American Institutions And Their Influence

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RELIGION CONSIDERED AS A POLITICAL INSTITUTION, WHICH
POWERFULLY CONTRIBUTES TO THE MAINTENANCE OF THE
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC AMONG THE AMERICANS.

North America peopled by Men who professed a democratic and
republican Christianity.--Arrival of the Catholics.--For what
Reason the Catholics form the most democratic and the most
republican Class at the present Time.

Every religion is to be found in juxtaposition to a political
opinion, which is connected with it by affinity. If the human
mind be left to follow its own bent, it will regulate the
temporal and spiritual institutions of society upon one uniform
principle; and man will endeavor, if I may use the expression, to
harmonize the state in which he lives upon earth, with the state
he believes to await him in heaven.

The greatest part of British America was peopled by men who,
after having shaken off the authority of the pope, acknowledged
no other religious supremacy: 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.

About fifty years ago Ireland began to pour a catholic population
into the United States; on the other hand, the catholics of
America made proselytes, and at the present moment more than a
million of Christians, professing the truths of the church of
Rome, are to be met with in the Union. These catholics are
faithful to the observances of their religion; they are fervent
and zealous in the support and belief of their doctrines.
Nevertheless they constitute the most republican and the most
democratic class of citizens which exists in the United States;
and although this fact may surprise the observer at first, the
cause by which it is occasioned may easily be discovered upon
reflection.

I think that the catholic religion has erroneously been looked
upon as the natural enemy of democracy. Among the various sects
of Christians, catholicism seems to me, on the contrary, to be
one of those which are most favorable to the equality of
conditions. In the catholic church, the religious community is
composed of only two elements; the priest and the people. The
priest alone rises above the rank of his flock, and all below him
are equal.

On doctrinal points the catholic faith places all human
capacities upon the same level; it subjects the wise and the
ignorant, the man of genius and the vulgar crowd, to the details
of the same creed; it imposes the same observances upon the rich
and needy, it inflicts the same austerities upon the strong and
the weak, it listens to no compromises with mortal man, but
reducing all the human race to the same standard, it confounds
all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar,
even as they are confounded in the sight of God. If catholicism
predisposes the faithful to obedience, it certainly does not
prepare them for inequality; but the contrary may be said of
protestantism, which generally tends to make men independent,
more than to render them equal.

Catholicism is like an absolute monarchy; if the sovereign be
removed, all the other classes of society are more equal than
they are in republics. It has not unfrequently occurred that the
catholic priest has left the service of the altar to mix with the
governing powers of society, and to make his place among the
civil gradations of men. This religious influence has sometimes
been used to secure the interests of that political state of
things to which he belonged. At other times catholics have taken
the side of aristocracy from a spirit of religion.

But no sooner is the priesthood entirely separated from the
government, as is the case in the United States, than it is found
that no class of men are more naturally disposed than the
catholics to transfuse the doctrine of the equality of conditions
into the political world. If, then, the catholic citizens of the
United States are not forcibly led by the nature of their tenets
to adopt democratic and republican principles, at least they are
not necessarily opposed to them; and their social position, as
well as their limited number, obliges them to adopt these
opinions. Most of the catholics are poor, and they have no
chance of taking a part in the government unless it be open to
all the citizens. They constitute a minority, and all rights
must be respected in order to ensure to them the free exercise of
their own privileges. These two causes induce them,
unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines which they would
perhaps support with less zeal if they were rich and
preponderant.

The catholic clergy of the United States has never attempted to
oppose this political tendency; but it seeks rather to justify
its results. The priests in America have divided the
intellectual world into two parts: in the one they place the
doctrines of revealed religion, which command their assent; in
the other they leave those truths, which they believe to have
been freely left open to the researches of political inquiry.
Thus the catholics of the United States are at the same time the
most faithful believers and the most zealous citizens.

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
holds the same language; their opinions are consonant to the
laws, and the human intellect flows onward in one sole current.

I happened to be staying in one of the largest towns in the
Union, when I was invited to attend a public meeting which had
been called for the purpose of assisting the Poles, and of
sending them supplies of arms and money. I found two or three
thousand persons collected in a vast hall which had been prepared
to receive them. In a short time a priest in his ecclesiastical
robes advanced to the front of the hustings: the spectators rose,
and stood uncovered, while he spoke in the following terms:--

"Almighty God! the God of armies! Thou who didst strengthen the
hearts and guide the arms of our fathers when they were fighting
for the sacred rights of national independence; thou who didst
make them triumph over a hateful oppression, and hast granted to
our people the benefits of liberty and peace; turn, O Lord, a
favorable eye upon the other hemisphere; pitifully look down upon
that heroic nation which is even now struggling as we did in the
former time, and for the same rights which we defended with our
blood. Thou, who didst create man in the likeness of the same
image, let no tyranny mar thy work, and establish inequality upon
the earth. Almighty God! do thou watch over the destiny of the
Poles, and render them worthy to be free. May thy wisdom direct
their councils, and may thy strength sustain their arms! Shed
forth thy terror over their enemies; scatter the powers which
take counsel against them; and vouchsafe that the injustice which
the world has beheld for fifty years, be not consummated in our
time. O Lord, who holdest alike the hearts of nations and of men
in thy powerful hand, raise up allies to the sacred cause of
right; arouse the French nation from the apathy in which its
rulers retain it, that it go forth again to fight for the
liberties of the world.

