Declaration of Independence
by John Trumbull

"Today the path to total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President, or the people....outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government, a bureaucratic elite which believes our Constitution is outmoded and is sure that it is the winning side.... All the strange developments in the foreign policy agreements may be traced to this group who are going to make us over to suit their pleasure.... This political action group has its own local political support organizations, its own pressure groups, its own vested interests, its foothold within our government, and its own propaganda apparatus."
Senator William Jenner (1954)

DEFINITION and explanation: What is a Republic?

Look up the word REPUBLIC in most any dictionary. Most likely, you"ll find that a "republic" is a "government of elected representatives".

This is a deliberate deception.

I have an Enclycopaedia Britannica, 11^th edition. This work provides the proper explanation. First it says that the idea that a republic is a government of elected representatives is a "notoriously modern interpretation". The article continues, explaining that historically, a Republic refered to a government in which the soverign held authority granted by the people and ruled according to law.

Note that this concept checks exactly with our own Declaration of Independence which states that the purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people, and that government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

You now have the key ideas in hand: First, power is derived from the people, and second the government itself operates within and under the control of the law. In other words: In a REPUBLIC the People are the Masters and the government is subordinate.

When the Founding Fathers set our Constitution for us they based their work on this concept. The Constitution is a grant of authority from We the People to form a government. The government thus authorized is a LIMITED government, operating on authority granted from We the People. In every sense it meets the earlier, historical definition of a Republic.

The Constitution is the grant of authority for the government. The Constitution, then, is the Law of the People for the control of the Government.

You will hear many people say that we are a "democracy". Such was NOT the original intention. In a democracy, the will of the majority is law. Anything is allowed, provided that the majority approves. There are no checks and balances, and the rights of the individual are not protected.

Allow me two quotations on the subject:

James Madison, Federalist Paper 10:

"Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

U.S. Army Training Manual TM2000-05, 1928

Democracy, n. "A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meeting or any form of "direct" expression. Results in mobocracy. Attitude toward property is communistic - negating property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy."

Our Constitutional fathers, familiar with the strength and weakness of both autocracy and democracy, with fixed principles definitely in mind, defined a representative republican form of government. They made a very marked distinction between a republic and democracy ... and said repeatedly and emphatically that they had created a republic.

Seek the Truth, and the Truth will make you free!
©Pastor Mike Acker