What Does Republicanism Mean In Your Own Words
Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic with an emphasis on liberty and the civic virtue practiced by citizens. More broadly, it refers to a political system that protects liberty, especially by incorporating a rule of law that cannot be arbitrarily ignored by the government.
The Founders Studied History
The Founders studied the history of governments. They were very interested in what they read about the government of the Roman Republic. It was located in what is now the country of Italy. The Roman Republic existed more than 2,000 years before our nation began.
The Founders liked what they read about the Roman Republic. They learned some important ideas from their study of the government of ancient Rome. They used some of these ideas when they created our government.
Constitutional Monarchs And Upper Chambers
Some countries turned powerful monarchs into constitutional ones with limited, or eventually merely symbolic, powers. Often the monarchy was abolished along with the aristocratic system, whether or not they were replaced with democratic institutions . In Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Papua New Guinea, and some other countries the monarch, or its representative, is given supreme executive power, but by convention acts only on the advice of his or her ministers. Many nations had elite upper houses of legislatures, the members of which often had lifetime tenure, but eventually these houses lost much power , or else became elective and remained powerful.
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Ratifying The Constitution: Federalist And Anti
On September 17, 1787, the convention adjourned, sending the Constitution to the states; it would be put into effect only if conventions in nine of the states ratified it. In his first essay published in October 1787, the Anti-Federalist, Brutus, charged that it was impossible to provide fair and true representation in such a large republic. Like-minded writers under pseudonyms like Federal Farmer and Cato raised similar concerns: the legislature would not be able to respond to the needs of people from all walks of life and would end up representing the interests of only the wealthy and influential few. The Anti-Federalists feared that representatives would be too disconnected from their constituents, pointing to the lengthy terms and the small number of representatives relative to the number of constituents. They feared a large, consolidated government whose representatives would lose touch with the people they were supposed to represent.
James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, writing as Publius in the Federalist essays, explained that all walks of society would be represented fairly because each of the divisions within the central government would protect the peoples rights in a different way. The House of Representatives, the first branch of the national legislature, would respond to the peoples more immediate local interests, and the Senate would represent the long-term interests of the states.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
Key Takeaways: Republic Vs Democracy
- Republics and democracies both provide a political system in which citizens are represented by elected officials who are sworn to protect their interests.
- In a pure democracy, laws are made directly by the voting majority leaving the rights of the minority largely unprotected.
- In a republic, laws are made by representatives chosen by the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority.
- The United States, while basically a republic, is best described as a representative democracy.;;
In a republic, an official set of fundamental laws, like the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, prohibits the government from limiting or taking away certain inalienable rights of the people, even if that government was freely chosen by a majority of the people. In a pure democracy, the voting majority has almost limitless power over the minority.;
The United States, like most modern nations, is neither a pure republic nor a pure democracy. Instead, it is;a hybrid democratic republic.
The main difference between a democracy and a republic is the extent to which the people control the process of making laws under each form of government.
Founding Father James Madison may have best described the difference between a democracy and a republic:
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History Of Representation And Republican Government
American conceptions of a republic as the proper form of government can be traced back to classical antiquity, but the American Founders put forth a somewhat new understanding of republican government. In their definition, a republic is a state in which the people hold supreme power, and designate representatives to carry out their will. In his Second Treatise Concerning Civil Government John Locke maintained that government is legitimate only to the extent that it reflects the will of the people by their consent. However, Locke did not specify in great detail what consent required. Did it entail all of the people voting on laws in person, as in a direct democracy, or simply that some officials had to be elected by some citizens? The practical application of the principle of representation was worked out by early American thinkers and leaders.
Beginning with the first representative colonial assembly, the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1619, British North Americans enjoyed a high degree of autonomy as they governed themselves through their local republican assemblies. Most colonies executives were appointed by the Crown, which led colonists to favor the legislative branch as the institution which best represented the people as a whole. Parliament, in which the colonials had no representatives, could legislate for them, but could not tax them. Only their locally-elected representative assemblies could levy taxes to raise revenue.
