A Republic—If You Can Keep It: Choice II

Abstract

This chapter “A Republic —If you Can Keep It: Choice II” considers the second most critical choice the Framers made, what type of democracy they would adopt. The Framers were committed to creating a democratic state in which the people were sovereign. At the time, the type of democracy familiar to most people was the pure/direct variety that had been used in and by the Greek city-states. Fewer people were familiar with the alternative, a republic or representative democracy. This chapter delves into the Framers decision to adopt the latter and focuses particular attention on James Madison’s defense of and argument for Republican democracy in Federalist #10. In addition, it addresses the positive and negative aspects of this choice, including the critical issues of scale, exclusivity, and ignorance; focusing not just on their historical but current implications. The chapter ends by focusing on the so-called bouillabaisse of ignorance problem that is frequently leveled against Americans and asks whether the problem is that Americans are ignorant or that we are working with an unrealistic concept of democracy which does not meet or match the times in which we are living? It is an issue which we circle back to again in Part III.