Republicanism vs the Democratic Ideals

Republicanism vs. The Democratic Ideals
To understand the similarities and differences between ‘republicanism’ and the democratic ideal, you must first understand some basic vocabulary. Republicanism was defined by John Adams as, “ A government, in which all men, rich and poor magistrates and subjects officers and people, masters and servants, the first citizen and the last, are equally subject to the laws.” Meaning that republicanism is not about the people having power, but about the power that people are under. Democracy is a form of government that says each person in the society gets an equal contribution and say in the decisions that are made that affect their lives and wellbeing. There are two forms of democracy. One is direct democracy which means that citizens get to directly participate in decision making (this works much better in small societies such as town meetings). The other form is representative democracy, which gives the people the right to vote on who they want to represent them and their ideas in the decision making processes (this works for large societies where it is unreasonable that every single person would get their individual voice heard).
Two major parts of the democratic ideal are equality and freedom. It means that each person is treated equally in the eyes of the law and each person has an equal say in the legislative process. We read in one of our readings in the text book that democracy has many parts, and most of them can be concluded by explaining popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty means that the government policies reflect the wishes of the people, government officials are elected in elections that are free and fair, people participate in the political process, there is lots of information available to the people and the majority rules. Another part of democracy is political equality, meaning that in decision making and process, each persons vote and voice is treated equally.
Republicanism in the 18th century was based on the people being governed by the law. Republicanism was very influenced by many other cultures around the world and their experimentation of different forms of government. It was created to fight the leadership of the monarch and in my belief, was the foundation of democracy. When one person governs (such as in a monarchy) that person is just bound by God, not by the citizens. In republicanism, decisions are made by many different classes of people. Over time, this developed into democracy when some ideals of republicanism were outdated or not very effective.
The biggest difference between republicanism and the democratic ideal is that they have different ideas of an ideal society. Republicanism focuses on the importance of making sure the ideas and preferences of many parts of the society are incorporated into decision making (meaning many different classes of society). Republicanism in the 18th century was created to ensure against tyranny and to help officials become elected. But in republicanism, it was believed that representatives of the people should be left to the smart people, but still representing a great cross section of society. Democracy focuses on the ideas and preferences of ‘the many’ which incorporates the majority of people involved, not necessarily of various classes and different parts of society.
A similarity between republicanism and democratic ideals is that representatives are elected. A difference is that in republicanism popular democracy was not thought well of, as it was in a democracy. In 18th century republicanism, the thought was that many ideas were represented in decision making, but only by a few people of high standing. In democracy, elections are held to create a majority rule, not a smart person of high standing rule.
These two ideas can be paralleled by what we know today as delegates and trustees in congress. As a delegate in congress, that person represents the majority opinion of what the people want. As a trustee, that person has room to think critically about what is best for their people, even if it’s against majority opinion. So in essence, republicanism is similar to being a trustee and the democratic ideals parallel a delegate in congress.
Even though we live in a democracy now that supposedly runs on the democratic ideals, I think that the American Government system is becoming closer and closer to republicanism but just isn’t calling it that. Because there is so much money involved in politics now, a few people can control the outcomes of elections and decision making by pouring money on the issue. To give a few examples: the billions of dollars spent on campaigns every year and super PACS (a way to trump the stipulations on how much money one person can spend on advocating in a campaign or on certain issues). It makes me very angry that we supposedly live in a democracy, but with the use of money, we seem to have regressed into the 18th century where only the smart and wealthy get to make decisions that they think are good for the many.