Quiz: Democracy in America

All 50 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. How many principal officers does Tocqueville count in a New England township?

   Twenty-four Thirty-two Nineteen Seventeen
2. 2. To what does Tocqueville attribute the ability of American ships to carry goods more cheaply than European ones?

   Cheaper and better-built American ships The daring and speed of American traders, a moral quality Lower wages paid to American sailors Government subsidies and bounties to the American merchant fleet
3. 3. How does Tocqueville distinguish individualism from egotism?

   Individualism is a calm feeling, born of faulty judgment, that withdraws each into a private circle Individualism is a virtue and egotism a vice Individualism is a passionate and exaggerated love of self, as old as the world itself Individualism belongs to aristocratic ages and egotism to democratic ones
4. 4. How does Tocqueville explain why the Senate is full of distinguished men while the House of Representatives is not?

   Only lawyers may sit in the Senate Senators are appointed for life by the President with Congress’s consent Senators must meet a high property qualification for their seats Senators are elected indirectly, by elected state legislatures
5. 5. Which of these does Tocqueville say the Cherokees achieved?

   A written language, a permanent government and a newspaper A treaty guaranteeing them land on the Pacific coast for ever Admission to the Union as a separate state A standing army that defeated Georgia’s militia
6. 6. To what chiefly does Tocqueville attribute the great rise in European farm rents over the previous fifty years?

   Democratic passions that turned the landlord–tenant tie into a mere money bargain The influx of gold and silver from America, which lowered the value of money Improvements in agriculture and manufactures that raised the value of the produce Heavier taxation on land, which landlords passed on to their tenants
7. 7. How, according to Tocqueville, does American honour treat bankrupts?

   With imprisonment for debt, because creditors control the state legislatures and courts With indulgence, since a nation that honours bold speculation cannot shame those who fail With severity, because failure in business is taken as a sign of idleness With indifference, because Americans rarely borrow money
8. 8. According to Tocqueville’s chapter on honour, what gives rise to the notion of honour?

   Religious teaching about sin and virtue, which every nation shares alike The dissimilarities and inequalities of men, so it weakens as these fade The laws of the state, which define crimes and fix their punishments The natural courage of men, which is the same in all ages
9. 9. How did Tocqueville at first react to hearing of Americans publicly pledging to abstain from spirits?

   He thought it a plot by the government He admired it at once as a model for France It seemed to him more like a joke than a serious engagement He thought it a sign of religious decline
10. 10. What example does Tocqueville use for a workman narrowed by the division of labour?

    A miner who never sees daylight A weaver who has tended the same loom for life A man who has spent twenty years making heads for pins A clerk who copies the same ledger every day
11. 11. How does Tocqueville say the tyranny of the majority differs from the despotism of absolute monarchs?

    It leaves the body free but enslaves the mind It acts only through the federal courts It censors books through a state inquisition It uses more executions but fewer prisons and exiles
12. 12. Why, according to the American sailor Tocqueville questions, are American ships built to last only a short time?

    American shipowners prefer to change trades and routes frequently Navigation improves so fast that an old ship would soon be useless Timber is so cheap that durability is not worth paying for The law limits the age of ships allowed to sail
13. 13. What happened to the witness in Chester county, New York, who declared that he did not believe in God or the immortality of the soul?

    He was fined for blasphemy The newspapers led a public campaign against the judge He was allowed to testify but the jury was told to disregard him The judge refused to admit his evidence
14. 14. Where does Tocqueville locate the American aristocracy?

    Among the great merchants of the seaboard cities On the judicial bench and at the bar In the United States Senate and the state legislatures Among the planters of the Southern States and their families
15. 15. Which two States does Tocqueville use to illustrate the different principles of the Senate and the House of Representatives?

    New York and Delaware Maine and Georgia Ohio and Kentucky Ohio and Virginia
16. 16. Which country does Tocqueville cite as having copied the American Federal Constitution without the habits needed to make it work?

    Mexico Canada Switzerland Brazil
17. 17. What does Tocqueville consider the greatest advantage of the jury, especially in civil cases?

    It reduces the cost and delay of litigation for the poor It produces more accurate verdicts than judges sitting alone It educates citizens, a free public school ever open It keeps lawyers and judges out of party politics altogether
18. 18. Where, according to Tocqueville, did the Pilgrims originally intend to found their colony?

