In the United States we say that we live in a republic, and we use this phrase in our pledge of allegiance. We pledge that allegiance to the flag, and the "republic, for which it stands." The term gets misunderstood, however, and not just in America. What really is a "republic?"
Examining the Latin
root of the word tells us a great deal about the true meaning of the word. “Republic” actually comes from two Latin
words, res publica, which means “the
people’s thing.” This was a major step
in the development of political theory, the awareness that the government, the
organs of state, actually belonged to the people themselves. In a classic monarchy, the king is the
sovereign; the organs of state power belong to him, even if he chooses—or has
been forced—to share his power with the nobles of the realm, or even the common
citizens. Even today, in the United
Kingdom it is the Queen’s Parliament, not
the peoples’, that enacts the laws, and it is her ministers who form the
government. She is still, in theory, the
fountainhead of political power, even though she rules only through the Parliament
and the cabinet. To this day, one is not a
citizen of the United Kingdom;
one is a subject of Her Majesty the Queen.
In the Roman
Republic, however, the citizens
were the source of power and laws, with no check on their power, if even
tradition did limit what they would and would not do. The people, in the Centuriate Assembly,
elected the magistrates of the Republic, and gave them their imperium, the
power to command.[1] The magistrates only had their authority
because the people gave it to them, not the gods. Unlike what Paul would say about government, it was instituted by the people; it was not the agent of God or the gods. This was an advance over even Athenian
democracy, where the magistrates were chosen by lot. The people enacted the laws through one of
two popular assemblies, the Centuriate, or the Assembly of the Plebs, which
represented the people who did not have Patrician ancestors. This assembly also elected the tribunes of
the plebs, who had the power to veto the action of virtually any magistrate or
even the Senate.[2]
In his address at
the dedication of Gettysburg,
President Lincoln uttered a phrase which encapsulates the true nature of a
republic. In his speech he referred to
our government as one that is “…of the people, by the people, and for the
people…”. All three of these qualities
are important, but it is the first of these, the phrase “of the people” that
best indicates the feature that makes a republic a republic.
If we examine each
of these in reverse order, the first thing that becomes obvious is that the
phrase “for the people” could be used to describe virtually any form of
government, as long as those who held power honestly acted in the best
interests of the people. Even a tyranny,
if it was truly beneficent, could be said to act “for the people,’ at least in
terms of their material interests. This
doesn’t mean that the people will be satisfied with such a government; in fact,
the more educated they are, the less likely they are to accept such an
arrangement. Most people end up
resenting any form of authority that treats them as if they were helpless
children. Furthermore, what happens if
the government ceases to be beneficent?
The Roman Emperor Domitian, who was assassinated as a despot, started
his rule as one known for the honesty and justice of all the officials,
qualities that were enforced by the Emperor himself. Perhaps Lord Acton’s observation is truly
universal.[3]
Of course it is
good if a government can also be described as being “by the people,” that they
get to chose those will be in authority over them. This is also an important feature of an
enlightened government, but even the existence of free, contested, elections
are not enough to make a nation a republic.
How many times have we witnessed new nations starting out with truly
free elections, only to realize that those are the last elections that will be
held until the government is overthrown?
Even if the pattern
of free and contested elections continues, these qualities are still not enough
to earn a nation the title of a republic.
Here is the catch: if the will of the people is limited by a “higher
law” of any type that is not itself subject to the people, then it is not a
republic. This is what truly matters,
that the people are the source of the law, that every other point of reference,
any other possible source, is subordinate to them. Whether that “higher law” be a religious text
like the Bible or the Quran, or a secular text like Das Kapital, or a body of experts who can rule on the
legitimacy of the law in the name of this “higher law,” the existence of such a
standard means that the government is not truly a republic. The people must be the final authority.
What if, like in
the United States,
the government operates under the authority of a constitution that is supreme
over any law enacted either by legislature or plebiscite? What is the real difference between, say, the
Supreme Court of the United States
and the Constitution, and the Guardian Council and the Quran of Iran? Why, with such a supreme law, is the former a
republic but not the latter? What, if
anything, is the real difference?
There is, actually,
a great deal of difference between the two institutions, and the differences
can be found both in the source of state authority and in the methods of
choosing the ruling body. First, the
Constitution, ratified by the representatives of the people, reflects the
conscious decision to limit the power
of the government in the interests of the ultimate goal, which is the
preservation of liberty.[4] Granted, the power to remove a Justice of the
Supreme Court is limited to that of impeachment, which virtually requires the
commission of a criminal offense, but membership on the Court is the
prerogative of the President and the elected representatives of the
people. Furthermore, the people can, if
they disapprove of a Supreme Court ruling, overturn the ruling by amending the
Constitution, even to the extent of abolishing the Supreme Court itself, as
unlikely as that might be in actuality.
In Iran,
the people have no such power. Clearly,
the Quran can not be amended by the people, nor do they have any power, even
indirect, over the membership of the Guardian Council.
To repeat, what
matter is that the people, acting through the established organs of the
government, and to whom those organs are responsible, are sovereign; they are
the final authority in all that matters, not a deity, not a philosophy, nor
even morality.
[1] It is true that Rome
did not have a tradition of “one man, one vote.” The people did not directly elect the
magistrates; the majority of a century directed how the century would vote, and
the majority of the centuries elected the magistrates. The same indirect process worked in the
passage of legislation.
[2] A tribune could not veto a
magistrate in his military capacity outside of the city, nor could a tribune
exercise the veto against a lawfully appointed Dictator such as Quintus Fabius
Maximus the Delayer.
[3] He wrote, Power tends to
corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
[4] This, the preservation of
liberty, was the highest concern of the founders of the United
States.
Everything, even the acceptance of democratic principles, was engineered
to protect the liberty of the citizens.
Even the idea of majority rule is not seen as being important in its own
right, but because it help preserve liberty.
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