Republicanism refers to the principles or theory of the republican form of government. It can also mean the principles, practices, or policies of the Republican Party of the United States, but that is not the meaning which will be discussed herein.
When American colonists won independence from the British, the Founding leaders deliberately set about to establish a form of government that would address the deficiencies found in other forms of government and to curb the excesses thereof. After considerable thought, debate, and deliberation, they chose to become a democratic republic. “Republic” refers to public concerns, that is, the general welfare of the public expressed in political terms. A democratic republic is not a totalitarian democracy controlled by one or a few or a direct democracy which is absolutely controlled by the populace.[1] Because the Founders had experienced the excesses of a capricious and excessive use of power by their former rulers, they were particularly interested in a form of government that would limit the use of power by its various components. This limitation was accomplished by a relatively complex system of checks and balances on each component of government at the federal level (Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary) and balancing the needs of a national government with the rights of its member states in their areas of self-governance.
The America form of government was to be a constitutional democracy based on laws as opposed to an absolute democracy based on the direct will of the people. The intricacies and workings of the Americans’ republican form of government are spelled out in the Constitution and Amendments thereto. Russell Kirk in his brilliant description of the American Republic wrote that the Constitution guiding the American political state is but an expression of the “…laws, customs, habits, and popular beliefs that existed before the Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia.” These laws, customs, habits, and beliefs were derived from and molded by their political experience under colonial rule, the legacy of English law, efforts at governance under the Articles of Confederation, and perhaps most important the general consensus regarding certain moral and social concerns.[2] These moral and social concerns were substantially formed by a Judeo-Christian view of the world and how it worked.
In every age and people group men desire two things: freedom and order. These are inherently conflicting needs which are found within the operation of governments as well as in the personal affairs of men. The task of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention was to create a government which would harness these conflicting needs.
The Convention delegates had a great aversion to direct democracies which they saw as resting on the shifting sands of feelings and passions of the moment. Instead they chose the firm foundation of a democratic republic built upon laws created by elected representatives.
With unambiguous language, the Convention delegates and other Founders expressed their deep distrust of direct democracy. The following examples were assembled by David Barton in “Republic v. Democracy.”[3]
[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. [James Madison]
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]
A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way…The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness (excessive license) which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty. [Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment]
We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism…Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt. [Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution]
[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived. [John Quincy Adams]
A simple democracy…is one of the greatest of evils. [Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration]
In democracy…there are commonly tumults and disorders…Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth. [Noah Webster]
Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state; it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage. [John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration]
It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion. [Zephaniah Swift, Author of America’s First Legal Text]
Unfortunately, many Americans today seem to be unable to distinguish the significant differences between a republic and a democracy. The principal difference is found in the source of authority to which each defers. A pure democracy operates by a majority vote and reflects the immediate will of the majority whereas a republic operates under the rule of law. The first reflects the majority of popular feelings of the moment (sometimes called a “mobocracy” by the Founders) and the second rests on the laws discussed and passed after thoughtful deliberation by the elected representatives of the people. In a republic, a constitution protects certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken away by the government even it was elected by a majority of voters. In a direct or pure or direct democracy, the majority is not restrained and can force its will on the minority.
However, it would be wrong to suppose that all laws passed by a republican form of government are just. There is one additional requirement necessary to create an enduring republic attentive to the general welfare of the people. The laws passed by a republic’s elected representatives are only as good as the sources upon which they based the laws. Here we transcend into the realm of truth, and it is the conflict about what constitutes truth that we find the root cause of the culture wars in modern America. The importance of this issue is of the first magnitude for laws based on untruths and false views of the world and the nature of man will eventually cause any system of government to fail including both republics and democracies.
John Adams was just one of many Founders and first generation of Americans who identified the singular source of truth for the principles of civil government.
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity…From the day of the Declaration…they (the American people), were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of their Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of conduct.[4] [emphasis added]
Likewise, Noah Webster unequivocally identified the source of truth for the republican principles upon which the nation was founded.
The brief exposition of the constitution of the United States will unfold to young persons the principles of republican government; and it is the sincere desire of the writer that our citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.[5] [emphasis added]
However, the acid of Enlightenment egalitarianism promoted by a liberal, progressive, relativistic, materialist society is ever eating away Adams’ indissoluble bond between the principles of civil government and the principles of Christianity.
