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 65 (starting at the heading “On The County In New England”) through page 79 (stop at heading “On The State”) of this edition of Democracy in America.

Anyone who has worked as a reporter for newspapers — from small town weeklies to big city dailies — can tell you that few things are more boring than the civic affairs of a tiny New England township. It’s existence, one might say, is “obscure and tranquil.” Yet, curiously, it is also the object of “lively affections” from the citizens who inhabit the township. We are reminded of this intense pride over a township’s mundane civic obligations every four years when the dutiful people of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, trundle out into the deep snows near the remote Canadian border at midnight on a Tuesday to cast and count the first half dozen or so ballots in the nation’s presidential primary. It’s an affair bursting with so much pride among the townspeople as to seem like a Taylor Swift concert — even compared to that always show-boating Punxsutawney Phil predicting the end of spring down near Young Township closer to the end of winter in balmy Pennsylvania. To the outside cynic, the voters of Dixville Notch very often get it wrong and never has a primary come down to those first six or 11 votes cast by those hardy citizens. Yet the townspeople of Dixville Notch are undaunted and persevere every four years as if the life of the Republic depended upon it.

Because it does.

The “obscure and tranquil” nature of the New England township — and the “lively affections” inspired among its citizens — caught the jealous attention of French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville when he traveled to America in 1831 to study this budding new Republic. He was in awe of such curious behavior as if he were an explorer on a safari observing strange, new wild animals in their native habitat.

“The township is the hearth around which the interests and affections of men come to gather,” he observed.

Coming from a continent of aristocratic bloodlines, 1000-year religious wars, feudal fiefdoms and kingly realms with bejeweled crowns and walled cities, de Tocqueville considered this New England township in America a truly strange creature. What was the source of cohesion among its citizens? From where did such intense pride spring? How did they know what to do? Where was the castle? It is worth noting that many of these townships predated the republic to a time when they were remote, unwalled outposts in a vast kingdom loosely governed by a king whose palace was an ocean away. Even then, they were kind of on their own. While they were taxed by the king and had fealty to him, they were entirely on their own when it came to finding practical solutions to the very real problems they faced in daily civic life. It was this very whiff of practical independence that would become the wind that fueled the wildfire of freedom on the American continent.

“The revolution in the United States was produced by a mature and reflective taste for freedom, and not by a vague and indefinite instinct of independence,” de Tocqueville observed. “It was not supported by passions of disorder; but, on the contrary, it advanced with a love of order and legality.”

In the plain New England township, titles were loathed. Instead of Lords and Dukes, the officers of the township are called “justice of the peace” and “selectman.” Degrees in received wisdom were viewed with special suspicion.

“The justice of the peace is an enlightened citizen, but who is not necessarily versed in knowledge of the law,” de Tocqueville noted. “So they charge him only with keeping the order of society, a thing that demands more good sense and rectitude than science.”

The justice of the peace and the selectman is stripped of all “aristocratic character,” he writes.

In particular, de Tocqueville was struck by the “primitive” nature of the township and the “practical” matters so dutifully taken up by regular townspeople. If a road or a bridge washed out, who would fix it? Certainly not a king in some faraway land of fairy tales. The road had to be fixed and fixed fast so that the farmer could get his grain to the miller’s grist mill on the far side of the stream so that bread could be made so that the people of the township could eat. It was that simple. Practical self-interest was the social compact. Certainly, high ideals such as independence, life and liberty were sacred in the new Republic. But those principles alone would ultimately perish if all the townspeople starved to death. In the old country, governments and kings were forever justifying their existence and brutally confirming their authority. In this strange new country fueled by human nature and reigned by self-determination, government was a lowly affair entirely justified by its ability to ensure basic freedoms while solving practical problems that would clear the path to prosperity for the townspeople.

“In the bosom of the profound peace and material prosperity that reign in America, the storms of municipal life are few,” de Tocqueville wrote.

Obscure and tranquil? Yes. Even boring? Perhaps. But free.

Charles Hurt is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for The Washington Times. Often seen as a Fox News contributor on the cable network’s signature evening news roundtable, Mr. Hurt in his 20-year career has worked his way up from a beat reporter for the Detroit News and Washington correspondent for the Charlotte Observer before joining The Washington Times in 2003. He later served as D.C. bureau chief and White House correspondent for the New York Post and editor at the Drudge Report.

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