Kevin Butterfield, The Making of Tocqueville’s America: Law and Association in the Early United States

Abstract

In The Making of Tocqueville’s America, Kevin Butterfield draws our attention to the fact that the founding generation feared unchecked private governance just as much as it feared unchecked federal power. Rather than viewing civic associations simply as bastions of freedom protecting individuals from a potentially tyrannical state, early Americans worried about the power associations wielded over members and feared the ways they might trample the liberty interests of their members, both socially—such as by blackballing them from respectable society—and more importantly, politically, such as by controlling their votes. The book’s chapters are peppered with stories of civic associations endeavoring to sully the reputations of members who have fallen out of grace. Readers are encouraged to sympathize with the plight of a nineteen-year-old member of the Uranian Society, John Peter Van Ness—future mayor of Washington, DC—who was expelled from his political debate society, ostensibly for his repeated unexcused absences. Van Ness’s colorful response—holding the club’s books ransom—generates, in turn, a lengthy newspaper debate with his former associates about the duties and perils of formal associations. Readers are similarly introduced to the rivalry between two Philadelphia newspapermen of Irish descent, William Duane and John Binns, only to learn how it culminated in both public controversy and litigation after Duane successfully had Binns expelled from four associations, including the St. Patrick Benevolent Society.