Tocqueville’s Tangents to Democracy

Despite asserting that he found nothing more striking in the United States than the “equality of conditions,” Tocqueville draws together his analysis of important nondemocratic “tangents to democracy” in a very lengthy concluding chapter of the 1835 Democracy in America. He seeks to explain these nondemocratic “tangents” and to understand why and how they coexist with egalitarian principle. A restrictive “relative sense of justice” constrains the extension of equality, and a bedrock “republican” sensibility, trusting mainly in the slow action of society upon itself, underlies the federal principle. In the emerging commercial spirit, Tocqueville observes a kind of energy that may expand the provincial spirit of relative justice while also hinting at imperial enterprises. Despite these factors, Tocqueville maintains his thesis about the primacy of democracy in American life, while bringing more nuance and accuracy to the argument of his first volume of Democracy in America.