Today we share the philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) from his famous work, ‘De la démocratie en Amérique’, translated from French as ‘Democracy In America’ in English, which was originally published in 1835 (Volume 1) and 1840 (Volume 2).
Tocqueville was sent to America on a mission to study the American penal institutions. Specifically, he was to research and write on the advantages and disadvantages of the two systems in use in the United States: The Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system (of New York). However, what interested Tocqueville most, which he did not disclose to his superiors and which was not the project officially announced, was the American Republic – he was in America to observe the facts that would allow him the write ‘Democracy In America’ and to give body and substance to a certain idea of Democracy that he already had in mind before the American journey of 1831.
A Top Level Review Of ‘Democracy In America’
‘Democracy In America’ contains all of the institutional, historical, and theoretical elements that one would associate with classical liberalism. These elements include division of powers, rights, freedom of the press, and sovereignty of the people. But, it would be a mistake to look in the volumes of this work for an organized and perfectly structured set of theoretical and institutional solutions. Rather, Tocqueville’s aim was for the reader to complete his work, pulling the pieces together on his own as, over time, the mind digests the information.
Quotes From ‘Democracy In America’
Quotes are organized by topic and excerpted from the Liberty Fund English Edition of ‘Democracy In America’, published in 2012, edited by Eduardo Nolla and translated from the French by James T. Schleifer.
Autonomy
“Little by little, enlightenment spreads; the taste of literature and the arts reawakens; then the mind becomes an element of success; knowledge is a means of government; intelligence, a social force…” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“… the independence of mind that equality suggests is never so great and never appears so excessive as at the moment when equality begins to become established and during the painful work that establishes it. So you must carefully distinguish the type of intellectual liberty that equality can provide, from the anarchy that revolution brings.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 1 – Of The Philosophical Method Of The Americans
“If man was forced to prove to himself all the truths that he uses every day, he would never finish doing so… he is reduced to holding as certain a host of facts and opinions that he has had neither the leisure nor the power to examine and to verify by himself, but that those more clever have found or that the crowd adopts. On this foundation he builds himself the structure of his own thoughts.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“It is true that every man who receives an opinion on the word of others puts his mind into slavery; but it is a salutary servitude that allows making a good use of liberty.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“Religion, by providing the mind with a clear and precise solution to a great number of metaphysical and moral questions as important as they are difficult to resolve, leaves the mind the strength and the leisure to proceed with calmness and with energy in the whole area that religion abandons to it; and it is not precisely because of religion, but with the help of the liberty and the peace that religion gained from it, that the human mind has often done such great things in the centuries of faith.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“I see very clearly in equality two tendencies: one that leads the mind of each man toward new thoughts and the other that readily reduces him to thinking no more.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“If the human mind undertook to examine and to judge individually all the particular cases that strike it, it would soon be lost amid the immensity of details and would no longer see anything…” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 3 – Why The Americans Show More Aptitude And Taste For General Ideas Than Their Fathers The English
“… men have an immense interest in forming very fixed ideas about God, their soul, their general duties toward their creator and toward their fellows; for doubt about these first points would leave all their actions to chance and would condemn them in a way to disorder and impotence… Only minds very emancipated from the ordinary preoccupations of life, very perceptive, very subtle, very practiced are able with the help of a great deal of time and care to break through to such necessary truths.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 5 – How, In The United States, Religion Knows How To Make Use Of Democratic Instincts
“When religion is destroyed among a people, doubt takes hold of the highest portions of the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Each person gets accustomed to having only confused and changing notions about the matters that most interest his fellows and himself. You defend your opinions badly or you abandon them, and, since you despair of being able, by yourself, to solve the greatest problems that human destiny presents, you are reduced like a coward to not thinking about them. Such a state cannot fail to enervate souls; it slackens the motivating forces of will and prepares citizens for servitude. Then not only does it happen that the latter allow their liberty to be taken, but they often give it up.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 5 – How, In The United States, Religion Knows How To Make Use Of Democratic Instincts