Republicanism In The United States
Republicanism in the United States is the use of the concept of republic, or the political ideals associated with it in the United States.
The political ideals have been discussed since before the concept of republic was introduced legally by Article Four of the United States Constitution. Particularly modern republicanism has been a guiding political philosophy of the United States that has been a major part of American civic thought since its founding. It stresses liberty and inalienable individual rights as central values; recognizes the sovereignty of the people as the source of all authority in law; rejects monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power; expects citizens to be virtuous and faithful in their performance of civic duties; and vilifies corruption. American republicanism was articulated and first practised by the Founding Fathers in the 18th century. For them, “republicanism represented more than a particular form of government. It was a way of life, a core ideology, an uncompromising commitment to liberty, and a total rejection of aristocracy.”
Republicanism was based on Ancient Greco-Roman, Renaissance, and English models and ideas. It formed the basis for the American Revolution, the , the Constitution , and the Bill of Rights, as well as the Gettysburg Address .
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What Differences Would Direct Rule Bring To Northern Ireland
BBC News NI Political Correspondent
John Simpson began working as a Stormont civil servant at the same time Northern Ireland was returned to direct rule from London in 1972.
“The first few days there was a lot of mutual suspicion with people from London coming in trying to tell us what to do,” the well-known economist said.
“Now there won’t be quite the same disadvantages if it happens this time. But on the other hand it’s a shaking experience for local politics.
“They’re told to stay at home. It’s a challenging experience for civil servants who have to work to tighter Treasury rules and I hope within a few weeks it would settle down.”
So why have the memories come flooding back? Because John Simpson is one of a growing number of people who view the developing financial crisis at Stormont and wonder whether handing back control to Westminster for a period wouldn’t actually be beneficial.
“In the present circumstances a period of direct rule would do things that the local politicians find unpalatable – not just welfare reform, but that would be the major one.
“In that sense it would be useful if we were given, as it were, a breathing space when we could put things right,” he told the BBC’s The View.
Since Willie Whitelaw flew in to take charge in 1972, Northern Ireland has had 18 secretaries of state, all but the last three have been responsible for the running of the place during periods of direct rule.
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The Concept Of A Republic
Derived from the Latin phrase res publica, meaning the public thing, a republic is a form of government in which the social and political affairs of the country are considered a public matter, with representatives of the citizen body holding the power to rule. Because citizens govern the state through their representatives, republics may be differentiated from direct democracies. However, most modern representative democracies are republics. The term republiccan also be attached to not only democratic countries but also to oligarchies, aristocracies, and monarchies in which the head of state is not determined by heredity.
In a republic, the people elect representatives;to make the laws and an executive to enforce those laws.;;While the majority still rules in the selection of representatives, an official charter lists and protects certain inalienable rights, thus protecting the minority from the arbitrary political whims of the majority. In this sense, republics like the United States function as representative democracies.
In the U.S.,;senators and representatives are the elected lawmakers, the president;is the elected executive, and the Constitution is the official charter.
Orientation To The Constitution
To understand the Six Big Ideas which underpin the Constitution students need to be familiar with the text itself. Mapping the text of the Constitution presents the national charter in a way that illustrates the attention the Founders gave to the structure and power of government. The 4379;words of the U.S. Constitution are the foundation of our nation and establish the federal government’s structures and branches. By counting the words in each article and calculating the percentage of the whole it represents, students can determine how much of the overall project was dedicated to each structure or power.
Fill out the table on Handout 1 to determine the number of words contained in each Article of the Constitution, and the percentage of the whole document that represents. This can be done easily with a digital copy of the text using the word count feature available in most word processing programs.;Note: count only the words in the sentence that comprises Article VII, not the summarizing/concluding date.
Map the Constitution by representing the percentages from the table in a visual form on Handout 1. Using different colors for each of the Articles and the Preamble, color in the squares to represent the percentage of the whole Constitution that is dedicated to each article. Each square represents 1% of the document .
