DIRT founder position U.S. founded as a republic rule of law applies



Dare Inquire Representatives Truth


UNITED STATES WAS FOUNDED

As a republic.

The United States was founded as a republic, not a "representative" democracy.



SPECIAL FEATURE:

IDENTIFYING THE WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERTS, CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS, SCHOLARS, JOURNALISTS AND EDITORS WHO CONTINUALLY REFER TO THE UNITED STATES AS A DEMOCRACY, RATHER THAN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COMPLEX REPUBLIC THAT IT REMAINS AS FRAMED BY THE DELEGATES TO THE FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

I feel that I must start by saying this:

When your own search for the truth produces the truth, you will be that much more accepting of the truth, even when that truth proves you wrong, or incorrect, or misguided from other sources, sources that you trust to know the truth.

This site contains my personal assessment that the United States is a republic, not a representative democracy. You may come up with a different assessment after reading any number of scholarly works. Please write to me of your findings.

Some of you might wonder why it's even an issue, or worthy of debate or why people such as myself draw back attentively each and every time we hear the United States referred to as a democracy.

I can only explain for myself:

I believe there is danger in misusing the terminology democracy when referring to the United States. Those who use the term and are corrected usually reply that we are not a direct democracy where the mob rules. They retort that the U.S. is a representative democracy. (Resource: Gregory S. Ahern [From HUMANITAS, Volume XI, No. 2, 1998 © National Humanities Institute, Washington, DC USA] Footnote No. 34 "For an account of the difference between representative democracy, as envisioned by the Framers, and the plebiscitary democracy against which Fabius warns his readers, see...")

The Framers went much further than merely warning readers in the FEDERALIST PAPERS. The Framers of the new Constitution simply did not devise any type of democracy. The term representative democracy is an oxymoron. You can't maintain both a democracy and a representative form of government - a republic - at the same time.

I think the term democracy lulls people into believing that everything is okay because we are a democracy, a democracy provides "equality," so everything is okay because everyone in a democracy must be provided with equality. Throw in a few elected representatives who follow the wishes and desires of the people, usually those who scream the loudest, even though they may be in the minority viewpoint or position, and everything is even more than okay, it's just peachy.

After all, in a democracy, the "majority will" rules. So whatever the majority determines, even by one single vote, must be right, must be correct, must be constitutional, must provide equality.



That is the danger. The danger is the that the majority will rule by making the rules that best serve the majority, under a democracy. Whereas, there is no escaping the fact that within a republic there is much work for us, for we the people, still.


The rule of law and what is constitutional is what each citizen WITHIN A REPUBLIC must guard.

In 1788 a group of real statesmen of great physical vigor, mental acumen, through knowledge, practical wisdom, far-sighted vision and moral courage, assembled in Philadelphia and after months of discussion and deliberation produced the Constitution which provided for the republic of the United States."

This simple statement from Harry F. Atwood's 1918 book
BACK TO THE REPUBLIC THE GOLDEN MEAN: THE STANDARD FORM OF GOVERNMENT


should have settled the question of whether the United States is a republic or a democracy for students, scholars, editorial writers, journalists, pundits, legislators, all elected officials, history buffs, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, AND LAWYERS AND ATTORNEYS.

It hasn't.

An April 7, 2000 Daily Courier Editorial concerning the low voter turn-out for the Pennsylvania Primary Elections in the Fay-West area, goes so far as to claim that the Founding Fathers devised a democracy.

"But competition on the ballot brings a healthy discussion of the issues to the table.

This is what is needed to ensure that democracy as designed by our forefathers is carried out."

On March 19, 2000, Patrick J. Buchanan, who seeks to be the nominee of the Reform Party for the office of President, stated during a press conference broadcast on C-Span:

"We're rule by the majority."

"We're a democracy."

I know, I couldn't believe my ears, either. Obtain the transcript for verification.

And Pat Buchanan, who wrote a book entitled: A REPUBLIC, NOT AN EMPIRE, which became controversial for its commentary about Hitler, continues goo-ing around wanting a national referendum, to apply a "pure democracy to certain national issues like abortion, taxation, and the death penalty," though he's a "supporter of our great republic." (Hardball with substitute host Jack Kemp March 29, 2000.)

I am still reeling from Buchanan's statements to Kemp. Just unacceptable, unfortunately.

On This Week with Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson on April 2, 2000, George Will queried:

Is it good for our democracy to send the boy (Elian Gonzalez) back to Cuba?

During the Andrea Mitchell Report on April 13, 2000, Congressman Patrick Leahy, referring to the Elian Gonzalez situation and referring to what the father (Juan) had allegedly said: "You say you're a country of laws, a democracy. Why can't you enforce the laws?"

"All of the history books around the world tell us a republic is a representative democracy," stated Matthew Glavin on Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's Honsberger Live television broadcast April 2, 2000.

