The Republic

Some people will argue the Founding Fathers created the United States as a republic and not as a democracy. This argument is often used as a defense for the electoral college. I think using this argument is flawed, as it doesn’t look at the whole picture. It lacks the necessary historical context. When the United States was founded, it wasn’t the average person that wanted freedom from the British (source). In fact, ⅓ of the colonists were still wanted to remain part of Britain (loyalists). Independence was sought by the elite who wanted to pay less taxes.

This group of elites didn’t want a country run by the common person--far from it. They wanted a country run by them! So they did just that. They restricted voting to adult, white, land-owning men. Democracy was a dirty word to the wealthy elite, not to mention not in their financial interests. So, they created something else, a republic.

At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word "democracy" had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule. In practice, moreover, relatively few of the nation's inhabitants were able to participate in elections: among the excluded were most African Americans, Native Americans, women, men who had not attained their majority, and white males who did not own land.

John Adams, signer of the Declaration of Independence and later president, wrote in 1776 that no good could come from enfranchising more Americans:

Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.

Source

In the years since, we have moved away from the original restrictions to voting. Adult citizens can now vote. But we still are a republic, not a true representative democracy. Still today, the wealthy and big corporations decide elections with effectively unlimited campaign contributions. So while all citizens can vote, the elite still determine the outcome of elections. Perhaps, abolishing the vestiges of this system is the logical next step in our countries progression.

But on the other hand, things aren’t that simple. There are good aspects to being a republic. Being a republic is conducive to having a constitution, a bill of rights, and the rule of law. In a true democracy all laws a determined by the majority, who can use this power to oppose a minority. A Republic can stop this, at least in theory.

But in some ways, I question the validity of this argument. Imagine a fictitious person named Jeff, and a Majority of people in Jeff’s country want Jeff dead. If these persecutors want him dead, chances are someone will kill him. And perhaps a sympathetic law enforcement officer will look the other way. Or if the issue goes to court, a jury of 12 will likely not be able to convict him if the majority of people on jury wanted Jeff dead. See, even though a Republic “provides” legal protection against a majority, maybe it doesn't really.

Perhaps this last example was a little contrived, but really, it's not too different from some events that actually happened (example). Perhaps the bigger issue with a Republic isn’t that it doesn’t work, it’s when it does work. Take the 2016 election. Donald Trump won the election but didn’t win the popular vote. In this case, the will of a minority is imposed on the majority. Now I’m not saying this because I hate Donald Trump, I also think Hillary Clinton was an objectively bad candidate, but that is a story for another post. What I am saying is perhaps we should look to our roots again and determine what is good and should be kept and what isn’t so good and should be changed.