[SirLinksalot]

I thought I should post this here as I do often hear speeches from conservatives still attributing the above stirring quote to Alexis De Tocqueville.

It might do us well to get our history straight.

[Lancey Howard]

Interesting piece. Thanks for posting.

It would be interesting to see an update on this. I wonder how many more times during the past 11 years since this article was published politicians and speechwriters have used and attributed that same "quote" to de Tocqueville?

[VOA]

Thanks for the article.
I always thought the quote was so uplifting that it couldn't have
been written by someone from France.

[x]

If the quote isn't there is Democracy in America, is it someone's paraphrase or distillation of what Tocqueville believed or just some flack's pure invention. Can we find the passage or passages that inspired it?

18th and 19th century quotations often aren't pithy or punchy enough for 20th century audiences.

An example: "[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity." -- Daniel Webster.

Webster loses a modern audience half way through, and his quote won't stick in the memory.

More quotes on liberty and virtue here.

[dighton]

“Everyone laughed at entrance of de Tocqueville, flamboyant as ever in magenta gown and blonde wig, on the arm of Monsieur le Duc d’Orléans.”

— Saint-Simon, recently discovered pneumatique.

[Timmy]

When I was a young debater, I used that quote a number of times. However, when I got my first copy of "Democracy in America" many years ago, I searched for it in the book. Never found it. Never used it again. I think's it's OK to say, "I believe America is great because America is good," or any other part of that line. However, it is WRONG to knowingly utilize a false quote to support your argument. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Nothing is more important than TRUTH.