Lehrman American Studies Center

This article could be assigned for advanced undergraduate students in a political philosophy course, an advanced American Politics course, or a constitutional law course. The article illuminates the difference of Tocqueville, as a modern thinker, to other Enlightenment philosophers (e.g., Hobbes, Rousseau) in their approach and understanding of religion. For Tocqueville, religion was a political institution that was necessary for the preservation of liberty. It also provides the historical contrast between the United States and France in the relationship between religion and the state. Kessler engages in a close textual reading of Tocqueville's Democracy in America to show that religion provided a moral code that was necessary in the absence of political control for democratic regimes to exist. However, Tocqueville's hope for a modified Christian morality to check the excesses of equality appear to be dim, with the court system removing religion from the public square. This article is an excellent supplement reading assignment to Tocqueville's Democracy in America as well as to the constitutional cases that are concerned with the First Amendment