On Tocqueville and the Neglect of Self-Governance

Resolved, That it be as follows:

Section 1. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French author of Democracy in America, is recognized for the keen accuracy of his observations regarding American democratic life.

Section 2. Tocqueville observed that Americans were proud of their democracy, in which every man in every town had a direct say in his local town council. He also observed that the rule of the majority tended to produce a quiet individualism or soft acquiescence to the popular will, wherein citizens would neglect the eternal connection between the public and the private.

Section 3. Citizens made either a tacit or explicit contract for government to govern popularly as long as it left them quietly alone. The great sin of this commission is the failure to understand that the private and the public are inherently interconnected, and that the peace secured by a duty to the public can never be taken carelessly for granted as if it demands no individual concern.

Section 4. The duty to put forth a solution to this neglect is upon this association, and it is this association's pledge and motion to harbor that skill.