I felt a rare virtue slogging through the 834 pages of Tocqueville’s classic account on the democratic system of the United States, originally published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840. I was motivated to take the work on by my recent reading of Parrot and Olivier in America, a novel by Peter Carey which entertainingly imagines an American tour during the same historic period by a Tocqueville-like French aristocrat and his hardscrabble English sidekick. To my disappointment, Tocqueville’s work lacks the sort of anecdotal detail suggested by Carey’s book. Clearly reasoned, it is nevertheless quite dry.
Democracy in America is essentially a political science treatise, analyzing why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the then 50 year old United States while failing in so many other places. He is particular concerned to compare the functional aspects of American democracy with what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France. Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the despotism of public opinion, the tyranny of the majority, conformity for the sake of material security, the absence of intellectual freedom—which he saw to degrade administration and bring statesmanship, learning, and literature to the level of the lowest. Democracy in America predicted the violence of party spirit and the judgment of the wise subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant.
Tocqueville observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. In contrast, he perceived there to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious in France, which he relates to the connection between church and state.
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