Thanks to James Bourke, Seymour Drescher, Sheldon Gellar, Matthew Holbreich, Jeremy Jennings, Alan Kahan, Daniel Mahoney, Vladimir Protopopescu, and Catherine Zuckert for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Research for this essay was made possible by a generous grant from the Earhart Foundation. I also want to thank the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University.

1. Redier, Antoine, Comme disait Monsieur de Tocqueville… (Paris: Perrin, 1925).Google Scholar For a comprehensive account of the reception of Tocqueville's works, see Mélonio, Françoise, Tocqueville and the French (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998).Google Scholar

2. Here is a list with some of the most important new interpretations of Tocqueville: Benoît, Jean-Louis, Tocqueville moraliste(Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004);Google ScholarGuellec, Laurence, Tocqueville et les langages de la démocratie (Paris, 2004);Google ScholarAudier, Serge, Tocqueville retrouvé. Genèse et enjeux du renouveau tocquevillien français (Paris: EHESS/Vrin, 2004);Google ScholarAntoine, Agnès, L'impensé de la démocratie: Tocqueville, la citoyenneté, et la religion (Paris: Fayard, 2003);Google ScholarDrolet, Michael, Tocqueville, Democracy, and Social Reform (Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 2003);CrossRefGoogle ScholarGannett, Robert T., Tocqueville Unveiled: The Historian and His Sources for the Old Regime and the Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003);Google ScholarWolin, Sheldon, Tocqueville Between Two Worlds: The Making of a Political and Theoretical Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001);Google ScholarWelch, Cheryl, De Tocqueville (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001);Google ScholarManent, Pierre, “Tocqueville philosophe politique,” Commentaire, No. 107, Autumn 2004, pp. 581–87;Google ScholarCraiutu, Aurelian and Jennings, Jeremy, “The Third Democracy: Tocqueville's Views of America after 1840,” American Political Science Review, 98/3 (2004): 391–404.CrossRefGoogle ScholarI would like to point out the recent publication of a rich selection from Tocqueville's, correspondence, Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, eds. Mélonio, Françoise and Guellec, Laurence (Paris: Gallimard, 2003).Google Scholar Also worth mentioning are The Tocqueville Reader, eds. Zunz, Oliver and Kahan, Alan S. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)Google Scholar and Tocqueville, Alexis de, Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Pitts, Jennifer (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

3. Nisbet, Robert, “Many Tocquevilles,” The American Scholar, Winter (1976–1977): 65.Google Scholar Also see Bourricaud, François, “Les «convictions» de M. de Tocqueville,” The Tocqueville Review/La revue Tocqueville, 7 (1985–1986): 105–115.Google Scholar

4. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, trans. Mansfield, Harvey C. and Winthrop, Delba (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2000), p. 532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Wolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, p. 3.Google Scholar

6. Mansfield, and Winthrop, , “Editors' Introduction,” p. xvii.Google Scholar

7. For an excellent discussion on this topic, I recommend Nolla, Eduardo, Autour de l'autre démocratie (Napoli: Istituto Suor Osola Benincasa, 1994), pp. 9–31.Google Scholar

8. Lawler, Peter A., “Tocqueville's Elusive Moderation,” Polity 22/1 (1989): 181–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9. See Benoît, , Tocqueville moraliste, pp. 445–540.Google Scholar

10. For more detail on this issue, see chapter 19 in Schleifer, James, The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, 2nd edition (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2000), pp. 325–39.Google Scholar

11. See Pierson, George Wilson, Tocqueville in America, 2nd edition (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 158–59, fn. 2;Google ScholarSchleifer, , The Making of Tocqueville's Democracy in America, pp. 325–39;Google ScholarWolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, pp. 125–29.Google Scholar

12. Boesche, Roger, The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), pp. 15–18.Google Scholar

13. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Boesche, Roger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

14. Ibid, p. 156.

15. Ibid, p. 257.

16. The same idea can by found in Boesche, , The Strange Liberalism, p. 17.Google Scholar

17. A caveat is in order here. In this essay, I treat notes and publications as being of comparable weight and examine Tocqueville's thought as so many independent interjections that constitute (more or less) equally significant aspects of a corpus of writings. While I am well aware that some might simply be momentary musings, I would like to stress again the seminal importance that, in my view, Tocqueville's letters (and notes) have for any interpreters of his ideas. An extensive use of Tocqueville's rich correspondence (fifteen volumes in the series of his Complete Works at Gallimard!) is subject to the possible criticism that the views expressed in his private letters were not definitive, that they were sometimes tailored to suit his correspondents' tastes and so forth. This is partly right. Nonetheless it is important to emphasize that Tocqueville devoted a lot of time to writing letters, a skill that he perfectly mastered in the old French tradition. Moreover he asked his friends to keep his letters in the hope that he might use them later for his own works. For a good analysis of the importance of Tocqueville's letters, see Furet, François, “The Passions of Tocqueville,” The New York Review of Books (06 27, 1985): 23–27;Google Scholar Françoise Mélonio, “Tocqueville entre la révolution et la démocratic,” in Tocqueville, , Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, pp. 11–33;Google Scholar Roger Boesche, “Introduction,” in Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 1–20.Google Scholar