One such acid promoted by the liberals is the notion that the Constitution is a “living document.” Beginning in the early twentieth century, liberals contended that the Constitution must be modified or bent to address the modern age and problems never foreseen by the Founders. If, as liberals believe, the Constitution is a living document, then its meaning and intent is pliable which allows it to become an instrument for enlightened social change to meet the needs of the hour.
A second liberal acid that threatens republican principles is decades of significant judicial activism by liberal judges usurping the role of the legislature by making law as opposed to a thoughtful judicial interpretation of the law in light of the plain language of the Constitution. Such judicial law making tosses aside republican principles of creating law by elected representatives in favor of laws made by unelected and unaccountable judges to further the goals of an elite cadre of social engineers who “know best” what’s good for America.
A third acid that undermines republican principles is an abusive and adversarial bureaucracy largely insulated and unaccountable to the legislative bodies. Regulatory oversight is a necessary and proper function of government. However, under the expansive interpretation of the Constitution’s general welfare clause beginning in 1936, much of regulatory oversight has become an autocratic function of a nanny-state bureaucracy intruding into the lives of a free people capable of making rational decisions without government interference.[6]
In summary, republican principles of government as implanted in the Constitution by the Founders have been muted, ignored, or misinterpreted by liberal maneuverings and intrigues. We have become a nation guided by feelings relative only to the moment. Therefore, human nature, through its passions, appetites, and desires of the moment, is released from the prescriptions of history, custom, convention, and tradition. This was not the intent of the Founders. Their true intent mirrored the beliefs of Thomas Jefferson who Sherwood Eddy described as being one who “… stood for a strict interpretation of the conservative Constitution to prevent ever-threatened encroachments upon the rights of the people, the legislature, and the states.”[7] In other words, Jefferson was an “originalist” and would have only contempt for the concept of a “living Constitution.”
Because of the unrelenting assault on the biblical worldview for three generations and a lack of truthful teaching in our schools about America’s founding republican principles, America is seeing a shift by a growing segment of its citizens to a humanistic worldview devoid of belief in a transcendent God, objective truth, and the fallen nature of man. The consequences of such a shift in the America cultural vision were foreseen by our Founding fathers.
The only foundation for…a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.[8] [Benjamin Rush – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, attendee at the Continental Congress, physician and first Surgeon General]
Without morals, a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.[9] [Charles Carroll – Signor of the Declaration of Independence, lawyer, member of the Continental Congress and first U.S. Senate]
We have no government armed in power capable of contending in human passions unbridled by morality and religion…Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.[10] [John Adams – One of the drafters and a signor of the Declaration of Independence, 2nd President of the United States]
In summary, the Constitution won’t save America if its citizens abandon republican principles of government which must be inseparably entwined with virtue, morality, and Christian principles. Such abandonment leaves the Constitution powerless to guide the nation as it enters the turbulent waters of the humanistic moral relativism of Enlightenment egalitarianism. And the ultimate consequence of this abandonment is a loss of liberty.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1991), p. 415.
[2] Ibid., p. 416.
[3] David Barton, “Republic v. Democracy,” Wallbuilders.com. January 2001.
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=111 (accessed December 13, 2016).
[4] William J. Federer, America’s God and Country, (Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1996, 1994), p. 18.
[5] Ibid., p. 678.
[6] Larry G. Johnson, “The fragility of free speech in America,” culturewarrior.net, March 21, 2014. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2014/03/21/the-fragility-of-free-speech-in-america/
[7] Sherwood Eddy, The Kingdom of God and the American Dream, (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1941), p. 124
[8] Benjamin Rush, Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical, (Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F. Bradford, 1798), 93. Online source: http://fromthisconservativesviewpoint.blogspot.Com /2013/01/the-only-foundation-for-republic.html (accessed May 9, 2013).
[9] “Letter of Charles Carroll to James McHenry,” dated November 4, 1800. Bernard C. Steiner, The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers, 1907, 475.
Online source: Quoted by Dave Miller, Ph.D., Apologetics Press. http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=7&article=1508 (accessed May 9, 2013).
[10] Federer, America’s God and Country, pp. 10-11.
