This is a great book to build a functional understanding of the how and why of the U.S. government. The first volume is fantastic; the second one is slightly more speculative but still full of good insights.
Much has changed since the writing of the book in the 1830s, although one of de Tocqueville’s central claims—that Russia and the U.S. were destined to be world powers—has panned out quite nicely. Instead of a full review, which would be insanely long due to the length and breadth of the book, I’ll leave some scattered thoughts:
The key difference between monarch and president is the gap between legislator and executive. Congress must be convinced to act according to the president’s will, while the king’s court is obliged to do so, making a king both legislator and executor.
The fact that the U.S. was small and the world large when the Constitution was created is nowhere more evident than in the change in scope of presidential powers from when this book was written to the present. To take a single example: one of the key powers given to the president by the Constitution is to preside over foreign affairs. Now imagine the difference in what that practically means for a president in 1800s America versus today.
The great end of justice (the judicial branch) is to substitute the notion of right for that of violence, and to place a legal barrier between the state and the physical use of force.
A republic’s greatest weakness is its complexity—the fact that it has multiple sovereigns operating in different realms that can never be fully defined. This is most clearly seen in clashes between state and federal rights.
Some of the dangers inherent in a federal organization of government are obviated by the fact that the colonies and states were at a similar degree of development, and so could be governed under a similar set of laws. This point, here, is one of the main reasons nation-building often fails: a government can only differ so much from the norms and traditions of a place before the gap causes collapse.
Equality and honor are inversely related. In an equal society, feelings of honor are diminished. This has been a tradeoff since the beginning of history. Honor creates amazing individuals, while equality is the tide that lifts all boats.