Web Writer's comment:
Ever notice how many of America's top leaders call America a democracy? Ever ask yourself why? Perhaps you should!
According to the founding fathers America is a republic not a democracy! They did not like or believe in democracy and gave many reasons why. Read the flag pledge page. Recite the pledge of allegiance. Does it say democracy or republic?
A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy — "A republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."
Anonymous, from Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superior to all private passions.
John Adams, letter to Mercy Warren, April 16, 1776
Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814
They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams, Novanglus No. 7, March 6, 1775
( How many times have you heard a politician say America is a nation of laws?)
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790
Democracy is indispensable to socialism.
Vladimir Lenin
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Karl Marx
( Could this be why politicians use the term democracy?)
Democracy is two wolves and lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833
The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.
Fisher Ames, speech in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, January 15, 1788
[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
Federal Farmer, Antifederalist Letter, No.18, January 25, 1778
[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.
John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, August 29, 1763
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/alex_tytler_quote_766c
Quote by: Sir Alex Fraser Tytler
(1742-1813) Lord Woodhouselee, Scottish jurist, professor and historian
Source: supposedly from The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic, c.1799 but no book has been found. Questionable. See http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/tyler.asp
Questionable Quote from Sir Alex Fraser Tytler
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess of the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
Sir Alex Fraser Tytler (1742-1813) Scottish jurist and historian.
