america. >> a former warden takes you through the historic missouri state penitentiary. also, walk back through history in the halls of the moiz state capitol and governor's mansion. once a month, c-span local content vehicles explore the history and literary life of cities across america. this weekend, from jefferson city, saturday at noon and sunday at 5:00 eastern on c-span 2 and 3. this july 4th on c-span 3, it's 24 hours of american history tv. we're usually seen on the weekends providing eyewitness accounts, historic tours, lectures and discussions with authors, historians and teachers. you can visit our web site to see our weekend schedule and more about our programs. next, author and political commentator michael bouron examines the writings and observations of the 19th century french arest toe carat alexis

detocqueville. he is best known for his two-volume work" democracy in america." based on his travels around america in the 1830s. mr. boroun was a guest lecturer at the citadel military college in charleston, south carolina in a course called "the conservative intellectual tradition in america" taught by professor mally factor. >> well, thank you very much. it's an honor to be here. and a special honor to be asked to speak on the fragility of watered liberty and to speak on alexis detocqueville. i began to think he was something like mozart. that i was in the presence of a mind that was so far above the level of almost anyone else in history that he almost books no comparison with anybody else.

you can listen to the music of mozart. and it sounds pleasant, melodic and so forth. but if you really think about it, if you really kind of analyze it, you realize that he's doing things no one else had ever done or was capable of doing. that it's so far above the level of ordinary, even impressive achievement that you're in the presence of something rare. and i think you see the same thing with detocqueville. it's easy to read tocqueville fairly fast. the television set is on. there's a conversation in the other room. you're starting to think about what you have to do an hour from now, to pick up at the store. you lose track of the fact that tocqueville really requires close attention. when you pay him that close attention, you realize that you're in the presence of somebody extraordinary. and what is interesting about this parallel is that both of these men did their great work as young men. it's a little daunting perhaps even to a college audience that

mozart died at age 35. so all that we have from him was written from the time he started composing music at age six until his death at age 35. tocqueville composed the two volumes of "democracy in america." by the time he was 35. that's -- he did other great work later. but if he had died at age 35, on the publication of the second volume of "democracy in america" at that same age that mozart died, i think we would still know that he was a great man. and that he was way above the ordinary level of human achievement, that he has much to teach us today. so let me begin by recalling that on the 11th day of may, 1831, two young french aristocrats arrived in new york after sailing 38 days from france.

they were lawyers with commission from the french government to study american prisons which they did. but they did much more. for during the course of his 288 days of travels in the young republic, tocqueville, who was only 25 years old when he landed, not much older than today's undergraduates, made the observations and accumulated the material which he fashioned in the two volumes of "democracy in america" which the political scientist and tocqueville translator harvey mansfield has called the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on america. he conversed with president andrew jackson at a reception at the white house, sat next to form president john quincy adams at dinner in boston. he was escorted around washington by joel poinsett the boston born botanist and future secretary of war and edward everett, boston-born lawyer and future secretary of state. he met charles carroll, the last surviving signer of the declaration of independence and

the only catholic to sign that document, and sam houston, the future president of the first president of the republic of texas. he attended town meetings in new england, observed slave markets in the south. he visited indian villages in the michigan territory, voyaged on steam boats that shortly after he disembarked blew up. it was a highly hazardous form of transportation. he traveled by stage coach. he winter to columbia, south carolina. he did not, unfortunately for himself, make it to charleston. tocqueville was an aristocrat whose family suffered during the french revolution. they could trace their heritage back to the norman times, the invasion of william the conquerer. some of his ancestors were part of that army. his great grandfather, a distinguished philosopher and lawyer, who was defense council in the trial of king louis xvi was gill teened after his client. tocqueville's father escaped the

gill teen. when he left the prison at age 22 his hair had turned completely white. this was a family that was traumatized by this great event in history, the french revolution. as a child, tocqueville was born 1805, met the restored king louis xviii after the downfill of napoleon. while he and his family thrived under louis, charles the x and louis philippe, the spector of bloodshed and revolution, the threat of another revolution was always in their thoughts. and he came from a background which considered the french revolution a great disaster. in the first lecture of this course, "the ideas of american conservatism had roots in jerusalem, athens, rome and london." conspicuously absent is paris. still ruled by a monarch and

