“LIBERTY AND DEFENSE: LINCOLN VS. TOCQUEVILLE”
by
Lisa Piergallini
Master of Arts in Political Science
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Paper presented at the Wepner Symposium on the Lincoln Legacy and Contemporary
Scholarship, University of Illinois at Springfield
October 19-20, 2012
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Introduction
There was a question which haunted Abraham Lincoln throughout the course of his
career, a question which involved the dilemma of discovering a way in which freedom and force
may coexist harmoniously. In his words: “it has long been a grave question whether any
government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its
own existence in great emergencies” (Lincoln 2001, 763). Faced with the responsibility of
preserving a Union against internal rebellion, and equally dedicated to the idea that liberty is the
foundation of the nation, Lincoln found himself in a conundrum. He was pressed to engage in a
military campaign on American soil against those he called his countrymen, upon the same land
which once pledged itself to the principle that “all men are created equal” and to the ideal that
everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, he found himself torn
between wanting to prove his forces strong enough to quell the rebellion and preserve the Union,
and wanting to remain tame enough to preserve these essential liberties for all Americans.
Philosophically, this quandary can be applied to all free nations in any time period, and in
the years prior to Lincoln’s presidency, Alexis de Tocqueville addressed this same question
indirectly--though, oddly, he provided a more direct solution. I believe a look at Lincoln’s
thoughts on the subject viewed in light of Tocqueville’s assessment of the balance between force
and liberty--as well as Tocqueville’s belief that the sources of contention also proved to be the
sources for resolution--will provide a more complete understanding of both thinkers. While they
differed on certain aspects of their assessments, including military necessity versus the sanctity
of certain rights, it can be said that Lincoln and Tocqueville shared the view that free institutions
of government combined with an active political spirit of the people offered the most secure
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guard against becoming too strong, while concomitantly maintaining assurance against becoming
too weak.
Tocqueville spent more time analyzing the broader concepts involved, so I will begin
with his take on this uniquely challenging question. I will first present an overview of the basic
characteristics of American society which, in Tocqueville’s view, formed the various roots of the
problem at hand. I will then expand on Lincoln’s own grappling with the “grave question,” and
will then proceed to explore more in depth the differences and similarities between Tocqueville
and Lincoln’s considerations of the topic. Finally, I will conclude with an analysis of their
proposed solutions to the problem of balancing force and liberty within a democratic society.
Sources of the Problem, According to Tocqueville
For Tocqueville, the burden of striking a balance between force and liberty rested with
the citizens of a democracy and in their procurement of proper mores. For Tocqueville, the
problem arises when the people lose the essence of their political and military spirit by becoming
so engrossed in other interests that they either forget or ignore the fact that liberties must be
actively defended. The trouble springs from certain intrinsic flaws in societies of equality, flaws
which include: individualism, an exaggerated love of materialism and well-being, and an
aversion toward disorder. Tocqueville urged, however, that such flaws are correctible through
political institutions as well as through the same citizenry which originally gives rise to these
very weaknesses. Before these solutions are revealed, however, the flaws themselves must first
be fully understood.
For Tocqueville, the term individualism referred to the instinct of the democratic citizen
which compelled him to turn “all his sentiments toward himself alone” (Tocqueville 2000, 482).
“When conditions are equal,” Tocqueville explained, “each man willingly isolates himself within
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himself and forgets the public” (ibid, 611). Individualism thus weakened the united front against
tyranny and left a door open for despotism; the result was a society full of citizens turned into
themselves and against their compatriots and their country. The society thereby became too weak
to defend itself and its liberties, and would ultimately be defenseless against a despotic invasion.
Another, related instinct which drew democratic citizens away from the life of civil association
involved their ever-anxious pursuit of material enjoyments. “Love of well-being has become the
national and dominant taste” in America, Tocqueville described (ibid, 507). The fault here was
the way it absorbed men entirely in the search for such enjoyments and they way it left them
indifferent or nearly blind to all else. Such a fervent pursuit of material well-being “softens
[these citizens] and in the end quietly loosens all their tensions,” Tocqueville noted (ibid, 509).
