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Democracy in America Throughout the course of history, mankind has been recorded to corrupt itself. Men have grown tired of simply surviving; they have had to take and conquer others. Absolute monarchies control wealth, land, and even lives of men. The conditions of the people were solely dependent on the conditions of the one who was in power in that particular place and time. History has proven that most men rule unwisely in their kingdoms. To avoid tyrannical rule, some make an attempt to set up a government in which the people ruled themselves. This form of government is called a democracy, or “rule of the people.” History has also revealed through the Greeks and the French Revolution, that a democracy that gives complete power to the people, “absolute democracy”, is nothing more than a short prelude to tyranny. A new democracy was established in America with certain unique characteristics in its structure and establishment. America’s tyranny never came. America’s duration of holding to its original form of government, since the time of the Constitution, evolved from a near insignificant point in human history, to an era power not in a man, but rather in free men, every one in America for over 200 years. The question of every great historian then is this, “How has America’s democracy thrived when all others previous to it has failed?”1 A brilliant young historian from France devoted a major portion of his life to answer this world changing mystery. Alexis de Tocqueville revealed to Europe, which characteristics instilled in American democracy must be modeled in order to construct a proper institution of government in any nation. He did this in his work, Democracy in America. Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris on July 29, 1805. Tocqueville’s father was a royalist prefect from Normandy who supported the Boubon monarchy, his great-grandfather was a liberal aristocrat killed in the French Revolution, and his mother was a devout Roman Catholic who strongly advocated a return on the Old Regime. In 1835, the first part of Democracy in America was published. A highly positive and optimistic account of American government and society, the book was very well received throughout Europe. “In 1840 the second part of Democracy in America was published. This volume was substantially more pessimistic than the first, warning of the dangers des... ... middle of paper ... ...o take advantage of their given powers. We can see today how the proud and selfish demand special rights and privileges and receiving them more and more often. Fortunately, those with a current passion for liberty and equality are speaking out against Egotism. Alexis de Tocqueville had noticed the democracy in two nations. He saw one succeed, and another fail. But the interesting and somewhat haunting fact still remains. The failure of America could very possibly begin. The equal opportunity for everyone American citizen to do what was and still is the basic foundation of the success of the democracy in America. If we ignore these rights, we will fall prey to the uncertain evils that wait for our destruction. Many because of the stand it takes to secure freedom for all hate America. Not all attacks to are made by men with guns and planes. The most destructive enemies are those that bring false ideas of complacency and doubt in the hearts and the minds of the American people. If we would read, study, and learn from people like Alexis de Tocqueville and our founding fathers, we would be ready to fight those false ideas and instill a possible hope to the generations to come.
Alexis De Tocqueville painted a portrait of a flourishing democracy within the text, Democracy in America. Tocqueville proposed that equality was one of the fundamental tenets that aided the success of American democracy. He defined equality of conditions as the end of aristocracy: “the noble has fallen on the social ladder, and the commoner has risen; the one descends, the other climbs. Each half century brings them nearer, and soon they are going to touch” (Democracy in America, book, 6). American democracy flourishes because there is an established equality of conditions for all; American democracy enforced the absence of formal rank and the end of births into positions of power while encouraging forms of power that challenged rank and privilege. However, in his analysis, Alexis De Tocqueville recognized the presence of race based inequality and cautioned that the reinforcement of a racial hierarchy could be detrimental to American democracy. Such observations characterize Tocqueville as insightful and
Given that despots have every interest in keeping people isolated, the individualism resulting from equality makes despotism a great danger to equality. "Despotism... sees in the separation among men the surest guarantee of its continuance, and it usually makes every effort to keep them separate" (399). Exercising freedom through participation in public affairs is therefore extremely vital because it gives people a personal interest in thinking about others in society. Local self-governments are important because they draw people together, and it is therefore more likely that they will exercise their liberty. Tocqueville states that "as soon as a man begins to treat of public affairs in public, he begins to perceive that he is not so independent of his fellow men as he had first imagined, and that in order to obtain their support he must often lend them his cooperation" (400). When people act together they frequently form dependencies on one another, especially when they are working for the good of the entire community.
Tocqueville was a Frenchman who was interested in America and its democratic design. He spoke of his observations about America in his book, Democracy in America. Tocqueville’s attitudes towards Americans seem to be very appreciative. He saw democracy as a perfect balance between freedom and equality. Yet, while he is appreciative, he is also quite critical of some of the effects of democracy in America. Tocqueville believed that there were some faults with democracy and states them in his book.
Democracy in America has been a guiding principle since the foundation of the country. Many over the years have commented on the structure and formation of democracy but more importantly the implementation and daily function within the democratic parameters that have been set. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian born July 29, 1805. He is most famously known for his work Democracy in America. Democracy in America has been an evolving social and economic reform, and has continually changed since it’s founding.
