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68-581: Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), was a French aristocrat , diplomat , sociologist , political scientist , political philosopher , and historian . He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to

136-543: A "hereditary" or a "ruling" social class . In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece , ancient Rome , or India , aristocratic status came from belonging to a military class. It has also been common, notably in African and Oriental societies, for aristocrats to belong to priestly dynasties. Aristocratic status can involve feudal or legal privileges. They are usually below only

204-534: A blind instinct; individualism from wrong-headed thinking rather than from depraved feelings. It originates as much from defects of intelligence as from the mistakes of the heart. Egoism blights the seeds of every virtue; individualism at first dries up only the source of public virtue. In the longer term it attacks and destroys all the others and will finally merge with egoism. Defunct Defunct Tocqueville warned that modern democracy may be adept at inventing new forms of tyranny because radical equality could lead to

272-507: A constant cycle of churn between the poor and the rich, thereby over generations making the poor rich and the rich poor. He cites protective laws in France at the time that protected an estate from being split apart among heirs, thereby preserving wealth and preventing a churn of wealth such as was perceived by him in 1835 within the United States. Former Former Tocqueville's main purpose

340-570: A country as the result of a revolution against them, such as the French Revolution . The term aristocracy derives from the Greek ἀριστοκρατία ( aristokratia from ἄριστος ( aristos ) 'excellent' and κράτος ( kratos ) 'power'). In most cases, aristocratic titles were and are hereditary. The term aristokratia was first used in Athens with reference to young citizens (the men of

408-576: A few generations which in turn made the children more equal overall. According to Joshua Kaplan's Tocqueville, it was not always a negative development since bonds of affection and shared experience between children often replaced the more formal relation between the eldest child and the siblings, characteristic of the previous aristocratic pattern. Overall, hereditary fortunes in the new democracies became exceedingly difficult to secure and more people were forced to struggle for their own living. As Tocqueville understood it, this rapidly democratizing society had

476-432: A man he considered a usurper and despot. He fought as best he could for the political liberty in which he so ardently believed—had given it, in all, thirteen years of his life [....]. He would spend the days remaining to him fighting the same fight, but conducting it now from libraries, archives, and his own desk". There, he began the draft of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution , publishing the first tome in 1856, but leaving

544-457: A modern democracy, it would be a much more dangerous version than the oppression under the Roman emperors or tyrants of the past who could only exert a pernicious influence on a small group of people at a time. In contrast, a despotism under a democracy could see "a multitude of men", uniformly alike, equal, "constantly circling for petty pleasures", unaware of fellow citizens and subject to the will of

612-499: A population devoted to "middling" values which wanted to amass through hard work vast fortunes. In Tocqueville's mind, this explained why the United States was so different from Europe. In Europe, he claimed, nobody cared about making money. The lower classes had no hope of gaining more than minimal wealth while the upper classes found it crass, vulgar and unbecoming of their sort to care about something as unseemly as money and many were virtually guaranteed wealth and took it for granted. At

680-430: A powerful state which exerted an "immense protective power". Tocqueville compared a potentially despotic democratic government to a protective parent who wants to keep its citizens (children) as "perpetual children" and which does not break men's wills, but rather guides it and presides over people in the same way as a shepherd looking after a "flock of timid animals". Tocqueville's penetrating analysis sought to understand

748-409: A result. Ordinary Americans enjoyed too much power and claimed too great a voice in the public sphere to defer to intellectual superiors. This culture promoted a relatively pronounced equality, Tocqueville argued, but the same mores and opinions that ensured such equality also promoted mediocrity. Those who possessed true virtue and talent were left with limited choices. Tocqueville said that those with

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816-430: A self-conscious and active political society and a vibrant civil society functioning according to political and civil laws of the state . According to political scientist Joshua Kaplan, Tocqueville did not originate the concept of individualism, instead he changed its meaning and saw it as a "calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and to withdraw into

884-559: Is a compound word stemming from the singular of aristoi , aristos ( ἄριστος ), and the Greek word for power, kratos ( κράτος ). From the ancient Greeks, the term passed to the European Middle Ages for a similar hereditary class of military leaders, often referred to as the nobility . As in Greece, this was a class of privileged men and women whose familial connections to

952-507: Is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living. [...] Labor is held in honor; the prejudice is not against but in its favor". Tocqueville asserted that the values that had triumphed in the North and were present in the South had begun to suffocate old-world ethics and social arrangements. Legislatures abolished primogeniture and entails , resulting in more widely distributed land holdings. This

