Constitutionalism: The Tyranny Of The Majority :: essays research papers

In this excerpt from Democracy in the States Alexis Tocqueville expresses his sentiments about the United States democratic giving medication. Tocqueville believes the governments nature exists in the absolute control of the absolute majority, meaning that those citizens of the United States who are of legal age control canon passed by the government. However, the power of the majority can exceed its limits. Tocqueville believed that the United States was a land of equality, liberty, and political wisdom. He considered it be a land where the government only served as the voice of the its citizens. He compares the government of the US to that of European systems. To him, European governments were still constricted by aristocratic privilege, the people had no hand in the formation of their government, let al hotshot, there every daylight lives. He held up the American system as a victorious model of what aristocratic European systems would inevitably become, systems of democracy and social equality. Although he held the American democratic system in high regards, he did sustain his concerns about the systems shortcomings. Tocqueville feared that the virtues he honored, such as creativity, freedom, civic participation, and taste, would be peril by "the tyranny of the majority." In the United States the majority manages, but whose their to rule the majority. Tocqueville believed that the majority, with its unlimited power, would unavoidably turn into a tyranny. He felt that the clean-living beliefs of the majority would interfere with the quality of the elected legislators. The idea was that in a great number of men there was more intelligence, than in one individual, thus lacking quality in legislation. Another disadvantage of the majority was that the interests of the majority always were preferred to that of the minority. Therefore, giving the minority no come up to voice concerns.