"The Birth Of American Republicanism"

The capitol building exalted classical republican virtues

Republicanism is the value system of governance that has been a major part of American civic thought since the American Revolution. It stresses liberty and rights as central values, makes the people as a whole sovereign, rejects aristocracy and inherited political power, expects citizens to be independent and calls on them to perform civic duties, and is strongly opposed to corruption. American Republicanism was founded and first practiced by the Founding Fathers in the 18th century. This system was based on early Roman and English models and ideas. It formed the basis for the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787), as well as critical statements from Abraham Lincoln and other Statesmen. It is not the same as democracy, for republicanism asserts that people have inalienable rights that cannot be voted away by a majority of voters. In a government made up as a Constitutional Republic, the Rule of Law and clearly defined constitutional principles dictate the actual administration of government.

The "Founding Fathers" were strong advocates of republican values, especially Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton.[6]

Thomas Jefferson defined a republic as:

The Founding Fathers discoursed endlessly on the meaning of "republicanism." John Adams in 1787 defined it as "a government, in which all men, rich and poor, magistrates and subjects, officers and people, masters and servants, the first citizen and the last, are equally subject to the laws."

The Founding Fathers wanted republicanism because its principles guaranteed liberty, with opposing, limited powers offsetting one another. They thought change should occur slowly, as many were afraid that a "democracy"- by which they meant a direct democracy- would allow a majority of voters at any time to trample rights and liberties in the "heat of a moment". They believed the most formidable of these potential majorities was that of the poor against the rich. They thought democracy could take the form of mob rule that could be shaped on the spot by a demagogue. Therefore they devised a written Constitution which could only be amended by a super majority, preserved competing sovereignties in the constituent states, gave the control of the upper house (Senate) to the states, and created an Electoral College, comprising a small number of elites, to select the president. They set up a House of Representative to represent the people. In practice the electoral college soon gave way to control by political parties. In 1776 most states required property ownership to vote, but most citizens owned farms in the 90% rural nation, it was not a severe restriction. As the country urbanized and people took on different work, the property ownership requirement was gradually dropped by many states.

A central theme of the Progressive era was fear of corruption, one of the core ideas of republicanism since the 1770s. The Progressives restructured the political system to defeat corrupt bosses (for example, by the direct election of Senators), to remove corrupt influence like saloons (through prohibition) and bringing in new, purer voters (woman suffrage).). Debate erupted in 1917 over Woodrow Wilson's proposal to draft men for the U.S. Army. Many said it violated the republican notion of freely given civic duty to force people to serve. The solution was to set it up so that each draftee voluntarily "stepped forward" to perform his civic duty.

The term republic does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, but does appear in Article IV of the Constitution which "guarantee[s] to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government."

The American Form Of Government

    Most Americans today will be celebrating the birth of our nation and the government we call American democracy, not realizing that what was born on July 4, 1776, was not a democracy but a Republic. A democracy is rule by the majority, an oligarchy is rule by one, but a Republic is rule by laws and principles. The Founding Fathers, many of whom were racist rich land and slave owners,  nonetheless didn't want the "tyranny of one" (such as a king) nor the "tyranny of the majority" (such as anarchy) but the "rule of law". The Founding Fathers didn't want the rights of the poor or the rich to be violated. The Founding Fathers wanted a nation where every citizen was guaranteed civil liberties, civil rights and  civic duties. A government that was grounded in a Constitution and a representative democracy exercised within the parameters of that Constitution would be what they conceived of as the American Republic. Today that American Republic still stands after 232 years, despite the deterioration of the Constitution the last eight years under the neoconservative "Big Government" Bush Administration. In my opinion, the salvation of the American Republic is clinging to and fighting for the civil liberties, rights and duties of American citizens under the limited government called for by the Constitution. God bless the Republic of these United States of America.

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