centralized bureaucracy with limited powers to a legislature whose members were chosen by a very small electorate. tocqueville knew before his arrival that america was different. something that he wanted to see. that it was a democracy. the word he used in his title. and it was democracy was something that the people in whose circles he lived and family which he'd grown up regarded with dread. the young republican evolved with poimportant ways from the days of the founders. revolutionary america was still what a deferential society, not an a aristocratic society. only those with a certain amount of property were allowed to vote. that's why -- that chose the most numerous house in the state legislature. that would be as wide a franchise but not a complete franchise of all adult male

citizens. it was considered dangerous in the british tradition and in the american tradition to allow those without property, without a stake in society, to be in a position to determine the course of government. and this is indeed a tradition that comes to us as well from athens and rome where they also felt that the property, people with a stake in society, should have a monopoly on political power and on the vote. but in the first decades of the republic, as husbaistorian gord wood has written, american society became less deferential and more democratic in character. tocqueville was struck when adams was treated as just another guest at dinner. he notes in his letters home that he was surprised he wasn't treated like a monarch. people didn't bow down before him but simply said hello. and by the 1830s, almost all the states, south carolina was an exception, had extended the vote to all white adult males.

some still resisted, as john randolph of roanoke did at virginia's constitutional convention decrying "the all-prevailing principle that numbers and numbers alone are the regulate all things in political society, and the prospect that government was divorce property from power." he believed that they should be connected and not divorced. but by the time tocqueville arrived this was a minority view. in virginia as elsewhere. to most legislators, universal sufferage, limited to adult white males, we obviously do not limit it to whites and to males anymore. we still limit it to adults. the full universal sufferage did not seem so dangerous in a nation where the large majority of people were farmers who owned their own land and who therefore were property holders. for the french aristocrats in tocqueville's time with their

vibrant dread of the revolution democracy seemed very dangerous indeed. tocqueville disagreed. seeing dangers in democracy but also seeing opportunities and reasons for hope. and he also saw democracy as irresistible, as the wave of the future, as something that was sure to come in some form, good or bad, to europe, where it would be in conflict with the aristocratic heritage, as it had come into america which did not have much in the way of an aristocratic heritage to conflict with it. one danger that tocqueville perceived in democracy was what he called individualism. the tendency of citizens to isolate themselves and withdraw from the larger society when they're not bound together by the relations between aristocrats and their infear yo infear yors. he had in mind normandy where his property had held property

and been enennobled for certainly refor centuries. they were connected, he thought, they were not equal. but those connections at least existed. he was afraid that in a democratic society, in a society where all were considered equal, that those relationships would not appear, and that they would be replaced by individual and by the isolation of the individual and not having the connections, the social connections with others. democracy, he wrote, threatens to confine the citizens so wholly in the solitude of his own heart. but the america he observed avoided this danger, he came to believe, because of two important factors. the americans, he wrote, had combatted the individualism to which equality gives birth with freedom. and they have defeated it. he saw this as a very hopeful development. and you can read much of

tocqueville as an instruction to his french relatives and contemporaries about how this system that they were very suspicious of in fact was working pretty well, and that the dangers they thought it contained had been avoided. and one of those dangers that had been avoided was individualism. one of the things that helped them avoid that danger was the importance of government, and of local governments. at the time of his visit, americans seldom came into contact with the federal government, with a single exception of the post office. and even that was not always federally ruled. in the decades after tocqueville came to the united states, postmasters in south carolina would not transmit abolitionist letters of literature. they simply burned it or destroyed it and would not deliver it to the recipients. but the post office was the main source of federal power. but americans were of necessity

in constant contact with local governments, with the towns of new england, the townships that were spread across the old northwest territory, the counties in the south. and being affected by the decisions, took advantage of the opportunity to participate in it. democracy meant that those decisions by local governments were not made simply by those above them but made by them and people that they chose. thus by charging citizens with the administration of small affairs, much more than by leaving government -- the government of great ones to them, writes tocqueville, one interests them in the public good and makes them see the need they constantly have for one der to produce it. local freedoms bring men closer to one another. local freedoms and democracies bring people into contact and establish ties and bonds between them on the basis of equality that were equivalent to or better than the ties that were created between them in the

unequal system of aristocracy. and what we see here is an appreciation of the conservat c philosophers refer to as subsidiary -- tocqueville later wrote on the french revolution, well before the french revolution with the centralizing imposts of louis xiv, getting rid of local governments and local autonomy, centralizing authority in the king, as louis xiv once said, letasse ce letasse cest moi." the state, it's me. i am the government. that france was centralized before the revolution, becomes further centralized by the revolution which abolishes the ancient provinces where the lieutenants are appointed by the government in paris, usually

