ABSTRACT
In Alexis de Tocqueville's lifetime, the conflict of incompatible strategic interests culminated in the Crimean War, which czarist Russia lost. In 1821, when Tocqueville was but fifteen years of age, Russia attempted by ukase, the rescript-without-appeal of the autocrat, to exclude foreign navigators from the Bering Sea and the Pacific Coast of its possessions. In response, the United States and Great Britain immediately protested. The outcome was a treaty with the United States in 1824, and with Great Britain in 1825, by which Russia relinquished some of its more extravagant claims. Tocqueville's well-informed guess was borne out, though little in the world scene of his day appeared to lend it credence. If his American interlocutors were worried about the presence of Russian imperialism in the Pacific region, they did not tell him so. On issues of global politics, American public opinion at this time tended to side with Russia, the principal counterweight to Britain in world politics.
