The most common form of government in world history is power concentrated into the hands of one person.
This person is called by different names in different countries: King, Khan, Caesar, Kaiser, Czar, Sultan, Maharaja, Emperor, Chairman Mao, Comrade Stalin, or El Presidente.
Though the name changes, the function remains the same -- one person rule.
At the time of the American Revolution, the King of England was the most powerful king on the planet.
The writers of the Constitution had one overriding concern -- how to prevent power from re-concentrating.
They designed Constitution to take the concentrated power of a king and separate it into three branches and pit the branches against each other in a three-way tug-of-war to check power;
then separate power into Federal and State levels,
then tie up this Federal Frankenstein with ten handcuffs--the First Ten Amendments.
In a word, the U.S. Constitution is simply a way to prevent a President from ruling through mandates and executive orders -- to prevent one-person rule.
The founders sacrificed to brake away from a tyrant who had weaponized law enforcement against his political opponents, as they admitted in the Declaration of Independence:
"The history of the present King of Great-Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States ...
He has made judges dependent on his Will alone ... He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people ...
A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
A monarchy is where the power flows TOP-DOWN, from the king through a deep-state bureaucracy to the lowly subjects below.
In contrast, in democracies and republics, the power flows BOTTOM-UP, from the citizens to their elected public-servant representatives.
It is the difference between a dead pyramid, ruled from top-down, and a living tree, where every root, even the tiniest, must participate from the bottom-up to keep the tree alive -- every citizen must be involved.
Where kings have "subjects" who are subjected to the king's will, democracies and republics have "citizens."
"Citizen" is a Greek word having the meaning of co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-king.
Citizens are in charge of their own lives, and together, are in charge of the country.
"Polis" is the Greek word for "city."
Residents of the city were called "polités" -- the Greek word for "citizen."
"Politics" is simply "the business of the city."
The Latin word "civics" means "relating to a citizen."
Aristotle wrote in his work Politics (335-323 BC): “Man is a political animal.”
A republic differs from a democracy.
The word "democracy" has two general definitions:
- one is a general reference to "popular" governments, where the population -- the people rule themselves;
- the other is an actual system of government.
As an actual system of government, a democracy only worked on a small-scale where THE PEOPLE rule directly by being present at every meeting.
A republic, on the other hand, is where THE PEOPLE rule indirectly through their representatives.
As a system of government, a DEMOCRACY only successfully worked on a small scale, like the Greek city-states that began to around 800 BC.
City-states were limited in size, as logistically, every citizen had to go to the marketplace everyday to discuss every issue face to face. It was very time consuming.
If a democracy grew larger than where citizens could travel the distance to the market everyday, power subtlety transferred to the busy-body messengers who carried news of the issues back and forth, and they could slant it any way they wanted.
Republics could grow larger than democracies, as citizens could spend their time taking care of their families and farms, and have representatives in their place go to the market everyday to discuss politics.
America's republic is unique in that it has grown to have the most citizens of any republic in world history, as Theodore Roosevelt stated October 24, 1903:
"In no other place and at no other time has the experiment of government of the people, by the people, for the people, been tried on so vast a scale as here in our own country."
In the Roman Republic, "representatives" were hereditary positions.
The American Republic is a hybrid, where representatives are democratically elected.
A "constitutional" republic limits representatives with a set of rules approved by the citizens.
Where democracies are susceptible to being whipped into a frenzy, allowing a majority to carry out sudden mob justice, constitutional republics are slower to change, especially when they have the goal of guaranteeing to citizens' their Creator-given rights.
America's founders designed a government that was intentionally slow to change -- frustratingly slow at times in making good changes, but thankfully slow in making irreversible bad changes.
The founders realized it could take a lifetime to build a mansion and one irresponsible match to burn it down in a day.
A signer of the Constitution James McHenry noted in his diary (American Historical Review, 1906), that after Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention, he was asked by Mrs. Elizabeth Powel of Philadelphia:
"Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?"
Franklin replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."
A republic is where power is taken away from a tyrant and given to the people.
Webster's 1828 Dictionary defined "REPUBLIC":
"... exercise of the SOVEREIGN POWER is lodged in representatives elected by THE PEOPLE."
Those with political agendas endlessly try to push their will, developing methods of manipulation.
In popular governments, having recognition and praise from other citizens is continually sought for as the greatest honor; and having other citizens ridicule or ostracized you is the greatest shame to be avoided at all costs.
Ostracizing is where 6,000 citizens of Athens could vote to have you banished out of town for ten years.
Today, citizens want to be liked, friended, and followed; and being unfriended, blocked, or banned is to be avoided at all costs.
Ostracizing has taken the form of being locked out of your account or being de-platformed.
Greek theater was not so much for entertainment as a method used by government leaders to push political agendas.
In Greek tragedies, comedies, and satires, those who conformed to political agendas were honored, and those who did not conform were publicly ridiculed, mocked, and shamed.
Yale President Ezra Stiles stated in 1788:
"Most states of all ages ... have been founded in rapacity, usurpation and injustice ...
