The main aim of this book is to understand the birth pangs of modern democracy after the ‘Democratic Revolutions’ (R. R. Palmer) – in essence the American and the French Revolutions – whose reverberations, knock-on effects and unresolved problems could be felt for much of the nineteenth century and beyond, in many countries. I maintain that the work and political careers of Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont are a fascinating lens through which those democratic revolutions and their consequences, contradictions, problems and unfulfilled promises can be studied.1
There exist numerous studies dealing with Tocqueville (1805–59) and his work: two long biographies (De Jardin 1988; Brogan 2006), many monographs and even more articles that discuss Tocqueville’s Democracy in America or his Ancien Régime in great detail, not to speak of the many titles that address other aspects of Tocqueville’s work or that relate to themes and topics addressed in Tocqueville’s pioneering studies (see, for example, the various contributions gathered in The Cambridge Companion to Tocqueville (2006) or The Tocqueville Review (1979–)).
Considerably less has been published about the contributions of Tocqueville’s friend, co-traveller, co-writer and life-long friend, Gustave de Beaumont (1802–66), and even less about their collaboration. A recent collection of Tocqueville and Beaumont’s writings on America (Tocqueville and Beaumont 2010) attempts to examine their joint efforts in studying the emerging American democracy. It gathers some of the central texts of the two friends in one volume. However, while the publication makes their joint output more easily available, it is rather disappointing in terms of the interpretation of the nature of the collaboration between the two men. Once again, the focus is, if at all, on their differences, despite the overwhelming evidence of shared preoccupations and work almost through their entire lives. Such insistence on the differences instead of the similarities and overlaps neglects the arguments made in the pioneering work of Drescher (1964, 1968), and more recently reasserted in Drolet (2003), Garvin and Hess (2006, 2009) and Hess (2009), all of whom have pointed out that the commonalities and collaboration between the two friends need to be taken more seriously and studied in greater detail. Such emphasis does of course not neglect the real differences between the two writers; it just serves as a reminder to give credit to joint efforts where credit is due.
The Case for a Joint Study
If this description has any validity – and I maintain throughout this book that it does – it makes little sense to celebrate Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835/1840) without considering Beaumont’s darker and more sceptical pendant Marie, Or, Slavery in the United States (1835) or giving his Ireland study (1839) its due. As shown in the three-volume correspondence of Tocqueville and Beaumont in the former’s Oeuvres Complètes (1967, in translation partly available in Tocqueville 1985 and 2006 and Tocqueville and Beaumont 2010), every sentence, every paragraph of any of the books Tocqueville and Beaumont ever wrote, be it as sole author or together (as was the case in the Penitentiary study), was read by the other and discussed between the two friends. The same applies to their cooperation as members of the French National Assembly where they worked together on several issues, ranging from the abolition of slavery, through debates relating to colonial and imperial policies to matters of social reform. Similar synergies are detectable when Tocqueville and Beaumont worked in the Constitutional Commission after the 1848 Revolution and later when Tocqueville became foreign minister and Beaumont French ambassador to London and Vienna. After their enforced retirement following Louis Napoleon’s coup d’état in 1851 they remained in close contact. When Tocqueville was struggling with tuberculosis Beaumont joined him in Cannes and took care of him. And even after Tocqueville’s death Beaumont remained deeply committed to their friendship: he wrote the first memoir of Tocqueville and also edited the collected works of his deceased friend (Tocqueville 1862).
This text is the first concise attempt to see Tocqueville and Beaumont as partners in their attempt to study the birth pangs of modern democracy and to point out each other’s qualities and strengths while also addressing some of their different emphases. Albeit relatively short and in conformity with the format of the Pivot Series in which it appears, this is, at least as far as I am aware, the first study that attempts to give full credit to the collaborative nature of the extraordinary two-man ‘research machine’ (Tocqueville 2010: 29). It tries to de-mystify and debunk the role of Tocqueville as the ‘sole genius’ by paying due respect to Beaumont’s contribution or to Beaumont as a listener, correspondent, or sometimes just simply as a sounding board for ideas. It is, to put it differently, about getting the balance right rather than prolonging the myth of the solitary ‘democratic sphynx’.
This book intends, first, to argue in favour of the potential interpretative benefits when Tocqueville and Beaumont are seen in context and in their interaction. Second, it tries to reap the advantages from such a vantage point, particularly when discussing the problems, contradictions and hopes associated with the development of modern democracy. What will hopefully become clear in the context is that Beaumont’s efforts and writings function as a kind of corrective mechanism, able to throw light onto Tocqueville’s occasional blind spots and silences. This latter point is no arbitrary post-factum construction or a reprojection; it simply takes seriously the division of labour on which Tocqueville and Beaumont agreed from an early stage. The two friends knew about their similarities and differences; that’s why they agreed on both collaboration and their division of labour.
However, before delving into the past one concern or objection should perhaps be dealt with and answered right from the start. Tocqueville knew not only Beaumont but had other friends and acquaintances with whom he was in regular contact, for example Louis de Kergorlay, John Stuart Mill and William Nassau Senior. So why focus just on the relationship between Tocqueville and Beaumont? The answer is that it was Beaumont, and only Beaumont, with whom Tocqueville not only shared some crucial experiences such as their joint travels to America, England and Ireland, and later Algeria but also the experiences of a legal apprenticeship at Versailles, an important joint publication (the Penitentiary book about American prisons), a simultaneous rise to fame (both were awarded the Montyon Prize for their publications, and both were later appointed to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques); furthermore, both had political careers in the French Assembly and later in the Constituent Assembly, both entered the diplomatic service (Tocqueville as Foreign Minister and Beaumont as ambassador, first to London and later to Vienna), and both withdrew simultaneously from politics and public life in 1851. After Tocqueville’s death Beaumont would become the first editor of Tocqueville’s collected writings, an indicator of their intellectual proximity, their joint work and their shared interests. Finally, there is the lifelong exchange of ideas and letters as testified by the already mentioned three volumes of correspondence between Beaumont and Tocqueville (now part of the Gallimard edition of Tocqueville’s collected writings and also partly available in translation in various editions).