"Lord, turn not thou thy face from us, and grant that we may
always be the most religious as well as the freest people of the
earth. Almighty God, hear our supplications this day. Save the
Poles, we beseech thee, in the name of thy well beloved Son, our
Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for the salvation of
men. Amen."

The whole meeting responded "Amen!" with devotion.

* * * * *

INDIRECT INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS UPON POLITICAL
SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES.

Christian Morality common to all Sects.--Influence of Religion
upon the Manners of the Americans.--Respect for the marriage
Tie.--In what manner Religion confines the Imagination of the
Americans within certain Limits, and checks the Passion of
Innovation.--Opinion of the Americans on the political Utility
of Religion.--Their Exertions to extend and secure its
Predominance.

I have just shown what the direct influence of religion upon
politics is in the United States; but its indirect influence
appears to me to be still more considerable, and it never
instructs the Americans more fully in the art of being free than
when it says nothing of freedom.

The sects which exist in the United States are innumerable. They
all differ in respect to the worship which is due from man to his
Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are
due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own
peculiar manner; but all the sects preach the same moral law in
the name of God. If it be of the slightest importance to man, as
an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of
society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for
or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the
peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to
its interests. Moreover, almost all the sects of the United
States are comprised within the great unity of christianity, and
Christian morality is everywhere the same.

It may be believed without unfairness, that a certain number of
Americans pursue a peculiar form of worship, from habit more than
from conviction. In the United States the sovereign authority is
religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but 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.

I have remarked that the members of the American clergy in
general, without even excepting those who do not admit religious
liberty, are all in favor of civil freedom; but they do not
support any particular political system. They keep aloof from
parties, and from public affairs. 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.

I do not question that the great austerity of manners which is
observable in the United States, arises, in the first instance,
from religious faith. Religion is often unable to restrain man
from the numberless temptations of fortune; nor can it check that
passion for gain which every incident of his life contributes to
arouse; but its influence over the mind of women is supreme, and
women are the protectors of morals. 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. Agitated by the
tumultuous passions which frequently disturb his dwelling, the
European is galled by the obedience which the legislative powers
of the state exact. But when the American retires from the
turmoil of public life to the bosom of his family, he finds in it
the image of order and of peace. There his pleasures are simple
and natural, his joys are innocent and calm; and as he finds that
an orderly life is the surest path to happiness, he accustoms
himself without difficulty to moderate his opinions as well as
his tastes. While the European endeavors to forget his domestic
troubles by agitating society, the American derives from his own
home that love of order, which he afterward carries with him into
public affairs.

In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to
the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people.
Among the Anglo-Americans, there are some who profess the
doctrines of Christianity from a sincere belief in them, and
others who do the same because they are afraid to be suspected of
unbelief. Christianity, therefore, reigns without any obstacle,
by universal consent; the consequence is, as I have before
observed, that every principle of the moral world is fixed and
determinate, although the political world is abandoned to the
debates and the experiments of men. Thus the human mind is never
left to wander across a boundless field; and, whatever may be its
pretensions, it is checked from time to time by barriers which it
cannot surmount. Before it can perpetrate innovation, certain
primal and immutable principles are laid down, and the boldest
conceptions of human device are subjected to certain forms which
retard and stop their completion.

The imagination of the Americans, even in its greatest flights,
is circumspect and undecided; its impulses are checked, and its
works unfinished. These habits of restraint recur in political
society, and are singularly favorable both to the tranquillity of
the people and the durability of the institutions it has
established. Nature and circumstances concurred to make the
inhabitants of the United States bold men, as is sufficiently
attested by the enterprising spirit with which they seek for
fortune. If the minds of the Americans were free from all
trammels, they would very shortly become the most daring
innovators and the most implacable disputants in the world. But
the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an
ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does
not easily permit them to violate the laws that oppose their
designs; nor would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of
their partisans, even if they were able to get over their own.
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 while the law permits the Americans to do what
they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids
them to commit, what is rash and unjust.

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. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the
inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious
belief. I do not know whether all the Americans have a sincere
faith in their religion; for who can search the human heart? but
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.

In the United States, if a political character attacks a sect,
this may not prevent even the partisans of that very sect, from
supporting him; but if he attacks all the sects together, every
one abandons him, and he remains alone.

While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at
the assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York),
declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in
the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his
evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand
all the confidence of the court in what he was about to
say.[Footnote:

The New York Spectator of August 23d, 1831, relates the fact in
the following terms: "The court of common pleas of Chester county
(New York), a few days since rejected a witness who declared his
disbelief in the existence of God. The presiding judge remarked,
that he had not before been aware that there was a man living who
did not believe in the existence of God; that this belief
constituted the sanction of all testimony in a court of justice;
and that he knew of no cause in a Christian country, where a
witness had been permitted to testify without such belief."

