When Beaumont and Tocqueville travelled to the USA in 1831, they were amazed by the variety of periodicals. In their homeland, censorship and strict regulation of the press severely limited the newspaper landscape. But Tocqueville’s focus in De la démocratie en Amérique was not only on highlighting a contrast. Rather, his main argument was that democracy and freedom of the press were mutually dependent. He thus defended press freedom as an individual and collective right.