SOURCE: "Tocqueville and the American Presidency." Journal of American Studies 15, No. 3, (December 1981): 357-75.

In this essay, Brogan asserts that Tocqueville's assessment of the American Presidency in general, and Andrew Jackson in particular, was seriously flawed; Tocqueville underestimated the importance of both.

In nothing is the difference between the Presidency today and in the nineteenth century more clearly symbolised than in the matter of accessibility. Today the President is closely guarded both for reasons of security and to save him from unreasonable calls on his time, and what is unreasonable is defined pretty strictly. For example, Mr. Walter Hickel, when he was Secretary of the Interior, found it impossible to get an interview with President Nixon on a matter he thought important. He took the desperate step of leaking his views to the press, and was dismissed for his pains.

Such an episode was inconceivable in the nineteenth century...