Democracy in America

• 1. The Journey To America

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  Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont arrived in New York City during May of 1831. The French government had officially sent them to study the American prison system for a report on penitentiary reform. Tocqueville later wrote letters indicating that this official mission served as a pretext for their true goal. They spent nine months traveling across the United States while collecting information on its religious, political, and economic character. Their journey included brief visits to Canada during the summer of 1831. They stayed in what was then Lower Canada and Upper Canada before returning to France in February 1832. The pair submitted their formal report on the penitentiary system the following year. Tocqueville eventually used his observations from this trip to write Democracy in America.

• 2. Puritan Foundations And Equality

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  Tocqueville traced the origins of American democracy back to the Puritans who established the social state of equality. These early settlers arrived with equal education levels and belonged to the middle class. He described the Puritan Founding as the seed of his entire work. The Puritans created a synthesis of religion and political liberty uncommon in Europe. Tocqueville believed they established the principle of sovereignty of the people through the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut. The American Revolution popularized this principle before the Constitutional Convention of 1787 developed institutions to manage popular will. He argued that mores or habits of mind played a more prominent role than laws in protecting freedom. This historical analysis formed the foundation for his examination of socioeconomic affairs in the early nineteenth century.

• 3. Tyranny Of The Majority

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  Tocqueville warned about the potential dangers of democratic rule suppressing individual thought through majority consensus. He observed that democracy had a tendency to degenerate into soft despotism over time. A strong risk existed for developing a tyranny of the majority over thought itself. Social frustration increased as social conditions improved according to what later became known as the Tocqueville effect. Growing hatred of social privilege led the state to concentrate more power to itself. Tocqueville noted the influence of American government and religious history on its entrepreneurial culture. However he criticized the moral spiritual artistic and interpersonal costs of a society where social mobility was an organizing expectation. These darker views emerged clearly after 1840 in his letters and other writings.

• 4. Women In Democratic Society

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  Tocqueville examined the situation of U.S. women and identified the concept of separate spheres in the second volume. He wrote that no country took such constant care to trace two clearly distinct lines of action for the sexes. Married women lost all independence within the bonds of matrimony while unmarried women retained higher degrees of freedom. He believed America would raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man despite limitations. Tocqueville stated that although women were confined within the narrow circle of domestic life they occupied a loftier position elsewhere. He attributed the singular prosperity and growing strength of the people mainly to the superiority of their women. This section devoted to the Influence of Democracy on Manners Properly So Called offered unique observations on gender roles.

• 5. Predictions And Historical Ironies

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  Tocqueville anticipated the potential acrimony over the abolition of slavery that would tear apart the United States. His forecasts included the eventual superpower rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union which exploded after World War II. He noted the rise of the industrial sector in the American economy and argued an industrial aristocracy would rise from labor ownership. Friends of democracy must keep an anxious eye peeled at all times according to his warnings about industry. However he failed to envision the literary renaissance arriving shortly with writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Henry David Thoreau. He also dismissed the country's interest in science as limited to pedestrian applications for streamlining material goods production. These failures to predict cultural developments stood in contrast to his accurate political and economic forecasts.

• 6. Global Reception And Legacy

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  Democracy in America was published in two volumes with the first appearing in 1835 and the other in 1840. It became immediately popular in both Europe and the United States while having a profound impact on the French population. By the twentieth century it had become a classic work of political science social science and history. The book is commonly assigned reading for undergraduates of American universities majoring in political or social sciences. Harvard Professor Harvey C. Mansfield called it at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America. Translations by Henry Reeve George Lawrence and others have made the text accessible across generations. Its influence extends to introductory political theory syllabi at Cambridge Oxford Princeton and other institutions worldwide.