The ThirdDemocracy:Tocqueville's Views of America after 1840

Abstract

Tocqueville'sDemocracy in Americaoffered the image of an accomplished and successful democratic regime. Although Tocqueville never wrote a third volume, he continued to be interested in American political events and exchanged a number of important letters with his American friends after 1840. Did Tocqueville change his views on America outlined in the two volumes published in 1835 and 1840? If so, did the evolution of his views of America affect his theory of democracy? The paper answers these questions by examining Tocqueville's unduly neglected correspondence with his American friends. It seeks to reconstruct what Volume Three ofDemocracy in Americamight have looked like if it had ever been written. In these letters, Tocqueville addressed important topics such as the instability of the market and the immaturity of American democracy, issues that didnotloom large in the two published volumes. The paper shows that in the last years of his life Tocqueville became very disenchanted with American political life and reassessed some of his previous views of American democracy.I, who am half Yankee.Tocqueville (1986, 185)