Democracy in America / Edition 1

by Alexis de Tocqueville, Harvey C. Mansfield, Delba Winthrop

Overview

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-59) came to America in 1831 to see what a great republic was like. What struck him most was the country's equality of conditions, its democracy. The book he wrote on his return to France, Democracy in America, is both the best ever written on democracy and the best ever written on America. It remains the most often quoted book about the United States, not only because it has something to interest and please everyone, but also because it has something to teach everyone.
 
When it was published in 2000, Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop's new translation of Democracy in America—only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840—was lauded in all quarters as the finest and most definitive edition of Tocqueville's classic thus far. Mansfield and Winthrop have restored the nuances of Tocqueville's language, with the expressed goal "to convey Tocqueville's thought as he held it rather than to restate it in comparable terms of today." The result is a translation with minimal interpretation, but with impeccable annotations of unfamiliar references and a masterful introduction placing the work and its author in the broader contexts of political philosophy and statesmanship.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226805368
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	04/01/2002
Series:	Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries Series
Edition description:	1
Pages:	722
Sales rank:	169,699
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. Political philosopher and author, he is acknowledged as a leading translator of Machiavelli.

Delba Winthrop is a Lecturer in Extension and administrator of the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Physical Configuration
of North America

North America divided into two vast regions, one sloping toward the pole, the other toward the equator. Mississippi valley and its geology. The Atlantic coast and the foundation of the English colonies. Contrast between North and South America at the time of discovery. North American forests and prairies. Nomadic native tribes and their appearance, mores, and languages. Traces of an unknown people.

North America has striking geographical features which can be appreciated at first glance.

Land and water, mountains and valleys, seem to have been separated with systematic method, and the simple majesty of this design stands out amid the confusion and immense variety of the scene.

The continent is divided into two vast and almost equal regions.

One region is bounded by the North Pole and the great oceans to east and west, while to the south it stretches down in an irregular triangle to the Great Lakes of Canada.

The second starts where the other ends and covers the rest of the continent.

One region slopes gently toward the pole, the other toward the equator.

The lands to the north of the first region slope so imperceptibly that they may almost be described as plains, and there are no high mountains or deep valleys in the whole of this vast level expanse.

Chance seems to trace the serpentine courses of the streams; great rivers mingle, separate, and meet again; they get lost in a thousand marshes, meandering continually through the watery labyrinth they have formed, and only after innumerable detours do they finally reach the Arctic sea.The Great Lakes, which bring this region to an end, are not framed, as are most lakes in the Old World, by hills or rocks; their banks are level, hardly rising more than a few feet above the water. So each is like a huge cup filled to the brim. The slightest change of global structure would tilt their waters to the pole or to the tropics.

The second region is broken up more and is better suited as a permanent home for man. Two mountain chains run right across it; the Alleghenies parallel to the Atlantic, and the Rockies to the Pacific.

The area between these two mountain chains is 1,341,649 square miles, or about six times that of France.

But the whole of this vast territory is a single valley sloping down from the smooth summits of the Alleghenies and stretching up to the peaks of the Rocky Mountains, with no obstacles in the way.

An immense river flows along the bottom of this valley, and all the waters falling on the mountains on every side drain into it.

Formerly the French called it the St. Louis River, in memory of their distant fatherland, and the Indians in their grandiloquent tongue named it the Father of Waters, the Mississippi.

The Mississippi rises in the borderland between our two regions, not far from the highest point in the plain which links them.

Another river which rises nearby flows down into the polar seas. The Mississippi itself sometimes seems in doubt which way to go; it twists backward several times, and only after slowing down in lakes and marshes seems finally to make up its mind and meander on toward the south.

Sometimes gently flowing along the clay bed which nature has carved out for it, and sometimes swollen by storms; the Mississippi waters some twenty-five hundred square miles.

Thirteen hundred and sixty-four miles above its mouth, the river already has a mean depth of fifteen feet, and ships of three hundred tons can go over four hundred and fifty miles up it.

Fifty-seven large navigable rivers flow into it. Among the tributaries of the Mississippi are one river thirteen hundred leagues long, another of nine hundred leagues," another of six hundred, another of five hundred; there are four other rivers of two hundred leagues, not to mention the innumerable small stream on every side which augment its flood.

