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Democracy in America Democracy in America By Alexis de Tocqueville Translator – Henry Reeve A Penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication Democracy in America, Volumes One and Two by Alexis de Tocqueville, trans. Henry Reeve is a publication of the Pennsylvania State University. This Portable Document file is furnished free and without any charge of any kind. Any person using this document file, for any purpose, and in any way does so at his or her own risk. Neither the Pennsylvania State University nor Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, nor anyone associated with the Pennsylvania State University assumes any responsibility for the material contained within the document or for the file as an elec- tronic transmission, in any way. Democracy in America, Volumes One and Two by Alexis de Tocqueville, trans. Henry Reeve, the Pennsylvania State University, Electronic Classics Series, Jim Manis, Faculty Editor, Hazleton, PA 18201-1291 is a Portable Document File produced as part of an ongoing student publication project to bring classical works of literature, in English, to free and easy access of those wishing to make use of them. Cover Design: Jim Manis Copyright © 2002 The Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University is an equal opportunity university. Tocqueville Book One Democracy Introduction Special Introduction In America By Hon. John T. Morgan Volume 1 In the eleven years that separated the Declaration of the In- By dependence of the United States from the completion of that act in the ordination of our written Constitution, the great minds of America were bent upon the study of the prin- Alexis de Tocqueville ciples of government that were essential to the preservation of the liberties which had been won at great cost and with Translator – Henry Reeve heroic labors and sacrifices. Their studies were conducted in view of the imperfections that experience had developed in the government of the Confederation, and they were, there- fore, practical and thorough. When the Constitution was thus perfected and established, a new form of government was created, but it was neither speculative nor experimental as to the principles on which it 3 Democracy in America was based. If they were true principles, as they were, the gov- regulated by law,” with such results in the development of ernment founded upon them was destined to a life and an strength, in population, wealth, and military and commer- influence that would continue while the liberties it was in- cial power, as no age had ever witnessed. tended to preserve should be valued by the human family. De Tocqueville had a special inquiry to prosecute, in his Those liberties had been wrung from reluctant monarchs in visit to America, in which his generous and faithful soul and many contests, in many countries, and were grouped into the powers of his great intellect were engaged in the patriotic creeds and established in ordinances sealed with blood, in effort to secure to the people of France the blessings that many great struggles of the people. They were not new to Democracy in America had ordained and established the people. They were consecrated theories, but no govern- throughout nearly the entire Western Hemisphere. He had ment had been previously established for the great purpose read the story of the FrenchRevolution, much of which had of their preservation and enforcement. That which was ex- been recently written in the blood of men and women of perimental in our plan of government was the question great distinction who were his progenitors; and had witnessed whether democratic rule could be so organized and conducted the agitations and terrors of the Restoration and of the Sec- that it would not degenerate into license and result in the ond Republic, fruitful in crime and sacrifice, and barren of tyranny of absolutism, without saving to the people the power any good to mankind. so often found necessary of repressing or destroying their He had just witnessed the spread of republican govern- enemy, when he was found in the person of a single despot. ment through all the vast continental possessions of Spain in When, in 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to study De- America, and the loss of her great colonies. He had seen that mocracy in America, the trial of nearly a half-century of the these revolutions were accomplished almost without the shed- working of our system had been made, and it had been ding of blood, and he was filled with anxiety to learn the proved, by many crucial tests, to be a government of “liberty causes that had placed republican government, in France, in 4 Tocqueville such contrast with Democracy in America. monarchical rule, while time shall last. De Tocqueville was scarcely thirty years old when he be- A French aristocrat of the purest strain of blood and of the gan his studies of Democracy in America. It was a bold ef- most honorable lineage, whose family influence was coveted fort for one who had no special training in government, or by crowned heads; who had no quarrel with the rulers of the in the study of political economy, but he had the example of nation, and was secure against want by his inherited estates; Lafayette in establishing the military foundation of these lib- was moved by the agitations that compelled France to at- erties, and of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton, tempt to grasp suddenly the liberties and happiness we had all of whom were young men, in building upon the Inde- gained in our revolution and, by his devout love of France, pendence of the United States that wisest and best plan of to search out and subject to the test of reason the basic prin- general government that was ever devised for a free people. ciples of free government that had been embodied in our He found that the American people, through their chosen Constitution. This was the mission of De Tocqueville, and representatives who were instructed by their wisdom and no mission was ever more honorably or justly conducted, or experience and were supported by their virtues – cultivated, concluded with greater eclat, or better results for the welfare purified and ennobled by self-reliance and the love of God – of mankind. had matured, in the excellent wisdom of their counsels, a His researches were logical and exhaustive. They included new plan of government, which embraced every security for every phase of every question that then seemed to be appo- their liberties and equal rights and privileges to all in the site to the great inquiry he was making. pursuit of happiness. He came as an honest and impartial The judgment of all who have studied his commentaries student and his great commentary, like those of Paul, was seems to have been unanimous, that his talents and learning written for the benefit of all nations and people and in vin- were fully equal to his task. He began with the physical ge- dication of truths that will stand for their deliverance from ography of this country, and examined the characteristics of 5 Democracy in America the people, of all races and conditions, their social and reli- ordained that could resist these internal forces, when, they gious sentiments, their education and tastes; their industries, are directed to its destruction by bad men, or unreasoning their commerce, their local governments, their passions and mobs, and many then believed, as some yet believe, that our prejudices, and their ethics and literature; leaving nothing government is unequal to such pressure, when the assault is unnoticed that might afford an argument to prove that our thoroughly desperate. plan and form of government was or was not adapted espe- Had De Tocqueville lived to examine the history of the cially to a peculiar people, or that it would be impracticable United States from 1860 to 1870, his misgivings as to this in any different country, or among any different people. power of self- preservation would, probably, have been cleared The pride and comfort that the American people enjoy in off. He would have seen that, at the end of the most destruc- the great commentaries of De Tocqueville are far removed tive civil war that ever occurred, when animosities of the from the selfish adulation that comes from a great and sin- bitterest sort had banished all good feeling from the hearts gular success. It is the consciousness of victory over a false of our people, the States of the American Union, still in com- theory of government which has afflicted mankind for many plete organization and equipped with all their official entou- ages, that gives joy to the true American, as it did to De rage, aligned themselves in their places and took up the pow- Tocqueville in his great triumph. ers and duties of local government in perfect order and with- When De Tocqueville wrote, we had lived less than fifty out embarrassment. This would have dispelled his appre- years under our Constitution. In that time no great national hensions, if he had any, about the power of the United States commotion had occurred that tested its strength, or its power to withstand the severest shocks of civil war. Could he have of resistance to internal strife, such as had converted his be- traced the further course of events until they open the por- loved France into fields of slaughter torn by tempests of wrath. tals of the twentieth century, he would have cast away his He had a strong conviction that no government could be fears of our ability to restore peace, order, and prosperity, in 6 Tocqueville the face of any difficulties, and would have rejoiced to find amendments of the Constitution have so changed this, that in the Constitution of the United States the remedy that is those who were then negro slaves are clothed with the rights provided for the healing of the nation.
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