A visitor in the U.S. during the nineteenth century, he issued a warning in his classic study, Democracy in America. In the United States, he said, neither aristocracy nor princely tyranny exist. Yet, asked de Tocqueville, does not this unprecedented "equality of conditions" itself pose a fateful threat — the "tyranny of the majority"? In the processes of government, de Tocqueville warned, rule of the majority can mean oppression of the minority, control by erratic public moods rather than reasoned leadership.
[tags]Alexis-de-Tocqueville, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]