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"In our world," observes Paul Rahe, "there are states popular and there are states despotic ... in principle, there is no reason to suppose that states of the former sort cannot become states of the latter sort" (Montesquieu and the Logic of Liberty; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009; 240-41). In fact, if one is to judge from Rahe's two companion volumes (both published in the same year) addressing the past and present situation of the modern republic, there is a considerable risk that popular states will deteriorate--perhaps by ominously insensible degrees--into despotic states. The first of his two volumes is devoted to exploring Montesquieu's analysis of the political-psychological dispositions fostered by modern republics (especially the characteristic inquiétude, or uneasiness, to which citizens of republics are prone) that put liberty both within reach and at risk (32-59). The second, which I discuss here, develops this consideration of Montesquieu to include an analysis of the different ways in which Rousseau and Tocqueville expanded upon the account of the defects of and dangers to liberal republicanism found in their great predecessor. The threat with which Rahe is especially concerned here is what Tocqueville...