[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 19^th 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.

 

 

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

 

[Part of Constituting America's "Ninety for Ninety" Series on America's Founding Principles.

Principle of Freedom of Assembly - Constituting America]

“New England town meetings have proved themselves the wisest invention ever devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self-government and for its preservation."

Thomas Jefferson, 1816

“Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835

The concept of people openly gathering to discuss matters of public interest was developed among the ancient Greek city states in the 6^th Century B.C.  It became known as “Athenian Democracy” under the leadership of Pericles (461-429 B.C.) during Athens’ “Golden Age”.  Participation was open to all adult free male citizens.

In actions that would be repeated throughout history, Athenian public meetings were suppressed to centralize government power.  This occurred in 322 B.C. by the rulers of the Macedonian Empire, first Philip II and then his son, Alexander “the Great”.

Freedom of assembly vanished during the Roman Empire and the feudal states.  People could still petition the chief, warlord, or king for grievances, but local democracy was lost.

Iceland rekindled community-based democracy in 930 A.D. 

The Althing (Norse for “assembly field”) was an open area (near present day Reykjavik) reserved for the annual gathering to discuss and decide issues facing the community.  The presiding official, Lögsögumaður (Norse for “Law Speaker”), stood on a central rock outcropping known as the Lögberg (Norse for “Law Rock”).  He established the procedures for the Althing and declared decisions after open discussion and voting.  All free men had the right to attend and participate.

The Althing lost its authority when Iceland was annexed by Norway in 1262.

In 1231, the freedom of assembly, and early federalism, arose among the various independent regions (Cantons) in Switzerland. The Landsgemeinde (German for "cantonal assembly) was established as a system of direct democracy, open voting, and majority rule among the communitas hominum (Latin for “the community of men”).  This terminology was to emphasize that it was an assembly of all citizens, not just the elite. 

Citizens of the Swiss Cantons fiercely defended their assemblies.  In 1499, they defeated the forces of Emperor Maxmillian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, at the battle of Dornach.  They retain their system to this day.

The practice of holding town meetings in Colonial America evolved from 17^th Century English “vestry” meetings.  These meetings allowed parishioners to discuss and decide issues relating to their local parish.  These became integral to New England communities in the mid to late 1600s.  Their agendas ranged beyond church governance to community matters. 

In 1691, the Colonial Parliament (General Court) of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a Charter that declared that final authority on bylaws rested with town meetings. In 1694, the Massachusetts General Court granted town meetings the authority to appoint assessors. In 1715 it granted town meetings the right to elect their own presiding officers (moderators) instead of relying on outside appointees 

Colonial meeting houses remain places of reverence in small towns throughout New England.

It is not surprising that eradicating town meetings, and restricting the right to free assembly, were key elements in Britan’s suppression of America’s Independence movement in the early 1770s.

Lord North, the British Prime Minister (1770-1790), instituted harsh measures to suppress dissent and disrupt the culture of self-government, which he viewed as the root cause of the chaos.  On May 2, 1774, North declared Massachusetts was "in a distempered state of disturbance and opposition to the laws of the mother country."

On May 20, 1774, the British Parliament passed the Massachusetts Government Act, which nullified the Massachusetts Charter of 1691. It abolished local town meetings because, “a great abuse has been made of the power of calling them, and the inhabitants have, contrary to the design of their institution, been used to treat upon matters of the most general concerns, and to pass dangerous and unwarrantable resolves.”  Ongoing local meetings were replaced by annual meetings only called with the Colonial Governor’s permission, or not at all.

A series of five punitive acts were passed by Parliament intended to restrict public discourse and punish opponents.  It was England’s hope the “Intolerable Acts” would intimidate rebellious Colonists into submission. The “Acts” ignited a firestorm of outrage throughout Colonial America.  More importantly, it generated a unity of purpose and inspired a willingness for collective action among leaders in the previously fragmented American colonies.

In a bold “illegal” act to assert its right to free assembly, the First Continental Congress met in the Carpenters Hall in Philadelphia from September 5-October 26, 1774. Twelve of the thirteen colonies (Georgia opted out) were represented.  They issued the “Declaration of Rights and Grievances”, the first unified protest of Britian’s anti-colonial actions. 

