impartial, and entertaining exposition of the principles of popular,
representative self-government.

Napoleon, "The mighty somnambulist of a vanished dream," had abolished
feudalism and absolutism, made monarchs and dynasties obsolete, and
substituted for the divine right of kings the sovereignty of the people.

Although by birth and sympathies an aristocrat, M. de Tocqueville
saw that the reign of tradition and privilege at last was ended. He
perceived that civilization, after many bloody centuries, had entered a
new epoch. He beheld, and deplored, the excesses that had attended the
genesis of the democratic spirit in France, and while he loved liberty,
he detested the crimes that had been committed in its name. Belonging
neither to the class which regarded the social revolution as an
innovation to be resisted, nor to that which considered political
equality the universal panacea for the evils of humanity, he resolved
by personal observation of the results of democracy in the New World
to ascertain its natural consequences, and to learn what the nations of
Europe had to hope or fear from its final supremacy.

That a youth of twenty-six should entertain a design so broad and bold
implies singular intellectual intrepidity. He had neither model
nor precedent. The vastness and novelty of the undertaking increase
admiration for the remarkable ability with which the task was performed.

Were literary excellence the sole claim of "Democracy in America" to
distinction, the splendor of its composition alone would entitle it to
high place among the masterpieces of the century. The first chapter,
upon the exterior form of North America, as the theatre upon which the
great drama is to be enacted, for graphic and picturesque description