The valley watered by the Mississippi seems created for it alone; it dispenses good and evil at will like a local god. Near the river nature displays an inexhaustible fertility; the further you go from its banks, the sparser the vegetation and the poorer becomes the soil, and everything wilts or dies. Nowhere have the great convulsions of the world left more evident traces than in the valley of the Mississippi. The aspect of the whole countryside bears witness to the waters' work. Its sterility as well as its abundance is their work. Deep layers of fertile soil accumulated under the primeval ocean and had time to level out. On the right bank of the river there are huge plains as level as a rolled lawn. But nearer the mountains the land becomes more and more uneven and sterile; the soil is punctured in a thousand places by primitive rocks sticking out here and there like the bones of a skeleton when sinews and flesh have perished. The surface of the earth is covered with granitic sand and irregularly shaped stones, through which a few plants just manage to force their way; it looks like a fertile field covered by the ruins of some vast structure. Analysis of this sand and these rocks easily demonstrates that they are exactly like those on the bare and jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains. No doubt the rains which washed all the soil down to the bottom of the valley, in the end brought portions of the rocks too; they were rolled down the neighboring slopes, and after they had been dashed one against another, were scattered at the base of the mountains from which they had fallen. (See Appendix I, A.)

All things considered, the valley of the Mississippi is the most magnificent habitation ever prepared by God for man, and yet one may say that it is still only a vast wilderness.

On the eastern slopes of the Alleghenies, between the mountains and the Atlantic, there is a long strip of rock and sand which seems to have been left behind by the retreating ocean. This strip is only forty-eight leagues broad on the average, but three hundred and ninety leagues long. The soil in this part of the American continent can be cultivated only with difficulty. The vegetation is scanty and uniform.

It was on that inhospital shore that the first efforts of human...

Table of Contents

Editors'  Introduction
Suggested Readings
A Note on the Translation

Volume One
Introduction

Part One

1  External Configuration of North America
2  On the Point of Departure and Its Importance for the Future of the Anglo-Americans
Reasons for Some Singularities That the Laws and Customs of the Anglo-Americans Present 3  Social State of the Anglo-Americans
That the Salient Point of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans Is Its Being Essentially Democratic
Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans 4  On the Principle of the Sovereignty of the People in America
5  Necessity of Studying What Takes Place in the Particular States before Speaking of the Government of the Union
On the Township System in America
Size of the Township
Powers of the Township in New England
On Township Existence
On the Spirit of the Township in New England
On the County in New England 
On Administration in New England 
General Ideas about Administration in the United States
On the State
Legislative Power of the State
On the Executive Power of the State
On the Political Effects of Administrative Decentralization in the United States
6  On Judicial Power in the United States and Its Action on Political Society
Other Powers Granted to American Judges
7  On Political Judgment in the United States
8  On the Federal Constitution
History of the Federal Constitution
Summary Picture of the Federal Constitution
Prerogatives of the Federal Government
Federal Powers
Legislative Powers
Another Difference between the Senate and the House of Representatives
On the Executive Power
How the Position of the President of the United States Differs from That of a Constitutional King in France
Accidental Causes That Can Increase the Influence of the Executive Power
Why the President of the United States Does Not Need to Have a Majority in the Houses in Order to Direct Affairs
On the Election of the President
Mode of Election
Crisis of the Election
On the Reelection of the President On the Federal Courts
Manner of Settling the Competence of the Federal Courts
Different Cases of Jurisdiction
Manner of Proceeding of Federal Courts
Elevated Rank Held by the Supreme Court among the Great Powers of the State
How the Federal Constitution Is Superior to the Constitutions of the States
What Distinguishes the Federal Constitution of the United States of America from All Other Federal Constitutions
On the Advantages of the Federal System Generally, and Its Special Utility for America
What Keeps the Federal System from Being within Reach of All Peoples, and What Has Permitted the Anglo-Americans to Adopt It

