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The Formation of Tocqueville's Historical Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Edward T. Gargan
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Extract

InThePreface to her account of her father's formative years Clara Misch Dilthey wrote, “My father often told me that everything that he had produced was nothing but the execution of thoughts and projects conceived in his youth.” Unlike Dilthey, Tocqueville did not have a child to whom he could confide the story of his intellectual life. Yet, if Tocqueville had had such a daughter, he might have made the same profession of indebtedness to the germinal ideas of his youth.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 1962 , pp. 48 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1962

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References

1 This paper was read at the Centenary Commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the death of Alexis de Tocqueville held in Philadelphia on April 21, 1959.

2 Dilthey, Clara Misch, Der junge Dilthey: Ein Lebensbild in Briefen und Tagebüchern, 1852–70 (Leipzig, 1933)Google Scholar, as quoted in Antoni, Carlo, From History to Sociology, trans. White, Hayden V. (Detroit, 1959), p. 1Google Scholar.

3 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Beaumont, G. (9 vols.; Paris, 1864–1875), V, 300–302Google Scholar (Tocqueville to Kergorlay, July 23, 1827).

4 Ibid., 301.

5 Loc. cit.

6 Ibid., 302.

7 Ibid., 306–308 (Tocqueville to Kergorlay, 1828).

8 Tocqueville, , Journeys to England and Ireland, trans. Lawrence, George and Mayer, K. P., ed. Mayer, J. P. (New Haven, 1958), pp. 21–41Google Scholar. “Reflections on English History,” in a letter dated October 5, 1828. J. P. Mayer considers it as probably addressed to Gustave de Beaumont. For a relevant note on this essay see Pierson, George W., Tocqueville and Beaumont in America (New York, 1938), p. 22Google Scholar.

9 Tocqueville, , Journeys to England and Ireland, p. 41Google Scholar, “Reflections on English History.”

10 Ibid., p. 21.

11 Loc. cit.

12 Ibid., p. 22.

13 Ibid., p. 28.

14 For an account of Tocqueville's response to the Revolution of 1830 see Gargan, Edward T., Alexis de Tocqueville: The Critical Years 1848–1851 (Washington, 1955), pp. 1–12Google Scholar.

15 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Beaumont, ed., VI, 10 (Tocqueville to Beaumont, 08 30, 1829)Google Scholar.

16 Yale Tocqueville Mss., A VI, (Tocqueville to Charles Stoffels, April 21, 1830). Hereafter this collection will be cited as Y.T.Mss.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid. (Tocqueville to Stoffels, April 30, 1830).

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid. (Tocqueville to Stoffels, August 26, 1830).

23 Ibid.

24 Y. T. Mss. B. I. a(2) (Tocqueville to Ernest Chabrol, May 18, 1831).

25 Tocqueville, Alexis de, Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Mayer, J. P., édition définitive (5 vols. Paris, 1951–1959), IGoogle Scholar, pt. 1, 4, De la Démocratie en Amérique: “A new science of politics is needed for a whole new world.”

26 Ibid., I, pt. 2, 306.

27 Ibid., I, pt. 1, 25.

28 Ibid., I, pt. 1, 292. For the Adamic myth in America and its development in the period 1820 to 1860, cf. Lewis, R. W. B.The American Adam, Innocence Tragedy and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1955)Google Scholar. For an account of the development in America of the tradition which stressed the importance of the Puritan beginnings and that which accented the fundamental significance of the Revolution see Craven, Wesley Frank, The Legend of the Founding Fathers (New York, 1956)Google Scholar.

29 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Mayer, edit., I, pt. 1, 316Google Scholar, De la Démocratic.

30 Ibid., I, pt. 2, 14, 100, 305.

31 Ibid., I, pt. 1, 114.

32 Loc. cit.

33 Loc. cit. A crushing rejection of the position represented by Tocqueville's underestimation of the significance of the American Revolution is developed in Palmer's, R. R. recent study The Age of the Democratic Revolution; A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800 (Princeton, 1959)Google Scholar. Cf. especially his discussion of the question “The Revolution: Was There Any?” pp. 185–190.

34 Tocqueville, , De la Démocratie, I, pt. 1, 86–87Google Scholar, 275, 310, 311, II, pt. 2, 172,, 196, 239, 344, 346.

35 Ibid., I, pt. 1, 44, 239, 416–417, I, pt. 2, 21–23, 34–40, 41–45, 53–57, 61–65, 67–68, 69–75, 76, 81, 84–88, 89–92, 158, 166, 171–175, 200–205, 212–218, 238–249, 310–321.

36 Ibid., I, pt. 2, 174.

37 Ibid., I, pt. 1, 326–330. The extent to which Tocqueville was immersed in study and reflection on France's revolutionary history, even while years of work remained on the second part of the Democracy, is illustrated by his essay “État Sociale et Politique de la France avant et depuis 1789,” contributed to Mill's, John StuartLondon and Westminster Review for 04 1836Google Scholar. Cf. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Mayer, ed., II, pt. 1, L'Ancien Régime et la Revolution, pp. 31–66Google Scholar. For a discussion of this essay cf. Gargan, , Alexis de Tocqueville, pp. 22–35Google Scholar. For the correspondence between Mill and Tocqueville on the essay, cf. Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Mayer, ed., VI, pt. 1, Correspondance Anglaise, pp. 291–312Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., I, pt. 2, 311 De la Démocratie.

39 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Beaumont, ed., VII, 260 (Tocqueville to Louis de Kergorlay, 12 15, 1850)Google Scholar.

40 For Tocqueville's experiences in these years cf. Spring, Elsbeth, “Tocquevilles Stellung zur Februarrevolution,” Schweizer Beiträge zur Allgemeinen Geschichte, XII (1954), 50–98Google Scholar; Gargan, Alexis de Tocqueville; and SrLawlor, Mary, Alexis de Tocqueville In the Chamber of Deputies: His Views on Foreign and Colonial Policy (Washington, 1959)Google Scholar.

41 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Souvenirs, ed. Monier, Luc (Paris, 1942), p. 20Google Scholar.

42 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Mayer, ed., II, pt. 1, L'Ancien Régime et la RévolutionGoogle Scholar. Cf. especially Chapter VIII “Comment la révolution est sortie d'elle-même de ce qui précède,” pp. 244–250.

43 Ford, Franklin Lewis, Robe and Sword: The Regrouping of the French Aristocracy after Louis XIV (Cambridge, 1953)Google Scholar.

44 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Mayer, edit., II, pt. 2, L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, Fragments et inédits sur la révolution, Texte établi et annoté par André-Jardin, pp. 53–103Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., p. 95.

46 Tocqueville, , Oeuvres Complètes, Beaumont, edit., VII, 521–522 (Tocqueville to Bouchitté)Google Scholar.