The British Crown’s assault on the right to free assembly was among the top Grievances listed in the Declaration of Independence less than two years later.

GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE

 

[U.S. House Chamber 1820]

[Published as part of Constituting America's Ninety Day Study on America's Founding Principles: Principle of a Legislative Branch Within a System of Government Closest to the People – Constituting America]

In advocating for establishing the Legislative Branch in the U.S. Constitution, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, writing under “PUBLIUS”, stated in Federalist No. 52:

“First. As it is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people, so it is particularly essential that the branch of it under consideration should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people. Frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured…. It is a received and well-founded maxim, that where no other circumstances affect the case, the greater the power is, the shorter ought to be its duration.”

Madison and Hamilton explained how the Legislative Branch was fundamental to Americans remaining in control of their own government in FEDERALIST No. 57:

“The House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people. Before the sentiments impressed on their minds by the mode of their elevation can be effaced by the exercise of power, they will be compelled to anticipate the moment when their power is to cease, when their exercise of it is to be reviewed, and when they must descend to the level from which they were raised; there forever to remain unless a faithful discharge of their trust shall have established their title to a renewal of it.”

Binding the Legislative Branch to the people built upon the precedents from America’s colonial period.

The Royal Charter that established Jamestown in Virginia evolved from governance by the Charter holders into governance by the King’s Representative (Royal Governor) and his Advisory Council. When the settlers demanded their own voice, the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1619, became the first democratically elected legislative body in America. 

The House of Burgesses became a proving ground for what would become the U.S. House of Representatives. Drawing upon British tradition, revenue and spending bills originated in the House instead of the “upper chamber”. Drawing from British tradition, the members of the House held their positions for short periods of time, the better to be held closely accountable by those they represented.

Tying government closely to the people is foundational to America.  The reason America is a “federal” system, and not a “national system”, is to preserve state and local government.  This assures most public policy and public activity is closest to the people it serves and reflects their diversity.  Serving an urban New York City neighborhood is very different from serving a rural community in Montana.

America’s diversity is embodied in our nation’s motto: “E Pluribus Unum” – out of many, one.

Governing a diverse America is institutionalized in the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Today, America is governed by 87,576 local units.  This includes 3,034 counties, 19,429 municipalities (cities, towns, villages), 16,504 townships, 13,506 school districts, and 35,052 special districts (such as water & sewer, fire, and conservation).

Except for Switzerland and Germany, European governments are national. Their policy and programs are based on “one size fits all”. National governments ultimately amplify regional and ethnic tensions.  England’s Acts of Union with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1801) spawned countless conflicts.  Today, Scotland and Wales have separate Parliaments.  Ireland divided itself into a Free State and Northern Ireland in the wake of years of violence (1921).  England leaving the European Union in January 2020 reflected what happens when a weak parliament, which could have embraced diversity, was dominated by a powerful and unaccountable bureaucracy.

America’s federal structure, emphasizing government closest to the people, was chronicled by the Frenchman, Alexis Clerel, the Vicount de Tocqueville.

“Democracy in America” was published in two volumes (1835 and 1840).  It remains a foundational document describing how Americans benefit from local government.

“The village or township is the only association which is so perfectly natural that wherever a number of men are collected it seems to constitute itself. The town, or tithing, as the smallest division of a community, must necessarily exist in all nations….”

“….local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty. 

de Tocqueville recognized how Americans preserving local governance serves as a model for a better world:

"I believe that provincial [local] institutions are useful to all nations, but nowhere do they appear to me to be more indispensable than amongst a democratic people.

The only nations which deny the utility of provincial [local] liberties are those which have fewest of them; in other words, those who are unacquainted with the institution are the only persons who pass a censure upon it.”

Thanks to the strength of local government, America remains an inspiration for all those who seek free and open societies. 

