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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. About what does de Tocqueville believe aristocrats are busy writing?
(a) Humankind.
(b) Unique nations.
(c) Life.
(d) Mundane matters.

2. What kind of regime did the people of France and England live in?
(a) Authoritarian.
(b) Aristocratic.
(c) Democratic.
(d) Theocratic.

3. De Tocqueville believes that religion provides the people of America with a set of beliefs that does what?
(a) Goes without reason or explanation.
(b) Goes without justification or justice.
(c) Goes without logic or explanation.
(d) Goes without justification or explanation.

4. Who gets the powers not enumerated to the federal government?
(a) The people.
(b) The judiciary.
(c) The townships.
(d) The states.

5. De Tocqueville believes that democracy provides an authority of its own by replacing the certitudes of the intellectual with what?
(a) The certitudes of the conservatives.
(b) The certitudes of the political elite.
(c) The certitudes of the majority.
(d) The certitudes of the center.

Short Answer Questions

1. Power is divided between what two entities in the United States?

2. On what type of sovereignty does democracy rely?

3. Before the American Revolution, what were the two great political parties?

4. Politically, the New World has never experienced what?

5. Democracy is a catalyst for what?

Short Essay Questions

1. Although religion remains out of the realm of politics according to de Tocqueville's observations, what political effect does religion have?

2. What does equality among the people trigger, in addition to innovation, according to de Tocqueville?

3. Why does de Tocqueville believe that freedom of opinion is practically non-existent in the United States?

4. What is the definition of a regime?

5. De Tocqueville believes that religion provides what to Americans?

6. According to de Tocqueville, why does the United States only produce journalistic literature?

7. De Tocqueville believes that political parties are what to democratic societies?

8. What did the government establish in order to maintain the balance of power between the Confederation and the states when the rights of the states were questioned?

9. Why, in America, would it be hard for a democratic government to exercise tyrannical authority?

10. According to the author, what is the reason free people obey laws?

(see the answer keys)

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