![]() ![]() He was impressed by Americans’ industriousness and resourcefulness, and by their ability to improvise voluntary associations to solve problems in the absence of a powerful, centralized state authority, particularly in rural places. Tocqueville, himself an aristocrat, looked upon American democracy with a combination of awe and wariness. Given his place in French society, however, much of what he saw of American democracy caused him concern. Tocqueville marveled at the spirit of democracy that pervaded American life. He undertook a nine-month, seven-thousand–mile tour of the United States east of the Mississippi. Perhaps the most insightful commentator on American democracy was the young French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville, whom the French government sent to the United States to report on American prison reforms. ![]() The 1840 presidential election marked a significant turning point in the evolving style of American democratic politics. Mass democracy also shaped political campaigns as never before. Some worried that the rights of those who opposed the will of the majority would never be safe. As the will of the majority became the rule of the day, everyone outside of mainstream, White American opinion, especially Native Americans and Blacks, were vulnerable to the wrath of the majority. To some observers, the emergence of democracy in the United States raised troubling questions about the new power of the majority to silence minority opinion. Explain Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy. ![]()
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