Liberty & Order

Readings:

• 1, Introduction (pp. 3–15)
• 1, Part 1:

• • • Ch. 4, “On the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America” (pp. 53–55)
    • Ch. 5, “Necessity of Studying What Takes Place in the Particular States Before Speaking of the Government of the Union”:
      • Sections up through “On the Spirit of the Township in New England” (pp. 56–65)
    • Ch. 6, “On Judicial Power in the United States and its Action on Political Society” (pp. 93–99)
    • Ch. 8, “On the Federal Constitution”:
      • Sections up through “Legislative Powers” (pp. 105–13)
      • Sections from “Crisis of the Election” up through “On the Reelection of the President” (pp. 126–30)
      • Sections from “Elevated Rank Held by the Supreme Court Among the Great Powers of the State” up through “On the Advantages of the Federal System Generally, And its Special Utility for America” (pp. 141–54)

     

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the potential advantages and disadvantages, for American students of American politics, of the proudly foreign perspective that Tocqueville brings to the study of American politics?
2. Is Tocqueville struck by the same things about the American constitutional system that Americans today tend to be most proud of (or most ashamed of)?
3. To what extent is the constitutional system described by Tocqueville still operative in 21^st-century American politics? And to the extent that it is not, does that make Tocqueville less relevant today?

Readings:

• Vol. 1, Part 2:
  • Introductory note (p. 165)
  • Ch. 6, “What Are the Real Advantages that American Society Derives from the Government of Democracy” (pp. 220–35)
  • Ch. 7, “On the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects” (235–49)
  • Ch. 8, “On What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States” (pp. 250–64)

Discussion Questions:

1. Does American society still derive the same “real advantages” from our democratic system of government that Tocqueville said we did in the 1830s?
2. Is the American majority as “omnipotent” today as Tocqueville claimed it was? Even if it is, is that as much of a problem as he claims it is?
3. Is Tocqueville right to see lawyers as a kind of American aristocracy? If so, is he right to think this is a good thing for the country?

Readings:

• Vol. 1, Part 2, Ch. 9, “On the Principal Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States”:
  • Sections from “On the Influence of the Laws on the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States” up through “That the Laws Serve to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States More Than Physical Causes, and Mores More Than Laws” (pp. 274–95)
• Vol. 2, “Notice” (pp. 399–400)
• Vol. 2, Part 2, “Influence of Democracy on the Sentiments of the Americans”:
  • Ch. 1, “Why Democratic Peoples Show a More Ardent and More Lasting Loves for Equality Than for Freedom” (pp. 479–82)
  • Ch. 2, “On Individualism in Democratic Countries” (pp. 482–84)
  • Ch. 3, “How Individualism is Greater At the End of a Democratic Revolution Than in Any Other Period” (pp. 484–85)
  • Ch. 4, “How the Americans Combat Individualism With Free Institutions” (pp. 485–88)
  • Ch. 5, “On the Use that the Americans Make of Association in Civil Life” (pp. 489–92)
  • Ch. 6, “On the Relation Between Associations and Newspapers” (pp. 493–95)
  • Ch. 7, “Relations Between Civil Associations and Political Associations” (pp. 496–500)
  • Ch. 8, “How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood” (pp. 500–03)

Discussion Questions:

1. Is Tocqueville right to view American religion as a “political institution”? What can studying American religion, or more generally American “mores,” teach us about American law and politics?
2. Is Tocqueville right to see what he calls “individualism” as a serious threat to democratic governments? If so, what forms does that threat take today?
3. How should Tocqueville’s recommendations about how to combat “individualism” be updated, modified, and/or abandoned in our digital age?

