Journey to America

by Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) visited the United States in 1831 as an assistant magistrate of the French government. His great work Democracy in America was published in 1835. This volume contains all of the notebooks Tocqueville kept during his American journey.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

424 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 1981

About the author

Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, usually known as just Tocqueville, 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 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 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 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 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.

Reviews

[Lourens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Literally the English transcription of the various notebooks that the young Tocqueville filled while traveling North America. Some are just scraps, quick sentences that capture an insight, a conversation, a first impressions. Although not polished, these are fun to read because they are so raw and unfiltered. Some of the notebooks are chronological, some are Q&A style, some are ordered in alphabet by topic (e.g. "Bankruptcy" is followed by "Character of Americans" is followed by "Canada" etc).
A lot of repetition. Rough notes in one place show up in more polished form later.
Topics discussed include: democracy, slavery, religion, the American natives, the French Canadians living under English rule, the Westward expansion, Common Law and its origins, etc etc.

Fascinating, very unpolished book.

Some highlights to get a sense of the flavor. These are obviously not endorsements of the content of these quotes.

On native americans:

Q. How do the Indians of whom you speak live!
A. In a comfort entirely unknown among those who are near European settlements. They never cultivate the land. They are less well clothed and only have bows. But game is extremely abundant in their wilderness. I imagine it was like that right up to the Atlantic until the Europeans came. But game flies towards the west incredibly quickly. It goes more than a hundred leagues in advance of the whites.
The Indian peoples who
surround us would die of hunger if they did not cultivate the land a little.
2. Have the Indians not got the idea that sooner or later their race will be annihilated by ours?
A. They are incredibly careless of the future. Those who are already half destroyed and those on whose tracks we are press-ing, see the Europeans advancing to the west with despair, but there is no time left for resistance. All the distant nations of the west (I have heard it said that there were a good three million [sic]) seem unaware of the danger that menaces them.
Q. Is it true that the Indians like the French?
A. Yes, sir. Very much. They will only speak French. In the furthest part of the wilderness to be a Frenchman is the best recommendation to them. They always remember how well we treated them when we were masters of Canada. Besides many of us are related to them and live almost like them.

When we got back to the town, we told several people about the young Indian whose body was stretched on the road. We spoke of the imminent danger to which he was exposed; we even offered to pay the expense of an inn. All that was useless: we could not persuade anyone to budge. Some said to us: 'Those men are used to drink to excess and sleep on the ground; they never die from accidents like that.' Others recognised that the Indian would probably die, but one could read on their lips this half-expressed thought: 'What is the life of an Indian?' The fact is that that was the basis of the general feeling. In the midst of this American society, so well policed, so sententious, so charitable, a cold selfishness and complete insensibility prevails when it is a question of the natives of the country. The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction ...

Public service

Why, as civilisation spreads, do outstanding men become fewer? Why, when attainments are the lot of all, do great intellectual talents become rarer? Why, when there are no longer lower classes, are there no more upper classes? Why, when knowledge of how to rule reaches the masses, is there a lack of great abilities in the direction of society? America clearly poses these questions. But who can answer them?

Q. But why do men of note not get into the legislature?
A. I doubt the people choosing them. Besides little importance is attached to public offices, and outstanding men do not canvass for them. (This is what makes the State function so badly and at the same time saves it from revolutions.)

Structure of the union

One thing that tavoured the est States still the constitution in America was that the different States, still young and little accustomed to independence, had not yet cherished to a high degree that individual pride and those national prejudices which make it so painful for old societies to give up the smallest parts of their sovereignty.
Examples of federal unions in antiquity and in modern history:
1st. The Amphictyonic council.
2nd. The Achaean league.
3rd. The Germanic body. [i.e. Holy Roman Empire.]
4th. United Provinces of the Low Countries.
5th. Switzerland.
All these confederations have suffered from the defect of the first American Union; they did not at all make a single people out of the different provinces united by establishing a central power and sovereignty in matters that concerned the union.
They all came to suffer from civil war, or disintegration and anarchy, but none of them was sufficiently enlightened, as was the American Union, to see the remedy at the same time as it felt the ill and to correct its laws

On the national character of the americans.

NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE AMERICANS

Restlessness of character seems to me to be one of the distinctive traits of this people. The American is devoured by the longing to make his fortune; it is the unique passion of his life; he has no memory that attaches him to one place more than another, no inveterate habits, no spirit of routine; he is the daily witness of the swiftest changes of fortune, and is less afraid than any other inhabitant of the globe to risk what he has gained in the hope of a better future, for he knows that he can without trouble create new resources again. So he enters the great lottery of human fate with the assurance of a gambler who only risks his winnings.
The same man, we were told, has often tried ten occupations.
He has been seen successively a trader, lawyer, doctor and minister of the gospel. In one word, men do not have habits here, and what they see under their eyes prevents them from forming any: 1st. Many have come from Europe and have left behind their habits and their memories there.
2nd. Even those who have long been established in this country have kept this difference of habits. As yet there is no American outlook. Each takes from the association what suits him, and remains as he was.

Slavery in the south

Q. Then tell me why all the dwellings we come across in these woods offer such imperfect protection against bad weather. Daylight shows through the walls so much that rain and wind blow freely in. A dwelling like that must be uncomfortable and unhealthy for the owner as well as for his guest. Would it really be so difficult to keep it covered ?
A. Nothing easier, but the dweller in this country is generally lazy. He regards work as an evil. Provided he has food enough and a house which gives half shelter, he is happy and thinks only of smoking and hunting.
Q. What do you think is the chief cause of this laziness?
A. Slavery. We are accustomed to doing nothing for our-selves. There is no small-holder in Tennessee so poor but he has one black or two. When he has no more than that, he often has to work with them in the fields. But suppose he has about ten, as often happens, then there is one white man to give orders and he does absolutely nothing but ride and hunt. There is not a farmer but passes some of his time hunting and owns a good gun.
Q. Do you think cultivation by slaves economical?
A. No. I think it costs more than using free

The conquest of Canada

Another time Mr. Duponceau said: 'How strangely blind men can be to the effects of what they themselves have caused!
I am sure that if England had not conquered Canada in 1763, the American Revolution would not have taken place. We should still be English. The need to resist French power in the North and the Indians, natural allies of the French in the West, would have kept the colonies in dependence on Great Britain. If they had attempted to throw off the yoke, France, for fear of insurrection in Canada, would not have dared to take their side.
Nevertheless no nation has ever been more drunk with triumph than the English at the time of which I speak.'

[Rodrigo Jungmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tudo de Tocqueville me interessa.

[Sarah Holz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tocqueville's American travel journals serve as an extended appendix to Democracy in America - interesting from the standpoint of literary and philosophical analysis, but not required reading. If you haven't read Democracy in America, don't start here.