In this day
and age when the founding principles--and the Christian origin of
those principles--of the United States are under attack from
liberals, secularists, humanists, socialists, and Marxists, it is
more important than ever to maintain familiarity with the facts and
truths of where we came from. If someone is able to rewrite the
past, he is also able to rewrite the present and alter the course of
the future.
In 1835 Alexis
de Tocqueville, a French historian, traveled America as it was
coming into its own as a nation. He wrote down his observations
about this unique new country in Democracy in America. In
some ways, his account of American society may be even more valuable
than some of the Founders writings as a tool for accurately seeing
our history as it was. After all, he wasn't just some
super-patriotic American who might be accused of glossing over
details. He was a Frenchman, coming from a European nation that had
gone through a bloody secularist revolution.
This classic
provides unique insight into what made America such a rapid success;
indeed, the explosive growth of our infant country was bewildering
to those old European empires.
It wasn't our
natural resources (the old empires had access to those), and it
wasn't a huge population (this rugged continent was sparsely
populated), and it wasn't a huge military built over centuries (we
were barely half a century old when Democracy in America was
published). It was none of the things we might think essential to a
great nation.
The
secret of America's success was instead a religion of humility,
love, self-control and righteousness: Christianity.
Even back
then, they examined the dynamics of church and state. What de
Tocqueville found going on in America was not what elitist wisdom
expected:
The philosophers of the
eighteenth century explained the gradual decay of religious faith in
a very simple manner. Religious zeal, said they, must necessarily
fail, the more generally liberty is established and knowledge
diffused. Unfortunately, facts are by no means in accordance with
their theory. There are certain populations in Europe whose unbelief
is only equalled by their ignorance and their debasement, whilst in
America one of the freest and most enlightened nations in the world
fulfils all the outward duties of religious fervor.
Upon my arrival in the United
States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that
struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there the more did I
perceive the great political consequences resulting from this state
of things, to which I was unaccustomed. In France I had almost
always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom
pursuing courses diametrically opposed to each other; but in America
I found that they were intimately united, and that they reigned in
common over the same country.
Remember that
this is not an official joining, as would truly constitute a
theocracy, but an informing of public policy by the religious faith
of those who represent the government of the people in shaping that
public policy. There is no established relationship between church
and state in America, yet as George Washington and others have
pointed out, "religion and morality are indespensible supports" to
the political health of a nation.
How did such a
revolutionary civilization begin? de Tocqueville says of American
settlers:
...they brought with them into
the New World a form of Christianity which I cannot better describe
than by styling it a democratic and republican religion. This sect
contributed powerfully to the establishment of a democracy and a
republic, and from the earliest settlement of the emigrants politics
and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.
de Tocqueville
also found no "theocracy" in America's Christian heritage; only
harmony with our free form of government:
It may be asserted that in the
United States no religious doctrine displays the slightest hostility
to democratic and republican institutions. The clergy of all the
different sects hold the same language, their opinions are consonant
to the laws, and the human intellect flows onwards in one sole
current.
Were these
Americans that de Toqueville observed a secular people, a society
that believed religion should be safely locked away except for
Sunday morning?
...there is no country in the
whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater
influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no
greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature,
than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most
enlightened and free nation of the earth.
de Toqueville
also reveals the "secret" of how American was founded by Christians
on Christian principles, yet not a "theocracy":
In the United States religion
exercises but little influence upon the laws and upon the details of
public opinion, but it directs the manners of the community, and by
regulating domestic life it regulates the State.
In a
theocracy, laws are constructed to operate in rigid conformity to
religious orthodoxy. In America, our laws have historically been
written by men and women who are either Christians or generally
ascribe to a Christian cultural influence; accordingly, the laws
they propose and approve have for most of our history been influence
by Christian principles and have been generally harmonious with
Christian principles, while affording general freedom to all
citizens regardless of their religion.
de Toqueville
finds that even though religion does not have a direct role in the
government of the United States, it nevertheless is believed to be
indispensable to our free form of government:
Religion in America takes no
direct part in the government of society, but it must nevertheless
be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that
country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it
facilitates the use of free institutions...I am certain that they
hold it to be indispensable to the maintenance of republican
institutions. This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or
to a party, but it belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of
society.
