How a Democracy Can Kill a Republic

[norwegen]

As John Adams’ Federalist Party lost its potency, a party emerged in its stead that would gradually position the government even further to the left than the Federalists wanted – so far leftward that by the end of the twentieth century, centrists would regard democracy as the preferred form of government and even America’s original form. The founders regarded republicanism as a form of government more favorable to happiness than democracy, and certainly the Federalists did too, but the term would lose its potency in the American lexicon. Republicanism recognized the rights innate in every citizen, but the term democracy and rhetoric that included “the rights of the people” tempted a naïve public, which believed the promises of empowerment and inclusion that democracy implied and that up-and-coming Democrats such as Andrew Jackson homilized. Distrustful of what they considered an elite ruling class, Jackson and his followers endeavored to create a populist government, and removing property requirements from the voting franchise was a good place to start. And choosing presidential electors by popular will, effectively altering the nature of the Electoral College, was a good way to start it.

Although elements of democracy had existed in the infant republic, the republic was not democratic. Few people, in fact, fully understood it. For some, democracy represented broadened suffrage. For others, it meant empowerment and greater opportunity. For others still, it would usher in new conventions of equality, however rude these conventions might have been. Registered Democrats, after all, would be the slave owners of the Antebellum Period and would resist civil rights proposals even into the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, which passed by the overwhelming consent of the Republican minority.

Massachusetts lawyer James Otis called democracy a “government of all over all,” in which “the votes of the majority shall be taken as the voice of the whole.”1 Such a form of government would ignore the rights of the minority. Lax voting requirements, John Adams predicted, would mean “new claims will arise.”2 The uninformed and impassioned would demand a voice equal to that of the prudent and virtuous, or of a disinterested “body of citizens, whose wisdom may best determine the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”3

But Democratic politicians discovered that they could exploit the lure of franchise and political clout with lofty egalitarian hyperbole that equated popular government with self-government and, in time, the common good with wealth redistribution. Jackson’s ascent to the presidency coincided with the transformation of the word democracy from a pejorative to a term more meaningful to the multitudes. As they watched the rising popularity of democracy in dismay, Whigs lamented the gradual dismantling of the country’s traditional structures of authority and harmony. Theologian Timothy Dwight predicted that the upheavals of radical democracy would lead to “the loss of national honor, the immense plunder of public and private property, the conflagration of churches and dwellings, the total ruin of families, the butchery of great multitudes of fathers and sons, and the most deplorable dishonor of wives and daughters.” Federalist congressman Fisher Ames conjured an even bleaker dystopian future when he said, “We mark the barbarous dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in an infatuated mob.”4

Democrats “have classified the rich and intelligent and denounced them as aristocrats,” the Richmond Whig declared. “They have caressed, soothed, and flattered the heavy class of the poor and ignorant, because they held the power which they wanted.” Whigs perceived a deliberate attempt to upend the political foundation that the framers had lain. “The Republic has degenerated into a Democracy,” the Richmond paper lamented.5



1. Quoted from Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005) xvii-xviii.
2. Quoted from Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 9.
3. James Madison to the People of the State of New York, November 22, 1787, Daily Advertiser, The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued) (Federalist 10).
4. Quoted from Ross Barrett, Rendering Violence: Riots, Strikes, and Upheaval in Nineteenth-Century American Art (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014) 32.
5. Quoted from Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 425.

 

[Augustine_]

As John Adams’ Federalist Party lost its potency, a party emerged in its stead that would gradually position the government even further to the left than the Federalists wanted – so far leftward that by the end of the twentieth century, centrists would regard democracy as the preferred form of government and even America’s original form. The founders regarded republicanism as a form of government more favorable to happiness than democracy, and certainly the Federalists did too, but the term would lose its potency in the American lexicon. Republicanism recognized the rights innate in every citizen, but the term democracy and rhetoric that included “the rights of the people” tempted a naïve public, which believed the promises of empowerment and inclusion that democracy implied and that up-and-coming Democrats such as Andrew Jackson homilized. Distrustful of what they considered an elite ruling class, Jackson and his followers endeavored to create a populist government, and removing property requirements from the voting franchise was a good place to start. And choosing presidential electors by popular will, effectively altering the nature of the Electoral College, was a good way to start it.

Although elements of democracy had existed in the infant republic, the republic was not democratic. Few people, in fact, fully understood it. For some, democracy represented broadened suffrage. For others, it meant empowerment and greater opportunity. For others still, it would usher in new conventions of equality, however rude these conventions might have been. Registered Democrats, after all, would be the slave owners of the Antebellum Period and would resist civil rights proposals even into the twentieth century, including the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, which passed by the overwhelming consent of the Republican minority.

