While Alexis de Tocqueville described America as the absolute democracy, Karl Marx saw the nation as adefiled republic so long as it permitted the enslavement of blacks. This is an investigation into the approaches of Marx and Tocqueville's debates about race and democracy in America.

While Alexis de Tocqueville described America as the "absolute democracy", karl Marx saw the nation as a "defiled republic" so long as it permitted the enslavement of blacks. In this political history, Mintz argues that marx and his partner Frederick Engels, had a far more acute and insightful reading of American democracy than Tocqueville because they recognized that the overthrow of slavery and the cessation of racial oppression were central to its realization. Nimtz's account contrasts both the writings and the civil action of Tocquevillem Marx and Engels, noting that Marx and Engels actively mobilized the German-American community in opposition to the slavocracy prior to the Civil War, and that Marx heavily supported the Union cause. This investigation into the approaches of two major thinkers provides fresh insight into past and present debates about race and democracy in America.

Democracy in American - two perspectives
toward the "general conflagration" - theory and practice
"a last card up its sleeve" - the overthrow of slavery
a dream deferred - the failed "attempt to reconstruct democracy in America".