On July 29, 1805, Alexis de Tocqueville was born in Paris to an aristocratic French family. The young Alexis was small in stature, acutely sensitive, and
prone to bouts of severe anxiety. Despite (or maybe because of) his frail nature, he chose a life of politics and government service (aided, no doubt,
by his father's royal connections). Believing that political developments in America held promise for France's future, he and a friend (Gustave de
Beaumont) received official permission to travel to America in 1831. After an extensive nine-month visit, they jointly wrote a book on prison reform in
America, and then de Tocqueville published the first volume of "Democracy in America," the book that made him famous in France (he was named to the Legion
of Honor and elected to the "Academie Francaise") and forever established his reputation in history. During his visit to the new United States, de
Tocqueville came to believe that the great secret behind America's success was not the country's vast natural resources or unique constitutional
democracy, but the moral righteousness of her citizens. In one of his most widely quoted lines, he said:

"America is great
because she is good,
and if America ever ceases to be good,
America will cease to be great."