Honz's guest Matthew J. Glavin, President Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) at one point, casually referred to the United States as a republic, then, while making another point about the SLF lawsuit concerning the Census, he referred to the United States as a representative democracy.

I was able to get through to Honzman to alert Honz's listeners to the misstatement I felt was made by Mr. Glavin when he referred to the United States as a democracy. During the segment, Mr. Glavin gave us some keen insights and updates on the Legal Foundation's role in its effort to have the government follow the rule of law concerning the Census.

While listening, I was truly puzzled. I couldn't grasp the reason that an obviously intelligent man with many impressive credits nationwide would in one breath refer to the United States as a republic, and in the next breath refer to the United States as a democracy.

As soon as I heard that, I called into Honsberger Live, and was able to get through immediately. Read the transcript.

The full exchange is interesting, since after I identified myself and corrected Mr. Glavin, Glavin's position seemed to become even more adamant. He said in response to my correction:

"All of the history books around the world say that a republic is a representative democracy."

Of course, there wasn't time to argue, and I was appreciative that Honzman allowed for even that much when the topic was about the Census.

During public comment at the Fayette Board of County Commissioners' meeting on Thursday, May 11, 2000, a former school board member and an unsuccessful candidate for county commissioner in the 1999 general election both agreed with the actions of the commissioners to vote to "re-evaluate property taxes" in the county, and sounded off rightly so at headlines featured that week in the daily newspaper.

"This is an historic day in Fayette County for the reassessment. And it's also a historic week in Fayette County when Commissioner Sean Cavanagh switches back to being a Democrat. It's historic that now the county is run by three democrats. We were founded on a democracy. We don't have a democracy here in Fayette County. We are not fully represented on this board in the county. One of the things the members of the Fayette Voter Fraud Committee you appointed should look into is whether this switch is allowed...

Much more, here and there, and seemingly everywhere.

U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, June 7, 1999 106th CONGRESS 1st Session sponsor of H. R. 2026, the `Voter Freedom Act of 1999'.

To enforce the guarantees of the first, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States by prohibiting certain devices used to deny the right to participate in certain elections.

(1) Voting participation in the United States is lower than in any other advanced industrialized democracy.

(2) The rights of eligible citizens to seek election to office, vote for candidates of their choice and associate for the purpose of taking part in elections, including the right to create and develop new political parties, are fundamental in a democracy.

advanced industrialized democracy Ron Paul's legislation

In the TRIBUNE REVIEW, April 23, 2000 Editorial
about low voter turnout for Fay-West area April 4, 2000 Primary Election.


Bill O'Reilly, yes, even that intelligent interviewer for the O'Reilly Factor. Date in files, up soon.

Mr. Buchanan should know better after having written a book which has the word "Republic" in the title.

Mr. Will should know better.

Shouldn't Rep. Ron Paul know better by now?

Once you read the transcript of the April 2, 2000 Honsberger Live program, Matthew Glavin errs also in the respect that the Constitution grants to the people power.

Look in any American History textbook, and you will find documentation that it is the people, who actually inherently have the power, but consent, through a written compact called the United States Constitution, to grant certain powers to the federal government, with all other powers retained by the states, or by the people.

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."

Thomas Jefferson


One has to question why these misstatements referring to the United States as a democracy are continually made by those who seek the highest office in the land as well as those in Congress who all take an oath to support and defend the what?


THE U.S. CONSTITUTION



Back to those history books around the world. There's only one history book we all really need to study to guide us to the truth.

But, in addition to the Constitution itself, find yourself a copy of these:

Atwood and Corwin are a must

Provided by Libertyonline


Just the facts there - the facts selling the new Constitution to the skeptical Colonists - why the U.S. is to be, and remain, and guarantee that all the states maintain themselves and be protected as, A REPUBLIC.

Someone (an acadamecian, most conspiratorily likely), somewhere along the way, did begin to refer to the U.S. as a representative or indirect democracy.

BUT IT WASN'T ANY OF THE CRAFTERS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION and, at the very opportune time unlike any other, when the crafters wanted to be crafty and sell the Constitution to not only the delegates in the state ratification conventions, but to We, the People! The crafty crafters never, not even once, tried to appease the people or even appeal to the people by saying the new government was to be a "representative" democracy where you rule, people.

But onward through history, minus a Constitutional amendment altering the Constitutional guarantee to the states to a republican form of government, our nation became referred to as a representative democracy.

Let's take a look at one of those resource books which try to make us believe we're a representative democracy.

From OUR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, WHAT IS IT? HOW DOES IT FUNCTION? House Document No. 128, 91st Congress, 1st Session. 1969 Edition:

Question 2. What are the essentials of a republican form of government?

A republic is a government deriving all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during the pleasure of the people electing them, for a limited period or during good behavior.

Question 3. What is a pure democracy?

