A Republic v. a Pure Democracy

To many the word democracy and republic are synonymous terms. Others have little or no clue as to the meaning of one term versus the definition of the other. History tells us that in the thought process of the Founding Fathers, a principal requirement for the republic was No King.

As we have lived through two hundred plus years of our American republic, the thought of a king as ruler has long since fallen out of the lexicon. Though we were established as a republic and remain so, the word republic is seldom used in describing America.

Commonwealth, another frequently used term, is not an accurate description of our form of government. Commonwealth is sometimes used to describe the governing philosophy of some states, namely Kentucky, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, among others.

The commonwealth as described by Wikipedia is:

...a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic".

Commonwealth, republic, democracy ...the terms are often used interchangeably.

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control over the government, at least in theory, and where offices of state are not granted through heritage.

The Founders thought a republican government (point of clarification, small "r" republican) was the best kind of government they could choose for themselves. They believed that the advantages of republican government were:

• Fairness. They believed that laws made by the representatives they elected would be fair. If their representatives did not make fair laws, they could elect others who would.
• Common welfare. The laws would help everyone instead of one person or a few favored people.
• Freedom and prosperity. People would have greater freedom and be able to live well.

The Founders way of implementing their preferred Republic was to do so with a defining, liberating but lawfully constricting constitution.

Constitutional republic, a form a government that is limited by a constitution.

Its primary purpose was to ensure the common good. But, at the time of writing and ratifying of the Constitution, the common good neither called for freedom for all, nor equal rights for all. Hence, the Fourteenth Amendment freeing the slaves; the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. The longevity of our constitutional form of government was made possible to a great extent by the Founding Fathers inclusion in the Constitution of the ability for amendment.

We have been and continue to be erroneously described as a democracy ...sometimes a representative democracy when in fact we are a republic. To some this may be splitting hairs. However, true, pure or

direct democracy is a form of government in which people collectively make decisions for themselves, rather than having their political affairs decided by representatives.

With all options available to the newly forming country, the Founders chose the representative approach as described in Why Government, a previous blog in this series.

The notion undertaken was to build a country that supported the common good, a notion that originated over two thousand years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, the contemporary ethicist, John Rawls, defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage".

To ensure the sticktoitiveness of the common good, the government would be an elected one with a president as the executive, two houses of a congress of representatives (one elected directly by the people, the other appointed by each of the state governments), a court system (including a supreme court) and most importantly, there would be no monarchy, constitutional or otherwise. Election to office would be the means of selecting representatives (direct election for the House of Representatives; indirect election of state government who appointed the Senate. No right of heredity would be included.

In the more than two centuries of our country, we have lived up to the common good. Sometimes we were dragged kicking and screaming to supporting the common good. We had a civil war to bring some into the status of full-Americans. We required an amendment to the Constitution to fulfill the rights of woman to vote. The nineteen hundred sixty-four Civil Rights Act was another major modification needed to help all to share in the common good. Fortunately, our Constitution allowed these amendments, these acts to emerge.