at the close of the constitutional convention in philadelphia in 1787 legend has it that a woman
called out to benjamin franklin to ask what kind of government the delegates had created franklin
responded a republic madam if you can keep it a republic shouldn't franklin have said a democracy
isn't that what we have in the united states most people today would say yes
after all if our country isn't a democracy what is it it's not a dictatorship the rule of one man
or an oligarchy ruled by a small group in america the people are in charge that's
literally what democracy means in the original greek deimos gratos the people demos rule kratos
but let's pause for a moment and consider more deeply what the word means in practice and why the
delegates in philadelphia rejected it that's right rejected it our government was established by a
national charter the constitution of the united states we are governed by the institutions and
according to the rules and principles created and adopted when our forebears ratified that document
making it the supreme law of the land are those institutions properly speaking democratic the men
who bequeathed our form of government to us those we call our founding fathers didn't see it that
way they understood the institutions established by the constitution to be republican in fact
though the founders believed in government of the people by the people for the people as abraham
lincoln put it in the gettysburg address they did not believe in pure or unrestricted democracy they
feared that democracy strictly speaking contained within it the impulse to mob rule the stifling
of civil liberty the trampling by majorities of the rights of minorities to put it more bluntly
pure democracy frightened them so while they built into the constitution's significant democratic
elements they also built in non-democratic features to protect liberty and prevent tyranny
it wasn't simply that they favored representative government over direct democracy though they did
it's that they rejected the idea that the majority wins was by definition
the just outcome indeed in what is perhaps the most famous of the 85 federalist papers
federalist 10 james madison precisely indistinguishing a democracy which he did
not favor from a republic which he did noted that a crucial advantage of republicanism
is to refine the public views by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens
whose wisdom may best discern the true interests of the country and so we have representative
government and more than that we have a bicameral that is two-tiered legislature a congress with a
highly democratic house of representatives and a not very democratic senate therefore
california with its massive population has 52 representatives in the house wyoming has one
yet wyoming has two senators the same number as california and every other state a pure democrat
would say that's unfair each wyoming resident has far more power than every californian
but a republican would say well we aren't and shouldn't be a pure democracy if we were
large population states like california would overwhelm the needs and interests
of small population states like wyoming that's why we're called the united states of america
each state has its own separate identity holds its own separate elections just as we don't want
one person or small group of people to dominate our government we don't want one state or a few
states to dominate our government a republic is a way of defusing power and a brilliant one at that
we see something similar in the constitution's procedures for choosing a president an obvious
possibility would have been by a national popular vote the founders wisely decided against this
option rather they created an electoral college to protect the interests of the less populous states
even today their decision makes sense as my princeton colleague professor alan gelzo observes
a direct national popular vote would incentivize campaigns to focus almost exclusively on densely
populated urban areas the electoral college system incentivizes candidates to court voters
more broadly making presidential elections more fully national so if we understand the system of
government our founders bequeath to us we will see why they preferred to describe it as a republic
rather than a democracy of course it has strong democratic elements but america was not created
to be a pure democracy for very good reasons those reasons remain as valid today as they were in 1789
we should not go along with those who today are demanding constitutional changes
simply because this or that institution or procedure established by the constitution say the
senate or the electoral college is not democratic more democratic doesn't necessarily mean better
it doesn't necessarily mean more just our founders understood this so should we we have a republic
and we should keep it i'm robert george mccormick professor of jurisprudence
and director of the james madison program at princeton university for prager university this
video was made possible by a generous donation from the william s knight foundation thank you for
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