From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: Democracy or Republic ?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 06:12:34 GMT

In article <BxFK6x.7Cn@rice.edu> byrd@lucerne.rice.edu (Marc J Byrd) writes:
>Do we in the United States have a democracy or a republic?

A republic. 

>Are these reasonable definitions of each?
>   Democracy:  1 person = 1 vote
>   Republic:   1 Educated, Informed, Intelligent person = 1 vote
>                 (== elector)

No. A democracy would also imply popular votes on _all_ important
issues (E.g. everything of substance passed by referendum.) The
elected officials would be limited to filling in the details
and carrying out policies, rather than making policy.

A republic is any other form of government, to which the people 
consent and which regularly holds elections to determin the 
wishes of the people and (in theory) responds to those wishes.

The issue you are considering, voted qualification, is common to 
both democracies and republics. For example, a 5-year-old isn't
a qualified voter in either an democracy or a republic. The goal
(in my opinion) would be for all concerned and informed citizens
to have the franchise, and no one else. In practice, any limits 
will include some ill-informed and apathetic voters and exclude
some informed, concerned citizens. How to best realize this goal
and which direction is best to err in, is a whole debate in itself.

>Wasn't there a big stink in the late nineteenth century about
>passing some test as a precondition for voting?  

Actually, that was a big stink in the 1950s. They are still, to 
this day legal. The problem was abusive enforcement of the
test: Blacks were given tests that a PhD couldn't pass, while
whites were given a test a 3rd grader wouldn't have trouble with.
Under Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress is empowered
to ban literacy tests _if_ they are applied in a racially discriminatory
manner. While a nondiscriminatory literacy test is technically
legal, the current federal laws on the subject are very strict: A
state wanting to enact a literacy test would have an almost impossible
job proving that the test was race-neutral.

>I think this idea was carried over into the congress.  Does a
>representative represent?  Or does he/she/it vote their concience?
>You would think the founders intended them to represent, as reflected
>by the title they gave them.  

It's worth considering what the framers _rejected_: The First Amendment
as ratified, protects the people's right to "petition the Government
for redress of grievances." However, the original, rejected version
would have allowed the people to "instruct their Representatives."
That is, determin the public will by some means (referendum, act of
state legislature, etc...) and _order_ their federal Representative to
vote in a certain way. This was rejected, on the grounds that the 
Representatives should not be completely bound by popular will: They 
might have acess to more detailed information, be thinking of 
related issues the people weren't aware of, etc... If they don't
do a good job of representing the people, they would be voted
out of office within two years. In theory, this was supposed to
be enough to keep the Representatives faithful to their 
constituants. Personally, I think it would work much better with
smaller congressional districts, term limits and (perhaps)
one-year terms of office.

                                              Frank Crary
                                              CU Boulder

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