and so religion from tocqueville 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 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 the spirit -- in those situations he said 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 colony 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 revoked the edict of nantes and said that the protestants would not be tolerated in his country. the -- so the founders who understood their multivarious religious heritage provided in the constitution there be no religious test for office for the federal government a

facilitating their pleasures as tocqueville put it and to endorse in their occasional vote or as tocqueville puts it, citizens leave their dependence for a moment to indicate their master and re-enter it. that's how he sees the democratic process, the political process working in a system of soft despotism. in this -- and in this view, he portrays a situation where we have gone far along the road to soft despotism and there is no turning around. i want to suggest something a little different. something that's from my point of view a little more optimistic. first of all, many of the features of america that tocqueville describes are still part of american life. america still abounds in voluntary associations more than any other nation in the world. there's some indications the percentage of people involved in such associations are declining as robert putnam suggests in his book bowling along. i think there's important counterevidence that's come forward. so voluntary associations are part of american life. americans give more money and volunteer more time for charity than people in any other

tocqueville sees us ordinary mortals, so far below him as something better. nobody says it better than himself. let me conclude with a final passage in the second volume of democracy in america. as for myself, having come to the final stage of my course to discover from afar but once all the diverse objects that i've contemplated separately in advance, i feel full of fears and full of hopes. i see great perils are possible to ward off. great ovils that i can avoid and more strain. i become more and more firm in the belief that to be honest and prosperous, it is still enough for democratic nations to wish it. i am not unaware that several of my contemporaries have thought that peoples are never masters of themselves here below and that they necessarily obey. i do not know which insurmountable and unintelligent force born of previous events, the race, the soil or the climate. those are false and cowardly doctrines that can never produce any but weak men and pucilonous. providence has not created the human race either independent or perfectly slave. it traces it

i mean, this is something that tocqueville observed and said would be the downfall of america. it's not going to be the individual. it's going to be the cry of equality will be america's death throes. >> and the -- the cry of equality and the argument that centralization is the only fairway to handle equality in a situation. the only fairway to structure a -- they went farther and said it's efficient. that argument, in many ways -- it's been disproven. there are some things you do want to do centrally. i think one of the things that added to the prestige of the centralization movement is the whole civil rights issue. because if you go back to the 1950s, among the defenders of decentralization, the critiques of the new deal, you had people like william f. buckley and national review were defending southern, legally imposed racial segregation as, you know, local control. these people know best what they want. the sort of good hearted defense of it that i think existed was if we don't have these rules in place, a lot of people are going to kill a lot of people. most of it will be

in short, adding on to what de tocqueville does. the pursuit of equality and widespread democracy rather than rerepublicanism will destroy american tradition of oral liberty. randolph old republicanism reinforces the notion that the american founding was a revolution not made but averted. that goes back to what speaker gingrich said last week. his work also provides a bridge between jefferson and calhoun. i just wanted to make sure that -- i hope you'll go back and re-read that given the brilliant lecture by mr. barone. i think it will make a lot more sense now. any other -- let's take another one or two questions. cadet slater? >> you were talking about how the society and the religious tradition, really important in maintaining freedom and i guess keeping society together at a local level a lot better. now, i think that played a pivotal role in the peace process right after the civil war. because those local groups could really keep everything together, keep social cohesion. but a lot of times when we're looking at other civil war

that we give to the most recent incarnation of a very old american idea i mean if you go back to tocqueville and writers throughout the history of american republic you know there was always a sense in which the american dream right was the idea that a country founded without the legacy of feudalism and on the backs of slaves we should note for four for free white people would be a place in which you could rise from any station to as far as your talents would take you and meritocracy is the version of that the name we give to the both of the dream we have of that is a social model and the set of institutions we've we've created to produce a system in which we say we will not bar entry into the highest echelons of american life based on race or class or gender or creed or sexual orientation we're . going to have everyone compete on the even playing field and it's sort through who are the most industrious and bright and talented and select down to them and they'll go to harvard law school and they'll be president united states and they'll run the major banks and barack obama is is a testament

