A Republic … if you can keep it
by Barnabas Firth
Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked by a woman, “What have you given us, Sir?”
“A Republic, Madam,” Franklin answered, “if you can keep it.”
Why is it that, unlike Franklin’s clear statement, so many of our leaders across the political spectrum today refer to America as a democracy? Many people use the terms Republic and Democracy interchangeably.
The word Democracy cannot be found in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Article 4, section 4 of the Constitution begins: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government…”
What’s the difference?
In a democracy, the people directly control the State’s affairs; majority rule.
Alexander Hamilton stated, “It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny: their figure deformity.”
Rule by a majority is not freedom. What if the majority decides to vote itself benefits? Or worse, what if they decide to do so at the expense of the rights of the few? Democracy in its pure form is the tyranny of a majority, and it rarely lasts long.
James Madison wrote, “… democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”
Democracy fails because the power of the majority makes the system unstable, leading to often-violent strife and chaos. And the ability to sway the masses results in the rise of a popular elite, such as Hitler’s rise in Germany. A democracy, then, is the transition of a government to an oligarchy — the rule of an elite, powerful group.
America’s founders took a different path. Before the ratification of the Constitution, Madison wrote, “Complaints are everywhere heard … that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.”
Madison was saying that America, under the Articles of Confederation, was too democratic. The answer was the formation of a republic. In a republic, law is the authority. In the American Republic, the Constitution is the supreme law.
Thomas Jefferson said, “The Republic is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.”
The supremacy of the republican system lies in the fact that it is founded on absolute, unchangeable law. The only system of freedom is one in which everyone is equal before absolute law. Built on the foundation of absolute law, a republican government is elected by the people to exercise limited authority beneath the law. Our elected representatives swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The American Republic was designed with many checks and balances to assure that law – not groups – holds the highest power. This is the reason for our several branches of government; why the president can be impeached by the House; why the Supreme Court is under the authority of Congress, since Congress is itself balanced in two chambers and accountable to the people. (Our Congress, however, seems to have forgotten it has higher authority than the Court – the result being activism by unelected judges). This is the reason for the Electoral College, which balances out the power between the States. This is cancelation of power so that law remains supreme.
The American Constitution held the vision and guarantee of freedom for all. Why would our leaders want to convince us that we are a democracy? Because it is possible to sway or to dupe a majority. Tyranny is possible. But it is impossible to change the absolute law of nature and of nature’s God, which is concerned with the life, liberty and well-being of every person. Once the concept of absolute law and rights from God has been eradicated, freedom is gone.
We often hear someone speak of spreading the light of democracy throughout the world. If America is spreading democracy, we are truly sowing more darkness and strife.
Our Constitution is the blueprint and law of a republic. Most importantly, it acknowledges the unchanging God-given rights of mankind. It is truly the light of liberty that can continue to guarantee freedom to future generations – if we give it to them un-destroyed and teach them its worth.
Republic or Democracy? One is the greatest defense of liberty.
The other, a path to inevitable tyranny.
Posted by Newsroom on Oct 21st, 2009 and filed under Point of View. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
3 Responses for “A Republic … if you can keep it”
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It is a myth that the electoral college was set up to balance the interests of small states and large states. Read Law Professor Amar Vikram’s book about the Constitution. The electoral college was set up to balance the interests of slave states and free states. The small states’ interest had already been solved by giving each state two US Senators.
Also, this article confuses the historical definitions of “democracy” and “republic.” Historically, there are the same thing, except a Republic lacks a monarch. As recently as 1910, there were only two countries in Europe that weren’t monarchies, Switzerland and France, plus a sprinkling of miniature states. A constitutional democracy does limit the power of the majority to do anything. There is no association between “democracy” lack of a constitution that limits what a majority can do. This confusion with the meaning of these terms started in the early 1960′s, when the John Birch Society put up billboards saying, “This is a Republic, not a Democracy.” And those billboards have managed to lull people into ignoring dictionaries.
Kudos to Mr. Firth for a clear and concise explanation of the differences between the two political ideologies. A democracy and a republic are not the same thing. A government with a monarch is a monarchy. The presence of a monarch is irrelevant.
Mr. Winger confuses the balancing of power between the states in the Senate and the balancing of power in the electoral process. Apples and oranges.
This article is brilliant.
I find it rather instructive to observe that with many Americans casting off their obedience to God – speaking of the decline of the practice of Christianity in America — they have also cast off their desire to obey the Rule of Law of the Constitution.
“Respect for law” is a character trait that does not stop at the steps of a church building. So when men turn their backs on God, they also turn their backs on the stability that comes from respecting the law established by the Founding Fathers of this country. This results in a people who do not restrain their passions and inclinations from any guiding faith within. Such people must then be controlled from without.
William Penn described this condition best when he said, “Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”
Many people today think that submitting themselves to the law of God is oppressive and hampers their pleasure. They will not have long to find out that the heavy hand of men who are not restrained by the rule of law is not a particularly enjoyable alternative. Educate yourselves, and read books written by those who suffered under Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and others who ruled from their atheistic frame of reference. Barnabas Firth was right on.