Alexis de Tocqueville publishes the first volume…

Alexis de Tocqueville publishes the first volume of his two-volume masterwork, De la démocratie en Amérique, in 1835.

A literal translation of its title is On Democracy in America, but the usual translation of the title is simply Democracy in America.

Immediately popular in both Europe and the United States, the primary focus of Democracy in America is an analysis of why republican representative democracy has succeeded in the United States while failing in so many other places.

Toqueville seeks to apply the functional aspects of democracy in America to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France.

Regarded as a classical account of the democratic system of the United States, it has been used as an important reference ever since.

Tocqueville as a twenty-five-year-old auditor-magistrate at the court of Versailles, and Gustave de Beaumont, a prosecutor substitute, had been sent by the French government to study the American prison system in 1831.

Arriving in New York City in May of that year, the pair had spent nine months traveling the United States, taking notes not only on prisons, but also on all aspects of American society including the nation's economy and its political system.

The two also briefly visited Canada, spending a few days in the summer of 1831 in what was then Lower Canada (modern-day Quebec) and Upper Canada (modern-day Ontario).

On their return to France in February 1832, Tocqueville and Beaumont had submitted their report, entitled Du système pénitentiaire aux États-Unis et de son application en France, in 1833.

Beaumont would soon write a novel about race relations in the United States.

Tocqueville, becoming a lawyer, had met the English economist Nassau William Senior in 1833; they have become good friends and are to correspond for many years.