It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.
Get a FREE Copy of "The Essential Federalist Papers
What Jefferson called the greatest commentary on Government ever written, organized by topic!
The tyranny of the majority – simple concept.
It only take 51% to take a citizen’s freedom and rights away.
As a friend of mine says, “Democracy is when 51% of the people decide it’s okay to rape your wife.”
the minority dosent have a voice!
Perhaps they had read Aristotle, who criticized Democracy because the populace can be easily led astray by demagogues.
The majority (at least the majority of people who want to have a say) always rules in a Democracy and that means that ANYTHING they say…goes! That is why a system of checks and balances is a much better system.
they studied history and read julius cesar
Because the people will quickly vote themselves all the Government money that they can until it collapses.
A true democracy is too easily swayed by words and gifts[the basic democratic party tactics]. Too, a true democracy can act in haste. Eminent danger may require haste, but most else needs deliberation. The sage advice of “sleep on it” comes to mind. The success of this nation up until about a half century ago has been because it was a republic, and that may be the reason it still exists today, but a true republic gives some pause to the passions of the people compelled to act by encitement rather than insight. If we would but adhere to the republic, to letting our representatives do their job, if they are willing to do their job, then we may be able to return this to land life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
exactly.
Welcome to sound bite politics…it’s just as much an issue today as back in the day…how about forcing people to pass a basic civics test in order to vote? Or an IQ test? LOL
I appreciate and agree with the above comments. One of my favorite characteristics of America is the perception of our people.
Socrates and Aristotle…
Tyranny by those that vote themselves money
The United States is NOT a democracy……America is a Constitutional Republic. We need to return to Constitutional governance.
The Founders were very perceptive and they were students of History and Human Nature. They invisioned a Nation governed by Law not men. Pure democracy is just another form of government by men, and they percieved where that would lead…to no different place than History revealed. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the formation of a New Republic, and strove to create a new form of government that would SECURE the God given rights of the people. The true brilliance of our Founders is seen in that they walked the tightrope between Power and Rights. They gave us a Republic that had the potential to be Government held in check by “the laws of Nature’s God.” I hope we can keep it…
Thomas Jefferson : Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.
Mob rule, propaganda, and uneducated, politcally illerate voters.
All the above makes good sense to me…what we need more of are representatives that abide by the constitution and listen to the people, get us out of debt, secure our boarders, follow the money trails….
true democracy is majority or mob rule, that is why it will always lead to tyranny
As Benjamin Franklin told someone after the U.S. Constitution had been signed by the drafters in1787: “We have given you a republic if you can keep it.” He said nothing about a democracy. Madison and the rest were fearful of a democracy.
A problem with democracy, or rights of the people, is that the majority may not be for the best interests of the whole. The wild West and its infamous practice of hanging without due process of the law is a practice of democracy that may have put many innocents to death. Without laws and systems to protect the innocent and to make sure everyone has a voice, we return to mob rule—like the French who charged the Bastille. Unfortunately there are some in government who forget that we are a republic and have ignored the law to realize their own agendas and put the US in jeopardy.
Any time the simple majority is in agreement in a democracy, no possession is safe, no law offers security. And sooner or later, no man will always reside in the majority. Others will always covet what is anothers due and will obtain it. Democracy leads to Chaos.
Without the restrictions or limitations of law, pure democracy degenerates into tyrany of the mob. Even the original divine monarchy (Jewish version) was bound by law:
18 When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. 19 It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees 20 and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20, NIV
I think we are a Republic because of this thinking by our founding fathers and I think they were right.
Does anyone here know specifically which ancient democracies Hamilton was making reference to? Both he and Madison base their arguments against direct democracy on history (Madison wrote: “Hence it is that such democracies…have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”) And yet after review I can find very few instances of direct democracy ever being implemented in the whole of human history. Athens implemented a direct democracy (of the kind criticized here by Hamilton) in the middle of its Golden Age, and it maintained its prosperity for many decades afterwards.
[...] Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton derided the allegedly “pure democracy” of the ancients, saying they “never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure [...]
[...] In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton derided the allegedly pure democracy of the ancients, saying they never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure [...]