.. .All the forms of CIVIL POLITY (government systems) have been tried by mankind, EXCEPT ONE: and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America."
John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, stated September 8, 1777:
"The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favored with an opportunity of deliberating upon, and choosing the forms of government under which they should live.
All other constitutions have derived their existence from violence or accidental circumstances.
Your lives, your liberties, your property, will be at the disposal only of your Creator and yourselves."
Declaration signer James Wilson, who also signed the Constitution and was appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington, remarked at Pennsylvania's ratifying convention, November 26, 1787:
"Governments, in general, have been the result of force, of fraud, and accident.
After a period of 6,000 years has elapsed since the creation, the United States exhibit to the world the first instance ... of a nation ... assembling voluntarily ...
and deciding calmly concerning that system of government under which they would wish that they and their posterity should live."
Ronald Reagan stated in 1961:
"In this country of ours took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in the world's history.
Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. Here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man's relation to man ... the founding fathers established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God-given right and ability to determine our own destiny."
John Adams wrote in his notes on Canon & Feudal Law, 1765:
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence ... as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
In 1802, Daniel Webster stated in a Fourth of July Oration:
"The history of the world is before us ...
The civil, the social, the Christian virtues are requisite to render us worthy the continuation of that government which is the freest on earth."
Where did the writers of the Constitution get many of their ideas?
Professors Donald S. Lutz and Charles S. Hyneman published an article in American Political Science Review, 1984, titled "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late 18th-Century American Political Thought."
They examined nearly 15,000 writings of the 55 writers of the U.S. Constitution, including newspaper articles, pamphlets, books and monographs, and discovered that the Bible, especially the book of Deuteronomy, contributed 34 percent of all direct quotes made by the Founders.
When indirect Bible citations were included, the percentage rose even higher.
George Washington opened the Constitutional Convention, stating:
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God."
The last line of the Constitution was:
"Done ... the SEVENTEENTH DAY of SEPTEMBER, in the year of our LORD one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven."
After the U.S. Constitution was written, it needed to be ratified by nine states in order to go into effect.
Eight states had ratified it, and New Hampshire was in line to be the ninth, but disagreements caused it to stall.
The Governor of New Hampshire set the date to observe the annual Day of Fasting.
New Hampshire reconvened its ratifying convention in June of 1788.
Harvard President Rev. Samuel Langdon gave an address which was instrumental in convincing the delegates to ratify the Constitution.
The Portsmouth Daily Evening Times, January 1, 1891, acknowledged Rev. Samuel Langdon's influence:
"... by his voice and example he contributed more perhaps, than any other man to the favorable action of that body."
Langdon's address was titled "The REPUBLIC of the ISRAELITES an example to the AMERICAN STATES," June 5, 1788.
In ancient Israel, every town had a meeting place, an assembly hall for the citizens, called a "synagogue."
Langdon explained:
"Instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen states of the American union, and see this application plainly ...
That as God in the course of his kind providence hath given you an excellent Constitution of government, founded on the most rational, equitable, and liberal principles, by which all that liberty is secured ...
and you are impowered to make righteous laws for promoting public order and good morals;
and as he has moreover given you by his Son Jesus Christ ... a complete revelation of his will ... it will be your wisdom ... to ... adhere faithfully to the doctrines and commands of the gospel, and practice every public and private virtue."
Langdon continued:
"The Israelites may be considered as a pattern to the world in all ages ...
Government ... on republican principles, required laws; without which it must have degenerated immediately into ... absolute monarchy ...
How unexampled was this quick progress of the Israelites, from abject slavery, ignorance, and almost total want of order, to a national establishment perfected in all its parts far beyond all other kingdoms and states!
From a mere mob, to a well regulated nation, under a government and laws far superior to what any other nation could boast! ..."
Langdon concluded:
"It was a long time after the law of Moses was given before the rest of the world knew any thing of government by law ...
It was six hundred years after Moses before ... Grecian republics received a very imperfect ... code of laws from Lycurgus.
It was about five hundred years from the first founding of the celebrated Roman empire ... before the first laws of that empire."
After Langdon's address, New Hampshire's delegates voted to ratify the U.S. Constitution, thus putting it into effect.
Ten days after his Inauguration, President Washington wrote to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, May 10, 1789:
"If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it."
Benjamin Franklin wrote to the editor of the Federal Gazette, April 8, 1788 (The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787; Farrand's Records, Vol. 3, CXCV, pp. 296-297; Documentary History of the Constitution, IV, 567-571):
"To conclude, I beg I may not be understood to infer, that our general Convention was divinely inspired when it form'd the new federal Constitution, merely because that Constitution has been unreasonably and vehemently opposed;
... yet I must own I have so much faith in the general government of the World by Providence, that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance to the Welfare of Millions now existing, and to exist in the Posterity of a great Nation, should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenc'd, guided and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent beneficent Ruler, in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being."
Franklin's reference was to the Apostle Paul speech in Acts 17:28:
"In Him we live and move and have our being."
