The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1940-12-05
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1910
DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLIC?

Some discussion has been current
recently among writers of columns
and pamphlets as to whether the
United States, properly speaking, is a
democracy or a republic.
The point is well made that as to
constitutional form the Government
established with the Inauguration of
Washington in 1889 is in fact a Repub-
lie. The Constitution guarantees not
a democratic" but republican form
of Government" to the States. Does
that signify that it cannot be or is not
also democracy?
The departure from monarchy was
long, bold step in the eighteenth
century, and some members of the
Constitutional Convention We're famil-
lar, moreover, with the history OF
shortcomings and decay of popular
rule in ancient Rome.
They, for the most part, had great
misgivings about sheer democracy
and had no intention of establishing
mob rule in America. They took care
to construct a representative govern
ment in which men of the greatest
talents might be chosen to dispatch
the duties of statecraft. Direct election
was scarcely even considered with ref
erence to the Presidency, and the suf-
frage by which Representatives were
to be elected to the lower house of
Congress was then limited in many
States by property qualifications.
Gradually the franchise was broad
ened. Manhood suffrage came, then
woman suffrage, and in the meantime
direct election of Senators-which
seems something of a mixed blessing.
The seed Of much talk about popular
rights had been planted in some of the
pamphleteering which fed the Revo-
luton. With growing characterization
of the young Nation came awareness
that education must become a public
function as a preparedness Of the cleo
torate.
1t is true in the art of government
as in making a bench, repairing a ra-
dio, or running a business or home
that training, aptitude, and a sense Of
responsibility make for better work
manship and wiser, truer decisions.
Hence the idea that officials should be
picked representatives of distinctive
ability has its validity.
Yet no true American would want
the Government to devolve into an
oligarchy Of officialdom or into a
privileged economical aristocracy,
even while remaining a republic in
form.
Hence not alone the form but also
the attitude, the habits, the spirit
which characterize and animate a
government or it's people become vi
tally important, too. That essence Of
the regard of a free people for their
government has come to be described
as democracy. 1t means equality be-
fore the law, freedom of opportunity
and absence of social castles.
1t is not alone to form of govern
ment but also to this essence, to de-
mocracy, that men appeal when the
Nation is to be rallied to defend itself
against the opposite, dictatorship.
Other Nations, notably Britain, have
monarchies under which the mode of
living is essentially democratic. Some
have had democratic, popular or even
proletarian governments which in
practice became despotisms.
There are constitutional or limited
monarchies, there are dictator-ridden
republics, there are benevolent or
tyrranical autocracies. Surely the
United States can maintain such a
compatible combination as a demo-
cratic-Republic.