ABSTRACT
Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study the new, democratic Republic. He departed confident of its universal drawing power, but not without reservations of its future health. On the first point, history has confirmed Tocqueville's judgment. Notwithstanding America's evolution from a small nation of farmers and merchants of farm produce to an urban-industrial giant, the Republic remains—to a degree surpassing Tocqueville's boldest expectations—the admitted or unadmitted ideal of the world. As for the future health of the American system: Tocqueville's reservations reflected his doubts about America's ability to keep united the two forces that created it: man's aspirations for freedom and his aspiration for equality. Amongst the novel objects that attracted the attention during the stay in the United States, nothing struck him more forcibly than the general equality of condition among the people. The trend towards social equality seems irresistible.