    On the shores of the Hudson On the coast of Maine, near the Kennebec In Chesapeake Bay On the James River in Virginia
19. 19. What is the penalty the American Senate can impose after an impeachment, as Tocqueville describes it?

    A fine fixed by the House of Representatives, payable before the accused may sit in office again Any punishment in the penal code, including death, with no appeal to the courts Removal and disqualification from office, leaving criminal penalties to the ordinary courts Banishment from the State where the offence occurred, with loss of property
20. 20. What does Tocqueville use Madame de Sévigné’s letters to illustrate?

    The poverty of the French provincial nobility before the Revolution The education of women in seventeenth-century French high society The cruelty of the French clergy towards the Protestants of the south Aristocrats’ lack of sympathy for the people’s sufferings
21. 21. Which removal did Tocqueville witness at Memphis in the winter of 1831?

    Iroquois begging alms on the road west Cherokees setting out from Georgia A band of Choctaws crossing the Mississippi Creeks leaving Alabama by steamboat for Arkansas
22. 22. How does Tocqueville contrast the Americans and the Russians at the end of Volume I?

    Both rely alike on a strong central authority that directs all the energies of the whole nation The Americans grow by conquest of their neighbours, the Russians by peaceful settlement of the steppe The American conquers nature by freedom; the Russian conquers men by servitude and the sword The Russians are stagnating under despotism, while the Americans grow ever faster by their freedom
23. 23. What lesson does Tocqueville draw from the Chinese whom Europeans found three hundred years earlier?

    A people can keep its methods yet lose the science behind them, and with it the power to improve Isolation from Europe had made Chinese science superior, but kept it secret from outsiders Despotism always destroys the arts as well as the sciences Conquest by barbarians is the only way civilisation perishes
24. 24. Which country does Tocqueville cite as an example of how uniform rules of advancement stifle lofty ambition?

    Russia, where all advancement depends on the will of the tsar alone England, where commissions and promotion are bought and sold China, where officials must pass a probationary trial at every stage Prussia, where only the nobility may hold the higher offices of state
25. 25. Which state does Tocqueville say was the first to proclaim universal suffrage?

    Pennsylvania Virginia Massachusetts Maryland
26. 26. What feature of the presidency does Tocqueville think undermines the framers’ design?

    The suspensive veto, which he thinks too strong for a republic His re-eligibility, which makes him court the majority The election by special electors rather than by Congress or the people The four-year term, which he thinks too long for an elected chief
27. 27. According to Tocqueville, what single difference gives American judges their immense political power?

    They may censure the legislature in general declarations of principle, outside any lawsuit They are elected directly by the people for short terms and so speak for the majority They may open proceedings against unconstitutional laws on their own initiative They may prefer the constitution to the laws and refuse to apply unconstitutional statutes
28. 28. How did Congress respond when South Carolina nullified the tariff and armed its militia?

    It repealed the tariff at once and censured the President for his threats It referred the whole dispute to a convention of all the States for decision It cut duties over ten years but gave the President extraordinary powers It sent federal troops into Charleston and kept the tariff unchanged at the old rates
29. 29. Which feature of American legal procedure does Tocqueville cite as an aristocratic English survival hostile to the poor?

    Committal and bail Trial by jury The election of judges Imprisonment for debt
30. 30. How, according to Tocqueville, does slavery endanger the American Union?

    Directly, by setting Southern economic interests against Northern ones in Congress By driving free labourers from the South into the Western States Indirectly, by giving Southerners different manners and character from Northerners By provoking a slave revolt that the federal army cannot suppress
31. 31. Why does Tocqueville think the colony of Liberia can be no remedy for the United States?

    Congress had refused to let free Black people leave the country for Africa The settlers had all returned to the United States The colony had banned all further immigration from America It took 2,500 in twelve years, while about 700,000 Black Americans were born
32. 32. If America ever undergoes great revolutions, what does Tocqueville say will cause them?

    The presence of the black race, so that they will spring from inequality rather than equality The ambition of army officers, so that they will spring from military rather than civil causes The growth of great manufacturing cities, so that they will spring from an industrial populace Immigration from Catholic Europe, so that they will spring from religious rather than political strife
33. 33. What does Tocqueville say happened to watches as society became democratic?

