Grant J. answered • 01/26/23
Graduated from Appalachian State University with a degree in History.
- There are clearly democratic processes at play in American government, but our government was established with the clear intention to be a republic, not a democracy. In fact, many of the nation's founders (even ideological opponents like Jefferson and Hamilton) agreed that the government must be ruled by the elite class, not the "unruly mob." We have evidence for this not just in their own writings, but in the way the Constitution was established. For example:
- States established property ownership requirements meaning an overwhelming percentage of the population was excluded from voting.
- States established voting for men only (New Jersey briefly an exception) meaning 50% of the population could not vote. Same for African Americans.
- Electing the President was done through the state legislature exclusively in many states, they did not even ask you to vote and then have the ability to ignore it, as they do today.
- Senators were elected by state legislatures as well. Of the three "democratic" institutions we have today at the national level (President, House of Reps, and Senate), two of these were not founded as such (President and Senate).
That being said, our contemporary government has become more democratic, but not completely. For example, we still do not technically vote for president. We vote for who we want the state legislature to appoint to the Electoral College who will then vote for president. In our current form of government, the President leads the entire federal bureaucracy and to have them undemocratically elected means we simply do not live in a democracy. If you want more evidence, though:
- We have many states that prohibit absentee or mail-in voting, meaning if they work on Election Day, they likely do not get to participate in the election (lines to vote take hours sometimes and people need to work to afford necessities).
- We have voter roll "purges" that take place right before election day and do not give prospective voters notice that they will not be able to vote with a traditional ballot (just a provisional one).
- With my modern worldview, I'd be a stuanch defender of democracy over the oligarchical republic that was chosen instead. To be fair, we have to remember why the founders established their government the way they did:
- Historical Lessons: The only two democracies or republics they could look back upon were Athens and the Roman Republic. Let's look at Rome - you have populist leaders like Sulla and Caesar that came to power by appealing to the masses and, as a result, destabilized their governments. They knew these governments were extremely fragile and needed to be guarded by their "enlightened" selves against the "unruly" masses.
- Contemporary Lessons: While it is not fully underway until the latter part of Washington's first term as president, the French Revolution epitomized the fears that many had of giving the reigns of power to everyday citizens leading to the mass execution of the ruling class and the seizure of their property.
That being said, the notion that the gentry truly knows more or better than the "unruly masses" has been proven time and time again to be a farce. If it were true, wouldn't life be better for everyone rather than just perpetuating existing power structures? I am a firm believer of the estate tax and know that none of these people we view as "founding fathers" would be so if they weren't given massive inheritances (money, property, and in many cases enslaved human beings) from their parents. Thomas Paine, my favorite person from this time period, is not considered in the Pantheon of Founding Fathers in large part due to not being in the same social class as them - he was by far the poorest of them and was excluded from any leadership roles despite writing the pamphlet that in large part led to the American Revolution altogether.
