Tocqueville: on Christianity in America, Islam in Algeria, & the "despotism" of an "all powerful government" when citizens "debase" their souls with "vulgar pleasures"

American Minute ^ | July 29, 2020 | Bill Federer

[Perseverando]

Alexis de Tocqueville was born JULY 29, 1805.

A French social scientist, he traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work, Democracy in America (1835; 1840), which has been described as:

"the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written."

In it, Tocqueville wrote:

"Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention;

and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions.

But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country ..."

Tocqueville wrote further:

"The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other;

and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live ..."

Tocqueville continued:

"They brought with them ... a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion ...

From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."

Tocqueville wrote:

"Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it ...

This opinion is not peculiar to a class

[Perseverando]

Time for another great American (and world) history lesson from American Minute.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[RedStateRocker]

RACIST!!

All Trump’s Fault!!!!

/sarc

thanks, GREAT link. Tocqueville never seems to age; just as mind-blowing and subversive when I’m 59 as when I was 17.

[Fiddlstix]

[CharlesOConnell]

The de Tocqueville no one knows:

He originated the concept of Tyranny of the Majority, of great interest with BLM.

He remarked that Americans have stifling uniformity of opinions, with dissent strongly forbidden.

[Captain Walker]

That book is worth a read.

There was an awful lot of European skepticism about the American Experiment; de Tocqueville's point was that the American experiment could work without the usual constraints imposed by the European monarchies because Americans, with their strong religious faith, policed themselves.

I think it's become clear that without the self-policing, this experiment simply doesn't work.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Jan_Sobieski]

Great article!

[marktwain]

Very well done.