A biography of alexis de tocqueville.

Tocqueville family is a landlord and nobleman in Normandy, and many local places are named after Tocqueville family. After obtaining a law degree, Tocqueville was appointed as an intern civil servant at Versailles. There, he met the prosecutor Gustave de Beaumont, who became close friends and later wrote many books together. 183 1 year, they were sent to the United States to inspect the criminal law and prison system in the United States. During this trip, the two of them wrote UNIS and the Application of the Son System (on the formal system of the United States and its application to France, 1832). After returning to France, Tocqueville became a lawyer and recorded his travels in the United States in a book. 1835, he published this classic book Democracy in America. This book won unprecedented praise and was quickly translated into English, making Tocqueville famous in the United States and France. This book also became an early model of sociology, which enabled him to win the chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1937 and was elected as an academician of the French Academy in 184 1.

Tocqueville despised the July Dynasty (1830- 1848), so he entered politics at the same time. He was elected as a member of parliament in Mansh province, and held this position until 185 1. In the parliament, he strongly defended the views of abolitionism and free trade, but he also supported the colonial rule of Louis Philippe's regime in Algeria. Tocqueville was also elected as the General Staff of Mansh Province in 1842.

In addition to the United States, Tocqueville also visited Britain and wrote Memoirs on Poverty. He has also been to Algeria from 184 1 to 1846. His first trip to Algeria prompted him to write A Journey to Algeria, in which he criticized the French colonial model. As an abolitionist, he advocated that colonies should be managed by indirect British rule instead of mixing different populations. He even advocated apartheid between European colonists and Arabs, so that both sides could have independent legislative systems to implement autonomy (his proposal was implemented in the 188 1 indigenous law half a century later).

1848 After the collapse of the February Revolution in July, Tocqueville was elected as a member of the National Assembly in the same year, where he participated in drafting the second * * * and the new constitution (1848- 185 1). He also supports the bicameral system and universal suffrage for electing the President of the Republic of China, because the vast agricultural population in rural areas usually supports conservative political positions, which can balance the working population in Paris metropolitan area and prevent the revolutionary sentiment in Paris from affecting national politics. At the same time, the expansion of universal suffrage greatly increased Tocqueville's votes from 700 to 65,438+060,000 [65,438+0].

In the Second Republic, Tocqueville formed an alliance with the conservative Order Party against radical socialists and laborers. Shortly after the February Revolution, he believed that bloody conflicts between the working population who supported "democracy and society * * * and the state" and the conservatives composed of rural population and nobles were inevitable. As he predicted, the tension between the two social groups finally broke out in June 1848. Tocqueville chose to support the uprising led by General Louis Eugene Louis Eugene Cavaignac, and Louis Eugene Cavaignac finally declared a state of emergency and temporarily frozen the constitutional provisions [2]. Although Tocqueville was a supporter of Louis Eugene Cavaignac and conservatives, he accepted the invitation of the government of Odilon Barot and served as French Foreign Minister from June 1849 to June 10. Because he didn't agree with President Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte's idea, he resigned a few months after taking office, but he still served as a member of Congress.

Tocqueville supported the restoration of Bourbon and opposed the second empire of Napoleon family (1851-1871). He supported Luis Louis Eugene Cavaignac against Charles Louis Napolé on Bonaparte in the presidential election. After the election, the newly elected Napoleon staged a coup in1851kloc-0/2 and ordered the dissolution of the National Assembly. Tocqueville and other parliamentary representatives gathered in Paris to fight the coup, but Napoleon arrested them for "treason". After being briefly detained, Tocqueville was released, and then he completely retired from politics and lived in seclusion with his English wife, Mary motley, in the country castle (CH & acirc Tocqueville Manor). There, he also began to write The Old System and Revolution, and published the first volume of the book in 1856, but died of illness while writing the second volume.

On American Democracy

Democracy and America, published by Tocqueville in 1835, is one of the first major works to discuss American politics and culture, and has also become one of the classic works in this field. In the book, Tocqueville observes the democratic system of the new world from the perspective of a third party with his keen observation. He praised the successful development of democracy in the United States, but he also warned of the possibility of majority tyranny under democracy-he called it "moderate tyranny", which was written by Tocqueville in the early19th century based on his experience of traveling to the United States. At that time, the United States had just experienced the free market revolution, the expansion of the west and the rapid development of Jackson's democracy, which completely changed the life of Americans. Tocqueville believes that democracy can properly balance freedom and equality while taking care of personal and social development. Tocqueville believes that excessive social equality will lead to the isolation between people, more government intervention and the erosion of freedom. Tocqueville also criticized individualism. He believes that people's unity and cooperation based on the same goal can build the United States into a more ideal country and civil society, thus avoiding excessive dependence on government intervention.

