Quiz: Democracy in America

15 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. What lesson does Tocqueville draw from the Chinese whom Europeans found three hundred years earlier?

   Conquest by barbarians is the only way civilisation perishes 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
2. 2. Which country does Tocqueville cite as having copied the American Federal Constitution without the habits needed to make it work?

   Switzerland Brazil Canada Mexico
3. 3. What feature of the presidency does Tocqueville think undermines the framers’ design?

   His re-eligibility, which makes him court the majority The four-year term, which he thinks too long for an elected chief The election by special electors rather than by Congress or the people The suspensive veto, which he thinks too strong for a republic
4. 4. 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 keeps lawyers and judges out of party politics altogether It educates citizens, a free public school ever open It produces more accurate verdicts than judges sitting alone
5. 5. Why, according to Tocqueville’s Philadelphia informant, had legislators not taxed cheap spirits?

   The temperance societies opposed any tax Brandy was imported duty-free under a treaty with France The Constitution forbids taxes on spirits They feared a revolt and the loss of their seats
6. 6. How many of New York’s great landed families does Tocqueville say still survive as such?

   None Two About half of the colonial families Twelve
7. 7. Where, according to Tocqueville, did the Pilgrims originally intend to found their colony?

   On the coast of Maine, near the Kennebec On the shores of the Hudson On the James River in Virginia In Chesapeake Bay
8. 8. How does Tocqueville say the tyranny of the majority differs from the despotism of absolute monarchs?

   It uses more executions but fewer prisons and exiles It leaves the body free but enslaves the mind It censors books through a state inquisition It acts only through the federal courts
9. 9. How did Tocqueville at first react to hearing of Americans publicly pledging to abstain from spirits?

   He thought it a sign of religious decline It seemed to him more like a joke than a serious engagement He thought it a plot by the government He admired it at once as a model for France
10. 10. What does Tocqueville use Madame de Sévigné’s letters to illustrate?

    The cruelty of the French clergy towards the Protestants of the south The education of women in seventeenth-century French high society The poverty of the French provincial nobility before the Revolution Aristocrats’ lack of sympathy for the people’s sufferings
11. 11. 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 prefer the constitution to the laws and refuse to apply unconstitutional statutes They may open proceedings against unconstitutional laws on their own initiative
12. 12. If America ever undergoes great revolutions, what does Tocqueville say will cause them?

    The growth of great manufacturing cities, so that they will spring from an industrial populace 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 Immigration from Catholic Europe, so that they will spring from religious rather than political strife
13. 13. Why, according to Tocqueville, did the Indians “occupy without possessing” North America?

    Because they migrated each year between Canada and Mexico Because their land belonged to their chiefs and not to the tribe at large Because man appropriates the soil by tilling it, and they lived by hunting Because they held no written titles that European law would recognise
14. 14. How does Tocqueville describe the despotism democratic nations have to fear?

    A return of hereditary aristocracy and feudal privilege under a restored king Rule by the poor, who plunder the property of the rich An immense, mild, tutelary power that keeps men in perpetual childhood A military dictatorship that rules by terror and the confiscation of property
15. 15. Why does Tocqueville think liberty of the press matters more in democratic nations than in aristocracies?

    Because democratic governments, owning most of the newspapers, must allow opposition in them Because the isolated citizen can appeal to the nation only through the press Because newspapers cost much less to produce where there are no privileged publishers Because the press must educate the citizens whom no aristocracy is any longer left to instruct