18. The Tocqueville Reader, pp. 219–220;Google Scholar all emphases added.

19. It might be argued that Tocqueville never entirely gave his allegiance to the “conservative party” broadly defined. In the passage I quote from, he only said that he was closer to it than to the revolutionary party. Tocqueville also claimed that he disagreed with its means, although he agreed with its ends.

20. Tocqueville, , De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, Eduardo, vol. II (Paris: Vrin, 1990) p. 186,Google Scholar fn. m. All translations of Tocqueville's notes are mine. It is worth pointing out that the opposition between conservative (party) and revolutionary (party) is different from that between aristocracy and democracy.

21. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 115.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., pp. 115–16.

23. Furet, , “The Passions of Tocqueville,” p. 23.Google Scholar

24. Kahan, Alan S., Aristocratic Liberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

25. I comment on the importance of the Bourbon Restoration in Craiutu, Aurelian, Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires (Lanham: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), pp. 19–26.Google Scholar For a presentation of the new generation that came of age during the Bourbon Restoration, see Spitzer, Alan B., The French Generation of 1820 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26. Jouffroy, Théodore, How Dogmas Come to an End, in Philosophical Miscellanies of Cousin, Jouffroy, and B. Constant, trans, and ed. Ripley, George, vol. II (Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1838), p. 135.Google Scholar

27. La pensée politique doctrinaire sous la Restauration—Charles de Rémusat. Textes choisis, ed. Roldán, Darío (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003), p. 175.Google Scholar

28. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Recollections, eds. Mayer, J. P. and Kerr, A. P. (New Brunswick: Transactions, 1997), p. 66.Google Scholar

29. Tocqueville as quoted in Boesche, , The Strange Liberalism, pp. 33–34.Google Scholar The original text can be found in Tocqueville, , Œuvres complètes d'Alexis de Tocqueville, ed. Beaumont, Gustave de, vol. 9 (Paris: Michel-Lévy, 1864), p. 570.Google Scholar

30. Tocqueville, , Recollections, p. 5.Google Scholar

31. Guizot's words were often misquoted and misinterpreted. Here is what Guizot said actually: “Éclairez-vous, enrichissez-vous, améliorez la condition morale et matérielle de notre France: voilá les vras innovations” (as quoted in Craiutu, , Liberalism under Siege, p. 41).Google Scholar

32. Tocqueville, , Recollections, p. 5.Google Scholar

33. See Boesche, , The Strange Liberalism, p. 55.Google Scholar

34. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 151.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., p. 143.

36. Ibid., p. 155.

37. Ibid., p. 154.

38. Ibid., pp. 155–56.

39. Tocqueville, , Recollections, p. 5.Google Scholar

40. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 154.Google Scholar

41. Wolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, p. 294.Google Scholar

42. Tocqueville, , Recollections, p. 105;Google Scholar all emphases added.

43. Tocqueville, clarifies his position on this issue in a preparatory note for Democracy in America, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 126, fn. c.Google Scholar

44. Tocqueville, , The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. II, trans. Kahan, Alan S. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 237.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 68.

46. Tocqueville, , The Old Regime and the Revolution, trans. Kahan, Alan S., vol. I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 208, 244.Google Scholar

47. Ibid, p. 178.

48. See Wolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, pp. 300–4.Google Scholar For Tocqueville's dislike of juste milieu, see Bourricaud, , “Les «convictions» de M. de Tocqueville,” pp. 109–12.Google Scholar

49. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 125.Google Scholar

50. “I have a natural inclination for adventure. … I have always found that a touch of danger lends spice to most of life's actions” (Recollections, p. 106).Google Scholar

51. See, for example, the following revealing confession of Tocqueville: “When I return to regular habits, the monotony is fatal to me; I am possessed by an internal restlessness. I must have bodily or mental excitement, even at the risk of my life. The desire for strong emotions becomes irresistible” (quoted in Boesche, , The Strange Liberalism, p. 214).Google Scholar Also see Tocqueville's seminal letter to Swetchine, Madame de from 02 26,1857Google Scholar(The Tocqueville Reader, pp. 334–37)Google Scholar in which he wrote about his loss of faith and need for greatness.