This “softness” Tocqueville spoke of refers to the tendency of such citizens to disengage
themselves from the political arena. These citizens associated political affairs with disorder,
Tocqueville explained, and they thus deemed it to be a mere distraction from their industrial
pursuits. Yet this tendency ignored the fact that “men of democratic times need to be free in
order to procure more easily for themselves the material enjoyments for which they constantly
sigh” (ibid, 515). And when these citizens dismissed politics altogether, “the place of
government is [left] almost empty” (ibid, 516). Tocqueville warned that “if at this crucial
moment, an ambitious, able man comes to take possession of power, he finds the way open to
every usurpation” (ibid). This vulnerability to despotism thus arose when citizens “believe that
they are following the doctrine of interest,” but when in actuality “they have only a coarse idea
of it” (ibid, 515). In watching “better over what they call their affairs, they neglect the principle
one, which is to remain masters of themselves” (ibid). In other words, if one feverishly puts all
his efforts into materialism alone, the very freedom which permitted this pursuit will likely be
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lost. If democratic citizens passively allow their political rights to atrophy, the next man with
despotic aspirations will find an easy entry into their government--and over their liberty.
Just as this type of crude materialism drew citizens away from politics because of the
distraction it presented, it likewise instilled in them a general distaste for societal disorder. This
aversion toward disorder arose from the wealth and property which naturally resulted from an era
of equality. As “most of those who inhabit democratic countries are property owners,”
Tocqueville remarked, they also “are naturally enemies of violent movements” (ibid, 607).
Tocqueville apprehended that a citizenry overly concerned with order will in the end “become
almost inaccessible to those great and powerful public emotions that trouble peoples, but develop
and renew them” (ibid, 616). This followed Thomas Jefferson’s famous declaration that “the tree
of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” (Patterson
1953, 150).
Tocqueville lamented that “when I see property become so mobile and love of property
so anxious and so ardent, I cannot prevent myself from fearing that men...will altogether refuse
to move for fear that they will be carried away” (Tocqueville 2000, 616). Thus, Tocqueville
warned, a penchant for stability, taken in its extreme, may in fact suffocate the political spirit and
fiery patriotism which on the one hand may lead to bloody conflicts, but which on the other
pushes society forward to new and greater things. A society which upholds a primacy of order
may therefore become its own worst enemy. As citizens shy more and more away from
disruption of any kind, they develop the habit of weakness and pacifism which will ultimately
render them incapable of defending themselves when they find they either need or desire a call to
action.
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In addition to withering the political spirit, Tocqueville cautioned that “all these causes
unit to extinguish the military spirit” in a society as well (ibid, 617). He thus encouraged that,
“whatever taste these nations may have for peace, they must keep themselves ready to repel war,
or in other wards, they must have an army” (ibid). Yet, as Tocqueville reminded us, “men who
live in democratic countries do not naturally have a military spirit,” and so this willingness to
defend one’s nation must be fostered in other ways (ibid, 634, emphasis added). If this is not
done--if a society is not willing to take up arms for its own defense--it is destined to watch its
liberties and its cherished lifestyle slip away forever through its own enfeebled fingers.
Lincoln’s “Grave Question”
As stated, Lincoln proclaimed that “it has long been a grave question whether any
government, not too strong for the liberties of its people, can be strong enough to maintain its
own existence in great emergencies” (Lincoln 2001, 763). This “grave question” regarding force
and liberty was addressed not simply to the United States and did not refer merely to the present
great emergency of the Civil War; rather, it was addressed to all the world and all the ages. It
was a question Lincoln clearly wrestled with throughout his career, for at the beginning of his
presidency he presented a very similar concern. Lincoln insisted that the imminent threat of Civil
War in America
embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of
men the question, whether a constitutional republic, or democracy--a Government of
the people by the same people--can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against
its own domestic foes. It presents the question, whether discontented
individuals...[can] break up their Government, and thus practically put an end to free
government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: “Is there, in all republics, this inherent
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and fatal weakness?” “Must a Government, of necessity, be too strong for the
liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?” (ibid., 598).
In order to establish a firm answer to this question, a nation of the people would have to
concretely prove that it could be strong enough to protect itself and its principles against a
present danger, and in doing so it would have to tread lightly enough so as to not trample
upon the liberties of its own citizens who make up the government. The problem, therefore,
involved a double-edged threat to the existence of such a government--the threat of too much
force, and the threat of too much liberty (both of which served to kill the opposite quality).
