Abstract

1. In praise of Tocqueville. The young United States was lucky – and deserving of its luck – to find as profound an interpreter of its principles as Alexis de Tocqueville. So deeply, so philosophically, did he comprehend this country in Democracy in America 1 that today's reflections on liberty and equality in America either copy Tocqueville or fall short of understanding. The following reflections will be guilty of both plagiarism and superficiality but they do intend to capture something of Tocqueville's spirit. He gave this nation its due. He brought to his endeavors some advantages we no longer enjoy. For example, he had first-hand experience of democracy's great alternative and predecessor, aristocracy; he knew both sides because he was both sides. Of course, some advantages accrue to those of us who have come after him, even apart from having Democracy in America to study. The United States may not be old but it is older now; we can take later developments into account. Thus, we no longer lack poets or poetry; we probably suffer as much from crime as from vice; and juries do not function all that well. But no dwarfish ability to climb the shoulders of a giant nor special dispensation from history can compensate us for the lack of Tocqueville's genius: the breadth of vision that recalls Montesquieu and even Aristotle, an intimacy, reminiscent of Rousseau, with modernity's demons, a sad coming to terms with human contingency that puts one in mind of Thucydides. All honor to Alexis de Tocqueville.