 

A Fire Bell in the Night: The Story of Maine Statehood (Part 1)

Guest Essayist: Jeffrey Hollingsworth

[Part of Constituting America’s 90 Day Study of State & Local Government]

https://constitutingamerica.org/a-fire-bell-in-the-night-the-story-of-maine-statehood-part-1-guest-essayist-jeffrey-hollingsworth/

Barely 30 years after the contentious adoption of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the experiment in self-government and democratic republicanism that enraptured de Tocqueville and other noted admirers of the new United States of America was at grave risk of collapse. Maine’s aspirations for statehood were at the heart of the hullabaloo. It was in a wrestling match with Missouri for admission to the Union. In fact, Members of Congress representing the District of Maine, as it was known—then belonging to Massachusetts—voted against legislation that would have admitted their home as a state even after longstanding agitation in Maine for statehood.

So why, when at long last statehood was within reach, did these officials and many of those they represented object to legislation that would unlock the door to statehood? Their reasons are at the heart of why we are “one nation, indivisible” and how small, remote Maine helped preserve the U. S. of A. at a grave hour in its early history.

Earliest Maine: How the Story Began

The first Mainers have been traced to approximately 3,000 BC. They’re known as the “Red Paint People” due to their liberal use of red ochre in pottery and burial rituals. Native American tribes still extant in Maine are the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac and Maliseet.

Why Maine is called “Maine” (the only one-syllable state) still isn’t clear. Some scholars say it was named after the French Province of Maine. Others suggest it’s from a maritime term for “the main” or mainland, to distinguish it from islands. Some sources claim Vikings visited Maine as early as 1000 AD, but the first recorded European was Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524. Others later included Capt. John Smith (yes, the John Smith) for England and Samuel de Champlain for France.

Champlain fostered an attempted permanent settlement in June 1604 on St. Croix Island off Robbinston, Maine, opposite Bayside, New Brunswick. The colony failed within a year, most settlers felled by “mal de la terre” (scurvy). It was home to the first known Christmas celebration in the New World. The island, though in U.S. waters, is an International Historic Site, the only one in North America, jointly administered by the U.S. and Canadian governments.

Instead of Jamestown, Virginia, the Popham Colony in present-day Phippsburg, Maine, could’ve been the first permanent English settlement in the U.S.A. Sir George Popham and Sir Raleigh Gilbert led 120 English settlers to landfall at the mouth of the Kennebec River in August 1607. Other English settlers had reached today’s Jamestown in mid-May 1607. The Popham colonists started off strongly. They built the first commercial ship ever constructed in the New World, the pinnace Virginia of Sagadahock. This milestone was commemorated by a 1957 U.S. stamp officially recognizing the origin of shipbuilding in the U.S.  Shipbuilding has been a mainstay (no pun intended) of Maine’s economy over the succeeding four-plus centuries.

But the Popham Colony was doomed. After experiencing winter, half the surviving cold, hungry settlers grew disillusioned and fled back to England. Gilbert later received news of his father’s passing and needed to address vital family matters. He left for England, never to return.

Lacking leadership, the remaining colonists abandoned the settlement almost a year to the day after landing. Jamestown’s settlers hung on, though barely. Today, archeological excavations at both sites keep unlocking secrets about our country’s first English settlers.

Maine Grows

From Popham through the next 175 years, Maine ownership shifted from one royal grantee to another. The major promoter of Maine settlement was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, an English aristocrat later dubbed “The Father of English Colonization in North America,” though he never set foot in the New World. With Captain John Mason (a principal colonizer of New Hampshire), Gorges secured a patent from King James I in 1622 for vast territory in Maine. During  the next 50 years, disputes and squabbles over Gorges family holdings and competing land claims finally led Gorges’s grandson to sell all the property to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1677.

Maine grew slowly but steadily, yet not without incident. Devastating hostilities with Native Americans erupted periodically, and colonial conflicts took their toll. France considered all the land up to the Kennebec River, which bisects Maine, to belong to New France. Its farthest outpost was the present-day town of Castine, which see-sawed between French and British control for decades. In 1674, during a war between France and The Netherlands, Dutch naval forces captured Castine and environs, part of a grandiose venture to establish Nova Hollandia (“New Holland”). Maine suffered further privations during the French & Indian War (1754-63). Then came America’s War for Independence.

Mainers were distinguished soldiers, sailors and commanders in the Revolutionary War, and Maine was the scene of several battles. The most notorious was the infamous bombardment and burning of Falmouth—now Portland—on Oct. 18, 1775. The British Navy launched a far-flung campaign to punish seaports aiding the rebel forces, and Portland fell into the dragnet.

