Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution: Harmonizing Earth with HeavenTocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution examines the intellectual and institutional context in which Alexis de Tocqueville developed his understanding of American political culture, with its profound influence on his democratic theory. American democracy, Tocqueville maintained, had emerged from the covenant tradition of Reformed Protestantism. The covenant, or foederal, theology of New England Puritans provided the ideational basis for federated church and civil government, which directly influenced the American constitutionalism and the republican institutions that Tocqueville later observed. Tocqueville suggested that the principles underlying American constitutionalism offered broader lessons in the art and science of self-government. An important book for scholars of Tocqueville as well as American political thought, this book suggests that an understanding of the American covenant tradition is critical to our interpretation of Tocqueville's analysis of the democratic revolution and the 'new science of politics' it necessitated. |
Contents
POINT OF Departure | 3 |
ORDERLY KNIT TOGETHER | 31 |
HARMONIZING EARTH WIth Heaven | 67 |
Copyright | |
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Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution: Harmonizing Earth with ... Barbara Allen No preview available - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Alexis de Tocqueville Algeria Althusius American authority belief Calhoun Cambridge Platform chapter Christian church citizens civic civil colonial colonists common compact Congregational Congregationalist consent constitutional context contrast covenant covenant theology covenantal thinking curious inquiry Democracy in America democratic revolution democratic social developed doctrine eighteenth century emerged England Enlightenment established experience faith federal liberty federal theology Federalist forms France French French Revolution gender God's human ideal ideas increasingly Indian individual institutions interest Jefferson John Winthrop legislative limited majority Massachusetts ment ministers Native Americans natural nineteenth-century obligations Old Regime orientation political culture practical principles public opinion Puritan race reason reflection reform relationship religion religious republican response result revolutionary role self-government shared slave slavery social equality social power society sovereignty spirit theory tion Tocqueville 1945 Democracy Tocqueville believed Tocqueville's Tocqueville's analysis Tocqueville's view transcendent ultraroyalist understanding union Virginia virtue voluntarism Whig women