marked fidelity and ability. But at the same time he pursued studies
less narrow and technical than the law, investigating with ardor the
general questions of politics, and laying the foundation of those
principles and opinions which he afterward developed in his writings and
his public life. He witnessed the Revolution of 1830 with regret, not
because he was personally attached to the elder branch of the Bourbons,
but because he dreaded the effect of a sudden and violent change of
dynasty upon the stability of those constitutional institutions which
were of too recent establishment to be firmly rooted in France, but to
which he looked as the safeguard of liberty. He gave his adhesion to the
new government without hesitation, but without enthusiasm; and having
little hope of advancement in his career as magistrate, he applied to
the Ministry of the Interior early in 1831 for an official mission to
America to examine the system of our prisons, which at that time was
exciting attention in France. But the real motive which led him
to desire to visit America was his wish to study the democratic
institutions of the United States with reference to their bearing upon
the political and social questions which underlay the violent changes
and revolutions of government in France, and of which a correct
appreciation was of continually increasing importance. It was plain that
the dominating principle in the modern development of society was that
of democratic equality; and this being the case, the question of prime
importance presenting itself for solution was, How is liberty to be
reconciled with equality and saved from the inevitable dangers to which
it is exposed? or in other words, Can equality, which, by dividing
men and reducing the mass to a common level, smooths the way for the
establishment of a despotism, either of an individual or of the mob, be
made to promote and secure liberty? For the study of this question,
and of others naturally connected with it, the United States afforded
opportunities nowhere else to be found.