A form of government in which the management of public affairs remains in the hands of the people themselves, so that they make the laws, levy taxes, decide questions of war and peace, and determine all other matters of public business of such a nature as to require personal and continuous attention.

Question 4. What is a representative or indirect democracy?

In a representative democracy, the people govern themselves, but they do so by entrusting the entire administration of the state to their representatives, whom they choose by ballot.

Question 5. How are both democratic and republican principles of government embodied in the government of the United States of America?

The national government is a form of representative democracy; a pure democracy in America is not practicable because of the geographical size and large population, and the fact that masses of citizens do not have sufficient leisure for continous direct participation in the public business. The government is also a republic because the people elect their chief executive, the President, as well as their legislative representatives.

(Duh, technically incorrect, the people elect electors to the Electoral College who we trust to carry out the majority will of the people to elect the President.)

But the framers of the United States Constitution did not form a representative democracy, an indirect democracy, or any other form of democracy.

The very term representative democracy is an oxymoron. It would be like having warm ice and cold hell and hey, how about heaven full of sinners. Now that's close, cause heaven could be full of sinners who have repented.

What did the Framers form?

We need look no further than the commentary of the FRAMERS.

Included in Harry F. Atwood's 1918 book, BACK TO THE REPUBLIC - THE GOLDEN MEAN: THE STANDARD FORM OF GOVERNMENT
are lengthy references to Madison's writing in the FEDERALIST PAPERS.

Atwood relies on the work of the Constitution's framers to highlight the differences between autocracy, republic, democracy. Atwood states:

"The terms republic and democracy are thoughtlessly and inaccurately used almost synonomously in dictionaries, in encyclopedias and in political literature and discussion. This country is frequently spoken of as a democracy, and yet the men who established our government made a very marked distinction between a republic and a democracy, gave very clear definitions of each term, and said repeatedly that they had founded a republic. Surely no one has more valid authority to use governmental terms, or to make definitions of those terms, than the men who evolved the best form of government the world has ever known. The statements of Hamilton and Madison, who were designated as the spokesmen and interpreters of the work of the Constitutional Convention, make it absolutely clear that the founders of the republic had in mind a very marked distinction between these two forms.


Atwood references Madison here.<


Atwood allows only that:

"The first republic the world has known was the republic of the United States, which, until we began modifying it, was a true republic. We should return at once, with all of the humility and penitence of the prodigal son, to a strict and literal adherence to the republic, the golden mean between autocracy and democracy, and encourage the people of each of the other countries of the world to go forward from the form of government that they now have to a republic.

We have drifted from the republic toward democracy; from statesmanship to demagogism; from excellent to inferior service. It is an age of retrogressive tendencies."

Sound familiar?

Atwood explains in more detail than these exerpts:

"Autocracy results in tyranny, bondage, oppression, arbitrariness, coercion, submission, reaction.

Democracy results in demagogism, license, impulse, agitation, discontent, anarchy, and chaos.

The republic, strictly and literally adhered to, results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, arbitration, justice, contentment and progress.

Atwood states at the time of his writng: On every hand almost daily we hear the expression, "Make the world safe for democracy." That expression is as superficial, and as impossible, and as unwise as it would be to say: "Make drink safe for drunkenness; make food safe for gluttony; make religion safe for fanaticism; make the social world safe for free love; make music safe for discord; make justice safe for lawlessness; make automobiling safe for joyriding." It is a weak, unsound, beggarly slogan. government was created to make safety, not to have safety made for it. A more effective statement would be, "Make the world safe through democracy," if there were any basis for faith in such a slogan; but we cannot make the world safe for democracy, nor can we make the world safe through democracy, because democracy itself is one of the most dangerous things in the world. The proper reply to that slogan is that the first republic made a nation safe for the first time in history and helped make the world safer until we modified the republic by adding the elements of democracy.

Atwood states: No one claims that republics are perfect - nothing human is perfect - but I do maintain that there is the same difference batween a republic and either a democracy or an autocracy that there is between good and bad.

And... the very essence of a republic is to make possible the selection of the best fitted people to work out the problems of government in a representative capacity.

Atwood says this at the time of his writing: Events have gathered to a head in this the greatest of all war crises. The time is ripe for the people of the world to understand that the Constitution provided for the four elements that constitute a republic and for nothing more. In this book I am trying to sound a trumpet that will rally us to a clearer understanding and a more accurate use of governmental terms, which is the all-important first step toward the defense of the Law, getting back to the republic and grappling wisely and successflly with this grave international question."

Who could say it any better? Only the Framers of the United States Constitution. Which they did, announcing their mistrust of democracies in the FEDERALIST PAPERS and solidifying the notion that they were creating a republic by guaranteeing to every state in the Union a republican form of government. The Framers absolutely knew of what they wrote.

Atwood, very clearly, very understandably, very simply:

The new form of government provided for by the Constitution and evolved in 1788 was the first republic the world has ever known, and it may be clearly defined as follows:

A republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of