire nation.'2 Whereas the wars of religion that shook England and all of Christendomwere deplored by Tocqueville, they did at least have the positive effect of advancing education and deepening religious culture (29). It was genuine religious zeal, ratherthan any materialor social necessity, that led the Puritansto seek a new world where they might live and pray according to their own deepest convictions. Not only was the origin of this immigrationemphaticallyreligious, but it was characterized by a kind of zeal more typical of original or primitive biblical faith (33). The peculiarly ancient quality of Puritanfervor is evidenced in extant criminal codes, some of which were taken word for word from the books of the Hebrew Bible (37-39). The Puritan framers of these penal codes were especially concerned about preserving good behavior and sound mores, but they often went to ludicrous extremes to do so. Not only were blasphemy,sorcery,adultery,and rape all punishable by death, but the criminal codes also provided penalties for kissing, idleness, and lying. Tocqueville is critical of the intoleranceof the early Puritans,most especially of the "narrowspirit of sect" that sometimes gave rise to "bizarreor tyrannicallaws" (39). At the same time, Tocqueville admired Puritanismbecause it incorporated profoundly democratic and republicantheories (32). This dimension of Puritan life proved to be a seedbed for the kind of local independencethat Tocqueville considered "the principle and the life of American freedom" (40). In sharp contrast to the narrow and invasive penal codes, Tocqueville finds a body of political laws that "still seems to anticipate from very far the spirit of freedom in our age" (39). Tocqueville insists that an accurate understandingof Anglo-American culture is possible only if one realizes that it is the product of two perfectly distinct elements: the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom (43). Whereas these two different but not necessarily contradictoryaspects of human life had
1 Given the importanceTocqueville gives to the Puritansin his analysis, it is surprisingthat they are given so little attention by several excellent Tocqueville scholars. See, for example, Lively (1962); Zetterbaum(1967); Koritansky (1986, 1990); Boesche (1987); Hancock (1991); Manent ([1982] 1996). A notable exception is Kessler (1992, 1994 esp. chap. 5). 12 The influence of the Puritanson America has been variously interpretedby scholars to include both political institutions and national character.For the contours of scholarly debate about the content of the Puritanlegacy, see Kessler (1992 and 1994, 192, nn. 13-15).
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often been at war with one anotherin Europe, they somehow managed to work in harmony and even to lend mutual support in America. The very intensity of religious passions stimulated by European persecution produced, among the American refugees, a fixed horizon for moral and religious truths. With this foundation solidly in place, America's first founders felt free to open the human world of politics to radical and bold innovation. According to Tocqueville, the attempt to remove any dissonance between religion and politics is entirely naturalfor human beings:
Allow the human mind to follow its own tendency and it will regulate political society and the divine city in a uniform manner;it will seek, if I dare say it, to harmonizethe earth with Heaven (275, emphasis in original).
It is this tendency that accounts for both the narrow sectarian spirit of the Puritans' penal code and the enlightened spirit of freedom characteristicof their political laws. Although the combinationof legal censure for failure to comply with a set of severe moral stricturesand unparalleledfreedom in politics seems inconsistent, Tocqueville is careful to point out that this appearance derives from a deeper consistency. The key to Tocqueville'sexplanationlies in the fact that the Puritancode of behavior was not something to which they were subjected by any external authority;it was, rather,a standardof conduct that they democratically imposed upon themselves. The elevation of private conscience in fact requirespolitical freedom in orderto manifest itself. In the measurethat the Puritans recognized something "heavenly" in the workings of individual conscience, consistency requiredpolitical freedom in order to heed its promptlives. The early Puritansettlementin New Englandsought ings in their "earthly" to establish heaven on earth or at least "to harmonize"earth with heaven. If, in Tocqueville's view, the desire to harmonize earth and heaven is a universal and naturaltendency of the human heart,America proves to be a singularly importantcase. Unlike Europe, Tocqueville writes that America had the good fortune of being able to disclose "in our day, the natural state of men in the matter of religion" (286, emphasis in original). By studying the American experience, Tocqueville wished to direct his Europeanreadersto the properand natural relationship between religion and politics in the dawning democratic age.
Nature and Religion