1020-569: The French colony of Algeria . His first travel inspired his Travail sur l'Algérie , in which he criticized the French model of colonisation which emphasized assimilation to Western culture , advocating that the French government instead adopt a form of indirect rule , which avoided mixing different populations together. He went as far as openly advocating racial segregation as a form of consociationalism between European colonists and Arabs through

1088-630: The Lycée Fabert in Metz . Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career in 1839. From 1839 to 1851, he served as member of the lower house of parliament for the Manche department ( Valognes ). He sat on the centre-left , defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade while supporting the colonisation of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe 's regime. In 1842, he

1156-541: The New World and its burgeoning democratic order. Observing from the perspective of a detached social scientist, Tocqueville wrote of his travels through the United States in the early 19th century when the Market Revolution , Western expansion and Jacksonian democracy were radically transforming the fabric of American life. According to political scientist Joshua Kaplan, one purpose of writing Democracy in America

1224-455: The "omnipotence of the majority" and that Americans tend to deny that there is a problem in this regard. Others such as the Catholic writer Daniel Schwindt disagree with Kaplan's interpretation, arguing instead that Tocqueville saw individualism as just another form of egotism and not an improvement over it. To make his case, Schwindt provides citations such as the following: Egoism springs from

1292-622: The American races: The first who attracts the eye, the first in enlightenment, in power and in happiness, is the white man, the European, man par excellence; below him appear the Negro and the Indian. These two unfortunate races have neither birth, nor face, nor language, nor mores in common; only their misfortunes look alike. Both occupy an equally inferior position in the country that they inhabit; both experience

1360-478: The Revolution in Paris, while Tocqueville was still grieving for the loss of his father. He was at Tocqueville's side when he died, at Cannes on 16 April 1859. Beaumont took it upon himself to oversee the posthumous publication of his friend's collected works, although he did not live to see the project finished. Gustave de Beaumont died on 30 March 1866 in Paris, the victim of an epidemic. His wife, Clémentine, completed

1428-420: The Revolution . Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under King Louis XIV . He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals. Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and

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1496-589: The Second Empire. According to one account, Tocqueville's political position became untenable during this time in the sense that he was mistrusted by both the left and right and was looking for an excuse to leave France. In 1831, Tocqueville obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in the United States and proceeded there with his lifelong friend Gustave de Beaumont . While he did visit some prisons, Tocqueville traveled widely in

1564-770: The United States and took extensive notes on his observations and reflections. He returned within nine months and published a report, but the more well-known result of his tour was De la démocratie en Amérique , which appeared in 1835. Beaumont also wrote an account of their travels in Jacksonian America: Marie or Slavery in the United States (1835). During this trip, Tocqueville made a side trip to Montreal and Quebec City in Lower Canada from mid-August to early September 1831. Apart from North America, Tocqueville also made an observational tour of England, producing Memoir on Pauperism . In 1841 and 1846, he traveled to

1632-596: The adventure of another daily paper. This rift did not destroy their friendship, but the two did not speak to each other for quite some time. The Revolutions of 1848 reconciled them, and soon they were both in agreement in their beliefs on the republic. In August 1848, Beaumont was elected plenipotentiary minister to London, and at the presidential elections of 10 December, they gave their support to Cavaignac . His defeat resulted in Beaumont's resignation, but Beaumont returned to French political affairs by being elected second on

1700-479: The aggressions of power. As none of them is strong enough to fight alone with advantage, the only guarantee of liberty is for everyone to combine forces. But such a combination is not always in evidence". Tocqueville explicitly cites inequality as being incentive for the poor to become rich and notes that it is not often that two generations within a family maintain success and that it is inheritance laws that split and eventually break apart someone's estate that cause

1768-524: The area, one with Tocqueville in 1835, and another with his wife in 1837. Under the July Monarchy , Beaumont was elected deputy for Mamers in the Sarthe in December 1839. His friendship with Tocqueville was dwindling at this time due to political disagreements, and Beaumont's support of a newspaper called Le Siècle caused their differences to come to a head when he refused to accompany Tocqueville and some friends in

1836-404: The aristocratic ethic, the United States was a society where hard work and money-making was the dominant ethic, where the common man enjoyed a level of dignity which was unprecedented, where commoners never deferred to elites and where what he described as crass individualism and market capitalism had taken root to an extraordinary degree. Tocqueville writes: "Among a democratic people, where there

1904-498: The best men. In fact, it did quite the opposite as the widespread, relatively equitable property ownership which distinguished the United States and determined its mores and values also explained why the United States masses held elites in such contempt. Beyond the eradication of old-world aristocracy, ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as

