A Republic and Not a Democracy

“The Founders equated democracy with mob rule. If government is based on the desires of fifty percent of the people plus one, your rights cannot be secure. Your right to vote does not give you the right to violate someone else’s rights. A society in which we have to seek the blessing of the majority every time we wish to exercise our God-given rights is not a free society.” (Douglas F. Newman, Rocky Mountain News, July 21, 1998) But it is also sadly true that, "There is nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it." (Accredited to Dr. William James, recognized as the father of modern psychology) This is the case in America. Our nations life is based on the fact that we have God-given rights and it is governments job to protect them, but it has been repeated and taught too many times and too often that our rights come from the majority and are only products of a benevolent government, but as you read along, we will define in your mind the line that separates us from a democracy and hopefully convince you that America has no such government – but is based on God.

When you look to the flag and think of everything America stands for, what do you think of? I suspect that it is more a feeling than a thought, a feeling of love and patriotism toward your country, and you just think ‘America,’ but what is America, and what causes these feelings? It is freedom, freedom that every person desires and loves. It is freedom that has made this country great, and how is this freedom assured? It is assured because of our republic government, a government founded on natural law. We recognize that fact every time we, “…pledge allegiance to the flag, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God.” It is our Republic that makes us free, and it is our freedom that makes us great, but this poses another question, what is a republic?

To understand the meaning and purpose of a word, it is often helpful to trace it back to its root origins, so that is what we will do. Republic comes from the Latin term rés pūblica, rés meaning thing and pūblica meaning of the people, so republic literally means the thing of the people. A government made up of the thing of the people – but what is ‘the thing of the people’ exactly? – That all depends on the condition of the people. In an ideal republic – and the way ours was established – the people are wise enough to know that so long as a government is established on natural law, it cannot be corrupted or tyrannical, and so in such cases where the public is smart enough and righteous enough to be familiar with the laws of God, their ‘thing’ is law – natural law.

In the way that this, the ‘thing of the people’, is assured to be established is well observed by James Madison. He said, “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking.… The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.” (Federalist Paper No. 10) In a republic, those who make the law are those individuals who are chosen by the people who they think best represent and stand for the principles and laws that they deem best for the nation as a whole, and so, those considered by the people who would do best to make and decide on laws are chosen to do so, not the average majority. Still, those who are elected are chosen by the people, so they embody the condition of the people and their understanding of natural laws.

In order for a republic, the thing of the people, to be established and maintained on natural law and thus be successful, the people need to have a knowledge and conviction that, as Benjamin Franklin puts it, “God governs in the affairs of men.” (The Works of Benjamin Franklin, 1837, pp. 155-56) Furthermore, they not only need to know God’s rules but they need to live them. John Adams said, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (John Adams 1798 - Address to the Military) As Brent DeGraff puts it, “Govern yourself or be governed.” In America, the people are made free by the Constitution and are left to govern themselves with the unbreakable laws of God, and the amount by which they understand and live those laws is the amount of freedom they have.

Along those same lines, James Wilson, a signer of the Constitution and Declaration and an original Justice on the Supreme Court is accredited saying, "Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine....Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other." Church and state, as it would be phrased today, flow into each other much like streams that form a river. They are not detrimental to each other; they need each other. Without a government that secures freedom you cannot fully commit yourself to a religion, and without religion you cannot have a fully free government.

If that’s not proof enough, James Madison said, "We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government -- far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." (James Madison, Russ Walton, Biblical Principles of Importance to Godly Christians [New Hampshire: Plymouth Foundation, 1984], p. 361) “The whole future of American civilization” he said. It’s not trusted to the government to keep us free, it is trusted to our ability to understand and live the laws of God.

Thomas Jefferson, during our countries creation, assured that the following was in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” He also mentioned the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” that are entitled to us. This leads to one logical point, that our government was established on the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and nothing less.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the foundation of the country and look to the people that Jefferson himself – and others – looked to while forming his political and philosophical opinions. One of these individuals, John Locke, said, “…The law of Nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well others. The rules that they make for other men’s actions, must… be conformable to the law of Nature – I.E., to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, and the fundamental law of Nature being the preservation of mankind, no human sanction can be good or valid against it.” (2^nd essay concerning civil Government, Para. 135) Natural law establishes the rules for all men, and anybody making a law has to make it in agreement of these laws; whatever is contrary to it is not legitimate and is harmful because these laws of God are for the preservation of mankind.

Sir William Blackstone, another influence for the founders, said, “Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subjected to the laws of his Creator… This will of his Maker is called the law of nature… no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this… upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say no human laws should be suffered to contradict these… nay, if any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we offend both the natural and the divine.” (Commentaries on the laws of England, vol. I. pp. 41-43) We are subject to God’s laws, natural law. It is our responsibility to disregard any and all human law that isn’t built on this the natural law; if we don’t, it is an offense to God.

Just think about this for a second, “America was a nation of people who had faith in their political and economic systems because they had faith in God, and had built those systems around the teachings of God.” (Fred G. Clark, 16^th General Court, New York, Dec. 19 1951) Not only is it well said, it’s true. This is the epitome of a republic government. The people have faith in their government because they have established it on God’s laws knowing that they cannot fail. Here in America we trusted these laws found in the Constitution and the Declaration. We trusted that they would keep us free because we knew they were supported by God, but now it seems that we put more trust in the government itself – the physical aspect – and let it take care of our every need; we seem to have forgotten God and therefore the very thing that made our people free.