Massachusetts lawyer James Otis called democracy a “government of all over all,” in which “the votes of the majority shall be taken as the voice of the whole.”1 Such a form of government would ignore the rights of the minority. Lax voting requirements, John Adams predicted, would mean “new claims will arise.”2 The uninformed and impassioned would demand a voice equal to that of the prudent and virtuous, or of a disinterested “body of citizens, whose wisdom may best determine the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations.”3

But Democratic politicians discovered that they could exploit the lure of franchise and political clout with lofty egalitarian hyperbole that equated popular government with self-government and, in time, the common good with wealth redistribution. Jackson’s ascent to the presidency coincided with the transformation of the word democracy from a pejorative to a term more meaningful to the multitudes. As they watched the rising popularity of democracy in dismay, Whigs lamented the gradual dismantling of the country’s traditional structures of authority and harmony. Theologian Timothy Dwight predicted that the upheavals of radical democracy would lead to “the loss of national honor, the immense plunder of public and private property, the conflagration of churches and dwellings, the total ruin of families, the butchery of great multitudes of fathers and sons, and the most deplorable dishonor of wives and daughters.” Federalist congressman Fisher Ames conjured an even bleaker dystopian future when he said, “We mark the barbarous dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in an infatuated mob.”4

Democrats “have classified the rich and intelligent and denounced them as aristocrats,” the Richmond Whig declared. “They have caressed, soothed, and flattered the heavy class of the poor and ignorant, because they held the power which they wanted.” Whigs perceived a deliberate attempt to upend the political foundation that the framers had lain. “The Republic has degenerated into a Democracy,” the Richmond paper lamented.5



1. Quoted from Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2005) xvii-xviii.
2. Quoted from Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 9.
3. James Madison to the People of the State of New York, November 22, 1787, Daily Advertiser, The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection (continued) (Federalist 10).
4. Quoted from Ross Barrett, Rendering Violence: Riots, Strikes, and Upheaval in Nineteenth-Century American Art (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014) 32.
5. Quoted from Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy, 425.

Good grief

 

[Votto]

If you look at how elections were structured via the Constitution, it becomes apparent how distrustful the Founders were of a pure democracy

For example, you have a President that, not only has a direct vote by the citizen, but also an Electoral College, without which Presidents such as Abraham Lincoln would never have gotten elected. The popular vote would have solidified slavery instead.

Then you have the two chambers of Congress, the House and Senate. Only the House had direct elections from the populace, as their numbers reflected the population of that state. The Senate, however, was appointed by the politicians within the states and served 6 years. Also, there were only 2 Senators per state, which increased their voting power significantly compared to the myriad of Congressmen in the House. Those in the Senate also had special powers, such as approving members of SCOTUS.

So, as we can see, the Founders gave more power to those in the Senate and longer terms, which means they favored educated men to appoint Congressmen verses the average Joe Blow who is not as keen on what is really going on. At the same time, they realized that the average citizen needed a voice as well. But having the states appoint Senators allowed for States to look out after state rights and power, which was the design. But the Progressives at the turn of the 20th century came sweeping into power and changed the Constitution so that Senators would be elected directly by the people, because they disdained the Founding Fathers and their wisdom. And today, the same Progressives seek to do away with the Electoral College as well.

 

[Votto]

I think that the Left has mastered shifting public opinion, so that if it does not match their agendas, they first seek to indoctrinate them into their way of thinking, so democracy becomes their best tool to secure power.

We see this as democracy is sold to the public as a virtue time and time again. This was the mantra Bush used to sell the Iraq war. We will spread democracy to them, and by itself, it should help solve all their ills. It's really become the gospel of the West, only through democracy can justice prevail. But as we see in places like the Palestinian nation, they just end up electing terrorists who have already poisoned the minds of the people. Since birth they are fed a gospel of hate towards the state of Israel and a subsequent life of terrorism towards them.

Israel: Palestinians 'Brainwashed With Hate'

Israel's ambassador to the UN claims Palestinian children are being "taught to hate" as violent clashes continue in the West Bank.

news.sky.com

But this is the key to controlling people via democracy by controlling education and the media. It really is that easy.

And if you look at any reputable academic article on whether the media and education leans Left, they all say yes, and increasingly so year after year.

 

[Votto]

Greece is said to have brought democracy to the West. However, if you look at their history, they too tried to export democracy to places like Sparta, and just like the US sending it via war in Iraq, wars abounded with Sparta. They thought their system was sooo much better as well.

But ultimately, these wars only drained them financially until their empire was in ruins, much like what has happened with the US wars abroad.

Interestingly enough, democracy only succeeded in Athens because the rich slave owners could spend all their days studying and debating issues. After all, only an informed vote is a good vote. The vast majority in Athens were slaves and had no vote, as they tended to the every day needs of their owners.

But today, the "slaves", or unlearned, are allowed to vote in mass, manipulated by such things as education and the media to vote a certain way by their "masters" Today, voters really think that voting for people to increase spending for things they want will help them, while the printing of money simply erodes the purchasing power of the money that is given them.

Not to bright, but again, they are largely uneducated. In fact, they are being miseducated, by telling the populace that men can have babies and knowing what a woman is, is largely unknowable. Simply amazing.

