JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY 1825 1850
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA BY ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE
|
Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
|
|
|
America was a colony that had equal representation in Parliament with other English colonies
|
|
|
at birth, all American citizens received an equal amount of money in a bank and savings account
|
|
|
it was equally as possible that America would fail as that it would succeed.
|
|
|
more than in any other country, people in America all had an equal chance to succeed
|
Detailed explanation-1: -Why did Alexis de Tocqueville believe that American society was egalitarian? All Americans had the same wealth. Americans lacked a hereditary social class of nobles. Americans had just abolished slavery just before his visit.
Detailed explanation-2: -In his introduction, Tocqueville writes: “In America, I saw more than America… I sought the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions. I wanted to know democracy, if only to know at least what we must hope or fear from it.”
Detailed explanation-3: -As “Democracy in America” revealed, Tocqueville believed that equality was the great political and social idea of his era, and he thought that the United States offered the most advanced example of equality in action.
Detailed explanation-4: -Tocqueville argues that democracy or equality of conditions is the central, ineluctable tendency in modern western societies, and it worries him: Though it seems inevitable, it is fraught with dangers.