During the summer months, I like to write a series of blogs on a prominent theologian by diving deep into one of their publications. Previously, I wrote blogs on Moral Man and Immoral Society (Reinhold Niebuhr, 1932), Christ & Culture(H. Richard Niebuhr, 1951), Christianity and Civilization (Heinrich Emil Brunner, 1947), and The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber, 1904–05). This summer, I decided to write a blog series on a non-theologian who wrote about religion in the United States: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859).
Tocqueville was born into a lower aristocratic French family with connections to the monarchy and Catholic Church. He was well educated and at 22-years old, was appointed as a minor judicial officer working in the Versailles court of law. It was during this period that he met Gustave de Beaumont (1802–1866). Together, they convinced the French government to sponsor an American visit to study the United States penal system.
The pair arrived in Newport, Rhode Island on May 9, 1831, and spent 271 days traveling around the United States and 15 days in Canada. Andrew Jackson, who they met, was president during their travels. They departed for France on February 20, 1832, after traveling over 7,000 miles by stagecoach, horseback, steamer, and canoe while visiting 17 of the 24 existing states. The expanse of their travels went east to west from Boston to Green Bay (Wisconsin), and north to south from French Canada to New Orleans. At one point, Tocqueville became gravely ill and recuperated in a Tennessee log cabin. They interviewed former President John Quincy Adams, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, and the future president of the Republic of Texas Sam Houston.
Tocqueville and Beaumont co-authored in 1833 Du Système pénitentaire aux États-Unis, the required governmental report. However, their prison study was just an excuse for the journey. The real reason for their arduous expedition was a career-creating opportunity to understand American democracy as a possible preview to the evolving French democracy. After completing their official prison report, Tocqueville began writing his thoughts on American democracy, which was published in two volumes. Part I was published in French (1835) and translated into English, then published in America (1838). Part II was published in 1840. The title of his masterpiece was Democracy in America. I will quote from the Penguin Classics (Penguin Books) version translated by Gerald E. Bevan and published in 2003.
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is one of the most cited publications and his writings still resonate today. Since the 1950s, every American president has quoted from Democracy in America. Hilary Clinton quoted from it in her book It Takes a Village. Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy wrote America Revisited: 150 Years after Tocqueville (1978). From May 1997 until February 1998, C-SPAN traveled Tocqueville’s path and showed 65 hours of live TV from the towns, rivers, and country that Tocqueville visited. The network later published Traveling Tocqueville’s America. In 1984, the Washington Post noted that “citing Tocqueville is a bit like citing the Bible; you can find almost anything in it to support your argument.” (p. xi)
My blogs will concentrate on Tocqueville’s writing about religion in America. I will attempt to steer clear of his political views which comprise most of his book. He was a Roman Catholic in the French tradition. “He is the first to suggest that the separation of Church and state is the basis of religion’s singular importance in America. Removed from politics and respected all the more for not being entangled in factional struggle, religion has a greater influence in America, by Tocqueville’s reckoning, than it does in any country in the world, not on its laws, to be sure, but on its customs and habits. Most significantly, religion in the United States is credited with drawing the individual away from exclusive concern for self, providing cohesiveness and community in the face of the socially isolating impact of individualism.” (p. xxxiv)
I will also discuss individualism. His book includes one of the earliest usages of this word. “This transcendence of self is profoundly important for Tocqueville, who is fascinated by and worried about the individualism he sees rampant in America, an individualism at the core of all its attitudes, values, customs, manners, and fundamental feelings. … It signifies a political shift from public and communal concerns to private and personal interests. Americans, Tocqueville concludes, are preoccupied with the narrow circle of self or family, worrying more about their own ambitions and personal rights than engaging in a quest for a common good.” (p. xxxi)
My own encounter with Tocqueville was when reading University of California (Berkeley) Professor of Sociology Robert N. Bellah’s 1985 book, Habits of the Heart. The book’s title is derived from a passage in Democracy in America. Bellah saw religion in America as transforming individualism towards community. While researching my book, Charismata, Tocqueville was repeatedly quoted by numerous authors which steered me to read the entirety of Democracy in America. My hope is that after my small foray into Tocqueville, readers will decide to venture more fully into Parts I and II.