1972-401: The case with Beaumont. This was the first step in Beaumont's having to live in his friend's shadow in fame. Beaumont also wrote L'Irlande, sociale, politique, et religieuse (two volumes, 1839–42). Gustave de Beaumont married Clémentine de Lafayette (the granddaughter of the French general and nobleman ) in 1836. Beaumont wrote a second book entitled Ireland about two journeys he had made to

2040-511: The circle of family and friends [...]. [W]ith this little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look for itself". While Tocqueville saw egotism and selfishness as vices, he saw individualism as not a failure of feeling, but as a way of thinking about things which could have either positive consequences such as a willingness to work together, or negative consequences such as isolation and that individualism could be remedied by improved understanding. When individualism

2108-438: The conduct of serious politics. He [hoped] to bring the kind of stability to French political life that would permit the steady growth of liberty unimpeded by the regular rumblings of the earthquakes of revolutionary change″. Tocqueville had supported Cavaignac against Louis Napoléon Bonaparte for the presidential election of 1848. Opposed to Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup which followed his election, Tocqueville

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2176-460: The conservatives, which included the aristocracy and the rural population, would be inescapable. Indeed, these social tensions eventually exploded in the June Days Uprising of 1848. Led by General Cavaignac , the suppression of the uprising was supported by Tocqueville, who advocated the "regularization" of the state of siege declared by Cavaignac and other measures promoting suspension of

2244-649: The constitutional order. Between May and September, Tocqueville participated in the Constitutional Commission which wrote the new Constitution. His proposals, such as his amendment about the President and his reelection, reflected lessons he drew from his North American experience A supporter of Cavaignac and of the Party of Order, Tocqueville accepted an invitation to enter Odilon Barrot 's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 3 June to 31 October 1849. During

2312-422: The effects of tyranny; and if their miseries are different, they can accuse the same author for them. Tocqueville contrasted the settlers of Virginia with the middle class, religious Puritans who founded New England and analyzed the debasing influence of slavery: The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbulent and restless spirit endangered

2380-519: The essence of American culture and values. Although a supporter of colonialism, Tocqueville could clearly perceive the evils that black people and natives had been subjected to in the United States. Tocqueville devoted the last chapter of the first volume of Democracy in America to the question while his travel companion Gustave de Beaumont wholly focused on slavery and its fallouts for the American nation in Marie or Slavery in America . Tocqueville notes among

2448-654: The fall of the July Monarchy in the French Revolution of 1848 , Tocqueville was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848 , where he became a member of the commission charged with the drafting of the new Constitution of the Second Republic (1848–1851). He defended bicameralism and the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage . As the countryside was thought to be more conservative than

2516-403: The first edition was published, Beaumont, sympathetic to social injustice, was working on another book, Marie, ou l'esclavage aux Etats-Unis (two volumes, 1835), which was a social critique and novel describing the separation of races in a moral society and the conditions of slaves in America. Although the 1833 writing was successful, Tocqueville was given intellectual recognition, which was not

2584-439: The imperial regime. One of the opponents of the coup d'état, he was imprisoned for some time in the fortress of Mont Valérien. Although Tocqueville and Beaumont remained close friends, Beaumont was forced financially to turn away from society and retire (along with his family) to his chateau de Beaumont-la-Chartre. Nevertheless, he did not forget his best friend. He oversaw the release of Tocqueville's last book The Old Regime and

2652-625: The implementation of two different legislative systems for each ethnic group (a half century before implementation of the 1881 Indigenous code based on religion). In 1835 Tocqueville journeyed through Ireland. His observations provide one of the best pictures of the state of Ireland before the Great Famine (1845–1849). They chronicle the growing Catholic middle class and the appalling conditions in which most Catholic tenant farmers lived. Tocqueville made clear both his opposition to aristocratic power and his affinity for his Irish co-religionists. After

2720-453: The infant colony. [...] Artisans and agriculturalists arrived afterwards[,] [...] hardly in any respect above the level of the inferior classes in England. No lofty views, no spiritual conception presided over the foundation of these new settlements. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was introduced; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an immense influence on the character,

2788-450: The keys". According to Kaplan's interpretation of Tocqueville, he argued in contrast to previous political thinkers that a serious problem in political life was not that people were too strong, but that people were "too weak" and felt powerless as the danger is that people felt "swept up in something that they could not control". Uniquely positioned at a crossroads in American history, Tocqueville's Democracy in America attempted to capture

