Tocqueville's America, and Ours

• Individualism
• Community service: "Self-interest properly understood" (p. 525).
• Patriotism: The Pledge of Allegiance (see old method of salute)
• Religion and Civil Religion
• Winthrop's "City on a Hill"
• The Liberty Bell: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10)
• The national motto, "In God We Trust"
• The Dollar Bill:  pyramid and eagle
• Early Thanksgiving Proclamations

From Tocqueville, pp 291-292:

In Europe almost all the disorders of society are born around the domestic hearth and not far from the nuptial bed. It is there that men come to feel scorn for natural ties and legitimate pleasures and develop a taste for disorder, restlessness of spirit, and instability of desires. Shaken by the tumultuous passions which have often troubled his own house, the European finds it hard to submit to the authority of the state's legislators. When the American returns from the turmoil of politics to the bosom of the family, he immediately finds a perfect picture of order and peace. There all his pleasures are simple and natural and his joys innocent and quiet, and as the regularity of life brings him happiness, he easily forms the habit of regulating his opinions as well as his tastes.

Whereas the European tries to escape his sorrows at home by troubling society, the American derives from his home that love of order which he carries over affairs of state.

In the United States it is not only mores that are controlled by religion, but its sway extends even over reason.

The Majority:  "I know no country, in which, speaking generally, there is less independence of mind and true freedom of discussion than in America (Tocqueville, 254-255).

Tocqueville on how slavery degrades slave0wners (347):

The white man on the right bank, forced to live by his own endeavors, has made material well being the main object of his existence; as he lives in a country offering inexhaustible resources to his industry and continual inducements to activity, his eagerness to possess things goes beyond the ordinary limits of human cupidity; tormented by a longing for wealth, he boldly follows every path to fortune that is open to him; he is equally prepared to turn into a sailor, pioneer, artisan, or cultivator; there is something wonderful in his resourcefulness and a sort of heroism in his greed for gain.

The American on the left bank scorns not only work itself but also enterprises in which work is necessary to success; living in idle ease, he has the tastes of idle men; money has lost some of its value in his eyes; he is less interested in wealth than in excitement and pleasure and expends in that direction the energy which his neighbor puts to other use; he is passionately fond of hunting and war; he enjoys all the most strenuous forms of bodily exercise; he is accustomed to the use of weapons and from childhood has been ready to risk his life in single combat.

A famous prophecy: Tocqueville concludes volume I (p. 413) by comparing the United States and Russia:  "Their point of departure is different and their paths diverse; nevertheless, each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world."

What Tocqueville did not foresee:  immigration from Asia and the Americas.

"They bring crime..."