To understandwhat Tocqueville means by "the natural state of men in the matter of religion," it is necessary to understandwhat it is that he discovers in America. Whereas the wars of religion had provided fuel for the religious zeal of America's first founders, once in the new world they were free to live out their religious convictions as they saw fit. In ensuing generations, the enlightenment principle of separationof church and state removed from religion both the artificial supports and equally artificial liabilities that had marredthe evo-
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lution of Christianityin Europe. By escaping the political distortionscharacteristic of religious development in Europe,America reveals in an unprecedented way that the natural horizon for religion is not politics but the family. More precisely, Tocqueville writes that the unfailing source of strength for religion lies in human natureand that religion "is as naturalto the human heart as hope itself" (283-84). Tocqueville explains that the incomplete joys of this life naturally incline human beings to contemplate another world. The artificial support of laws and temporal powers may buoy religion for a time, but given the ephemeral characterof all temporal arrangements,such an alliance can, in the long run, only prove burdensometo religion. If, however, religion draws only upon its propersource of strengthin the sentiments, instincts, and passions that surface in all periods of history, it can defy "the effort of time" (285). Tocqueville does not of course deny that it is possible for human beings to turn away from religious belief, but notes that this is accomplished by a sort of intellectual aberrationthat requires one to do violence to human nature (284). For Tocqueville, separationof church and state is not only good for politics, it is especially good for religion because it allows religious sentiment to arise unclouded from its true source of strengthas one of the constitutive principles of humannature.Faith,not disbelief, "is the permanentstate of humanity"(284). If this summary describes something of the naturalcondition of human beings with respect to religion, Tocqueville is also keenly aware of the extent to which natural dispositions are shaped by the always contingent circumstances of history. The aim of Tocqueville's own enterprise comes more sharply into focus when we compare these remarksabout the naturaland universalreligiosity of human beings with the three different historical manifestations of religion that frame his study of America. It is especially in this way that we can understandTocqueville'sprovocative claim that America is able to disclose the natural state of human beings with regard to religion "in our own day" (286, emphasis added).
Historical Variations on Nature

