Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:54:30.544Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Dark Side of Tocqueville: On War and Emoire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Roger Boesche
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

From right to left, from Reagan to Mitterrand, seemingly everyone wants to befriend Tocqueville and line him up on his on her side. No writer, except perhaps Orwell, has such appeal across political boundaries, and a judicious quotation from Tocqueville, no matter how much out of context, is believed to buttress any argument. While I too have spent a couple of decades of my intellectual life admiring and writing about Tocqueville,1 I have been unable either to forget or ignore a seamy side of Tocqueville, a dark side that has its roots both in his aristocratic heritage and also in his century's rush to global conquest. His two hundredth birthday is a good time to shed light on his embrace of war and empire.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , Fall 2005 , pp. 737 - 752
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Tocqueville, Alexis de, Selected Letters on Politics and Society, ed. Boesche, Roger, trans. Toupin, James and Boesche, Roger (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985),Google Scholar and Boesche, Roger, The Strange Liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

2. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 150–52.Google Scholar

3. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Oeuvres complètes, ed. Mayer, J. P. (Paris: Gallimard, 1951 - ),Google Scholar hereafter referred to as Oeuvres (M), vol. 6, pt. 1,Google ScholarCorrespondance anglaise: Correspondance d'Alexis de Tocqueville avec Henry Reeve et John Stuart Mill, ed. Rundler, J. P. Mayer et Gustave (1954), pp. 337–38.Google Scholar

4. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 158.Google Scholar

5. Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior, From 1834 to 1849, ed. Simpson, M. C. M., 2 vols. in one, 2nd ed. (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1968 [1872]), p. 113.Google Scholar

6. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Oeuvres complètes de Alexis de Tocqueville, ed. Beaumont, Gustave de (Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1860–1866),Google Scholar hereafter called Oeuvres (B) vol. 7,Google ScholarNouvelle correspondance entièrement inédite d'Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 196.Google Scholar

7. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, ed. Bradley, Phillips, trans. Reeve, Henry, Bowen, Francis, and Bradley, Phillips. 2 vols. (New York: Vintage Books, 1945), 2: 283.Google Scholar

8. Hegel, G. W. F., Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox, T. M. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), paragraph 324.Google Scholar

9. Tocqueville, , Democracy, 2: 284.Google Scholar

10. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 141.Google Scholar

11. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 6, pt. 1, Correspondance anglaise, p. 148.Google Scholar

12. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 141–42.Google Scholar

13. Pitts, Jennifer, “Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question,” The Journal of Political Philosophy 8, no. 3 (2000): 296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3,Google ScholarĆcrits et discours politiques (includes Abolition de l'esclavage, L'Algérie, and L'Inde), ed.Jardin, A.(1962),Google ScholarL'Algérie, p. 380.Google Scholar

15. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 343.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., p. 298.

17. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Writings on Empire and Slavery, ed. and trans. Pitts, Jennifer (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), p. 201.Google Scholar(From Tocqueville's, The Emancipation of Slaves.)Google Scholar

18. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, p. 153.Google Scholar

19. Welch, Cheryl B., “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion: Tocqueville on Algeria,” Political Theory 31, no. 2 (2003): 237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, pp. 226–28.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 323.

22. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Memoir, Letter, and Remains, no trans, given, 2 vols. (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1862). 2: 387.Google ScholarThese are translations of volumes 5 and 6 of Oeuvres (B).Google Scholar

23. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Inde, p. 478.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., pp. 541, 480.

25. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, pp. 214, 216.Google Scholar

26. Cited by Jardin, André, Tocqueville: A Biography, trans. Davis, Lydia with Hemenway, Robert (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), p. 341.Google Scholar

27. Cited in Boesche, Roger, Theories of Tyranny: From Plato to Arendt (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), p. 335.Google Scholar

28. Pitts, , “Empire and Democracy: Tocqueville and the Algeria Question,” p. 315.Google Scholar

29. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, p. 213.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., p. 214.

