Alan S. Kahan, Tocqueville, Religion, and Democracy: Checks and Balances for Democratic Souls

Excerpt

Alexis de Tocqueville published the first volume of Democracy in America in January 1835. The reception of the book was unanimously positive, and some of his most exigent readers like Pierre Royer-Collard went as far as to hail him as the “new Montesquieu.” Tocqueville’s newly acquired fame would eventually secure him a coveted seat in the prestigious French Academy and the Chamber of Deputies. Yet, in a letter that he sent to his English translator, Henry Reeve, two years after the publication of his work, Tocqueville suggested that his real intentions might have been misunderstood even by his most generous readers. “Independently of the serious interest I take in the opinions others may hold of me,” he acknowledged, “it delights me to see the different features that are given to me according to the political passions of the person who cites me. It is a collection of portraits that I like to assemble. To the present day, I have not yet found one of them that completely looked like me.” …