A Republic or a Democracy
From "The Trouble With Elections: Everything We Thought We Knew About Democracy is Wrong," Chapter 6.7
[Note that this post has a lot of detailed and some fascinating (but tangential) information relegated to lengthy footnotes. I would like to hear from readers who choose to read them, whether this level of detail should be restored to the main text in the final book, removed, or remain as footnotes.]
For over two thousand years following the development of democracy in Greece, elections were viewed not as a tool of democracy, but rather as a tool of oligarchy — to choose who among an aristocratic elite would rule the people. In Book IV of Aristotle’s Politics, we read that
“the appointment of magistrates by lot is thought to be democratic, and the election of them oligarchical.”
This view of the role of elections and sortition persisted through the Enlightenment and was reiterated by leading political philosophers such as Rousseau and Montesquieu. The general view of many political philosophers of that time (though not Rousseau) was that the republic of ancient Rome1 with an elected aristocracy was a superior alternative, and in sharp opposition to the democracy of ancient Athens.
Though the terms democracy and republic are often used interchangeably today, James Madison (often called the “Father of the Constitution”), like most political theorists preceding him, made a sharp distinction. Madison favored elite deliberation, within a competitive electoral framework, which he termed a republic, as distinct from a democracy. In the terminology that was common at the time of the American revolution, a republic referred to a government with a “mixed constitution” that combined elements of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy with elected representatives, based on what had existed in ancient Rome. Democracy referred to direct popular rule by the masses, based on what had existed in ancient Greece. Madison believed that in a democracy the passions of the common man might run wild, and the “property rights” of the wealthy would be overwhelmed. Madison further redefined the term “republic,” dismissing the common use of the word to describe Venice, the Netherlands, or Poland. To Madison a republic meant a system in which elite rulers who were subject to periodic elections derived their authority from the consent of the “great body of the people” (excluding women, slaves, indigenous people, and white males without sufficient property wealth), rather than from the nobility. Madison wrote in Federalist Paper No. 39, defending the republican nature of the draft constitution:
“Could any further proof be required of the republican complexion of this system, the most decisive one might be found in its absolute prohibition of titles of nobility, both under the federal and the State governments; and in its express guaranty of the republican form to each of the latter.”
The malleable and evolving definition of a “republic” also had legal significance, and in 1841 led to an armed rebellion in Rhode Island.2
In modern colloquial parlance the terms republic and democracy have converged to the point that they are frequently used interchangeably — referring to a system of elected representation with a broad adult voting franchise.3 A handful of American revolutionaries, such as Thomas Paine, viewed democracy in a favorable light and believed America could establish a democracy on a national scale by blending the representation of a republic, with the popular rule of a democracy. But most of the framers of the Constitution disapproved of democracy, considering it an inferior form of government that could endanger the “property rights” of the wealthy landowners and slaveholders.4
The system of elections was not considered “democratic” by the founders and framers. In his book, Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea, from Ancient Athens to Our World, James Miller quotes Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who noted that while power may derive from the people,
“they possess it only on the days of their elections. After this, it is the property of their rulers, nor can they exercise or resume it, unless it be abused.”
One might assume that since the founders of the American and French republics had studied the Greek and Roman classics that they understood how the Athenian democracy worked, and thus their express rejection of Athenian democracy was grounded in a basic understanding. However, what they knew about Athens came through the writings of aristocratic critics of democracy, like Plato, and another Athenian referred to by scholars as the “Old Oligarch” (since his name is unknown). Scholars today know much more about how Athens functioned than the framers could possibly know, thanks to the discovery of a nearly complete papyrus manuscript in Egypt in 1890. Scholars have concluded it is Aristotle’s detailed description of the democratic constitution of Athens. Then, in the 1930’s, archaeological digs at the site of the Athenian market (Agora) uncovered a large number of government records inscribed in stone. Together, these archaeological treasures provided a wealth of new information about the workings of Athenian democracy, completely unknown to the framers. We can therefore understand their erroneous statements, such as Madison’s mistaken assertion in Federalist Paper No. 63 that the Athenians “elected” the Council of Five Hundred (boule). The Federalists, who believed democracy was dangerous, used democratic-sounding words, but sought to preclude actual democracy. As Joshua Miller wrote in The Rise and Fall of Democracy in Early America, 1630-1789,
“The Federalists rendered the democratic vocabulary of popular sovereignty harmless by invoking a fictitious people who could never meet, never deliberate, never take action. The body politic became a ghost. Once the Federalists had conjured an imaginary ‘people’ who could not challenge the power of the national government, they became bold in declaring that the people had the right to decide, to act, and even to overthrow the government whenever they chose to do so.”
The leaders of the American revolution believed in elite rule with the presumed “consent of the people,” rather than popular self-rule.