Part Two

1  How One Can Say Strictly That in the United States the People Govern
2  On Parties in the United States
On the Remains of the Aristocratic Party in the United States
3  On Freedom of the Press in the United States
4  On Political Association in the United States
5  On the Government of Democracy in America
On Universal Suffrage
On the Choices of the People and the Instincts of American Democracy in Its Choices
On the Causes That Can in Part Correct These Instincts of Democracy
Influence That American Democracy Exerts on Electoral Laws
On Public Officials under the Empire of American Democracy
On the Arbitrariness of Magistrates under the Empire of American Democracy
Administrative Instability in the United States8
On Public Costs under the Empire of American Democracy
On the Instincts of American Democracy in Fixing the Salaries of Officials
Difficulty of Discerning the Causes That Incline the American Government to Economy
Can the Public Expenditures of the United States Be Compared to Those of France?
On the Corruption and Vices of Those Who Govern in Democracy; On the Effects on Public Morality That Result
Of What Efforts Democracy ls Capable
On the Power That American Democracy Generally Exercises over Itself
The Manner in Which American Democracy Conducts External Affairs of State
6  What Are the Real Advantages That American Society Derives from the Government of Democracy
On the General Tendency of the Laws under the Empire of American Democracy, and on the Instinct of Those Who Apply Them
On Public Spirit in the United States
On the Idea of Rights in the United States
On Respect for the Law in the United States 
Activity Reigning in All Parts of the Body Politic of the United States; Influence That It Exerts on Society
7  On the Omnipotence of the Majority in the United States and Its Effects
How the Omnipotence of the Majority in America Increases the Legislative and Administrative Instability That Is Natural to Democracies
Tyranny of the Majority
Effects of the Omnipotence of the Majority on the Arbitrariness of American Officials
On the Power That the Majority in America Exercises over Thought
Effects of the Tyranny of the Majority on the National Character of the Americans; On the Spirit of a Court in the United States
That the Greatest Danger of the American Republics Comes from the Omnipotence of the Majority
8  On What Tempers the Tyranny of the Majority in the United States
Absence of Administrative Centralization
On the Spirit of the Lawyer in the United States and How It Serves as a Counterweight to Democracy
On the Jury in the United States Considered as a Political Institution
9  On the Principal Causes Tending to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States
On the Accidental or Providential Causes Contributing to the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
On the Influence of the Laws on the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
On the Influence of Mores on the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States
On Religion Considered as a Political Institution; How It Serves Powerfully the Maintenance of a Democratic Republic among the Americans
Indirect Influence That Religious Beliefs Exert on Political Society in the United States
On the Principal Causes That Make Religion Powerful in America
How the Enlightenment, the Habits, and the Practical Experience of the Americans Contribute to the Success of Democratic Institutions
That the Laws Serve to Maintain a Democratic Republic in the United States More than Physical Causes, and Mores More than Laws
Would Laws and Mores Suffice to Maintain Democratic Institutions Elsewhere than in America?
Importance of What Precedes in Relation to Europe
10 Some Considerations on the Present State and the Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States
Present State and Probable Future of the Indian Tribes That Inhabit the Territory Possessed by the Union
Position That the Black Race Occupies in the United States; Dangers Incurred by whites from Its Presence
What Are the Chances That the American Union Will Last? What Dangers Threaten It?
On Republican Institutions in the United States; What Are Their Chances of Longevity?
Some Considerations on the Causes of the Commercial Greatness of the United States
Conclusion

Volume Two
Notice

Part One
Influence of Democracy on Intellectual Movement in the United States

1  On the Philosophic Method of the Americans
2  On the Principal Source of Beliefs among Democratic Peoples
3  Why the Americans Show More Aptitude and Taste for General Ideas than Their English Fathers
4  Why the Americans Have Never Been as Passionate as the French for General Ideas in Political Matters
5  How, in the United States, Religion Knows How to Make Use of Democratic Instincts
6  On the Progress of Catholicism in the United States
7  What Makes the Mind of Democratic Peoples Lean toward Pantheism
8  How Equality Suggests to the Americans the Idea of the Indefinite Peifectibility of Man
9  How the Example of the Americans Does Not Prove That a Democratic People Can Have No Aptitude and Taste for the Sciences, Literature, and the Arts
10 Why the Americans Apply Themselves to the Practice of the Sciences Rather than to the Theory
11 In What Spirit the Americans Cultivate the Arts
12 Why the Americans at the Same Time Raise Such Little and Such Great Monuments
13 The Literary Face of Democratic Centuries
14 On the Literary Industry
15 Why the Study of Greek and Latin Literature Is Particularly Useful in Democratic Societies
16 How American Democracy Has Modified the English Language
17 On Some Sources of Poetry in Democratic Nations
18 Why American Writers and Orators Are Often Bombastic
19 Some Observations on the Theater of Democratic Peoples
20 On Some Tendencies Particular to Historians in Democratic Centuries
21 On Parliamentary Eloquence in the United States