Readings:

• Vol. 2, Part 1, “Influence of Democracy on Intellectual Movement in the United States”:
  • Ch. 5, “How, In the United States, Religion Knows How to Make Use of Democratic Instincts” (pp. 417–24)
• Vol. 2, Part 2, “Influence of Democracy on the Sentiments of the Americans”:
  • Ch. 9, “How the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood in the Matter of Religion” (pp. 504–06)
  • Ch. 10, “On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America” (pp. 506–08)
  • Ch. 11, “On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyments Produces in Democratic Centuries” (pp. 508–09)
  • Ch. 12, “Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism” (pp. 510–11)
  • Ch. 13, “Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being” (pp. 511–14)
  • Ch. 14, “How the Taste for Material Enjoyments Among Americans Is United With Love of Freedom and With Care for Public Affairs” (pp. 514–17)
  • Ch. 15, “How Religious Beliefs at Times Turn the Souls of Americans Toward Immaterial Enjoyments” (pp. 517–21)
  • Ch. 16, “How the Excessive Love of Well-Being Can Be Harmful to Well-Being” (pp. 521–22)
  • Ch. 17, “How in Times of Equality and Doubt It Is Important to Move Back the Object of Human Actions” (pp. 522–24)
• Vol. 2, Part 3, “Influence of Democracy on Mores Properly So-Called”:
  • Ch. 8, “Influence of Democracy on the Family” (pp. 558–63)
  • Ch. 9, “Education of Girls in the United States” (pp. 563–65)
  • Ch. 10, “How the Girl is Found Beneath the Features of the Wife” (pp. 565–67)
  • Ch. 11, “How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Mores in America” (pp. 567–73)
  • Ch. 12, “How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman” (pp. 573–76)

Discussion Questions:

1. Do Tocqueville’s descriptions of American religion and the American “taste for well-being” ring true today?
2. To the extent that Tocqueville’s observations about American culture (as we would now call it) remain interesting to us, can they also teach us anything about American politics? Can they provide any guidance to contemporary American statesmanship?
3. Clearly a lot has changed since Tocqueville described family life and the different roles of the sexes in 19^th-century America. What, if anything, can we still learn from his description of the role of women and family life in American democracy?

Readings:

• Vol. 2, Part 3, “Influence of Democracy on Mores Properly So-Called”:
  • Ch. 21, “Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare” (pp. 606–17)
  • Ch. 22, “Why Democratic Peoples Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Naturally Desire War” (pp. 617–22)
  • Ch. 23, “Which is the Most Warlike and the Most Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies” (pp. 623–25)
  • Ch. 24, “What Makes Democratic Armies Weaker Than Other Armies When Entering into Campaign and More Formidable When War Is Prolonged” (pp. 626–29)
  • Ch. 25, “On Discipline in Democratic Armies” (pp. 629–30)
  • Ch. 26, “Some Considerations on War in Democratic Societies” (pp. 631–35)
• Vol. 2, Part 4, “On the Influence that Democratic Ideas and Sentiments Exert on Political Society”:
  • Ch. 6, “What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear” (pp. 661–65)
  • Ch. 7, “Continuation of the Preceding Chapters” (pp. 666–73)
  • Ch. 8, “General View of the Subject” (pp. 673–76)

Discussion Questions:

1. How worried should we be about the American army? Is Tocqueville right about the potential dangers it poses to democratic society?
2. How worried should we be about “mild despotism”? Does Tocqueville offer adequate recommendations for how to avoid it?
3. Tocqueville ends the book on a note of what could be called stern optimism. Does he give good grounds for that? Is stern optimism the most reasonable reaction to everything that he has been telling us about America?

