OurCivicDuty.com: Civics: A Republic

Last Updated: May 20, 2007.

A Republic | Democracy | Socialism | Fascism

Elements of a Republic

A Republic respects law absolutely; it does not create or control the law (like a democracy).

Individual sovereignty is upheld and respected to the fullest extent possible, as this is the primary purpose of government.

Elements of democracy may be used for such things as electing government officials, but the dangers of democracy are restrained by republicanism as it is the primary element.

Our Form of Government

The United States of America was established as a Constitutional Republic.

United States Inc. operates primarily through a nearly unrestrained representative democracy because it benefits "government" and allows power and property to be taken more easily from the people. In our current system, the individual is not regarded as sovereign, only the collective will of the people is.

A Republic

The United States of America is first and foremost a Republic. Though this is the most important aspect of our form of government, republican principles are rarely evident in our country today. These principles are just and untainted by the dangers of democracy ("mob rule" by the majority) because they are a steadfast recognition of Truth that cannot be changed by circumstance. This is the idea that guided the creation of our Constitution, and the idea that the increasing prominence of unrestrained democracy is destroying. We are meant to be a democracy within a republic and not to allow the democratic principles to control government.

"Did I say "republic?" By God, yes, I said "republic!" Long live the glorious republic of the United States of America. Damn democracy. It is a fraudulent term used, often by ignorant persons but no less often by intellectual fakers, to describe an infamous mixture of socialism, miscegenation, graft, confiscation of property and denial of personal rights to individuals whose virtuous principles make them offensive."

- FIND AUTHOR

In our Constitutional Republic, the people are meant to govern both themselves and their government. We are the source of the government's authority, and therefore superior to it. This system is unique because, contrary to what we have been led to believe, our government exists to be governed, not to govern. Responsibility rests squarely on the shoulders of the people and not the government because of a recognition by the law of each person's sovereignty. The government is not responsible for the needs of the individual except for providing an atmosphere conducive to the full exercise of that sovereignty. Today, because this principle is rejected in favor of almost unrestricted representative democracy where the people are no longer regarded as sovereign, we are forced to bend to the will of both the majority and the will of the officials that this overly-powerful democracy has rendered corrupt.

"Action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immediately, and removable by themselves, constitutes the essence of a republic... All governments are more or less republican in proportion as this principle enters more or less into their composition."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

Constitutional Republic

When identifying the government the United States was meant to have, history provides only one correct answer: a Constitutional Republic. A Republic is controlled by the law, and the absolute law of the United States is the Constitution. Many sources icorrectly designate our form of government as a "Democratic Republic," but the democratic elements of our republic are outlined in the Constitution making the constitutional element superior to the democratic" element.

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require. And this I ascribe, not to any want of republican dispositions in those who formed these constitutions, but to a submission of true principle to European authorities, to speculators on government, whose fears of the people have been inspired by the populace of their own great cities, and were unjustly entertained against the independent, the happy, and therefore orderly citizens of the United States. Much I apprehend that the golden moment is past for reforming these heresies. The functionaries of public power rarely strengthen in their dispositions to abridge it, and an unorganized call for timely amendment is not likely to prevail against an organized opposition to it."

- Thomas Jefferson, 1816.

Historical Definitions

The US Army War Department issued a manual in 1928 that contained accurate definitions of the terms "democracy" and "Republic." That manual described a Republic as:

CITIZENSHIP Republic:
Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. A greater number of citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass. Avoids the dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. Is the "standard form" of government throughout the world. A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of
(1) an executive and
(2) a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create
(3) a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their government acts and to recognize
(4) certain inherent individual rights.
Take away any one or more of those four elements and you are drifting into autocracy. Add one or more to those four elements and you are drifting into democracy.
Atwood. Superior to all others.--Autocracy declares the divine right of kings; its authority can not be questioned; its powers are arbitrarily or unjustly administered. Democracy is the "direct" rule of the people and has been repeatedly tried without success. Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They "made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy * * * and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic."

Click here fore the Army's definition of "CITIZENSHIP Democracy."

[W]e may define a republic to be... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior...

Federalist No. 39

The Federalist Papers are also an excellent resource to use in an attempt to understand exactly what a republic is and how it can be distinguished from other similar forms of government.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.
(Source: Federalist No. 10)

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