The Economist.
More than a league wide and covered with sails,
the great river runs north into a range of high blue mountains and disappears.
Its banks are a scene of bustle and prosperity delightful to observe.
And overhead is an admirable sun whose rays, filtering through the humid atmosphere of the region,
bathe everything they touch in a soft, transparent light.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote those words in a letter to his father.
He was perched in a tree at the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson Valley.
The French aristocrat was a few weeks into his trip around America.
After spending time with high society in New York, Tocqueville took a steamboat up the Hudson River.
Our one aim since we've come here has been to comprehend the land we are exploring.
We cannot accomplish that goal unless we disassemble society.
And I dare say no man, whatever his social rank, is incapable of teaching us something.
Tocqueville's next stop was what was then America's biggest prison, Sing Sing.
When he visited in 1831, it was just a few years old.
He had been commissioned to write a report on the American penal system for the French government.
That was the official reason for his trip,
a great excuse to get funding for nine months studying a new democracy.
At Sing Sing, he wanted to see something called the New York system.
It was a novel approach that aimed to reform prisoners, not just punish them.