Starting from Plato's Republic and Law, many thinkers unanimously hold that private property must be abolished in order to avoid evil and greed. Only by completely destroying the power of property can the "philosopher king" of the intellectual elite emerge and rule the society. Only when virtue becomes the only power base can human society achieve its ideal goal. Early modern thinkers, starting from Thomas Moore, also adopted Plato's critical attitude towards private property. Plato and Moore both think that the balance of property and the balance of power are the same. If there is inequality in the holding of property, then the person who owns the property will inevitably hold power. /kloc-Montesquieu in the 0 th and 8 th centuries also agreed with this view, arguing that only when property is evenly distributed can real virtue emerge and lead politics. These thinkers all think that social equality is a necessary condition for a harmonious country, because only in this way can the rulers be guaranteed to be the best and most outstanding.

Tocqueville initially agreed that the balance of property equals the balance of power, but in the book On Democracy in America, Tocqueville's conclusion from his investigation of the United States was completely divorced from these thinkers and became an amazing change. At first, Tocqueville tried to explore why the United States could develop so prosperously. He witnessed the great differences between American society and the old European world. Contrary to Europe, American society regards earning money as the most important morality, and as a result, ordinary Americans can enjoy unprecedented self-esteem and freedom in human history. In American society, almost everyone holds the ideal of working hard and surpassing others, and ordinary people never obey the authority of elites. At the same time, radical individualism and market capitalism have developed to an unprecedented degree.

Tocqueville believes that it is this unique American spirit and morality that frees the United States from the restrictions and fetters of European society. Different from Europe, new immigrants to the United States find that there is a large area of uninhabited land for reclamation, and all those who arrive in the United States can own their own land and run their own lives independently. Tocqueville pointed out that a few old elites and landlords and nobles did exist, but they had no chance to resist the capitalist values derived from the vast land ownership. In such an open society, there are countless opportunities to get rich, and everyone begins to build their own world: industrious and innovative entrepreneurs become the mainstream of society.

This innate condition also gave birth to the unique political and social values of the United States, which determined the bills passed by the colonies and later local States. By the end of18th century, the democratic values advocating making money, hard work and individualism dominated the northern part of the United States, destroying most of the nobles and their values left over from the old world. However, it is more difficult to eliminate these things in the southern United States, because slavery produced landlords, nobles and subordinate relations similar to those in the old world, which lasted until the pre-war period of the Civil War.

Tocqueville pointed out that it was these capitalist values that appeared in the north (and later in the south) that transcended the moral values and social mechanisms of the old world. The legislature further abolished the restrictions on the right of inheritance of the eldest son and other inheritance rights in the old world, so that land ownership was widely distributed. The landlord elite lost the privilege of distributing all the property to a single eldest son, so wealth became more difficult to consolidate, and more people will fight for their future.

Tocqueville believes that in such a rapidly democratized society, people often do not have particularly "outstanding" moral concepts, but hope to accumulate huge wealth through hard work. In Tocqueville's view, the United States is divorced from traditional Europe in this unique national trait. In Europe, no one has much interest in making money. The lowest social class has no hope of earning wealth beyond food and clothing, while the upper class thinks that making money is rude and obscene, which is incompatible with their aristocratic status. These cultural differences pointed out by Tocqueville were also adopted by many later thinkers and scholars, which explains why in the19th century, a group of European elites took to the streets in luxurious clothes in an attempt to wage class wars and revolutions with labor. But in America, when workers see rich people wearing luxurious clothes, they think of accumulating wealth through harder work, and they think that as long as they are willing to struggle and innovate, they can wear more luxurious clothes one day.

So these unique American values, in the eyes of many people, explain the causes of American exceptionalism and many mysterious phenomena unique to the United States. For example, the United States has never embraced socialism as thoroughly as other western countries. For Tocqueville, the biggest difference between America and Europe is these unique democratic values. Although he initially agreed with Plato, Thomas More and Montesquieu that the balance of wealth can ensure the balance of power, Tocqueville finally came to a completely different conclusion. He believes that, as his observation of the United States shows, the balance of wealth does not ensure that the ruler is the best candidate. In fact, the result is the other way around. Extensive and procedural property ownership has become a unique phenomenon in the United States, which not only determines the unique values and spirit of American society, but also explains why the American public holds such a contemptuous attitude towards elite culture.

Tocqueville also pointed out that in addition to eliminating all aristocratic influences in the old world, ordinary Americans also refused to obey those who had more wealth or more talent and wisdom. Tocqueville believes that although these intellectual elites stand out in American society, they cannot enjoy the same degree of political power as Europe. Ordinary Americans enjoy great autonomy and refuse to obey the leadership of elite intellectuals. This democratic culture promoted an obvious and unique concept of equality, but as Tocqueville advocated, it consolidated the foundation of this moral concept and spirit, and also made American society have an ordinary and vulgar atmosphere.

As for those who are born with morality and talent, they can't have as many rights and status as Europe, but they must meet the needs of current American society in order to survive. Tocqueville predicted that those who have the best educational background and talents have only two career paths to choose from, or join the small circle of intellectuals and study the solutions to common problems facing society-these small circles have become the academic circle in the United States; Or, use your talents and talents to engage in a profitable career in private enterprises and earn huge wealth for yourself. Tocqueville reached this conclusion at the end of his book about American democracy. Based on the American history at the beginning of the19th century, he explained the essence of American social culture and values, and also explained why the United States has matured to the present day.