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2856-640: The labouring population of Paris, he conceived of universal suffrage as a means to counteract the revolutionary spirit of Paris. During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the Party of Order against the socialists. A few days after the February 1848 insurrection, he anticipated that a violent clash between the Parisian workers' population led by socialists agitating in favour of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and

2924-416: The laws and the whole future of the South. Slavery [...] dishonors labor; it introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. On this same English foundation there developed in the North very different characteristics. Aristocracy (class) The aristocracy is historically associated with

2992-501: The list for the department of La Sarthe in the Legislative assembly . Tocqueville's election to the post of Ministry of Foreign Affairs benefitted Beaumont, as he was elected French ambassador to Vienna . Cavaignac appointed him Ambassador to England. He and Tocqueville resigned together when the ministry fell, and they retained their views following the coup d'état of 2 December 1851 by withdrawing from public life and refusing to support

3060-631: The market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science . Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution . He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte 's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and

3128-459: The materialism of an expanding bourgeoisie and to the selfishness of individualism. "In such conditions, we might become so enamored with 'a relaxed love of present enjoyments' that we lose interest in the future of our descendants...and meekly allow ourselves to be led in ignorance by a despotic force all the more powerful because it does not resemble one", wrote The New Yorker' s James Wood. Tocqueville worried that if despotism were to take root in

3196-452: The monarch of a country or nation in its social hierarchy . In modern European societies, the aristocracy has often coincided with the nobility , a specific class that arose in the Middle Ages , but the term "aristocracy" is sometimes also applied to other elites , and is used as a more general term when describing earlier and non-European societies. Aristocracy may be abolished within

3264-415: The most education and intelligence were left with two choices. They could join limited intellectual circles to explore the weighty and complex problems facing society, or they could use their superior talents to amass vast fortunes in the private sector. He wrote that he did not know of any country where there was "less independence of mind, and true freedom of discussion, than in America". Tocqueville blamed

3332-411: The omnipotence of majority rule as a chief factor in stifling thinking: "The majority has enclosed thought within a formidable fence. A writer is free inside that area, but woe to the man who goes beyond it, not that he stands in fear of an inquisition, but he must face all kinds of unpleasantness in every day persecution. A career in politics is closed to him for he has offended the only power that holds

3400-426: The peculiar nature of American political life. In describing the American, he agreed with thinkers such as Aristotle and Montesquieu that the balance of property determined the balance of political power, but his conclusions after that differed radically from those of his predecessors. Tocqueville tried to understand why the United States was so different from Europe in the last throes of aristocracy . In contrast to

3468-480: The regional armies allowed them to present themselves as the most "noble" or "best" of society. Gustave de Beaumont Beaumont was born in 1802 in Beaumont-la-Chartre, Sarthe , to the count Jules de Beaumont and Rose Préau de la Baraudière. He was the youngest of four children. Beaumont spent his early years in the chateau de La Borde in his birthplace. Like Tocqueville, Beaumont came from nobility; he

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3536-438: The ruling class) who led armies at the front line. Aristokratia roughly translates to "rule of the best born". Due to martial bravery being highly regarded as a virtue in ancient Greece , it was assumed that the armies were being led by "the best". This virtue was called arete ( ἀρετή ). Etymologically, as the word developed, it also produced a more political term: aristoi ( ἄριστοι ). The term aristocracy

3604-399: The same time in the United States, workers would see people fashioned in exquisite attire and merely proclaim that through hard work they too would soon possess the fortune necessary to enjoy such luxuries. Despite maintaining that the balance of property determined the balance of power, Tocqueville argued that as the United States showed, equitable property holdings did not ensure the rule of

3672-584: The second one unfinished. A longtime sufferer from bouts of tuberculosis , Tocqueville would eventually succumb to the disease on 16 April 1859 and was buried in the Tocqueville cemetery in Normandy . Tocqueville's professed religion was Roman Catholicism. He saw religion as being compatible with both equality and individualism, but felt that religion would be strongest when separated from politics. In Democracy in America , published in 1835, Tocqueville wrote of

3740-501: The strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom". The above is often misquoted as a slavery quote because of previous translations of the French text. The most recent translation by Arthur Goldhammer in 2004 translates the meaning to be as stated above. Examples of misquoted sources are numerous on the internet such as "Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom", but

3808-483: The text does not contain the words "Americans were so enamored by equality" anywhere. His view on government reflects his belief in liberty and the need for individuals to be able to act freely while respecting others' rights. Of centralized government, he wrote that it "excels in preventing, not doing". Tocqueville continues to comment on equality by saying: "Furthermore, when citizens are all almost equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against

