The Constitution

The Constitution

By Leon Howard

"In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example  ... of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness." --James Madison, National Gazette Essay, 1792

Probably the most misinterpreted document in history! The misinterpretations are on purpose and solely to diminish the power of the People! This isn’t a “new” phenomenon and it is tough to mark the exact spot in history that elected officials began to feel superior to the People and began to systematic and diabolical destruction of the greatest form of government ever created – The Representative Republic!

Notice I didn’t say a representative “democracy”! Our government never calls us a “republic” anymore and, again, that is on purpose; they want us to forget we are a Republic because as a Republic, it removes much of their power and places it back in the hands of the People! Why? What’s wrong with a democracy?

A study of history shows democracy never lasts; it cannot succeed because once the People see they can vote money from the Treasury, the nation is on a downward spiral. The two most prominent democracies, noted in history, are the Roman Empire and the Greek Empire; neither ended well. We can argue forever about the demise of these empires but, in the end, the People crushed the government because the government could no longer supply them with all that was promised by the politicians promised to keep them in power! Can you see parallels today? What about Wisconsin and the public employees unions? There are more examples if you think about it for a few minutes but back to the subject: The Constitution and the Representative Republic.

We were the “Great Experiment” and the Constitution laid the foundation for man to govern himself! If you read the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers you will see this was a much debated and thoughtfully reasoned process with some of the greatest minds unsurpassed today. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, John Jay – The list could go on but what did they say about the kind of government they wanted to create and why? Let’s look at what they said.

“Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” ….John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814.

“[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.” …John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763.

“"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." …Thomas Jefferson

“The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. …Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790

“Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. …James Madison, Federalist No. 55, February 15, 1788

“[D]emocracies 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 deaths. …James Madison, Federalist No. 10, November 23, 1787

“The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. …Fisher Ames, speech in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, January 15, 1788

The differences between democracy and republic were considered so important as to have papers written for our Army so there would be no confusion: These succinct definitions of what is Democracy and what is a Republic was produced by the US Army in 1928,  These definitions have been quietly withdrawn since, soon after.

Democracy:

A government of the masses.

Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of "direct" expression.

Results in mobocracy. 

Attitude toward property is communistic-negating property rights.

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.

Results in demagogism license, agitation, discontent, anarchy. 

Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success.

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:

Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them.

Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.

Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.

A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.

Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.

Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world.

A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:

1.            an executive and

2.            a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create

3.            a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts and to recognize

4.            certain inherent individual rights.

Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.

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.

There was a time when the People really understood what a Republic was; Joseph Story was such a man. “Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. …Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

So, when you hear somebody declare us a “democracy”, set them straight: We are not ‘progressives’, socialists, or communists; we are a Representative Republic!