The Price of Freedom. Tocqueville, the Framers, and the Antifederalists

Abstract

In America, Tocqueville writes, men were born equal; they did not have to become so.1 But he is not unaware of the radical democratic character of the American revolution of which Gordon Wood has reminded us.2 Prior to 1776, Tocqueville observes, the democratic principle was “far from dominating the government of society.” It was the Revolution that made it “the law of laws.” “The war was fought and victory obtained in its name” (1:1, ch. 4. 59).