“An instinctive tendency raises the human mind in vain toward the highest spheres of intelligence; interest leads it back towards the middle ones. That is where it puts forth its strength and restless activity, and brings forth miracles.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 10 – Why The Americans Are More Attached To The Application Of The Sciences Than To The Theory
Groups
“The town is the first element of the societies out of which peoples take form; it is the social molecule; if I can express myself in this way, it is the embryo that already represents and contains the seed of the complete being.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of The Town System In America
“The strength of the free peoples resides in the town… Town institutions are to liberty what primary schools are to knowledge…” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of The Town System In America
“The federal government confers power and glory on those who direct it; but the number of men who are able to influence its destiny is very small… It is in the town, at the center of the ordinary relations of life, that the desire for esteem, the need for real interests, the taste for power and notice are focused. These passions, which so often trouble society, change character when they can operate thus near the domestic hearth and, in a way, within the family.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of Town Spirit In New England
“Great parties turn society upside down; small ones trouble it; the ones tear it apart and the other deprave it. [< Both have a common trait, however: to reach their ends, they hardly ever use means that conscience approves completely. There are honest men in nearly all parties, but it can be said that no party should be called an honest man. >] The first sometimes save society by shaking it up; the second always disturb it to no profit.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 2 – Of Parties In The United States
“Apart from permanent associations created by law, known as towns, cities and counties, a multitude of others owe their birth and development only to individual wills… they unite to resist entirely intellectual enemies: together they fight intemperance… they associate for purposes of public security, commerce and industry, pleasure, morality and religion. There is nothing that human will despairs of achieving by the free action of the collective power of individuals.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 4 – Of Political Association In The United States
“The association gathers the efforts of divergent minds into a network and vigorously pushes them towards a single, clearly indicated goal.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 4 – Of Political Association In The United States
“In our time, freedom of association has become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 4 – Of Political Association In The United States
“An association is an army; they talk in order to take stock and to come to life; and then they march on the enemy.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 4 – Of Political Association In The United States – Different Ways In Which The Right Of Association Is Understood In Europe And In The United States, And The Different Use That Is Made Of That Right
“For a society of nations as for a society of individuals, there are three principal ways to last: the wisdom of the members, their individual weakness, and their small number.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 10 – Some Considerations On The Present State And Probable Future Of The Three Races That Inhabit The Territory Of The United States – What Are The Chances For The American Union To Last? What Dangers Threaten It?
“It is clear that, if each citizen, as he becomes individually weaker and therefore incapable of preserving his liberty by himself alone, did not learn the art of uniting with his fellows to defend his liberty, tyranny would necessarily grow with equality.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 5 – Of The Use That Americans Make Of Association In Civil Life
“The morals and intelligence of a democratic people would run no lesser dangers than their trade and industry, if the government came to take the place of associations everywhere… Associations, among democratic people, must take the place of the powerful individuals that equality of conditions has made disappear… In democratic countries, the science of association is the mother science; the progress of all the others depends on the progress of the former.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 5 – Of The Use That Americans Make Of Association In Civil Life
“For men to remain civilized, or to become so, the art of associating must become developed among them and be perfected in the same proportion as equality of conditions grows.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 5 – Of The Use That Americans Make Of Association In Civil Life
“Men can associate in a thousand ways, but the spirit of association is a whole, and you cannot stop one of its principal developments without weakening it everywhere else.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 7 – Relations Between Civil Associations And Political Associations
“… politics generalizes the taste and habit of association; it brings about the desire to unite and teaches the art of association to a host of men who would have always lived alone. Politics not only gives birth to many associations, it creates very vast associations.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 7 – Relations Between Civil Associations And Political Associations
Liberty
