A Republic, Not a Democracy

America’s Founding Fathers despised democracies. They viewed them as unstable, tyrannical by nature, and destined for eventual collapse. To prevent such self-destruction, they established a Constitutional Federal Republic—a system grounded in the rule of law, not the rule of men. In this republic, the law—not the majority—reigns supreme, ensuring that the passions of the crowd can never trample the rights of the individual.

As Thomas Jefferson succinctly put it, democracy is nothing more than mob rule. It allows the majority to dominate while disregarding the rights, needs, and desires of the minority. Mob rule.

A republic, by contrast, is founded upon the rule of law. It is guided by charters and constitutions that guarantee and protect individual rights against the passions or whims of the majority. In a republic, the people govern through laws they themselves have established—not through the fleeting impulses of popular opinion. Because of this, the people are prevented from ruling as a mob and trampling the rights of the minority.

Much of the confusion arises from misunderstanding the difference between a type and a form of government. One does not necessarily determine the other—and that distinction is especially important when describing the United States. As a type of government, democracy simply means that free elections are held periodically, which America indeed practices. As a form of government, however, democracy means direct rule by the majority—which America does not have. America’s democracy ends at type; in form, it is not a democracy but a republic. In fact, a Republican Form of Government is the only system expressly guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

In a purely democratic system, citizens vote directly on all matters that affect them and do not elect others to represent their interests. Such majority-rule grants unchecked power to the majority, with no safeguard for the rights of the minority. By contrast, in a republican form of government, the power of the majority is limited by a written constitution and laws designed to protect the inalienable rights of all individuals. Thus, liberty is preserved not by the will of the majority, but by the restraint of law.

It is historically significant that the word democracy appears nowhere in any of our founding documents. No American president—from the birth of the nation in 1776 until Woodrow Wilson—ever referred to the United States as a democracy. It was Wilson who first misapplied the term during World War I, marking a shift away from the Founders’ clear understanding that the United States is, by design and by law, a constitutional republic.

IN THE FOUNDER’S OWN WORDS:

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government" — The United States Constitution, Article IV, Section 4

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands..." — The Pledge of Allegiance

"We are a Republic. Real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy." - Alexander Hamilton

When asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had just created, Dr. Benjamin Franklin responded; "A Republic, if you can keep it."

"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams

"... that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." - Edmund Randolph, at the 1787 Constitutional Convention

"Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos." - Chief Justice John Marshall

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner" - Dr. Benjamin Franklin

"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." - James Madison, Federalist 10

"Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism." - Fisher Ames

"We have seen the tumults of democracy terminate, in France, as they have everywhere terminated, in despotism." - Gouverneur Morris

"All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent." - Fisher Ames

"Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind." - George Washington

“He [Edmund Randolph] observed, that the general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy; that some check therefore was to be sought for, against this tendency of our governments; and that a good Senate seemed most likely to answer the purpose.” — James Madison quoting Edmund Randolph in ‘Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, pg 34, Thursday, May 31

“The evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy," — — James Madison quoting Elbridge Gerry in ‘Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787’, pg 32, Thursday, May 31

“Democracy will envy all, contend with all, endeavour to pull down all; and when by chance it happens to get the Upper hand for a Short time, it will be revengeful, bloody and cruel.” — John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 16 July 1814

"It has been observed that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved, that no position in politics is more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity." — Alexander Hamilton

"We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy, or some other form of a dictatorship." — Alexander Hamilton

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind." — Thomas Jefferson

"Those who mean to form a solid republican government, ought to proceed to the confines of another government. As long as offices are open to all men, and no constitutional rank is established, it is pure republicanism. But if we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy." — Alexander Hamilton

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." — Thomas Jefferson

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." — George Washington

As is clearly evident from the Founders’ own words, they were wary of democracy, recognizing in it the seeds of disorder and tyranny. In its place, they built a republic—tempered by law, guided by reason, and devoted to the preservation of liberty.

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"A Constitutional Republic, not a democracy", The Smoot Report, 1966

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