The Aristocrats of Freedom

The National Broadcasting Company, in conjunction with the Fund for Adult Education, presents Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. When the American people are intoxicated by passion or carried away by the impetuousity of their ideas, they are checked and stopped by the almost invisible influence of their legal counsellors.

No years in America are the most powerful existing security against the excesses of democracy. If I were asked where I placed the American aristocracy, I should reply without hesitation that it is not among the rich.

We have no common tie, but that it occupies the judicial bench and bar. The Aristocrats of Democracy A study in American Law and Lawyers Item 12 in the series Democracy in America prepared by the division of general education of New York University, under the direction of George Probst, American historian.

A series designed to bring to life the America of the 1830s, as recorded by Alexis de Tocqueville, and so to illuminate the image of democracy itself. A study in American law and lawyers, the aristocrats of democracy.

When Bummo and I visited America in 1831, We were much impressed by the influence of lawyers in public life. For, of course, the government of democracy is favorable to the political power of lawyers. For when the wealthy, the noble, and the king are excluded from the government, the lawyers take possession of it in their own right, as it were, since they are the only men of information

and sagacity that the people can choose. Walter, will you feel that the lawyers are always on the side of order? Lawyers, boom, aren't afraid of tyranny. What they don't like is arbitrary power. Also, lawyers are trained to rely on precedence.