Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

Beyond The "Formidable Circle": Race And The Limits Of Democratic Inclusion In Tocqueville's Democracy In America, Christine Dunn Henderson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Despite his assertion that the first volume of Democracy in America (1835) would concentrate upon institutions, Tocqueville found himself finishing the draft manuscript in 1834 and unable to conclude his study without discussing race relations in the United States. In the end, he quickly penned a final chapter. That chapter—by far the book’s longest—offers “Some Considerations on the Present State and Probable Future of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States.” Tocqueville begins the chapter by acknowledging that its subject “is American without being democratic” (DA, p. 516), and to the extent that it analyzes slavery …