from a list of time as people went on educated at certain universities in paris and in fact government of france still resembles that model in very many ways that. kind of centralization did not in tocqueville's view was something that for which he had a considerable dread. and he notes that instead of america, instead of having that kind of central government, democracy in america tended to let local governments, chosen by people who would remain close to their representatives, and be affected by their decisions, have control of all matters that could be handled at that level. the constitution limited the powers of the federal government, tocqueville studies intensely the different features of the constitution. and reserved other matters to the state governments and the people. and the state governments in turn delegated to local matters which could be addressed locally. now, not every issue could be so delegated, tocqueville realized. one of the major events during his visit was the nullification

crisis in which the south carolina legislature encouraged by vice-president john c. calhoun, south carolinian, declared that it had the right to nullify a tariff law passed by congress. president andrew jackson reacted furiously, moving tree was fond of his vice-president at all and he moved troops in place to enforce the law while drawing towards a compromised position on the tariff which addressed some of south carolina's grievances. tocqueville described some of this process in "democracy in america." tocqueville also coincided with another national policy that had a significant regional effect, and that was andrew jackson's indian removal policy, something he considered very important. the forced movement of what we now call the five civilized tribes over what has come to be called the trail of tears from the southeastern states to what is now oklahoma. and tocqueville on his western travels actually witnessed some of the indians moving west in this movement.

and he wrote a chapter at the end of the first volume of "democracy in america" on the position of indians and black in america and what the problems that posed for the country. these issues foreshadowing crises that came later and illustrated problems which tocqueville addressed in the last chapters of the first volume of "democracy in america." on the fact that black and indians were not considered citizens in this democratic republic. he foresaw the possibility of the rupture of the civil war. it's one of his many uncanny predictions. he looks ahead, this young man writing in his 20s and 30s, looks ahead and sees much of the future history that has happened. he sees the possibility of the rupture of civil war, and the tragic fate of many native americans, even as he saluted the way democracy bound citizens together through local government. and perhaps he may even be seen as having pointed to the successes of the civil rights movement when he writes "to

combat the e vils that equality can produce there is own one efficacious remedy. it is political freedom." but the habits of the heart, another tocqueville phrase, fostered by involvement in local government, also did something else. and here we encounter the second reason americans avoided the isolationism of the individual or what tocqueville calls individualism. and incidentally, i gather that that was his use of the term "individualism" is one of the first times that word enters the french and english languages. he coins words as well as ideas that had occurred to no one before. to the contrary, americans were busy starting thousands of voluntary associations, of creating civil society, mediating institutions between individuals and government, institutions through which individuals could effect government or could change society without involving government at all. and tocqueville paints this one passage he paints this picture

of a busy people, constantly involved in political activity and voluntary associations. scarcely have you descended on the soil of america, he writes, when you find yourself in the midst of a sort of turmoil, a confused clamor is raised on all sides, 1,000 voices come to your ears at the same time each of them expressing some social needs." and i think some of his french aristocrats readers are here kind of saying, that doesn't sound good here. this is a problem, all these people agitating." around you everything moves. here the people of one neighborhood have gathered to learn if a church ought to be built. there they're working on the choice of a representative. farther on, the deputies of a district are going to town in all haste in order to decide about some local improvements. in another place the farmers of a village abandon their fur rows to go discuss the plan of a road or school. citizens assemble with the sole goal of declaring that they

disapprove of the government whereas others proclaim their fathers are the fathers of their country. here others still who regarding drunkenness as the principal source of the evils of the state come soundly to pledge themselves an example of temperance. there's a note of astonish nt here, i think in that last sentence, where the wine-drinking aristocrats con templates the be alusion of alcohol. tocqueville arrived at america in a time when voluntary associations were championing causes that ultimately transformed the nation. and often involving government but often not involving government. often changing people's habits of the heart. they were particularly common, these associations, in new england, in up state york which had been settled by new england yankees, where tocqueville spent a large part of his visit. nearly half of his visit was in that northern tier of states. the yankees as bronson noted

