Behold its streaming rays unite
One mingling flood of braided light,—
The red that fires the Southern rose,
With spotless white from Northern snows,
And, spangled o'er its azure, see
The sister Stars of Liberty!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
The blades of heroes fence it round;
Where'er it springs is holy ground;
From tower and dome its glories spread;
It waves where lonely sentries tread;
It makes the land as ocean free,
And plants an empire on the sea!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry Flower of Liberty!
Thy sacred leaves, fair Freedom's flower,
Shall ever float on dome and tower,
To all their heavenly colors true,
In blackening frost or crimson dew,—
And GOD love us as we love thee,
Thrice holy Flower of Liberty!
Then hail the banner of the free,
The starry FLOWER OF LIBERTY!
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.
The memory of Alexis de Tocqueville belongs scarcely less to America than to France. His book on "Democracy in America" was the foundation of his fame. As a successful investigation by a foreigner of the nature and working of institutions dissimilar from those of his own country, and in many essential respects different from any which were elsewhere established, it stands quite alone in political literature. It is still further remarkable as the work of a very young man. Its merits were at once acknowledged; and though twenty-six years have passed since it appeared, it has been superseded by no later work. The book has a double character, which has given to it an equal authority on both sides of the Atlantic. For while it is a profound and sagacious analysis of the spirit and methods of the American social and political system, it is intended at the same time—more, however, by implied than open comparison—to exhibit the relations of the principles established here to the development of modern society and government in France and elsewhere in Europe. It is a manual alike for the political theorist and the practical statesman; and whatever changes our institutions may undergo, its value will remain undiminished.
The volumes of Tocqueville's Inedited Works and Correspondence, with a Memoir by his friend M. Gustave de Beaumont, which have lately appeared in Paris, have, therefore, a special claim to the attention of American readers. Their intrinsic interest is great as illustrating the life and character not only of one of the most original and independent thinkers of this generation, but also of a man not less distinguished by the elevation and integrity of his character than by the power of his intellect. The race of such men has seemed of late years to be dying out in France. In the long list of her public characters during the past thirty years, there are few names which can share the honor with Tocqueville's of being those neither of apostates nor of schemers. Men who hold to their principles in the midst of revolutions, who for the sake of honor resist the temptations of power, who have faith in liberty and in progress even when their hopes are overthrown, are rare at all times and in all lands. "France no longer produces such men," said the Duke de Broglie, when he heard of Tocqueville's death.
No book has been published of more importance than this in its exhibition of the condition of thought and of society in France during recent years. None has given more convincing evidence of the suppression of intellectual liberty under the new Imperial rule. The reserves and the omissions to which M. de Beaumont has been forced in the performance of his work as editor display the oppressive nature of the censorship to which the writings of the most honest and superior men are liable, and the burdensome restraints by which such men are controlled and disheartened. M. de Beaumont's notice of the life of Tocqueville, and Tocqueville's own later correspondence, appear to a thoughtful reader as accusations against Imperial despotism, as protests against the wrongs from which freedom is now suffering in France. There is in them a pervading tone of sadness, and, here and there, an expression of bitterness of feeling, all the more effective for being conveyed in restrained and unimpassioned words. There is no place for such men as these in a system like that by which Louis Napoleon governs France. The men of strong character, of incorruptible integrity, of thoughtful moderation, and of fixed principles are more dangerous to the permanence of despotic rule than the Victor Hugos, the Ledru Rollins, or the Orsinis. It is the men with whom the love of liberty is founded upon intellectual and moral convictions, not those with whom it is a hot and reckless passion, that are the most to be feared by a ruler whose power is based on the ignorance, the fears, the selfish ambitions, and the material interests of the people whom he flatters and corrupts.
Tocqueville was born a thinker. His physical organization was delicate, but he had an energy of spirit which led him often to overtask his bodily forces in long-continued mental exertions. Without brilliancy of imagination and with little liveliness of fancy, he possessed the faculty of acute and discriminating observation, and early acquired the rare power of deep and continuous reflection. His mind was large and calm. The candor of his intellect was never stained by passion. He had not the faculties of an original discoverer in the domain of abstract truth, but, as an investigator of the causes of political and social conditions, of the relation between particular facts and general theories, of the influence of systems and institutions upon the life of communities, he has rarely been surpassed. His book on "Democracy in America," and still more his later work on "The Old Régime and the Revolution," display in a remarkable degree the union of philosophic insight and practical good sense, of clearness of thought and condensation of statement.
But, however great the value of his writings may be, a still greater value attaches to the character of the man himself, as it is displayed in these volumes. M. de Beaumont's brief and affectionate memoir of his friend, and Tocqueville's own letters, are not so much narratives of events as evidences of character. His life was, indeed, not marked with extraordinary incidents. It was the life of a man whose career was limited both by his own temperament and by the public circumstances of his times; of one who set more value upon ideas than upon events; who sought intellectual satisfactions and distinctions rather than personal advancement; who affected his contemporaries by his thought and his integrity of principle more than by power of commanding position or energy of resolute will. Although for many years in public life, he made little mark on public affairs. But his influence, though indirect, was perhaps not the less strong or permanent. The course of political affairs is in the long run greatly modified, if not completely guided, by the thinkers of a nation. Tocqueville's convictions kept him for the most part in opposition to the successive governments of France during the period of his public life. But his reputation and the weight of his authority are continually increasing, and of the Frenchmen of the last generation few have done so much as he to extend by his writings the knowledge, and to strengthen by his example the love of those principles by which liberty is maintained and secured, and upon which the real advancement of society depends. The leading facts of his life may be briefly told.
Born in 1805, at Paris, of an old and honorable family, his early years were passed at home. As a youth, he was for some time at the college of Metz; but his education was irregular, and he was not distinguished for scholarship. In 1826 and 1827 he travelled with one of his brothers in Italy and Sicily, and on his return to France was attached to the Court of Justice at Versailles, where his father, the Count de Tocqueville, was then Prefect, in the quality of Juge-Auditeur, an office to which there is none correspondent in our courts. It was at this time that his friendship with M. Gustave de Beaumont began.