But roughly a century later a change in this mindset was given evidence by the French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville’s sociopolitical work, Democracy in America, which identified the need for and unavoidability of the abolition of slavery and that it was America’s greed that was keeping this from happening. Both Wheatley and Tocqueville show the changing view of slaves and slavery in America within a
In Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, he discusses his experience with the structure of American society and the effects it has on the people. He points to the emphasis on equality that he sees in America as a reason for its success as a new, developing nation. The increasing equality of conditions leads to the governmental structure of majority rule, where decisions are made based on number of opinions. Tocqueville initially praises the democracy in America but then goes on to warn against the possibility of the “tyranny of the majority” and the downside of the majority having too much power and influence. Because of the consequences of the tyranny of the majority that I have seen in present day life and Tocqueville’s own reasoning, I believe he is right to suggest that the majority’s power needs to be limited to a certain extent in order to allow a sufficient balance between freedom and equality, which are necessary to the happiness of a society.
The character of the United States is illuminated by the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wanted to build a government where people are free and where the government “derives its power from the consent of the governed and it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it” (Jefferson, 247). T...
In this excerpt from Democracy in America Alexis Tocqueville expresses his sentiments about the United States democratic government. Tocqueville believes the government's nature exists in the absolute supremacy of the majority, meaning that those citizens of the United States who are of legal age control legislation passed by the government. However, the power of the majority can exceed its limits. Tocqueville believed that the United States was a land of equality, liberty, and political wisdom. He considered it be a land where the government only served as the voice of the its citizens. He compares the government of the US to that of European systems. To him, European governments were still constricted by aristocratic privilege, the people had no hand in the formation of their government, let alone, there every day lives. He held up the American system as a successful model of what aristocratic European systems would inevitably become, systems of democracy and social equality. Although he held the American democratic system in high regards, he did have his concerns about the systems shortcomings. Tocqueville feared that the virtues he honored, such as creativity, freedom, civic participation, and taste, would be endangered by "the tyranny of the majority." In the United States the majority rules, but whose their to rule the majority. Tocqueville believed that the majority, with its unlimited power, would unavoidably turn into a tyranny. He felt that the moral beliefs of the majority would interfere with the quality of the elected legislators. The idea was that in a great number of men there was more intelligence, than in one individual, thus lacking quality in legislation. Another disadvantage of the majority was that the interests of the majority always were preferred to that of the minority. Therefore, giving the minority no chance to voice concerns.
So it is understood that political freedom is a possibility in America. I have taken the understanding of de Tocqueville and Arendt and applied their principles and visions to formulate and understand where America is in the present and where America needs to head if political freedom is to become a reality. I understand that this vision, my own vision, is very rough and is vulnerable to much criticism, but it must be realized what potential exists in America. Arendt and Tocqueville have paved the road to political freedom; now it is up to the citizens to travel that road and obtain the freedom that founded our nation.
The very history of the country, a major contributor to the evolution of its political culture, shows a legacy of democracy that reaches from the Declaration of Independence through over two hundred years to today’s society. The formation of the country as a reaction to the tyrannical rule of a monarchy marks the first unique feature of America’s democratic political culture. It was this reactionary mindset that greatly affected many of the decisions over how to set up the new governmental system. A fear of simply creating a new, but just as tyrannic...
"Democracy may, after all, turn out to have been a historical accident, a brief parenthesis that is closing before our eyes." With those words, French philosopher Jean-Francois Revel sounded an alarm as the ramparts of democratic conviction were under attack by the political left. Revel, one of the most important conservative thinkers in France, saw European intellectuals and the political left in America undermining the very foundations of democracy.
Though French philosophes supported “personal rights and liberties” due to an absolute domination of the Roman Church very few Frenchmen enjoyed such freedoms. The American War for Independence sparked hope in the hearts of the Frenchmen who desired the same freedom in their country. However, political and social order did not change and the “extravagant government spending and oppressive taxation” added together, brought the country to the brink of economic collapse.
De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat who came to America to study the American penal system. Coming from a European society he was struck by the way Americans understood the equality of the sexes. He published his book Democracy in America in 1835, which is from where our excerpt came from.
In today’s society, American citizens tend to believe that America has been, “American” since the day that Christopher Columbus set foot in the Bahamas. This is a myth that has been in our society for a multitude of years now. In A New England Town by Kenneth A. Lockridge, he proves that America was not always democratic. Additionally, he proves that America has not always been “American”, by presenting the town of Dedham in 1635. Lockridge presents this town through the course of over one hundred years, in that time many changes happened as it made its way to a type of democracy.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, and Donald A. Cress. "On Democracy." Basic Political Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1987. 179-80. Print.