DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA.

BY

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE.

TRANSLATED BY

HENRY REEVE, Esq.

A NEW EDITION,

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTICE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, AND ROBERTS.

1862.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE,

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

THIRTY years have now elapsed since the author of this book visited the United States of America; five-and-twenty years since the publication of the first portion of his commentary on the American Constitution; more than twenty since the publication of the concluding portion of his task, which forms the second volume of the present edition. Revolutions, both political and social, of extraordinary magnitude and frequent recurrence, have, in this interval, changed the condition of many of the greatest States in either hemisphere, and modified the aspect of society itself. Nor can any man, to whom it is given to look back through this long vista of life, recall without emotion the scenes he has witnessed in the moving drama of the world. Yet I trust that it will not be deemed presumptuous or superfluous, at the present moment, to seek to recall the attention of the public to a work of this nature, which time would already have consigned to oblivion, if it had not contained a lasting claim to the interest of mankind. For, in truth, the years which have swept away so much have left this book to stand. Experience has demonstrated the pro. found sagacity with which the youthful author analysed the