The fierceness and merciless intensity of the assault was widely reported throughout all 13 colonies and helped inflame passions against Britain. It prompted the Second Continental Congress to pass legislation authorizing what John Adams wrote led to “the true origin of the American Navy.” Earlier, in the first naval battle of the Revolution, patriots in remote Machias swarmed and captured the British sloop HMS Margaretta in June 1775. The dead and wounded on both sides were carried to Burnham Tavern, where the plot to seize Margaretta was hatched. The tavern, a National Historic Site, still stands.

The worst American naval defeat until Pearl Harbor occurred near the mouth of the Penobscot River as vessels augmented by ground forces sought to oust the British from eastern Maine (“New Ireland,” as Britain had declared it). A 44-ship armada, reinforced by some 1,000 marines and a 100-man artillery contingent commanded by Lt. Col. Paul Revere, left Boston for Maine in late July 1779. The colonials were no match for the Royal Navy. Most American ships not blown out of the water either were scuttled or captured, then hauled upriver to Bangor and burned. The surviving colonials fled overland with few supplies or weaponry. The “Penobscot Expedition” is among the darkest episodes in U.S. military history.

Many Maine communities were occupied by British forces. It underscored the indifference and incapacity of Massachusetts toward defending the region. Maine took years to recover, and louder rumblings for statehood began. The crippling Embargo Act of 1807 made matters worse, since Maine’s economy relied heavily on seagoing commerce. Then, the War of 1812 put many Maine communities under British boot-heels yet again. Its easternmost city, Eastport, wouldn’t even be liberated until 1818, three years after the war ended. 

Two major (and other lesser) engagements occurred in Maine: the 1814 Battle of Hampden (near present-day Bangor), a humiliating U.S. defeat; and the electrifying clash between HMS Boxer and USS Enterprise on Sept. 5, 1813, just off Pemaquid Point near the mouth of the Kennebec River. The thunderous, furious, 30-minute slugfest, witnessed by scores of residents on shore and heard by many more, resulted in the capture of Boxer. It was a widely reported and celebrated boost for U.S. morale, memorialized by Portland native Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem “My Lost Youth.” The remains of both ships’ slain commanders were ferried to Portland, then reverently buried side by side with full military honors.

The war convinced most Mainers that their area was a mere stepchild of Massachusetts and the state government was nonchalant about defending it. The earlier crippling attacks by the French and native tribes hadn’t been forgotten, either. Besides, travelling to distant Boston, the state capital, on official business was an arduous, time-consuming, risky and expensive venture. The push for statehood acquired new life.

Jeffrey Hollingsworth grew up in Belfast, Maine, and is a University of Maine alumnus. He is a past president of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C., and principal founder of its charitable foundation. He is the author of Magnificent Mainers (Covered Bridge Press), a compendium of mini-biographies of 100 famous Maine natives. His articles have appeared in Honolulu and Down East magazines and in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Portland Press Herald, and other periodicals.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

“CONSTITUTING AMERICA” SERIES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

America’s 3,034 counties are the backbone of local government and form the core of our civic culture. 

Counties are embedded in each state’s constitution and given explicit governing roles and responsibilities.  They arose during the Middle Ages as the domain of a Count or vassal serving a monarch, thus the name.  When the Normans conquered England, they supplanted the local Saxon shires, governed by chieftains, with “contés”, governed by agents of the Crown.

The core activities of counties have seen little change since Counts were given responsibility for maintaining law and order, providing for local roads, and arbitrating disputes, in their domain.

In his timeless masterpiece on American culture, “Democracy in America”, Alexis Clerel, Viscount de Tocqueville, described the functions of county government and the selection of local officials:

The town-meeting chooses at the same time a number of other municipal magistrates, who are entrusted with important administrative functions. The assessors rate the township; the collectors receive the rate. A constable is appointed to keep the peace, to watch the streets, and to forward the execution of the laws; the town-clerk records all the town votes, orders, grants, births, deaths, and marriages; the treasurer keeps the funds; the overseer of the poor performs the difficult task of superintending the action of the poor-laws; committee-men are appointed to attend to the schools and to public instruction; and the road-surveyors, who take care of the greater and lesser thoroughfares of the township, complete the list of the principal functionaries.

