IV
107TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 48
Expressing the sense of the Congress in reaffirming the United States of
America as a republic.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 6, 2001
Mr. PAUL submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred
to the Committee on the Judiciary
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Congress in reaffirming the
United States of America as a republic.
Whereas the form of government secured by the Declaration
of Independence, the American Revolution, and the Con-
stitution of the United States is a republic—not a democ-
racy;
Whereas the Nation’s founders understood that pure ‘‘democ-
racies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and conten-
tion; have ever been found incompatible with personal se-
curity or the rights of property; and have in general been
as short in their lives as they have been violent in their
deaths’’ (Federalist No. 10);
Whereas throughout the 224-year history of the United
States as an independent and sovereign nation, the peo-
•HCON 48 IH
ple of the United States have never exercised power as
a democracy;
Whereas the people of the United States have always acted
by and through the Federal Union of the several States,
electing Members of Congress from each of the several
States and the President and Vice President by electoral
votes proportioned to the number of Members of Con-
gress representing each State;
Whereas in the 2000 election for choosing electors for Presi-
dent and Vice President, it appears that the President-
elect and Vice President-elect have won a majority of the
State electoral vote, but not a plurality of the nationwide
popular vote;
Whereas the prospect of electing to office a President and
Vice President who did not win the largest number of
popular votes has generated proposals calling for a con-
stitutional amendment to provide for the direct popular
election of the President and Vice President;
Whereas such a national popular election for President and
Vice President disregards the constitutional integrity and
inviolability of the 50 States as independent and sov-
ereign governments;
Whereas in their foresight and wisdom, the people of the
United States, meeting by representation in State con-
ventions, adopted a national Constitution preserving the
independence and equal standing of the 50 States;
Whereas the Federal system of equal and independent States
is an essential safeguard against shifting wills of the ma-
jority overriding the unchanging rights of the minority;
Whereas to preserve the rights of the minority from a tyr-
anny of the majority, the Constitution of the United
•HCON 48 IH
States struck a principled balance between the people of
the most populous States and the people of the least pop-
ulous States;
Whereas to that end, the Constitution of the United States
provides that the legislatures of each of the several
States, without interference from Congress or any other
branch of the Federal Government or State governments,
determine the manner of election of the President and
the Vice President by State electors from each State;
Whereas the number of electors is distributed in accordance
with each State’s representation in the House of Rep-
resentatives and in accordance with each State’s equal
standing in the Senate, not by a direct nationwide elec-
tion in accordance with population alone;
Whereas the constitutionally prescribed system in the 2000
election for choosing electors for President and Vice
President continues to function as originally designed,
protecting minority and States’ rights from the exercise
of majority power; and
Whereas the electoral college system thereby preserves the di-
versity of the American people and maintains the United
States as a Federal republic—not as a democracy: Now,
therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That it is the sense of the Congress that the
United States is not a democracy—but a republic—and
that the present constitutionally prescribed means by
which the President and Vice President are selected State
by State is essential to preserving the diversity of the citi-
zenry of the United States and to maintaining the United
•HCON 48 IH
States as a Federal republic composed of independent and
sovereign States.
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