Alexis De Tocqueville Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was a French philosopher trained in law, political philosophy, and history. His Democracy in America, first published in 1835, provided an incisive look into the character of America. Differentiating the American system from European systems, Tocqueville discerned in the American people a strong ethic of industry coupled with the tempering influence of religion and community. Tocqueville’s keen observations and thorough documentation of the idiosyncrasies of the country established him as one of America’s foremost political theorists.

Tocqueville was born into a well-bred family in Paris on July 29, 1805. His parents were both descendents of European nobility, and he enjoyed the trappings of aristocratic wealth in the form of private tutors and frequent traveling before enrolling in the College Royal in Metz at the age of sixteen. Over the course of the next several years, he studied philosophy, history, theology, and law. After obtaining a law degree, he gained a junior position on the Versailles court of law, serving as a deputy judge. He was soon sent to America to study the country’s penitentiary system. With the July Revolution of 1830, in which French king Charles X abdicated power, Tocqueville became apprehensive about France’s drift toward democracy. He, therefore, became highly interested in learning how America checked its own democratic excesses, gleaning from its government lessons for France’s own development.

Arriving in America with his former classmate and fellow magistrate, Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville spent a total of nine weeks traveling around the country researching and recording the intricacies of American government at the height of the Jacksonian era. Observing the role of the federal government and local governments working in concert, Tocqueville also was able to see the significance of religion at the local level in bestowing the community’s necessary balance to counteract the materialism so constituent of the modern commercial society.

The first of two volumes of Democracy in America was published in 1835 to widespread acclaim. In it, Tocqueville outlined in cool, detached prose the political makeup of America, often playing it against the monarchies and fragile aristocracies in Europe. Democracy in America paints the picture of a functioning republic that checks the tyranny of the democratic majority through the institutions of local government aided by distant, independent-minded federal legislators who weigh the rights of all the citizenry. The second volume, released in 1840, analyzed democracy and social equality in more general terms and drew a more subdued public reaction.

Following the release of the two volumes, Tocqueville returned to France, serving in the French Academy and the Constituent Assembly following the French Revolution of 1848. He continued to emphasize the importance of the role of religion in society and denounced French military expansionism. Exiled from politics following Louis-Napoleon’s coup, Tocqueville spent the last few years of his life writing a history of the follies of the French Revolution. He died of tuberculosis in Cannes on April 16, 1859.

Bibliography:

Brogan, Hugh. Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Epstein, Joseph. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide. New York: HarperCollins/Atlas, 2006.
Pierson, George Wilson. Tocqueville in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America, translated and edited by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop. New York: Washington Square Press, 1964.

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