



Produced by David Reed and David Widger





DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

By Alexis De Tocqueville


Translated by Henry Reeve





Book Two: Influence Of Democracy On Progress Of Opinion In
the United States.





De Tocqueville's Preface To The Second Part

The Americans live in a democratic state of society, which has naturally
suggested to them certain laws and a certain political character. This
same state of society has, moreover, engendered amongst them a
multitude of feelings and opinions which were unknown amongst the elder
aristocratic communities of Europe: it has destroyed or modified all the
relations which before existed, and established others of a novel kind.
The--aspect of civil society has been no less affected by these changes
than that of the political world. The former subject has been treated
of in the work on the