SOURCE: "Not by Preaching: Tocqueville on the Role of Religion in American Democracy." The Review of Politics 43, No. 2, (April 1981): 259-80.

In this essay, Zuckert argues that Tocqueville's position on the role of religion in democracy is internally consistent.

Both Jack Lively and Marvin Zetterbaum comment on the paradoxical character of Alexis de Tocqueville's teaching in Democracy in America with regard to the importance of religious belief in maintaining liberal democracy.¹ By concentrating on the political utility of religious belief to the point of indifference as to its content, they argue, Tocqueville undermines the very belief he finds necessary to the preservation of liberty. Moreover, how can the proponent of unrestrained freedom of the press and the enlightened rationalism of "self-interest rightly understood" advocate the creation of "social myths"? Both critics conclude that Tocqueville's position is untenable. I shall argue, on the contrary, that Tocqueville's argument is internally consistent...