“It seemed as if New England was a region given up to the dreams of fancy and the unrestrained experiments of innovators (p. 40)”.

What an incredible event the founding of America was. Previously, philosophers, political scientists, dreamers and schemers were confined to merely writing about their ideal republics, from Plato to More and Machiavelli, among others. In fact, the name of More’s book, Utopia, even indicated its purely fictional nature, as it literally means “no place.” There was no place to found political societies anew.

This all changed with America, or at least, parts of America, such as New England, which Tocqueville points out were free to form their own political communities, unlike other colonies which were started by companies or had appointed governors from England. Imagine, today, if a new earth was discovered 2 years’ space travel away and people could go there to start new political communities from scratch. What an opportunity! There are those who dream a little closer to home, for I believe Peter Thiel and others have contemplated starting new floating cities in the oceans, to be free to start from scratch with their own rules.

It is interesting to wonder what impact the freedom to innovate had on societies. Was this the key element? We were able, sufficiently, to break from tradition and implement new orders. This begs the question, do we need more room to innovate, politically, today? We have lots of space for technological innovation, medical innovation, business innovation, but what room do we permit to political innovation? Are Theil and the floating city proponents on to something? That, in order to move our societies ahead, we need labs (read new geographic spaces) for political innovation to occur? I like to think that there is still room for innovation, politically, that is not geographically based, but that we are so used to politics being tied to geography that we simply have trouble imagining how.

Despite bringing some backwards views with respect to religion and the penal code into their colonies, Tocqueville points out that the New Englanders were well versed in the elements of progressive government, such as “the free voting of taxes… personal liberty, and trial by jury,” which we take for granted today as simply basic elements of a democracy, but were not established as such in Europe at the time. Given that the New Englanders were a bunch of highly religious middle class folks, one might not expect to find so many people learned in crafting legislation or establishing a political order, but Tocqueville found: “In studying the laws which were promulgated at this first era of the American republics, it is impossible not to be struck by the remarkable acquaintance with the science of government and the advanced theory of legislation which they display. (p.45)”. Ah, a people after my own heart, sans the religious parts!

In short, the people who came to populate New England were a bunch of political keeners who knew what good government was. Can we even imagine a group of middle-class people being able to pull this off today? Again, how extraordinary and fortunate a turn of events in the world that just at a time when the general citizenry of a country, England, was well versed in the constituents of responsible government, a new world opened up which they were lucky enough to be able to get to and establish a political order virtually without interference from traditional authorities. No wonder they thought it Providential!

Tocqueville also quite astutely notes that in America, the creation of governments went in the reverse order that they often went in Europe. For in America, the first political unit was the people acting through their local government. Only later was the state given power and then the federal government. Whereas, in Europe, the people, such as nobles and then merchants, had to chip away at the monarchies to win some power away. In America, the people constituted themselves and then vested authority in their governments. In Europe, the governments claimed authority and the people had to wrest it away.

As Tocqueville repeatedly reminds us, however, this wasn’t just an opportunity for a new political order, but also for a new religious order. New Englanders took this very seriously, and so made general education an important part of their society, as the ability to read the bible was necessary for good morals, which led to obedience to the laws, and thereby freedom for the individual.

And, interestingly, Tocqueville notes that while the Americans were open to great experimentation and opinion in political matters, the same was not true in religion. It was, in part, the stability of the community’s religious beliefs that allowed for such experiments in democracy. It is hard to know for sure whether Tocqueville is writing his own opinion of the matter or whether he is making note of how the New Englanders saw the world, for it is hard for us, or at least, non-religious folks like myself, to take as insight the following words: “The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law and the surest pledge of freedom (p. 49)”.

I suppose the concept that a person could be moral without God was not popular back then. Only religious people today hold to this now, as illustrated by a facebook post by my friend John Close, where many non-religious people easily answered his query about how they can be good without God, but religious people didn’t think it was possible. Personally, I don’t think that my non-religious fellow citizens will be any less honest in paying their taxes or any more likely to kill me than those who go to church. Though perhaps there is still some truth to this today, more because of the class of people who go to church than because they believe in a God.

“The social condition of the Americans is eminently democratic (p.51).” Tocqueville analyzes the economic and intellectual stratifications in society and finds them largely lacking in the North and somewhat developed in the South. He notes how the Americans’ law to not allow an entire estate to be passed to the eldest son, but to be split amongst all children prevented an aristocratic class from forming in the North, and helped destroy the landed gentry in the South. Given the requirement that most had to work to earn a living, a leisure class that had superior education could not arise, particularly in the North where things were more equal, which in part explains, he suggests, why the greatest leaders of the revolution were from the South, where some aristocratic tendencies had developed.

This is very interesting. I wonder where we stand today? And, does this imply that a little bit of aristocracy is good, so that we have good leaders? I’ve often thought that given that we don’t have as much of a well-educated elite anymore, we need to give an elite education to more of the citizens, for, in my mind, good governance requires well-educated individuals. But perhaps I have struck upon the wrong approach. Perhaps instead of educating all, we need more rich families so that we maintain a few superbly educated leaders in society. Interesting question to consider, as undemocratic as it may strike us today. To a certain extent, I imagine, this was part of the idea behind universities – to provide a life of leisure for bright people to focus on becoming well-read and wise. I wonder how that’s worked out? Would the leaders of the creation of new societies come from the universities if we had the opportunity in our time to create societies from scratch?

So dreamers tried to create new minds, rather than new societies. But America was a carte blanche.