A review of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” (book)

“Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society … I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil society than over the Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and the central point at which all my observations constantly terminated.”

– Opening lines of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America” (1835), Book 1, Introductory Chapter

I recently finished reading this work in its original French …

I recently finished reading Alexis de Tocqueville’s “De la démocratie en Amérique” (“Democracy in America”) in the original French. The work took me over three years to finish. Specifically, I read the work from March 2019 to July 2022. I would first read a paragraph out loud in French, then out loud in English, and then out loud in French again before moving on to the next paragraph. In this way, I got through the entire work one paragraph at a time. After doing so, I have much to say about it – some of it positive, and some of it negative. But first, let me give some comments on how (and why) the book was written, and how it was informed by Tocqueville’s travels to the United States.

Alexis de Tocqueville

A review of PBS’s “The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela”

“No one in my family had ever attended school ... On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name, I have no idea.”

– Nelson Mandela’s “Long Walk to Freedom, Volume I: 1918-1962” (published 1994)

This is the second program that PBS’s “Frontline” made about Nelson Mandela

“The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela” is PBS’s longest program about Mandela’s life. At two hours long, this episode of “Frontline” is as in-depth as any treatment of his life that you’re likely to find for television. But there was another “Frontline” episode made about him in 1994, on the eve of the elections that first propelled him into power. This earlier program was only one hour long, and was simply titled “Mandela.” At that time, Mandela’s groundbreaking presidency had not yet happened, and he was just a candidate for the presidency. But “The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela” was made in 1999, when Mandela was about to leave office. He was scheduled to leave the presidency just one month after this program was released. Most of his presidency had already transpired, and so they were able to have slightly more hindsight about his pre-presidency life. But more importantly, this program is two hours long, and was thus able to go into slightly more depth than the one-hour program. This is the greatest strength of this documentary.

Nelson Mandela

A review of Cecil Jenkins’ “A Brief History of France” (book)

“The French people solemnly proclaim their attachment to the Rights of Man and the principles of national sovereignty as defined by the Declaration of 1789, confirmed and complemented by the Preamble to the Constitution of 1946, and to the rights and duties as defined in the Charter for the Environment of 2004 [then a future year] … By virtue of these principles and that of the self-determination of peoples, the Republic offers to the overseas territories which have expressed the will to adhere to them new institutions founded on the common ideal of liberty, equality and fraternity and conceived for the purpose of their democratic development.”

– Preamble to the current Constitution of France (adopted 4 October 1958)

This book is skewed towards modern history (but is still good)

I’ve been trying to learn the French language since 2002. When I started learning the language, I was still in my sophomore year of high school. Thus, I’ve been interested in France for at least that long. My interest in the French language had something to do with Canada as well, but it’s hard to understand French Canada (or any other Francophone country) without some understanding of where the language has come from. This is part of what motivated me to get a copy of this book – I wanted to understand the culture of the French language. In this, I was not disappointed, and learned much about the history and culture of France – including the political history. (Although there is much art history in this book as well, for people who are interested in this.)

Some thoughts from Blackstone about punishing criminals

“I proceed in the next place to consider the general nature of punishments : which are evils or inconveniences consequent upon crimes and misdemeanors ; being devised, denounced, and inflicted by human laws, in consequence of disobedience or misbehaviour in those, to regulate whose conduct such laws were respectively made.”

– Sir William Blackstone’s “Commentaries on the Laws of England” (1769), Book 4, Chapter 1

Why do we punish small crimes differently from big ones? For that matter, why do we punish criminals at all? Many have asked these questions throughout history. There has been a great variety of answers from all kinds of people. Blackstone’s answers were not new even then, but they were solid answers, and they’re still relevant today.

Thus, I will examine some enlightening passages from his magnum opus, the “Commentaries on the Laws of England.” The fourth and final book of that work is entitled “Of Public Wrongs.” “Public wrongs” is just another way of saying “crimes.” Thus, this is Blackstone’s treatise on criminal law – and specifically, the criminal laws of England at this time. I should mention that all quotations in this particular blog post are from Book 4, Chapter 1. Thus, I will not note this every time. (Incidentally, this particular volume was first published in 1769.)

Coat of arms of Great Britain, 1714-1800

Wikipedia has some bad information about William Blackstone

Note: Sir William Blackstone was writing in the eighteenth century. But in the quotations given from him in this particular blog post, he discusses many events from back in the twelfth century - or, more broadly, from the Middle Ages.

Wikipedia claims that Blackstone “omitted” the Constitutions of Clarendon …

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve often enjoyed reading articles from Wikipedia, and have linked to a number of these articles from my own blog over the years. Some of these articles are reliable, while others are not. Many of them are somewhere in between. Possibly one of these articles to be somewhere in between is the article about William Blackstone, which contained some good information about William Blackstone, and some bad information. For example, the “Criticism” section of that page said that “English jurist Jeremy Bentham was a critic of Blackstone's theories.[132] Others saw Blackstone's theories as inaccurate statements of English law, using the Constitutions of Clarendon, the Tractatus of Glanville and the 1689 Bill of Rights as particularly obvious examples of laws Blackstone omitted.” (Source: “William Blackstone” page, “Criticism” section)

Jeremy Bentham

… and the Tractatus of Glanville (which it refers to as a “law”)

The part about how “English jurist Jeremy Bentham was a critic of Blackstone's theories” is properly sourced at the “[132]”. While I don't agree with Bentham's criticisms (indeed, I find them wildly inaccurate), I do agree that he was “a critic of Blackstone's theories” – this much is pretty well-established, and that is all that the source claims here. But the second sentence has no source, which makes me wonder who exactly is making these criticisms. The sentence in question says that “Others saw Blackstone's theories as inaccurate statements of English law, using the Constitutions of Clarendon, the Tractatus of Glanville and the 1689 Bill of Rights as particularly obvious examples of laws Blackstone omitted.” I have shown in a separate post that Blackstone did indeed mention the 1689 Bill of Rights, and thus did not “omit” it. In this post, I will show that he mentioned the Constitutions of Clarendon and the Tractatus of Glanville, the other topics that he is here erroneously accused of “omitt[ing].”

Jeremy Bentham