10-14-2020, 07:34 PM
(10-14-2020, 07:31 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: It's a silly argument you hear a lot, and one which, in attempt to cling to the founding fathers, ignores what they actually wrote on the terms "democracy" and "republic".
Madison refers to a republic as "a government in which the scheme of representation takes place" (Federalist no. 10) "a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior... It is sufficient for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified" (Federalist no. 39). This is what most people in 2020 consider to be a representative democracy.
He refers to democracy as "pure democracy" and being a government with only a few citizens who all vote on all issues (our modern term being "direct democracy")
Other founding fathers saw no need to distinguish between Democracy and Republic, noting that a "pure democracy" didn't exist anywhere and couldn't exist anywhere. Our longest serving Chief Justice, John Marshall, said that the Constitution created a "well regulated Democracy" with safeguards for our "representative government".
Indeed. Referring to it as a democracy or a republic are both correct and acceptable. The correct term would be a democratic republic, but any argument with any of the three is really a semantic parsing of hairs.
