The City and Sex : Private Vice and Public Scandal in the American Republic

This book examines American political sex scandals at the national level. Studying these events over time reveals the republic’s deteriorating moral health. The book shows how having freedom from virtue has produced an American citizenry increasingly prone to the kind of dependence and enslavement once described by Alexis de Tocqueville.

The City and Sex examines American political sex scandals at the national level. Studying these events over time with an emphasis on the evolving responses of both statesmen and citizens reveals the republic’s deteriorating moral health and illuminates the country’s dangerous tendency toward servitude. Using scandals as a window through which to glimpse our deterioration, the book identifies a trajectory of decline beginning in the twentieth century, by which Americans became less tutored in virtue, less spirited in citizenship, less agreed on questions of moral significance, and ultimately less dexterous in exercising the skills of self-government. It seeks to show that the freedom from virtue won through the collapse of moral standards has produced an American citizenry increasingly prone to the kind of dependence and enslavement Alexis de Tocqueville cautioned against in the 1830s.