Tocqueville, Covenant, and the Democratic Revolution: Harmonizing Earth with Heaven

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Lexington Books, 2005 - Political Science - 393 pages
Tocqueville, 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.

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Contents

POINT OF DEPARTURE Covenant and the Democratic Revolution
3
ORDERLY KNIT TOGETHER Colonial Covenants and Federations
31
HARMONIZING EARTH WITH HEAVEN Church and State in the Federal Republic
67
THE HOPES AND FEARS OF THE DEMOCRATIC AGE
101
ANOTHER FORM OF HOPE Religious Belief and the Democratic Soul
103
THE ART AND SCIENCE OF ASSOCIATION The Federal Matrix and the Voluntary Society
131
A FAILURE OF HEART AND MIND Conformity Uniformity and Despotism in the Democratic Social Power
165
DEMOCRACY AND PARADOX
193
BONDS OF AFFECTION Republican Motherhood Sacrifice and Civic Virtue
195
BONDS OF AFFLICTION Race Ideology and the Limits of Democratic Progress
225
SERVITUDE OR FREEDOM? Civic Enlightenment and the New Science of Politics
261
NOTES
299
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
361
INDEX
383
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Page 377 - New England's Memorial ; or, A brief relation of the most memorable and remarkable passages of the providence of God, manifested to the planters of New- England in America ; with special reference to the first colony thereof, called NewPlimouth.

About the author (2005)

Barbara Allen is Professor of Political Science at Carleton College.

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