by Michael Liss
The principles of Jefferson are the definition and axioms of free society…. All honor to Jefferson—to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression. —Abraham Lincoln, April 6, 1859 Letter to Henry L. Pierce and others.
An extraordinary man. Two extraordinary men, whose lives were bound together by a common thread of devotion to an idea of self-government in which all men are created equal. It is true that they did not understand it in exactly the same way (you cannot ignore the stain of slavery). Yet, the kind of people who rejected Jefferson’s core concept had—in his time, in Lincoln’s time, and now—a purpose: in Lincoln’s words, “supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste and legitimacy.”
We are less than two years away from the 250th anniversary of Jefferson’s defining words, and yet it seems we are less certain, less secure, perhaps even less committed to the idea of self-government.
There is a stunning AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that was just released, which reported the finding that “[o]nly 21% of adults feel U.S democracy is strong enough to prevail no matter who wins the election in November.”
Just exactly what is the “U.S. Democracy” that may not prevail? Before we go further, we ought to get some nomenclature misunderstandings out of the way. Let’s introduce Democracy’s cousin, the “Constitutional Republic.” Yes, we live in a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy. No, that’s not a concluding and conclusive argument any time someone wants to make government more representative, more answerable to the voters, or less beholden to privilege. Opponents of change who invoke the phrase “mob rule” just highlight the fact that what’s at stake isn’t high principle, but rather a desire to “supplant[] the principles of free government, and restor[e] those of classification, caste and legitimacy.”
There are no “pure democracies,” even if we frame it that way out of convenience. To quote from a 2017 essay by Ryan McMaken, Executive Editor at the (very not liberal) Mises Institute:
[I]f anyone wants to argue against majoritarianism, he should simply do so. There is no need to rely on a half-baked usage of the writings of ‘the Founding Fathers’ who clearly supported a political system in which majority votes play a big part in selecting elected officials, and which is obviously a democracy according to the modern usage of the term.
In actuality, we have always had a constitutional republic, rather than a democracy. That we call it Democracy changes absolutely nothing. It’s the substance of the argument that ought to matter. The Founders did not first put an electric fence of privilege around the Constitution, and then bind for eternity all succeeding generations. Rather, they understood that Madison’s intricate document was imperfect, but it created a mechanism (through Amendment) to update it. It’s not easy to pass an Amendment, but it has been done many times, and in the service of expanding individual liberties and “Democracy.” Read more »
