Democracy versus republic, educate yourself

During and after the recent presidential election so many of our leaders including President Obama have used the term democracy to describe our political procedures.

In ancient Greece, there was a philosopher who designed a new process for government. If my memory serves me right, his name was Plato. He named his new government structure as a republic.

When our founding fathers were trying to form our government, they chose a republic. No longer would our country be ruled by a king or dictator. Our country was composed of 13 separate states. Each was an independent entity. When they chose a name for our country, they chose United “States.”

How would the states interact with the new government? They decided to make things equal and elected to have each state to have 2 representatives in their parliament. This sounded pretty good until some of the states said it was unfair. Why would the states with small population have the same power as those with large population? From this concern they decided to have another parliament based on population. This body would have each state with representatives based on their population. They named the first body as Senate and the second as House of Representatives. 

To read the full article, subscribe to the Canton Herald or pick up a copy from one of our vendors.