.

             Tocqueville admits that the aims and functions of religion and politics seem at odds with each other: ".in the moral world everything is classified, coordinated, anticipated, decided in advance. In the political world everything is agitated, contested, uncertain; in the one, passive obedience, although voluntary; in the other independence, contempt for experience, and jealousy of all authority" (32). Somehow, he points out, in America the two tendencies do not damage each other. For example, the Puritans saw wealth as an instrument for doing good and implementing God's will, and so they voted to tax themselves. Religion and politics worked together in harmony and supported each other. According to Tocqueville, religion views civil liberty as the will of God, while political liberty sees in religion "the divine source of its rights" (32). In a sense, he sees the success of American democracy and self-government as resting on the moral stature and purity of its very religious founders, "who brought with them admirable elements of order and morality" (20). .

             Tocqueville also argues that long before the Revolution, self-government at local levels was already the norm in America. Colonial Americans were already accustomed to voting for people to represent their interests. At the municipal level, or the most local level, they were already practicing true democracy in which individuals gathered, debated their issues, and voted on actions to be taken. They had already voted many times to tax themselves. Thus, democracy was not new in 1776. It had been practiced since 1620 when the Mayflower arrived, a time span of 150 years. Americans had had plenty of time to evaluate democracy as a practical form of government. Moreover, they had achieved equality, at least, economically. Tocqueville states that among the colonialists, particularly in New England, there were no rich and no poor.