Essay 2: External Configuration Of Northern America – Volume 1, Part 1, Chapter 1 of Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
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 3 – 27 of this edition of Democracy in America, and stops at the Chapter 2 heading.
Please leave a comment in the blog below and automatically be entered in our weekly drawing for a free copy of the book!
In 1831, Alexis De Tocqueville came to America, sent by France to investigate the United States of America’s prison system. De Tocqueville does that and much more in his incredible, sprawling book that provides his impressions of democracy in North America.
De Tocqueville addresses in the first volume and part and chapter the majestic, sprawling geography of the United States. He refers to the “external configuration” of North America. De Tocqueville refers to the “methodical order” that separates land and water, with two vast regions divided. He notes the two great mountain ranges that separate the regions, one being the Alleghenies in the east, and the other the Rocky Mountains in the west.
In between the two mountain ranges is the “Father of Waters, or the Mississippi.” The valley watered by the Mississippi River “dispenses good and evil at will, and in that it is like the god”. De Tocqueville notes that the waters are responsible for the country’s sterility and abundance. He was very impressed with the Mississippi Valley, making the following glowing attribution:
“The Mississippi Valley is, all in all, the most magnificent dwelling that God has ever prepared for the habitation of man, and nonetheless one can say that it still forms only a vast wilderness.”
De Tocqueville would be pleased, one would think, if he could jump ahead almost 100 years to the present and see that the wilderness is no more.
Turning to the territory that is east of the Alleghenies and west of the Atlantic Ocean, De Tocqueville characterizes that part as “a long band of rocks and sand that the sea, in retreating, seems to have forgotten.” The small territory, 100 miles wide and 900 miles long, did not lend itself to ideal or easy farming. This land De Tocqueville describes was “on that inhospitable coast” where “were born and grew the English colonies that were day to become the United States of America”. When one reads and ponders that statement, one realizes how incredible it is that those colonies became the base for this great nation of ours, which spans beyond the Rockies to the west coast and beyond.
In this first part, De Tocqueville speaks much of the Native Americans and contemplates the first European settlers’ arriving to the new place. He writes of the time before the Europeans came to our shores and the inhabitants:
He speaks of the Indians as “equal and free.” He contemplates the “landing on the shores of North America” by Europeans having little impression on the natives, as “their presence gave rise neither to envy or fear.”
“Mild and hospitable in peace, pitiless in war, even beyond the known boundaries of human ferocity, the Indian would expose himself to die of hunger in order to assist the stranger who knocked at the door of his hut in the night ….. The most famous ancient republics had never admired a firmer courage, prouder souls, a more intractable love of independence than was hiding in the wild woods of the New World.”
“The Indian knew how to live without needs, to suffer without complaining, to die singing. ….they adored God, the creator of the universe. Their notions on great intellectual truths were generally simple and philosophical.”
De Tocqueville in this chapter identifies the resources and the bountifulness of the United States and provides reasons why the nation he wrote so much about was in the position it was, even before the Industrial Revolution that was soon to come.
In closing chapter 1, De Tocqueville sets up the overall premise of his book, the democracy he experienced.
He wrote, “It was there that civilized men were to try to build a society on new foundations, and applying for the first time theories until then unknown or reputed inapplicable, they were going to give the world a spectacle for which the history of the past had not prepared it.”
Much of what De Tocqueville wrote has weathered two hundred years and gone through massive changes, yet his views on the exterior lands is amazing and somewhat forecasting, as the map and America he explored in 1831 was not the sea to shining sea nation we live in today.
Daniel A. Cotter is Attorney and Counselor at Dickinson Wright PLLC. Dan focuses his practices in a variety of areas of corporate law and litigation, including insurance law, complex business disputes and counseling, employment law, corporate transactions, corporate governance and compliance, and cybersecurity and privacy law. Dan was an adjunct professor at The John Marshall Law School, and has taught Insurance Law, Accounting for Lawyers and SCOTUS Judicial Biography. Dan graduated summa cum laude from The John Marshall Law School and received his B.A. in Accounting from Monmouth College, magna cum laude. Dan is a frequent writer and presenter on various topics, including the nation’s history and the Supreme Court, and in 2019, his book, “The Chief Justices,” was published.”
Click here to receive our Daily 90-Day Study Essay emailed directly to your inbox.
Click here for the essay schedule with today’s essay and previously published essays hyperlinked.
Something else he said caught my attention: “When the weak and poor live among the rich and powerful, they lose any sense of hope in themselves, no means of being able to recover equality, and they can drift below any standards of human dignity.” This seems to be the state of the nation in our major cities, where rich and poor live close by, compared to the rural areas where few of the rich live and most residents are not financial wealthy. In rural America, the rich live pretty much the same type of lives as their neighbors and they get along more easily with each other. The native Americans lived much like today’s rural Americans live, with all members of their tribes having similar virtues and living similar lives.
This might explain to a large extent the reason we see so much class conflict and lawlessness in our inner cities today.
Thank you Ron!
This was very informative. De Tocqueville gives a short but very inclusive description of the country which clearly could be used with little additional information. I was actually surprised by the description fgor someone in 1831.
Additionally, He further speaks so very highly on the Native Americans calling them “equal” and free.” This surprised me somewhat because in the same year, 1831, was the removal of the Cherokee tribes and the “Trail of tears” forced march by the army during which over 4000 natives perished.
Finally, I simply wonder what his thoughts were pertaining to our horrendous civil war which began exactly 30 years later?
Long time listener but never commented. This man, this writer, this storyteller is breathtaking. Everyone who feels that America has lost her way, needs to read his book. We should never be ashamed to be American, but rather, very, very proud.
Love the podcast!