Part Two
Influence of Democracy on the Sentiments of the Americans

1  Why Democratic Peoples Show a More Ardent and More Lasting Love for Equality than for Freedom
2  On Individualism in Democratic Countries
3  How Individualism Is Greater at the End of a Democratic Revolution than in Any Other Period
4  How the Americans Combat Individualism with Free Institutions
5  On the Use That the Americans Make of Association in Civil Life
6  On the Relation between Associations and Newspapers
7  Relations between Civil Associations and Political Associations
8  How the Americans Combat Individualism by the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood
9  How the Americans Apply the Doctrine of Self-Interest Well Understood in the Matter of Religion
10 On the Taste for Material Well-Being in America
11 On the Particular Effects That the Love of Material Enjoyments Produces in Democratic Centuries
12 Why Certain Americans Display Such an Exalted Spiritualism
13 Why the Americans Show Themselves So Restive in the Midst of Their Well-Being
14 How the Taste for Material Enjoyments among Americans Is United with Love of Freedom and with Care for Public Affairs
15 How Religious Beliefs at Times Tum the Souls of the Americans toward Immaterial Enjoyments
16 How the Excessive Love of Well-Being Can Be Harmful to Well-Being
17 How in Times of Equality and Doubt It Is Important to Move Back the Object of Human Actions
18 Why among the Americans All Honest Professions Are Reputed Honorable
19 What Makes Almost All Americans Incline toward Industrial Professions
20 How Aristocracy Could Issue from Industry

Part Three
Influence of Democracy on Mores Properly So-Called

1  How Mores Become Milder as Conditions Are Equalized
2  How Democracy Renders the Habitual Relations of the Americans Simpler and Easier
3  Why the Americans Have So Little Oversensitivity in Their Country and Show Themselves to Be So Oversensitive in Ours
4  Consequences of the Preceding Three Chapters
5  How Democracy Modifies the Relations of Servant and Master
6  How Democratic Institutions and Mores Tend to Raise the Price and Shorten the Duration of Leases
7  Influence of Democracy on Wages
8  Influence of Democracy on the Family
9  Education of Girls in the United States
10 How the Girl Is Found beneath the Features of the Wife
11 How Equality of Conditions Contributes to Maintaining Good Mores in America
12 How the Americans Understand the Equality of Man and Woman
13 How Equality Naturally Divides the Americans into a Multitude of Particular Little Societies
14 Some Reflections on American Manners
15 On the Gravity of the Americans and Why It Does Not Prevent Their Often Doing Ill-Considered Things
16 Why the National Vanity of the Americans Is More Restive and More Quarrelsome than That of the English
17 How the Aspect of Society in the United States Is at Once Agitated and Monotonous
18 On Honor in the United States and in Democratic Societies
19 Why One Finds So Many Ambitious Men in the United States and So Few Great Ambitions
20 On the Industry in Place-Hunting in Certain Democratic Nations
21 Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
22 Why Democratic Peoples Naturally Desire Peace and Democratic Armies Naturally [Desire] War
23 Which Is the Most Warlike and the Most Revolutionary Class in Democratic Armies
24 What Makes Democratic Armies Weaker than Other Armies When Entering into a Campaign and More Formidable When War Is Prolonged
25 On Discipline in Democratic Armies
26 Some Considerations on War in Democratic Societies

Part Four
On the Influence That Democratic Ideas and Sentiments Exert on Political Society

1  Equality Naturally Gives Men the Taste for Free Institutions
2  That the Ideas of Democratic Peoples in the Matter of Government Are Naturally Favorable to the Concentration of Powers
3  That the Sentiments of Democratic Peoples Are in Accord with Their Ideas to Bring Them to Concentrate Power
4  On Some Particular and Accidental Causes That Serve to Bring a Democratic People to Centralize Power or Tum It Away from That
5  That among European Nations of Our Day Sovereign Power Increases Although Sovereigns Are Less Stable
6  What Kind of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear
7  Continuation of the Preceding Chapters
8  General View of the Subject

Notes

Sources Cited by Tocqueville

Index

Editorial Reviews

"The Mansfield-Winthrop work will henceforth be the preferred English version of Democracy in America not only because of the superior translation and critical apparatus, but also because of its long and masterly introductory essay, itself an important contribution to the literature on Tocqueville."

The New Criterion - Roger Kimball

"If Tocqueville is an indispensable guide to understanding the American experience, Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop are indispensable guides to Tocqueville himself. In the introduction to their fresh and limpid translation of Democracy in America—what will surely be the definitive translation for some time to come—they offer a helpful summary of Tocqueville's philosophical and political thought."