[The instance given by the author, of a person offered as a
witness having been rejected on the ground that he did not
believe in the existence of a God, seems to be adduced to prove
either his assertion that the Americans hold religion to be
indispensable to the maintenance of republican institutions--or
his assertion, that if a man attacks all the sects together,
every one abandons him and he remains alone. But it is
questionable how far the fact quoted proves either of these
positions. The rule which prescribes as a qualification for a
witness the belief in a Supreme Being who will punish falsehood,
without which he is deemed wholly incompetent to testify, is
established for the protection of personal rights, and not to
compel the adoption of any system of religious belief. It came
with all our fundamental principles from England as a part of the
common law which the colonists brought with them. It is supposed
to prevail in every country in Christendom, whatever may be the
form of its government; and the only doubt that arises respecting
its existence in France, is created by our author's apparent
surprise at finding such a rule in America.--_American
Editor_.]

] The newspapers related the fact without any farther comment.

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; and with them this conviction
does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems
to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.

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. Thus religious zeal is
perpetually stimulated in the United States by the duties of
patriotism. These men do not act from an exclusive consideration
of the promises of a future life; eternity is only one motive of
their devotion to the cause; and if you converse with these
missionaries of Christian civilisation, you will be surprised to
find how much value they set upon the goods of this world, and
that you meet with a politician where you expected to find a
priest. They will tell you that "all the American republics are
collectively involved with each other; if the republics of the
west were to fall into anarchy, or to be mastered by a despot,
the republican institutions which now flourish upon the shores of
the Atlantic ocean would be in great peril. It is therefore our
interest that the new states should be religious, in order to
maintain our liberties."

Such are the opinions of the Americans; and if any hold that the
religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most amiss in
America, and that the only element wanting to the freedom and
happiness of the human race is to believe in some blind
cosmogony, or to assert with Cabanis the secretion of thought by
the brain, I can only reply, that those who hold this language
have never been in America, and that they have never seen a
religious or a free nation. When they return from their
expedition, we shall hear what they have to say.

There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions
as a temporary means of power, of wealth and distinction; men who
are the _condottieri_ of liberty, and who fight for their
own advantage, whatever be the colors they wear: it is not to
these that I address myself. But there are others who look
forward to the republican form of government as a tranquil and
lasting state, toward which modern society is daily impelled by
the ideas and manners of the time, and who sincerely desire to
prepare men to be free 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?

* * * * *

PRINCIPAL CAUSES WHICH RENDER RELIGION POWERFUL IN AMERICA.

Care taken by the Americans to separate the Church from the
State.--The Laws, public Opinion, and even the Exertions of the
Clergy concur to promote this end.--Influence of Religion upon
the Mind, in the United States, attributable to this
Cause.--Reason of this.--What is the natural State of Men with
regard to Religion at the present time.--What are the peculiar
and incidental Causes which prevent Men, in certain Countries,
from arriving at this State.

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, while in America one of the
freest and most enlightened nations in the world fulfils all the
outward duties of religion with 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. My desire to discover the causes of this
phenomenon increased from day to day. In order to satisfy it, I
questioned the members of all the different sects; and I more
especially sought the society of the clergy, who are the
depositaries of the different persuasions, and who are more
especially interested in their duration. As a member of the
Roman catholic church I was more particularly brought into
contact with several of its priests, with whom I became
intimately acquainted. To each of these men I expressed my
astonishment and I explained my doubts: I found that they
differed upon matters of detail alone; and that they mainly
attributed the peaceable dominion of religion in their country,
to the separation of church and state. I do not hesitate to
affirm that during my stay in America, I did not meet with a
single individual, of the clergy or of the laity, who was not of
the same opinion upon this point.

This led me to examine more attentively than I had hitherto done,
the station which the American clergy occupy in political
society. I learned with surprise that they fill no public
appointments;[Footnote:

Unless this term be applied to the functions which many of them
fill in the schools. Almost all education is intrusted to the
clergy.

] not one of them is to be met with in the administration, and
they are not even represented in the legislative assemblies. In
several states[Footnote:

See the constitution of New York, art. 7, Sec. 4:--

"And whereas, the ministers of the gospel are, by their
profession, dedicated to the service of God and the care of
souls, and ought not to be diverted from the great duties of
their functions; therefore no minister of the gospel, or priest
of any denomination whatsoever, shall, at any time hereafter,
under any pretence or description whatever, be eligible to, or
capable of holding any civil or military office or place within
this state."

See also the constitutions of North Carolina, art. 31. Virginia.
South Carolina, art. 1, Sec. 23. Kentucky, art. 2, Sec. 26.
Tennessee, art S, Sec. 1. Louisiana, art. 2, Sec. 22.

] the law excludes them from political life; public opinion in
all. And when I came to inquire into the prevailing spirit of
the clergy, I found that most of its members seemed to retire of
their own accord from the exercise of power, and that they made
it the pride of their profession to abstain from politics.