Distinguish Between Republic And Democracy Essay, Research Paper
Republic (government) (Latin res publica, literally “the public thing”), form
of state based on the concept that sovereignty resides in the people, who
delegate the power to rule in their behalf to elected representatives and
officials. In practice, however, this concept has been variously stretched,
distorted, and corrupted, making any precise definition of the term republic
difficult. It is important, to begin with, to distinguish between a republic and
a democracy. In the theoretical republican state, where the government
expresses the will of the people who have chosen it, republic and
democracy may be identical (there are also democratic monarchies).
Historical republics, however, have never conformed to a theoretical model,
and in the 20th century the term republic is freely used by dictatorships,
one-party states, and democracies alike. Republic has, in fact, come to
signify any form of state headed by a president or some similarly titled
figure, and not a monarch.
II REPUBLICAN THEORIES
Much of the confusion surrounding the concept of republicanism may be
traced to the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato’s Republic presents an
ideal state or, more accurately, an ideal Greek polis (”city-state”). Plato
constructed his republic on what he considered the basic elements or
characteristics of the human soul: the appetitive, the spirited, and the
philosophical. Accordingly, his ideal republic consisted of three distinct
groups: a commercial class formed by those dominated by their appetites;
a spirited class, administrators and soldiers, responsible for the execution of
the laws; and the guardians or philosopher-kings, who would be the
lawmakers. Because Plato entrusted the guardians, a carefully selected few,
with the responsibility for maintaining a harmonious polis, republicanism is
frequently associated with ends or goals established by a small segment of
the community presumed to have a special insight into what constitutes the
common good.
Aristotle’s Politics provides another republican concept, one that prevails in
most of the Western world. Aristotle categorized governments on the basis
of who rules: the one, the few, or the many. Within these categories he
distinguished between good and perverted forms of government?monarchy
(good) versus tyranny, aristocracy (good) versus oligarchy?the main
difference being whether the rulers governed for the good of the state or
for their own interests.
Most relevant to republicanism in the Western world, however, is Aristotle’s
distinction between democracy, the perverted form of rule by the many,
and its opposite polity, the good form. He believed that democracies were
bound to experience turbulence and instability because the poor, who he
assumed would be the majority in democracies, would seek an economic
and social equality that would stifle individual initiative and enterprise. In
contrast, polity, with a middle class capable of justly adjudicating conflicts
between the rich and poor, would allow for rule by the many without the
problems and chaos associated with democratic regimes.
James Madison, often called the father of the U.S. Constitution, defined a
republic in terms similar to those of Aristotle’s polity. In his view, republics
were systems of government that permitted direct or indirect control by the
people over those who govern. He did, however, warn against the effects of
“majority factions” and emphasized the rights of minorities.
The Madisonian concept of republicanism parallels Aristotle’s vision of polity
in many important dimensions, and both are essentially different from
Plato’s. Madison and Aristotle were concerned with the means by which just
and stable rule by the many could be secured. To this end Aristotle relied
on a predominant middle class, Madison on an “extended” republic, in which
varied interests would check and control one another. Madison also
emphasized election of representatives by the people. These
representatives, he believed, would be less likely to sacrifice the “public
good” than the majority of the people. “Pure democracies,” in which the
people ruled directly, Madison wrote, “have ever been spectacles of
turbulence and contention.”
III REPUBLICS IN HISTORY Some scholars regard the
ancient confederation of Hebrew tribes that endured in Palestine from the
15th century BC until a monarchy was established about 1020BC as an
embryonic republic. That would make the ancient Israelite commonwealth
the earliest republic in history and one of the oldest democracies; except
for slaves and women, all members of the community had a voice in the
selection of their administrators and were eligible for political office. For
several hundred years after the early 8th century BC many of the
city-states of Greece were republican in form. Carthage was likewise a
republic for more than 300 years until its destruction by the Romans in
146BC. For nearly 500 years Rome itself was a republic in which virtually all
free males were eventually franchised.
The oldest extant republic is the state of San Marino on the Italian
Peninsula, about 225 km (about 140 mi) north of Rome. According to
tradition, it was established as a republic in the second part of the 4th
century AD.
In medieval times the Icelanders established (930) a republic with a more
or less democratic form of government that lasted for more than 300 years.