RECOMMENDED READING:

Lincoln and the Constitution, What So Proudly We Hail

READINGS:

• To the People of Sangamo County, March 9, 1832
• Address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838
• Address to the Washington Temperance Society of Springfield, Illinois, February 22, 1842

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What is your impression of the 23-year-old Lincoln? What is the nature of his “peculiar ambition”? Why is education “the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in”? What is his attitude toward change in laws? Is he a conservative or a progressive?
2. According to Lincoln, who has the harder task — the revolutionary generation or the current generation? What are the direct and indirect consequences of mob rule, and how are they related to “the perpetuation of our political institutions”? Does Lincoln’s solution — a political religion of reverence for the laws — allow for the possibility of civil disobedience, or is disobedience always uncivil? What is the link between mob law and the threat posed by those who belong to “the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle”? Is Lincoln such an individual? What does Lincoln mean by “passion” and “reason”? What is “reverence”?
3. What sort of reformers does Lincoln praise and what sort does he criticize? If you were to apply what Lincoln says about the temperance movement to the abolition movement, what lessons would you draw? What does this speech reveal about Lincoln’s understanding of human nature?

READINGS:

• Fragment on Slavery, 1854
• Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854
• Speech on the Kansas-Nebraska Act (continued)
• To Joshua F. Speed, August 24, 1855
• Speech on the Dred Scott Decision at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857
• “House Divided” Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What is Lincoln’s view of slavery? Is he a bigot? In thinking about these questions, pay close attention to two passages in which Lincoln speaks of the role played by universal feelings in political life.
2. What does this speech reveal about the relation between public opinion and statesmanship?
3. What are the “lullaby” arguments offered on behalf of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and how does Lincoln dispense with them? What about “the one great argument” (Stephen Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty)? What are the elements of Lincoln’s critique of Douglas?
4. Given what Lincoln said about reverence for the Constitution and the law, is he contradicting his own principles in criticizing the Dred Scott decision? What is his view of judicial precedent?  What is Lincoln’s interpretation of the Declaration of Independence? Why is there so much talk of racial amalgamation in this speech?
5. Why can’t the nation remain “permanently half slave and half free”? Wouldn’t the restoration of the Missouri Compromise (which Lincoln desires) leave the nation a house divided? According to Lincoln, what will be the end result of adopting a policy of quarantine (preventing slavery from spreading into the territories)? Why? What result will follow from the alternative policy of allowing slavery to spread?

READINGS:

• To Henry L. Pierce and Others, April 6, 1859
• Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, January 1861
• Address at Cooper Institute, New York City, February 27, 1860

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How does Lincoln establish that the Framers agreed with the Republican rather than the Democratic view of the powers of the federal government respecting slavery in the territories?
2. What is Lincoln’s message to the Southerners? Are the Republicans a sectional party? Are they conservative, as Lincoln claims?
3. What is Lincoln’s message to the Republicans?

READINGS:

• Farewell Address at Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861
• First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
• Message to Congress in Special Session, July 4, 1861
• To Orville H. Browning, September 22, 1861
• To Erastus Corning and Others, June 12, 1863
• Proclamation Revoking General Hunter’s Emancipation Order, May 19, 1862
• Appeal to Border-State Representatives for Compensated Emancipation, Washington, DC, July 12, 1862
• To Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862
• Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862
• Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862
• Final Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863
• To Albert G. Hodges, April 12, 1864

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Why is secession unconstitutional? Why is the suspension of habeas corpus constitutional?
2. Before his election, Lincoln often stated that he had no intention, and no constitutional authority, to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. How, then, did he come to issue the Emancipation Proclamation and how did he justify it?

READINGS:

• Address at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863
• Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, December 8, 1863
• To Michael Hahn, March 13, 1864
• To Allen N. Ford, August 11, 1846
• Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity, July 31, 1846
• Proclamation of a National Fast Day, August 12, 1861
• Order for Sabbath Observance, November 15, 1862
• Meditation on the Divine Will, c. early September 1862
• Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865
• To Thurlow Weed, March 15, 1865

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What is meant by the “new birth of freedom”? Does it refer to the emancipated slaves? If so, what is Lincoln’s vision of their place within the polity? How does the new birth of freedom relate to the argument of the Lyceum Address about the requirements for the perpetuation of our republic? (You might think too about the ballots and bullets passage of the Special Message to Congress.)
2. What interpretation of the Civil War does Lincoln present and why? What is Lincoln’s theology? What is the role of charity in political life?