Alexis de Tocqueville

About Alexis de Tocqueville

Birth Day: August 29, 1805
Birth Place: Paris, France, French
Prime Minister: Odilon Barrot
Preceded by: Jules Polydore Le Marois
Succeeded by: Gabriel-Joseph Laumondais
Constituency: Valognes
Political party: Resistance Party (1839–1848) Party of Order (1848–1851)
Spouse(s): Mary Mottley (m. 1835; d. 1859)
Alma mater: University of Paris
Profession: Historian, magistrate, jurist
Notable work: Democracy in America (1835) The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856)
Era: 19th-century philosophy
Region: Western philosophy
School: Classical liberalism
Main interests: History, political philosophy, sociology
Notable ideas: Voluntary association, mutual liberty, soft despotism

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville was born on August 29, 1805 in Paris, France, French. Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political theorist and historian who went to the U.S. to study the American political model and published the classic ‘Democracy in America’ in two volumes. His works are regarded amongst the most influential texts produced on sociology and political science. He considered the democratic political system of America as the ideal society and desired to bring about changes on similar grounds in the French political system. His writings dealt with issues like class structure, living standards, political systems, religion, racism, governments, and judiciary. The 19th century text is considered so significant that it is a recommended textbook for political science courses in colleges even today. He was actively involved in French politics for several years starting from the July monarchy, and continued till after the 1848 Revolution that led to the creation of the French Second Republic. While serving in the parliament, he supported free trade and was in favour of abolitionism. He toured England and published ‘Memoir on Pauperism’ upon his return. He also traveled to Algeria to study the political system prevalent there and observed that the British model of indirect rule was superior to the French model of colonization. He was considered a classical liberal.
Alexis de Tocqueville is a member of Miscellaneous

Does Alexis de Tocqueville Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Alexis de Tocqueville has been died on 16 April 1859(1859-04-16) (aged 53)\nCannes, French Empire.

🎂 Alexis de Tocqueville - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

When Alexis de Tocqueville die, Alexis de Tocqueville was 53 years old.

Popular As Alexis de Tocqueville
Occupation Miscellaneous
Age 53 years old
Zodiac Sign Leo
Born August 29, 1805 (Paris, France, French)
Birthday August 29
Town/City Paris, France, French
Nationality French

🌙 Zodiac

Alexis de Tocqueville’s zodiac sign is Leo. According to astrologers, people born under the sign of Leo are natural born leaders. They are dramatic, creative, self-confident, dominant and extremely difficult to resist, able to achieve anything they want to in any area of life they commit to. There is a specific strength to a Leo and their "king of the jungle" status. Leo often has many friends for they are generous and loyal. Self-confident and attractive, this is a Sun sign capable of uniting different groups of people and leading them as one towards a shared cause, and their healthy sense of humor makes collaboration with other people even easier.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Alexis de Tocqueville was born in the Year of the Ox. Another of the powerful Chinese Zodiac signs, the Ox is steadfast, solid, a goal-oriented leader, detail-oriented, hard-working, stubborn, serious and introverted but can feel lonely and insecure. Takes comfort in friends and family and is a reliable, protective and strong companion. Compatible with Snake or Rooster.

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Famous Quotes:

Egoism springs from a blind instinct; individualism from wrong-headed thinking rather than from depraved feelings. It originates as much from defects of intelligence as from the mistakes of the heart. Egoism blights the seeds of every virtue; individualism at first dries up only the source of public virtue. In the longer term it attacks and destroys all the others and will finally merge with egoism.

Biography/Timeline

1830

Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career in 1839. From 1839 to 1851, he served as deputy of the Manche department (Valognes). In parliament, he defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade, while supporting the colonisation of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe's regime. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of the Manche in 1842, and became the President of the department's conseil général between 1849 and 1851. According to one account, Tocqueville's political position became untenable during this time in the sense that he was mistrusted by both the left and right, and was looking for an excuse to leave France.

1831

In 1831, he obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in America, and proceeded there with his lifelong friend Gustave de Beaumont. While Tocqueville did visit some prisons, he traveled widely in America and took extensive notes about his observations and reflections. He returned within nine months, and published a report, but the real result of his tour was De la démocratie en Amerique, which appeared in 1835. Beaumont also wrote an account of their travels in Jacksonian America: Marie or Slavery in the United States (1835). During this trip he made a side trip to Lower Canada to Montreal and Quebec City from mid August to early September 1831.

1835

De Tocqueville believed that the American jury system was particularly important in educating citizens in self-government and rule of law. He often expressed how the civil jury system was one of the most effective showcases of democracy because it connected citizens with the true spirit of the justice system. In his 1835 treatise, Democracy in America, he explained:

1837

Although Tocqueville had favoured retention of distinct traditional law, administrators, schools, etc., for Arabs who had come under French control, he judged the Berber tribes of Kabylie (in his second of Two Letters on Algeria, 1837) as "savages" not suited for this arrangement; they would best be managed, he argued, not by force of arms, but by the pacifying influences of commerce and cultural interaction.

