The United States was not founded as a democracy, nor did the founding fathers want it to be a democracy, nor did they even believe in democracy. Democracy is a terrible system of governance that breaks down outside of small groups solving simple problems. The United States is a federal republic with build in checks and balances to ensure that no individual or group of people acquires enough power to overrule the consent of the governed.
I had a discussion recently with someone on the nature of the government of the United States. They contended that the United States was a democracy, because we vote to elect our representatives, and voting makes a system democratic. I’m unsurprised that someone would arrive at this conclusion. The American public school system does an exceptionally poor job of teaching civics, and the civic philosophy of the founding fathers.
To understand what a democracy is, we have to understand some fundamentals about government, chiefly the purpose, who uses power and how, and how all of that is decided. For the majority of human history, there were no states, no governments to really speak of. There was tribal rule, typically ruled by a patriarch, or a group of elders who made decisions on behalf of the tribe. As people slowly settled into sedentary agriculture, more organized societies began to grow, and a distinct leadership class, as opposed to an informal familial patriarch, began to exercise the right of enforcing laws upon a group of people. As I’ve mentioned numerous times, the medieval system was broadly how most agricultural societies functioned. The nobility were typically the warriors, the peasantry worked the fields, and the clergy acted as a bureaucracy. Of course, as always, this is an exceptionally broad view of a large chunk of human history, so there’s bound to be plenty of details I’m missing.
But what is the point of government? I contend the reason that government didn’t really exist in tribal times, but did begin to exist in settled agriculture, had to do with familial ties, and population density. Tribal living wasn’t just a nuclear family affair. Many prehistoric sites are estimated to host possibly a hundred individuals at any time. I’m not entirely certain if these sites were habitated for extended periods of time or not. Even some Native American tribes lived in fairly large bands of people moving about, following game and foraging locations. However, tribes were not densely populated like cities, and it was possible to know everyone within a tribe. You were also likely related to everyone, either as first or second cousins. This is opposed to settlements, even small settlements, where you possibly might not be related to everyone, or know everyone in the settlement. This creates a trust dilemma, wherein people can do things like steal from each other, cheat each other, and so on. In order to keep society from devolving into bloodfeuds over retaliatory actions of wrongs committed, an arbiter of law, and justice must be the legitimate force of violence. The rise of the nobility stems from people who had weapons, and could use those weapons to enforce justice, and keep the peace within a community. The purpose of government is violent in nature, violence in the name of justice and peace.
There are many ways to implement a system that enacts justice. As stated exhaustively, most of settled history has been under men with weapons, acting as a noble class, and acting as the arbiters of the law. Most of human history is the history of kingdoms and empires. However, kings are only as good as the king can be, and many kings were poor rulers. One way to deal with that issue is to break the king’s position up into numerous positions, such as an oligarchy, where consensus among the oligarchs is needed before action can be undertaken. Of course this leads to the issue of some people, or possibly all people within a community, disagreeing with a decision that the oligarchy makes. The next logical step is some sort of system of popular sovereignty, where democracies and republican governments come into existence.
This is broadly speaking the history of Athenian democracy. It started out as a kingdom, then slowly reformed into an oligarchy with Archons of the Areopagus, eventually leading to franchising voting rights among the wealthy elite, and then eventually to any Athenian citizen (which were exclusively men). Voting was done out in the open, and people were proud to participate in the function of government. Of course there were city bureaucrats who ran things day to day (The Archons), but with democracy, the power of government rested in the hands of the voter.
Like any systems, there are trade offs. Democracy functions well when a community is generally unified in values and lifestyles, when there is high trust within the community, and the economy is functioning well. The main weaknesses of democracy stem from the ability of either fringe minorities, or overwhelming majorities bullying a majority or minority respectively. The French Revolution is a keen example of mob rule, and how democracies with mob rule can turn out. Conversely, coalitions can be built of a group of minorities that can overwhelm a majority group’s vote, and use the power of the state to abuse a majority that doesn’t hold a plurality of the vote. Because of this, democracy is seen as a rather fickle forms of government. The whims of the voter can change quickly, or not quick enough in order to react to a problem. In reality, democracies function well in groups of smaller size, solving simple problems that have easily understandable outcomes.
During the American Revolution, many founders pondered what form of government would replace the British colonial governments. Some argued for a monarchy, while others, such as Jefferson, argued for a democratic system. Few wanted a democratic system, and most were terrified of the average man having the franchise. The majority of the founders were among the landed gentry class, they owned land or some form of property, were typically well educated, and few had to work a day job. John Adams was derided as a “rube” by many of his peers, because he actually worked on his own farm, and did not dedicate himself to his law practice.
The founders ultimately opted for a republic, and a republic based on a federal system with checks and balances within the federal government, and states sovereign within their own borders. What the founders feared most was the weaknesses of monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies, and opted to create a system that would balance these competing issues against each other. The basis of the nation was a republic, as the founders did not believe that democracy could last long term, and they did not trust that the average person would have the sophistication to understand the functions of government. The founders believed that an elite group of people, chosen and elevated to power by the consent of the governed, would have the sophistication to run government. Within the federal government, the government is broken into four distinct entities: One monarchy, two oligarchies, and a democracy. The Executive branch is effectively a monarchy, the Judicial branch is a monarchy, the Senate is (was) an oligarchy representing the states, and finally the Congress acted as a democracy representing the people of the United States. As states above, the states themselves were sovereign, and thus acted as a counterweight to the federal government.
The general idea of this complicated system was ultimately to accomplish 2 main goals:
- Take the ability for the people to form mob rule via democracy
- Take the power away from a monarch from accumulating too much unilateral power
The United States is not a democracy because the founders feared giving the average person the ability to directly interact with the functions of government. In order for anyone to actually effectuate action from the government, they have to either be a part of the machine, and work with the constituent parts of the machine to make the government function. Or if the person is outside the machine, they have to go to someone within the machine, and get them to effectuate the power of government. The power is taken away from the people because ultimately people cannot be trusted with power. Don’t forget, the purpose of government, at its core, is violence in the pursuit of justice and peace.