The first historical manifestationof the naturalhuman proclivity to belief is found in what Tocqueville calls "ages of fervor" (286). During such periods, the great danger to religion is schism ratherthan unbelief: faith changes allegiance but does not die. Indeed, the Europeanwars of religion that propelled the Puritansinto the new world constitute the most relevant example of an age of fervor. Religious persecution had deepened the understandingand zeal of the Puritans,something that also gave rise to the narrowand intolerantcharacter of their faith (Tocqueville 1985, 48). For Tocqueville, some degree of intoleranceis inseparable fromthe moralgood thatreligion bringswith it (Tocqueville 1959, 206). Although conviction for worshippingfalse gods was legally punishable by death (38), Puritanismwas spared the monstrous expressions of intolerance that ravagedEurope initially because of its geographicalremoteness but
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also because of the subsequent institutional separation of church and state.13 However, once removed from the persecutions that gave rise to the first flowering of Puritanism in America and once allowed to follow their own course unimpededby governmentalconstraints,the passionate convictions and degree of intolerance characteristicof the early Puritanswere steadily eroded in succeeding generations, a fact to which we will returnshortly. ContemporaryEuropeprovides the second relevanthistorical example of the way in which religion can play itself out in politics, an example that Tocqueville explicitly says obscures the naturalstate of human beings with regard to religion (287). The accidental union of politics and religion in the ancien regime led to a passionate renunciation of faith and an attack on those who continued to profess belief. In France, this attack was both sweeping and misdirected.The real object of animosity was not, or at least should not have been, religion, but the partisanidentification of religion with the ancien regime.'4 In this case, which provides the immediate context for Tocqueville's own writing on the subject of religion and politics, the naturalreligiosity of human beings is not eradicatedbut redirected.Religious fervor is harnessed in the attemptto throw off the yoke of political oppression. For Tocqueville, this was especially apparentin revolutionaryFrance, where the attempt to set up a purely secular state took on the attributes of a religious revival (Tocqueville 1955, 10-13). The godlessness of the revolutionariesdid not succeed in revealing a pristine human nature,but furtherobscured it. The revolutionarycause itself became a truncated"species of religion," one bereft of God, ritual, and future life (Tocqueville 1955, 13). Despite the bizarre characterof a movementthat was simultaneously secular and religious, it nevertheless overran"the whole world with its apostles, militants, and martyrs"(Tocqueville 1955, 13). Between these two virulent examples of the relationshipbetween religion and politics stands a third, the one that captivatedTocqueville's attention from the outset of his study of America. In a very revealing letter to Louis de Kergorlay in 1831, Tocqueville confides he has become especially fascinated by the state of religion in America (Tocqueville 1985, 45-59). As he clarifies his impressions, it turns out that the widespreadreligiosity of Americans is not quite what it first appearsto be. The strong impetus given to religion by America's founders has become increasingly attenuatedin succeeding generations.The result is a paradoxical combination of pervasive exactitude in the practical observance of religion and simultaneous, if hidden, doubt about its truth. Preoccupation with dogma has given way to teachings on morality,and the dynamism of faith
'3Kessler (1992) argues that elements within Puritantheology (ultimately traceable to Luther) eventually led to the subordinationof religious to secular tendencies within Puritanism. '4Tocqueville maintains that Christians were attacked in Europe "as political enemies rather than as religious adversaries."Faith was the object of hatred"as the opinion of a party much more than as an erroneous belief," and the priest was rejected less as the "representative of God" than as the "friend of power" (287-88).
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has been replaced by tolerance. ForTocqueville, the benign tolerance that characterizes religion in America also conceals "a huge indifference"(Tocqueville 1985, 48). numberof religious sects he finds in AmerTocqueville likens the remarkable circles ica to so many concentric defining themselves against the fixed point of Catholicism and approaching,in the outer rings, a purely rational deism (Tocqueville 1985, 49-52). Catholicism continues to attracta small number of believers who, Tocqueville asserts, are at core as intolerant as they have always been. This intolerance, however, is not entirely evident because they live in the midst of society as beneficiaries of Protestant largesse and constitute only a poor minority of the population. It is nevertheless suggested by the fact that they fervently impose a kind of religious quarantineupon themselves, choosing to have no real engagement with the Protestant denominations that surround them. At the other end of the spectrum is a kind of deism that attaches itself to reason. Although Tocqueville's experience of Unitarianism in America leads him to concede that such a "naturalreligion" could, given the proper circumstances, suffice for the "superior classes of society," he is far less sanguine 1 If most about its prospects for the majority. people are unable to direct themselves by belief in an afterlife, they are likely to suffocate their noblest aspirations by circumscribingthem within a narrowunderstandingof the doctrine of self-interest (Tocqueville 1985, 52). Everywhere along the spectrum delineated by the two extremes of vibrant faith and secular rationalism, Tocqueville encounters the dominant American religion of Protestantismin its various forms. At core, Tocqueville understands (rightly or wrongly) Protestantismto be a kind of "compromise,"that is, an attempt to preserve and hold together both faith and reason, belief and tolerance, the goal of heaven and the goods of earth. But it is precisely this effort at compromise that, Tocqueville believes, is inextricablytied to the kind of doubt he thinks he sees "ruling in the depths of almost everyone's soul" (Tocqueville 1985, 48; cf 287). Hence, Tocqueville concludes that the dominant manifestation of religion in America is by and large comprised of a "church-goingand indifferent population," one that is intellectually and spiritually impoverished but enjoys the day-to-daybenefits of domestic tranquilityand prosperity(Tocqueville 1985, 50).
The American Paradigm

