Democracy and Danger

Americans are justly proud of their democratic tradition. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution offer a foundation on which we depend and useful lessons to much of the world. Yet what is familiar is not always understood, and our misunderstandings threaten real harm to others and to ourselves.

Chief among those misunderstandings is the belief that the Founders sought to establish a democracy. In fact, they were afraid of democracy, at least as viewed in the classical terms in which every citizen has a vote on issues before the public. Many of those we recall as patriot-heroes spoke contemptuously of the "rabble," and even the revolutionary Jefferson was not about to give the vote to women, African Americans, or even white men who did not own property. The framers of the Constitution were not interested in subjecting it to a popular vote, fearing quite rightly that it's dramatic alteration of the Articles of Confederation might ensure its defeat.

What the Founders gave us is a republic, whose chief goal is to constrain the self-interest of man which, unfettered, they feared would lead to tyranny of the majority and the destruction of society and civil liberty. As James Madison famously put it in Federalist 10, a republic is better than a democracy because, in the former, we may "refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations." The Constitution enshrined this view not only in creating two chambers in Congress, each based on elected representatives, but especially in the Senate, whose longer terms and larger districts (not to mention indirect election through the state legislatures) aimed to calm the passions of the lower house. Though we have vastly expanded the franchise since colonial times, we should remember that the Founders didn't trust "we, the people" enough to let them vote directly for the president either. So much for direct democracy in 1787.

Yet Americans assume that democracy and republican government are identical. This confusion led us to support "democracy" in the Middle East when it meant allowing the Palestinian people to vote, even if they ended up voting for the radical group Hamas. And democracy in Iraq meant letting the Iraqi people vote, even if they ended up voting along strictly sectarian lines and thus dividing the country into ethnic enclaves. In the U.S., "democracy" gets translated into the referendum, which has arguably done as much damage as good in more than one state. Our devotion to democracy has led repeatedly to calls to abolish the Electoral College and declare the winner of the popular vote president, despite a strong argument that this could lead to a multiparty system in which the president has an even smaller base of support than is sometimes true now. Our democratic idealism has even led some to propose a Constitutional amendment establishing direct democracy through the use of technology on all national issues now decided in representative bodies.

We do not need to agree with the restrictions on the franchise initially proposed by the Founders to remember the reasons for their concerns about direct democracy. We do need to keep the dangers of democracy in mind. We must not, for example, confuse an opinion with a reasoned argument. Americans have opinions on everything, but we should no more want government by opinion polls than we want doctoring by asking those in the waiting room what procedure they suggest.

Neither does direct democracy substitute for thoughtful dialogue and debate. Admirers of direct democracy like to point to the New England Town meeting, where each citizen could argue his point of view. But direct democracy in America thus far seems both more shallow and private. Political advertising keeps it short and oversimplified, and voting by computer hardly has the give-and-take of a town meeting.

Still another danger our confusion about democracy creates is its assumption that reason guides democratic decisions. The Founders knew better, realizing that passions often dictated positions, not the other way around.

The Founders also knew that education is essential to the health of republican government. And recent data on the civic literacy of Americans should give pause about our eagerness to turn public decision making over to direct democracy. A survey of college seniors last year by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute showed a mean score of only 55.2 out of 100 on questions about the American political system. Only 45.9%, for example, knew that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” comes from the Declaration of Independence. Less than 50% answered correctly on questions about the Bill of Rights, federalism, and the concept of enumerated powers. In fact, the knowledge of college students actually decreased between their freshman and senior years, giving reason to remember Jefferson's admonition that "a society that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be."
Representative government has its problems to be sure, and the Founders knew it would. They did not expect all statesmen to be enlightened, and they designed countervailing centers of power at the national level and between the central government and the states as a check on the tendency of factions to destroy liberty. But they placed a bet that representative government was still a lot safer than democracy. Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention on its last day, September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked what the convention - until then shrouded in secrecy - had wrought. His answer was short yet profound: "A republic, if you can keep it." We still have that republic. Keeping it may be getting harder.