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To found a republic that will last, it’s best to start by thinking about what can destroy it. Here, both Aristotle and Alexis de Tocqueville offer sage advice. Aristotle reminds us of the importance of establishing justice and points out the ways that particular regimes go wrong. Tocqueville, a moderate friend of the democratic revolution, sharpens the focus, with particular attention to the novel dangers facing the American republic.

Jean M. Yarbrough is Gary M. Pendy, Sr., Professor of Social Sciences and Professor of Government at Bowdoin College, where she has taught political philosophy and American Political Thought for 37 years. She is the author of American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People, and Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, which won the APSA Richard Neustadt Prize. She is a former president of the New England Political Science Association and has served on the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She is currently completing a book on Tocqueville and select American presidents.