In an article entitled ‘Rationale of Representation’, written in July 1835,
immediately after the publication of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Mill insisted on the need to apply perspectives to the study of politics which were different from those put forward in Samuel Bailey’s The Rationale of Political Representation, which Mill saw as a good example of Benthamite reasoning on the subject. Mill stated that Bailey dealt only with ‘the advantages of a representative government, and the principles on which it must be constructed in order to realise those advantages’.31 He insisted that these formed only one branch of the philosophy of government. Hence, he thought that the Benthamite theory of government was not so much wrong as
insufficient. He wrote:
The philosophy of government, a most extensive and complicated science, would comprise a complete view of the influences of political institutions; not only their direct, but what are in general so little attended to, their indirect and remote influences: how they affect the national character, and all the social relations of a people; and reciprocally, how the state of society, and of the human mind, aids, counteracts, or modifies the effects of a form of government, and promotes or
31 JSM, ‘Rationale of Representation’, CW, xviii, 18.
impairs its stability.32
He claimed that to acquire scientific knowledge of polity and society, the distinction needed to be made between the influence of political institutions and that of social circumstances, and consideration given to their mutual influences.33
The need to distinguish between government and society as a source of causation had often been insisted upon, albeit from a strategic point of view, by other Westminster Reviewers in the controversy over America. In this sense, Mill’s perspective was by no means unique. Nevertheless, Mill thought that such a perspective was lacking in
Benthamite politics, and insisted that it should be introduced into the study of politics.
Additionally, he emphasized the view that politics should deal with the mutual and comprehensive influences between polity and society. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, in Mill’s view, had done so. The fact that Mill referred, in the footnote given to the passage cited above, to Tocqueville’s work as the most important recent
contribution to the study of politics, indicates the huge impact which Tocqueville had on Mill.34
In the early nineteenth century, the concept of democracy had many connotations, such as the rise of a social and political system led by the middle class; the diffusion of political liberty and suffrage with a representative institution; and an anarchic political condition. Tocqueville’s use of the term contained two main meanings: first, democratic government; and second, equality of condition in society.35 In addition, he used the term ‘democracy’ to indicate the psychological tendencies which led to equalization, and which such equality in turn naturally encouraged. His broadened definition of the
32 Ibid.
33 By the expression ‘scientific knowledge’, Mill meant knowledge of the causation of phenomena. For this point, see Chapter 5 below.
34 JSM, ‘Rationale of Representation’, CW, xviii, 18. For the relation between Tocqueville and Mill, see Crook (1965) 176-86; Mueller (1956) 135-69; Pappé (1964); Robson (1968) 105-14; Hamburger (1976).
Mill’s recollection of what he learnt from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America can be found in his Autobiography, CW, i, 199-201.
35 Schleifer (1980) 263-74; Siedentop (1994) Chap. 4; Welch (2001) 65-6; Richter (2004) 62. Mill wrote:
‘It is necessary to observe that by Democracy M. de Tocqueville does not in general mean any particular form of government. … By Democracy, M. de Tocqueville understands equality of conditions ….’ (JSM,
‘Tocqueville [2]’, CW, xviii, 158-9.)
term ‘democracy’ gave his ideas greater significance,36 and it was this which, as I will demonstrate later, inspired Mill.
Tocqueville regarded democratization as a universal and inevitable process not only in America but also in the rest of the world. He called this gradual equalization the
‘great democratic revolution’.37 He accounted for the equalization of conditions, a process in which aristocracy gave way to democracy in the West, focusing on the development of commerce and manufacture, the subdivision of land, the diffusion of knowledge, the diffusion of moveable property, and social mobility. What especially attracted Tocqueville was the fact that in America ‘the middle classes can govern a nation.’38
ii
Tocqueville stated that the factors which made democracy in America work well included such constitutional features as federalism, communalism, and a well organized judicial power. The federal system enabled each state both to maintain its uniqueness and to enjoy benefits provided by the federal government, such as security against foreign invasion and economic freedom.39 The separation of powers between the executive and legislative, and the balance of powers between the Senate and the House of Representatives within the legislative body, were sufficiently secured by the
presidential system and the bicameral legislature respectively.40 Additionally, in terms of judicial review, judicial power was given huge authority and, therefore, was able to correct any popular excesses.41 The jury system was also crucial in that it taught people the notion of equity in a practical way, and encouraged them to take responsibility for their acts. It encouraged people to combat the ‘selfishness which is like rust in
society’.42 Under the municipal system, citizens were encouraged to exercise public