He also found
that rather than seeing Christianity as a threat to a free nation,
it was inseparable from freedom and inconceivable that they should
be separate:
The Americans combine the
notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds,
that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the
other
He found that
people were leaving their homelands in other countries to come to
America for the purpose of furthering Christianity, even as settlers
spread across the continent:
I have known of societies
formed by the Americans to send out ministers of the Gospel into the
new Western States to found schools and churches there, lest
religion should be suffered to die away in those remote settlements,
and the rising States be less fitted to enjoy free institutions than
the people from which they emanated. I met with wealthy New
Englanders who abandoned the country in which they were born in
order to lay the foundations of Christianity and of freedom on the
banks of the Missouri, or in the prairies of Illinois.
de Toqueville
even identifies the relationship between Christianity, it's support
of the sanctity of marriage, and ultimately this effect on a stable,
peaceful society:
There is certainly no country
in the world where the tie of marriage is so much respected as in
America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily
appreciated. In Europe almost all the disturbances of society arise
from the irregularities of domestic life. To despise the natural
bonds and legitimate pleasures of home, is to contract a taste for
excesses, a restlessness of heart, and the evil of fluctuating
desires...Whilst the European endeavors to forget his domestic
troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his own
home that love of order which he afterwards carries with him into
public affairs.
Notice also
how de Toqueville finds that America's Christian culture not only
promotes a peaceful society, but also protects against the decadent
tyranny that always results from unrestrained freedom (the freedom
where individuals do not restrain their own behavior):
Hitherto no one in the United
States has dared to advance the maxim, that everything is
permissible with a view to the interests of society; an impious
adage which seems to have been invented in an age of freedom to
shelter all the tyrants of future ages. Thus whilst the law permits
the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from
conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust.
de Toqueville
recognized, as did most learned men of that day, that the
self-disciplining effect of religion, Christianity in particular,
was essential in preserving freedom and democracy. When a society of
men can exercise self-discipline and restraint, fewer laws are
needed and less government is necessary. In a society where men will
not discipline themselves, more laws and more government are
required to maintain order and public safety. In such an environment
of flourishing government, the atmosphere is ripe for tyranny--by
the one or by the oligarchy. Thus, he who attacks the Christian
foundations of our nation and society attacks the chief support of
our liberty.
What does de
Tocqueville think of those who oppose or minimize the role of
religion in the public life of America?
When these men attack
religious opinions, they obey the dictates of their passions to the
prejudice of their interests. Despotism may govern without faith,
but liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic
which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which
they attack; and it is more needed in democratic republics than in
any others. How is it possible that society should escape
destruction if the moral tie be not strengthened in proportion as
the political tie is relaxed? and what can be done with a people
which is its own master, if it be not submissive to the Divinity?
Call for the
secularization of America are myopic and self destructive. Demands
that Americans leave their faith in the pew when they leave at noon
on Sunday are not only at odds with the First Amendment, they strike
at the very heart of what has made America great.
There is a
reason why no other nation enjoys the freedom, the affluence, the
political prosperity, the stability and the military might of
America. It has little to do with natural resources,
geographical location, and not even ultimately with the political
form of government. Many other nations have these assets, yet
fall far short of our success.
No other
nation (except ancient Israel) has ever been founded, as stated by
the Mayflower Compact and other founders, for the glory of
God.
Though the
quote is not in "Democracy in America" and is difficult to verify
with certainty, de Tocqueville is usually given credit for a quote
that is certainly in keeping with the findings in this great book.
It is a quote that we should consider carefully, and heed the wisdom
of:
America is great because she
is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be
great.
