PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
The following work of M. De Tocqueville has attracted great
attention throughout Europe, where it is universally regarded as
a sound, philosophical, impartial, and remarkably clear and
distinct view of our political institutions, and of our manners,
opinions, and habits, as influencing or influenced by those institutions.
Writers, reviewers, and statesmen of all parties, have united in
the highest commendations of its ability and integrity. The
people, described by a work of such a character, should not be the
only one in Christendom unacquainted with its contents. At least,
so thought many of our most distinguished men, who have urged
the publishers of this edition to reprint the work, and present it to
the American public. They have done so in the hope of promoting
among their countrymen a more thorough knowledge of their
frames of government, and a more just appreciation of the great
principles on which they are founded.
But it seemed to them that a reprint in America of the views of an author so well entitled to regard and confidence, without any correction of the few errors or mistakes that might be found, would be in effect to give authenticity to the whole work, and that foreign readers, especially, would consider silence, under such circumstances, as strong evidence of the accuracy of its statements. The preface to the English edition, too, was not adapted to this country, having been written, as it would seem, in reference to the political questions which agitate Great Britain. The publishers, therefore, applied to the writer of this, to furnish
