In the Footsteps of Tocqueville

This year marks the bicentennial of the birth of Alexis de Tocqueville, the keenest interpreter of America and all its foibles.

Among other things, he said that voluntary institutions and religion, not only democracy, are the stuff that make our country's republic successful.

The reason de Tocqueville came to the United States wasn't to investigate the polical system, it was to investigate the penal system, how Americans jail the prisoners.