 

[norwegen]

In his 1807 engraving, “Infant Liberty nursed by Mother Mob,” Elkanah Tisdale depicted a baby being corrupted for a calamitous future. The infant Liberty is nursing on a diet of whiskey and rum by the slow-witted and down-at-heel figure of Mother Mob, a prostitute whose latest customer appears to be dozing in the bed behind her. Two imps in the guise of children stand next to her burning statutes and copies of the federal Constitution. In the background, a mob is tearing down a state building representing constitutional government, “the Pinnacle of Liberty.”

 

[norwegen]

Despite its record of liberty and equality, republicanism would confront boundless torrents of activism and populism that would threaten America’s political and social foundations. Democracy was inherently populist, appealing to passions and self-interests, and many people viewed it with little scorn and apprehension as they felt that it empowered them. The growing segments of the country with such aspirations of empowerment would bedevil America’s republican polity until the government took on a form more menacing, a form tailored toward self-interest, and, like the Jackson Administration, a form plagued with faction. The government would become more democratic, more intrusive, and more rapacious.

 

[norwegen]

Don't let the liberals fool you. The assaults on our social and public institutions come from left-wing factions. They have since the beginning.

Not since the Progressive Era. Not since FDR or LBJ or Barak Obama.

Since the beginning.

 

[whitehall]

The fledgling republic of The United States of America invented the concept of democracy while Scandinavian tribes were killing each other and raping England for plunder. The USA supports more illegal aliens than the entire Scandinavian countries combined so don't go lecturing the most tolerant and free Country in the world about democracy.

 

[Pellinore]

There are numerous problems with this article.

First of all, the author appears to argue that we are a republic because we have checks and balances such as a bicameral legislation and the Electoral College, and that the pejorative term democracy describes a state with no such safeguards that "would ignore the rights of the minority." This is not what republic and democracy mean, but beyond that, the idea that the Democratic party has consistently pushed for a mob-rule state for 230 years, and that is why they supported slavery and opposed civil rights, is groundless to the point of absurdity. My general impression is that the author does not understand the difference between left-wing, the Democratic party, and little-d democratic government, or between right-wing, the Republican party, and little-r republican government; perhaps remedial 10th grade politics class would help.

The argument is confusing, too. It seems to be making the above point supporting safeguards in our republic, but then it includes supporting information such as the John Adams "[N]ew claims will arise" passage as a way to denigrate its definition of democracy. The letter from which this passage was taken was written more than twenty years before the Constitution, regarding a judge's idea for a potential direct democracy for the Massachusetts Bay Province. What's more, when taken out of context, Adams's quote sounds as if it supports the paper's argument for a limited electorate, but it is presented as evidence for how screwed-up the opposition is. I suspect this disconnect is because the author lost the context because they never read the primary source, which, by the way, I found in about thirty seconds on Google.

This article has every indication of having been written by a contemporary partisan author, picking and choosing pieces of information and quotes to justify their pre-conceived notion, which is backwards history. The fact that most of the quotes are either taken from secondary sources or ignore the context or both, and the unsourced Timothy Dwight quote might very well be made up, is consistent with this assessment.

My verdict: No self-respecting history, political science, or English teacher or professor would accept, much less pass, this paper if it were handed in as an assignment.

 

[norwegen]

“New Claims will arise,” Adams declared in a letter some thirteen years prior to constitutional ratification. “A Man of Property is instantly in the Case of the Lamb in the Custody of the Wolf,” he wrote later to his son.

As a society evolves to include contributions from women in education and knowledge in general, it is more inclusive of them in voting franchises and state affairs. Likewise, the mature and propertied are not dependent on the will of others. In a democracy, the others – the “less fortunate” – are the mob who breed very influential segments of self-interest within their communities.

As supreme authority in America resided less and less in the Constitution and the common law and more and more on whim and popular will, legislation became less predictable, less objective, and less stable. No longer confined to the lower chamber of the legislature, the democracy grew, consuming a diverse and disinterested society and making it one increasingly concerned with the affairs of a distant capital city whose tentacles reached into local seats of power and even into individual households. Americans were not actively dismantling Christian institutions and traditions without sanction from its increasingly progressive government. Before the Progressive Era, when America was unequivocally Christian, it was unequivocally republican.

In a republic (from the Latin for public affair, or the law), law is a public good, common to all. It is natural, unalienable, and universal, derived from the fixed and eternal. In a democracy, whether direct or indirect, the law belongs to the majority. It is arbitrary and wielded at whim. As America’s polity “progresses” toward a more fully realized democracy, its productive and law-abiding citizens increasingly find themselves the targets of arbitrary rule.

Democrats historically nurture seeds of naïvete and self-interest. Americans seem to have accepted the idea that business decisions are the privilege not exclusively of business owners but also of a powerful, Utopian central authority, be it state or federal. They seem resigned to the idea that emotional damage is legitimate grounds for litigation and that government no longer is a detached creation borne from reason and a social compact but rather is a driver of compassion and the arbiter of local and mundane conflicts. They have grown sympathetic to the demands of activists at the expense of religious liberty. They seem given to the idea that the United States is no longer a republic but rather a democracy, a country in which supreme authority is vested not in a constitution that created an innocuous, limited, and distant government but rather in the increasingly populist government with, as Lyndon Johnson boasted, “the power to shape the civilization.”