There is a
never-ending effort to fool us all into believing that we are a
Democracy. That was never the intention of the great men who envisioned a
nation like none other. Happily, we are not a Democracy of any
kind. We are a Republic. The difference is distinct and important to
Democrats and Republicans, and indeed all of our youth.
A
Democracy is a form of government that is designed and managed by the
majority. Political philosophers have identified its weakness and
dangers for over 2,000 years. It is a government that can only fail.
The
men who wrote our Constitution made great efforts to ensure that we do
not become a democracy. Some of our readers may be shocked to learn
this, but a study of the Constitution Convention journals makes it
clear.
They knew a
democracy was dangerous for any nation because it gave too much power
to the poor. Readers are quickly thinking about what is wrong with that.
What snobs we must be. But the poor will always outnumber the rich, so
the poor eventually use their numbers to take the homes, money, and
assets from the rich, and society eventually collapses. This isn’t opinion; it is recorded in history.
The “father
of our Constitution,” James Madison, addressed the problems of
democracy, which he called the popular form of government in Federalist
#10. In our opinion, it is the most important of all the Federalist
papers. He wrote in Federalist #10, one of many essays intended to
further explain the importance of various portions of the Constitution:
“Hence
it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and
contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or
property rights, and have generally been as short in their lives as
they have been violent in their deaths.”
Our
Constitutional Republic is different. We have a foundation of government
set by our Constitution. All laws created by the government must be in
consonance with its constitutional design. The Constitution is
purposefully difficult to change because an amendment requires the
approval of a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House of
Representatives, plus the ratification of three-fourths of the state
legislatures to succeed.
The
philosophy of our Constitution was to bind the states together in a
very limited measure, with the federal government having little control
over the internal operations of each state. Still, it would represent
them in a national scope and international affairs.
Within
our original Constitution, we find an area of popular input: the House
of Representatives. Its members are elected to short, two-year terms to
reflect the popular pressures of the people.But the Senate was far
different in its design. The State Legislatures initially appointed its
members, so the States officially had influence in Federal legislation
and the appointment processes of the Federal Government.
We
have long maintained that the state-appointed senators were the
guardians of the Tenth Amendment. But sadly, those state-appointed
senators disappeared when the wrong-headed 17th Amendment was ratified
in 1913. From then on, senators were elected by a popular vote rather
than than being selected by the desires of the state leadership. The
difference became that we now have political party senators instead of
state-appointed senators.
That change set
forces in motion that, over time, gained enough power to vandalize our
republic. All presidential appointments, all nominations for the
judiciary, all treaties, and all legislation must receive Senate
approval. Party politics had become more important than our Constitution with the new amendment.
Because of this, we now have SCOTUS justices who ignore the Tenth
Amendment, despite their swearing an oath to our laws and our
Constitution.
The 17th Amendment was a massive strike against our republican form of government.
There remains
one substantial element of our Republican form of government, and that
is the Electoral College. It was designed to have our States decide who
was to serve as president rather than by the
popular vote. This, too, was to avoid the power of the mob. The leftist
masses in control today have their sights set on eliminating the
Electoral College and the Constitution.
If
we lose the Electoral College, it will empower the SWAMP, which is
composed of the current government bureaus across the nation, the
politicians, attorneys, educators, and other “services” that have prospered with the incredible growth of our government, to become more powerful.
When doing the research for the senior author’s book, “The Real Constitution and its real enemies.” We found a quote by Richard Hofstadter that best describes the designs of the men who wrote our Constitution:
“The
men who drew up the Constitution in Philadelphia during the summer of
1787 had a vivid Calvinistic sense of human evil and damnation and
believed with Hobbes that men are selfish and contentious. They [the
delegates] were men of affairs, merchants, lawyers, planter-businessmen,
speculators, and investors. Having seen human nature on display in the
marketplace, the courtroom, the legislative chamber, and every secret
path and alleyway where wealth and power are courted, they felt they
knew it in all its frailty. To them, a human being was an atom of
self-interest. They did not believe in man, but they did believe in the
power of a good political Constitution to guide him.”
So
that brings us to the bottom line: the Founding Fathers designed a
republic that makes it difficult to change and difficult for corruption
to take hold. But, as their government takes on more features of a
democracy and submits itself to the power of the mob, it encourages
change and corruption with it.
Note: Steven Maikoski is an essayist and author of the book, The Real Constitution: and its real enemies.
Steven Maikoski is an essayist and author of the book, The Real Constitution: and its real enemies.
Dr.
Jay Lehr is a Senior Policy Analyst with the International Climate
Science Coalition and former Science Director of The Heartland
Institute.
Zachary Stieber
