Democracy in America

HeinOnline's interactive digital edition of the classic Tocqueville work, edited by Alan Keely, retired Associate Director for Collection Services at Wake Forest Law Library.

Using the Digital Edition

HeinOnline’s Democracy in America contains more than just the digital edition. After reading through editor and creator Alan Keely’s Introduction, navigate through everything this library has to offer via the tabs at the top:

The Digital Edition itself is broken into two tabs, one tab for each volume in the Bowen 1862 edition. Clicking on a tab takes users directly to the title page for the particular volume. Much like a traditional HeinOnline volume, the normal page navigation, search, export, and other functionality remains at the top of the page once inside the volume.

What makes the Digital Edition unique when compared to any other HeinOnline volume are the Sources buttons, found on the left-hand side of the page:

The Sources contain Keely’s annotations on Tocqueville’s text, with links (when available) to the full text of the material discussed. There are multiple ways within a volume to display Sources:

Selecting a page that contains a Source from the electronic table of contents will automatically expand the Sources button in a separate window to show the annotation and link (if applicable).
As users page through the volume, Sources found on the page will automatically expand in a separate window that hovers over the left hand side of the page.
If you ever close out of a Source, click the Sources button at the top of the page (as highlighted in the screenshot above). This will display the Sources for the page currently being viewed.

Multiple pieces of information are contained in the Sources tab:

Let’s break down the four examples highlighted above by the colored boxes and numbers:

This denotes, in order, the volume, page, and line to locate the text that is being discussed. In the example above, Keely is calling out Line 17 on Page 144 in Volume 1.
This is the text of the line itself. When available, this will be a hyperlink to the full text of the edition specifically cited by Tocqueville; if the edition is not clearly identified, the link will be to a version contemporaneous to Tocqueville. In this example, the line itself is "exclusive right."
The full title and publication information of the source being cited.
Keely’s annotation, with hyperlinks to additional material where applicable.

Still using the example above, if we click the hyperlink found in #2 (“exclusive right”), we will be redirected in a new window to page 6 of the Constitution of the United States of America, as Proposed by the Convention Held at Philadelphia, September 17, 1787 (Washington: Printed by Duff Green, 1829) and the relevant section discussing Congress’ exclusive rights.

Exclusive right

Still using the same example in 1.144.17, notice the hyperlinks contained in Keely's annotation. There are even more full-text sources to help acquaint you with Tocqueville's time, thanks to HeinOnline's unparalleled access to historical content. Not only does the digital edition link users to the full text of the source being referenced in Democracy in America, but users are also linked to additional explanatory material referenced in Keely's annotations for an extra layer of research and understanding of the material being discussed. In this example, not only are users linked to the U.S. Constitution, but links to relevant sections in the Federalist Papers, Kent's Commentaries on American Laws, and Story's Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States are also provided in Keely's annotation.

As you page through the digital edition, do you notice the blue highlighting contained on the page?

That highlighting is another way to help users reach the referenced source. Click on that highlighted text to jump from the digital edition to the full text of the source. Users don't need to switch over to the Sources window to click a hyperlink to move on to further research and reading; just click the blue link on the page. This will work for both the Source and for any material referenced in Keely's annotation.

Users can also pull up a Source by clicking directly on the Sources button. To exit Sources view, simply click outside the Sources window.

Interested in viewing just the Sources found in the digital edition? Navigate over to the Works Cited tab at the top of the screen. This is an A-Z listing of every source linked within the digital edition that is also found in HeinOnline.

Want even more Democracy in America? As discussed in A Brief Publication History, there are hundreds of different editions of this classic! We’ve started digitizing many different editions and translations and plan to add even more. Head over to the Editions/Translations tab to view an edition different from the Bowen 1862 you’ve grown so familiar with, and then if you want even more Democracy, the Related Works tab is a curated list of Tocqueville scholarship and works related to this topic.