Summary: Democracy in America

Tocqueville wrote this book after his journey to America to analyse the nature and peculiarities of its system of government.

What struck him most was the equality of conditions among citizens. This fact shapes everything else: laws, morals, and more.

Observing this movement towards equality across Europe since the French Revolution, he conceived the idea for this book.

This march towards equality, or the democratic revolution, is an irresistible phenomenon that has deep historical roots. Indeed, it is the most continuous, enduring, and permanent phenomenon in recorded history ¹.

This progress can already be seen in various historical events: the clergy opening its ranks to both the poor and the rich; nobles impoverishing themselves in private wars, while commoners amass wealth through trade; kings integrating the lower classes into government to weaken the aristocracy. Even inventions like firearms put the commoner and the noble on equal footing in battle ².

Tocqueville observes that with each half-century, the noble draws closer to the commoner. To such an extent that we must concede a providential character to this march towards democracy. In other words, this is divine will and, therefore, the destiny of humanity:

The gradual development of equality of conditions is, therefore, a providential fact; it possesses the defining traits of one: it is universal, enduring, and beyond human control; every event, like every man, serves its development ³.

This inevitability, which profoundly impresses Tocqueville, renders futile any reactionary efforts to overthrow democracy and restore the monarchy. However, if this democratic movement cannot be opposed, perhaps it can be guided. For this, a new political science is required for an entirely new world ⁴.

Until we develop a political science suited to its time, democracy exists without the safeguards that should mitigate its vices and highlight its virtues ⁵.

Tocqueville highlights the contradictions of the turbulent era in which he writes, the years immediately following the French Revolution—that extraordinary century in which nothing seems to be defended anymore—neither the permissible nor the honest nor the shameful, neither the true nor the false ⁶. For instance, the opposition between the clergy and the revolutionaries, even though Christ himself defended freedom against slavery.

America had the advantage of establishing itself as a democratic country without undergoing a revolution:

I confess that in America, I saw more than just America; I sought an image of democracy itself ⁷.

Tocqueville does not seek to pass any value judgement on the historical phenomenon of the Revolution. He does not aim to determine whether it is beneficial or disastrous. He treats it as a fact to be analysed, so that it may yield the greatest possible benefit.

According to Tocqueville, when studying a people, one must first analyse its "social state." This is defined as the result of certain factors (e.g. the country’s geographical location, its climate, etc.) combined with its laws.

This social state, in turn, is the primary factor shaping the laws, customs, and ideas of a nation.

The social state of the Americans is profoundly democratic, as it is shaped by emigrants from Europe who, in their status as migrants, exhibit great equality. This is a rare historical phenomenon—a migration of outcasts and adventurers—that gives rise to an unprecedented political and social state.

American inheritance law also played a crucial role. Rather than granting the eldest son exclusive inheritance of the land—thus giving rise to an aristocracy rooted in the soil ⁸—American law introduced equal division among sons, thereby breaking up large estates.

¹ De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome 1 et 2, Gallimard, coll. Folio histoire, Paris, 1961, I, p.39
² I, p.40
³ I, p.41
⁴ I, p.43
⁵ I, ibid.
⁶ I, p.50
⁷ I, p.51
⁸ I, p.97