Tocqueville, Alexis de

tok'vil, Alexis de (1805-1859), a French statesman and writer. He was born at Paris and was educated for the law. In 1831 he was sent to the United States by the French government to investigate our penitentiary system. This he did and made a report that attracted attention. While in America he took notes freely, and on his return he wrote Democracy in America, 1835. It was a work somewhat in the vein of Bryce's later American Commonwealth. It was the first scholarly examination of American institutions. It was translated into many languages. It won Tocqueville a seat in the French Academy. A brief edition was for a time a favorite textbook in American colleges. In 1839 Tocqueville was elected to the French chamber of deputies. He was not in sympathy with the Orleans party. Under the presidency of Louis Napoleon he voted against the measures of the radical democrats. In 1849 he held the portfolio of foreign affairs for five months. When Louis Napoleon broke faith with the people and sabred his way into the imperial office December 2, 1851, Tocqueville retired to private life and devoted himself to the labors of a historian. The Ancient Regime and the Revolution appeared in 1856. Socialists consider that Tocqueville was an observer of penetration, a profound student of democracy, but that he was afraid to give the people of France the reins. His interest in democracy was intellectual, not sympathetic. See Bryce