Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Alexis de Tocqueville in a portrait
by Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856)

French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States with his friend Gustave de Beaumont during the years 1831 and 1832. As employees of the French Interior Ministry, their trip was intended as a "fact-finding" mission on conditions in the American penal system. De Toqueville and de Beaumont landed in Newport, Rhode Island on 9 May 1831.  They traveled through the states of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, made a foray into Québec, then into Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and D.C. before sailing back to France from New York City on 20 February 1832.

De Tocqueville was a scholar of history and politics with a deep interest in the affairs of his own country. France in his time had been embroiled in a series of revolutions and counterrevolutions. His 10-month visit to America took place during the second half of the first administration of President Andrew Jackson. When he returned to France, he set to writing what became his most famous work, De la démocratie en Amérique or Democracy in America, published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840.

Democracy in America was and is much more than a report on the U.S. criminal justice system or a road trip journal. It is a deep meditation on our political system, and we Americans have ever since been looking into de Tocqueville's mirror to understand ourselves better.