"God, who gave us life, gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are a gift of God?" (In Love with Eloquence, p. 30) A vital question asked by Thomas Jefferson. A question that when answered, by an obvious and resounding no, gives one of the major ideas molded into the foundation of our republican government. If you believe your rights came from government then you will certainly believe that they have the power to take them back from you; when you know that rights are inalienable, you will fight to keep them because you will have a certainty that nobody has the power to take those from you.

The Constitution created a government that was made to protect the minority from the majority, the majority from the minority and everybody’s individual, God given rights altogether, but when everyone forgets what rights they have and where they came from, who is left to define the difference between freedom and slavery? In a republic, the people have to know the laws of God and Nature because, though there are eternal laws, men have the final say on governments in this world, and what distinguishes government systems is what these men decide to establish them on. When people get together to organize, they make laws; as said earlier, the thing of the people is the law. “Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.” (Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Freedom, University of Chicago Press, 1960) When the people form a government around the laws of nature, they know that they are incorruptible and will stand eternal, but when the people choose a government made of the popular sentiment of men, the majority – a democracy, it is just as corruptible as the individual people that set the rules and make the calls which makes it very vulnerable to the flaws that are inherent in people who have power and are left to their own doing.

I’ve heard something to the extent of a democracy described as three wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner, but in a republic, it’s illegal to vote on what’s for dinner and the sheep are heavily armed. The word democracy comes from the Greek word Démokratía literally meaning a popular government, and through experience, how many people can honestly say that a popular trend has been a very worthwhile, fulfilling endeavor to go along with? – A humorous question but also a good point. I believe that is the reason James Madison said, “Hence it is that such democracies 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,” (Federalist Paper No. 10). Democracies are not limited by any sort of logic or rule; the people aren’t trying to find truth in its purest form – if any form at all; they are just fighting to get more people to follow them than are following the other guy. If you can get the majority to think something, it is the law no matter how oppressed the minority may become or how absurd it may seem.

It’s been mentioned several times already, but it’s probably the biggest factor of a free nation and deserves the most attention. A nation needs to know and live the laws of God in order to be truly free. I think of all the questions I hear in philosophical, political environments that nobody can seem to find a good answer to such as this: “If my religion requires me to vandalize property, should I be protected under the first amendment still? After all, it is my religion.” There is no way to draw a line there and protect both religion and property. Furthermore, who would draw the line? There are no good answers to these questions because it is an attempt to make a people free who can’t handle freedom. They cannot “govern themselves,” so they must “be governed.” You can’t be free if all you are going to do with that freedom is encroach on somebody else’s freedoms – their life, liberty or property. “God’s power cannot be used to defeat God’s purpose,” is how H. Verlan Anderson puts it (Many are Called but few are Chosen p. 18).

"Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question." Thomas Jefferson (1st Inaugural Address) Just another well put reason to not put trust in a democracy. I personally would feel infinitely better knowing I’m being governed by laws instead of men – some of which can’t even govern their own lives.

Only by God’s volition did our rights follow after our creation into our existence, men never can and won’t ever will rights and privileges into their lives or tamper with the ones they have; we didn’t create ourselves and thus we cannot endow rights and powers upon ourselves, only our creator can. In that same line of thinking, our rights cannot be taken away by men except in a way that God has approved. We cannot freely give or take – as if it were our own – that which we did not create, that which is not ours alone but everyone’s equally.

But of course, how can people know they are justly governing themselves – let alone justly governing others? How can we know what is the right and wrong choice to our questions regarding our rights? The simple answer is that we must learn from religion to know. “Statesmen my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand….The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.” (John Adams, 1776 - letter to Zabdiel Adams)

If a government aims to preserve our God given freedom, it needs to be framed around laws established by God, basic laws like the Golden Rule. These laws apply whether you have three people trying to live in a civilized state or three million; these laws are simple, basic and they always apply. These inherent laws exist to punish or reward us according to our choices in relation to them, and without the help of any earthly government, we will naturally receive our punishment or reward for choices made. “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated – And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (Doctrine and Covenants, 130:20-21) Rewards and punishments can only come about by breaking or obeying rules and laws. Any government that is constructed on any basis that is more or less than this is merely a group of men agreeing to assist each other in avoiding the natural consequences of choices made.

“Power and law are not synonymous. In truth they are frequently in opposition and irreconcilable. There is God’s law from which all equitable laws of man emerge and by which men must live if they are not to die in oppression, chaos and despair. Divorced from God’s eternal and immutable Law, established before the founding of the suns, man’s power is evil no matter the noble words with which it is employed or the motives urged when enforcing it. Men of good will, mindful therefore of the Law laid down by God, will oppose governments whose rule is by men, and, if they wish to survive as a nation they will destroy that government which attempts to adjudicate by the whim or power of venal judges.” (Cicero, quoted in A Pillar of Iron’ p. ix) A couple thousand years ago this was said, but it sounds a lot like something written in the Declaration just a couple hundred years ago. Jefferson said, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [protecting our God given rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on…principles…. it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off [despotic] Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

What system of government has this nation been blessed with? What gave this nation the ability to become, in unprecedented time, the most prosperous, free nation on earth? Principles and eternal laws are what did it. A republic is our legacy, and with God’s help I pray that it will be our future. “At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished, asked him directly: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" "A republic if you can keep it," responded Franklin.” (Statement of Hon. Ron Paul of Texas, Jan. 31 and Feb 2, 2000) Hopefully you now know what our nation was in the beginning and thus what it requires to “keep it,” and hopefully you will do what you can to teach others to know. I close with the encouraging words of Edward Everett Hale when he said, “I am only one, but I am one. I can’t do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, that I ought to do, and what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I shall do!”