The United States currently has approximately 88,000 local governments, districts, and commissions comprised of approximately 500,000 elected officials. This is 20 times as many officials as exist at the federal and state levels. Local governments collectively spend over $1 trillion annually.

As de Tocqueville outlined in 1835, today counties provide the basic services we require in our daily lives:

•  Police, fire and public safety services 
•  Sewage, water treatment and waste management 
•  Schools, libraries, and other education resources 
•  Roads, paths, and bridges
•  Public transportation 
•  Planning, permitting, and enforcement 
•  Public health services, including mental health, and services to the disabled
•  Tax collection and disbursement

The provision of these services requires close cooperation with “sister” jurisdictions, which may include the state, municipalities and townships embedded within the county, and adjoining counties. Sometimes regional commissions or authorities are established to formalize this cooperation.

County Commissioners or Supervisors act as a “board of directors” to establish policies and oversee these services.  In most cases, there are only 3-9 who are elected and serve in this capacity in each county. These are part-time positions, except in the most populated counties.

The Clerk is a fulltime elected official who is the keeper of all public records, from land ownership to births, deaths, and weddings.  Clerks, and their full staff, administer the settling of estates, or probate, when deaths occur.  Most importantly, Clerks manage voter registration, candidate filings and reports, creating the ballot, holding the election, and counting and reporting the vote. 

The elected Sheriff is more than the chief law enforcement official.  Just like in “Robin Hood”, the Sheriff is the tax collector and manages the county’s finances.

Depending on the population of a county there are an array of other public officials, either elected or appointed, who handle assessing property for tax purposes, certifying the health and viability of water systems and food service establishments, coordinating emergency response, and providing parks and recreation.

Public Schools are governed by a separate and independently elected School Board of 5-9 members.  While schools are funded from the property taxes assessed by the Assessor, and collected by the Sheriff, the Board administers and disburses the funds themselves.

The detailed work of counties is conducted through boards and commissions. These include land-use regulation, building permits, water & sewer, and economic development.  Those serving on these boards are part-time volunteers appointed to the County Commission.

This is where local communities face a fundamental challenge. 

Most Americans have poor awareness and understanding of local government.  The decisions and activities of the diverse array of elected and appointed officials go unreported, or under-reported.  Holding local power accountable is one of the greatest problems in America today.

In his groundbreaking book, “Bowling Alone”, Robert Putnam described the deterioration of communities in 21^st Century America.  This is borne out in how few people volunteer to serve on local boards and commissions, how few attend local public meetings, and how few take actions when incompetence or corruption arise.

Corruption and incompetence are more prevalent than ever.  Land use can make or break fortunes, and help or harm a community, especially in the wrong hands. Unfortunately, conflicts of interest are predictable around land speculation.  Misuse of public funds, especially directing contracts to friends and family, or for unrecorded payments, is always possible.

Prior to the digital age, local newspapers were the bulwark against corruption and malfeasance.  Unfortunately, many of these newspapers are vanishing.  Recently, Dean Baquet, Executive Editor of the New York Times, told the World Congress of News Media that “The greatest crisis in American journalism is the death of local news”.  He predicted most local newspapers “are going to die in the next five years”.

Digital media remains more interested in national issues and popular culture.  The journalistic capacity for demanding accountability, or reporting basic information on county government, is vanishing.

It is up to local citizens to demand accountability. This means demanding transparency, including all public documents being public and all public meetings being public. 

Few local officials, especially on appointed boards, support full accountability.  Countless citizen lawsuits have forced public notices to be on websites instead of posted on index cards on courthouse bulletin boards.  This is vital in “bedroom communities” where most citizens commute out of the county for work.

The citizen-led victories for accountability and transparency are based upon state laws that mandate public access. These laws are called “sunshine” laws and “freedom of information acts”.  It is important for those concerned about their communities to learn these laws and fully understand the importance of “adequate public notice” for public hearings and decisions.

America will remain a beacon of hope for freedom loving people everywhere only if Americans take their citizen responsibility seriously and actively participate in their local government.

