DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

By Alexis De Tocqueville


Translated by Henry Reeve





Book Two: Influence Of Democracy On Progress Of Opinion In
the United States.





De Tocqueville's Preface To The Second Part

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally
suggested to them certain laws and a certain political character. This
same state of society has, moreover, engendered amongst them a
multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown amongst the elder
aristocratic communities of Europe: it has destroyed or modified all the
relations which before existed, and established others of a novel kind.
The--aspect of civil society has been no less affected by these changes
than that of the political world. The former subject has been treated
of in the work on the Democracy of America, which I published five years
ago; to examine the latter is the object of the present book; but these