The powerful and independent commercial city-states of northern Italy,
ruled by the rising bourgeoisie, also found the republican form a more
suitable political instrument than the monarchic state controlled by the
feudal nobility and the Roman Catholic church. These Italian republics were
for centuries disturbed by power struggles between the aristocracy and the
commercial bourgeoisie, in which the latter represented the cause of
democratic government and the former that of feudal conservatism. A
parallel process took place in the commercial and handicraft communes of
the Low Countries. The Hanseatic League was nominally a form of
international republican government and a limited democracy. Republican
elements were also characteristic of the league of Swiss cantons that
eventually formed the Swiss state; the founding of the Swiss republic may
be dated in 1291.
Republican sentiments were cherished by many leaders of the Reformation.
Geneva, under the rule (1541-64) of John Calvin, was republican in form,
although virtually a theocratic state. Reformist religious and antimonarchic
doctrines were also contributory factors in the establishment of the Dutch
Republic of the United Provinces (1648-1747) and the short-lived
Commonwealth (1649-60) of England, Scotland, and Ireland under Oliver
Cromwell.
IV MODERN REPUBLICS The era of modern
republicanism began with the American Revolution of 1776 and the French
Revolution of 1789. Elements of republican government were present in the
administrative institutions of the English New World colonies, but
republicanism did not become dominant in American political thinking until
the colonists declared their independence. The establishment of the United
States as a federal republic with a government made up of three coordinate
branches, each independent of the others, created a precedent that was
subsequently widely emulated in the western hemisphere and elsewhere.
The French Revolution also created a republic based on suffrage?the first
national republican state among the powers of Europe?and like its
American predecessor it enunciated fundamental principles of liberty.
Although this first French republic was short-lived, its impact on French and
European society was virtually continuous. In the view of many historians
the Napoleonic Wars that followed were essentially a military extension of
the political assault on the remnants of the Continent’s feudal structure and
eventually resulted in a new era of republicanism.
During the 19th century republics were established in most instances where
revolutionary struggles were waged outside Europe. Thus, all the Latin
American republics were products of revolutionary struggles for national
independence; many of these governments, however, became military
dictatorships. Two African republics, the South African Republic (1852) and
the Orange Free State (1854), were finally annexed by Britain after the
Boer War (1899-1902). Both in the United States and other republics,
however, the passage of the century was generally marked by
democratization of the electoral process through the enlargement of the
electorate.
Two waves of new-state formations occurred in the 20th century?the first
one after World War I, the second after World War II. Most of the newly
independent states established themselves as republics, although some of
those created in the first wave began monarchies.
A new chapter in the history of republicanism began with the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent transformation of the Russian
Empire into the USSR. The development of the Soviet Union into a
one-party totalitarian state demonstrated once more that republic and
democracy are not synonymous, a fact that became even more obvious
after World War II, when all the republics of Eastern Europe were fashioned
in a similar mold as one-party “people’s republics” under the tutelage of the
Soviet Union.
Of the dozens of new republics that have come into being since World War
II, most have, in fact, displayed a definite trend away from democratic
ideals and instead assumed the nature of oligarchies, single-party states, or
military dictatorships. The many economically and politically developing
nations that emerged from the liquidation of European colonial empires
posed profound problems for democratic republicans. One was whether
truly representative governments could be elected by nonliterate,
ill-informed voters. Another was how to establish majority rule in a
fundamentally tribal society. The hold of ingrained traditions on the one
hand and the introduction of new doctrinaire ideologies on the other added
a further element of chaos. The result, most often, was an authoritarian
one-person, one-party, or military rule. Thus, in the last quarter of the 20th
century, although some three-fourths of the nations in the world styled
themselves republics, only a very few could be described as democracies.1
Democratic Party, one of the two main political parties of the United States.
Its origins can be traced to the coalition formed behind Thomas Jefferson in
the 1790s to resist the policies of George Washington?s administration. This
coalition, originally called the Republican, and later the
Democratic-Republican Party, split into two factions during the presidential
campaign of 1828. One, the National Republican Party, was absorbed into
the Whig Party in 1834; the other became the Democratic Party.