“Past centuries saw base and venal souls advocate slavery, while independent spirits and generous hearts struggled without hope to save human liberty. But today you often meet men naturally noble and proud whose opinions are in direct opposition to their tastes, and who speak in praise of the servility and baseness that they have never known for themselves. There are others, in contrast, who speak of liberty as if they could feel what is holy and great in it and who loudly claim on behalf of humanity rights that they have always disregarded.” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“Liberty sees in religion the companion of its strengths and triumphs, the cradle of its early years, the divine source of its rights. Liberty considers religion as the safeguard of mores, mores as the guarantee of laws and the pledge of its own duration.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 2 – Of The Point Of Departure And Its Importance For The Future Of The Anglo-Americans
“Town liberty… is rarely created, in a sense it arises by itself. It develops almost in secret within a semi-barbaric society. The continuous action of laws and of mores, circumstances, and above all, time, succeed in its consolidation… ” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of The Town System In America
“There is nothing more fruitful in wonders than the art of being free; but there is nothing harder than apprenticeship in liberty… born amid storms; it is established painfully in the midst of civil discord, and only when it is already old can its benefits be known.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 6 – What Are The Real Advantages That American Society Gains From The Government Of Democracy? – Of The Idea Of Rights In The United States
“For me, when I feel the hand of power pressing on my head, knowing who is oppressing me matters little to me, and I am no more inclined to put my head in the yoke, because a million arms present it to me.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“So although men cannot become absolutely equal without being entirely free, and consequently equality at its most extreme level merges with liberty, you are justified in distinguishing the one from the other. The taste that men have for liberty and the one that they feel for equality are, in fact, two distinct things, and I am not afraid to add that, among democratic peoples, they are two unequal things.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 1 – Why Democratic People Show A More Ardent And More Enduring Love For Equality Than For Liberty
“The good things that liberty brings show themselves only over time, and it is always easy to fail to recognize the cause that gives them birth.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 1 – Why Democratic People Show A More Ardent And More Enduring Love For Equality Than For Liberty
“Men cannot enjoy political liberty without purchasing it at the cost of some sacrifices, and they never secure it except by a great deal of effort.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 1 – Why Democratic People Show A More Ardent And More Enduring Love For Equality Than For Liberty
“So political liberty, which is useful when conditions are unequal, becomes necessary in proportion as they become equal.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 4 – How The Americans Combat Individualism With Free Institutions
“If men learn in obedience only the art of obeying and not that of being free, I do not know what privileges they will have over the animals except that the shepherd would be taken from among them.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 5 – Of The Use That Americans Make Of Association In Civil Life – Of The Manner In Which American Governments Act Toward Associations
“A nation that asks of its government only the maintenance of order is already a slave at the bottom of its heart. The nation is a slave of its well-being, and the man who is to put it in chains can appear… When the mass of citizens wants only to concern itself with private affairs, the smallest parties do not have to despair of becoming masters of public affairs.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 14 – How The Taste For Material Enjoyments Is United, Among The Americans, With The Love Of Liberty And Concern For Public Affairs
Social Capital
“It is not the use of power or the habit of obedience that depraves men; it is the use of a power that they consider as illegitimate and obedience to a power that they regard as usurped and oppressive.” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“… I imagine a society where all, seeing the law as their work, would love it and would submit to it without difficulty; where since the authority of the government is respected as necessary and not as divine, the love that is felt for the head of State would be not a passion, but a reasoned and calm sentiment. Since each person has rights and is assured of preserving his rights, a manly confidence and a kind of reciprocal condescension, as far from pride as from servility, would be established among all classes. Instructed in their true interests, the people would understand that, in order to take advantage of the good things of society, you must submit to its burdens.” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“If there is no enthusiasm and fervor of beliefs, enlightenment and experience will sometimes obtain great sacrifices from citizens; each man, equally weak, will feel an equal need for his fellows; and knowing that he can gain their support only on condition of lending them his help, he will discover without difficulty that for him particular interest merges with the general interest.” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“The bond of language is perhaps the strongest and most durable that can unite men.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 2 – Of The Point Of Departure And Its Importance For The Future Of The Anglo-Americans
“All people who have been seen to form a confederation have had a certain number of common interests that serve as the intellectual bonds of the association. But beyond material interests, man still has ideas and sentiments. For a confederation to last for a long time, there must be no less homogeneity in the civilization than in the needs of the diverse peoples who constitute it.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 8 – Of The Federal Constitution – What Keeps The Federal System From Being Within The Reach Of All Peoples; And What Has Allowed The Anglo-Americans To Adopt It
