Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. DEMOCRACY Though his question was not addressed to me, may I take the...
...secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended...
...Today, many think of Jefferson as the "Father of our Democracy...
...We were not wise enough to keep it...
...It would now be an excellent thing if we could hear from the John Birch Society: What are its reasons for not wanting to call the United States a democracy...
...Carl Landauer replies: Percy L. Greaves Jr.'s statement of his reasons for not applying the term "democracy" to the United States is enlightening and constructive...
...We have, of course, strayed a long way from the high ideals of our forefathers and very little of it has been done by Constitutional Amendments...
...Milton Hindus I would like to answer Carl Landauer's query...
...This is not just a convenience for the individual, to spare you and me the hazards of concentration camps and firing squads, but exists also for the good of society, as a device without which people cannot sensibly rule themselves...
...It is clear from these lucid definitions (which distinguish exactly two closely related words) that neither Andrew Jackson nor the enactment of the 14th and 15th Amendments, mentioned by Landauer, have anything to do with the matter and have not, since the adoption of the Constitution, transformed our Federal Republic into a direct democracy, in Madison's sense of the term...
...I have never been able to locate any quotation in which he referred to this country as a democracy...
...Dobbs Ferry, N.Y...
...Percy L. Greaves, Jr...
...yet since I do not regard democracy as mob rule, this to me is only another way of saying that a bill of rights, far from being a negation of democracy, is an essential part of it...
...This distinction, which defies many well-informed people and is not cleared up by consulting dictionaries, seems to stem in America from the Federalist Papers...
...It wasn't until after he passed from its councils that the party assumed its present name...
...Perhaps the best source for this meaning is Madison's Federalist Paper No...
...In the famous No...
...The people were prohibited by the Bill of Rights from governing certain actions of the populace...
...The Constitution itself, and particularly its Bill of Rights, were limitations on the powers of the majority...
...It meant the "unthinking" rule of the rabble...
...Although I disagree with some parts of his political philosophy, I agree that the Bill of Rights is barrier not only to despotism but also to mob rule...
...However, our Government was designed as one of limited powers...
...The meaning can be traced to the semantics of the era in which this country was born...
...These original amendments were limitations on mob rule...
...it was associated with the mob disorders of the French Revolution...
...Whatever else may divide us, I think, on the term "democracy" the difference between Greaves and myself is hardly more than semantic, because it seems that we both agree—though perhaps with different emphasis—on majority rule based on universal suffrage, combined with and limited by bill of rights...
...When the majority no longer accepts an institution, it soon disappears...
...Waltham, Mass...
...When slavery was accepted by the great majority, even among the Negroes themselves, it was the law of the land...
...However, the original meaning has been relegated into the limbo of history by those opposed to the original concepts of our Constitution...
...And so it has been with our Republic...
...Free discussion, however, requires a bill of rights...
...The answer is no...
...Actually democracy, as we use the term now, as we distinguish it from dictatorship even where dictators can win "elections," is based on a different proposition: that people can learn by experience, if this can be evaluated in free discussion, and that where such free discussion exists, the majority is more likely to be right in the long run than the minority...
...Landauer refers to our "essentially equal suffrage combined with dependence of the Government on the will of the governed and reasonably effective bill of rights...
...Certain unalienable rights were held to be beyond the rule or limitations of demagogues and easily aroused majorities...
...Is it that the John Birchers, like Greaves, wish to uphold the Bill of Rights and regard it as anti-democratic, or are there other reasons which may give the divergence of language a substantive rather than a semantic significance...
...Nothing could be farther from the truth...
...10, Madison writes: "A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction...
...History has shown that dictators, monarchs and constitutions are no protection for any considerable time against the popular fallacies of potent majorities...
...He founded it as the Republican party...
...He did not even belong to the Democratic party, under that name...
...This has been popularized into rule of the people, will of the governed and many similar phrases...
...He then asks, "Is not a state with these institutions a democracy...
...First, let me state that I am not a member of the John Birch Society and therefore I am in no position to speak for that organization...
...Democracy, if so defined, would be little better than nonsense...
...Democracy is majority rule...
...Actually, the Bill of Rights as it was written and originally understood was antidemocratic...
...If democracy were unlimited majority rule, then it could only be based on the assumption that the majority is always at least likely to be right, but this assumption is refuted by a vast amount of historical experience...
...In days past American students were brought up on this interpretation of our Constitution...
...DEMOCRACY Though his question was not addressed to me, may I take the liberty of trying to clear up Carl Landauer's "puzzlement" ("Dear Editor," June 19) as to the distinction between a republic and a democracy...
...In those days the term "democracy" was synonym for mobocracy...
...I address myself solely to the meaning of the phrase, "The United States is a republic, not a democracy...
...A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking...
...No form of government can long last unless it bows to the popular concepts of its age...
...The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest...
Vol. 44 • July 1961 • No. 28