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What Defined Republicanism As A Social Philosophy
What defined republicanism as a social philosophy? Citizenship within a republic meant accepting certain rights and responsibilities as well as cultivating virtuous behavior. This philosophy was based on the notion that the success or failure of the republic depended upon the virtue or corruption of its citizens.
America Is A Republic Not A Democracy Is A Dangerousand Wrongargument
Enabling sustained minority rule at the national level is not a feature of our constitutional design, but a perversion of it.
About the author: George Thomas is the Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions at Claremont McKenna College and the author of The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mindand The Written Constitution, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.
Dependent on a minority of the population to hold national power, Republicans such as Senator Mike Lee of Utah have taken to reminding the public that were not a democracy. It is quaint that so many Republicans, embracing a president who routinely tramples constitutional norms, have suddenly found their voice in pointing out that, formally, the country is a republic. There is some truth to this insistence. But it is mostly disingenuous. The Constitution was meant to foster a complex form of majority rule, not enable minority rule.
The founding generation was deeply skeptical of what it called pure democracy and defended the American experiment as wholly republican. To take this as a rejection of democracy misses how the idea of government by the people, including both a democracy and a republic, was understood when the Constitution was drafted and ratified. It misses, too, how we understand the idea of democracy today.
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Is The United States A Democracy Or Republic
The U.S. is a republic. Though it is now common for people, including American politicians, to refer to the U.S. as a “democracy,” this is shorthand for the representational republic that exists, not for a pure democracy. The republic continues to be mentioned in the Pledge of Allegiance, which was written in 1892 and later adopted by Congress in 1942 as an official pledge .
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
While the founders disagreed regarding the role of the federal government, none sought to build a pure democracy.
“We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.” Alexander Hamilton
“It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person: in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, must be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.” James Madison
Americans directly elect council members, governors, state representatives and senators, and numerous other officials. Some other officials, such as mayors, may or may not be directly elected.
The Constitutive Notion Of Civic Republicanism: Pettit
Insofar as republican freedom is tied to power, it is essentially egalitarian. It is held to protect each individual against arbitrary power, and also to be a communitarian good, allowing people to identify with a state that protects their freedom. This version of republican freedom is heavily influenced by Rousseau, purged of totalitarian accretions, and updated to the advanced capitalist societies of the late twentieth century. They are now explicitly inclusive, bestowing their benefits on all members of society, and also multicultural, displaying liberal neutrality toward different substantive conceptions of the good. How far such societies can provide a stable balance between the participatory core of republican freedom and the centrifugal drives of modern pluralism remains to be seen.
Andrew Tsz Wan Hung, in, 2015
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Determining Representation At The Constitutional Convention
The Virginia delegation on May 29, 1787 introduced the Virginia Plan, also known as the Large States Plan, which recommended not just a revision of the existing confederation of sovereign states but the creation of a powerful national government that would be supreme over the states. This plan, largely written by James Madison, included a bicameral legislature in which the lower house was elected by the people of each state and the upper house was elected by the members of the lower house. In each chamber, the number of the states delegates would be based on state population.
William Paterson introduced the Small State, or New Jersey Plan, which provided for equal representation of the states in a unicameral legislaturein essence just tweaking the Articles of Confederation to revise and strengthen the existing system.
Convention debates about representation addressed four main questions. The first, and least contentious, was whether the new government would have a unicameral legislature, as under the Articles of Confederation, or a bicameral legislature as in the Virginia Plan and in most of the states. On June 21 this question was settled in favor of a bicameral Congress, because dividing the legislative function would allow each house to act as a watchdog over the other, protecting against unjust or misguided laws.
Democracies And Republics Today
Despite the common use of the word “democracy” and the desire to “spread democracy,” most countries throughout the world today govern as republics. However, republics differ widely, with some operating under a presidential system, where the people directly or nearly-directly elect a president who is the head of the government; a parliamentary system, where the people elect a legislature who decides the executive branch; and even constitutional and parliamentary monarchies that tend to behave as republics but often have royal figureheads.
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Reviewing And Using The Lesson
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