America is a Republic

There’s a reason that Article IV Section 4 of the Constitution states: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government, ….



There’s a reason that our Pledge of Allegiance says, “and to the Republic for which it stands.”


Our founding fathers set forth our government as a Republic and they were very deliberate in their efforts to not put the word democracy in the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution.


For posterity, they gave us also the Federalist Papers to explain their actions in crafting our founding documents. James Madison, known as the father of our Constitution, wrote in The Federalist Papers, No. 10, "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 deaths". He went on to explain that a republic was the cure that they were seeking, a cure from the tyranny of a king as the Declaration charged, "… has abdicated government here ... He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.”


Many people falsely believe that our form of government is a democracy or a representative democracy. For the past 100 years or so, there are those who have tried to rewrite history and would have people believe that America was created as a democracy. Our founders were fearful of a democracy and wanted neither this nor a monarchy.


The government in a democracy is by the people or a rule of the majority. The power resides with the people and can be exercised by them either directly or indirectly. In a republic, the ultimate power rests in the citizens, but it is exercised by a body of elected representatives. The governance in a republic is according to the laws of the land. However, in a democracy, the will of the majority prevails and it can be based upon deliberation or governed by passions, prejudices, impulses or special interests with no restraints or consideration of the consequences.


It is only fitting that the first installment of the Republic Roots blog explains that America was founded as a republic. In the header of this blog, we include the quote from Benjamin Franklin, – the famous response he gave to a woman who asked as he exited the Constitutional Convention, “What have you given us?” “A republic if you can keep it,” Franklin replied.


Franklin knew that people, often in well-funded organizations or who are personal power seekers, would put their own interests above republican processes. The danger comes when people no longer know their history and founding principles.


Sadly, America has strayed from its republic roots. Congress and Presidents have repeatedly overstepped their bounds and assumed powers way beyond their constitutional limits.


Our founding fathers brilliantly set forth checks and balances in government that established it as a republic. Each branch can prevent the other from taking on too much authority. Another balance was states’ rights as expressed in the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”


In our republic, of the three branches of our government - legislative, executive and judicial - only the legislative branch (the House of Representatives and Senate) is appointed by direct election. As originally outlined in the Constitution, members of the Senate were appointed by the state legislatures, a check and balance on the House that also provided for the interests of the states and a safeguard against demagoguery. That safeguard was overturned by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, due to the misguided Progressive movement.


So here we are today with a legislature that rushes pork-laden bills through without even reading them. We have a House and Senate that ignore the will of the people, a President that has abused his executive powers rendering Congress irrelevant and activist judges that legislate from the bench.


America, we are at a crossroads again of deciding whether we want to maintain our liberty or acquiesce to a tyrannical government. Our best defense is to reaffirm ourselves to the brilliant governing documents written by our founders, educate ourselves about the processes and actions of government, watch our politicians like hawks and hold them accountable at the ballot box.


The words of our father of the Constitution, James Madison, still ring true today:


“A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.”


“Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.”


“The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.”


Let us maintain our happy union, preserve our constitutional miracle and remain that beacon of hope and liberty for the world.