Belonging neither to the class which regarded the social revolution as an innovation to be resisted, nor to that which considered political equality the universal panacea for the evils of humanity, he resolved by personal observation of the results of democracy in the New World to ascertain its natural consequences, and to learn what the nations of Europe had to hope or fear from its final supremacy.
That a youth of twenty-six should entertain a design so broad and bold implies singular intellectual intrepidity.

He had neither model nor precedent.

The vastness and novelty of the undertaking increase admiration for the remarkable ability with which the task was performed.
Were literary excellence the sole claim of "Democracy in America" to distinction, the splendor of its composition alone would entitle it to high place among the masterpieces of the century.

The first chapter, upon the exterior form of North America, as the theatre upon which the great drama is to be enacted, for graphic and picturesque description of the physical characteristics of the continent is not surpassed in literature: nor is there any subdivision of the work in which the severest philosophy is not invested with the grace of poetry, and the driest statistics with the charm of romance.

Western emigration seemed commonplace and prosaic till M.de Tocqueville said, "This gradual and continuous progress of the European race toward the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand of God!" The mind of M.de Tocqueville had the candor of the photographic camera.
It recorded impressions with the impartiality of nature.