• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Is the United States a Republic, but not a Democracy?

SmartCat

SmartCat

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Oct 5, 2015
Messages
3,955
Reaction score
889
Location
North East USA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Slightly Liberal
One occasionally hears, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy."

What does this statement mean? Is it true? Should it be true?

In my opinion there is no contradiction between a government being a republic and a democracy. A republic is a government that is not ruled by an hereditary monarch. A democracy is a government where the rulers are elected by the voters. The UK is not a republic. It is a democracy, and the oldest one in fact. Most contemporary dictatorships are republics, but not democracies.

Also, where did the saying, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" originate? Who first said it?

From what I have been able to find out this saying originated with the John Birch Society. A significant percentage of the Republican Party did not accept the reforms of the New Deal. They hoped that President Eisenhower would reverse these reforms. Eisenhower did not, because he knew that they were popular.

When reactionaries came to agree that the reforms of the New Deal were popular with the voters, they invented this saying in order to deny that the will of the majority has moral and legal significance.

Or so it seems to me. :twocents:
 
The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

A Democracy is governed by the whims of the majority of people voting at any given time. A Republic is governed by officials elected by people to represent them in the government. A Constitutional Republic is like a Republic, but the elected officials are restricted in power and authority by the Constitution.

The first to suffer in a true Democracy are natural rights, freedom, and liberty, for the majority will suppress the minorities rights, freedom, and liberty by plebiscite to ensure their power over "others."
 
Last edited:
A "true" or Direct Democracy exists when the people actually decide issues by a vote of all eligible citizens. The best example remains the Ancient Greek city-state of Athens.

Whenever any issue of import needed a decision, all male citizens 20 and older gathered in Assembly and voted yea or nay by various methods including: Acclamation, show of hands, or placing a stone in either of two jars. In the latter case, the jar with the greater number of stones decided the issue. Temporary officials were chosen by lottery.

A Republic exists when representatives are elected by the eligible citizens to deal with legislative matters such as taxation, law, and public policy enacted on behalf of the people. Our democracy is this form, where we elect Senators and Representatives to terms in office, and a President to govern, and let them make all the decisions until the next election.
 
Last edited:
SmartCat said:
One occasionally hears, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy."

What does this statement mean? Is it true? Should it be true?

In my opinion there is no contradiction between a government being a republic and a democracy. A republic is a government that is not ruled by an hereditary monarch. A democracy is a government where the rulers are elected by the voters. The UK is not a republic. It is a democracy, and the oldest one in fact. Most contemporary dictatorships are republics, but not democracies.

Also, where did the saying, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" originate? Who first said it?

From what I have been able to find out this saying originated with the John Birch Society. A significant percentage of the Republican Party did not accept the reforms of the New Deal. They hoped that President Eisenhower would reverse these reforms. Eisenhower did not, because he knew that they were popular.

When reactionaries came to agree that the reforms of the New Deal were popular with the voters, they invented this saying in order to deny that the will of the majority has moral and legal significance.

Or so it seems to me. :twocents:
Click to expand...

The united states can be called a democratic republic or a constitutional republic. THE democratic in the term refers to the process the leaders are elected, not to true democracy. True democracy would be the people voting on everything, which directly leads to mob rule and the majority oppressing the minority.


The republican system dates back to ancient rome, much like our court systems date back to the vikings in combination with parts of british common law. The republican form was chosen because it works better for the well being of an entire nation, and gives people a choice in govt without the negative consequences a direct democracy would have.

To date the only country i can think of that ever had a true democracy was ancient greece for short periods in certain city states, given how short those tests lasted compared to how long the roman republic lasted before collapse, it is easy to see why the founders chose what they did. Direct democracy has been tried numerous times in smaller forms of governing, from cities to armies etc each time showing it's flaws.
 
SmartCat said:
One occasionally hears, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy."

What does this statement mean? Is it true? Should it be true?

In my opinion there is no contradiction between a government being a republic and a democracy. A republic is a government that is not ruled by an hereditary monarch. A democracy is a government where the rulers are elected by the voters. The UK is not a republic. It is a democracy, and the oldest one in fact. Most contemporary dictatorships are republics, but not democracies.

Also, where did the saying, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" originate? Who first said it?

From what I have been able to find out this saying originated with the John Birch Society. A significant percentage of the Republican Party did not accept the reforms of the New Deal. They hoped that President Eisenhower would reverse these reforms. Eisenhower did not, because he knew that they were popular.