“… personal interest… offers itself as the only fixed point in the human heart…” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 6 – What Are The Real Advantages That American Society Gains From The Government Of Democracy? – Of The Idea Of Rights In The United States
“… it is easy to see that no society is able to prosper without similar beliefs, or rather none can continue to exist in such a way; for, without common ideas, there is no common action, and, without common action, there are still men, but not a social body. So for society to exist, and, with even more reason, for this society to prosper, all the minds of the citizens must always be brought and held together by some principal ideas; and that cannot happen without each one of them coming at times to draw his opinions from the same source and consenting to receive a certain number of ready-made beliefs.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 1 – Influence Of Democracy On The Intellectual Movement In The United States – Chapter 2 – Of The Principal Source Of Beliefs Among Democratic Peoples
“When citizens are forced to occupy themselves with public affairs, they are necessarily drawn away from the middle of their individual interests and are, from time to time, dragged away from looking at themselves. From the moment when common affairs are treated together, each man notices that he is not as independent of his fellows as he first imagined, and that, to gain their support, he must often lend them his help. When the public governs, there is no man who does not feel the value of the public’s regard and who does not seek to win it by gaining the esteem and affection of those among whom he must live. Several of the passions that chill and divide hearts are then forced to withdraw deep into the soul and hide there. Pride conceals itself; scorn dares not to show itself. Egoism is afraid of itself. [< You dread to offend and you love to serve. >]… It then happens that you think about your fellows out of ambition, and that often, in a way, you find it in your interest to forget yourself.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 4 – How The Americans Combat Individualism With Free Institutions
“You draw a man out of himself with difficulty in order to interest him in the destiny of the entire State, because he poorly understands the influence that the destiny of the State can exercise on his fate… So it is by charging citizens with the administration of small affairs, much more than by giving them the government of great ones, that you interest them in the public good and make them see the need that they constantly have for each other in order to produce that good.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 4 – How The Americans Combat Individualism With Free Institutions
“In politics, men unite for great enterprises, and the advantage that they gain from association in important affairs teaches them, in a practical way, the interest that they have in helping each other in the least affairs. A political association draws a multitude of individuals out of themselves at the same time; however separated they are naturally by age, mind, fortune, it brings them closer together and puts them in contact. They meet once and learn how to find each other always.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 7 – Relations Between Civil Associations And Political Associations
“There is nothing, at first view, that seems less important than the external form of human action, and there is nothing to which men attach more value; they become accustomed to everything, except living in a society that does not have their manners.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 3 – Influence Of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called – Chapter 14 – Some Reflections On American Manners
“If citizens continue to enclose themselves more and more narrowly within the circle of small domestic interests and to be agitated there without respite, you can fear that they will end by becoming as if impervious to these great and powerful public emotions that disturb peoples, but which develop and renew them.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 3 – Influence Of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called – Chapter 21 – Why Great Revolutions Will Become Rare
Sovereignty
“To instruct democracy, to revive its beliefs if possible, to purify its mores, to regulate its movements, to substitute little by little the science of public affairs for its inexperience, knowledge of its true interests for its blind instincts; to adapt its government to times and places; to modify it according to circumstances and men; such is the first of duties imposed today on those who lead society.” – Volume 1 (1835) – Introduction
“Sovereignty of the people is always more or less a fiction wherever democracy is not established.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 3 – Social State Of The Anglo-Americans – That The Salient Point of the Social State Of The Anglo-Americans Is To Be Essentially Democratic
“Laws act on mores; and more, on laws. Wherever these two things do not lend each other mutual support, there is unrest, revolution tearing apart the society.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of The Spirit In New England
“… make authority great and the official small, so that society might continue to be well regulated and remain free.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of Administration In New England
