This is Part III in a series on Tocqueville’s idea of the “township” in his classic work Democracy in America. For Parts I and II, click here and here.
We’ve considered the ways in which a township serves as a potent microcosm of cultural mores, beliefs, and habits. We’ve considered the township’s educational function, the ways in which it fosters a prudential citizenry. Now we’ll consider both the power and the danger of national political action, in regards to the life of local communities.
We start by loving our hometowns, but we should never stop there. We should not neglect to vote for Senators, Representatives, and presidents just because we are regularly voting for our town’s mayors and council members. The ironic, even tragic, thing is that in our own day and age, we neglect the latter and focus only on the former. Tocqueville suggests that the prudent voter should care first about their town councilmembers and mayors, and only then begin to consider the workings of state and national politics.
It is not that Tocqueville is opposed to a strong national government, or a nationally focused citizenry. Indeed, he suggests that townships, in order to persist, “must have reached their fullest development and be mingled with national ideas and habits.” The growth of social capital and vibrant civil associations depends on a certain degree of reciprocity between the nation and the locality. The township must relate actively, must “mingle,” as he puts it, with national ideas and habits. As they educate their citizenry and cultivate prudence, local communities contribute to the life and wellbeing of democracy as a whole. National governmental entities, in their turn, have a responsibility to the wellbeing of their townships, and play an important role in promoting and safeguarding the justice, freedom, and wellbeing each township needs.
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