Editing Alexis de Tocqueville (section)

=== England and Ireland ===
Tocqueville returned to France in February 1832. Before putting the finishing touches to his reflections on American democracy, he departed for England in 1833. Tocqueville had a private reason for crossing the [[English Channel|Channel]]: to meet the family of Mary Mottley, a young woman he had met at Versailles.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|xiii-xiv}} The couple were married in 1836.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal |last=Carroll |first=Ross |date=2018 |title=The Hidden Labors of Mary Mottley, Madame de Tocqueville |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45153720 |journal=Hypatia |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=(643–662) 644 |doi=10.1111/hypa.12442 |jstor=45153720 |hdl=10871/32784 |issn=0887-5367|hdl-access=free }}</ref> He stayed five weeks in England, eager to observe what many imagined as the dawning of the age of democracy, the passage of the [[Parliamentary Reform Act 1832|Parliamentary Reform Act]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Mayer |first=J. P. |title=Alexis de Tocqueville, Journeys to England and Ireland [1833–35] |publisher=Anchor Books |year=1968 |editor-last= |edition= |location=New York |pages=xiii-xiv |chapter=Introduction}}</ref>{{rp|xiii-xiv}} Tocqueville concluded that there was "a good chance for the English to succeed in modifying the social and political set-up ... without violent convulsions". The English [[aristocracy]] was open to new recruits. He suggested that the difference with the French was "clear from the use of one word" as "''[[gentleman]]'' in English applies to any well-educated man, regardless of birth, whereas in France ''gentilhomme'' can only be used of a noble by birth".<ref name=":0" />{{rp|xiv}}

In May 1835, Tocqueville returned to England but then in summer with Beaumont travelled on to [[Ireland]].<ref name=":0" />{{rp|xviii}} then subordinate to [[Great Britain]] under [[The Crown|the crown]] of the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]. He found a country having "all the evils of an aristocracy and none of its advantages". There was "no moral tie between rich and poor; the difference of political opinion of religious belief and the actual distance they live apart make them strangers one to the other, one could almost say enemies".<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=de Tocqueville |first=Alexis. |title=Journeys to England and Ireland [1833–35] |publisher=Anchor Books |year=1968 |location=New York |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|114–115}} In this circumstance he remarked on the "unbelievable unity between the Irish clergy and the Catholic population". The people looked to the clergy, and the clergy "rebuffed" by the "upper classes" ("Protestants and enemies"), had "turned all its attention to the lower classes; it has the same instincts, the same interests and the same passions as the people; [a] state of affairs altogether peculiar to Ireland".<ref name=":1" />{{rp|127–128}}

Back in England, Tocqueville found confirmation of a close connection between centralisation and democratisation. He observed that in England centralisation took a form less absolute than in France. It was of "legislation and not administration", and co-existed with a "spirit of [civic] association" that in responding to specific and local issues narrowed the range of government intervention.<ref name=":0" />{{rp|xvi}} Tocqueville had intended the joint impressions of their trip to Britain and Ireland would form the basis of a work by Beaumont, just as their common reflections of the United States on had served as him as material for ''Democracy in America''.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wrynn |first=John F |date=1992 |title=If You Ever Go Across the Sea to Ireland ...", Alexis de Tocqueville's Journey in Ireland: July-August, 1835 Translated and edited by Emmet Larkin Catholic University of America Press, 1990 |url=https://newspapers.bc.edu/?a=d&d=irishliterary19920301-01.2.20&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------- |journal=Irish Literary Supplement |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=9}}</ref> Beaumont did produce ''L’Irlande sociale, politique et religieuse'' (1839)''.'' Much praised by [[Daniel O'Connell|Daniel O’Connell]], the first sentence of its historical introduction read: "The dominion of the English in Ireland, from their invasion of the country in 1169, to the close of the last century, has been nothing but a tyranny."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Edna |first=O'Doherty |date=2020 |title=The Poor Man At His Gate |url=https://drb.ie/the-poor-man-at-his-gate/ |access-date=2024-12-31 |website=DRB |language=en-US}}</ref>