THEN AGAIN, IT';S HARD NOT TO COME OFF WELL WHEN COMPARED TO FRANCE:

Tocqueville's "Letters from America": Shall I compare thee? (Daniel E. Ritchie, 1/06/2011, Books & Culture)

If these letters don't give a complete background to Tocqueville's research into America, however, they do provide significant insights—above all, into his mental habit of "making comparisons." Frequently named among the founders of modern sociology, Tocqueville is at his most insightful when he compares social phenomena: before marriage, American women are more independent than European women, while afterward they're more subservient; Americans solve communal problems by creating voluntary associations, where the English look to a nobleman and the French to the government; on the northern bank of the Ohio River the hum of industry is continuous, but work is typically viewed a curse on the opposite bank, where slavery exists.

Tocqueville and Beaumont, his good-humored fellow prosecutor, had managed to leave France after the Revolution of 1830 brought Louis-Philippe to power. Although the young men thought the July Monarchy was illegitimate, they took the oath of loyalty and began looking for a way of leaving France without endangering either their integrity or their loyalty. Since all of Europe was debating prison reform and everyone was interested in America, the two got a government commission to investigate the penal system of the United States. The trip was a pretext for their wider interest in studying American society, and Democracy in America abounds in reflections that bear on the possibility of a successful democracy in France. For example, "despotism can do without faith, but freedom cannot." Tocqueville doesn't long for the Sun King, but he warns his fellow intellectuals that skepticism cannot sustain modern democracy.

Although Tocqueville is continually worrying about his home country, this book shows that France provides him with the comparative vantage point he needs for understanding America. Just three weeks after his arrival, for instance, Tocqueville is astonished that, unlike himself and his countrymen, Americans think little about politics:

Here we are truly in another world. Political passions here are only superficial. The one passion that runs deep, the only one that stirs the human heart day in and day out, is the acquisition of wealth, and there are a thousand ways of acquiring it without importuning the state.

This letter demonstrates the habit of comparative analysis that he would later use to such brilliant effect. He's beginning to see that, unlike the French, Americans are developing a "social state" where material well-being is more important than politics, and where individuals seek distinction largely outside the political sphere. Only after years of reflection (and more conversations with American friends) would Tocqueville be able to explain how these characteristics grew out of Americans' dual commitments to equality and liberty.