Abstract
Federalism figures prominently in Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1969) because federalism is a fundamental constitutive principle of the American polity and because federalism aims to achieve conditions that Tocqueville regarded as essential for liberty in a democratic age. These conditions lie principally, though not entirely, in the preservation of local liberty. Local liberty allows and encourages individuals in small civil communities to participate together in defining and addressing their common needs and aspirations and, thereby, to learn how to express their self-interest-as rightly, rather than wrongly or selfishly, understood-in ways that defend individual liberty and republican citizenship against the atomizing, enervating effects of a mass democracy driven toward centralization and uniform legislation by popular clamoring for equality. Yet, federalism has an uncertain future, even in the United States, according to Tocqueville, as well as limited applicability to democratic polities forged in the ashes of an ancien regime.
Published Version
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