Madison: A Republic, Not a Democracy

Thanks to an utterly corrupted state run educational establishment (centralized education being one of the long term goals of the Communist Party USA that were realized) our nation has come under the dangerous delusion that America’s Founding Fathers gave us a democracy.

But they didn’t. They gave us a republic, or as Adams and Jefferson put it, “a government of laws and not of men,” and so far as the democratic principle of representation goes, one of mixed forms, direct and indirect representation, checks and balances, divisions of powers (horizontal and vertical), unalienable rights, frequent elections (but of varying lengths depending upon the political body), and vitally, freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly, and the right to petition (these acting as checks to).

But ranking near the top of those checks on democracy in favor of the longterm success of free government was the institution of the United States Senate.

Examining Federalist 63 today, penned by American Founder, James Madison, we hear once again from Madison the dangers of mere democratic representation, and the advantage of a Senate elected, not by the people, but by the State Legislatures, and not for two years, but six (there also was a more senior age requirement he addressed in Federalist 62).

Writes Madison:

Thus far I have considered the circumstances which point out the necessity of a well-constructed Senate only as they relate to the representatives of the people. To a people as little blinded by prejudice or corrupted by flattery as those whom I address, I shall not scruple to add, that such an institution may be sometimes necessary as a defense to the people against their own temporary errors and delusions. As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought, in all governments, and actually will, in all free governments, ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow meditated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice, and truth can regain their authority over the public mind? What bitter anguish would not the people of Athens have often escaped if their government had contained so provident a safeguard against the tyranny of their own passions? Popular liberty might then have escaped the indelible reproach of decreeing to the same citizens the hemlock on one day and statues on the next.

It may be suggested, that a people spread over an extensive region cannot, like the crowded inhabitants of a small district, be subject to the infection of violent passions, or to the danger of combining in pursuit of unjust measures. I am far from denying that this is a distinction of peculiar importance. I have, on the contrary, endeavored in a former paper to show, that it is one of the principal recommendations of a confederated republic. At the same time, this advantage ought not to be considered as superseding the use of auxiliary precautions. It may even be remarked, that the same extended situation, which will exempt the people of America from some of the dangers incident to lesser republics, will expose them to the inconveniency of remaining for a longer time under the influence of those misrepresentations which the combined industry of interested men may succeed in distributing among them.

It adds no small weight to all these considerations, to recollect that history informs us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate. Sparta, Rome, and Carthage are, in fact, the only states to whom that character can be applied. In each of the two first there was a senate for life. The constitution of the senate in the last is less known. Circumstantial evidence makes it probable that it was not different in this particular from the two others. It is at least certain, that it had some quality or other which rendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smaller council, drawn out of the senate, was appointed not only for life, but filled up vacancies itself. These examples, though as unfit for the imitation, as they are repugnant to the genius, of America, are, notwithstanding, when compared with the fugitive and turbulent existence of other ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity of some institution that will blend stability with liberty. I am not unaware of the circumstances which distinguish the American from other popular governments, as well ancient as modern; and which render extreme circumspection necessary, in reasoning from the one case to the other. But after allowing due weight to this consideration, it may still be maintained, that there are many points of similitude which render these examples not unworthy of our attention. Many of the defects, as we have seen, which can only be supplied by a senatorial institution, are common to a numerous assembly frequently elected by the people, and to the people themselves. There are others peculiar to the former, which require the control of such an institution. The people can never wilfully betray their own interests; but they may possibly be betrayed by the representatives of the people; and the danger will be evidently greater where the whole legislative trust is lodged in the hands of one body of men, than where the concurrence of separate and dissimilar bodies is required in every public act.

The American Founders were inspired to set up a republic, not a democracy. We would be wise to rid our vocabularies of the over-tendency to speak of democracy in America, and rediscover our constitutional republic. A movement to repeal the 17th Amendment, that amendment which made the Senate a democratic body, rather than one that represented the states, would be an excellent starting point.

History will one day memorialize the passing of that amendment into law (right along side the creation of the Federal Reserve System, and the incorporation of the income tax and the progressive tax) as the start of this nation’s decline into the arms of socialism, internationalism, and corporate fascism.

Little surprise about that: the latter three came right out of the Ten Planks of The Communist Manifesto. Bringing an end to the republican check of a true Senate, just made it easier to push their agenda along, and this too, give the President a more free hand to act more like a King.

The Liberty Letters are written by NewsMax.com pundit, Steve Farrell, and are a project of the Center for Moral Liberalism and Stiff Right Jab