52. It must be pointed out that Tocqueville was not a simple-minded Cartesian spirit obsessed with achieving certainty. He was a complicated spirit (à la Montesquieu) who hated doubt as much as simplistic ideas (such as the unicausal theories of political change which he criticized in his Recollections). I would like to thank Alan Kahan for calling my attention to this point.

53. Jardin, André, Tocqueville: A Biography, trans. Davis, Lydia and Hemenway, Robert (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1988), p. 374.Google Scholar

54. Tocqueville, , The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. I p. 87;Google Scholar emphasis added.

55. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 7;Google Scholar all emphases added.

56. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 63–64.Google Scholar Tocqueville's Pascalian side is explored in Lawler, Peter, The Restless Mind (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993), especially pp. 73–88, 109–58.Google Scholar

57. In a note for Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote: “Plus j'examine ce pays-ci et toutes choses, plus je vis et je suis effrayé en voyant le peu de certitudes que l'homme est est état d'acquérir en ce monde. Il n'est pas de sujet qui ne s'élargisse à mesure qu'on y entre, pas de fait ni d'observation au fond de laquelle on ne découvre un doute. … Il y a des gens qui se plaisent à vivre dans ce demi-jour perpétuel; pour moi, il me fatigue et me désespère. Je voudrais tenir les vérités politiques et morales comme je tiens ma plume et le doute m'assiège” (Democracy in America, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 77, fn. v).Google Scholar

58. Ibid., p. 7, fn. r. Also see the slightly different version of Tocqueville's, note in Œuvres, vol. II, eds. Lamberti, Jean-Claude and Schleifer, James T. (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1992), pp. 937–38.Google Scholar

59. Letter to Sacy as quoted in Jardin, , Tocqueville, p. 273.Google Scholar Tocqueville was irritated by Sacy's review. A draft of Tocqueville's, letter can be found in the family's archives. For more information, see p. 260.Google Scholar

60. Tocqueville, , De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. I, (Paris: Vrin, 1990), p. 7, fn. r.Google Scholar

61. Ibid, II: 272, fn. h.

62. Ibid., p. 275, fn. t.

63. Ibid., p. 22, fn. m.

64. Ibid., p. 24, fn. r.

65. Ibid., p. 24, fn. r

66. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 571.Google Scholar

67. Ibid., p. 579.

68. Ibid., p. 588.

69. Tocqueville, , De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 205,Google Scholar fn. j; emphasis added.

70. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, trans, p. 7.Google Scholar

71. Wolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, p. 140.Google Scholar On Tocqueville's new science of politics, see Ibid, pp. 184–97; Hadari, Saguiv A., Theory in Practice: Tocqueville's New Science of Politics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

72. Tocqueville, , Recollections, p. 67.Google Scholar

73. Tocqueville, , Œuvres complètes, vol. XVI: Mélanges, ed. Mélonio, Françoise (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), p. 230.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., p. 230. Also see pp. 231–32.

75. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 98–99.Google Scholar On numerous occasions, Tocqueville criticized the anachronism of those who wanted to reestablish the institutions of the Old Regime. His notes for Democracy in America contain numerous references to this point. See De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 8, fn. f;Google Scholar p. 271, fn. c.

76. Also see the following important letter to Corcelle: “I have sought, it is true, to uncover the natural tendencies a democratic social state gives to human thought and institutions. I have highlighted the dangers awaiting humanity on the way to democracy. But I have not suggested that one cannot fight against these dangers and combat them if diagnosed in time. One can avert them if they are properly anticipated. I am under the impression that Democrats nowadays do not see clearly either the advantages or the dangers of the social and political state towards which they are trying to direct society. Therefore they are likely to be mistaken as to the means they should use to maximize the former and minimize the latter. …I would like to see society aware of the dangers of democracy like a strong man who knows that perils exist and that he has to confront them to reach his goal” (The Tocqueville Reader, pp. 136–37).Google Scholar

77. Tocqueville's debt to Guizot's theory of pluralism has not received sufficient attention. I commented on this topic in Craiutu, Aurelian, “Tocqueville and the Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires (Guizot, Royer-Collard, Rémusat),” History of Political Thought 20/3 (1999): 456–94.Google Scholar