Alexander Hamilton wrote of the Constitution in his Letters of Caesar, 1787:
"Whether the New Constitution, if adopted, will prove adequate to such desirable ends, time, the mother of events, will show.
For my own part, I sincerely esteem it a system, which, without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests."
(Paul L. Ford, Essays on the Constitution of the United States, Historical Printing Club, Brooklyn, 1892, page 245).
George Washington wrote to Marquis de Lafayette, February 7, 1788:
"As to ... the new Constitution ... it appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the delegates from so many different states ... should unite in forming a system of national Government."
James Madison wrote to Jefferson, October 24, 1787, that writing the Constitution:
"... formed a task more difficult than can be well conceived ...
Adding to these considerations the natural diversity of human opinions on all new and complicated subjects, it is impossible to consider the degree of concord which ultimately prevailed as less than a miracle."
Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:
"America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of Divine Providence in behalf of the human race."
President Washington, the same week Congress passed the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution, declared, October 3, 1789:
"Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me 'to recommend ... a Day of Public Thanksgiving and Prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness' ...
I do recommend ... the 26th day of November ... to be devoted by the People of these United States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be ..."
Washington continued:
"That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks ... for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness,
and particularly the national one now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed."
G.K. Chersterton wrote in "What is America" (What I Saw In America, 1922):
"America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed.
That creed is set forth ... in the Declaration of Independence ... that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice ...
The Declaration ... certainly does condemn ... atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived."
Americans pledge allegiance to the Flag "and to the REPUBLIC for which it stands."
Citizens are basically pledging allegiance to being in charge of themselves, exercising their authority through representatives they pick.
When someone protests the flag, what they are effectively saying is, "I no longer want to be king ... I protest this system where the people rule themselves."
A republic only lasts as long as the citizens have morals, virtue, and self-control.
John Adams warned October 11, 1798:
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other ...
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.
Avarice, ambition, revenge ... would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net."
Where the Constitution was designed to separate power, in times of crises, people panic and surrender power into the hands of government.
Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret wrote in The Great Reset:
"One of the great lessons of the past five centuries in Europe and America is this: acute crises contribute to boosting the power of the state."
Michael Rectenwald wrote in “What is the Great Reset” (Imprimis 12/21):
“A two-tiered economy, with profitable monopolies and the state on top and socialism for the majority below.”
Seizing power in crises is the norm for tyrants.
The American Heritage Dictionary defined the term "man on horseback" as:
"A man, usually a military leader, whose popular influence and power may afford him the position of dictator, as in a time of political crisis."
"A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace."
Harry S Truman warned (Memoirs-Vol. Two: Years of Trial and Hope) that the Constitution was written to prevent demagogue or "a man on horseback" from seizing power during crises:
"The men who wrote the Constitution knew ... that tyrannical government had come about where the powers of government were united in the hands of one man.
The system they set up was designed to prevent a demagogue or 'a man on horseback' from taking over the powers of government ...
The most important thought expressed in our Constitution is that the power of government shall always remain limited, through the separation of powers."
Washington warned in the original draft of his Inaugural Address, 1789:
"Should ... those incited by the lust of power ... over leap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity:
it will only serve to show, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable (impenetrable) ...
no wall of words ... no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."
President William Henry Harrison warned in his Inaugural Address, March 4, 1841:
"As long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom ... so long will the liberties of a people depend on their constant attention to its preservation.
The danger to all well-established free governments arises from the unwillingness of the people to believe in ... the influence of designing men ...
This is the old trick of those who would usurp the government of their country. In the name of democracy they speak, warning the people against the influence of wealth and the danger of aristocracy ...
... There is at times much difficulty in distinguishing the false from the true spirit ...
The true spirit of liberty ... is mild ... whilst the spirit of party, assuming to be that of liberty, is harsh, vindictive, and intolerant, and totally reckless as to the character of the allies which it brings to the aid of its cause ...
The reign of an intolerant spirit of party amongst a free people seldom fails to result in a dangerous accession to the Executive power introduced and established amidst unusual professions of devotion to democracy."
Daniel Webster stated:
"Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years, cannot be expected to happen often ...
Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it ...
Such a government, once destroyed, would have a void to be filled, perhaps for centuries, with evolution and tumult, riot and despotism."
James Madison wrote in September of 1829 (Writings 9:351--57):
"The happy Union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution -- a miracle; their example the hope of liberty throughout the world.
Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruction of either!"
U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge stated in 1919:
"The United States is THE WORLD'S BEST HOPE ...
Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance ... for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin."
--
American Minute is a registered trademark of William J. Federer. Permission granted to forward, reprint, or duplicate.
Thank you, Dr. Federer, for this article. Happy Constitution Day!
If history teaches one thing, is that democracies often devolve into authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes because of power vacuums, demagoguery and even an entrenched military industrial complex.
Thank goodness the Founding Fathers made the Constitution and the separation of powers vital to ensure the nation doesn’t fall into a dictatorship.