The Constitution and Democracy: Truth and Half-Truth

And now for probably the most controversial topic of all: The Constitution and the issue of democracy.  I will begin by addressing a common misconception about the Founding Fathers (or, more accurately, the founding generation) held by admirers and detractors alike -- that they saw democracy as a thing to be dreaded and favored a republic instead.  This view is held by their detractors, as evidence that they were elitist, and by admirers, who think our championship of democracy today is a mistake (and who like a snappy comeback when someone  links democracy with views they dislike).

This view is not so much false as oversimplified and half-true.  It assumes that in the 18th Century the terms "republic" and "democracy" had generally accepted meanings that everyone agreed on, and that confusion in terms is a recent phenomenon.  But such abstract concepts were as ill-defined in the 18th Century as they are today. The best known distinction is probably from Madison in Federalist 14, in which he comments that the forms are often confounded (i.e., many of his contemporaries did not make a clear distinction between them), but that the difference was "in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents."  He further makes clear that representation was not unknown in the democracies of ancient times.  And he emphatically states that the distinction between a democracy and and republic is not the presence of representation, but the absence of direct popular participation:

[I]t is clear that the principle of representation was neither unknown to the ancients nor wholly overlooked in their political constitutions. The true distinction between these and the American governments, lies IN THE TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE PEOPLE, IN THEIR COLLECTIVE CAPACITY, from any share in the LATTER, and not in the TOTAL EXCLUSION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE from the administration of the FORMER.

Yet at the same time, he considered both democracy and republic to be forms of "popular government."  And he favored "popular government," regarding any "aristocratic or monarchial innovations" as incompatible with a republic.

So, is that the distinction between a republic and a democracy, as understood in the 18th Century? Not exactly.  That is the difference as Madison understood them.  Not everyone agreed.  John Adams, for instance, (alas, cannot find link) defined a republic as any form of government with a separation of powers into executive, legislative and judicial.  Thus he believed that an aristocracy or even limited monarchy (including contemporary England) could be a "republic."  He defined democracy as concentration of all power into a single legislative body, a system he regarded as dangerously unstable.  (Latter day parliamentary governments have proven him wrong).

And, as Madison complained in Federalist 14, plenty of people at the time used the terms interchangeably.  Consider John Lansing, who, like Madison, kept notes at the Convention (though less detailed, and he was absent much of the time).  Madison quotes Hamilton as saying, "As to the Executive, it seemed to be admitted that no good one could be established on Republican principles." Lansing, by contrast, quotes him as saying, "It is admitted that you cannot have a good executive upon a democratic plan."  Which did he actually say?  Since no one back then could pull out a cell phone and record his exact words, we will never know.  But it is significant that the terms were closely enough linked that Madison could use one and Lansing the other.

Finally, as noted before, the strongest ideological influence on the Framers was Baron de Montesquieu, who first set forth the theory that the foundation of liberty is the separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers.  Montesquieu divided government into three types, a monarchy, in which a single ruler governs by law; a despotism in which a single ruler governs arbitrarily; and a republic, in which some or all of the citizens rule.  He further sub-divided republics into direct and representative (i.e., the citizens govern directly versus through elected representatives) and democratic and aristocratic (i.e., by the citizens at large, or by a narrow group).  Montesquieu regarded freedom as compatible with monarchy or aristocracy, but not with despotism.  Many of the Founders agreed that liberty was compatible with aristocracy.  But none (not even Hamilton) wanted an aristocracy here.  By Montesquieu's taxonomy, there was an overwhelming consensus in favor of a democratic, representative republic.  To favor anything else was to place oneself outside of all respectable discourse.

Unfortunately, "democratic, representative republic," although the most accurate description of what the Founders wanted, is too long and awkward to use most of the time.  "Democratic republic," though not as bad as "people's republic," has been misused by Communists often enough to give it unfortunate associations that, of course, would be completely anachronistic in 1787.  "Popular government" is a fair approximation, but even that is clunky compared to democracy.  So I will go ahead and use democracy as a synonym for "popular government" or "democratic, representative republic," and damn the purists.