Tocqueville, Federalism, and Virtue

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According to Tocqueville, America seemed successful at balancing individual self-interest with citizenship and community spirit, at least in part because of the federal structure of the government. It was the vitality of local government that especially impressed him. It was through local government that individuals were drawn into public affairs and a sense of community was instilled that seemed to moderate the natural tendency to pursue one's self-interest. Local institutions placed liberty



within the people's reach. Local liberties which induce a great number of citizens to value the affections of kindred and neighbors, bring men constantly into contact, despite the instincts which separate them and force them to help one another.

The federal system and vital local government, according to Tocqueville, promoted a type of patriotism or civic virtue that "in the end becomes, in a sense, mingled with personal interest." The citizen, he observed, comes to view his nation's prosperity "first as a thing useful to him and then as something he created." It is a civic virtue born of enlightened self-interest and, in Tocqueville's eyes, it was the great virtue of American government.

Tocqueville identified two factors which were critical to the maintenance of this public spirit in America: active local governments in a federal system and a belief on the part of the people that they are free to be the masters of their own fate. An individual's belief in himself seemed to matters as much as his commitment to community.

In a particularly moving and prescient passage in Democracy in America, Tocqueville warned that it would be difficult for America to maintain the balance it had achieved through federalism. Citing a unique sort of despotism that tends to undermine democracies, he warned of the dangers that accompany the centralization and consolidation of government. Seeking to "trace the novel features under which despotism may appear," he wrote that "the first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives." He sees the potential for a nation of strangers-individuals so self-interested and self-involved as to be indifferent to the fate of others or of the state. It is a nation in which the individual "exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country". It is a nation in which individuals are governed by the state as opposed to the state governed by them.

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. The power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood, but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manges their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, subdivides their inheritances: What remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of learning?



Such a government, argued Tocqueville, "renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent" and "generally robs a man of all the uses of himself." It is a government that promotes individual self-interest because it caters to it; a government that weakens the spirit of individuals and communities, leading to a decline in community and citizenship because the people no longer care. They no longer care because the government is doing what needs to be done. It is a transformation in the minds of men that is brought about by the nature of government. The despotism Tocqueville warns of is a tyranny of men's minds, as citizens no longer practice citizenship while they reside in communities in which there are no neighbors.
( Eugene W. Hickok. Why States? The Challenge of Federalism. Heritage Foundation. pp 88-90)

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Another Writer on Why History or, I Wish I Wrote That

What can we learn from this knowledge that can actually help us? Actually, quite a lot. Because behind the great themes are great men and women, the leaders of history. History by definition is about human beings, and there is nothing more fascinating, or more immediately applicable to our lives, than the study of human nature. History is a record of mankind's stupidities, pride, vindictiveness, hypocrisies, and ambitions, tempered by moments of heroism, grace, good judgment, and nobility. In the broad brush strokes of great themes these are sometimes hidden or obscured. But it is history's little stories that provide the greatest insight into the nature of man. Some are not pretty, some are powerful, and some are poignant. But the best of them are worth remembering precisely because they have something to teach. (Wick Allison. Condemned to Repeat It. (xv-xvi)

William Tyndale

John A. R. Dick William Tyndale and the Law. (1994)

For those of us who live under constitutional governments, it is difficult and challenging to reconstruct what "the law" would have meant to Tyndale. The normative systems that could affect a person in his circumstances included canon law, English common law, Roman civil law (in the lands of his exile), domestic mores, the bindings and loosings of the Bible, and the joker, Realpolitik- and they were often in conflict. Add to this historical situation an extraordinarily personal sensitivity to norms and you have much of the poetry in Tyndale's tense and impassioned prose. Longing to regulate himself and others, but also to liberate the overregulated, Tyndale was predisposed to feel the force of every contemporary body of law under whose jurisdiction he conceivably came. God's law, based on the two Testaments, seemed as if it could silence this hubbub of warring imperatives, but Tyndale could not get rid of Erasmus's conviction, not purely Bible-based, that human beings deserved to be free, natural, and happy. (ix)(photo:commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:William_Tyndale)

With Apologies to My Wesleyan Friends

Here are a few lines written in the 18th century by one of my ancestors Thomas Chatterton:

(commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Chatterton)

The Methodist

Says Tom to Jack, 'tis very odd,

These representatives of God,

In color, way of life and evil,

Should be so very like the devil.

