The Evil of Democracy
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James Madison 1751-1836 |
The Hegemonic Nature of Democracy (Ochlocracy)
Federalist Paper #10
Subject: "The Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection"
Thursday, November 22, 1787
"...From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such 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. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions."
— essay published in 1787 in the New York "Daily Advertiser"; signed "Publius"
* Note (italics mine): In the time of Madison, limitations in transportation and communication prohibited the existence of a far-reaching democracy with a large population. The "mischiefs of faction," creating the turbulence, contention, and violent end of a democracy in "a society consisting of a small number of citizens," are only magnified in democracies that consist of larger more diverse societies with electronic communication and paid media.
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John Adams 1735-1836 |
"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
— John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814
"Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man
will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or
reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould
itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual
abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton
pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."
— An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763
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Walter E. Williams Department of Economics George Mason University Walter E. Williams' Home Page |
January 5, 2005
Are we a republic or a democracy?
We often hear the claim that our nation is a
democracy. That wasn't the vision of the founders. They saw democracy as another
form of tyranny. If we've become a democracy, I guarantee you that the founders
would be deeply disappointed by our betrayal of their vision. The founders
intended, and laid out the ground rules, for our nation to be a republic.
The word democracy appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the
Constitution -- two most fundamental documents of our nation. Instead of a
democracy, the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, guarantees "to every
State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." Moreover, let's ask
ourselves: Does our pledge of allegiance to the flag say to "the democracy
for which it stands," or does it say to "the republic for which it
stands"? Or do we sing "The Battle Hymn of the Democracy" or
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic"?
So what's the difference between republican and democratic forms of government?
John Adams captured the essence of the difference when he said, "You have
rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or
restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the
Universe." Nothing in our Constitution suggests that government is a
grantor of rights. Instead, government is a protector of rights.
In recognition that it's Congress that poses the greatest threat to our
liberties, the framers used negative phrases against Congress throughout the
Constitution such as: shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall
not be violated, nor be denied. In a republican form of government, there is
rule of law. All citizens, including government officials, are accountable to
the same laws. Government power is limited and decentralized through a system of
checks and balances. Government intervenes in civil society to protect its
citizens against force and fraud but does not intervene in the cases of
peaceable, voluntary exchange.
Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a
democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected
representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines
it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is
upon the individual instead of government. Unlike that envisioned under a
republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions
that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.
How about a few quotations demonstrating the disdain our founders held for
democracy? James Madison,
Federalist Paper No. 10 : In a pure democracy, "there is nothing to check
the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual."
At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said, " ... that in
tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and
follies of democracy." John Adams said, "Remember, democracy never
lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a
democracy yet that did not commit suicide." Chief Justice John Marshall
observed, "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is
like that between order and chaos." In a word or two, the founders knew
that a democracy would lead to the same kind of tyranny the colonies suffered
under King George III.
The framers gave us a Constitution that is replete with undemocratic mechanisms.
One that has come in for recent criticism and calls for its elimination is the
Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College so
that in presidential elections large, heavily populated states couldn't
democratically run roughshod over small, sparsely populated states.
Here's my question. Do Americans share the republican values laid out by our
founders, and is it simply a matter of our being unschooled about the
differences between a republic and a democracy? Or is it a matter of preference
and we now want the kind of tyranny feared by the founders where Congress can do
anything it can muster a majority vote to do? I fear it's the latter.
