In Alexis de Toqueville's, “Selected Quotations”, she makes claims about what America is or isn’t. She states, “in order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates”. Therefore, when a nation is offered liberty, some individuals will use this liberty to create evil for the nation. This is much like the common saying, “Give them an inch and they’ll take a yard”. She also says that colonists misuse the liberty in voting. "A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it”. Irresponsible voting and tax-paying leads to many cracks in the foundation for America. However, “The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults”.
“Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people”. However there is a key fault in this logic because Toqueville, just stated people vote frivolously and therefore laws could quite possibly be enacted by the democratic government which was lacking in manners.
Toqueville also states, “The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live”. However, the Enlightenment was an anti-Christian movement towards liberty and democratic government. This simply cannot happen because Christianity cannot be for liberty and against liberty at the same time.
Was Christianity for or against liberty?
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