or text crossed out by one or several vertical or diagonal lines.[print edition page xxvi]
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Hidden from View: Tocqueville’s Secrets
EDUARDO NOLLA
And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I’ll read you matter deep and dangerous.
—William Shakespeare, Henry IV, part 1, act 1.
Much is hidden in Tocqueville’s Democracy1 in the surface and under the printed text, both literally and figuratively, so much in fact that the book sometimes resembles more a mystery or a cryptographic novel than a political treatise.
The tone of the text itself and the relation that it establishes between author and reader are also closer to what can be found in literature than in political theory.
The drafts, notes, and manuscripts of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America2 form a unique palimpsest that allows researchers to discover the buried structure of the book.3 They offer a different, and often surprising, vision of his thought.
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The so-called working manuscript of Democracy in America is kept at Yale University, inside four boxes, under the call number C.VI. My guess is that it comprises around 1400 quarto sheets: about 650 for the 1835 volumes and 750 for the 1840 part. The large majority of them are written on both sides.
This estimate does not include his notes, drafts, correspondence, or the famous Rubish. The Rubish is kept in two boxes, under the call number C.V.g., and is by itself about 1000 pages long.
Tocqueville knew that the materials he used to write the book contained hidden gems and valuable information, and that his papers could in the future be of some use to himself or to others.
Cover page of the 1835 part: “Volume I. My manuscript.”4 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Democracy in America’s drafts and notes are carefully organized in bundles, according to their content and to their future use, some with revealing titles such as “Notes, documents, ideas relative to America. Good to consult if I again want to write something on this subject”5 or “Fragments, ideas that I cannot place in the work (March 1840) (insignificant collection).”6
The manuscript pages for each of the chapters of the book are kept in a larger piece of paper that acts as a folder and contains the corresponding title.
Tocqueville also kept his letters and notes organized and dated.
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Cover page of the 1840 part: “Manuscript of the second part of Democracy. Volume III and IV. March 1840.”7 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
A few pages of the working manuscript are copies, made probably by the same copyist who produced the final version sent to the editor.8 The comments made by family and friends refer sometimes to “copyist’s error,” which seems to point out the possible existence of a previous first complete or partial copy of Tocqueville’s text.9
There are also a few pencil notes on the manuscript, which seem to be comments made before Tocqueville decided to give his book the final shape because some of the remarks are related to some later changes in the text.10
The front page of the folder containing the manuscript for the third
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chapter of the first part of the 1835 Democracy states: “The copy has been sent to Guerry.”11
“Future of the Indians. To be dictated or copied before thinking of correcting.”12 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Only very rarely, domestic and everyday life or, simply, boredom pierces through the seriousness of Tocqueville’s purpose.13 A couple of doodles, some figures, a portrait, a note, possibly about a loan requested by a servant; there is not much more than this out of place in the thousands of pages of his working manuscript, drafts, and notes.
“Marie Legendre has asked to borrow 10 écus.” With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Doodles are very uncommon occurrences in Tocqueville’s manuscripts. With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
That Tocqueville had only faint sympathy for machinery, technology, or the practical sciences in general is well known. His ideas are expressed in terms of textual analogies and logical thought processes, almost never with the help of schemes, plots, or graphical outlines.
One of the very few cases when there is a graphical representation of thought processes in his manuscripts. When speaking of the relation between the growth of equality and the reliance on individual reason, Tocqueville draws two parallel lines with a common origin and notes on the margin: “There is a parallelism of which I only indicate one branch.”14 With the kind permission of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
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Similarly, Tocqueville originally used a mathematical comparison to explain the assimilation process among the different parts of the American union, but he later removed it from the manuscript.
“≠Denominator.
Common divider.
Common measure.
Arithmetical comparison.≠”15
There is, however, no need
