Lovin’ de Tocqueville

Over the past couple weeks, I have been reading “Democracy in America,” written by Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s. It is a lengthy, but remarkable read. I have been reading and reflecting on his many thoughts. He was a Frenchman who traveled America, with the purpose of discovering our democratic republic and how it differs from “democracy” in Europe, particularly in France.

I just had to blog about it because it is such an enlightening reading. I don’t see how this was passed up by most of my history classes in the university. Then again, I sort of can see why it was. I can only remember one instance, in a 19th century America course I took at FAU, where Tocqueville was mentioned. Despite the greatness of that course and that professor, we never read directly from Tocqueville. We missed out.

I’ll occassionally supply quotes from Tocqueville on the blog. Here is one of his insights, cited on page 67 of “Democracy in America”:

“In the United States, therefore, they did not claim that a man in a free country has the right to do everything; on the contrary, they imposed on him more varied social obligations than elsewhere; they did not have the idea of attacking the power of society in its principle and of contesting its rights; they limited themselves to dividing it in its exercise. They wanted in this manner to arrive at the point where authority is great and the official is small, so that society would continue to be well regulated and remain free.”