The Absence of Administrative Centralization

Key Insight

Governmental centralization exists in the United States, allowing the majority to exercise its sovereign wishes, but administrative centralization is virtually unknown. If the ruling power possessed both the right to issue orders and the capability and habit of carrying them out, regulating not only major interests but also individual details, then liberty would swiftly be banished from the New World. Although the majority may exhibit despotic tendencies, the most advanced instruments of tyranny remain absent due to this fundamental distinction.

The central government has never sought to regulate minor social matters, nor has it aspired to. The majority, despite its increasing absoluteness, has not expanded the prerogatives of central power; it only made that power omnipotent within its designated sphere. This means despotism, while potentially oppressive in one aspect, cannot be oppressive universally. The central government must rely on town and county officials for execution, many of whom do not report to it and whose actions it cannot constantly oversee.

These municipal and county administrations function as 'hidden reefs,' turning back or dividing the tide of popular will. Even if a law were oppressive, liberty would find safe haven in its execution, as the majority cannot concern itself with administrative details or 'childish whims.' A democratic republic established in a country with pre-existing administrative centralization, absorbed by custom and law, would lead to a despotism more intolerable than any European absolute monarchy, comparable only to Asia.