Essay 21: Why It Can Be Firmly Stated That In The United States It Is The People Who Govern
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 page 165 of this edition of Democracy in America.
It is important to remember that De Tocqueville’s masterwork was published early in the 19th century. It is a collection of observations about an America vastly different from the one in which we now live.
While some of De Tocqueville’s observations are truisms, holding true then, now, and always, it is only by approaching others while acknowledging the emergence of the modern liberal welfare state that we can see how far the nation has moved from its “small d” democratic roots.
Chief among these enduring notions is the concept of America as a self-governing people. De Tocqueville’s words in Chapter 1, Part 2 of Volume 1 of Democracy in America still resonate. The people are sovereign, wielding the ultimate authority over the state. They elect representatives to voice their concerns at the federal, state, and local levels in the executive, legislative, and sometimes even in the judicial capacity, a living testament to the enduring relevance of De Tocqueville’s observations.
With a few caveats, the system studied by De Tocqueville has weathered well most of the storms of the last two and a half centuries. The franchise has been expanded to the point that every law-abiding American citizen is eligible to participate in the electoral process, serve on juries, and be part of national, regional, and local governance. This evolution is a testament to the dynamic nature of our governance system.
That is not to say, however, that the Constitution upon which it is based is, as many like to argue, “a living breathing document that must keep up with the times.” It is foundational to the American system, “saying what it means and meaning what it says” as more than one pundit has said. The system changed because the people arguably wanted those changes and voted for them.
Consider the popular movement that brought about the direct election of senators. It was proposed and adopted through a constitutional amendment as an anti-corruption measure without much consideration being given to how it would abolish the institutional tensions purposely established between the states and the federal government.
It would be wrong to fault De Tocqueville for failing to anticipate changes that allowed the government to grow in size, authority, and power. The system we have now, which began to take shape under Woodrow Wilson and grew exponentially under FDR’s New Deal, LBJ’s Great Society, and the administration of the current president, takes it upon itself to fulfill many of the valuable and volunteer functions cited by Democracy In America as essential to American character and different from what could be found at the time in Europe.
What the voters, through their representatives, put in, they should be able to remove, again through their representatives. That this has not happened, even with the best efforts of presidents like Calvin Coolidge, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, is a testament to the growth in the power of political parties and special interests, as De Tocqueville discusses later in Part 2 of Volume 1.
Nonetheless, the people still govern. They still have the ultimate authority because they still have the franchise. The agents of the administrative state often attempt to overlook that fact, as do members of the judiciary who frequently substitute their own interpretation, not just of the laws passed by Congress and the regulations issued by the Executive Branch and the plethora of independent agencies that populate the nation’s capital, but of the U.S. Constitution itself.
All that can be undone by the people should they choose to be serious once again about their liberty. It will be a costly enterprise, difficult to achieve unless common ground can be found among the badly polarized factions of the American populace that the vision of the nation as recorded by De Tocqueville is superior to what we now have. Without unity on that point, factionalism will expand, partisanship will increase, and the divide of people living side by side will grow.
Peter Roff is a contributing editor at Newsweek and a Senior Fellow at several Washington-based public policy organizations.
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We saw in the last four years the justice department weaponize the system against what they deemed their political enemy, and even with the outrage expressed in Congress and from American citizens, that kind of power by the justice system became controlling. Some aspects of that scrutiny, like the possession of presidential documents found in a secured compound and in a garage, were not treated the same by the justice system, because the documents were held by two different political parties, and were treated with different verdicts. Those decisions left a bad taste in the public’s mouth, seeing that whatever political party was in control was not held to the same standard. De Touqueville would be discouraged and disillusioned to see that happening here, as that is NOT an example of what he saw in and for America.
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I agree completely with this guy, so I don’t know what to comment about! One thing I have been against for a long time is the 17th Amendment — I believe that is should be repealed. I would like the House and Senate to make a joint resolution to propose this change (and no others). Maybe it will happen — you never know.