“Administrative centralization, it is true, succeeds in gathering at a given time and in a certain place all the available forces of a nation, but it is harmful to the multiplication of those forces… it can work admirably toward the passing greatness of a man, not toward the lasting prosperity of a people… like nearly all the harmful things of this world, administrative centralization is easily established and, once organized, can hardly ever be destroyed again except with the social body itself.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 5 – Necessity Of Studying What Happens In The Individual States Before Speaking About The Government Of The Union – Of The Political Effects Of Administrative Decentralization In The United States
“… it is during a war that the weakness of a government is revealed in a most visible and dangerous manner.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 8 – Of The Federal Constitution – What Keeps The Federal System From Being Within The Reach Of All Peoples; And What Has Allowed The Anglo-Americans To Adopt It
“… the jury, which is the most energetic means to make the people rule, is also the most effective means to teach them to rule.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 8 – Of What Tempers Tyranny Of The Majority In The United States – Of The Fury In The United States Considered As a Political Institution
“The principal aim of good government has always been to make the citizens more and more able to do without its help. That is more useful than the help can be.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 5 – Of The Use That Americans Make Of Association In Civil Life – Of The Manner In Which American Governments Act Toward Associations
Virtues
“So we have retreated far from the point reached by our fathers, for we allow, under the color of justice, and consecrate, in the name of law, deeds that violence alone imposed on them.” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 1, Chapter 6 – Of The Judicial Power In The United States And Its Action On Political Society – Other Powers Granted To America Judges
“The idea of rights is nothing more than the idea of virtue introduced into the political world… There are no great men without virtue; without respect for rights, there is no great people. You can almost say that there is no society; for what is a gathering of rational and intelligent beings bound together only by force?” – Volume 1 (1835), Part 2 – Chapter 6 – What Are The Real Advantages That American Society Gains From The Government Of Democracy? – Of The Idea Of Rights In The United States
“Men do not receive the truth from their enemies, and their friends hardly ever offer the truth to them…” – Volume 2 (1840) – Foreword
“Egoism is a passionate and exaggerated love of oneself, which leads man to view everything only in terms of himself alone and to prefer himself to everything… Egoism is born out of blind instinct… Egoism parches the seed of all virtues… Egoism is a vice as old as the world.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 2 – Influence Of Democracy On The Sentiment Of The Americans – Chapter 2 – Of Individualism In Democratic Countries
“Nothing harms democracy more than the external form of its mores. Many men would readily become accustomed to its vices, who cannot bear its manners.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 3 – Influence Of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called – Chapter 14 – Some Reflections On American Manners
“A class that has succeeded in putting itself above and at the head of all the others, and that makes constant efforts to maintain itself at this supreme rank, must particularly honor the virtues that have grandeur and brilliance, and that can be easily combined with pride and love of power.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 3 – Influence Of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called – Chapter 18 – Of Honor In The United States And In Democratic Societies
“Every revolution magnifies the ambition of men… Ambition must be given an honest, reasonable and great end, not extinguished.” – Volume 2 (1840), Part 3 – Influence Of Democracy On Mores Properly So Called – Chapter 19 – Why In The United States You Find So Many Ambitious Men And So Few Great Ambitions
Final Thoughts
Alexis de Tocqueville’s penetrating analysis of democracy’s tensions—between liberty and equality, individualism and community, centralized power and local governance—continues to illuminate the challenges we face today.
What makes Tocqueville’s work endure is not just his keen eye for institutional mechanics, but his deep understanding of democracy as a moral and social phenomenon. He recognized that democracy’s success depends less on its formal structures than on the habits, associations, and virtues of its citizens. His warning that democratic peoples might willingly surrender their freedom for comfort and security feels particularly prescient in our age of expanding government and diminishing civic engagement.
Perhaps most importantly, Tocqueville reminds us that democracy is not a destination but a continuous project requiring active participation. The “art of association” he celebrated—the ability of free people to come together for common purposes—remains democracy’s vital force. In an era of increasing polarization and isolation, his emphasis on local institutions, civic education, and the cultivation of public virtue offers both a diagnosis of our ailments and a prescription for renewal.
As we navigate democracy’s ongoing challenges, Tocqueville’s wisdom serves as both a warning and a guide: democracy’s blessings are neither automatic nor permanent. They must be earned anew by each generation through the patient work of self-government, the practice of association, and the preservation of those intermediate institutions that stand between the individual and the state. In this light, Democracy in America is not merely a historical document but a living manual for democratic citizenship.
Thanks for reading!