36 Welch (2001) 66.
37 Tocqueville (1994) 9.
38 Tocqueville (1957) 278.
39 Tocqueville (1994), Part 1. Chap. 8, esp. 114.
40 Ibid., Part 1. Chap. 8, esp. 117ff (legislative power), 121ff (executive power).
41 Ibid., 101ff.
42 Ibid., 274. He called jury system ‘a free school which is always open and in which each juror learns his
rights and perform public duties in their everyday life. As a result, the corruption engendered by sinister interest could be prevented.43
Mill was interested in Tocqueville’s analysis of the devices which made American democracy work well. This was because Mill regarded America as the most unsuitable nation for democracy, as I shall show below. He regarded the municipal system as particularly important.44 In Tocqueville’s view, local self-government in America played an intermediate role between the governing and the governed, a role which had been played by the aristocrat and the privileged class under the ancien régime in France.
Tocqueville thought, therefore, that democracy enabled ordinary people to cultivate their virtue in terms of political participation.45
Mill agreed with Tocqueville that national character could be cultivated under a democratic government. The argument that the system of government had beneficial effects on the state of society and national character was significant, for the good educational effects of democracy could provide effective counterevidence against those who opposed democracy on the grounds of the poor intellectual capacity of people.46 He also shared Tocqueville’s view that the evils of democracy should be rectified by democracy itself.47 However, while Tocqueville had sympathy for the aristocracy, Mill insisted that they needed to be reformed in order to function under a democracy. Mill thought that the aristocracy had to be defeated in order to achieve constitutional reform in Britain. Subsequently, Mill did not totally concur with Tocqueville’s favourable opinion of the American legal profession, which he thought played an aristocratic role in terms of their professional knowledge and conservative tendency. Mill stated: ‘the minds of lawyers were …, both in England and America, almost universally perverted by the barbarous system of technicalities – the opprobrium of human reason – which
rights’. (ibid., 275.)
43 Ibid., Part 1. Chap. 5, esp. 66-9.
44 JSM, ‘Tocqueville [1]’, CW, xviii, 58.
45 Tocqueville (1994) 243.
46 Mill stated: ‘as we do not learn to read or write, to ride or swim, by being merely told how to do it, but by doing it, so it is only by practising popular government on a limited scale, that the people will ever learn how to exercise it on a larger’. (JSM, ‘Tocqueville [1]’, CW, xviii, 63.)
47 JSM, ‘Tocqueville [2]’, CW, xviii, 188-9.
their youth is passed in committing to memory, and their manhood in administering’.48
iii
Tocqueville identified unskilful legislation and the abuse of power by the majority over the minority as the vices of democracy. He stated that democracy not only tended to fail to choose men of merit because of the lack of the intellectual ability of people, but also had neither the desire nor the disposition to do so. He argued that, in their political careers ‘it would be difficult [for the men of distinction] to remain completely themselves or to make any progress without cheapening themselves’.49 Both
Tocqueville and Mill thought that this tendency was not unique to America, but common to civilized nations. Furthermore, Mill found a unique circumstance at work which promoted it in America. He wrote that, ‘America needs very little government’, as ‘She has no wars, no neighbours, no complicated international relations; no old society with its thousand abuses to reform; no half-fed and untaught millions crying for food and guidance’. Accordingly, ‘The current affairs which her Government has to transact can seldom demand much more than average capacity.’50
As far as the tyranny of the majority was concerned, Mill praised Tocqueville’s argument as a proper analysis of American society, even though he doubted whether it could be applied to European nations, including Britain. In Mill’s view, the reason why the risk of the tyranny of the majority was greater in America than in Britain was that there was no leisured class in America. While Tocqueville argued that democratic government in general was apt to depend heavily on public opinion, and so its policy was much more hasty and short-sighted than that of an aristocracy,51 Mill denied that legislative and administrative instability was an essential feature of democracy. In so doing, Mill distinguished between the concept of delegation, under which the person elected had to follow the instructions of his electors to vote in certain ways, and that of
48 Tocqueville (1994) 263-70; JSM, ‘Tocqueville [1]’, CW, xviii, 85.
49 Tocqueville (1994) 197-9.
50 JSM, ‘Tocqueville [2]’, CW, xviii, 175. See also his comment: ‘the United States of America are a standing proof that under democratic ascendancy a country may be very well governed with a very small portion of talent.’ (JSM, ‘The British Constitution’ (19 May [?] 1826), CW, xxvi, 381-2.)