31. Ibid., p. 216.

32. Ibid., p. 151.

33. Tocqueville, , Memoir, Letters, 2: 84.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., p. 387.

35. Welch, , “Colonial Violence and the Rhetoric of Evasion: Tocqueville on Algeria,” pp. 256, 242.Google Scholar

36. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, p. 216.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 310.

38. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 6, pt. 1, Correspondence anglaise, 230.Google Scholar

39. Tocqueville, , Memoir, Letters, 2: 387.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., p. 395

41. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, p. 174.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., pp. 507, 509.

43. Ibid., p. 289.

44. Ibid., pp. 150, 260–63, 276.

45. Ibid., p. 205.

46. Hegel, , Philosophy of Right, Preface, p. 11.Google Scholar

47. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, pp. 115–16.Google Scholar

48. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, 1: 6Google Scholar

49. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Journeys to England and Ireland, ed. Mayer, J. P., trans. Lawrence, George and Mayer, K. P. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968), p. 9.Google Scholar

50. Boesche, Roger, “Why Could Tocqueville Predict So Well?” Political Theory 1, no. 11 (1983): 99;Google ScholarWolin, Sheldon, Tocqueville Betweeen Two Worlds (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001) pp. 332–33.Google Scholar

51. Tocqueville, , Selected Letters, p. 102.Google Scholar

52. Bodin, Jean, Method of the Easy Comprehension of History, ed. and trans. Reynolds, Beatrice (New York: Norton, 1969), p. 20;Google ScholarPascal, Blaise, Pensées (Brunschvicg Edition), trans. Trotter, W. F. (New York: Dutton, 1958), p. 20.Google Scholar

53. Tocqueville, , Memoir, Letters, 2: 358.Google Scholar

54. Tocqueville, Alexis de, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, trans. Gilbert, Stuart (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955), p. 83.Google Scholar

55. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, 1: 376–77.Google Scholar

56. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Journey to America, ed. Mayer, J.P., trans. Lawrence, George (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), pp. 45,157.Google Scholar

57. Tocqueville, Alexis de, “Speech Pronounced in the Chamber of Deputies on January 27, 1848,” Appendix III of Democracy in America, trans. Lawrence, George (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969).Google Scholar

58. Tocqueville, Alexis de, Oeuvres (M), vol. 5, pt. 2,Google ScholarVoyages en Angleterre, Irlande, Suisse, et Algérie, ed. Mayer, J. P. and André Jardin (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), p. 192.Google Scholar

59. Cited by Sayce, Richard, The Essays of Montaigne: A Critical Exploration (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1972), p. 237Google Scholar

60. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Inde, p. 537.Google Scholar

61. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 5, pt. 2, Voyages, 207,192.Google Scholar

62. Montesquieu, Baron de, The Spirit of the Laws, trans. Nugent, Thomas (New York: Hafner, 1949), bk. XIV, ch. 13.Google Scholar

63. Boesche, See Roger, “Why Did Tocqueville Think a Successful Revolution Was Impossible,” in Nolla, Eduardo, Liberty, Equality, Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 1992), pp. 165–85.Google Scholar

64. Tocqueville, , Journey to America, p. 305.Google Scholar

65. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (B), vol. 7, Nouvelle correspondance, p. 305Google Scholar.

66. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, 1: 436.Google Scholar

67. Montesquieu, , The Spirit of the Laws, bk. XXXVIII, ch. 39.Google Scholar

68. Tocqueville, , Correspondence and Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior, 1: 93.Google Scholar

69. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Inde, p. 541.Google Scholar

70. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres (M), vol. 3, L'Algérie, p. 131.Google Scholar

71. Ibid., p. 147.

72. Tocqueville, , Democracy in America, 2:149.Google Scholar

73. Tocqueville, , The Old Regime, p. 118.Google Scholar

74. See Boesche, Roger, “Why Did Tocqueville Fear Abundance? Or the Tension Between Commerce and Citizenship,” History of European Ideas 9, no. 1 (1988):. 25–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar