The Difference Between a Republic and Democracy

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      A Republic is representative government ruled by law (the United States Constitution). A Democracy is government ruled by the

majority (mob rule). A Republic recognizes the unalienable rights of individuals while Democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs for the good of the public, or in other words social justice. A Republic is what the Founding Fathers envisioned, as a matter of fact, almost to a man, they feared a Democracy. They understood that 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.

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” 

                                                                                      John Adams

      The Constitution is very clear on the subject: Article IV Section 4, of the Constitution "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion". The word democracy is not mentioned in the Constitution at all and for good reason.

"Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths... A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking." 

                                              James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 10 (1787).

      Listening to our media and acadamia 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 and they repeatedly said that they had founded a republic. Their views on democracy are undeniable.

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"

                                                                                        Ben Franklin

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

                                                                                        Thomas Jefferson

      As you journey through your day and you continue to hear that we are or should be a democracy exposing democratic ideals remember that this narrative is anti-American as it was our Founding Fathers. Democracy is, politically speaking, to the left of the Constitution that this country was founded on. It is the slippery slope that tilts society towards Progressivism, Socialism, and finally a Communist form of government.