In light of this analysis of the dominant expression of religion in America, we return to our earlier question: What, then, is the natural state for human
5The contrast with Jefferson, who expected Unitarianismto become the dominant religion in America, is revealing. Whereas Jefferson'sexpectation was based on high hopes for Enlightenment progress, Tocqueville is considerably more sober in this regard. His distinction between the many and the few in matters of religion reflects a pre-Enlightenment,indeed classical, sensibility.
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beings with regardto religion in the dawning democraticepoch? Certainlyit is not the now diminished sectarian fervor that led to the wars of religion in Europe and elicited Tocqueville's criticism of the early Puritans.Towardthe end of his life, Tocqueville confesses that he has "always thought that there was danger even in the best of passions when they become ardent and exclusive" (Tocqueville 1985, 357). This is especially true of religious passion "because, pushed to a certain point, it, more than anything else, makes everything disappear that is not religion, and creates the most useless or the most dangerous citizen in the name of morality and duty" (Tocqueville 1985, 357). Nor is it the kind of hatred of religion, what might be called "secular fervor,"which reacts against faith and seeks to eradicateit from the humanheart in its zeal to establish a flourishing public life. This, as we have noted, degeneratesinto a strange kind of political religion that obscures ratherthan reveals the naturalcondition of human beings. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that for Tocqueville, the naturalstate with regard to religion is one characterized by indifference, albeit of a certain kind.16Whetherone considers the "naturalreligion" of deism that Tocqueville attaches to "the superior classes of society" or the various kinds of Protestantism that pervade the religious culture of America, both are characterizedby a sort of tolerance that for Tocqueville bespeaks indifferenceto the deepest questions of religious belief. It is at the same time, however, an indifference to matters of dogma that retains a keen appreciationfor the moral precepts deriving from religion.17 The combined effect of an absence of passionate interest in differences of dogma and a shared appreciationfor morality results in a unique and complex mix of religious practice in American society at large.'8 There is no obstacle for believers to an open profession of faith, something that is encouragedeven by those for whom doubt has eroded firm conviction. In such a state, believers
'6Manent ([1982] 1996) offers a brilliant and provocative account of democratic religion that also emphasizes the progress of indifference in America. The most far-reachingdifference in our accounts concerns the status of "naturalreligion." For Manent, this is either "provisional"or characterized by "total dependence on the democratic order" (106). I argue that the natural state of religion, as it is presented by Tocqueville, is characterizedby a persistent, often uncomfortable tension with prevailing political orders, including democratic ones. '7Manent ([1982] 1996) also notes that religion in America is appreciatedespecially for its public utility (esp. 86-97). His interpretationof this phenomenon, however,requiresa more pervasive and self-conscious hypocrisy on the part of Americans thanTocqueville'sremarksseem to warrant. '8Koritansky(1986) and Kessler (1994) both interpretTocqueville'steaching on American religion as a species of "civil religion" that derives from Rousseau's famous discussion in the fourth book of the Social Contract.American religion is characterizedby a nondoctrinaltolerance predicated on the sovereign authority of individual conscience. While I agree in large part with this assessment, I differ in emphasizing the persistence of an unresolved tension, albeit often submerged, in the American practice of religion. The blandness of civil religion endangers but also conceals those resources for religious renewal that have periodically asserted themselves throughout the course of American history.
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are not hostile to unbelievers but are more inclined to view them as unfortunate. The reciprocal influence of these two groups creates a public opinion favorable to religion, something that Tocqueville considers to be good for the political health of a nation; it is only by looking into the depths of a man's soul that one can see the wounds it has suffered (287). Although Tocqueville believes that religious hypocrisy is likely to be common in America, he nevertheless affirms that,
America is, however, still the place in the world where the Christianreligion has most preserved genuine powers over souls; and nothing shows betterhow useful and natural to man it is in our day (278, emphasis added).
Religion persists, although it is not immune from doubt concerning the fondest hopes of the human heart. It would appearthat most Americans are characterized by melancholy or anxiety regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of faith, a melancholy or anxiety that is submerged beneath a less troubled and more pervasive belief in and appreciationfor the moral precepts of religion. In what sense could such a state be considered natural?In the first volume of his study, Tocqueville had spoken of the naturalhuman tendency to try to harmonize heaven and earth. When he returns to the subject of religion in Volume II, he explains that one of the most familiar weaknesses of the human mind is to want to reconcile conflicting principles and so buy peace at the cost of logic (425). The Christianreligion poses a particularproblem since it is not possible to reconcile completely the demandsof the world with those of heaven. If the Protestant attempt to hold together heaven and earth without radically subordinatingone to the other is ultimately unsuccessful, it is a failure that preserves a tension that may itself be both natural and useful. Protestantism resists the temptation to collapse this tension by surrenderingearthly