When Tocqueville visited America, Andrew Jackson was President. Humbler instances of its influence abound for example, the name for the most generous category of giver to The United Way is the “Alexis de Tocqueville Society”. Democracy in America is now widely studied in America universities, and it has been quoted by Presidents, Supreme Court Justices, and Congressmen. Unlike most of the others, however, the book Tocqueville wrote has proved over the years to be a lasting source of information and insight into both America and democracy. Part of A Long TraditionĪlexis de Tocqueville is part of a long tradition of well-educated Europeans who traveled to America and published books or diaries about their experiences in the “new” world. “I confess,” he wrote, “that in America I saw more than America I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in order to learn what we have to fear or hope from its progress.” This feature examines Tocqueville’s argument that the “great democratic revolution” is inevitable and irresistible. And this belief is what motivated his deep interest in America, for his visit convinced him that America had achieved in a peaceful and natural way almost complete “equality of conditions.” By understanding America, he thought that we could not only understand what democracy means, but in a way even glimpse the world’s future. There we learn that although Tocqueville was an aristocrat, he believed that the world was undergoing a “great democratic revolution,” that it is inevitably and irreversibly becoming more and more democratic. The reason for Tocqueville’s interest in these themes is explained in a general Introduction to the whole work. Volume One describes and analyzes American conditions and political institutions, while Volume Two examines the effect of American democracy on what we would call culture (literature, economics, the family, religion, etc.).
This great book remains arguably one of the two most important books on America political life, the Federalist Papers being the other one.ĭemocracy in America is a large book in two volumes (published five years apart, in 18). Tocqueville’s sojourn in America did lead to the writing of a book on the American penal system, but its much more important result was the reflection on equality and freedom known as Democracy in America. Throughout, he spoke to Americans of every rank and profession, including two presidents and Charles Carroll, the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. He visited the bustling Eastern cities, explored the wilderness on the northwestern frontier, and had several adventures on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. He spent nine months criss-crossing the young country, traveling mostly by steamboat, but also sometimes on horseback and by foot. Alexis de Tocqueville’s official purpose was to study the American penal system, but his real interest was America herself. In 1831 an ambitious and unusually perceptive twenty-five-year-old French aristocrat visited the United States. Throughout, students are challenged to draw analogies between Tocqueville’s statements and their own experience and knowledge. In the third lesson, students confront and evaluate Tocqueville’s most shocking claim-that there is less freedom of discussion and independence of mind in America than in Europe with negative consequences for American character and culture. In the second lesson students consider the argument that unchecked political power will lead to tyranny. The first lesson introduces students to Tocqueville’s thesis about the omnipotence, i.e., the all power character of majority opinion in a democracy and his way of developing an argument through well-chosen historical examples. In Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 7, “ Of the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects,” he lays out his argument with a variety of well-chosen constitutional, historical, and sociological examples. The greatest danger Tocqueville saw was that public opinion would become an all-powerful force, and that the majority could tyrannize unpopular minorities and marginal individuals. In the introduction to Democracy, he states: “In America, I saw more than America… I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions.” His subject is nothing less than what is to be hoped for, and what to be feared from, the democratic revolution sweeping the Western world in his time. While historians have viewed Democracy as a rich source about the age of Andrew Jackson, Tocqueville was more of a political thinker than a historian. Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville is universally regarded as one of the most influential books ever written about America.
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