Essay On Does The Constitution Have A Democracy

The Founding Fathers wanted our government to be a republic because the people wanted their opinion to be heard in the laws that were made and the taxes that were being set. The people wanted to have a decision in what happens to their country. When the government is a republic the people have a say in people that represent them, but there are still laws and there is still rules to stand by. The people are still free and still have restrictions, but there are people to protect you such as police

The word democracy comes from two Greek words: demos, meaning "the people," and kratein, meaning "to rule." These two words are joined together to form a democracy, literally meaning "rule by the people". Nowadays democracy could be referred as a rule of the majority. It is a system of government in which the citizens exercise power directly or choose delegates from among themselves to form a governing body, such as a parliament. The Greek system of government was maybe more like a true democracy or administered by the general population than any other ever. On the other hand, most American politicians with mindfulness and knowledge have realized that the U.S. is not a Democracy as a country, regardless of the way that most people declare it to be a Democracy. Greek and American democracy have some similarities such as the amount of nationalism and patriotism saw in the people when a lack of representation for a city-state or nation as a whole is seen, and they both vote for their political leaders.

Since the ratification of the Constitution, more than 11,000 amendments have been proposed. The Constitution of the United States of America was Officially ratified in 1789. This makes the document over two-hundred years old. Since the time of its writing and eventual ratification, the document has been amended and interpreted in many ways. Whether it be prohibition to the abolition of slavery. The Constitution has been constantly updated over time. It has not laid stagnant with the time. The Constitution has remained the document off of which we have based our country for many years. A major question that has been posed is, why do we as a country still feel bound to this document written so many years ago? The reasons are fairly simple. The Constitution of the United States can and has been over many years amended, the laws and thoughts of a people can be expressed through the Constitution, and the constitution has functioned, with a few bumps in the road, fairly well over the last two-hundred years. The people of the United States should still stand behind this Constitution because it infact still serves us well today in many ways. A few being that it can be amended and “Fixed”, and another being that it does still protect our rights as citizens.

The first article “We’re a Republic”, states that we the United States of America do indeed have a republic government. People tend to walk around believing that we are a democracy, but that’s only because they think of democracy in a different way. We see democracy as in we the people get the say in what the government does, when in fact true democracy is making decisions through voting or meetings. The Framers never intended for the United States be a democracy. They believed being a democracy was dangerous and not a good idea. The constitution clearly states that we are meant to be a republic, where representatives make the decisions for us. I agree, not only do we pledge to the republic but we also elect officials to speak and make decisions for us, which is basically what a republic consists of.

The Constitution was created so one person or group wasn’t able to get too much power. At first, the Articles of Confederation was made. The Articles of Confederation was not working because the central government didn’t have enough power to protect the nation. The Constitution was made in order to hold the states together and the people together, and make sure the government doesn’t gain too much power. The Constitution guards against tyranny. Tyranny is “The accumulation of all powers…in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many” (Federalism Paper #47). The Constitution guards against tyranny by separation of powers, creating federalism, and having checks and balances.

Democracy did not occur in a matter of seconds, it took years of evolution to become what it is today. The thought of a self-government during a world ruled by monarchs would have you locked up in a mental hospital. As you can figure, democracy did not just come out of the nowhere, it had to be planned out and modified over the years. The earliest contributions and influences of The American Government came from philosophers, some of them are the part of our founding fathers and others influenced them to develop the strong nation we are today.

It’s hard to define something big as democracy in few short words, but president Abraham Lincoln does it best by defining democracy as a “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Bleicherstrasse). The Merriam Webster Dictionary barely scratches the surface of what democracy really means. It tries to define democracy as “a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting, a country ruled by democracy, an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights”, but democracy is so much more than that. For a government to be considered true democracy it must support these four key elements “A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections, the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life, protection of the human rights of all citizens, a rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens” (Diamond, 2004). If we go by this definition of democracy than America is not consider to be true democracy.

Democracy, as it is used today, means “ the people rule.” A democracy is a form of government ruled by the people of the country through elections and representation. A democracy is really a form of republic known as a democratic republic. A republic is a government where officials elected by a small group of people that make the important decisions.

Upon the opening words of the Constitution, "We the People…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America," one must ask, who are these people? While the American Constitution provided its citizens with individual rights, many members were excluded. Elite framers manipulated the idea of a constitution in order to protect their economic interests and the interests of their fellow ‘white land and slave owning men' by restricting the voices of women, slaves, indentured servants and others. Therefore, the Constitution cannot truly be considered a "democratic document." However, because it is a live document, malleable and controllably changeable according to the interest of congress, it has enabled us to make

Direct democracy, also known as pure democracy, is where the people vote to on or form consensus on policy initiatives directly. The word democracy literally means “rule by the people”. The United States today is a representative democracy. Which is a democracy in which the people

Direct democracy helped the citizens of Athens to develop intellectually, and broaden their minds, and cultural awareness. Aspiring to the Athenians, the United States followed in their footsteps and started a direct democracy in the 1630s to strive to achieve a balanced land.

In 1787, when the Constitution was being written, the people of the United States decided they wanted a democratic form of government. A democracy is “a form of government in which the people rule themselves either directly or through freely elected representatives” (American Government & Politics, pg. 5). Furthermore, a democracy is broken down into two more forms: a direct democracy and a representative democracy (also can be considered a republic). A direct democracy is a form of government, originally founded in ancient Greece, in which the people directly pass laws and make other key decisions. A representative democracy is a form of government in which the people choose their leaders through free elections in which candidates

Democracy is, and will always be, as one of America’s past presidents Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address, “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” The exact definition for democracy is a system of government by the whole population of a state, typically through elected members. The original idea of democracy that America’s Founding Fathers promoted has shifted throughout the years. America was founded on the principles of freedom and liberty and many of these freedoms and liberties are being stripped away, or are at risk of being stripped away, by the American government. America is no longer a democracy, but it is an oligarchy.

Some of the major features in a direct democracy are that the people get to directly elect things such as the president or for laws to be passed or not. The big advantages of a direct democracy are that voting takes much less time as it is just a vote among all the citizens, people see the the changes they voted for take effect faster, and people feel like their vote is valued and powerful. The downsides to a direct democracy are that sometimes the popular vote isn't always the right vote and people realize that after it's too late to change what they did. Around the time of the American Revolution the majority of people were considered, “too uneducated to govern themselves” (Schmidt, et al, 5). When our constitution was being written many of the founding fathers did not believe that the common people were ready to govern themselves, so they set up a representative democracy instead of a direct democracy. James Madison thought that if we did implement a direct democracy it would, “deteriorate into mob rule” (Schmidt,et al, 5).

Oftentimes, when you ask the average American what their government is they tend to think of the United States as a democracy. However, others find this to be untrue because, in a democracy the people themselves get together and vote on laws, in the United States, elected representatives do – and, therefore, the U.S. is a constitutional republic.