In De la démocratie en Amérique, Tocqueville engaged in a debate initiated by the first generation of French liberals who argued that Europe had undergone a social transformation since the Revolution, resulting in a society in which privilege no longer played a role. Thus, the terms état social démocratique and état démocratique de la société civile are not Tocqueville’s own neologisms. He borrowed them from authors such as Auguste Comte (1824, 1, 67), Benjamin Constant (1825, 2, 4), Henri de Saint-Simon (1825, 4), François Guizot (explicitly 1849) or Frédéric Lullin de Châteauvieux (1820, 93). They can also be found in American literature, for example, in Basil Hall’s Travels in North America (1827–1828, 2, 120) and Thomas Hamilton’s Men and Manners in America (1833, 1, 167). In the latter two works, the differences between the egalitarian society of the United States and the aristocratic societies of Europe are highlighted. In De la démocratie en Amérique, however, Tocqueville broadened their meaning. He used the term état social démocratique in the context of état politique démocratique to capture the dynamic network of democratic institutions, social actors and political culture. He was concerned to understand the mutual influence of the état social démocratique and the état politique démocratique.