National Humanities Institute: Fabius Letters

Gregory S. Ahern [From HUMANITAS, Volume XI, No. 2, 1998 Š National Humanities Institute, Washington, DC USA]

34 For an account of the difference between representative democracy, as envisioned by the Framers, and the plebiscitary democracy against which Fabius warns his readers, see Claes G. Ryn, The New Jacobinism: Can Democracy Survive? (Washington, D.C.: National Humanities Institute, 1991) and his Democracy and the Ethical Life: A Philososphy of Politics and Community (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990), ch. XI.

From the Site:
wealth4freedom
1. GOD created man . . . 2. Man (that's you) created the Constitution . . . 3. Constitution created government . . . 4. Government created corporations . . etc. The base of power was to remain in WE THE PEOPLE but unfortunately, it was lost to those leaders acting in the name of the government, such as politicians, bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, etc. As a result America began to function like a democracy instead of a REPUBLIC. A democracy is dangerous because it is a one-vote system as opposed to a Republic, which is a three-vote system: Three votes to check tyranny, not just one. American citizens have not been informed of their other two votes. Our first vote is at the polls on election day when we pick those who are to represent us in the seats of government. But what can be done if those elected officials just don't perform as promised or expected? Well, the second two votes are the most effective means by which the common people of any nation on earth have even had in controlling those appointed to serve them in government. The second vote comes when you serve on a Grand Jury. Before anyone can be brought to trial for a capital or infamous crime by those acting in the name of the government, permission must be obtained from people serving on the Grand Jury! The Minneapolis Star and Tribune in March 27, 1987, edition noted a purpose of the grand Jury in this way: "A Grand Jury's purpose is to protect the public from an overzealous prosecutor." The third is the most powerful vote: this is when you are acting as a jury member during a courtroom trial. At this point, "the buck stops" with you!It is in this setting that each JUROR has MORE POWER than the President, all of Congress, and all of the judges combined! Congress can legislate (make law), the President or some other bureaucrat can make an order or issue regulations, and judges may instruct or make a decision, but no JUROR can ever be punished for voting "Not Guilty!" Any juror can, with impunity, choose to disregard the instructions of any judge or attorney in rendering his vote. If only one JUROR should vote "Not Guilty" for any reason, there is no conviction and no punishment at the end of the trial. THus, those acting in the name of government must come before the common man to get permission to enforce law.

