The Economist
From atop a church steeple, one sees trees as far as the eye can reach,
swaying in the wind like waves in the sea.
Everything bespeaks newness.
Alexis de Tocqueville was astonished by the beauty of America.
He called the lakes and woodlands the stuff of poetry.
And he thought that for the Americans he encountered, at least,
nature itself had made their democracy possible.
Their fathers gave them the love of equality and of freedom.
But it was God himself, who in leaving them a boundless continent,
accorded them the means to remain equal and free for a long time.
After studying prisons in New York, Tocqueville knew that to understand America,
he had to head west to the frontier.
Only there could he see democracy in its rawest form, without the trappings of the old world.
It was a clean political experiment.
So, in July 1831, Tocqueville and his companion, Gustave de Beaumont, left the Hudson Valley.
They boarded a bumpy stagecoach and went in search of the wilderness.
They were following the course of the recently opened Erie Canal,
an engineering marvel that defied nature at points, carrying water uphill.
Tocqueville admired the industriousness of Americans, the constant drive to build more, build better.