When reactionaries came to agree that the reforms of the New Deal were popular with the voters, they invented this saying in order to deny that the will of the majority has moral and legal significance.

Or so it seems to me. :twocents:
Click to expand...

I guess how you define the concepts and what level of accomplishment you require to claim success.
 
SmartCat said:
One occasionally hears, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy."

What does this statement mean? Is it true? Should it be true?

In my opinion there is no contradiction between a government being a republic and a democracy. A republic is a government that is not ruled by an hereditary monarch. A democracy is a government where the rulers are elected by the voters. The UK is not a republic. It is a democracy, and the oldest one in fact. Most contemporary dictatorships are republics, but not democracies.

Also, where did the saying, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" originate? Who first said it?

From what I have been able to find out this saying originated with the John Birch Society. A significant percentage of the Republican Party did not accept the reforms of the New Deal. They hoped that President Eisenhower would reverse these reforms. Eisenhower did not, because he knew that they were popular.

When reactionaries came to agree that the reforms of the New Deal were popular with the voters, they invented this saying in order to deny that the will of the majority has moral and legal significance.

Or so it seems to me. :twocents:
Click to expand...

Not all republics are democratic and not all democracies are republics. I think that the state of the US's democracy is significantly less healthy than the state of its republic.
 
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule where 51% of the people can vote away or restrict the rights of the 49%. Thank God we are not a democracy yet.
 
A democratic republic is accurate. I hate the establishment say we all live in a 'democracy'. No we have rights and democratic powers in a republic.
 
Beaudreaux said:
The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

A Democracy is governed by the whims of the majority of people voting at any given time. A Republic is governed by officials elected by people to represent them in the government. A Constitutional Republic is like a Republic, but the elected officials are restricted in power and authority by the Constitution.

The first to suffer in a true Democracy are natural rights, freedom, and liberty, for the majority will suppress the minorities rights, freedom, and liberty by plebiscite to ensure their power over "others."
Click to expand...

Can you point to examples of this in the present world?
 
PIPEWRENCH said:
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule where 51% of the people can vote away or restrict the rights of the 49%. Thank God we are not a democracy yet.
Click to expand...

In a parliamentary system like that in the UK the majority of representatives in Parliament lack the restraints of the separation of powers, and can vote pass any law they want to. Does the British parliamentary system exhibit the problems you mention?
 
Beaudreaux said:
The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

A Democracy is governed by the whims of the majority of people voting at any given time. A Republic is governed by officials elected by people to represent them in the government. A Constitutional Republic is like a Republic, but the elected officials are restricted in power and authority by the Constitution.

The first to suffer in a true Democracy are natural rights, freedom, and liberty, for the majority will suppress the minorities rights, freedom, and liberty by plebiscite to ensure their power over "others."
Click to expand...

That (bolded above) is debated constantly. I would say that we were founded as such but have since morphed into a federal republic with the people and states being forced to cede ever more power to it.

There is clearly no constitutional federal power of education, yet we now have a cabinet level, federal education department with an annual budget of $70 billion. If that "little detail" escapes constitutional scrutiny then we essentially have no constitutional limits on federal power.
 
Those who argue that the United States is not a democracy like to quote the Federalist Papers. This is what Thomas Jefferson had to say on the topic.

--------

Letter to Isaac H. Tiffany

Thomas Jefferson
Monticello
August 26, 1816

The full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us. The idea (taken, indeed, from the little specimen formerly existing in the English constitution, but now lost) has been carried by us, more or less...

The introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government.
Letter to Isaac H. Tiffany | Teaching American History
 
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his account of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century he did not entitle it The American Republic, but Democracy in America. In the two volumes of this book he claimed that the United States was the most democratic country in the world. That appears to have been the consensus at the time.

Does anyone know where the sentence, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy," came from? Who first said it, and in what context?

It is common for reactionaries to quote historical figures in American history as saying things the reactionaries agree with, when the sentences the reactionaries quote only can be dated to the post world World War era.

I suspect that the sentence "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" articulates a reaction against the reforms of the New Deal. It was coined so to speak to maintain that the popularity of those reforms does not matter, because majority opinion lacks legitimacy.

Those who argue that we should get back to constitutional rule, and that the United States is not a democracy are really advocating a return to laissez faire capitalism. Since the Progressive Era, which began in earnest in during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 the voters have moved away from laissez faire capitalism. Efforts by reactionaries to restore laissez faire capitalism have always failed. Public opinion surveys indicate strong support for the basic reforms of the New Deal, even among Republicans.

