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 510 – 511 (stop at chapter 13 heading) of this edition of Democracy in America.

De Tocqueville frequently draws attention to the ways in which American religion has conformed itself or been conformed to the habits of thinking and acting within the democratic social state. In general, one would expect American religion to support bourgeois virtues and to inoculate the people against fanaticism that would draw them too far away from the goods of this world. At the same time, a sharp-eyed observer of American religion could not help but be struck by the proliferation of small and zealous sects that constituted a contrast with the dominant religious ethos. In this chapter, De Tocqueville tries to make sense of these paradoxical phenomena.

In the preceding chapters, De Tocqueville considers the passion for material well-being, which he takes to be a general and even dominant passion among the American people. Despite the public advantages of this passion, De Tocqueville nevertheless expresses regret that it entirely absorbs Americans and distracts them from more noble or leisurely pursuits that are praiseworthy for a human being. In Chapter 12, De Tocqueville notes that the “taste for the infinite” is an instinct grounded in the “immovable foundation” of human nature. Though it is weakened, it has not been extinguished by the advent of the democratic social state. It is therefore quite understandable that as the general American population narrows its focus on material goods, some will rebel against that circumscription of human life. “There are moments of respite,” says De Tocqueville, “when their souls seem all at once to break the material bonds that restrain them and to escape impetuously toward heaven.”

If Americans are a religious people, and if religion is the first of our political institutions, why doesn’t mainstream American religion sufficiently quench this universal thirst for the infinite? In the preceding chapters, De Tocqueville shows how American religion had lowered its gaze to temporal goods. Moreover, American religion had even made peace with the dominant taste for material enjoyment. In Chapter 11, De Tocqueville points out that the industry fostered by this taste is “combined with a sort of religious morality.” While some goods are forbidden as the objects of desire, Americans’ hearts are “delivered without reserve” to those goods that are otherwise permitted by religion and morality. American religion functioned as an imprimatur as it simultaneously restrained the commercial and acquisitive spirit of the American people. It is little wonder, then, that Americans in search for the infinite might feel compelled to seek out what De Tocqueville regards as “bizarre sects” that often teach “follies.” American religion that merely fostered and channeled desires for temporal goods would have little appeal to those gazing beyond the goods of the body.

Some early American statesmen, such as John Adams, regarded the proliferation of zealous sects as a threat to republican self-government, and for that reason tolerated state alliances with moderate religion to help avert those dangers.

De Tocqueville’s treatment of this phenomenon does not evince a similar alarm. De Tocqueville is confident of the unrelenting power of the democratic social state to nudge Americans toward the practical concerns of this world. Moreover, majority opinion within America exercises a kind of tyranny over the American mind. Within the horizons of the democratic social state, it is almost inconceivable that any small enthusiastic sect would gain sufficient proponents to unsettle the habits of mind of the American people. This is due to the propensity of the greater number to focus their energies on obtaining and preserving the goods of this world. Moreover, some liberal thinkers and statesmen were worried that religious enthusiasms would deprive the people of the necessary critical judgment that they would need to act responsibly as democratic citizens. De Tocqueville, on the other hand, recognized that in America, the people generally excused religious matters from the critical personal evaluation to which they subjected political matters. In America, religion has remained entirely separate from the political order. The population has “accepted the principal dogmas of the Christian religion without examination,” which suggests that any irrationality or lack of critical judgment in the religious sphere need not affect an American’s judgment in the political sphere.

In Part I, Ch. 5 of this volume, De Tocqueville explains that religion—even absurd ones—can provide a useful limit for theoretical and political life. The absence of religion, he worried, would leave people confused and unable to act in a reasonable way and fearful to think through the great human questions. Such a people, lacking all limits on religious speculation, would be inclined to accept political servitude. In this chapter, De Tocqueville’s treatment of what he called “bizarre” sects again raises the question of how long a purely civil religion can prove useful to the democratic social state if it cannot satisfy the spiritual instinct of the people.

Kevin Vance is Director of the Center for Constitutional Liberty at Benedictine College. He received his PhD and MA in political science from the University of Notre Dame and his BA from Claremont McKenna College. His research focuses on law and religion, constitutional law, and American political thought. His scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Church and State, the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, and the Journal of Law and Courts.

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