Whatever Happened to the Republic ? Everyone These Days Calls it a Democracy

The word Republic has all but disappeared from our political lexicon. It has erroneously been replaced by Democracy. The Founders must be turning over in their graves. They had nothing but contempt for democracy. They sought to, and did, create a constitutional republic, but not before doing their homework.

Unlike today's politicians, talking heads, and academics, the Founders had an acute, in-depth, and nuanced understanding of history and political systems. Prior to the 1787 constitutional convention, James Madison undertook a comprehensive study of every known republic in recorded history to ensure that the Founders didn't repeat their mistakes. The Founders as a group were also well studied in democracies. They knew that every democracy in recorded history disintegrated in a pyre of chaos, tyranny, and mob violence.

The word democracy does not appear in any of the Founding documents: the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation, nor the Constitution. For good reason: the Founders had no intention of creating a democracy. They wanted to fashion a mixed republic of constitutionally infused checks and balances which incorporated elements monarchy, aristocracy, and popular consent. Monarchy would manifest itself in the Office of President, aristocracy the senate, and popular consent, the House of Representatives. The checks and balances are both vertical and horizontal. The division of the government into the executive, legislative, and judicial constitutes one form of checks and balances. The "division of labor" among the federal, state, and local levels of government constitutes the other. This division of labor was made law in Article 1, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.

The Founders drew much of their inspiration and thought from Baron Montesquieu's "Spirit of the Laws." Montesquieu (1689-1755), a Frenchman, was a political philosopher and man of letters. He is one of the central figures of the Enlightenment.

Published in 1748, the Spirit of the Laws is a comparative study of three types of government: republic, monarchy, and despotism. Montesquieu held that government powers should be separated and balanced to guarantee individual rights and freedom. It is considered one of the most influential political studies of all time. The Founders would agree, and some 40 years later, would incorporate much of Montesquieu's masterpiece in the founding of our Republic.

I'll bet very few Americans can cite the differences between a republic and a democracy, or care for that matter. But even high-level politicians and prime-time political commentators continue to refer to "our democracy" rather than "our republic." Spread the good word---we don't live in a democracy; it's a republic, thank you.

EXCELLENT point! We are not, or at least we are not supposed to be, a democracy. America's founders were students of history and they were very much opposed to a 'democracy' here are a very few of their viewpoints, from the web: Alexander Hamilton asserted that "We are now forming a Republican form of government. Real liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of a dictatorship."4 �Hamilton, in the last letter he ever wrote, warned that "our real disease�is DEMOCRACY."3 Thomas Jefferson declared: "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Benjamin Franklin had similar concerns of a democracy when he warned that “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!” After the Constitutional Convention was concluded, in 1787, a bystander inquired of Franklin: "Well, Doctor, what have we got�a Republic or a Monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A Republic, if you can keep it." John Adams, our second president, wrote: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10 that pure democracies “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been 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.”3 The Constitution itself, in Article IV, Section 4, declares: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” Obviously the Framers were not speaking of a political party, as no political parties existed at that time. �The Pledge of Allegiance, although not a founding document, does strike the right chord when it asks Americans to "�pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands�"

Thank you for posting!!

Perhaps the most thorough, well-founded and complete explanation of how the Framers of America's Constitution of the United States of America "constituted" a form of self-government which was--in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "A Republic. . . if you can keep it. . . . " can be found in John Quincy Adams's "Jubilee" Address, delivered, by invitation of the New York Historical Society, in New York City in April 1839. That Jubilee Address magnificently explained the reasons for the Framers' choice of republic over that of a democracy.

If you want to have handy for constitutionally-illiterate Progressives who may call this a "democracy," then you want to read that Address.

Today, in 2018, when confronted with a decision between individual freedom and slavery, otherwise known as liberty and tyranny, Americans who prefer freedom must be armed with ideas and principles which are "self-evident" and plain. Otherwise, they cannot fend off the onslaught of the "counterfeit ideas" of Progressive ideologues.

When America's Founders and Framers of their Constitution wanted to convince ordinary farmers and citizens of the merits of a written "People's" Constitution to limit the powers of those to whom they entrust the powers of government, they published and circulated 85 essays, known as THE FEDERALIST.

It's time for citizens, once again, to examine those strong and clear words of Madison Hamilton, and Jay. They are just as clear for today's audience as they were then. Circulate the following excerpts to your friends. Even the least politically savvy will "get" Madison's meaning, especially in light of the power grab now going on in Washington. After all, THE FEDERALIST was the Framers' authoritative explanation of their Constitution, and directed by the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia in 1825 to be used as the text for its law school in its studies of "the general principles of liberty and the rights of man," and said by Jefferson to "constitute 'the general opinion of those who framed, and of those who accepted the Constitution of the U.S., on questions as to its genuine meaning.'":

"The house of representatives... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it." - Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788

"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788

"This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure." - Federalist Papers, No. 58, 1788

"The propensity of all single and numerous assemblies (is) to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

"Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue; or in any manner affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change and can trace its consequences; a harvest reared not by themselves but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the few not for the many." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow." - Federalist Papers, No. 62, February 27, 1788

Note particularly the following words of wisdom from Federalist No. 63, and take heart. You are doing what you were meant to do when you speak out on intrusions on your liberty. According to Madison:

"As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind?" - Federalist Papers, No. 63, 1788

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