51 Tocqueville (1994) 202, 249 (legislative), 207-8 (administrative).
representation, under which he was not so bound:
The idea of a rational democracy is, not that the people themselves govern, but that they have security for good government. … Provided good intentions can be secured, the best government … must be the government of the wisest, and these must
always be a few. The people ought to be the masters, but they are masters who must employ servants more skilful than themselves.52
By the end of the 1820s, Mill had come to place emphasis on the role of elites in society.
It had led him to alter his attitude towards one element of the radical reform programme, namely the so-called pledge doctrine, a demand that the elected representative be bound by particular pledges made to those electing him to act in certain ways.53 Mill not only ceased to think that the pledge was a necessary element of radical reform, but also came positively to oppose it.54
Mill did not deny the need for constitutional checks on the exercise of power.
However, while many radicals argued that the pledge was vital in checking and limiting the power of governors, as any governing minority was apt to abuse power in support of their own sinister interest, Mill thought that the majority could neither recognise their true interest nor were capable of checking power by means of the pledge.55 In 1832 he stated that, ‘The true idea of popular representation is not that the people govern in their own persons, but that they choose their governors’, and, therefore, ‘The sovereignty of the people is essentially a delegated sovereignty. Government must be performed by the few, for the benefit of the many.’56
Joseph Hamburger states that ‘in 1835 [J. S. Mill] reverted to the orthodox Radical
52 JSM, ‘Tocqueville [1]’, CW, xviii, 71-2. This distinction was not Mill’s invention. It had a long history in the eighteenth century. (See Kelly (1984).)
53 Burns (1957) 36-8.
54 As early as October 1830, Mill had argued: ‘The true idea of a representative government is undoubtedly this, that the deputy is to legislate according to the best of his own judgement, and not according to the instructions of his constituents, or even to the opinion of the whole community.’ (JSM,
‘Prospects of France [4]’ (10 October 1830), CW, xxii, 150.)
55 Mill stated that the number of subscribers to the Examiner decreased due to the appearance of his articles on the pledge in the magazine. See JSM to Thomas Carlyle, 17 July 1832, CW, xii, 112-3; JSM, Autobiography, early draft, CW, i, 180.
56 JSM, ‘Pledges [1]’ (1 July 1832), CW, xxiii, 489.
position that justified pledges as a means of achieving a degree of popular control of a representative’,57 and refers to Mill’s essay ‘Rationale of Representation’, published in July 1835, as a new attempt to reconcile popular representation and government by the wisest few. Mill, however, made the same attempt as early as 1832. What Mill insisted on, both in 1832 and 1835, was that the pledge was undesirable under an ideal popular representation, despite being useful in the current situation.58 He did not cease to argue against the pledge in principle in 1835. In ‘Rationale of Representation’, he stated that a condition essential to good government was that ‘political questions be not decided by an appeal, either direct or indirect, to the judgement or will of an uninstructed mass, whether of gentlemen or of clowns; but by the deliberately-formed opinions of a comparatively few, specially educated for the task’.59
iv
Mill thought that Tocqueville’s account was full of insight and accepted most of his theses. Nevertheless, Mill thought that Tocqueville could not sufficiently distinguish between those factors which had to be attributed to the peculiarity of American society on the one hand, and those which were inherent in democracy and, therefore, applicable to other democratic nations on the other. It was this confusion which caused Mill’s disquiet, for he had been emphasizing the importance of the distinction between the influences attributable to political institutions and those attributable to social
peculiarities. Nevertheless, Mill’s high estimation of Democracy in America arose from the mode of argument which allowed Tocqueville to investigate both political and social affairs comprehensively in terms of a single concept, namely democracy. His later
57 Hamburger (1965) 98.
58 In ‘Tocqueville [1]’, Mill stated: ‘such a government, though better than most aristocracies, is not the kind of democracy which wise men desire’. (JSM, ‘Tocqueville [1]’, CW, xviii, 73.)
59 JSM, ‘Rationale of Representation’, CW, xviii, 23. In his article on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, Roebuck rebutted Mill’s emphasis on delegation. See Roebuck (1835) i, 20th pamphlet, 1-4. It should be noted, however, that, even though the pledge might be popular among radicals and their supporters, not all the Philosophic Radicals gave it such great importance as Roebuck. For instance, Francis Burdett, like J. S. Mill, explicitly opposed the pledge, and James Mill had less interest in it and gave priority to other programs, such as the extension of suffrage and secret ballot. See Thomas (1979) 142, 215-6.
criticism of Tocqueville focused not on the comprehensiveness of the concept, but on the lack of a causal foundation for it. In Mill’s view, it was not ‘democracy’, but
‘civilization’, which could be scientifically grounded.
6. J. S. Mill’s Analysis of American Society