3876-723: The troubled days of June 1849, he pleaded with Interior Minister Jules Armand Dufaure for the reestablishment of the state of siege in the capital and approved the arrest of demonstrators. Tocqueville, who since February 1848 had supported laws restricting political freedoms, approved the two laws voted immediately after the June 1849 days which restricted the liberty of clubs and freedom of the press . This active support in favor of laws restricting political freedoms stands in contrast of his defense of freedoms in Democracy in America . According to Tocqueville, he favored order as "the sine qua non for

3944-413: Was a contrast to the general aristocratic pattern in which only the eldest child, usually a man, inherited the estate, which had the effect of keeping large estates intact from generation to generation. In contrast, landed elites in the United States were less likely to pass on fortunes to a single child by the action of primogeniture , which meant that as time went by large estates became broken up within

4012-516: Was a descendant of the Bonin de la Bonnière family. In 1826, Beaumont acquired the position of King's Prosecutor at the Tribunal de Première Instance at Versailles . It was during this tenure that he first met Alexis de Tocqueville, and they became friends. Although Beaumont's eloquence and verve contrasted greatly with Tocqueville's bad rhetoric and asocial behavior, the two stayed close, even when Beaumont

4080-408: Was a positive force and prompted people to work together for common purposes and seen as "self-interest properly understood", then it helped to counterbalance the danger of the tyranny of the majority since people could "take control over their own lives" without government aid. According to Kaplan, Americans have a difficult time accepting Tocqueville's criticism of the stifling intellectual effect of

4148-686: Was among the deputies who gathered at the 10th arrondissement of Paris in an attempt to resist the coup and have Napoleon III judged for "high treason" as he had violated the constitutional limit on terms of office. Detained at Vincennes and then released, Tocqueville, who supported the Restoration of the Bourbons against Napoleon III's Second Empire (1851–1871), quit political life and retreated to his castle ( Château de Tocqueville ). Against this image of Tocqueville, biographer Joseph Epstein has concluded: "Tocqueville could never bring himself to serve

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4216-532: Was an ardent supporter of liberty. "I have a passionate love for liberty, law, and respect for rights", he wrote. "I am neither of the revolutionary party nor of the conservative. [...] Liberty is my foremost passion". He wrote of "Political Consequences of the Social State of the Anglo-Americans" by saying: "But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring

4284-602: Was appointed to Paris in 1829 and they were separated for a time. After receiving a commission from King Louis-Phillipe to inspect American prison systems along with Tocqueville, Beaumont set sail to America on the ship Le Havre in 1831 as Tocqueville's travelling companion. During their journey, their friendship grew and so did their intellectual involvement. At the conclusion of their 9-month study, they returned to France, and he and Tocqueville published their great political analysis Du système pénitentiare aux Etats-Unis, et de son application en France (two volumes, 1833). When

4352-537: Was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1847, he sought to found a Young Left ( Jeune Gauche ) party which would advocate wage increases, a progressive tax , and other labor concerns in order to undermine the appeal of the socialists. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of Manche in 1842 and became the president of the department's general council between 1849 and 1852; he resigned as he refused to pledge allegiance to

4420-533: Was guillotined in 1793. His parents, Hervé Louis François Jean Bonaventure Clérel, Count of Tocqueville, an officer of the Constitutional Guard of King Louis XVI ; and Louise Madeleine Le Peletier de Rosanbo narrowly escaped the guillotine due to the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in 1794. Under the Bourbon Restoration , Tocqueville's father became a noble peer and prefect . Tocqueville attended

4488-420: Was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism . During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right , and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum. Tocqueville came from an old aristocratic Norman family. He was the great-grandson of the statesman Malesherbes , who

4556-573: Was to analyze the functioning of political society and various forms of political associations, although he brought some reflections on civil society too (and relations between political and civil society). For Tocqueville, as for Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx , civil society was a sphere of private entrepreneurship and civilian affairs regulated by civil code . As a critic of individualism , Tocqueville thought that through associating for mutual purpose, both in public and private, Americans are able to overcome selfish desires, thus making both

4624-482: Was to help the people of France get a better understanding of their position between a fading aristocratic order and an emerging democratic order and to help them sort out the confusion. Tocqueville saw democracy as an enterprise that balanced liberty and equality , concern for the individual as well as for the community. However, on a negative note, Tocqueville remarked that "in democracies manners are never so refined as amongst aristocratic nations." Tocqueville

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