Dangerous and misconceptions create a lot of problems
Many Republicans claim that America is a "republic" ... not a "democracy"
President Abraham Lincoln and President Donald Trump pose for a frame.
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James Madison, one of the founders of America.
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Since a minority of the public has been exchanging power in America, this made some Republicans, such as Senator Mike Lee, from Utah, to remind us that we are "not a democracy."
Strangely enough, many Republicans, who embrace a president who routinely violates constitutional norms, continue to point out that America is not a democracy, but rather a "republic."
There are some facts that support this insistence.
But this insistence is mostly deceptive, as the constitution promoted the adoption of a complex form of majority rule, not minority rule.
The founding generation was deeply suspicious of what it called "pure" democracy, and defended the American experience as "completely republican."
If we consider that this concept means a total rejection of democracy, it also omits how to understand the idea of a government that brings together all the people, including democrats and republicans, when the constitution was drafted and ratified.
Such an understanding also ignores how we understand the concept of democracy today.
When founding thinkers, such as James Madison, spoke about democracy, they usually referred to direct democracy, which Madison often described as "pure" democracy.
Madison clearly distinguished between republic and direct democracy in his book “Federalism No. 14”: “In democracy, people meet and exercise government in person, and in the republic, they meet and administer it by their representatives and agents.
Thus, democracy is limited to a small spot.
The republic could withdraw to a large area.
Both democracy and the republic were popular forms of government: each derived its legitimacy from the people and depended on the rule of the people.
The fundamental difference was that the republic depends on representation, whereas in a "pure" democracy, the people represent themselves.
Narrow vision
At the time of its founding, a narrow vision of the concept of the people prevailed. Blacks were largely excluded from the conditions of citizenship, slavery was a reality, even when some expressed their dissatisfaction with it, it still existed alongside self-government.
What made this generation see that democracy or republic is a bother to us, insofar as it only grants white men full rights of citizenship, although there are some exceptions.
The US government could not be described as a truly people's government until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which mandated equal citizenship for black Americans.
But this victory remained rooted in the determination of the founding generation to consolidate democracy.
The history of democracy, as its founders understood it, and drawn largely from the ancient world, acknowledges that an authoritarian majority can easily be subject to mob rule, controlling minorities, and trampling on individual rights.
Democracy, too, was subject to the control of demagogues - men of "factional affiliations" and "evil plans", as Madison described them in "Federalism No. 10" - who relied on "evil behavior" to betray the interests of the people.
However, Madison sought to defend the government of the people - the rule of the majority - rather than the rule of the oligarchs.
The US constitutional determination in this regard can be understood as an attempt to establish a sober form of democracy.
He did so by adopting representation, separation of powers, checks and balances, and protecting individual rights - all concepts unknown in the ancient world - when democracy acquired its bad reputation.
In "Federalism No. 10" and "Federalism No. 51," Madison argued that a large republic with diverse interests bounded by the separation of powers, checks, and balances, would help provide a solution to the ills of the people's government.
And in a large and diverse society, populist sentiment is likely to dissipate, as no single group can easily dominate power.
If these excessive sentiments come from a minority of the population, then the "republican principle", by which Madison means majority rule, would allow "evil opinions" to be defeated by regular voting.
More problematic, however, are the fervent groups that form in the majority.
However, the Constitution did not embrace simple majority democracy, as states, with disproportionate populations, had equal representation in the Senate.
The Electoral College also gave weight to states in choosing the president.
However, the centralization of the states, which is a concession to political reality, was balanced by the House of Representatives, where the principle of representation by population prevailed, which would constitute the vast number of electoral votes when choosing the president.
But nothing justifies minority rule, which is inconsistent with the "republican principle."
Madison's design has been one of the designs of popular governments precisely because it calls for building a political majority over time.
One of the co-authors of The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, echoed this argument.
Hamilton presented the issue of people's government, describing it even as democracy: "a representative democracy, in which the right to elections is secured and well organized and legislative, executive and judicial powers are exercised, and which are vested in selected persons, who are truly chosen, not nominally, by the people, in my opinion they will always be happier and more regular." .
The American experience, as presented by Hamilton and Madison, sought to recover the cause of popular government from its checkered history.
Given the success of the experiment, according to the standards of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, we have come to use the term democracy as an alternative to representative democracy, which is distinguished from direct democracy.
The biggest flaw in the American experience was its limited vision of the people, which excluded blacks, women, and others from meaningful citizenship, which diminished the status of the people's government.
According to former President Abraham Lincoln, expanding the scope of meaningful citizenship so that “everyone must have an equal opportunity,” was the basis for “saving” the country, and the expression “we the people” was behind the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution, which were ratified On them in the aftermath of the civil war.
The Fourteenth Amendment recognized that all people born in the United States are citizens of the country and have the right to the privileges and immunities of citizenship.
The Fifteenth Amendment granted voting rights to black men.
Subsequent amendments, the nineteenth, twenty-fourth, and twenty-sixth, granted women the right to vote, and lowered the voting age to 18 years.
Progress has been slow - and sometimes stalled, as evidenced by current efforts to limit voting rights - and the country has struggled to become the democratic republic that took off two centuries ago.
At the same time, it also sought to find the right republican restrictions, to control the growing mass of citizens so that majority rule could prevail - but without factional divisions.
True sovereignty
President Abraham Lincoln, who faced a civil war, described the people's government as the great test of popular government, used constitutional republic and democracy in tandem, and eloquently portrayed the American experience as the government of the people, of the people, and of the people.
Regardless of the intricacies of the US constitutional design, Lincoln insisted that "minority rule, as a permanent model, is completely unacceptable."
Indeed, Lincoln provided a definition of popular government that could help us understand democracy - or republic - today: "The majority, bound by constitutional controls and restrictions, changes always easily, with changes in popular opinions and sentiments, and is the only true sovereignty of a free people."
The US Constitution did not embrace a simple majority democracy, as states, with disproportionate populations, had equal representation in the Senate, and the Electoral College gave states weight in choosing the president.
President Abraham Lincoln used constitutional republic and democracy in tandem, and portrayed the American experience as a government for the people, by the people, and for the people.
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