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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