[Constituting America: Why So Many Ambitious Men Exist in the US, but so few Lofty Ambitions (Vol 2 Pt. 3 Ch. 19)]
Alexis de Tocqueville was a keen observer of America’s emerging civic culture. His insights on how democracy shapes individual and community existence resonant with us to this day.
In his chapter on ambition, de Tocqueville outlines the attributes of equality in its classic sense.
American democracy in the early 19th Century provided a framework for liberty and equality in the law and the marketplace. He celebrated how the framework gave everyone an equal mix of opportunity and challenge. Such a mix ignited the passion in Americans to seek better lives.
“The first thing that strikes one in the United States is the innumerable multitude of those who seek to get out of their original condition.”
Individual ambition in a free society was the engine for economic vitality. Government provides a stable and honest environment for individuals to test themselves against their environment.
De Tocqueville contrasted American equality with the remnants of aristocracy and lust for power.
“So when once the ambitious have power in hand, they believe they can dare all: and when it escapes them, they immediately think of overturning the state to get it back.”
He knew firsthand the extremes that arise from a revolution that topples aristocracy. His own family endured imprisonment and the guillotine in the wake of the French Revolution. France’s cycle of chaos, violence, tyranny, and return to aristocracy served as cautionary lessons.
“As the former barriers that separated the crowd from renown and power are suddenly lowered, an impetuous and universal movement of ascent is made toward this long-envied greatness.”
France never achieved the promise of its revolution. The French suffered through monarchy, anarchy, revolutions in 1848 and 1870, an Emperor, military humiliation in 1870, and malaise leading to World War. De Tocqueville notes: “The passions that the revolution had prompted do not disappear with it…on all sides one sees disproportionate and unfortunate ambitions ignited that burn secretly and fruitlessly in the hearts that contain them.”
The French revolutionaries strived to change everything. They even renamed the calendar months, established new weights and measures, and toppled every institution that was tainted by the old regime. Thousands were slaughtered. Europe was ravaged.
Frenchmen’s lofty ambition to change the world led to their ruin.
Americans’ personal ambition was not to change the world, but to change their personal world.
America’s cultural strength was unleashing individual creativity to strive for this end.
De Tocqueville rejoiced in how America’s focus on personal ambition avoided France’s post-revolutionary vortex.
De Tocqueville toured America during an era of unbridled technical achievement. The Erie Canal went into operation in 1825. The first segment of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal opened in 1831. America’s first railroad, the Baltimore Ohio Line, moved freight and passengers starting in 1827.
These were realistic and pragmatic ambitions. They were human scale for the benefit of humans.
De Tocqueville understood that what set Americans apart from all other nationalities was their focus on “a multitude of small, very sensible ambitions…they finish many undertakings rapidly rather than raise a few long-lasting monuments; they love success much more than glory.”
He concludes his review of ambition with a warning against complacency. The benefits of democracy and a free society can lead to stagnation and the waning of ambition.
“I avow that for democratic societies I dread the audacity much less than the mediocrity of desires; what seems to me most to be feared is that in the midst of the small incessant occupations of private life, ambition will lose its spark and its greatness…so that each day the aspect of the social body becomes more tranquil and less lofty.”
For De Tocqueville, leaders “should want one to strive to give them a vaster idea of themselves.”
This is his challenge for America and
the ages.
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