1841

Tocqueville's views on the matter were complex. Even though in his 1841 report on Algeria he applauded Bugeaud for making war in a way that defeated Abd-el-Kader's resistance, he had advocated in the Two Letters that the French military advance leave Kabylie undisturbed, and in subsequent speeches and writings he continued to oppose intrusion into Kabylie.

1846

In the debate about the 1846 extraordinary funds, Tocqueville denounced Bugeaud's conduct of military operations, and succeeded in convincing the Assembly not to vote funds in support of Bugeaud's military columns. Tocqueville considered Bugeaud's plan to invade Kabylie, despite the opposition of the Assembly, as a seditious act in the face of which the government was opting for cowardice.

1847

In his 1847 Report on Algeria, Tocqueville declared that Europe should avoid making the same mistake they made with the European colonization of the Americas in order to avoid the bloody consequences. More particularly he reminds his countrymen of a solemn caution whereby he warns them that if the methods used towards the Algerian people remain unchanged, colonization will end in a blood bath.

1848

During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the parti de l'Ordre against the socialists. A few days after the February insurrection, he believed that a violent clash between the Parisian workers' population led by socialists agitating in favor of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and the conservatives, which included the aristocracy and the rural population, was inescapable. As Tocqueville had foreseen, these social tensions eventually exploded during the June Days Uprising of 1848.

1849

A supporter of Cavaignac and of the parti de l'Ordre, Tocqueville, however, accepted an invitation to enter Odilon Barrot's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 3 June to 31 October 1849. There, during the troubled days of June 1849, he pleaded with Jules Dufaure, Interior Minister, for the reestablishment of the state of siege in the capital and approved the arrest of demonstrators. Tocqueville, who since February 1848 had supported laws restricting political freedoms, approved the two laws voted immediately after the June 1849 days, which restricted the liberty of clubs and freedom of the press.

1851

Tocqueville had supported Cavaignac against Louis Napoléon Bonaparte for the presidential election of 1848. Opposed to Louis Napoléon's 2 December 1851 coup which followed his election, Tocqueville was among the deputies who gathered at the 10th arrondissement of Paris in an attempt to resist the coup and have Napoleon III judged for "high treason", as he had violated the constitutional limit on terms of office. Detained at Vincennes and then released, Tocqueville, who supported the Restoration of the Bourbons against Napoleon III's Second Empire (1851–71), quit political life and retreated to his castle (Château de Tocqueville).

1853

Assimilation, however, was the best solution for Native Americans and since they were too proud to assimilate, they would inevitably become extinct. Displacement was another part of America's Indian policy. Both populations were "undemocratic", or without the qualities, intellectual and otherwise, needed to live in a democracy. Tocqueville shared many views on assimilation and segregation of his and the coming epochs, but he opposed Arthur de Gobineau's theories as found in The Inequality of Human Races (1853–55).

1855

In 1855, he wrote the following text published by Maria Weston Chapman in the Liberty Bell: Testimony against Slavery

1856

In 1856, Tocqueville published The Old Regime and the Revolution. The book analyzes French society before the French Revolution—the so-called "Ancien Régime"—and investigates the forces that caused the Revolution.

1859

A longtime sufferer from bouts of tuberculosis, Tocqueville would eventually succumb to the disease on 16 April 1859. He was buried in the Tocqueville cemetery in Normandy.

1870

Tocqueville advocated racial segregation in Algeria with two distinct legislations, one for European colonists and one for the Arab population. Such a two-tier arrangement would be fully realised with the 1870 Crémieux decree and the Indigenousness Code, which extended French citizenship to European settlers and Algerian Jews, whereas Muslim Algerians would be governed by Muslim law and restricted to a second-class citizenship.

2004

The above is often misquoted as a slavery quote because of previous translations of the French text. The most recent translation from Arthur Goldhammer in 2004 translates the meaning to be as stated above. Examples of misquoted sources are numerous on the internet; the text does not contain the words "Americans were so enamored by equality" anywhere.

2009

Tocqueville was quoted in several chapters of Toby Young's memoirs, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, to explain his observation of widespread homogeneity of thought even amongst intellectual elites at Harvard University, during his time spent there. He is frequently quoted and studied in American history classes. Tocqueville is the inspiration for Australian Novelist Peter Carey in his 2009 novel, Parrot and Olivier in America.

2013

According to Tocqueville, assimilation of Black people would be almost impossible and this was already being demonstrated in the Northern states. As Tocqueville predicted, formal freedom and equality and segregation would become this population's reality after the Civil War and during Reconstruction – as would the bumpy road to true integration of Black people.

2019

Tocqueville believed that jury Service not only benefited the society as a whole, but enhanced jurors’ qualities as citizens. Because of the jury system "they were better informed about the rule of law, and they were more closely connected to the state. Thus, quite independently of what the jury contributed to dispute resolution, participation on the jury had salutary effects on the jurors themselves."

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