In Lincoln’s view, the Civil War provided a concrete test for this question. In
America’s “experiment” of popular government, Lincoln recalled that “two points...have
already [been] settled--the successful establishing and the successful administering of it,” yet
“one still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to
overthrow it” (ibid, 608). For Lincoln, the Civil War was the United States’ chance to
establish, once and for all, this successful maintenance; if a citizenry with a popular
government could prove strong enough to overcome an internal rebellion, and emerge with
its basic liberties intact, then the experiment had survived its latest (and perhaps final)
challenge. Walking that precarious balance between force and liberty would therefore
necessarily be the key.
Necessities of War vs. Sacred Liberties
Clearly, Lincoln was acutely aware of the tenuous balance between force and liberty.
Yet Lincoln has often been criticized, in his own day and beyond, for expanding executive
power and for violating individual rights. His recurrent defense against such attacks was an
invocation of the Constitution’s provision for necessities of war; yet it was his very
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acknowledgement of such rights--and how his own actions as president potentially threatened
them--which secured their permanency. The fact that he struggled with the “grave question”
at all pointed to his dire concern for the protection of these rights. His trepidation for
violating the individual rights preserved by the Constitution was his bow to their supremacy.
He thus referred to the Constitution and discovered within it the means and measures
it offered for preserving itself. In defending, for example, his suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus and impairment of trial by jury, Lincoln referenced the Constitution directly
and urged that “I, too, am devotedly for [these rights] after civil war, and before civil war,
and at all times ‘except when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require’
their suspension” (ibid, 700). The Constitution therefore distinguished between public safety
in times of peace and times of war, and Lincoln took heed. With Constitutional backing,
Lincoln deemed war as necessitating certain measures which during times of peace would be
considered an invasion of rights--the necessity being that the fate of the Union (and free
government in general) rested upon such measures.
Yet, even early on, Lincoln remained highly trepidatious about stepping into that
dangerous ground of restricting rights. He was particularly cautious about invoking necessity
as such for justification of illiberal actions. In a reply to Stephen Douglas, Lincoln
denounced the claim that necessity was a valid excuse for the continued existence of slavery.
“The argument of ‘Necessity’ was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery,”
Lincoln criticized, and was therefore “a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity, we forget right-that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere” (ibid, 313). This was not hypocrisy,
but rather an underscore to the weight Lincoln placed on the argument for war necessities.
Because war raised the stakes (i.e., the very existence of the nation), more severe steps were
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warranted; a mere desire for prosperity (such as that offered by slavery), on the other hand,
could not be justified by necessity alone.
It sometimes appears as if Lincoln were attempting to convince himself as much as
his critics of the legitimacy of his defense of military necessity. He conceded that,
“thoroughly imbued with a reverence for the guaranteed rights of individuals, I was slow to
adopt the strong measures which by degrees I have been forced to regard as being within the
exceptions of the Constitution, and as indispensable to the public safety” (ibid, 702).
Nonetheless, he stood by his actions and continued to justify his temporary suspension of
rights as necessary measures. “Under cover of ‘liberty of speech’...[and] ‘liberty of the
press,’” he asserted, the enemy forces had “hoped to keep on foot among us a most efficient
corps of spies, informers, suppliers, and aiders and abettors of their cause in a thousand
ways” (ibid, 701). Thus, in Lincoln’s view, a greater evil was thwarted by the authorization
of a lesser one.
Tocqueville, however, would surely have been on the side of Lincoln’s critics in this
respect. Tocqueville denounced the notion of necessity altogether, claiming that when “one
becomes attached to the principle of social utility, one creates the dogma of political
necessity, and one willingly becomes accustomed to sacrificing particular interests without
scruple and to riding roughshod over individual rights” (Tocqueville 2000, 671). To
Tocqueville, freedom of the press, especially, was a sacred liberty, for “it alone cures most of
the ills that equality can produce” (ibid, 668). Freedom of the press allowed an oppressed
individual to appeal to the entire nation at once, and indeed it was his only means of doing
so. “Newspapers therefore become more necessary as men are more equal and individualism
more to be feared. It would diminish their importance to believe that they serve only to
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guarantee freedom; they maintain civilization,” Tocqueville insisted (ibid, 493). For
Tocqueville, freedom itself depended on the preservation of the right to a free press, and any
sacrifice of it therefore could not be justified.
