Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
632
AUTHOR:
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59)
QUOTATION:
We have noted that the federal Constitution put the permanent control of the nation’s foreign interests in the hands of the President and the Senate, which to some extent frees the Union’s general policy from direct and daily popular control. One should not therefore assert without qualification that American democracy controls the state’s external affairs.
ATTRIBUTION:
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence, vol. 1, part 2, chapter 5, p. 226 (1969). Originally published in 1835–1840.
