Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
Excerpt from my book, Concepts of the United States Constitution:
The
difference between a republic, and a democracy is the same as the difference
between the rule of law and the rule of man.
The word “republic” comes from the Latin “res
publica,” which means the ‘public thing’.
Democracy comes from the Latin “demos kratein,”
which means the “people's rule.” Pure democracy
is “majority rule,” or “mob-rule.”
A quote often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, despite
the source actually being unknown, says it in a nutshell. “A democracy is the tyranny of the majority,
where 51% may take away the rights of the other 49%.”
In five of his Federalist Papers essays, James
Madison defines a republic, and compares its features to that of a
democracy. Nationalists of the day were challenging the
viability of a republic over a democracy, while other nationalists who sought a
stronger central government were trying to convince the public that a
difference between a republic, and a democracy, does not exist.
Madison wrote in Federalist No. 10, “A republic,
by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place,
opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let
us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall
comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive
from the Union.
“The two great points of difference between a
democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the
latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the
greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the
latter may be extended.”
Madison wrote in Federalist No. 14, “The error
which limits republican government to a narrow district has been unfolded and
refuted in preceding papers. I remark here only that it seems to owe its rise
and prevalence chiefly to the confounding of a republic with a democracy,
applying to the former reasonings drawn from the nature of the latter. The true
distinction between these forms was also adverted to on a former occasion. It
is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person;
in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and
agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large
region.”
Madison wrote in Federalist No. 39, “If we resort
for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of
government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow
that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly
from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their
offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it
be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable
proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles,
exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to
the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of
republic. It is sufficient for such a
government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or
indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of
the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as
well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized
or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character.”
Madison wrote in Federalist No. 48, “In a
government where numerous and extensive prerogatives are placed in the hands of
an hereditary monarch, the executive department is very justly regarded as the
source of danger, and watched with all the jealousy which a zeal for liberty
ought to inspire. In a democracy, where
a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are
continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted
measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny
may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same
quarter. But in a representative
republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited; both in the
extent and the duration of its power; and where the legislative power is
exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the
people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently
numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so
numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means
which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this
department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all
their precautions.”
Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51, “In republican
government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency is to divide
the legislature into different branches; and to render them, by different modes
of election and different principles of action, as little connected with each
other as the nature of their common functions and their common dependence on
the society will admit. It may even be
necessary to guard against dangerous encroachments by still further precautions.”
Drawing from Madison’s writings, it is important
to understand that the Founding Fathers were not necessarily against the will
of the people, but recognized that too much power in the hands of the
electorate could be as dangerous as too much power in the hands of a ruling
minority. A balance had to be
struck. As John Adams put it, “Democracy
never lasts long. It soon wastes,
exhausts, and murders itself. There is
never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
However, too much government opens up the
opportunity for tyranny, as well. A
successful republic is one that finds its foundation on a mixed constitution, a
system that applies the proper amount of government. Without law there can be no freedom. With too much government there can be no
freedom.
The will of the people is fine, as long as the
will of the people, just like the will of the political class, remains within
the limitations prescribed by the rule of law.
Democracies, in history, have always been a transitional
form of government. The result of a
collapsed democracy has always been the rise of an oligarchy, where a powerful
few rule over the many.
When Elizabeth Powel walked up to Benjamin
Franklin after the completion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the
politically involved woman asked Franklin, "Well, Sir, what have you given
us? A monarchy, or a republic?"
"A republic, Madam, if you can keep it,"
replied the senior statesman.
A republic.
Despite the attempt by the nationalists to
convince the American people that a republic and a democracy are the same, the
public rejected the concept, as well as the drive by the Federalist political
party to expand the size of government.
By the 1820s, the Federalist Party faded into obscurity, and for the
moment, the Constitution had won. During
the 1830s, however, the lure of democracy returned.
Andrew Jackson, despite his love of the
Constitution, and sound economic principles, had a flawed desire to
fundamentally transform the United States from a republic, to a democracy. This is one of the reasons many Democrats
view Jackson in a favorable light, and why he is considered by many to be the
"father of the Democratic Party."
Jackson began what the nationalists could
not. He convinced many Americans that
the United Should be a democracy. The
drive for democracy created confusion, and provided an opening for socialism to
use the tool of democracy to begin the transformation of America.
Karl Marx recognized the usefulness of democracy
as a transitional system. He once said,
“Democracy is the road to socialism.”
Karl Marx, the father of communism, understood
that the implementation of a democracy is a necessary step in the process of
destroying our Constitutional Republic. Once the people are fooled to believe
that they can receive gifts from the treasury rather than achieve for their
livelihood through their individual aspirations, they will continually vote in
the people who ensure the entitlements continue to flow. Eventually, this mindset becomes the majority.
Government dependency is a cancer that
grows over time from an involved and informed electorate to a populace who
lacks the understanding of the principles of liberty and can easily be
manipulated into believing that sacrificing individual liberty in exchange for
social justice, artificial security, and gifts from the treasury is a price
that we must be willing to pay. A group
dependent upon the government in such a manner, then, is primed to vote into
power a potential tyranny.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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