shackles, and will spread, by a quiet but resistless influence,
through the islands of the seas to other lands, where the appeals of
De Tocqueville for human rights and liberties have already inspired the
souls of the people.




Hon. John T. Morgan

Special Introduction By Hon. John J. Ingalls

Nearly two-thirds of a century has elapsed since the appearance of
"Democracy in America," by Alexis Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville, a
French nobleman, born at Paris, July 29, 1805.

Bred to the law, he exhibited an early predilection for philosophy and
political economy, and at twenty-two was appointed judge-auditor at the
tribunal of Versailles.

In 1831, commissioned ostensibly to investigate the penitentiary system
of the United States, he visited this country, with his friend, Gustave
de Beaumont, travelling extensively through those parts of the Republic
then subdued to settlement, studying the methods of local, State, and
national administration, and observing the manners and habits, the daily
life, the business, the industries and occupations of the people.

"Democracy in America," the first of four volumes upon "American
Institutions and their Influence," was published in 1835. It was
received at once by the scholars and thinkers of Europe as a profound,