Dear Editor,
I can clearly remember my first day of Government class and was told that the United States was a Republic. In fact, Article IV of the U.S. Constitution states that, “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government […].” Now that means republican as in a republic form of Government, not the party. In fact, even the Constitution of the State of Indiana guarantees that we are a Republic in Article I, Section 25, “No law shall be passed, the taking effect of which shall be made to depend upon any authority, except as provided in this Constitution.”
When someone comes along and says that America is a Democracy — I shudder at the thought. There is a clear, concise difference between a Democracy and a Republic. In a Democracy, the rights of the minority are irrelevant to the whole.
Democracies pass laws that are for what they believe to be the greater good. In a Republic, the law (in this case, the Constitution) is there in order to leave the people alone.
The Founders, when drafting the Constitution, looked at Democracy with hesitation. John Adams correctly described Democracy when saying, “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.” In a Republic, the rights of the minority aren’t subject to majority rule, but to the law. Common Law should be the basis for all laws, not the Common Good. A Republic believes the individual is greater than the collective, while a Democracy believes the collective is greater than the individual.
Indiana, and ultimately America, are ready for the rule of law to be restored. A Democracy will always fail because you only have individual freedom in a Democracy as long as the majority does not want to infringe on your rights. The instant you are in a minority in a Democracy, you have no individual freedom. People who come out and claim with such passion that America is a Democracy, need to be looked at with greater skepticism. Because in a Democracy, the minority loses every time, however, in a Republic, the rights of the minority aren’t subject to the whims of the majority, but to the law.
Gary Eppenbaugh
Warsaw