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The Sovereign People, Minority Rights And State Judiciaries : An Historical Study Of Tocqueville's Majoritarian Thesis, Erica Goodwin

Dissertations and Theses

In the decade of the 1830's, Alexis de Tocqueville published a perceptive analysis of America in the Jacksonian era, which focused upon the customs, manners and intellectual habits of its citizens, and their social condition as seen through its political institutions. He advanced the proposition--a paradox of democracy--that equality of condition was as compatible with tyranny as with freedom. The social consensus, which stemmed from the wide acceptance of doctrine of equality and common wants and interests, when brought to bear upon legislator and judge, public official, juryman, and the non-conforming individual, he termed the "tyranny of the majority."