In their letters, each showed admiration for the other. On board the vessel that took the two friends to America Beaumont wrote to his father about his travel companion: “There is great loftiness in his ideas and great nobility in his soul. The better I know him, the more I like him. Our lives are now joined together. It is clear that our destinies are and will always be linked. This tie enlivens our friendship and brings us closer together.” And in anticipation of what was to come he notes “we are meditating ambitious projects” (both quotes in Tocqueville 2010: 6). Reflecting about their common experiences and their differences in terms of passions and interests and how, related to that, their minds worked, Tocqueville commented in a letter to Beaumont written many years later, in 1839, at a time when Tocqueville had put the finishing touches on the second volume of Democracy and Beaumont had just finished his Ireland book: “Your mind is indivisible. You must not pity yourself too much for this, because it is a sign of strength. You are always ablaze, but you catch fire for only one thing at a time, and you do not have any curiosity or interest in anything else. It is for that reason that within the greatest intimacy, we have always had points at which we did not touch and never reached each other. I have an insatiable, ardent curiosity, which is always carrying me to the right and to the left of my way. Yours leads you just as impetuously, but always toward a single object.” A few lines further down Tocqueville asks, clearly puzzled by the conundrum of their joint efforts but also their different approaches: “Which of us is right in the way he conducts his mind? In truth, I have no idea.” He concludes: “I believe that the result will always be that you will know better than I, and I more than you” (in Tocqueville 1985: 130f).
The friendship seemed to have been clouded over only once, and then only for a few weeks, in 1844. The disagreement developed over an education bill, which Tocqueville had opposed in the French Assembly, a stance which he expected Beaumont to follow publicly. Beaumont did in fact support Tocqueville’s position but also tried to remain faithful to the editorial line of his paper Le Siècle, which took a different line than Le Commerce, the paper Tocqueville had used as an outlet. Through the intervention of various friends and acquaintances the two were soon reconciled. Each acknowledged afterwards that the dispute had taken them too far in their passions; the disagreement ended with both asking each other for understanding and forgiveness.
There was simply nobody else in Tocqueville’s life who would have had the same kind of influence and sense of friendship or would have had that kind of sustained joined experience and exchange, and perhaps most importantly, mutual trust. This, to repeat, does not mean that there weren’t also some differences on occasion, as for example acknowledged in the letters mentioned above. However, the point is that hinting at such differences in terms of temperament, talent or opinion only makes sense when one also takes into consideration the many bonds and common interests between the two friends.
A Brief Overview: Parallel Lives, Different Passions
Gustave de Beaumont de Bonninière was born 6 February 1802, at Beaumont-la-Chartre in the Sarthe. Beaumont’s parents were both of French aristocratic background and the family had always been linked to the more enlightened circles of the French upper class. Indeed, Lafayette, the famous aristocratic soldier who had fought alongside Washington against the British during the American War of Independence, was Beaumont’s grandfather, and therefore an early American connection. Not much is known of how Beaumont spent his childhood. His first appearance in the historical record as an adult is as a juge auditeur and then as a deputy public prosecutor at the court of Versailles. It was also at Versailles that Beaumont first met Alexis de Tocqueville (born 1805), a fellow student who had been pursuing a similar legal career. The two young men shared more than just the fact that both came from aristocratic backgrounds and were aspirant lawyers. They clicked personally, intellectually and politically; a friendship soon developed between Alexis and Gustave and in the following years the two developed their fabled habit of reading and studying together. Both had an interest in political economy and were particularly taken by the theories of Jean-Baptiste Say. Again, both attended the history lectures of François Guizot, a well-known liberal historian. They were particularly influenced by Guizot’s arguments concerning the history and course of French civilisation.
The July Revolution (1830) brought an end to the reign of Charles X, and both young men were faced with tough decisions. All officials were required to take an oath of loyalty to the new regime of Louis-Philippe and after much soul-searching the two friends finally decided to take the oath to secure their legal careers. Since Tocqueville and Beaumont were deeply worried about the possible intentions of the new regime they also began to make contingency plans. Part of their plan was, quite simply, to take some time out by getting away from France. Beaumont had already sketched a short proposal for studying the French prison system in which he had adumbrated a further, more detailed investigation from a comparative perspective. A short while later, the two friends received the green light for their project. The pair were commissioned to travel together to America with the purpose of investigating the new prison systems of the United States to find out to what extent they resembled or differed from the French system and if there were any innovations which the French authorities might profitably study. In April 1831, the two friends left Le Havre for America where they were to stay until February 1832. They first arrived in New York and spent a few weeks in the city and its environs. From New York they went to Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington before returning to New York. Two further excursions were also part of the trip, one to the Northwest and Canada, and another down the Mississippi river to New Orleans.
The trip turned out to be a success in more than one respect. The two friends managed to gather plenty of information about prisons and the American penitentiary systems. However, the most important result of their journey was the discovery that the comparison of prison systems not only provided the organisational pretext for but also some insights into the new, democratic ‘philosophy’ and its practices. They argued that the way a penitentiary system treats its prisoners reveals how a regime treats its individual citizens or subjects in general. American prisons apparently didn’t simply let their prisoners rot in their cells...