My goal is to create a series of blogs about the Constitution to illustrate why an Article V Convention is necessary to rein in federal overreach.
Why A Constitutional Republic?
You would not know it by listening to the news, but the United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Today, however, I agree we resemble more of a democracy.
John Adams would declare, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” The whole purpose of the Constitution and establishing a republic, as Madison put it, was to curb the power of majority factions and to “restrain some of the worst impulses of man.”
What is a Constitutional Republic?
A republic is defined as a nation governed by laws, not people. A republic attempts to eliminate fallible, power hungry, and corrupt politicians from the equation of government.
A constitutional republic has built in protections to prevent fallible people and majorities from imposing their will on minority factions of people. Those protections include a written Constitution, checks and balances, and separation of powers between the branches of the federal government (legislative, judicial, and executive), and between the federal and state governments (federalism). The Founders’ objective to prevent tyranny was incorporating a sovereignty sharing system to limit the power that any one person, branch of government, or party may possess.
Checks and balances to prevent corruption and tyranny included equal state representation in the Senate, federalism (10th Amendment), separation of powers, the Electoral College, and requiring supermajorities to pass certain legislation and confirm important cabinet posts.
Most people also fail to realize that in a Constitutional Republic, the most sovereign entity is “We the people” not the federal or state governments. The Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Ninth Amendment make sure the government serves and protects the people. In Chisholm v. Georgia decided in 1793, the principle sovereignty resides with the people was firmly established.
What is a Democracy?
A democracy is a nation governed by people and what the majority dictates. In a democracy the law and your rights are what a majority say they are. For instance, a democracy can deny free speech and gun rights to certain groups of people if it is the will of the people.
Why Don’t Democracies Have Long Life Expectancies?
The responsibility of the government in a constitutional republic is to pass laws within their limited constitutional grants of power (Article I Section 8) that are applied equally to businesses and individuals. The government is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of the law.
Democracies, on the other hand, foster an environment of civil unrest leading to the destruction of nations. Democracies create this environment by driving a wedge between different groups of people in society when the government picks winners and losers by creating preferred classes of citizens based on how we look and think, our Demographic makeup, and DEI metrics.
Democracies also pick winners and losers in the corporate world such as climate change legislation that subsidizes renewable energy companies while heavily regulating oil and gas companies. In other words, democracies have a tendency of not being a neutral arbiter of the law and treating people and corporations unequally.
Civil unrest is the result when people feel their civil liberties or fundamental rights are being violated. This is what happened on 1/6 when Americans felt their voting rights were being denied and this is what happened with Black Lives Matter when African Americans felt their due process rights were being denied.
I am not taking sides on these issues, merely suggesting they are a natural outcome from democracies that do not protect individuals equally.
Summary
Over the past 230 years checks and balances and separation of powers have been gradually stripped away from the Constitution. Now, the United States more closely resembles a true democracy. While a republic protects the fundamental rights of everyone equally, a democracy only protects the ideology of the majority. Thus, fundamental rights are often abridged in democracies and many of these government indiscretions will be highlighted in future articles.
Patrick Bohan is not a historian or lawyer, just a patriot who has independently studied these subjects.