Ambition and Armed Forces
While Tocqueville extolled freedom of the press as sacrosanct, conscription proved to
be a different story altogether. Lincoln begrudgingly implemented the draft, though he
staunchly defended it as being necessitated by the war (Lincoln 2001, 691). Conversely, in
what seems like an odd turn, Tocqueville dismissed the idea that a draft is a lamentable
wartime necessity which brought with it a heavy conscience. Tocqueville believed, rather,
that “democratic peoples are...soon led to renounce recruitment and to have recourse to
compulsory enlistment” (Tocqueville 2000, 623). For Tocqueville, the most obvious benefit
from “military service being compulsory [is that] the burden is shared indiscriminately and
equally by all citizens” (ibid). Another, less tangible advantage came in form of the mores of
the nation being infused into the armed forces--a notion that will be explored more fully in
the following sections.
While Tocqueville was generally more concerned with the lack of ambition in democratic
societies--or rather, by the presence of meager ambitions such as crude materialism--he
nevertheless paid heed to the problems which could potentially arise from too much military
ambition. Unlike their counterparts in aristocratic armies, there was no set caste for the
democratic soldier, and thus rank-elevation, Tocqueville affirmed, became a common goal
available to all involved. “In democratic armies,” he noted, “all soldiers can become officers,
which generalizes the desire for advancement and extends the limits of military ambition almost
to infinity” (ibid., 618). This created a universal desire for advancement, Tocqueville explained,
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and therefore a universal desire either for expansion of the armed forces or for war (which
naturally empties places of rank) (ibid, 619). Yet, expanding the armed forces was only a
temporary fix at best, for according to Tocqueville “the number of the ambitious is always
increased in exactly the same proportion as the army itself” (ibid, 622). Similarly, he pointed out,
though war may satisfy ambitious soldiers looking to rise in rank, it too harbors dangers. “There
is no long war that does not put freedom at great risk in a democratic country,” Tocqueville
acknowledged, somewhat prophetically (ibid, 621). If war “does not lead one to despotism
suddenly by violence, it leads to it mildly through habits” (ibid). It followed that “all those who
seek to destroy freedom within a democratic nation ought to know that the surest and shortest
means of succeeding at this is war” (ibid).
In this way, Tocqueville saw society as split between a civilian society lacking military
spirit on the one hand, and an armed forces longing for war on the other. “Thus we arrive at a
singular consequence,” Tocqueville expounded, “that of all armies those that desire war most
ardently are democratic armies, and that among peoples, those that love peace the most are
democratic peoples; and what serves to make the thing extraordinary is that equality produces
these contrary effects at the same time” (ibid, 619). One segment of society therefore resided in
the realm of potentially becoming too strong for liberties, while the other was left in the realm of
remaining too weak to defend itself in the presence of great emergencies.
Lincoln, too, was suspicious of ambition, though he considered it dangerous in times of
peace as well as war. Early in his career, Lincoln warned that individuals with the rare
combination of genius and ambition will not be satisfied with a mere seat in Congress, a
gubernatorial position, or even a presidential chair. “What!” he exclaimed, “think you these
places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never! Towering genius disdains a
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beaten path” (Lincoln 2001, 83). Lincoln cautioned that men “possessed of [this] loftiest genius
coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up
among us,” and it was therefore necessary to construct some form of defense against these
potentially dangerous individuals (ibid). Perhaps Lincoln saw a bit of this quality in himself, yet
was insightful enough to apprehend the risks involved. Lincoln therefore viewed ambitious
individuals as a potential threat to the nation’s liberties, for, in his words, such individuals will
strive for distinction “whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen”
(ibid).
Lincoln was keenly wary of such ambitious men in times of peace as well as in times of
strife. In fact, Lincoln criticized his own Union general for showing a dangerous degree of
ambition when this general suggested that “both the Army and the Government needed a
Dictator” (ibid, 693). “I much fear that this spirit which you have aided to infuse into the Army,”
Lincoln responded to General Hooker, for “neither you, nor Napoleon, if he were alive again,
could get any good out of an army, while such a spirit prevails in it” (ibid, 694).