    Few are now very good, but everybody has one They became both cheaper and better made They remained luxuries for the wealthy Their manufacture moved entirely to America
34. 34. Which class in a democratic army does Tocqueville consider the most warlike and revolutionary?

    The private soldiers The non-commissioned officers The generals and chief commanders The military engineers
35. 35. To what does Tocqueville say he would mainly attribute the prosperity and growing strength of the Americans?

    The abundance of their land The strength of their religious sects The wisdom of their Constitution The superiority of their women
36. 36. What advice does Tocqueville give religions that wish to keep their hold in democratic ages?

    Take part in party politics so as to defend their own interests Keep to spiritual matters and limit outward observances to the necessary Oppose the love of material well-being completely and at every turn Multiply ceremonies and outward forms so as to fix wavering minds
37. 37. What, according to Tocqueville’s satire of American “irritable patriotism”, may a foreigner safely criticise?

    Private individuals, but never the public institutions of the country The federal government, but never the governments of the separate states Anything at all, provided it is said in private and not in print Only the climate and the soil, and even those will be defended
38. 38. How many of New York’s great landed families does Tocqueville say still survive as such?

    None Twelve Two About half of the colonial families
39. 39. How does Tocqueville describe recurring commercial panics in democratic nations?

    As a punishment for neglecting agriculture in favour of trade As an accident caused by bad banking laws, which can easily be repealed As an endemic disease of their temperament, which can be eased but not cured As a problem confined to Europe, which America has so far escaped entirely
40. 40. Why, according to Tocqueville’s Philadelphia informant, had legislators not taxed cheap spirits?

    Brandy was imported duty-free under a treaty with France They feared a revolt and the loss of their seats The Constitution forbids taxes on spirits The temperance societies opposed any tax
41. 41. Where, according to Tocqueville, is the prejudice of race strongest?

    In the newly settled Western territories In the states where slavery has never existed In the states with the largest free Black population In the states that still keep slaves
42. 42. How does Tocqueville rank the three causes that maintain the democratic republic in the United States?

    Physical circumstances least, then the laws, with manners most important The laws first, then manners, with physical circumstances least important Physical circumstances first, then the laws, with manners least important All three are equally important and cannot be ranked
43. 43. Why does Tocqueville think liberty of the press matters more in democratic nations than in aristocracies?

    Because the isolated citizen can appeal to the nation only through the press Because democratic governments, owning most of the newspapers, must allow opposition in them Because the press must educate the citizens whom no aristocracy is any longer left to instruct Because newspapers cost much less to produce where there are no privileged publishers
44. 44. What example does Tocqueville give of a political association acting almost like a legislature?

    A temperance society formed in New York The Hartford Convention of New England Federalists during the war of 1812 The Convention of tariff opponents that met at Philadelphia in 1831 The convention that drafted the Federal Constitution at Philadelphia in 1787
45. 45. What does Tocqueville say struck him most forcibly during his stay in the United States?

    The complete separation of church and state The size of American merchant fortunes The general equality of conditions The power of the federal government
46. 46. Why, according to Tocqueville, do Americans follow Descartes’s method?

    They study his works in their colleges Their Puritan founders were followers of Descartes Their equal social condition disposes them to rely on their own reason French émigrés introduced his philosophy into America after the Revolution
47. 47. According to Tocqueville, what will democratic peoples do if they cannot obtain equality in freedom?

    Restore an aristocracy to protect their liberties Call for equality in slavery Give up equality for the sake of freedom Emigrate to America
48. 48. How does Tocqueville describe the despotism democratic nations have to fear?

    A military dictatorship that rules by terror and the confiscation of property Rule by the poor, who plunder the property of the rich A return of hereditary aristocracy and feudal privilege under a restored king An immense, mild, tutelary power that keeps men in perpetual childhood
49. 49. Why, according to Tocqueville, did the Indians “occupy without possessing” North America?

    Because man appropriates the soil by tilling it, and they lived by hunting Because their land belonged to their chiefs and not to the tribe at large Because they migrated each year between Canada and Mexico Because they held no written titles that European law would recognise
50. 50. What, according to Tocqueville, does an American do with the house he builds to spend his old age in?

    He lives in it until he dies He sells it before the roof is on He lets it to a tenant farmer He leaves it to his eldest son by will