Mature Enough to Disobey: Jurors, Women, and Radical Enfranchisement in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America

While many have pointed to Tocqueville’s admiration of the jury system as a schoolhouse for civic participation, I argue that Tocqueville sets up, but forgoes, the opportunity to make jurors empowered enough to counter the ills of democracy that he enumerates, specifically the tyranny of the majority and soft despotism. The education of American women, Tocqueville remarks, prepares them to be independent, confident and astute observers of social conditions, but these characteristics are eclipsed by their domestic responsibilities as wives and mothers. Juxtaposing two sections of Democracy in America that are normally thought of separately (juries and women), I show that Tocqueville falters in his perception of the radical enfranchisement of jurors and women because of his fears about the instability of democracy (with its delusions of equality) just as he provides some of the best arguments for the importance of their political interventions