he used to write the book contained hidden gems and valuable information, and that his papers could in the future be of some use to himself or to others.
Cover page of the 1835 part: “Volume I. My manuscript.”4 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Democracy in America’s drafts and notes are carefully organized in bundles, according to their content and to their future use, some with revealing titles such as “Notes, documents, ideas relative to America. Good to consult if I again want to write something on this subject”5 or “Fragments, ideas that I cannot place in the work (March 1840) (insignificant collection).”6
The manuscript pages for each of the chapters of the book are kept in a larger piece of paper that acts as a folder and contains the corresponding title.
Tocqueville also kept his letters and notes organized and dated.
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Cover page of the 1840 part: “Manuscript of the second part of Democracy. Volume III and IV. March 1840.”7 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
A few pages of the working manuscript are copies, made probably by the same copyist who produced the final version sent to the editor.8 The comments made by family and friends refer sometimes to “copyist’s error,” which seems to point out the possible existence of a previous first complete or partial copy of Tocqueville’s text.9
There are also a few pencil notes on the manuscript, which seem to be comments made before Tocqueville decided to give his book the final shape because some of the remarks are related to some later changes in the text.10
The front page of the folder containing the manuscript for the third
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chapter of the first part of the 1835 Democracy states: “The copy has been sent to Guerry.”11
“Future of the Indians. To be dictated or copied before thinking of correcting.”12 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Only very rarely, domestic and everyday life or, simply, boredom pierces through the seriousness of Tocqueville’s purpose.13 A couple of doodles, some figures, a portrait, a note, possibly about a loan requested by a servant; there is not much more than this out of place in the thousands of pages of his working manuscript, drafts, and notes.
“Marie Legendre has asked to borrow 10 écus.” With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Doodles are very uncommon occurrences in Tocqueville’s manuscripts. With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
That Tocqueville had only faint sympathy for machinery, technology, or the practical sciences in general is well known. His ideas are expressed in terms of textual analogies and logical thought processes, almost never with the help of schemes, plots, or graphical outlines.
One of the very few cases when there is a graphical representation of thought processes in his manuscripts. When speaking of the relation between the growth of equality and the reliance on individual reason, Tocqueville draws two parallel lines with a common origin and notes on the margin: “There is a parallelism of which I only indicate one branch.”14 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Similarly, Tocqueville originally used a mathematical comparison to explain the assimilation process among the different parts of the American union, but he later removed it from the manuscript.
“≠Denominator.
Common divider.
Common measure.
Arithmetical comparison.≠”15
There is, however, no need to get into the reading of the manuscript itself to be able to discover that Democracy in America is also, in terms of its literary construction, a very special kind of book.16
The Author and His Reader
A careful reader of Democracy in America is able to find out that throughout the book, Tocqueville keeps a constant dialog with his reader. This ongoing conversation with the person facing the book is unheard-of in works of political theory, with the possible exception of Montesquieu.
The reader appears in the very first sentence of Democracy, later eliminated by Tocqueville: “The work that you are about to read is not a travelogue, <the reader can rest easy>.”17
Appealing to the reader in the introduction of a work is not uncommon. Tocqueville recommends Beaumont’s book,18 begs the reader to believe him,19 advances what he thinks will be the main criticism to his book,20 or defends his impartiality.21 What is less common is to prolong this dialog throughout the text. Tocqueville begs the reader to
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observe the harsh New England legislation,22 the connection between religion and liberty,23 and the different forms of a democratic system,24 and to pay attention to many other circumstances.25 Tocqueville also instructs the reader against drawing conclusions too soon,26 has fears of being boring,27 asks him to draw his own conclusions,28 explains
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directly to him the difficulties of the author’s task,29 or gives several other warnings.30
This, as I have pointed out, makes one think of Montesquieu and how large is in many respects Tocqueville’s debt to him.
In his preface to On the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu wrote:
I request one favor, which I fear may not be granted me: do not judge the work of twenty years on the basis of a single rapid reading; approve or condemn the book as a whole, rather than by a few of its phrases. There is no better way to discover its author’s design than through the design of the work he has written.31
Montesquieu’s plea is very analogous to Tocqueville’s own admonition to the reader in the introduction to the 1835 volumes:
But the diversity of the subjects that I had to treat is very great, and whoever will undertake to contrast an isolated fact to the whole of the facts that I cite, a detached idea to the whole of the ideas, will succeed without difficulty. So I would like you to grant me the favor of reading me with the same spirit that presided over my work, and would like you to judge this book by the general impression that it leaves, as I myself came to a decision, not due to a particular reason, but due to the mass of reasons.32
If we jump from the first pages to the end of the book, we will find additional similarities. Montesquieu finished his preface with the celebrated phrase: “I have been able to say along with Correggio, ‘And I too am a painter.’”33
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In the conclusion to the 1835 part of Democracy in America, Tocqueville also speaks of painting:
Now I would like to bring all of them together in a single point of view. What I will say will be less detailed, but more sure. I will see each object less distinctly; I will take up general facts with more certitude. I will be like a traveler who, while coming outside the walls of a vast city, climbs up the adjacent hill. As he moves away, the men that he has just left disappear from his