At roughly the same time that Greece was developing democracy, Rome was developing a distinctly different form of government known as a republic. The Roman Republic, like a Greek democracy, had no hereditary monarchy. The Roman Republic had a Senate and numerous elected assemblies representing the different classes of citizens. The magistrates who could convene the assemblies, and set the agenda and proposals to be voted on, were elected. As Niccolo Machiavelli, an apostle of republican constitution, notes in Discourses, his sixteenth century analysis of Ancient Rome, [ca. 1517, Discourses on Livy, chapter XLVII ], even when the plebs (non-nobility) were granted the right to vote and be elected to certain offices, they generally still elected nobles — who had the wealth, status and education to garner attention — rather than from among their own. This oligarchic character of elections was a fact in Rome rather than a mere theory. Over time, while most plebeians remained poor, a small number of families within the plebeian class who did win election often used their elected offices to rise to the elite aristocratic level of the wealthy patrician class. While more aristocratic than Athens, the constitution of the Roman Republic did employ checks and balances to divide power among members of the ruling elite (except in times of emergency, when a dictator could be selected for a six month term of office).The Roman Republic made relatively trivial use of random lot, for example in determining the order in which the geographically-based tribes would vote on matters in the Assembly of Tribes. The Roman Republic transformed into the Roman Empire, which eventually split into an Eastern and Western Empire. Centuries after the collapse of the Western Empire the republican form of government resurfaced in various cities on the Italian peninsula and the Dalmatian Coast. These republics grew up during the Middle Ages, lasted for centuries, with some continuing through the Renaissance. These independent city states, like Venice, Florence, Milan and Ragusa re-invented their own versions of republic. The lower classes had little or no involvement, but the republics were structured to share authority among the aristocracy, often combining election and sortition to assure that no individual could dominate.
The Constitution’s guarantee in Article IV, Section 4 that each state would have a “Republican Form of Government,” did not define the concept further. In 1841-2 this led to an armed rebellion in Rhode Island in a dispute about the meaning of this guarantee. The archaic Constitution of Rhode Island, which was a carry-over of the colonial charter issued by the King, restricted voting rights to propertied white males, though all of the other states had by this time expanded voting rights to all white males, regardless of property wealth. A majority of white males in Rhode Island were disenfranchised. Leaders, such as Thomas Dorr, sought to get the state legislature to broaden the franchise, arguing that Rhode Island was being denied a “republican form of government.” But their efforts were rebuffed by the state government. Eventually an extra-legal People’s Convention was convened, which drafted a new constitution. It was ratified through an unsanctioned referendum in which these same disenfranchised men were allowed to vote. In what is known as “Dorr’s Rebellion,” the two competing constitutions resulted in the election of two different Governors and legislatures, and lead to armed conflict between forces supporting Thomas Dorr and the “Charterites” supporting Governor Samuel Ward King. President Tyler declined to send in Federal troops. Although the Charterites ultimately relented and broadened the franchise, a court case dealing with the aftermath of the rebellion, which made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, hinged on the meaning of a “republican form of government.” In a republic “the people” elected representatives to form a government, and sovereignty was not based on monarchy. But republics had historically often defined “the people” to mean only free males who owned property, and Madison supported property qualifications when he drafted this phrase in the proposed constitution. The Dorr rebels believed that the meaning of “the people” had evolved and broadened over time, and now must include all free white males. Dorr had initially even supported enfranchising blacks as well, but backed off this position to shore up support among white immigrants to Rhode Island. The Court, however, side-stepped this core issue. The Court decided instead that this was a non-justiciable political question, and ruled that the President and Congress must interpret and enforce the provision, rather than the courts.
In some countries, such as members of the UK Commonwealth, a distinction is maintained, referring to the presence or absence of a symbolic vestigial monarchy. In places like Australia there is a debate about whether to remain a “constitutional monarchy,” which is still deemed to be “democratic,” or to become a “republic,” with no royal family.
The motivations for independence from Britain were far more varied than the simple anti-monarchy story Americans typically learn in school. A rarely acknowledged factor was the fear by many of America’s slave-owning Founders that Britain would eventually outlaw slavery in the colonies as it already had in England proper. This fear had a solid basis in the Somersett court ruling of 1772. A slave by the name of James Somersett had been bought in Boston, and brought as “property” to England. Somersett escaped in 1771, but was recaptured. In a landmark court case Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Lord Mansfield, ruled that slavery was so “odious” that it could not be supported on any moral or political basis, but only by an affirmative law. Since England had no such law, no matter how long-standing the custom in various British colonies, it was not legal in England itself, and Somersett was set free. Many American slave-owners saw the writing on the wall. About 41 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, and of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, about 25 owned slaves.
Another concern that gets little if any attention in American textbooks is that with the British defeat of the French in North America in the so-called French and Indian War, formalized in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the colonialists no longer felt as much need for military support from England. Parliament, on the other hand, felt an enhanced need to extract revenues from the colonies to cover the debts from that war. The various revenue schemes garnered widespread resentment and resistance. In the decade preceding the American revolution, many of the soon-to-be-Founders were not advocates of a democracy, nor a republic. Many leading Americans who would later become Founders actually advocated for increased authority for the King as the rightful sovereign, rather than Parliament, as a route to enhanced colonial autonomy. The British Parliament was their main antagonist, rather than the King. The power of Parliament had long ago eclipsed the King’s. Indeed, the last time a Monarch had refused to sign an act of Parliament had been 1707. Parliament was the entity that was imposing undesirable tax and trade policies on the colonies. King George III, however, was a more useful foil for the revolution and a convenient scapegoat.
I endorse the comments of GG and RdV. I would keep the notes because they make clearer the complexities of definition and policy that the Founders grappled with. On the whole, I favor endnotes for these rather than footnotes.
the footnotes are very interesting. i guess i would favor in including them in the text. next preference would be endnotes rather than footnotes, as has been suggested.