Essay 76: How Religious Belief Sometimes Diverts The Thoughts Of Americans Toward Spiritual Pleasures (Vol. 2 Pt. 2 Ch. 15)

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

The essays in our study reference the following edition of Democracy In America: University of Chicago Press – 1st edition translated by Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. Today’s essay references pages 517 (start at chapter 15 heading) – 521 (stop at chapter 16 heading) of this edition of Democracy in America.

While generally positive, De Tocqueville’s analysis of the relationship between religion and democracy contains both complexity and tensions. He notes that religion will be shaped by a democratic society and that it must be so shaped in order to be sustainable and suitable for a democratic age. At the same time, he maintains that a democratic society should be shaped by religion in order to thrive. In Vol. 2, Pt. 2, Ch. 15 of Democracy in America, De Tocqueville outlines one sense in which he thinks that religious belief improves both the lives of democratic individuals and democratic societies. 

Just two chapters earlier, De Tocqueville describes how intensely Americans pursue material well-being. On the one hand, they are so obsessed with material goods that one would think that they must believe that their earthly existence will never come to an end. On the other hand, they are in such haste to acquire and enjoy as many of those goods as possible that it appears as though they live constantly driven by a fear of imminent death. To illustrate this characteristic of Americans, De Tocqueville remarks, “In the United States, a man carefully builds a dwelling in which to pass his declining years, and he sells it while the roof is being laid.”    

Yet De Tocqueville is struck by a routine exception to this fixation on material well-being. As he puts it in another part of Vol. 2, Americans are “people who spend every day of the week making a fortune and Sundays praying to God”. Each Sunday, one finds them engaged in religious observances, not commercial or industrial activities. They head to church rather than to the market or their place of work. They read their Bibles rather than their business reports.

De Tocqueville has an emphatically favorable judgment of this American phenomenon. That judgment is not grounded in religious beliefs regarding salvation or divine commands. However, his assessment is also notably different from common secular arguments for leisure. Today many would stress that time off from work is conducive to mental and physical health. They would highlight that it allows individuals to rest, to engage in hobbies and recreation, or to be with their families and friends. Reasoning along these lines forms the justification, for instance, for the U.S. Supreme Court upholding Sunday closing laws against a First Amendment challenge in McGowan v. Maryland (1961). It is possible to attribute a secular benefit even to the practice of attending religious services; after all, people find a meaningful source of community, or human connection, through religious membership. 

In contrast, it is important to De Tocqueville that Americans do not merely pause commercial and industrial activity on Sundays while participating in some form of community. He especially cares that, in doing so, they reinforce a foundational belief about reality, a belief in “the immortality of the soul”. On Sundays, Americans fortify their conviction that they are immortal beings, higher than brutes and more than mere matter. This conviction elevates their souls. 

De Tocqueville makes the case that the absence of such a belief in a democratic society would lead to the degradation of human beings and to materialistic pursuits characterized by “an insane ardor”. In subsequent chapters, he draws out the economic and political drawbacks of materialism. For the good of individuals and for the good of democratic societies, De Tocqueville urges leaders to make an effort to prevent materialism from taking root. He directs them to seek means of “raising up souls and keeping them turned toward Heaven”.  

Despite the importance which he assigns to this task, De Tocqueville gives a somewhat cryptic prescription for the maintenance (or rehabilitation) of “belief in an immaterial and immortal principle”. He begins with an unequivocal restatement of his commitment to a separation between church and state, before concluding the chapter with a perplexing remark. He writes, “I believe that the only efficacious means governments can use to put the dogma of the immortality of the soul in honor is to act every day as if they themselves believed it”.

In 2024, does commerce screech to a halt on any weekend day? Does the quest for material pleasures take a breather then? Do ennobling beliefs about humanity fend off the impression “that all is nothing but matter”? De Tocqueville prompts us to ask such questions, and he presses us to reflect on what we might learn today from his case for a soul-elevating democratic society. 

Zachary K. German is an assistant professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. His research focuses on American political and constitutional thought, along with early modern thought, on questions of statesmanship, political culture and civic character, constitutional design, civic education, and politics and religion. He teaches courses on political thought, leadership, and constitutionalism, largely but not exclusively in the American context. He also contributes to K-12 civic education efforts, including teacher workshops and summer seminars for high-school students.

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