wellbeing for the sake of a heavenly good or denying heaven altogether in the interests of improving life on earth. The dominant form of religion in America may not be able to effect a fully satisfying compromise between the goods of heaven and those of earth, but its very lack of success enables it to avoid the two politically dangerous, albeit more logically consistent, extremes of radical Catholicism and godless secularism (cf 424-25). Tocqueville is not entirely confident that such a compromise can be sustained, but his advice is intended to help it persist.19He counsels Catholics in America to become more like their Protestantcounterparts(420-24), and his discussions of religion as a whole warn against the dangersof practicalatheism in democraticsocieties (among many passages, 417-24; 425-26; 518-21). Tocqueville consistently points to the political usefulness of American religiosity, a quality that would be jeopardized by either sectarianor secular "enthusiasms":
'9Kessler (1994) acknowledges Tocqueville'suncertaintyon this issue but goes on to argue that Tocquevilleis much more pessimistic about Christianity's prospects in the new democraticorderthan is generally recognized. See esp. Chapter8; cf Manent([1982] 1996) Chapter8 and Kraynak(1987).
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that is, radical attempts to subordinateearth to heaven or heaven to earth. Although the pursuit of radical consistency is feasible and even admirable for certain individuals, such lofty aspirationis, on a mass level, a recipe for political disaster.20Indeed, popular expressions of the universal desire to harmonize what is naturallyin tension are not only politically destructive, they may also deprive the human soul of its capacity for human freedom.21 For Tocqueville, Pascal's rare and profound metaphysical restlessness is a sublime, if problematic, expression of human freedom that finds its more popular analogue in the characteristicrestlessness of the American people.22In both cases, unresolvedtension is the gadfly that awakensthe humancapacity for freedom.23 Although the circumstances surroundingthe Puritanfoundation in America were unique and unrepeatable(a homogeneous society comprised of highly educated, middle-class individuals, bound together by shared religious convictions), this legacy is crucial for understandingthe nature and possibilities of democracy.The discussion that provides "the key to almost the whole work"is part of a study in which Tocqueville claims to see more than America. Tocqueville thought he could make out the shape of democracy itself and, particularly,the kind of guidance it needed to endurein a way compatiblewith human freedom. The lessons furnished by his study of America were not limited to America. Anticipating that some might regard his treatment of religion and politics as uniquely American, Tocqueville, in an earlier draft of his book, invokes the experience of the English middle class.
Who has ever been more eager in the pursuitof materialwell-being than those people and, at the same time, more attached to religious feeling? So the heart of man is larger than we suppose. It can enclose at the same time the love of this world and the next. People can deliver themselves alternativelyto these two inclinations without letting themselves be exclusively carried away by either.24 (Cf 520) 20One example of such consistency is provided by Pascal. In the Pensees, he radically subordinates earth to heaven with the consequence that his profound reflections on the human condition contain scarcely any political philosophy. 2 One should consider Tocqueville's condemnationof the "secret charms"of pantheism in this light (425-26). Tocqueville describes pantheism as an anodyne that soothes the perception of discomfiting or oppressive distinctions. A seductive and almost obsessive desire to reduce everything to a comprehensive and divine unity, it flatters the pride and absolves the complacency of the democratic mind. Tocqueville also points out that it destroys human individuality and the struggle to achieve the kind of excellence characteristicof genuine human greatness. 22This theme is developed by Lawler (1993), who provides the best and most comprehensive study of Tocqueville from a Pascalian perspective. 23 This was, in any case, true for Tocqueville himself. His profoundpartisanshipfor the cause of human liberty was accompanied by lifelong anguish regarding the metaphysical implications of faith. Boesche (1987) is particularlyeffective in bringing to light the relationship between Tocqueville's political teaching and personal experience. See esp. 27-41; 185-89. Hinckley (1990) takes issue with a pervasive interpretationof Tocqueville as a religious skeptic. She maintains that he suffered "the anguish of a believer" deprived, however, of "the unwaveringcertitude that characterizes faith of the highest order"(esp. 42-43). 24As quoted by James T. Schleifer (1982, 312-13).
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These observationsabout the fate of religion among the English are reaffirmed duringTocqueville'sfinal visit to Englandtowardthe end of his life. In contrast to the Catholic countries of Europe where the great bulk of people do not think about religion at all, Tocqueville is once again struck by the way in which religious sentiment has conserved itself in England without destroying other motives for human action. He confides to his lifelong friend and correspondent, Louis de Kergorlay(1857), that
A certain preoccupation with religious truths which does not go to the point of absorbing thought in the other world, has thereforealways seemed to me the state that conforms best to human morality in all its forms (Tocqueville 1985, 357, emphasis added).
Conclusion
