The early settlers bequeathed to their descendants the customs, manners, and opinions that contribute most to the success of a republic. When I reflect upon the consequences of this primary fact, I think I see the destiny of America embodied in the first Puritan who landed on those shores, just as the whole human race was represented by the first man.
Alexis de Tocqueville [1]
1. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Library of America, 2004).
While much has changed since the nineteenth century, much of what [Alexis de] Tocqueville offered us in his masterful Democracy in America serves to give admonition and encouragement about the prospects for maintaining liberty in a democratic age.
John D. Wilsey [2]
2. John D. Wilsey, Religious Freedom: A Conservative Primer (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2025), 116.
As a pastor and an American, I sometimes feel jaded about the state of my country. But when I needed a fresh perspective, I found an old source: Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Published as two volumes in 1835 and 1840, no other work makes me either as thankful for this country or as aware of the dangers that threaten fabric of our republic.
Before introducing Tocqueville’s great book, I should acknowledge that I do not have a background in politics or history. I’m a pastor. But in 2013 I wrote, Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices.[3] In researching that book and seeking to understand the expressive individualism of our late modern age, I learned that Tocqueville was among the first to see that threat. The below introductory thoughts are adapted from Bound Together in a chapter of that book, “Roped Together in Country and Culture.”[4]
3. For a brief synopsis of Bound Together, see Andy Naselli, “A 10-Point Summary of Chris Brauns’s Book on the Principle of the Rope,” Andy Naselli, June 6, 2013.
4. Brauns, Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Others in Good and Bad Choices, 161–82.
Democracy in America
In 1831, twenty-six-year-old Alexis de Tocqueville set sail to tour a country that was itself only fifty-four years old. Tocqueville’s official reason for visiting was to evaluate the prison and penitentiary system. Unofficially, he wanted a firsthand opportunity to assess why the democratic experiment in the United States had been so uniquely successful after it had failed all across Europe. Tocqueville believed there were important lessons to be learned from the United States that would benefit his own country of France. Although Tocqueville spent less than two years in the United States, his assessment was brilliant. He understood why America had succeeded and identified a threat to which he believed the United States would be uniquely susceptible.
Three Things that Made America Great
Tocqueville’s overall evaluation of the country was positive. He marveled, “Where in the memory of man can one find anything comparable to what is taking place before our eyes in North America?”[5] As to the reasons for America’s success, Tocqueville posited that a unique combination of factors had coalesced to produce a nearly ideal country. He organized these factors into three categories. First, he observed that God’s providence had blessed America with an abundance of natural resources. Tocqueville marveled:
5. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 322.
Everything about America is extraordinary, their social state no less than their laws. But what is still more extraordinary is the land on which they live . . . There one sees, as in the first days of creation, rivers that never run dry, verdant, well-watered solitudes, and boundless fields yet to be tilled by any plow.[6]
6. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 323.
Along with the blessing of natural resources, Tocqueville believed that America’s greatness was partially due to the specific form of government the people had developed. The American experiment in government combined the strength and power of a great republic with the security of a smaller one. Local governments counterbalanced the federal government, and the judicial system provided an effective check against the excesses of the majority.[7]
7. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 331.
Third, Tocqueville believed that a common culture of Christian morality had created a virtuous society, and this contributed in large measure to the success of the country. Tocqueville himself did not embrace traditional Christian doctrine, but he believed that the religious foundation of Christianity had immensely benefitted America.[8] He wrote, “There is no better illustration of the usefulness and naturalness of religion [than America], since [it is] the country where its influence is greatest today [and] also the country that is freest and most enlightened.”[9] Tocqueville explained that in the United States Christianity reigned without impediment and with universal consent.[10] His point was not to suggest that the specific form or structure of government was Christian or biblical.[11] Further, Tocqueville insisted that it was not his goal to advocate an intrusive form of government in his evaluation.[12] Indeed, “Tocqueville marveled at the relative absence of government from American life and the corresponding vitality of civil society, especially when compared to the state’s all-pervasive presence in his native France.” Rather than the involvement of government, Tocqueville saw that it was Christian values and virtues, or “habits of the heart,” that made American citizens responsible. This, he suggested, was the bedrock of the American experiment.[13]
8. Thomas Kidd writes, “Despite his sanguine view of American religion, Tocqueville was personally skeptical about Christianity. Early in his life he became a deist, and for most of his life he did not receive communion as a Catholic. Nevertheless, he always maintained a general belief in God, Providence, and an afterlife. In this combination of personal doubt but public support for religion, Tocqueville manifested a view of religion not unlike that of several prominent founding fathers, including Jefferson. Jefferson and Tocqueville personally abandoned traditional orthodoxy, while maintaining that it was essential for the masses to keep believing in Christianity – – or at least in good and evil – – and in eternal rewards in the afterlife.” Thomas S. Kidd, God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010), 248.
9. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 336.
10. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 337.
11. See Kidd, God of Liberty; Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (Lisle, IL: IVP Academic, 2010); John Fea, Was America Founded As a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011); Michael S. Horton, Made in America: The Shaping of Modern American Evangelicalism (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1998).
12. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 14.
13. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 331.
Tocqueville was not naïve about the spirituality of America. He understood that not every citizen was a Christian. He knew even among those professing faith in Christ there was still great hypocrisy. Even so:
Revolutionaries in America are obliged to profess a certain public respect for Christian morality and equity, so that it is not easy for them to violate the laws when those laws stand in the way of their own designs. And even if they could overcome their own scruples, they would still be held in check by the scruples of their supporters.[14]
Tocqueville was especially impressed by the effectiveness of American homes in passing along Christian “habits of the heart” and the strength of American homes began with a high regard for marriage.
