Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880

This article offers a new way of understanding Alexis de Tocqueville’s complex position as a French observer who studied the United States, an ambivalent aristocratic cultural commentator who put his hopes for the future in democratic society, and a paradoxical figure in the history of debates over the so-called “Gallic singularity” who ultimately argued that the new American sex/gender system could provide a better model for women in a democracy than the traditional French one. The introduction and first section highlight Tocqueville’s changing attitudes toward what he saw as the key contrasts between European marriages and American marriages by comparing his initial letters home from the United States with his eventual work in Democracy in America. The second section compares his views of French and American women with those of his contemporaries Germaine de Staël and Gustave de Beaumont. The third section explains his changing views by establishing the connections between his comparative arguments about women and marriage and his comparative arguments about democracy itself.

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Democracy in America at work: the history of labor’s vote in corporate governance

10.31228/osf.io/sb3zp ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Ewan McGaughey

Keyword(s):

Corporate Governance ◽

Listed Company ◽

The United States ◽

Pension Plans ◽

Economic Democracy ◽

Employee Representation ◽

American Tradition ◽

History Of ◽

Democracy In America ◽

Asset Managers

Can there be democracy in America at work? The historical division between democracy in politics and hierarchy in the economy is under strain. Hierarchical interests in the economy are shifting their model of power into politics, and yet a commitment to revive the law is resurgent. Central examples are the proposed Accountable Capitalism Act, Reward Work Act, Workplace Democracy Acts, and Employees’ Pension Security Acts. They would create a right for employees to elect 40% of directors on $1 billion company boards, a right for employees to elect one-third of directors on other listed company boards, and require one-half employee representation on single-employer pension plans. All challenge long held myths: that labor’s involvement in corporate governance is foreign to American tradition, that when codified in law labor voice is economically inefficient, that the legitimate way to have voice in the economy is by buying stocks, or that labor voice faces insurmountable legal obstacles. This article shows these myths are mistaken by exploring the history and evidence from 1861. The United States has one of the world’s strongest traditions of democracy at work. Economic democracy has not been more widespread primarily because it was suppressed by law. Americans favor voice at work, while asset managers who monopolize shareholder votes with ‘other people’s money’ enjoy no legitimacy at all. The article concludes that, even without federal government, and by recreating themselves as laboratories of democracy and enterprise, states can adapt the current proposals and rebuild a living law. (2019) 42 Seattle University Law Review 697.

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In the Tradition of Montesquieu

Tocqueville ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691152042.003.0005 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Lucien Jaume

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

History Of ◽

Democracy In America ◽

American Society

Tocqueville is known to have read Montesquieu often, although opinions differ as to the time he spent on the history of the Romans and the Esprit des lois. This chapter is interested mainly in Tocqueville's conviction that American society exhibited a unified spirit. This emerges clearly from a manuscript included in the Nolla edition of Democracy in America. Here, Tocqueville uses an analogy taken from the natural history of his time: if Cuvier could reconstitute a vanished animal from a small piece of its anatomy, it should be possible, Tocqueville argues, to do the same for aspects of “moral man” that cannot be observed directly. Tocqueville was rather proud of this approach, although he was aware of the risks, for it was of course entirely possible that a people might exhibit any number of allogenic or contradictory traits.

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“The point of departure of peoples determines their fate”: Peter Chaadaev and Alexis de Tocqueville

Slovo ru Baltic accent ◽

10.5922/2225-5346-2020-3-3 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 42-56

Author(s):

I. О. Dementev

Keyword(s):

Alexis De Tocqueville ◽

Word Usage ◽

History Of ◽

Democracy In America ◽

Deep Thought ◽

Point Of Departure

In 1836, Peter Chaadaev in his private letter to Alexander Turgenev mentioned that the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville had stolen from him a “deep thought” that the point of departure of peoples determined their fate. Russian and foreign scholars interpreted these words differently, trying to assess the seriousness of Chaadaev’s reproach. The article explores the history of the expression ‘le point de départ’ and the use of it in the works by Tocqueville (“Democracy in America”) and Chaadaev (“Philosophical Letters”, “Apology of a Madman”). The author argues that the concept of the ‘point of departure’, which had special significance for Tocqueville, was also important for Chaadaev, who used this phrase in different contexts. Having compared Russian translations of the texts by Tocqueville and Chaadaev, the author concludes that although the translators used different strategies to convey the meaning of the phrase in Russian, in all cases, to a greater or lesser extent, there was a threat of violation of the intentions of both authors. Based on the analysis of the word usage in the texts of both thinkers, the author suggests a number of recommendations aimed to clarify the translations of Chaadaev and Tocqueville works into Russian. The article also notes possible sources of the image “the point of departure of peoples” in the text by Tocqueville (from François Guizot to American interlocutors).

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TOCQUEVILLE’S THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL PREDICAMENT: LEO STRAUSS, RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

RELIGION AND POLITICS IN THE CONTEMPORARY TURKISH-SPEAKING WORLD - POLITICS AND RELIGION JOURNAL ◽

10.54561/prj1301113a ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 113-136

Author(s):

Craig Douglas Albert

Keyword(s):

Leo Strauss ◽

Moderating Effects ◽

Seminal Contribution ◽

The Social ◽

Self Interest ◽

Political Problem ◽

History Of ◽

Democracy In America ◽

Novel Reading ◽

Religion And Democracy

This paper analyzes Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in a new light. When viewed through Leo Strauss’ conception of the theologico-political problem, a novel reading of Tocqueville is presented. This interpretation argues that one of Democracy’s major themes concerns reason versus revelation. Within such a reading, it contends that Tocqueville’s seminal contribution to the history of political philosophy contained within it his reluctant announcement that religion may not be able to cure the social ills liberal democracy brings with it. Mainly, this is because Tocqueville fears democracy will contribute to the decline of religion itself. Tocqueville subtlety reveals his concerns over religion’s possible inadequacy, offers explanations thereof, and postulates another concept as a mitigating tool that has similar moderating effects on democratic defects: self-interest well understood.

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The Predicament of Modern Law: Parker's History of a Law Without a History that Matters

Law & Social Inquiry ◽

10.1111/lsi.12118 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 40 (01) ◽

pp. 238-244

Author(s):

Marianne Constable

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Common Law ◽

Legal Thought ◽

History Of ◽

The Common ◽

Democracy In America ◽

The Way

Kunal Parker's Common Law, History, and Democracy in America, 1790–1900: Legal Thought Before Modernism shows how nineteenth‐century thinkers thought about law and history differently than do post‐Holmesian modernist sociolegal scholars, whose ahistorical law appears contingent on politics, power, or will. Understanding time and history to be essential to law, nineteenth‐century jurists conceived of a common law that was able to work with and to shape democracy, Parker argues. Contra modernist histories then, Parker claims that the common law was not a reactionary force that stood in the way of democracy and economy. His history of legal thought before modernism suggests, further, the predicament of antifoundationalist modern law and modernist scholars: stripped of time and without its own history, how can law be anything other than politics, power, or will?

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