Alexis de Tocqueville

 

This taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835). He spent nine months touring towns and cities. During his tour, the aristocratic Tocqueville was impressed by the fact that American Democracy actually worked. He wrote:

"There is one thing which America demonstrates invincibly, and of which I had been in doubt up till now: it is that the middle classes can govern a state. I do not know if they would come out with credit from thoroughly difficult political situations. But they are adequate for the ordinary run of society. In spite of their petty passions, their incomplete education and their vulgar manners, they clearly can provide practical intelligence, and that is found to be enough."