Question

What major conclusions did Alexis de Tocqueville reach about the United States and its citizens when he visited the country in the 1830s?

Answer 1

• He said that equality was viewed in American social and political perspective
• he admired American individualism
• he was impressed with stability of economy
• he was impressed with popularity of churches
• he noted irony of freedom loving nation's mistreatment of Native Americans
• he was rather surprised that America had embraced slavery

Answer 2

In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, both French, were sent by the Gallic government to analyze the American prison system. Arriving in New York in May, they spent nine months traveling across the country, not only observing prisons but many other aspects of American society, such as economics and politics.

Tocqueville, who was fascinated by American politics, wrote a political and hereditary analysis. The work is divided into two different volumes, published independently. In the introduction to the first the author states that he renounces writing a second volume (something that obviously will not comply). More than by the date of publication, both parties are differentiated by the subject they deal with. The first is about the impulse that the democratic movement (which is a social transformation, before materializing in political institutions) gives to the form of government, to the laws and to political life, that is, to democracy as a political structure. The second volume deals with the influence that democracy (this time as a social transformation and as a political regime at the same time) exercises on civil society, that is, on customs, ideas and intellectual life. In short, the first volume is more political, and the second more sociological.