True De Tocqueville

 

On May 9, 1831, two young Frenchmen sailed into the harbor of Newport, Rhode Island and began a remarkable journey through the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, both minor French court officials, had been sent by their government to study new experimental prisons in America. However, even before leaving France, de Tocqueville and de Beaumont decided to spend most of their time observing American democracy in action. Both were excited by the prospect. America was such a young nation, and most Europeans had only a vague idea about its unique democratic system.

After traveling thousands of miles over a period of nine months, the young men returned to France. De Tocqueville spent the next eight years writing two volumes on his observations. In 1840 the two volumes became one book which de Tocqueville titled Democracy in America. Much more than a mere record of his travels, Democracy in America, in the words of one modern historian, turned out to be "perhaps the greatest commentary ever written about any culture by any person at any time."

Alexis de Tocqueville was born into an aristocratic family in 1805, the year after Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned emperor of France. De Tocqueville's parents had been imprisoned earlier during the French Revolution. Both escaped execution, the fate of many aristocrats at the time.

De Tocqueville studied law and became a low-level judge in the French court system. Early 19th-century political events in France convinced de Tocqueville that aristocratic government in Europe was doomed, soon to be replaced by democracy. It was at this time that he and his fellow nobleman, de Beaumont, arranged their trip to America. From de Tocqueville's point of view, it would also be a journey into the future.

During his travels which took him from the East Coast to the Mississippi River, de Tocqueville filled 14 notebooks with his observations, thoughts, and interviews with over 200 Americans. De Tocqueville's relentless curiosity urged him to probe into every area of American culture, but it was the American people that interested him the most. Specifically, he wanted to find out about the role of the American citizen in this new democratic society. De Tocqueville set out to find the answers.

 

(from http://www.crf-usa.org/election-central/de-tocqueville-america.html)