DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLIC WHICH IS IT?

By Benedict D. LaRosa
Although we hear the term democracy used constantly in reference to our form of government, the word does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States, or two fundamental documents. Indeed, article IV, section 4, of the Constitution "guarantees
to every State in this union a Republican Form of Government." In addition, we sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and pledge allegiance to the flag of "the republic for which it stands."

On the contrary, the founders saw great danger in democracy. Tom Paine, that firebrand of the American Revolution, considered democracy the vilest form of government. In describing the purpose of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph commented:
"The general object was to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin, every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy."

Thirty eight years after the declaration of Independence, john Adams warned:
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide."

John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835 observed:
'Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."

As late as 1928, the "Citizenship" chapter of U.S. War Department training manual TM 2000-25 expressed the opinion: "Democracy . . . has been repeatedly tried without succes. Our Constitutional fathers . . . made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy . . . and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had founded a republic.

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