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 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 |
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1985 Selected Letters Adams Alexis de Tocqueville Algeria Althusius American authority belief Calhoun Cambridge Platform chapter choice Christian church citizens civic civil colonial colonists common compact Congregational Congregationalist conscience consent constitutional context contrast covenant covenant theology covenantal thinking curious inquiry Democracy in America democratic revolution democratic social developed doctrine eighteenth century England Enlightenment equality experience faith federal liberty federal theology Federalist forms France French French Revolution gender God's Henry Reeve human ideal ideas increasingly Indian individual institutions interest Jefferson John Winthrop Journey to America legislative limited majority Massachusetts moral natural nineteenth-century obligations Old Regime political culture practical principles Puritan race reason reflection reform relationship religion religious republican result role self-government shared slave social condition social equality society spirit tion Tocqueville 1945 Democracy Tocqueville 1985 Selected Tocqueville believed Tocqueville's Tocqueville's analysis Tocqueville's view union virtue voluntarism William Ames women Writings on Empire
Popular passages
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.