A republic, if you can keep it
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
So begins a document that changed the course of history. Our Constitution lays the framework for our system of government, enumerating the powers vested in the legislative, judicial and executive branches. The separation of powers is meant to ensure a just and fair government in which no one branch becomes too powerful, and each of the branches provides checks and balances for the others. Moreover, the Constitution sets up a government in which the power lawmakers hold comes only “from the consent of the governed.”
On Sunday, we celebrated Constitution Day, recognizing that historic day 236 years ago on which 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, representing 12 states (all but Rhode Island, which declined to send delegates), signed the Constitution. After four months of deliberation, the signing took place Sept. 17, 1787, at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Penn. Next came the ratification process, which concluded when the final state, Rhode Island, ratified it on May 29, 1790.
Much has changed since those pivotal moments centuries ago. We added more states to the Union and added 27 amendments to the Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, spelling out the rights we have as American citizens. As a nation, we have weathered crises and wars, including a Civil War. However, our foundational document and its guiding principles have remained the same.
Those principles include liberty, justice, individual rights, equality under the law and due process of law – principles borne out of underlying political philosophies, including federalism and republicanism.
One basic definition of federalism is “a mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its own integrity” (Encylopaedia Britannica). Federal systems allow for the individual members to have a say in making decisions that affect the entire country – for example, electing the president – while retaining the power to make their own decisions on issues of local concern. As an example, we saw federalism play out in last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, which returned the issue of abortion to the states.
The diffusion of power in a federal system of government is meant to ensure that the national government doesn’t get too powerful – of course, that’s assuming that the national government doesn’t contain a bunch of three-letter agencies full of unelected officials that create policies affecting a wide range of issues in Americans’ lives and generally don’t have to answer to the American people. But, setting that aside, the principle is supposed to be that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (Amendment 10 of the Constitution).
Having touched on federalism, let’s examine republicanism. Over the years, there has been much debate over whether we are truly a republic or a democracy. Although the argument can be made for both, it would probably be most accurate to say we are a constitutional republic with democratic representation.
A simple definition of democracy is “a system of government in which the power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or through freely elected representatives.” A democracy emphasizes the rule of the majority, with minorities having few protections against the will of the majority.
Our country is a representative democracy in the sense that the people elect officials to represent them and make laws. However, “constitutional republic” is the more apt descriptor because the laws that are made have to be kept within the bounds of the Constitution. In a constitutional republic, the constitution protects the individual’s rights from the will of the majority.
The U.S. Embassy in Argentina’s website describes it this way: “While often categorized as a democracy, the United States is more accurately defined as a constitutional federal republic. What does this mean? ‘Constitutional’ refers to the fact that government in the United States is based on a Constitution which is the supreme law of the United States. The Constitution not only provides the framework for how the federal and state governments are structured, but also places significant limits on their powers. ‘Federal’ means that there is both a national government and governments of the 50 states. A ‘republic’ is a form of government in which the people hold power, but elect representatives to exercise that power.”
So by the U.S. government’s own admission, we are a republic.
The Constitution itself also references a republic, stating “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” (Article IV, Section 4).
The Founders set up a system of government in which citizens were protected from tyranny of the majority – or the minority, as in a dictatorship – and they carefully spelled it all out in our Constitution.
However, understanding our Constitution and abiding by it are two different things. As Constitutional Convention delegate from Maryland James McHenry recorded in a journal about the last day of the convention, a lady reportedly asked Dr. Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got – a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic,” replied Franklin, “if you can keep it.”
Striking a
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