On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to seek a Declaration of War against Germany in order that the world “be made safe for democracy.” Since that time, people both here and abroad have been calling the United States type of government a democracy. It is even printed in our textbooks. It is a NOT a democracy, it is a Republic, hence the Pledge of Allegiance says:
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands.
Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says:
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
So what is the difference between a Republican versus a Democratic form of government?
Difference between Democracy and Republic, in brief:
| Democracy: a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority. b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. A certain Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: “A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.” A democracy is majority rule and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There is only one dissenting vote, and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope. |
Republic a: a government having a chief of state who is not a monarch and who in modern times is usually a president: a political unit (as a nation) having such a form of government. b: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law. Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They “made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic. “A republic is a government of law under a Constitution. The Constitution holds the government in check and prevents the majority (acting through their government) from violating the rights of the individual. Under this system of government a lynch mob is illegal. The suspected criminal cannot be denied his right to a fair trial even if a majority of the citizenry demands otherwise. |
**taken from http://www.albatrus.org/english/goverment/govenrment/democracy%20versus%20repubblic.htm
So how is it that the United States began to be called a democracy? In 1905 a group of people organized and called themselves the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS). They were found on over 60 college and university campuses across the United States.
Their goal was to bring socialism to the United States. They adopted a slogan, “Production for use, not for profit” and hundreds of big name individuals were recruited from government, press, radio, television and motion pictures. But then with all the violence of the USSR, socialism became a bad word in the U.S. and this group of people changed their name to “The League for Industrial Democracy.
With the word Democracy, they want to convey the message that through government ownership or control of all means of production and all means of distribution, the nation’s resources would become the property of “all the people” – therefore a democracy. Democracy is widely associated with socialism.
By the time of Woodrow Wilson’s comment before Congress, the word democracy began to be used more and more even though numerous attempts would be made to distinguish the difference. An example is the U.S. Army’s Training Manual No. 2000-25, published in 1928 which contained a whole section explaining the difference.
From the 5000 Year Leap:
“People continued referring to the United States as a ‘democracy’, but mentally they had begun to equate ‘democracy’ with the traditional Constitutional republic. It became popular to American democracy as though it were quite different from everybody else’s kind of democracy. That is the status of the word ‘democracy’ in the United States today. The majority of the people are instinctively learning more and more toward the fundamental thinking of the Founders. They will probably end up calling the United States a ‘democratic republic’, which is the term used by the followers of Thomas Jefferson!”
From Federalist Papers, No 10, p 81:
“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 death.”
So next time you hear someone call the United States a democracy, let them know that we are a Republic.
Pray daily for our country
FaithfulinPrayer
www.FaithfulinPrayer.wordpress.com
www.FaithfulThoughtSpot.wordpress.com
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Thanks Jackie, for a great first post here at the CH 2.0. The left has been trying to co-opt the meaning of our form of government for decades now, and will continue to do so. They definitely want to move us away from the “Rule of law,” to the “Rule of man.”
Well, I learned something today that I was unaware of before. That’s a good way to start off the new year. Hopefully, we can get back to pledging allegiance to these United States and to the Republic for which it stands.
Interesting points and food for thought. We were not founded as a democracy, but there has been a drift in that direction for many years. The founders never trusted the judgement of the common man and saw the dangers in one man one vote. It is very easy for a majority in a democracy to trample on the rights of the minority and we are approaching that in America at this time. A good example of this is the federal income tax system, we are at the point where almost half of those in this country pay nothing and it is very easy for those to vote for those politicians who would raise taxes on those who do pay. Its the same with property taxes, its easy for those who rent to vote to raise taxes on property owners. Our system is becoming very flawed and it may be too late to fix it without a great upheaval!
Great post and good to remember that we are a Republic and not (supposed to be) a democracy. Another thing that we, as a nation need to get back to is the principle of Federalism, where more of the decisions are made at a local level.
This is a fantastic post. I, too, was curious as to how the term “democracy” came to be used ubiquitously to characterize our form of government. It’s unsurprising that the support for it is rooted in socialism.
The funny thing for me is that the communists cry democracy until the people want something else. Then, that something else (freedom) is characterized as “counter-revolutionary” or “hate,” and is outlawed or otherwise punished. It’s ironic that the folks that cry “democracy” are the most totalitarian.
Great post. Hearing people call America a democracy is one of my pet peaves, it drives me crazy. The one thing that the founders feared almost as much as a monarchy was a democracy. They were scared to death of a government in which 51 people could force their will on the other 49 people. They took great pains to establish a representative republic. After the constitutional convention was over a woman asked Benjamin Franklin what they had given the people, he replied, “a Republic if you can keep it.” I fear that we are losing it.
I was always curious about when the shift in terms began to take place in America, thanks for the info.