The natural condition of human beings in the dawning democratic age is characterized especially by the presence of two distinct elements-biblical faith and secular rationalism.25It was this tension that accounted for the unprecedented and healthy dynamism of the American republic, and it is this tension that is constitutive of the new political science that Tocqueville offers for a new democratic world. The great danger to human freedom and the future of democracy lurks in the complete triumphof one of these elements to the exclusion of the other. On the one side lies the narrow and potentially violent intolerance of religious sectarianismand, on the other, the loss of any pervasive moral compass and consequent withering of human spirit. The new kind of social and political morality that Tocqueville wished to bring to the attention of his contemporarieswas in fact a novel expression of the ancient antagonism between biblical faith and the pre-biblical flourishing of political life.26 Unlike Europe, America had revealed a way to maintain this tension without tearing itself asunder in the process. Tocqueville seeks to preserve ratherthan extinguish the tension at the heart of the Westerntradition.It is in the restive combination of biblical religion and secular philosophy, ratherthan in the triumphof either one, that he finds the best, if still precarious,hope for the dawning age ahead. Manuscriptsubmitted 11 September2001 Final manuscriptreceived 7 December 2001
25 Although Tocqueville sometimes speaks of Christianityas a precious heritage from a fading aristocraticera, it is more revealing that he locates the origin of political equality-the fundamental principle of the dawning age of democracy-in the culturaltriumphof Christianityin the West. 26 In his correspondencewith Arthurde Gobineauon the distinctive characterof modern thought, Tocqueville insists that "almost all that we call modern principles should be considered as new consequences drawn from the old Christianprinciples"(Tocqueville 1959, 211).
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References
Berns, Walter. 1977. "Religion and the Founding Principle." In The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, ed. Robert H. Horwitz. Charlottesville:University of Virginia Press. Boesche, Roger. 1987. The Strange LiberalismofAlexis de Tocqueville.Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Ceaser, James W. 1990. Liberal Democracy and Political Science. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hamilton, Madison, Jay. 1961. The Federalist Papers, ed. Clinton Rossiter. New York: Mentor Books. Hancock, Ralph C. 1991. "The Uses and Hazards of Christianityin Tocqueville'sAttempt to Save DemocraticSouls." In InterpretingTocqueville s Democracyin America,ed. Ken Masugi. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Hinckley, Cynthia J. 1990. "Tocqueville on Religious Truthand Political Necessity." Polity 23(1): 39-52. Jefferson, Thomas [1975] 1977. The Portable Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson. New York:Penguin Books. Kessler, Sanford. 1992. "Tocqueville'sPuritans:Christianityand the American Founding."Journal of Politics 54(3): 776-92. Kessler, Sanford. 1994. Tocquevilles Civil Religion. American Christianityand the Prospectsfor Freedom. Albany: State University of New YorkPress. Koritansky,John C. 1986. Alexis de Tocqueville and the New Science of Politics. Durham, NC: CarolinaAcademic Press. Koritansky,John C. 1990. "Civil Religion in Tocqueville'sDemocracy in America."Interpretation 17(3): 389-400. Kraynak, Robert P. 1987. "Tocqueville's Constitutionalism."American Political Science Review 81(4): 1175-1195. Lawler, PeterA. 1993. The Restless Mind:Alexis de Tocquevilleon the Origin and Perpetuationof Human Liberty. Lanham,Maryland:Rowman and Littlefield. Lively, Jack. 1962. The Social and Political ThoughtofAlexis de Tocqueville.Oxford: Clarendon Press. Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1985. The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1996. Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Manent, Pierre [1982] 1996. Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy, trans. John Waggoner. Lanham,Maryland:Rowman and Littlefield. Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr. 1991. Americas ConstitutionalSoul. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Schleifer, James T. 1982. "Tocqueville and Religion: Some New Perspectives." The Tocqueville Review 4: 303-321. Smith, Rogers M. 1993. "Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal, and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions in America."American Political Science Review 87(2): 549-566. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1955. The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Stuart Gilbert. GardenCity, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1959. The European Revolution and Correspondencewith Gobineau, ed. and trans. John Lukas. GardenCity, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 1985. Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. and trans. Roger Boesche (with James Taupin). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2000. Democracy in America (Vol. 1 orig. pub. 1835; Vol. 2 orig. pub. 1840), ed. and trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop.Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
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Winthrop, Delba. 1991. "Rights: A Point of Honor." In Interpreting Tocqueville'sDemocracy in America, ed. Ken Masugi. Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Zetterbaum,Marvin. 1967. Tocquevilleand the Problem of Democracy. Stanford:StanfordUniversity Press.
Aristide Tessitoreis professor of political science, FurmanUniversity,Greenville, SC 29613-1206.

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Southern Political Science Association

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion in the Age of Democracy

America's Philosophic Founding

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

America's Biblical Founding

America's First Founding

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

Nature and Religion

Historical Variations on Nature

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

The American Paradigm

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

Alexis de Tocqueville on the Natural State of Religion

Aristide Tessitoreis professor of political science, FurmanUniversity,Greenville, SC 29613-1206.

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