"tends to be restless in body and mind, always scheming, always in notion, never satisfied with what he has and always seeking to make the world like himself or as uneasy as himself. hackett fisher the author of "albian seed" notes that the new englanders tended -- who were isolated in their own colonies through 200 years, they were moralistic and intolerant. they believed in following their moral principles and in making other people do it, too. persuading them if possible but using powers of government and deed. and tocqueville clearly admired on balance the reformist yankee impulses and an example of democratic americans working together in voluntary associations to improve their society. one of these efforts as he notes

was a temperance movement which ultimately persuaded the nation embark on a dozen years of prohibiting alcohol. that experiment failed. but in tocqueville's time, the temperance movement did vastly reduce alcohol consumption, to something like two-thirds average alcohol consumption in this country, in what one historian, speaking of the period before which tocqueville arrived entitled a book "the alcoholic republic." the consumption of whiskey was very high and there is not a total lack of correlation with the average consumption of whiskey and the number of duels that people were participating in. this was a pretty lufsty and go get em society. and the temperance movement had a big effect on the behave you of americans. another effort that was soon to begin was the women's rights movement, which resulted in another amendment to the constitution granting women the vote. tocqueville, the frenchman,

whose wife by the way was english, but had french attitudes, tocqueville was astonished to note that "women themselves often go to political assemblies and by listening to political discourses take a rest from household tedium." you know, we're now in a period in our history where to take one example, hillary clinton is doing something other than taking a rest from household tedium. she's serving as two women recently before her served as secretary of state. but tocqueville sees this movement. i'm not sure that he entirely approves but he observes it. he cea he sees something. this is not something in aristocrats france women could influence in the boudoir but they were not seen in the course of public debate. america was something different. another movement beginning to

gain adherence was beabolitioni. a state constitutional convention in virginia, i've referenced randolph roanoke's remarks. it's tantalizing to contemplate how history would have gone if the vote had gone the other way. abolitionists were considered extremists. but the abolitionist cause had great moral power in a nation whose declaration of independence had begun with the word "we hold it to be self evident that all men are endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." and there was also a tension between the existence of slavery and the moral equality in christianity professed by almost

all americans. christianity is a religion unlike the pagan religions which it replaced which says that each individual has an immortal soul and is made in the image of god. this would have been an absolutely astonishing proposition to aristotle, to the roman philosophers. but it was part of the christian heritage of america. and it was always in some tension with slavery. one of the interesting things about britain and america is that the impulse to end first the slave trade and then slavely itself was an impulse that was strongest and most strongly advocated by evangelical christians of the day and quakers. it came out of religious belief, those who see religious conservatives or religious people of any ideological disposition as a threat to democracy need to reflect on the fact that the movement to

abolish slavery was a movement that began as indeed much of the civil rights movement began as a movement spurred by people with strong christian impulses, that were at peace with some of the tennett tenets at the heart of christian if i. and religion clearly impressed tocqueville. he was from a country, france, in which everybody was technically catholic but had gone through a revolution that was secular and anti-religious, where in the wake of that revolution the catholic church had become an ally of the royal family instead of the kind of adversary to it as had been in the pre-revolutionary period and in which the church, catholic church nationally and internationally in the form of the papacy was exaccomplice italy hostile to democracy and said that it was not a good system. so religion in tocqueville's --

from the perspective of the people among whom he had grown up, religion was the enemy of democracy. tocqueville writes "on my arrival in the country it was the religious aspect of the country that first struck my e eye." in contrast to the countries with established churches and with monopolies of religious belief established by law or enforced by the state, tocqueville notes "in those situations the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom almost always move in contrary directions." but americans had a different heritage. britain's north american colonies started off with different religious traditions. some of them were havens of people who were subject to religious persecution, including the huguenots who settled in south carolina after king louis xiv revolved the edict of nance and said that protestants would not be tolerated in his country.

so the founders who understood this multivarious religious heritage provided in the constitution there be no religious test for office in the federal government, and in the bill of rights they provided that congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion nor one prohibiting the free exercise thereof. this didn't mean an entire separation of church and state, although tocqueville uses that phrase during his visit to massachusetts, still had an established church which it supported by the taxing power, taxing revenues of the commonwealth of massachusetts, that was abolished a couple of years later. but tocqueville noted the paradox that again i think was something that he thought would astonish his french aristocrats readers. diminishing the force of a religion came to increase its real power. if people were not forced to attend, and financially support a church, they would have more

adherence to the church with the voluntary support it and its teachings would mean more to them. tocqueville believed that religion was stronger in america than in france and americans believe it necessary to the maintenance of public institutions. so in his view religion was not hostile to democracy and the republic, it was the friend and the support of democracy in the republic. religion, he writes, which among americans never mixes directly in the government, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions. for if it does not give them the taste for freedom, it singularly facilitates their use of it. religion os belief, he could observe, was the impulse behind the movements for temperance and women's rights and abolition of slaver