Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat traveling through America in 1831–32, observed Rousseau’s egalitarian ideals in practice. In Democracy in America, Tocqueville concluded that democracy was the future of Europe, but observed that with its drive for equality, which entailed making standards relative to the majority’s will, democracy risked eliminating the virtues that made self-rule possible. Democracies will succeed only if “mediating institutions,” including the churches, thrive.
