Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes
But one also finds in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to want to bring the strong down to their level, and which reduces men to preferring equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.
Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Library of America, 2004, p. 60.
One of the most amazing things about Abraham Lincoln is the way he grew and matured over time. In 1854 he was not sure that the Negro could be the equal of the white. As he met more Black leaders, saw more, reflected more, and had more responsibility, he grew and developed his views on race. But it was statements like this that led to the great distrust that the very strong abolitionists like Wendell Phillips had in him.
As hard as it is for us to imagine today, while her husband was President of the United States, the First Lady wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column every single day with politics frequently the subject. While she usually agreed with the President, there were occasions where they seemed to not see things exactly the same. She tended to be more liberal than he. However, there were those who believed that when she criticized politicians, it was with FDR’s knowledge and blessing and she sometimes did his “dirty work.” Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most influential people in the country—certainly more-so than any First Lady before and since.
As absurd as this sounds to us today, it was a commonly held belief by Aristocrats, and upper class people in many societies. Some ultra conservatives in Democracies and Dictators like Franco and Mussolini.
This law required the treatment of Blacks as whites were then treated with respect to indentured servitude—a limit of 10 years after which the person would be free. However, this law was poorly enforced. The “General Court” was the name for the legislature of the Rhode Island colony.
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville, colloquially known as Tocqueville (/ˈtɒkvɪl, ˈtoʊk-/), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his works Democracy in America (appearing in two volumes, 1835 and 1840) and The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856). In both, he analysed the improved living standards and social conditions of individuals as well as their relationship to the market and state in Western societies. Democracy in America was published after Tocqueville's travels in the United States and is today considered an early work of sociology and political science.