Wall Street Journal - Thomas Pavel

"The editors have written more than a mere introduction; they have written in fact a small book, a remarkably comprehensive and yet succinct study of Tocqueville's political thought. . . . Mansfield and Winthrop have made a remarkably comprehensive and tightly argued case for Tocqueville as the greatest political theorist of democracy, a theorist who is just as relevant today as he was in the nineteenth century."

New York Review of Books - Gordon S. Wood

"This will be the English translation of Tocqueville for a long time, and it has the additional bonus that the introduction is as succinct an introduction to Tocqueville, or at least to the conservative view of him and his achievement, as one can find."

The New Yorker - Adam Gopnik

"Democracy in America will continue to be read with profit as long as the United States survives as a republic and, indeed, as long as democracy endures. It deserves faithful translators, careful expositors and insightful commentators. In Mansfield and Winthrop it has found them."

Times Literary Supplement - Robert P. George

"It would be difficult to think of a greater service to the study of Tocqueville than the one performed by Mansfield and Winthrop in their impeccable new edition and translation of Democracy in America. . . . The publisher is justified in claiming that this version will henceforth be seen as the 'authoritative' edition in English."

Choice

"[A] major new translation. . . . Tocqueville's insights confirm his brilliance and remind us that many features of national character are virtually indestructible."

Newsweek - Robert J. Samuelson

<:st> Political philosophers Mansfield (government, Harvard U.) and Winthrop (constitutional government, Harvard U.) present a new translation<-->only the third since the original two-volume work was published in 1835 and 1840<-->aiming to restore the nuances of Tocqueville's language. Tocqueville himself was not satisfied with the 19th-century translation; the other, prepared in the late 1960s (Harper & Row), is cited in This translation is based on a recent critical French edition (Editions Gallimard, 1992). Mansfield and Winthrop provide a substantial introduction placing the work and its author in historical and philosophical context, as well as annotations elucidating references that are no longer familiar to readers. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Thanks to [Tocqueville's] prescience, a new edition of ''Democracy in America'' is always timely.
—New York Times Book Review

Caleb Crain

De Tocqueville, whose brilliance has always been granted by academics, is now accessible to readers who don’t mind brilliance as long as it is readable.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“[George Lawrence’s] wonderful style has given us a work that will be a standard for many years.” — Library Joural

“Among the most remarkable productions of our time.” — John Stuart Mill

From the Publisher

Among the most remarkable productions of our time.

John Stuart Mill

[George Lawrence’s] wonderful style has given us a work that will be a standard for many years.

Library Joural

De Tocqueville, whose brilliance has always been granted by academics, is now accessible to readers who don’t mind brilliance as long as it is readable.

San Francisco Chronicle

De Tocqueville, whose brilliance has always been granted by academics, is now accessible to readers who don’t mind brilliance as long as it is readable.

San Francisco Chronicle

"An instructive account. . .of the historical sources of The Old Regime."

Times Literary Supplement

This will be the English translation of Tocqueville for a long time, and it has the additional bonus that the introduction is as succinct an introduction to Tocqueville, or at least to the conservative view of him and his achievement, as one can find.

— Adam Gopnik

The New Yorker

[A] major new translation. . . . Tocqueville's insights confirm his brilliance and remind us that many features of national character are virtually indestructible.

— Robert J. Samuelson

Newsweek

If Tocqueville is an indispensable guide to understanding the American experience, Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop are indispensable guides to Tocqueville himself. In the introduction to their fresh and limpid translation of Democracy in America—what will surely be the definitive translation for some time to come—they offer a helpful summary of Tocqueville's philosophical and political thought.

— Thomas Pavel

Wall Street Journal

The Mansfield-Winthrop work will henceforth be the preferred English version of Democracy in America not only because of the superior translation and critical apparatus, but also because of its long and masterly introductory essay, itself an important contribution to the literature on Tocqueville.

— Roger Kimball

The New Criterion

The editors have written more than a mere introduction; they have written in fact a small book, a remarkably comprehensive and yet succinct study of Tocqueville's political thought. . . . Mansfield and Winthrop have made a remarkably comprehensive and tightly argued case for Tocqueville as the greatest political theorist of democracy, a theorist who is just as relevant today as he was in the nineteenth century.

— Gordon S. Wood

New York Review of Books