"Since you're here, Monsieur de Tocqueville, I'd like you to tell me a little about America," said Louis-Philippe, the king of France, in 1848. For 150 years, the French have enjoyed discussing America with Tocqueville; the Americans, too. In America, as in France, Tocqueville is best known as the author of a single book, Democracy in America, which is read as a textbook on the political constitution of the United States. The French see Tocqueville as the apologist for a foreign model: "That American," his adversaries call him. For Americans, Tocqueville is an honorary citizen, who reinforces their idea of their own exceptionalism.

The Americanization of Tocqueville is evident from the fact that the remark for which Tocqueville is best known in the United States is apocryphal. Presidents from Eisenhower to Reagan and Clinton have repeated what Tocqueville is supposed to have said but never did: "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." Though falsely attributed to Tocqueville, the saying is instructive nonetheless. Like other, genuine quotations, but in a more obvious way, it aims to reinforce an American identity based on moral values and said to derive from an initial promise to which the nation is urged to remain faithful or perish.