Lincoln’s apprehension over top-down ambition (both in the military and out) therefore
contrasted with Tocqueville’s leeriness over the threats posed by bottom-up ambition within the
military, but coincided with Tocqueville’s greater concern over a democratic society losing the
will to fight. In the end, though, Lincoln’s “towering geniuses” were not especially threatening
for Tocqueville. If such individuals were to arise, Tocqueville reassured us that the power of
public opinion, combined with steadfast mores, would overcome his ambitions, however great.
“Men will [not] easily allow themselves to be rushed into taking risks by following an imprudent
chief,” Tocqueville affirmed (Tocqueville 2000, 610). Men of democratic mores instinctively
apply “their good sense to the leaps of his genius” (ibid, emphasis added). The key for
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Tocqueville was to keep the citizenry politically active, thus rendering men of “towering genius”
ineffective; Lincoln, as we will see, agreed that this spirit of a citizenry was essential for striking
a balance between force and liberty, and for guarding against ambitious and talented men
seeking dominance.
Solutions to the Problem: Free Institutions and Active Spirits
As Lincoln and Tocqueville were both champions of self-government, they far from
viewed this struggle between too much liberty and too much force as hopelessly unresolvable.
Rather, both indicated elements of government and society which yielded a steady balance, and
which existed to reinforce the required side should the nation start to tilt in one direction or the
other.
For Lincoln as well as Tocqueville, free institutions played a significant role in procuring
this balance. Lincoln, for instance, stressed the importance of maintaining regular elections. He
described the occurrence of the presidential election during the Civil War as a “severe test”--one
which was absolutely critical (Lincoln 2001, 763). “We can not have free government without
elections,” he affirmed, “and if the rebellion could force us to forego, or postpone a national
election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered and ruined us” (ibid, 763-4). Of course,
the election did take place and Lincoln was reelected. Seemingly more enthralled with
successfully upholding the election timeline than with his own stay in power, Lincoln praised the
event because it finally “demonstrated that a people’s government can sustain a national election
in the midst of a great civil war” (ibid, 764).
Tocqueville, too, applauded elections and free institutions. He explained how election
fervor “can momentarily bring certain men to make war on each other, but in the long term this
same desire brings all men to lend each other a mutual support” (Tocqueville 2000, 486) The
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desire to be elected compelled candidates to appeal to their fellow citizens, and in this way “the
Americans have combatted individualism to which equality gives birth with freedom and they
have defeated it” (ibid). “The free institutions that the inhabitants of the United States possess,”
Tocqueville added, “and the political rights of which they make so much use recall to each
citizen constantly and in a thousand ways that he lives in society” (ibid, 488). Tocqueville
similarly described how Americans combated individualism with the doctrine of self-interest
well understood. “With the aid of self-interest well understood,” he asserted, citizens of
democracies demonstrated how an “enlightened love of themselves constantly brings them to aid
each other and disposes them willingly to sacrifice a part of their time and their wealth to the
good of the state” (ibid, 502).
According to Danoff, Lincoln similarly employed a “Tocquevillian strategy of appealing
to self-interest property understood,” as made clear by his speech on the Dread Scott decision
(Danoff 2005, 694). In this speech, Lincoln insisted that the nation “be brought to believe that it
is morally right, and at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to
transfer the African back to his native clime” (Lincoln 2001, 364-5). As Danoff pointed out, it is
not Lincoln’s proposal for colonization that is most important here, but rather the connection he
made between morality and self-interest (Danoff 2005, 695).
While Lincoln and Tocqueville both appealed to self-interest, both also acknowledged
that it is not sufficient on its own for guarding liberties. Hence, Tocqueville warned of crass
materialism and Lincoln denounced the pro-slavery platform for its invocation of necessity
solely for prosperity purposes. For Lincoln, self-interest had to be elevated by the pillars of
morality and reason. Again, as Danoff noted, Lincoln drew a link between morality and interest
in his Dread Scott speech, stating that man’s “will springs from the two elements of moral sense
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and self-interest” (Danoff 2005, 694). Yet Lincoln also insisted that self-interest be buttressed by
calm, intelligent consideration. “Reason, cold, calculating, unimpressed reason,” he affirmed,
“must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense” (Lincoln 2001, 84). A society
united by “sober reason”--that is, by a reverence for the Constitution and its laws--would best be
able to uphold the society’s “temple of liberty” against attempted invasion of despotism or
anarchy (ibid, 84-5). This unity itself was important in its own right, for, as Lincoln famously
proclaimed, “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (ibid, 372).
