Mansfield on Rousseau and Tocqueville

From Mansfield's review of Paul Rahe's book on Tocqueville, Montesquieu and Rousseau:

"Rahe shows the ideas behind Tocqueville's concept from two philosophers who were dear to him. He explains how the ideas of Montesquieu helped to create the "modern republic" of individual commercial interests, and how the ideas of Rousseau countered with a deep critique of the modern republic for its failure to promote citizenship among dissociated individuals and its misunderstanding of liberty as the expression and cultivation of uneasy, divided souls.

...

Another related difficulty in making Tocqueville the heir of Montesquieu and Rousseau is that Tocqueville does not appear to be a political philosopher, at least not one of their kind. He does not provide either a comprehensive survey of politics, as did Montesquieu, or an abstract foundation for politics, as did Rousseau. He calls for a 'new science of politics,' but does not supply it except in apparently unorganized fragments.

Instead, he presents the idea of democratic liberty in an account of the facts of American democracy, above all in the discussion of the New England township with which he begins his presentation of American government. Here one sees the natural, spontaneous association of free men to address a need before their eyes, such as laying a road, that cannot be satisfied by one individual alone. He goes on to describe and praise the complex, artificial, theoretical Constitution that presides over the more spontaneous 'civil society' of American democracy. But he never mentions the Declaration whose fundamental principles inspired the Constitution. Rahe notes this fact and deplores it, declaring that his purpose was to instruct Frenchmen, not to 'celebrate abstract principles.'

Yet Tocqueville appears to have had an aversion to abstract principles and to have considered them a menace to democratic liberty. In a democracy, abstract principles, including the Declaration's statement that 'all men are created equal,' will be democratic ones and will accelerate the democratic revolution rather than guide it. Democratic citizens, lacking any sense of hierarchy either in society or in their own souls, are likely to reject demanding ideals and to prefer immediate, material enjoyments that are easy, obvious, and palpable.

...he offers testimony to the influence of ideas while avoiding them, and to the power of the democratic context of ideas while resisting it."