if we are collectively good to paraphrase de tocqueville, we will be collectively great. if we are collectively lazy, if we are collectively spiritually lazy, morally lazy, ethically lazy, we will not be great. it will compound and it will be a disaster. people tell me i love the fact that people say all the time, i mean, last year i was crazy, i'm crazy for something every year. and then they always forget that, oh, wow, that turned out. lst year i was crazy because i said, hey, this thing in egypt's not going to work out and the muslim brotherhood that's not good. they're not largely secular. largely peaceful. and they do have intent to run for parliament and for the presidency. and here they are. and now we're at another point of another revolution in egypt yesterday the military ceased power. that's not going to work out. that's not going to work out. you could have known that from history. you could have known that from american history. you know what this was a repeat of in egypt? it was a repeat of this. this is an original copy of -- woops. original copy of thomas

the death of a televised contest and then of course there are those futurists like jefferson to tocqueville lincoln and f.d.r. who imagine a nation of the people by the people for the people. whether the future belongs to big brother or the super rich or we the people remains to be seen we're already catching a glimpse of the dystopia can frankly absurd future america and which corporations run or own virtually everything we see and do virtually every single day all around the nation it's a future where all our commons the stuff loaned by we the people or school buses or fire trucks or police cars or public libraries parks road signs subways or all of them have been hijacked by corporations and admin and not too distant future and already in some places around america corporate advertising runs everything take for example this fire hydrant in indiana which now belongs to kentucky fried chicken apparently is manhole cover now belongs to contrary to colonel sanders the new york times explain what's going on here with a recent article about how broke cities afraid to raise taxes on their rich

california so again he yet this great exposure and anyway you know, much like in historical context de tocqueville. he sees all of america and it's his narrative that becomes the story or at least the baseline of the nrda from a history which is actually about other like-minded people who are trying to think about what does it mean in the midst of war right after the war in terms of democrats in america? what is it mean to be a multiracial american? so you can see this story is quite unique in many ways but i also want to make the point that he was also representative of an lot of folks. so it wasn't a difference of time. it was a difference of degree with other japanese americans and other americans and latinos etc.. but throughout his life particularly because he was an orphan, there was this your name for it being a part of a family. he does rejoin his family when they are all incarcerated which is an amazing thing when you think about it. parents would go and see him personally when he was in the orphanage. they would send their lawyer so think about reconnecting with your son after so many ye

i talked about de tocqueville's definition of the greatness of america earlier. point out some americans that did it good or did it right. he looked at america as one. as a matter of fact, when you look historically at this country -- and i realize i only have a couple of minutes left, i will be brief. when the capitol dome was torn off and the new construction started, it was because of the wing that we're currently in in the united states senate and an identical wing that was built op the house side. when those wings were added, architecturally the dome that was on top of the capitol was out of proportion, and that dome was called a bull finch dome. in about 1851, 1852, they started building the dome that we see today made of nine million pounds of cast iron. as that dome was about a third finished, abraham lincoln was president, and you could actually watch the civil war battles across the potomac on the other side of the river. then came the end of the war and lincoln was president and had every right to be punitive to the south because they lost. well, i cha

tocqueville was struck by this capacity for self correction. from the beginning we have been torn by a deep but healthy tension of our love of community and our sense that liberty requires a concern for the common good if we're going to state a free people. we tilt one way or another in the balance. we work best when we are in balance. it is a balance between private market and government, and between private and public. i go back and look at lincoln and hamilton and clay. it goes all the way back to hamilton, clay, and lincoln, who thought government could do a lot of things to build the country. clay talks about investing in its internal improvements. that is a nicer term for " infrastructure." we act as if government is a new force in american life. we should look for a continuation of this balance, which is i think what makes us a great nation. host: e.j. dionne writes -- if you would like to talk, here are the numbers to call -- republicans, 202-737-0001. democrats, 202-737-0002. independents, 202-628-0205. caller: good morning. i heard mr