In a similar vein, Tocqueville noted that political spirit and love of freedom are best when
united with a taste for material enjoyments. “Americans see in their freedom the best instrument
and the greatest guarantee for their well-being. They love these two things for each other”
(Tocqueville 2000, 517). Thus, Tocqueville concluded, Americans “do not think that meddling in
the public is not their affair; they believe, on the contrary, that their principle affair is to secure
themselves a government that permits them to acquire the goods they desire and that does not
prevent them from enjoying in peace those that they have acquired” (ibid). For Tocqueville, this
was the key to striking that perfect balance of force and liberty: free institutions combined with
an active citizenry. This would ensure that a people not become sluggish in their willingness to
defend their liberties and exercise their rights, which in turn would prevent despotic invasions.
Though Lincoln and Tocqueville disagreed over some components of the “grave
question,” such as necessity or the draft, Lincoln did agree with Tocqueville that political spirit is
generally required to prevent a society from slipping into the realm of becoming “too weak for
defense,” and from the inevitable, subsequent fall into becoming “too strong for liberties.”
Despite the Southern rebels’ penchant for claiming to be the defenders of popular sovereignty,
Lincoln continually chastised them for jeopardizing this very principle. Their “insurrection,” he
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insisted, “is largely, if not exclusively, a war upon the first principle of popular government--the
rights of the people” (Lincoln 2001, 632). Lincoln warned that the Southern cause embraced
elements of both monarchy as well as anarchy; for Lincoln, these were not at odds, for when
republican principles are rejected, “anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left” (ibid,
633; 585). In an earlier speech, Lincoln asserted that “what constitutes the bulwark of our own
liberty and independence” was not to be found in military prowess, but rather “in the love of
liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit
which prizes liberty...Destroy that spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism” (ibid,
473).
Despite each thinker’s distinct concerns over ambition within the armed forces, both
Lincoln and Tocqueville prized a uniquely strong military spirit in democratic societies as well.
In a speech meant to inspire troops, for instance, Lincoln called for the regiment to “rise up to the
height of a generation of men worthy of a free Government” (ibid, 756). In a similar speech, he
sought to motivate soldiers by declaring that this “nation is worth fighting for,” and that it is
essential to perpetuate and “to secure such an inestimable jewel” as our “great and free
government” (ibid, 756-7). Likewise, Tocqueville contended that military spirit should not be
suppressed, but instead should be to be allowed to flourish even in light of the ambitions it gives
rise to. “It is not in the army that the remedy for the vices of the army can be encountered,”
Tocqueville maintained, “but in the country” (Tocqueville 2000, 622). “The general spirit of the
nation,” he affirmed, “penetrating the particular spirit of the army, tempers the opinions and
desires that the military state gives rise to” (ibid). This was done when citizens, who embrace a
love of freedom and political association, “enter the career of the arms [and] bring these habits
and mores to it without their knowing it and almost despite themselves” (ibid).
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In this way, democratic citizens turned out to be the best soldiers as well as the best
citizens; for both, their love of freedom and rights enabled them to find that particular and
elusive balance between too much force and too much freedom. They recognized their own stake
in securing the liberties of their nation, and thereby would refuse to become lackadaisical in their
defense. At the same time, however, their ingrained mores would temper their own ambitions
and thus guard them from becoming too strong for the liberties they treasured so dearly. While
Lincoln himself never verbalized this sort of succinct remedy, as Tocqueville did, and perhaps
was left struggling for a precise answer, it seems that he would have agreed with Tocqueville’s
overall solution to the problem of his own grave question--that is, that free institutions and an
active political and military spirit in a democratic citizenry will best be able to strike that everprecarious balance among defense, liberty, and the defense of liberty.
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REFERENCES
Danoff, Brian. 2005. “Lincoln and Tocqueville on Democratic Leadership and Self-Interest
Properly Understood.” The Review of Politics, 67 (4): 687-719
Lincoln, Abraham. 2001. Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings. Ed. Roy P. Basler.
Cleveland: Da Capo Press
Patterson, Caleb Perry. 1953. The Constitutional Principles of Thomas Jefferson. Austin:
University of Texas Press
Tocqueville, Alexis de. 2000. Democracy in America. Eds. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba
Winthrop. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
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