Reed Fagan’s Reviews > Democracy in America > Status Update

"It is to be remembered, too, that the affections of men generally turn towards power." -p. 66, Alexis de Tolkien 🤭

Sovereignty of the People.

"When a nation begins to modify the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen that, sooner or later, that qualification will be entirely abolished...no stop can be made short of universal suffrage." -p. 57
Suffrage ended up going further than T might have been able to conceive.

"The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe." -p. 58

Social Condition of the Anglo-Americans.
T marvels how Americans don't face the classism of aristocracy (frequent sale of inherited land & assumption of new professions keeps ppl from amassing inordinate wealth over others) yet also don't succumb to despotic governance & illiberty w/o aristocratic powers to oppose such.
"Their circumstances, origin, intelligence & morals establish & maintain their freedom."-54, parap

Origin of the Anglo-Americans.
Tocqueville sees the founding colonies of the US as independent political regions that benefitted from notions of democracy coming from England, notions of independence and laws coming from novel ("Enlightment" in modern parlance) ideas, and shared Christian belief & practice (while admitting some sects were hostile to others).
"Liberty regards religion as its companion..." -p. 44

Exterior Form of N.A.
"The famous republics of antiquity never gave examples of more unshaken courage, more haughty spirit, or more intractable love of independence than were hidden in former times among the wild forests of the New World. The Europeans produced no great impression when they landed upon the shores of North America... What influence could they possess over such men as I have described?" - p. 23

Author's Introduction.

"Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people." - p. 3

Critics note T, despite floating the MS river to N.O., seems never to have visited a plantation to see chattel slavery. I'll be interested to see how he describes the potential for African-Americans later.

In "Author's Introduction":
"Among the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people....It is evident to all alike that a great democratic revolution is going on among us....It seems irresistible, because it is the most uniform, ancient, most permanent tendency in human history." Paraphrase, p. 3

Tocqueville's critiques "provide a permanent and it must be said a fruitful and useful counter-current to the natural tendencies of an egalitarian society in which the principle of vox populi vox dei must always be in some risk of overstepping its proper bounds in the realm of politics and economics to invade the realms of our private tastes, our religious convictions, and our hopes for human progress."-p.xlvi, Intro

T thought Americans would not be [future] revolutionaries. "Revolutions may take place either to reduce the inequalities of wealth, power and social status between the lower classes and the ruling class or else to reinforce those inequalities and make them harder to remove.... The first is the classic example of a populist uprising, the latter and oligarchical coup to forestall any such uprising." -p.xliii, Intro