As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, for centuries a constant theme of reformers
and philosophers was the importance of owning capital to be able to participate
fully in society as a “political animal,” i.e., an individual with
rights and a social nature. The problem
was that methods of finance virtually dictated that ownership of capital would
be concentrated, unless a source of “free” capital became available — which in
Europe was all-but impossible.
As a result, some
reformers began asserting that the only way capital could benefit everyone was
to abolish private ownership of capital.
Only in America was there capital available for the taking, if one
ignores the claims of native Americans, anyway.
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| Frederick Jackson Turner |
From the beginning,
America represented an alternative to the closed and increasingly stratified
society of Europe. Historian Frederick
Jackson Turner (1861-1932) credited this to the existence of a land frontier,
open to anyone who was willing to take advantage of it. This economic democracy provided the soundest
foundation for political democracy — while it lasted. As Turner said, “So long as free land exists, the
opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political
power.” (Frederick Jackson Turner,
“XVIII. — The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for the Year 1893.
Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1894, 223.)
Pius VII was
favorably disposed toward American type liberalism and democracy. His protégé
Pius IX, in common with almost every subsequent pope, praised the U.S.
Constitution. (Heinrich A. Rommen, The State in
Catholic Thought: A Treatise in Political Philosophy. St. Louis, Missouri:
B. Herder Book Co., 1947, 481.) Nor is this surprising when considering
the system in the United States.
American type liberalism and democracy were founded on respect for the
dignity and sovereignty of each human person.
The fact of
slavery and the treatment of native peoples, while intolerable, in no way
detract from the importance of America.
Rather, they serve to illustrate in the most graphic manner possible
that, at best, human institutions are applications of divine principles. They are perfectible but can never be perfect.
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| Pope Leo XIII |
It is this acknowledgment
that the applied American system can be made “more perfect” combined with its
recognition of the dignity and sovereignty of each human person that have
commended “Americanism” — properly understood — to the popes. As Leo XIII noted,
[W]e have often considered and
admired the noble gifts of your nation which enable the American people to be
alive to every good work which promotes the good of humanity and the splendor
of civilization. . . . if by [Americanism] are to be understood certain
endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other
characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is
designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are
governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name. (Testem Benevolentiae, §§ 1, 33.)
Specific reasons
for papal approbation can be found in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. Established on an explicit acknowledgment of
the sovereignty of the human person, the American system was inherently
respectful of human dignity. This was
not an “add on,” but embedded in the very nature of America.
Coming to the
United States from France at a time when the French “July Monarchy” was in
power, Alexis de Tocqueville was familiar with a society in which traditional
forms of religion and politics were not only being questioned, they were in
many cases under open attack. This was
the heyday of Saint-Simonianism and the church established to spread
Saint-Simon’s gospel of the New Christianity, the Neo-Catholicism of de
Lamennais, and a seemingly endless host of others. All of these attempted to apply totalitarian,
European type liberalism to the problems caused by advancing technology, the
displacement of labor, and the consequent alienation of ordinary people from
both civil and religious society.
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| William Cobbett |
De Tocqueville
visited England before coming to America.
He was able to observe first-hand the progress European type liberalism
was making at that time against elitist English type liberalism, although the
Oxford Movement had not yet begun to highlight the problem.
Cobbett, whom
Chesterton called “a sort of Radical,” (G.K.
Chesterton, William Cobbett. London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, 1925,
72.) might have puzzled de Tocqueville somewhat. Although a Radical, Cobbett’s notion of
liberalism was American rather than European or English. He advocated widespread capital ownership. A member of the Established Church of
England, he demanded civil rights for Catholics without lapsing into
latitudinarianism.
In America, de
Tocqueville received a revelation. He
had gone there to study the prison system.
He stayed to gather material to bring an understanding of this
remarkable person-centered liberalism back to its antithesis in France where
the collective, not the human person, was sovereign. As he said,
In America the principle of the
sovereignty of the people is neither barren nor concealed, as it is with some
other nations; it is recognized by the customs and proclaimed by the laws; it
spreads freely, and arrives without impediment at the most remote
consequences. If there is a country in
the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly
appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the affairs of
society, and where its dangers and its advantages may be judged, that country
is assuredly America. (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I.iv.)
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| G.K. Chesterton |
Socialism and
thus modernism — as Chesterton noted, two sides of the same coin (G.K. Chesterton, “There Was a Socialist,” G.K.’s Weekly, May 10, 1930; cf. Ubi Arcano, § 61.) — had not yet made any significant inroads in
America beyond an extremely limited circle, primarily among New England
intellectuals. In any event, de
Tocqueville was not interested in transplanted European utopias, but in the
essence of the America Experiment.
Another surprise
for de Tocqueville was the place of religion in public life and the character
of the various denominations, especially Catholicism. In France the Church was struggling to
reestablish its identity in a society in which Gallicanism, religious
indifferentism, and socialism as a substitute for Christianity were
rampant. In the United Kingdom the
Church of England faced similar problems.
The case was
otherwise in America. As de Tocqueville
recalled,
On my arrival in the United
States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my
attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great
political consequences resulting from this new state of things. In France I had almost always seen the spirit
of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately
united and that they reigned in common over the same country. (De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, I.xvii.)
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| Alexis de Tocqueville |
De Tocqueville
concluded that of all the different denominations of Christianity, Catholicism
is the most favorable to democracy. According
to de Tocqueville, Protestantism stresses independence of religious experience,
cutting people off from one another, while Catholicism stresses equality before
God, bringing them together in solidarity in a system of shared beliefs. (Ibid.)
He went so far as to predict that in the future, in America and elsewhere,
Christians would either become Catholics, or abandon Christianity altogether. (Ibid., II.vi.)
Pius IX may have
read Democracy in America, as the
reforms he attempted to implement at the beginning of his pontificate were of
the American type of liberalism. Returning
the compliment, de Tocqueville as Foreign Secretary of the brief Second French
Republic defended the pope’s inability to implement further reforms the French
liberals and radicals demanded as the price of restoring Pius IX. (Tocqueville, The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, op. cit., 314-315.)
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| Pope Pius XI |
It was, however,
with Pius XI that de Tocqueville’s analysis truly resonated. In de Tocqueville’s description of how in the
1830s Americans tended to organize for the common good at every opportunity the
pope saw an application of his social doctrine. (De Tocqueville, Democracy in
America, I.xii.)
Possibly
unconsciously, Pius XI even echoed de Tocqueville’s language. Where de Tocqueville stated his belief that
“[a] new science of politics is needed for a new world” (Ibid., “Author’s Introduction.”), Pius XI declared, “The pastoral
theology of another day will no longer suffice.” (Pius XI, Discourse to the
Ecclesiastical Assistants of the U.C.F.I., July 19, 1928. Quoted in Luigi
Civardi, Manual of Catholic Action,
New York: Sheed and Ward, 1936; p. 178.)
Unfortunately, as
de Tocqueville predicted, the failure to resolve the slavery issue was, within
a generation, to tear the United States apart in a fratricidal war. Leading up to that, changes were introduced
into the American system that made the intrusion of antithetical European
concepts of liberalism and democracy possible.
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