SAVING FEDERALISM = SAVING AMERICA

“CONSTITUTING AMERICA” SERIES ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT

America is built on local government.  The future of our nation depends on local communities remaining at the core of representative democracy.

In 1831, the Frenchman, Alexis Clerel, the Vicount de Tocqueville, along with his colleague Gustave de Beaumont, was sent by the French government to study America.  While their mission was officially to review prisons, their nine-month journey produced one of the great classics on America’s civic culture.

“Democracy in America” was published in two volumes (1835 and 1840).  It remains a foundational document describing American exceptionalism.

At its core is de Tocqueville’s description of local government:

The village or township is the only association which is so perfectly natural that wherever a number of men are collected it seems to constitute itself. The town, or tithing, as the smallest division of a community, must necessarily exist in all nations….

….local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it within the people’s reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty.

America has always been a nation of communities.  Its pattern of settlement, through Royal Charters, gave wide latitude for establishing local governance.  Being over 5,500 miles from London, made detailed oversight of colonies impossible.  By necessity, and by desire, colonists embraced local authority over distant rule from a capitol or nation.  When distant rulers attempted to increase their control, colonists ignited a Revolution.

As de Tocqueville explains:

The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature and dignified taste for freedom, and not of a vague or ill-defined craving for independence.

The first form of government was the Articles of Confederation, which created a very weak national government.  External threats and internal dysfunction led to the U.S. Constitution, with extensive safeguards for local sovereignty.

America established a federal government, which means power is shared between national and state government, and the majority of governmental actions take place at the local level.  This is institutionalized in the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Today, America is governed by 87,576 local units.  This includes 3,034 counties, 19,429 municipalities (cities, towns, villages), 16,504 townships, 13,506 school districts, and 35,052 special districts (such as water & sewer, fire, and conservation).

These independent, and interdependent, local governments reflect the diversity that is unique to America.  In America, the preferred government is one closest to those its serves.

de Tocqueville links local government to being fundamental to a free people:

In the township, as well as everywhere else, the people are the only source of power; but in no stage of government does the body of citizens exercise a more immediate influence. In America ‘the people’ is a master whose exigencies demand obedience to the utmost limits of possibility.

Municipal independence is therefore a natural consequence of the principle of the sovereignty of the people in the United States: all the American republics recognize it more or less;

de Tocqueville uses the townships of New England as his primary example of the effectiveness of local government and their role in establishing America’s unique democracy:

The native of New England is attached to his township because it is independent and free: his co-operation in its affairs ensures his attachment to its interest; the well-being it affords him secures his affection; and its welfare is the aim of his ambition and of his future exertions: he takes a part in every occurrence in the place; he practices the art of government in the small sphere within his reach; he accustoms himself to those forms which can alone ensure the steady progress of liberty; he imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, comprehends the union or the balance of powers, and collects clear practical notions on the nature of his duties and the extent of his rights.

While discourse over major national and global issues attract the most attention, it is local government that most directly affects our daily lives.  The quality of the school children attend, the condition of roads driven, the safety of neighborhoods, the taste and pressure of water coming from the tap, saving lives and property from fire or accident, are locally governed and provided.

de Tocqueville noted the benefits of locally focused government in America:

In no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions for the common weal; and I am acquainted with no people which has established schools as numerous and as efficacious, places of public worship better suited to the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in better repair.

He saw local government promoting individual initiative while restraining growth of a centralized state:

As the administrative authority is within the reach of the citizens, whom it in some degree represents, it excites neither their jealousy nor their hatred; as its resources are limited, everyone feels that he must not rely solely on its assistance…This action of individual exertions, joined to that of the public authorities, frequently performs what the most energetic central administration would be unable to execute.

Thanks to the strength of local government, America remains an inspiration for all those who seek free and open societies. 

While chronicling America in its early years, de Tocqueville recognized how the United States’ embrace of local governance already served as a model for a better world:

I believe that provincial [local] institutions are useful to all nations, but nowhere do they appear to me to be more indispensable than amongst a democratic people.

The only nations which deny the utility of provincial [local] liberties are those which have fewest of them; in other words, those who are unacquainted with the institution are the only persons who pass a censure upon it.