Our Founding Fathers greatly feared a democracy and their quotes and private writings prove this. Also, we have our Constitution in which Article IV., Section 4. states, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion;” Therefore, what is a republic and why did the Founders establish us this way.
In a republic, the people vote for representatives to represent them in the government. This is key as the founders greatly feared having a huge number of illiterate voters making laws. This is why they only allowed landowners to vote. It was not until President Andrew Jackson that the common man exercised his right to suffrage. It was John Adams who said, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide… I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.â€
“Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death.” James Madison. Alexander Hamilton said, “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” Thus it is very clear their dislike of “democracies.”
We are also a nation whereby the rule of law is supreme and not the mob. Republicanism principles such as unalienable rights, individualism, social responsibility, and majority rule with minority rights all come into play. It is these principles that have allowed our nation to thrive and survive.
Thank you for reading. Now go out and have a good day! Marc Urbach
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Written by Catherine S.
