Democracy vs Republic

Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees to every state in this union a Republican form of government"....        

Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman's inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, "A Republic, if you can keep it."

Not only have we failed to keep it, most don't even know what it is.

A Republic is representative government ruled by law  - this case, the Constitution.   A democracy is direct government ruled by the majority (mob rule).   A Republic recognizes the inalienable rights of individuals while democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs (the public good).

Democracies always self-destruct when the non-productive majority realizes that it can vote itself handouts from the productive minority by electing the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury.   To maintain their power, these candidates must adopt an ever-increasing tax and spend policy to satisfy the ever-increasing desires of the majority.   As taxes increase, incentive to produce decreases, causing many of the once productive to drop out and join the non-productive.   When there are no longer enough producers to fund the legitimate functions of government and the socialist programs, the democracy will collapse, always to be followed by a Dictatorship.

Even though nearly every politician, teacher, journalist and citizen believes that our Founders created a democracy, it is absolutely not true.   The Founders knew full well the differences between a Republic and a Democracy.   They repeatedly and emphatically said that they had founded a Republic.

 Conversely, the word Democracy is not mentioned even once in the Constitution.   It was F.D.R. who began calling America a Democracy, in an attempt to initiate a government ruled by the majority. He could not do the socialist things he did under a Republic.

Madison warned us of the dangers of democracies with these words, "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..."

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a Democracy is: Rule by Omnipotent Majority. In a Democracy, The Individual, and any group of Individuals composing any Minority, have no protection against the unlimited power of The Majority. It is a case of Majority-over-Man. Thomas Jefferson referred to a democracy as "elective despotism".

A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual’s God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution

And therein lies the truth that those in our government today do not want the people to know or understand. But it is increasingly important that we DO know and understand, and be willing to fight for our Republic.