Jack, understand was one of those,

Who mould religion like a rose,

A red hot methodist; his face

Was full of puritanic grace,

His loose lank hair, his slow gradation,

Declared a late regeneration;

Among the daughters long renown'd,

For standing upon holy ground;

Never in carnal battle beat,

Tho' sometimes forced to a retreat'

But C___t, hero as he is,

Knight of incomparable phiz,

When pliant Doxy seems to yield,

Courageously forsakes the field.

Jack, or to write more gravely, John

Thro' hills of Wesley's works had gone;

Could sing one hundred hymns by rote;

Hymns which would sanctify the throat;

But some indeed composed so oddly,

You'd swear 'twas bawdy songs made godly.

Texas Tidbits

A. C. Greene. Texas Sketches. (1985)

The conversational tone of Texas Sketches perfectly lends itself to utilization in the classroom. It provides many interesting stories that would liven up any Texas History class. A. C. Greene gives the story behind the story in the founding of some of Texas's most noteworthy cities and compelling stories about the early residents. The brevity of each of the sketches lends itself not just to the classroom but conversation. It is enjoyable, light reading.

The Cold War and Postmodern Memory

Robert Conquest. Reflections on a Ravaged Century. (2000) Norton.



This year could be the great anniversary: 150 years since the firing on Fort Sumter, seventy years since Pearl Harbor, twenty years since Gulf War I. Two other anniversaries should be noted, those being the fiftieth of John Kennedy's inauguration and the thirtieth of Ronald Reagan's, whose centennial is also this year. I write this because, as a teacher of history, it is time we recognize that a generation has grown up without any memory of the Cold War. Many of the ideas and attitudes that the Boomer generation were born into and grew up with are no longer standard. The way the Cold War enveloped our lives is foreign to the Ipod generation. In order for the younger generation to understand us we need to realize this. We need to attempt to explain the Cold War and not just take it as given that they understand. We need to explain it in the way our parents explained the Depression and World War II.

Reflections on a Ravaged Century is a good starting point in restoring some of the memories of the Cold War era. Conquest examines some of the rogue ideologies of the twentieth century that sent millions to their deaths and terrorized the rest. "More generally, this book is an overview, an attempt to present in a reasonably coherent way the crucial causes of past disaster, and so of the problems still facing us in our hopes for a reasonably peaceful and consensual world." (297)

When Bad History Happens to Good Catholics

Thomas E. Woods, Jr. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. (2005) Regnery

This work could be subtitled "A Very Selective History". Of course all history writing is selective, some more so than others. The historian places emphasis on certain facts and downplays others. The good historian cannot overlook the obvious objections to his contention. Thomas Woods does this, repeatedly. When important events and people either are ignored or misrepresented, it is no longer history, it is propaganda.
First, Woods cannot properly define his time frame although he does strive valiantly to concentrate on the era of St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics. This leads to his next difficulty: what is his definition of the word "catholic"? Is he talking about simply the Roman Catholic Church or does he mean catholic as in universal? Certainly until at least 1054 there was just "the Church", and in the West this continued until the sixteenth century.
Next, in his discussion of the concept of "natural rights", Woods would have the reader believe that this was handed down to us from the theologians of the 12th century. There is no mention of the Common Law or Magna Charta. (139)
Perhaps the worst offense is how Woods makes certain that the reader remembers that John Calvin and Martin Luther were evil Protestants. (119, 157). Yet he speaks favorably of Murray N. Rothbard with no religious label. Because it would be embarrassing to say that he was an Atheist? Adam Smith, a Scottish Calvinist, is bad, but Jean Buridan, one of the French Roman Catholic founders of Nominalism, is good.
Lastly, we have the(Roman) Catholic church calling for the separation of church and state. I guess Thomas Jefferson was a closet Roman Catholic even though he read that bad Protestant John Locke. Cardinals Wolsey and Richielieu must not have gotten the message.
This belongs to that category of bad history. When the author must rely on name-calling as a response to dissent, the reader knows what to expect.