Democracy or Republic?: The People and the Constitution

How do you place the people in charge without creating a democratic tyranny? By the time of the American Revolution, nobody in the history of the world had yet answered this question.

In recent years, the Constitution has become a source of political controversy between conservatives and progressives. While the right defends our founding document, the left argues that it’s an antiquated plan of government that goes against the basic principles of democratic sovereignty.

In Democracy or Republic? How the Founders Crafted the Constitution as the Blueprint for Self-Government, Jay Cost argues that America’s Constitution was designed for a republic, not a democracy. The Constitution ensures that the people rule for the good of all, not just those who happen to make up a majority.

Our Constitution does this by promoting consensus. It empowers large, broad, and considered coalitions of people who have found common cause with one another.

America, then, is not merely a democracy. It is something greater.

Jay Cost is the Gerald R. Ford Non-resident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he focuses on political theory, Congress, and elections. He is also a visiting scholar at Grove City College and a contributing editor at the Washington Examiner. He earned a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago and a BA in government and history from the University of Virginia.