Within these limits the power vested in the American courts of justice of pronouncing a statute to be unconstitutional forms one of the most powerful barriers that have ever been devised against the tyranny of political assemblies.

Tocqueville makes this observation in his analysis of the American constitutional system in the early 1830s, after his 1831–32 journey to the United States. In Democracy in America he examines how U.S. institutions restrain majority power, especially in contrast to the volatility and legislative dominance he associated with post‑Revolutionary France. Discussing the judiciary, he notes that American judges, when deciding concrete cases, may refuse to apply statutes they deem contrary to the Constitution. He treats this practice—judicial review—as a distinctive institutional check that helps prevent elected assemblies from sliding into arbitrary rule, even when they act in the name of popular sovereignty.

The quote argues that the ability of courts to declare legislation unconstitutional is a structural safeguard against “tyranny” by legislatures—bodies that can be swept by passions, faction, or majoritarian impulses. Tocqueville is not claiming courts are supreme in all matters; rather, “within these limits” signals that judicial review operates through legal cases and constitutional boundaries, not as a general political veto. The deeper point is that liberty in a democracy depends not only on elections but on durable institutions that slow, channel, and constrain power. Judicial review, in his view, converts constitutional principles into enforceable limits, making it harder for transient majorities to turn political will into oppression.