from the Site:
The Virtual Soapbox
Proclaim Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof. Leviticus 25:10 - Inscription on the Liberty Bell Republics and Democracies Without the proper foundation, Liberty will crumble! Robert Welch founded The John Birch Society in 1958 and led it until just prior to his death in 1985. This essay was first delivered as a speech at the Constitution Day luncheon of We, The People in Chicago, on September 17, 1961. The principles he espoused in that speech are timeless. The American Republic will endure only so long as those principles are sufficiently understood by each succeeding generation of Americans. THE NEW AMERICAN / JUNE 30, 1986 General Birch Services Corp. P O. Box 8010 Appleton, Wl 54913 Highlights of the speech (This essay was reprinted in the June 30, 1986 issue of The New American.) Out of the democracies of Greece, as tempered somewhat by the laws of Solon, there came as a direct spiritual descendant the first true republic the world has ever known. This was Rome in its earlier centuries, after the monarchy had been replaced. The Romans were opposed to tyranny in any.form; and the feature of government to which they gave the most thought was an elaborate system of checks and balances. When the Tribunes were set up, for instance, around 350 B.C., their express purpose and duty was to protect the people of Rome against their own government. This was very much as our Bill of Rights was designed by our Founding Fathers for exactly the same purpose. "Democracy is more cruel than wars or tyrants." - Seneca "Without checks and balances, amonarchy becomes despotism, aristocracy becomes oligarchy, democracy becomes mob rule, chaos, and dictatorship." - Dr. Will Durant The man usually chosen as leader by an ungoverned populace, is someone bold and unscrupulous . . . who curries favor with the people by giving them other men's property - Cicero It is only to the extent we are willing to learn from history that we are able to avoid repeating its horrible mistakes. Antonyms, not Synonyms - Democracy and Republic The word Democracy (in a political rather than a social sense, of course) had always referred to a type of government, as distinguished from monarchy, or autocracy, or oligarchy, or principate. The word Republic, before 1789, had designated the quality and nature of a government, rather than its structure The word democracy comes from the Greek and means, literally, government by the people. The word republic comes from the Latin, res publica, and means literally the public affairs. The word commonwealth is almost an exact translation and continuation of the original meaning of res publica. The historical development of the meaning of the word republic might be summarized as follows. The Greeks learned that man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law. The Romans applied the formerly general term republic specifically to that system of government in which both the people and their rulers were subject to law. John Adams pointed out that Aristotle (representing Greek thought), Livy (whom he chose to represent Roman thought), and Harington (a British statesman), all define a republic to be -a government of laws and not of men. And it was with this full understanding that our constitution-makers proceeded to establish a government which, by its very structure, would require that both the people and their rulers obey certain basic laws - laws which could not be changed without laborious and deliberate changes in the very structure of that government. They were deliberately doing everything in their power to avoid for their own times, and to prevent for the future, the evils of a democracy. The object for which the delegates had met was "to provide a cure for the evils under which the United States labored; that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and trials of democracy.... Edmund Randolph May 31,1787, to his fellow members of the newly assembled Constitutional Convention It had been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity. Alexander Hamilton We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy. Alexander Hamilton . . . democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison Democracy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor. James Russell Lowell It was under Wilson that the first huge parts of the Marxian program, such as the progressive income tax, were incorporated into the American system. It was under Wilson that the first huge legislative steps to break down what the Romans would have called our mixed constitution of a republic, and convert it into the homogenous jelly of a democracy, got under way with such measures as the direct election of Senators. And it was under Wilson that the first great propaganda slogan was coined and emblazoned everywhere, to make Americans start thinking favorably of democracies and forget that we had a republic. This was, of course, the slogan of the first World War: To make the world safe for democracy. In 1928 the U.S. Army Training Manual, used for all of our men in army uniform, gave them the following quite accurate definition of a democracy: 'A government of the masses. Authority- derived through mass meeting or any form of 'direct' expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic-negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." The Soldiers Guide, Department of the Army Field Manual, issued in June of 1952, we find the following: "Meaning of democracy. Because the United States is a democracy, the majority of the people decide how our government will be organized and run-and that includes the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The people do this by electing representatives, and these men and women then carry out the wishes of the people. In the Constitution of the American Republic there was a deliberate and very extensive and emphatic division of governmental power for the very purpose of preventing unbridled majority rule. In our Constitution governmental power is divided among three separate branches of the national government, three separate branches of State governments, and the peoples of the several States. And the governmental power, which is so divided, is sometimes exclusive, sometimes concurrent, sometimes limited, at all times specific, and sometimes reserved. The intellectual snobs and power-drunk bureaucrats of our recent years set out to make everybody theoretically equal (except to themselves) by legislation and coercion. And I can tell you this. When you begin to find that Jew and Gentile, White and Colored, rich and poor, scholar and laborer, are genuinely and almost universally friendly to one another again -instead of going through all the silly motions of a phony equality forced upon them by increasing political democracy -you can be sure that we have already made great strides in the restoration of our once glorious republic. The American Declaration of Independence became a part of the very foundation of our republic. And they said that man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all. Those certain unalienable and divine rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror. The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just, becomes absurd and unacceptable Man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both. And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man and man's universe. Any such idea that there are unchangeable limitations on the power of the people themselves is utterly foreign to the theory of a democracy, and even more impossible in the practices of one. And this principle may ultimately be by far the most significant of all the many differences between a republic and a democracy. For in time, under any government, without that principle slavery is inevitable, while with it slavery is impossible. And the American Republic has been the first great example of that principle at work.

From the Site:
ŠPastor Mike Acker What is a Republic?
"Today the path to total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people....outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government, a bureaucratic elite which believes our Constitution is outmoded and is sure that it is the winning side.... All the strange developments in the foreign policy agreements may be traced to this group who are going to make us over to suit their pleasure.... This political action group has its own local political support organizations, its own pressure groups, its own vested interests, its foothold within our government, and its own propaganda apparatus." Senator William Jenner (1954) DEFINITION and explanation: What is a Republic? Look up the word REPUBLIC in most any dictionary. Most likely, you"ll find that a "republic" is a "government of elected representatives". This is a deliberate deception. I have an Enclycopaedia Britinacia, 11th edition. This work provides the proper explanation. First it says that the idea that a republic is a government of elected representatives is a "notoriously modern interpretation". The article continues, explaining that historically, a Republic refered to a government in which the soverign held authority granted by the people and ruled according to law. Note that this concept checks exactly with our own Declaration of Independence which states that the purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people, and that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people. You now have the key ideas in hand: First, power is derived from the people, and second the government itself operates within and under the control of the law. In other words: In a REPUBLIC the People are the Masters and the government is subordinate. When the Founding Fathers set our Constitution for us they based their work on this concept. The Constitution is a grant of authority from We the People to form a government. The government thus authorized is a LIMITED government, operating on authority granted from We the People. In every sense it meets the earlier, historical definition of a Republic. The Constitution is the grant of authority for the government. The Constition, then, is the Law of the People for the control of the Government. You will hear many people say that we are a "democracy". Such was NOT the original intention. In a democracy, the will of the majority is law. Anything is allowed, provided that the majority approves. There are no checks and balances, and the rights of the individual are not protected. Allow me two quotations on the subject: James Madison, Federalist Paper 10: "Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." U.S. Army Training Manual TM2000-05, 1928 Democracy, n. "A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of "direct" expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic - negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy." Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They made a very marked distinction between a republic and democracy ... and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had created a republic. Seek the Truth, and the Truth will make you free! ŠPastor Mike Acker