78. De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 273, fn. o.Google Scholar On Tocqueville's notion and use of the concept of aristocracy, see Kahan, Alan S., “De l'aristocratie en Tocqueville/ Aristocracy in Tocqueville,” forthcoming in The Tocqueville Review/ La revue TocquevilleGoogle Scholar; Drescher, Seymour, “Who Needs Ancienneté? Tocqueville on Aristocracy and Modernity,” History of Political Thought 24/4 (2003): 624–46;Google ScholarManent, Pierre, Tocqueville and the Nature of Modern Democracy, trans. Waggoner, John (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996).Google Scholar

79. Democracy in America, p. 669.Google Scholar

80. Ibid., p. 660. On the utility of forms in a democratic regime, also see pp. 55, 65, 71–72, 79, 101, 220, 262, 295.Google Scholar

81. Ibid., p. 669.

82. De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, pp. 278–79, fn. b.Google Scholar I use here the English translation that can be found in Schleifer, , The Making of Democracy in America, p. 234;Google Scholar all emphases added (Schleifer's quote does not include the last sentence). Eduardo Nolla pointed out that Tocqueville's unpublished notes highlight his democratic side (Nolla, , “Autour de 1'autre démocratie,” pp. 14–17).Google Scholar

83. “Je suis profondément convaincu que la démocratie peut être réglée et organisée, ce n'est pas une chose facile, mais c'est une chose faisable, et j'ajoute que c'est la seule qui reste à faire” (De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 282, fn. m; all emphases added).Google Scholar Also see Ibid, p. 271, fn. b; p. 273, fn. j; p. 277, fn. y.

84. Ibid., p. 280, fn. h; all emphases added.

85. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 519.Google Scholar

86. Tocqueville, , The Old Regime and the Revolution, vol. I p. 88.Google Scholar

87. De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 273, fn. j.Google Scholar

88. The Tocqueville Reader, p. 219.Google Scholar The whole letter can be found in Tocqueville, , Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, pp. 499–505.Google Scholar

89. De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. I, p. 11, fn. e.Google Scholar

90. Nolla, , “Autour de 1'autre démocratie,” p. 29;Google ScholarWolin, , Tocqueville Between Two Worlds, p. 188;Google Scholar Kahan, “De l'aristocratie en Tocqueville/Aristocracy in Tocqueville,” forthcoming.

91. De la démocratie en Amérique, ed. Nolla, , vol. II, p. 280, fn. e.Google Scholar

92. Boesche, , The Strange Liberalism, p. 261.Google Scholar

93. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, p. 674.Google Scholar

94. Lawler, , “Tocqueville's elusive moderation,” p. 189.Google Scholar

95. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 348.Google Scholar The importance of Tocqueville's letters to Madame de Swetchine (published in Tocqueville, , Œuvres complètes, vol. 15, Part II, ed. Gibert, Pierre [Paris: Gallimard, 1983])Google Scholar can hardly be exaggerated. They provide one of the best angles for understanding his deepest religious and philosophical convictions. On Tocqueville's Pascalian side, also see Lawler, , The Restless Mind, pp. 73–158.Google Scholar

96. I borrow the expression from Françoise Mélonio, “Tocqueville entre la révolution et la démocratie,” in Tocqueville, , Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, p. 27.Google Scholar Also see the following confession of Tocqueville: “J'ai la tête très froide, et l'esprit raisonneur, calculateur même; et, à côté de cela, se trouvent des passions ardentes qui m'entraînent sans me convaincre, domptant ma volonté en laissant libre ma raison” (Tocqueville, , Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, p. 238).Google Scholar It is not generally known that Tocqueville had a tempestuous sexual temperament and committed a number of marital infidelities without being able to change his behavior. As Furet once put it, “Tocqueville has a Tolstoyan side that is not generally known” (“The Passions of Tocqueville,” p. 24).Google Scholar A revealing confession of Tocqueville can be found in a letter to Kergorlay on September 27,1843 (republished in Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, pp. 521–23).Google Scholar

97. “Ce que j'ai appelé le fond que je ne peux pas toucher, c'est le pourquoi du monde. …C'est là le fond ou plutôt les fonds que l'ambition de mon esprit voulait toucher, mais qui resteront toujours infinement par-delà mes moyens de connaître la vérité” (Ibid., p. 1279).

98. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 148–49.Google Scholar

99. “Je suis tout à la fois l'homme le plus impressionable dans mes actions de tous les jours, le plus entraînable à droite et à gauche du chemin dans lequel je marche et à la fois le plus obstiné dans mes visées. J'oscille sans cesse et ne perds jamais entierement mon équilibre. … Il y a quelque chose d'incroyablement inflexible au milieu de cette nature agitée et inflammable” (Lettres choisies. Souvenirs, p. 531).Google Scholar