Tocqueville’s America, Beaumont’s Slavery, and the United States in 1831–32

Abstract

This essay first outlines Alexis de Tocqueville’s well-known argument from Democracy in America that religion shapes the mores that keep American “equality of conditions” from deteriorating into the “tyranny of the majority.” The paper then turns to the superb research of scholars who have published the notes, letters, and journals that Tocqueville and his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, produced during their 1831–32 US journey. That material allows a clearer picture of where Tocqueville was perceptive, where he failed to record important aspects of American religion as it actually existed, and where what he observed accurately in 1831–32 changed significantly shortly thereafter. More attention to the neglected book that Beaumont published after their trip, Marie; or, Slavery in the United States, shows that his detailed assessment of United States’ deeply ingrained racist attitudes would have helped make Tocqueville’s insightful analysis of American democracy even more compelling.