Light On Dark Water

In a letter to his cousin Louis Kergorlay dated June 29, 1831, Tocqueville goes so far as to say that there are no real "beliefs"–ancient mores, settled traditions, deep-rooted memories–in America, except for the belief in the self-evident rightness of republican government and the truth of human perfectibility.

–from a review of a collection of Tocqueville's letters, Letters From America, in the April 2011 New Criterion