America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great Read Online Free PDF Page B

nation’s founding fathers to promote not only cooperation, but widespread participation. 2
D EMOCRACY W AS N EVER I NTENDED
AS A S PECTATOR S PORT
    The founding fathers of America were extremely well-educated men and great students of history, “the well fed, well bred, well read, and well wed,” as historian James McGregor Burns described them. 3 They represented a nouveau aristocracy, not by birth as in the mother countries, but through development of their minds and talents.
    These men certainly feared having a government that was too big and too powerful, as they had experienced across the ocean, so when trying to assemble an appropriate governing structure for this country, these dedicated Americans deliberated for over four weeks trying to decide what kind of government we would have. This included heated philosophical and political discussions over the tenets of Aristotle’s six forms of political constitution, ranging from tyranny and monarchy to democracy and polity. 4 The situation was too critical for them to leave the organization of the new government to just anyone, and so they ultimately incorporated many of the best ideas from other cultures along with a heavy dose of faith in God and a lot of hard work.
    Could a government’s power truly rest in the hands of the people? Could such an experiment really work? By definition, in legislative- and decision-making processes, a democracy requires full participation of all the people. But most people are so involved and preoccupied with daily duties and routines, they have neither the time nor energy to participate in hearings and study the issues sufficiently enough to prepare for a vote. Several times the ancient Greeks attempted to utilize democratic mass participation in governing their city-states, but each time it resulted in tyranny. As the population expands, a democracy becomes increasingly inefficient and rowdy.
    Although the noble goal of democracy had been tried by other societies, power usually eventually shifted to some central authority and the dream of autonomy died. Even with the well-established system of democracy createdby the ancient Israelis, the people became dissatisfied and demanded a king. Without question, when one has a central authority figure the squabbling and arguments quickly die out and it is easier to get things done. The founding fathers understood this tendency and endeavored to create a system that would resist the urge to become a monarchy. Yes, there had been benevolent kings and queens, but they had experienced firsthand a monarch who cared not for the populace at large.
    This process of developing a government that could utilize the power bestowed on it by the people to govern effectively but efficiently was tricky business. These men had witnessed the tyranny of monarchs and the ineffectiveness and inequality of large governments, and they recognized that a democracy would quickly stagnate if everybody had to weigh in on every decision. Therefore, they decided that a republic-type government would be much more efficient, in which elected representatives of the people would make decisions. Also, with a republic there is no limitation on expansion.
    “A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place,” stated James Madison in
The Federalist Papers
, “opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.” 5 A republic, he further defined, is “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is
essential
to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and