Republic Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Cicero defines res publica as res populi—the thing of the people. Republic signifies the public thing or public good or interest, referring to a political community. A republic is a commonwealth in which the commonweal of the whole people is paramount to that of a section, faction, or elite group. The rule of law is an important element in republican government and replaces dependence on the political authority of an emperor or king. Sovereignty resides in the people, not in a monarch. Distinguished from a democracy in which the people rule directly, a republic is democratic indirectly through representative government. Order, moderation, reason, and restraint are the benefits to be achieved by a republic through the rule of law. The key distinction between a democracy and a republic is that a democracy is ruled by an unlimited majority; whereas, in a republic the majority is limited by a constitution. Thus, in a democracy the minority has no protection against what Alexis de Tocqueville called the tyranny of the majority. In a republic, the constitution limits the powers of majoritarian democracy by separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and protection of individual rights of minorities. While all people are equal under the law, the emphasis is on social pluralism, not uniform equality as may be the object of a direct democracy.

After rejecting kingship, the Romans established the Roman Republic, which had a mixed constitution balancing monarchy (consuls), aristocracy (Senate), and democracy (people). Even though the Roman Republic was not an Athenian democracy, no act of the consuls or Senate could be legitimate without popular support. Further, the people (adult males with property) had the constitutional rights to vote on legislation, elect political and military officials, and serve as a collective judge in popular courts. Political virtues, such as honor, glory, military power, and public sacrifice, were fundamental to the concept of the Roman Republic.

To secure the common good, a republic requires an institutional legal framework that mitigates destructive self-interested factions. Thus, James Madison’s focus in Federalist Paper no. 10 (1787) is to control the “effects” of factions because the “cause” of factions—human nature—cannot be changed. Madison, an American politician, philosopher, and president, believed that a republic offered the cure for the “mischiefs of faction,” something a democracy could not accomplish. An extended republic of representation can control the effects of factions by an offsetting interaction between parties and interests so that ambition can counter ambition, preventing the rise of an omnipotent majority.

Also, in Federalist Paper no. 39 (1788), Madison asserts that the ratification of the U.S. Constitution must be a national act (“We the People”) because its primary objective is the commonweal of the people. Madison describes the U.S. Constitution as a compound republic, both national and federal. The nation as a whole and the individual states share power. Because political power is derived from both federal and national sources, federalism is a key political principle. Originally, the U. S. Senate was elected by state legislatures, who prior to the Civil War (1861–1865) were predominant. This federal aspect was eliminated by the Seventeenth Amendment (1913) shifting the elective power from the states to the people. Still, the limit of political power remains federal: the Tenth Amendment provides that all constitutional power not delegated to the national government is reserved by the states or the people. Also, Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every state a republican form of government, not a democracy. It establishes a mixed government, with separation of powers and checks and balances; popular sovereignty; the rule of law; and civil rights. The U.S. republic is democratic, but not a democracy. As such, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, ensure that minority interests are protected from majoritarian supremacy.

Throughout history, republics have differed widely in democratic substance and form. Plato’s Republic (360 BCE), an ideal conception of justice as hierarchical class orders in society, could not be described as democratic, nor could Aristotle’s democracy, which he considered a defective form of constitution, serving the self-interest of the impoverished masses. Other notable republics in history, such as the Israelite Commonwealth, San Marino (the oldest extant republic), Icelandic Republic, Swiss Republic, Dutch Republic, South African Republic, English Commonwealth, French Republic, Italian Republic, and USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) are not the same. For example, the USSR and the South African Republic were not democratic states.

Public participation and moral virtue provide the foundation for a republic. St. Augustine believed that without justice there could be no commonwealth, and there could be no justice without divine law. Cicero relied on natural law to provide unalterable norms as the basis for legislation, whereas Machiavelli thought republican virtue had a more secular nature. In any case, loyalty and adherence to the state or public realm and the willingness to participate, contribute, and sacrifice for the common good is the spirit of a republic. The “friend of the people,” Publius, a founder of the Roman Republic, inspired Hamilton, Madison, and Jay to use his name as author for The Federalist Papers, the eighty-five essays that provide the theoretical basis for the founding of the U.S. republic.

Bibliography:

On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. Edited by James E. G. Zetzel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Gelderen, Martin van, and Quentin Skinner, eds. Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Madison, James, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay. The Federalist Papers. Edited by Clinton Rossiter. New York: Penguin, 1961.
Millar, Fergus. The Roman Republic in Political Thought. Waltham, Mass.: Brandeis University Press, 2002.
Pocock, J. G. A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.

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