II THE JACKSONIAN PARTY
In the 1830s, under presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the
Democratic Party developed the characteristics it retained until the end of
the century. It was willing to use national power in foreign affairs when
American interests were threatened, but in economic and social policy it
stressed the responsibility of government to act cautiously, if at all.
Democrats argued that the national government should do nothing the
states could do for themselves, and the states nothing that localities could
do.
The party?s supporters in this period included groups as diverse as southern
plantation owners and immigrant workers in northern cities. They all had in
common a dislike of government intervention in their lives. The Democrats?
opponents, the Whigs, on the other hand, believed in using governmental
power to promote, regulate, correct, and reform.
A major source of the party?s cohesion was its strong organization, which
enabled it to fight elections effectively, keep the party together between
elections, and shape and influence government decisions. The Democratic
organization, with its local, district, and statewide committees, conventions,
and party rallies, spread everywhere to promote the party and its principles
and candidates on election day. The organization drew up lists of voters,
got them to the polls, and provided ballots for them to cast and the
arguments to justify their decisions. Afterward, the party helped select
government officers and discipline them while in service.
In the years after 1828, party competition was very close. The Democrats
won the presidency six out of eight times through 1856 and usually
controlled Congress. Their Whig opponents, however, always waged strong
campaigns against them. Van Buren?s leadership role in the party made him
Jackson?s successor as nominee and president in 1836, but, defeated in
1840, he had to give way to younger men. These new leaders maintained
the commitment to the economic and social principles of the Jacksonian era
but added a more aggressive stance in foreign affairs. Territorial expansion
and war with Mexico followed under President James K. Polk in the 1840s.
III THE PERIOD OF NORTH-SOUTH CONFLICT
A voter backlash severely changed the party?s fortunes in the mid-1850s.
The Democratic commitment to limited national power extended to the
question of whether or not slavery should expand into new territories. Party
leaders such as Lewis Cass and Stephen A. Douglas favored local control, or
popular sovereignty, rather than congressional regulation. This did not
satisfy some party supporters and others outside the party. Southern gains
in the territories provoked bitter anger. At the same time, the Democrats?
long-standing interrelationship with immigrant workers also caused severe
problems. Greatly increased immigration in the 1850s transformed many
areas of the country and seemed to threaten American values. The result
was an electoral disaster, as many northern Democrats, seeking to punish
their leaders and willing to throw aside their party, joined the emerging
Republicans. These defections cost the party a large part of its northern
support and enhanced the power of the southern wing within party councils
in the late 1850s.
IV THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR AND ITS
AFTERMATH
Increased southern demands for the protection of slavery and the
resistance to it by northern Democrats (out of fear of even further party
collapse) caused a split in 1860. This enabled the Republicans under
Abraham Lincoln to win the presidency. The party?s problems were
compounded during the Civil War that followed. Remaining consistent,
Democrats refused to accept the need to increase government power in
order to fight the war. They opposed the draft, social changes, and
government encroachment into everyday life. They strongly resisted
Republican tariff and taxation policies to finance the war. All of this,
however, put them on the defensive. The Republicans charged them with
disloyalty and made it an effective campaign slogan for the rest of the 19th
century. This tactic, known as “waving the bloody shirt,” always hurt the
Democrats in close elections until powerful emotional memories faded. They
did not regain control of either house of Congress until 1874 and did not
win the presidency again until 1884.
Democrats won many local and state elections after 1860 and threatened
the Republicans in others. They made especially effective use of the race
issue in the North, taking advantage of white hostility to blacks. At the
same time, the South became an increasingly solid Democratic voting bloc.
Neither was enough, however, and party leaders never found the means to
attract enough new voters or to convert enough Republicans to win national
power in the generation after the Civil War. Between then and the Great
Depression the Democrats were the minority party in the nation, able to
win only when the Republicans were badly split.
V PARTY DIVISIONS (1890-1912)
Factionalism had always existed among Democrats, as different regional,
social, and economic groups maneuvered to define the party?s stance and
candidates; sometimes, as in the realignment of the 1850s, such
factionalism cost the party dearly. Late in the 19th century, however, it got
entirely out of hand, as three groups fought for control in an increasingly
harsh atmosphere. One bloc comprised the traditional Democrats behind