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Alexis De Tocqueville Biography & Facts

Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville ( TO(H)K-vil, French: [alɛksi də tɔkvil]; 29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), usually known as just Tocqueville, was a French aristocrat, diplomat, sociologist, political scientist, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analyzed the living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science. Tocqueville was active in French politics, first under the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and then during the Second Republic (1849–1851) which succeeded the February 1848 Revolution. He retired from political life after Louis Napoléon Bonaparte's 2 December 1851 coup and thereafter began work on The Old Regime and the Revolution. Tocqueville argued the importance of the French Revolution was to continue the process of modernizing and centralizing the French state which had begun under King Louis XIV. He believed the failure of the Revolution came from the inexperience of the deputies who were too wedded to abstract Enlightenment ideals. Tocqueville was a classical liberal who advocated parliamentary government and was skeptical of the extremes of majoritarianism. During his time in parliament, he was first a member of the centre-left before moving to the centre-right, and the complex and restless nature of his liberalism has led to contrasting interpretations and admirers across the political spectrum. Life Tocqueville came from an old aristocratic Norman family. He was the great-grandson of the statesman Malesherbes, who was guillotined in 1793. His parents, Hervé Louis François Jean Bonaventure Clérel, Count of Tocqueville, an officer of the Constitutional Guard of King Louis XVI; and Louise Madeleine Le Peletier de Rosanbo narrowly escaped the guillotine due to the fall of Maximilien Robespierre in 1794. Under the Bourbon Restoration, Tocqueville's father became a noble peer and prefect. Tocqueville attended the Lycée Fabert in Metz. Tocqueville, who despised the July Monarchy (1830–1848), began his political career in 1839. From 1839 to 1851, he served as member of the lower house of parliament for the Manche department (Valognes). He sat on the centre-left, defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade while supporting the colonisation of Algeria carried on by Louis-Philippe's regime. In 1842, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 1847, he sought to found a Young Left (Jeune Gauche) party which would advocate wage increases, a progressive tax, and other labor concerns in order to undermine the appeal of the socialists. Tocqueville was also elected general counsellor of Manche in 1842 and became the president of the department's general council between 1849 and 1852; he resigned as he refused to pledge allegiance to the Second Empire. 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. Travels In 1831, Tocqueville obtained from the July Monarchy a mission to examine prisons and penitentiaries in the United States and proceeded there with his lifelong friend Gustave de Beaumont. While he did visit some prisons, Tocqueville traveled widely in the United States and took extensive notes on his observations and reflections. He returned within nine months and published a report, but the more well-known result of his tour was De la démocratie en Amérique, 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, Tocqueville made a side trip to Montreal and Quebec City in Lower Canada from mid-August to early September 1831. Apart from North America, Tocqueville also made an observational tour of England, producing Memoir on Pauperism. In 1841 and 1846, he traveled to the French colony of Algeria. His first travel inspired his Travail sur l'Algérie, in which he criticized the French model of colonisation which emphasized assimilation to Western culture, advocating that the French government instead adopt a form of indirect rule, which avoided mixing different populations together. He went as far as openly advocating racial segregation as a form of consociationalism between European colonists and Arabs through the implementation of two different legislative systems for each ethnic group (a half century before implementation of the 1881 Indigenous code based on religion). In 1835 Tocqueville journeyed through Ireland. His observations provide one of the best pictures of the state of Ireland before the Great Famine (1845–1849). They chronicle the growing Catholic middle class and the appalling conditions in which most Catholic tenant farmers lived. Tocqueville made clear both his opposition to aristocratic power and his affinity for his Irish co-religionists. After the fall of the July Monarchy in the French Revolution of 1848, Tocqueville was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of 1848, where he became a member of the commission charged with the drafting of the new Constitution of the Second Republic (1848–1851). He defended bicameralism and the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage. As the countryside was thought to be more conservative than the labouring population of Paris, he conceived of universal suffrage as a means to counteract the revolutionary spirit of Paris. During the Second Republic, Tocqueville sided with the Party of Order against the socialists. A few days after the February 1848 insurrection, he anticipated that a violent clash between the Parisian workers' population led by socialists agitating in favour of a "Democratic and Social Republic" and the conservatives, which included the aristocracy and the rural population, would be inescapable. Indeed, these social tensions eventually exploded in the June Days Uprising of 1848. Led by General Cavaignac, the suppression of the uprising was supported by Tocqueville, who advocated the "regularization" of the state of siege declared by Cavaignac and other measures promoting suspension of the constitutional order. Between May and September, Tocqueville participated in the Constitutional Commission which wrote the new Constitution. His proposals, such as his amendment about the President and his reelection, reflected lessons he drew from his North American experience Minister of Foreign Affairs A supporter of Cavaignac and of the Party of Order, Tocqueville accepted an invitation to enter Odilon Barrot's government as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 3 June to 31 October 1849. During.... Discover the Alexis De Tocqueville popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Alexis De Tocqueville books.