This is what President Eisenhower said about the New Deal in a letter to his brother, Milton:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
President Eisenhower on Social Security : snopes.com
 
Last edited:
SmartCat said:
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his account of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century he did not entitle it The American Republic, but Democracy in America. In the two volumes of this book he claimed that the United States was the most democratic country in the world. That appears to have been the consensus at the time.

Does anyone know where the sentence, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy," came from? Who first said it, and in what context.

It is common for reactionaries to quote historical figures in American history as saying things the reactionaries agree with, when the sentences the reactionaries quote only can be dated to the post world World War era.

I suspect that the sentence "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" articulates a reaction against the reforms of the New Deal. It was coined so to speak to maintain that the popularity of those reforms does not matter, because majority opinion lacks legitimacy.
Click to expand...

Instead of caring what de Tocqueville said concerning his person observations, why not Google "Direct Democracy" and get some other reading suggestions, preferably from modern educational institutions.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
That (bolded above) is debated constantly. I would say that we were founded as such but have since morphed into a federal republic with the people and states being forced to cede ever more power to it.

There is clearly no constitutional federal power of education, yet we now have a cabinet level, federal education department with an annual budget of $70 billion. If that "little detail" escapes constitutional scrutiny then we essentially have no constitutional limits on federal power.
Click to expand...

What you describe above, is our own fault. It doesn't change the fact of what we are, it just changes how we approach government in certain circumstances, most notably the ones that the party on power at the time (regardless of which party it happens to be) determines it's role within government and to what end their interpretation of the Constitution will allow them to create, control, and corrupt the way the system is supposed to work.
 
SmartCat said:
When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote his account of the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century he did not entitle it The American Republic, but Democracy in America. In the two volumes of this book he claimed that the United States was the most democratic country in the world. That appears to have been the consensus at the time.

Does anyone know where the sentence, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy," came from? Who first said it, and in what context?

It is common for reactionaries to quote historical figures in American history as saying things the reactionaries agree with, when the sentences the reactionaries quote only can be dated to the post world World War era.

I suspect that the sentence "The United States is a republic, not a democracy" articulates a reaction against the reforms of the New Deal. It was coined so to speak to maintain that the popularity of those reforms does not matter, because majority opinion lacks legitimacy.

Those who argue that we should get back to constitutional rule, and that the United States is not a democracy are really advocating a return to laissez faire capitalism. Since the Progressive Era, which began in earnest in during the administration of Teddy Roosevelt in 1901 the voters have moved away from laissez faire capitalism. Efforts by reactionaries to restore laissez faire capitalism have always failed. Public opinion surveys indicate strong support for the basic reforms of the New Deal, even among Republicans.

This is what President Eisenhower said about the New Deal in a letter to his brother, Milton:

"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
President Eisenhower on Social Security : snopes.com
Click to expand...

Benjamin Franklin replied to a question after the 1787 convention was ended. The question was something like "what have you given us?", and his reply was something like "a republic, if you can keep it."
 
Beaudreaux said:
What you describe above, is our own fault. It doesn't change the fact of what we are, it just changes how we approach government in certain circumstances, most notably the ones that the party on power at the time (regardless of which party it happens to be) determines it's role within government and to what end their interpretation of the Constitution will allow them to create, control, and corrupt the way the system is supposed to work.
Click to expand...

Nope, it is the fault of the constitution itself. There are no limits (checks and balances?) on the power of the SCOTUS, thus whatever five of those nine robed umpires allow (or disallow) is the constitution.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Nope, it is the fault of the constitution itself. There are no limits (checks and balances?) on the power of the SCOTUS, thus whatever five of those nine robed umpires allow (or disallow) is the constitution.
Click to expand...

If SCOTUS allows or disallows a given legislative product, doesn't the Legislative then have the option of creating another legislative product that will conform to constitutional principles? Isn't that a sort of check or balance?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Nope, it is the fault of the constitution itself. There are no limits (checks and balances?) on the power of the SCOTUS, thus whatever five of those nine robed umpires allow (or disallow) is the constitution.
Click to expand...

