ABSTRACT
In the history of ideas, as in literature, creativeness is likely to come at the convergence of psychological need with experience. It took a young man who was at once a European intellectual and a fiercely sensitive contemporary, open to the currents of his time, to see what the America of Andrew Jackson’s day was like. Tocqueville came of the Norman aristocracy, with his family roots deep in the countryside of the departement of Manche, only a few miles from the English Channel. His birth in Paris, on July 29, 1805, came at the height of Napoleon’s world adventures and his power. Tocqueville learned relatively early to regard legal custom, statute, and code as keys for unlocking the inner meaning of social structure and national character. On this score the influence of Montesquieu and his L’Esprit des Lois on his thinking must be considered a capital one.
