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Sunday, March 7, 2010
...and to the Republic, for which we stand,Are you tired of hearing people refer to American "democracy", as if we were not a Constitutional
Republic? Are you annoyed that they're not teaching such a simple thing in our socialized education system any more? The Tyranny
of the Majority is as obviously evil now, as when the Founders spoke out against it and carefully created the Constitution
to prevent it.The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy.
Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been
produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well,
Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic,
if you can keep it." Yet in more recent years, Franklin has occasionally been misquoted as having said, "A democracy,
if you can keep it." This misquote is a serious one, since the difference between a democracy
and a republic is not merely a question of semantics but is fundamental. The word "republic" comes from the Latin
res publica - which means simply "public matters," or more simply "the law(s)." "Democracy,"
on the other hand, is derived from the Greek words demos and kratein, which translates to "the people to rule."
Democracy, therefore, has always been synonymous with majority rule. The Founding Fathers supported
the view that (in the words of the Declaration of Independence) "Men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights." They recognized that such rights should not be violated by an unrestrained majority any more than they should
be violated by an unrestrained king or monarch. In fact, they recognized that majority rule would quickly degenerate into
mobocracy and then into tyranny. They had studied the history of both the Greek democracies and the Roman republic. They had
a clear understanding of the relative freedom and stability that had characterized the latter, and of the strife and turmoil
- quickly followed by despotism - that had characterized the former. In drafting the Constitution, they created a government
of law and not of men, a republic and not a democracy.
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