Eleven short years after the Declaration of Independence was written and adopted by the Continental Congress, fifty-five delegates from twelve of the thirteen “Free and Independent States” that had been created by the Declaration of Independence met in Philadelphia and drafted a new document – the Constitution of the United States – to replace the Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union.
The delegates who gathered at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 had been given specific instructions to do nothing more than revise the Articles of Confederation. One of the first things they decided to do was to ignore those instructions and draft an entirely new document. They also decided to take a vow of secrecy. Not a word spoken in the room where they were meeting was to be shared with the public or the press. Speaking candidly, the delegates were free to express their true feelings as they debated what form the new government should take. Most of fifty-five men who drafted our Constitution were not fond of democracy. This quote from Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of “gerrymandering”) is typical of the tenor of their remarks.
In An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, historian Charles Beard, compiled a brief overview of the political views of all fifty-five delegates. Relying on primary source materials, especially quotations from James Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention and other materials included in The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Beard concluded that there were only four delegates who spoke out in favor of democracy and nineteen delegates who spoke out strongly against democracy. And nearly all of the remaining delegates voted consistently with those antidemocratic delegates.
The union forged by our Constitution was certainly a stronger union. It made us one nation instead of thirteen. It replaced the “firm league of friendship” of thirteen sovereign independent states created by the Articles of Confederation, with a powerful national government. The individual states retained some powers but were no longer sovereign. The government created was far from a perfect union. None of the elements of a “perfect Democracy”, as identified by John Locke, were included in the government created by our Constitution.
The Framers of our Constitution were masters of illusion. They created the illusion of democracy. It’s time for us to make America a true democracy.
Click to read more about the Framers views on democracy
and the Federal Convention.
In his essay “Politics and the English Language”, George Orwell makes the point that "the great enemy of clear language is insincerity”, resulting from “a gap between one's real and one's declared aims”. In that context, with regard to democracy, he says:
"The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice, have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic, we are praising it: consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way."
Orwell is correct. The term “democracy” has been abused and used dishonestly to the point that it has “several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another”. However, attempts to define democracy are not “resisted from all sides” – only by the defenders of other kinds of regimes – the false friends of democracy.
For anyone who is sincere and feels no need to hide their real aims, defining “democracy” is a simple matter. The word is derived from the Greek word demokratia, which was formed from two other Greek words: demos (meaning “the people”) and kratia (which means “have power”). A democratic government, therefore, is one in which the people have power. There is another Greek word – kratos (which means “rule”) – that is also applicable. A democracy is a government in which the people rule.
George Orwell
Being better than “all those other forms” of government “that have been tried from time to time” is a very low bar for democracy to clear. All the other forms have been based on various combinations of force, fear, and fraud. Democracy is the only legitimate form of government. As John Locke pointed out in his Second Treatise of Government: “The consent of the people…is the only lawful basis for government.”
The Intelligence Unit of The Economist publishes a Democracy Index annually that ranks the nations of the world in terms of the state of democracy in each country. Nations are given numerical scores on a total of 60 indicators and grouped into four categories based on their average score: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
The United States fell out of the “full democracies” category in 2016. In the 2020 Democracy Index (the most recent) the United States remains in the “flawed democracies” category, ranking 25th in the world in terms of the state of our democracy. The 2020 Index mentions the events of January 6, 2021 but does not reflect the continuing turmoil in the wake of that tragic day.
The authors of the Democracy Index acknowledge the fact that some people “insist that democracy is, necessarily, a dichotomous concept: a state is either a democracy or not.” For those of us who agree, making a determination as to whether or not America (or any nation) is a democracy requires a clear and concise definition of democracy and a shared understanding of the essential elements of democracy.
Extensive research has consistently shown that there is no significant correlation between the will of the people and the legislation enacted by Congress. One especially noteworthy study done by Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University looked at data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys conducted over a twenty-year period and compared what people wanted from government with the legislation that was actually passed by Congress. They concluded that: “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
If we define democracy as a government in which the people rule, and if a nation is "either a democracy or not", the United States is not a democracy.
The antidemocratic provisions embedded in our Constitution are in conflict with the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. To live up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence we need to remove all of the antidemocratic elements from our Constitution. That will not be easy, but it is the task at hand. The key to our success is to focus on something Franklin Roosevelt once said: