ns moral and intellectual potentials. It is barely conceivable that a good man might develop under a tyranny, but if he did it would be an instance of nature asserting herself over the normally sovereign way of life of the state. What Tocqueville discovered is that in a democracy, under certain conditions, it is easier to be a good man than a good citizen:True, democratic societies which are not free may well be prosperous, cultured, pleasing to the eye, and even magnificent, such is the sense of power implicit in their massive uniformity; in them may flourish many private virtues [qualitis], good fathers, honest merchants, exemplary landowners, and good Christians tooBut, I make bold to say, never shall we find under such conditions a great citizen, still less than a great nation Furthermore, the decline of citizenship is not to be associated only with the appearance of the new despotism. One of the thoughts that Tocqueville makes most explicit in his work is that of all the democratic devices, he believes freedom of association to be most important. As in years gone by, the aristocracy protected the liberties of the people against the encroachments of the sovereign, so in a democracy associations protect the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority. The major thesis of Democracy In America is that the spread of democracy is a providential fact , that is, virtually unstoppable. De Tocqueville is not aware of any power capable of slowing or stopping the spread of democracy, and he regards any effort to do so as a futile waste of energy. What separates Tocqueville from the other scholars of his time is his realization that stopping the spread of democracy is not a realistic notion. Rather, he devotes his time to the study of how to best improve and reform these democracies to make them most amenable to the citizens of the state.In describing his own intention for his book, Democracy in America, Toc...
