Alexis de Tocqueville and "Democracy in America"

 

Portrait of Alexis de Tocqueville
by Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856)

In 1831 and 1832, French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through the United States with his friend Gustave de Beaumont. As employees of the French Interior Ministry, their trip was intended as a "fact-finding" mission on conditions in the American penal system. De Tocqueville and de Beaumont landed in Newport, Rhode Island.  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.

De Tocqueville was a scholar of history and politics with a great interest in the affairs of his own country. France in his time had been embroiled in a series of revolutions and counterrevolutions. His 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 De la démocratie en Amérique or Democracy in America, published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840.

Democracy in America 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.