It's been that way in this country since Marbury v Madison in 1803. The majority of the Founding Fathers were still, not only alive and around but, in office at that time. The SCOTUS has made a number of decisions that have been overturned by later courts. There have also been a number of changes via Amendment that changed the original intent of the Constitution, like the 17th Amendment having Senators directly elected by the people, and not appointed by the state legislatures. The way our government was originally intended to operate, was that the US House of Representatives would be "The People's House" and the direct voice of the people, the US Senate would be where the states had their voice heard and represented in the federal government, the President was to simply be the CEO of the day to day operations of the government be the CinC of the military, and the SCOTUS was to run the courts. The 17th Amendment took away the power of the states in federal governance. The President created Executive Orders and has slowly crept toward a monarchy ever since. The SCOTUS and the US House of Representatives are the only ones still operating mostly the way the Constitution originally intended.
 
Thoreau72 said:
If SCOTUS allows or disallows a given legislative product, doesn't the Legislative then have the option of creating another legislative product that will conform to constitutional principles? Isn't that a sort of check or balance?
Click to expand...

No. The fact that federal laws may change, independent of the constitution, is not the issue. The issue is what, if any, limits on federal (state or local) power does the constitution really provide? My assertion is that they noow come (and go) based on that 5/4 opinion process of the SCOTUS alone. Maybe the country could apply sufficient pressure to amend the constitution, as it did with the 19A, to establish a "new" right (or limit on government power) but what are the odds that a supermajority of congress critters would seek to limit its own power?
 
Beaudreaux said:
It's been that way in this country since Marbury v Madison in 1803. The majority of the Founding Fathers were still, not only alive and around but, in office at that time. The SCOTUS has made a number of decisions that have been overturned by later courts. There have also been a number of changes via Amendment that changed the original intent of the Constitution, like the 17th Amendment having Senators directly elected by the people, and not appointed by the state legislatures. The way our government was originally intended to operate, was that the US House of Representatives would be "The People's House" and the direct voice of the people, the US Senate would be where the states had their voice heard and represented in the federal government, the President was to simply be the CEO of the day to day operations of the government be the CinC of the military, and the SCOTUS was to run the courts. The 17th Amendment took away the power of the states in federal governance. The President created Executive Orders and has slowly crept toward a monarchy ever since. The SCOTUS and the US House of Representatives are the only ones still operating mostly the way the Constitution originally intended.
Click to expand...

I am not saying that the SCOTUS could not be controlled (restrained?) by constitutional amendment, but that otherwise any real limits on federal power do not exist. How else could the federal government grant itself any power over education or to require (mandate?) the purchase of a private good/service?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
No. The fact that federal laws may change, independent of the constitution, is not the issue. The issue is what, if any, limits on federal (state or local) power does the constitution really provide? My assertion is that they noow come (and go) based on that 5/4 opinion process of the SCOTUS alone. Maybe the country could apply sufficient pressure to amend the constitution, as it did with the 19A, to establish a "new" right (or limit on government power) but what are the odds that a supermajority of congress critters would seek to limit its own power?
Click to expand...

Well SCOTUS judges can be impeached too I think.

I would say any limits (and powers) granted to SCOTUS are defined in Article III. In short, the court is granted "the judicial power", however we want to define that. Not the legislative power and not the executive power, but the judicial power. The court is not impotent, but neither is it omnipotent.
 
Thoreau72 said:
Well SCOTUS judges can be impeached too I think.

I would say any limits (and powers) granted to SCOTUS are defined in Article III. In short, the court is granted "the judicial power", however we want to define that. Not the legislative power and not the executive power, but the judicial power. The court is not impotent, but neither is it omnipotent.
Click to expand...

I still find it troubling when the SCOTUS rules that "equal protection" makes it unconstitutional (since 1868 or 1973?) for a state to deny the marriage contract of two consenting adults be they men, women or one of each but not illegal to deny recognizing the marriage of three consenting people. It seems that equal protection means whatever the SCOTUS decides that it means on a very narrow case by case basis. It did not really say, as many often assert, that marriage is a fundamental human right of any and all consenting adults but that the state may limit the number of partners in a marriage contract yet simply not their gender. Why is there no such number of partners limit upon a state issued, business partnership?
 
Beaudreaux said:
The US is a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy.

A Democracy is governed by the whims of the majority of people voting at any given time. A Republic is governed by officials elected by people to represent them in the government. A Constitutional Republic is like a Republic, but the elected officials are restricted in power and authority by the Constitution.

The first to suffer in a true Democracy are natural rights, freedom, and liberty, for the majority will suppress the minorities rights, freedom, and liberty by plebiscite to ensure their power over "others."
Click to expand...

Best explanation in this entire thread.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom