Tocqueville Analysis

Tocqueville created a rather lovely image of what townships were like back in the 1800s. He gives us a deep look into what townships were like back then and even tells us of its origins. He paints a rather rosy picture of involvement and the livelihood of how townships operated. By looking at how Tocqueville saw townships in his day and age, we can use it to compare how townships look in today’s day and age.
Tocqueville counts Plymouth, New York as the where the origins of the township system were created. When people got here they knew they needed some type of government and they decided to pick their leaders as a whole. They also voted on laws to be enacted. Most of the laws were religious laws or laws that would separate out land. Most of the religious laws were taken right out of the bible and used them to help them set up their basic government. They also figured that religion would …show more content…
As discussed above the federal government was really accountable to the grassroots of the country, it was the townships that made the real difference. Tocqueville was worried that this would create more than just disagreements in Congress. In de-centralizing the government you were losing security in the process of gaining public engagement. Tocqueville does not think that in the long run it will work. Again, as I said before, America at the time was very homogenous and had, if not the same than close to, the same culture. “For my part, I cannot conceive that a nation can live or above all prosper without strong governmental centralization” (CH. 5 – pg. 98) He did see that citizens could be more effective in other places that the federal government could ever be, for instance welfare. “Citizens will always have more power to produce social welfare than the authority of the government.”(CH. 5 – pg. 85) He still thought though that it was dangerous to not have the power more