Of all the countries in the world, America is surely the one in which the marriage bond is most respected, and in which people subscribe to the loftiest and most just ideal of conjugal happiness.[15]
Tocqueville believed that mothers, in particular, deserved high praise for teaching Christian values to their children. Positioning himself to be quoted in Mother’s Day sermons for centuries to come, Tocqueville wrote:
If someone were to ask me what I think is primarily responsible for the singular prosperity and growing power of [the United States], I would answer that it is the superiority of their women.”[16]
Christian “habits of the heart”, instilled by godly parents living together in committed marriages had given rise to a citizenry with a strong sense of civic responsibility and solidarity with one another. George Washington, America’s first president, had given the nation an example of these virtues from the country’s founding. Long before Washington retired, he had desired to withdraw from public service. Yet, Washington said that when he reflected on the critical junctures at which the United States found itself, he was duty bound to serve. Even when Washington eventually did retire, he said that he could do so with a clear conscience only because he was sure that it would not harm the country.
I beg you at the same time to do me the justice to be assured that this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country[17]
14. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 336, 337.
15. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 336.
16. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 708.
17. George Washington, “The Address of General Washington To The People of The United States on His Declining of the Presidency of the United States,” September 19, 1796.
Like Washington, America’s citizenry had a deep recognition of the solidarity that compelled them to place the good of the country ahead of personal desires. Tocqueville argued that it was America’s commitment to the ties that “bind a dutiful citizen to his country” that was fundamental to her success.
America’s Fatal Flaw
As much as he loved what he saw in America, Tocqueville was careful to note that the United States was not a perfect country. Indeed, he envisioned an ominous scenario in which the trajectory of America would take a turn for the worse. To express his concerns for America, Tocqueville introduced a word that he was among the first to use. The term was “individualism.” He defined individualism as,
a reflective and tranquil sentiment that disposes each citizen to cut himself off from the mass of his fellow men and withdraw into the circle of family and friends, so that having created a little society for his own use, he gladly leaves the larger society to take care of itself.[18]
18. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 585.
Tocqueville said the roots of this new individualism could be observed in that,
Americans, who mix so easily in political assemblies and tribunals, are careful by contrast, to divide into very distinct small associations to save the pleasures of private life apart from others. Each freely recognizes all his fellow citizens as his equals, yet he never receives more than a small number as his friends and guests.[19]
19. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 585.
Tocqueville reasoned that an unhealthy emphasis on this new type of individuality might eventually lead to excesses in which people no longer saw themselves in solidarity with the rest of the country. If people began to see themselves as mere individuals, losing the solidarity that bound them together, there would no longer be sufficient citizenry to serve the common good of the nation as a matter of principle and commitment. In the worst case, there would be:
An innumerable host of men, all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each of them, withdrawn into himself, is virtually a stranger to the fate of all the others. For him, his children and personal friends comprise the entire human race. As for the remainder of his fellow citizens, he lives alongside them but does not see them. He touches them but does not feel them. He exists only in himself and for himself, and if he still has a family, he no longer has a country. [20]
20. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 709.
Were the United States to become radically individualized, Tocqueville warned that the government would become nothing better than a machine enabling a citizenry of petulant brats.
Over these men stands an immense tutelary power, which assumes responsibility for securing their pleasure and watching over their fate. It is absolute, meticulous, regular, provident, and mild. It would resemble paternal authority if only its purpose were the same, namely, to prepare men for manhood. But on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them in childhood irrevocably. It likes citizens to rejoice, provided they think only of rejoicing. It works willingly for their happiness but wants to be the sole agent and only arbiter of that happiness. It provides for their security, foresees and takes care of their needs, facilitates their pleasures, manages their most important affairs, directs their industry, regulates their successions, and divides their inheritances. [21]
21. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 709.
Just as parents who spoil their children also demean them and stunt their ability to truly mature, a government that spoiled its citizens would debase them by removing from them all motivation to grow up and think for themselves. Tocqueville said this would be a kind of “soft despotism” which crept in almost unnoticed.[22] “Every day,” such a government would “make man’s use of his free will rarer and more futile . . . and little by little [rob] each citizen of the use of his own faculties.[23] Eventually, Tocqueville worried, a government that spoiled its citizens in this way might “relieve them entirely of the trouble of their thinking and the difficulty of living.”[24]
22. Bellah called radical individualism, “ontological individualism.” He writes, “The essence of the Lockean position is an almost ontological individualism. The individual is prior to society, which comes into existence only through the voluntary contract of individuals trying to maximize their own self-interest. He adds, ontological individualism is “a belief that the individual has a primary reality whereas society is a second-order, derived or artificial construct, a view we call ontological individualism. This view is shared by utilitarian and expressive individualists. It is opposed to the view that society is as real as individuals, a view we call social realism, which is common to the biblical and republican traditions.” Robert N. Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), ix, 334.
23. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 709.
24. Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 709.
Tocqueville believed radical individualism was a real threat to the future of the United States. Left unchecked, it would unravel the fabric of society leading to a new strain of tyranny.
Conclusion
Two hundred years later, many of Tocqueville’s fears have come to fruition. In today’s America, the individual is ultimate. Precisely because of this, there has been a steep a decline of civic virtue. The loss of an objective standard for determining what is good and healthy for society has left us with nothing but a vague cultural desire to respect diversity and tolerate the perspectives and choices of others. Individualism is undermining both the “habits of the heart” and understanding of corporate solidarity that first gave rise to our national success.
The obvious question that follows is, “What can counter the expressive individualism that is unraveling so much of our culture?” As a pastor, my answer is straightforward: only New Testament churches offer the theology, plausibility structures and fellowship necessary to sustain true solidarity.What Tocqueville feared as come to pass, but faithful churches can renew the fabric of American democracy—just as they provided the foundation for its founding. [25]
