Republic (politics)

“ I believe in our Government of the People, by the People and for the People, a government whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a Sovereign Nation of many Sovereign States, a Democracy in a Republic, a perfect Union, one and inseparable. ”

“ They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. ”

“ Here, then, is a form of government to all whose offices many thousands of men are eligible, and to whose elective franchise nearly every man of full age is entitled. It is a democratic republic. And from its inception in 1776 to the present day it has been steadily growing more democratic and more republican. ”

“ Republic.—Though I admire republican principles in theory, yet I am afraid the practice may be too perfect for human nature. We tried a republic last century and it failed. Let our enemies try next. I hate political experiments.—Walpole. ”

“ The Republic, that government of all by all, where each has his place, his duty, and his right; the Republic, that is to say, Liberty itself, the liberty to do every act and to give utterance to every thought not prejudicial to others ”

“ Can men educated to an attachment for despotic government, and whose interests are bound up with its maintenance, be expected to look with favor on democratic principles, or become the champions of a republic? ”

“ The mischiefs of an aristocracy are dissensions in the ruling orders of the state; an oppression of the lower orders by the privilege of the higher, and by laws partial to the separate interests of the law-makers.
The advantages of a republic are liberty, exemption from needless restrictions, equal laws, public spirit, averseness to war, frugality,—above all, the opportunities afforded, to men of every description, of producing their abilities and counsels to public observation, and the exciting to the service of the commonwealth the faculties of its best citizens. ”

“ So underneath the laws and the institutions of each modern nation, underneath the monarchy and the republic, there is another and unseen state, with sentiments not yet become popular, and with ideas not yet confirmed in actions, not organized into institutions, ideas scarcely legal, certainly not respectable. ”

“ It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, OR A FAVORED CLASS OF IT: otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of Republic. ”

“ Behold a republic, in which civil and religious liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavour and in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a neighbour's injury—a republic in which every citizen is a sovereign, but in which no one cares to wear a crown. ”

“ It is, that in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region. ”

“ A true republic, the function of which is administration in the interests of the whole community—in contrast to a pure democracy, which in last analysis is the rule of the demos or a majority in its own interests—should be, and often is, the medium of selection for the technical task of government of those best qualified by antecedents, character and education, in short, of experts. ”

“ In one word, we mean to build up a Republic, greater, more populous, freer, more prosperous, and more powerful than any state history tells us of; a Republic having within itself all that can make a people great, good, and happy, and being so strong, that its pleasure will be consulted before any power on earth will undertake to disturb the peace of the world. ”

“ The contending political parties in a republic should be such in point of mental and moral constitution and capability that the government may be intrusted to either without serious apprehension for the safety of the public interest. ”

“ You see the state is an eternal riddle—'pivotal,' as the saying goes—the mother of parties, the devotee of none; and there lies half its fascination for the politician—I might say for the statesman. What passes for mere politics here might well figure as statesmanship elsewhere. ”

“ Behold a republic, gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor to the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes—a republic whose history like the path of the just—"is as the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." ”

“ In time, however, a democratic republic came to occupy a large portion of the earth's surface, and made itself felt as one of the most powerful members of the community of nations; and elective and responsible government became subject to the observations and criticisms which wait upon a great existing fact. It was now perceived that such phrases as ‘self-government,’ and ‘the power of the people over themselves,’ do not express the true state of the case. ”

“ But those who took up this direction were in want of an organ, possessing an independent life, and a representative of material necessities among the new parties demanding a Republic, Legitimacy, a Constitution and the Press. ”

“ A republic, where the people at large, either collectively or by representation, form the legislature.
The separate advantages of monarchy are unity of council, decision, secrecy, and dispatch; the military strength and energy resulting from these qualities of government; the exclusion of popular and aristocratical contentions; the preventing, by a known rule of succession, all competition for the supreme power, thereby repressing the dangerous hopes and intrigues of aspiring citizens. ”

“ If peace and unanimity are cherished, and the equalization of liberty, and the equity and energy of law maintain by harmony and justice, the present representative government may stand for ages, a luminous monument of republican wisdom, virtue, and integrity. ”

“ A republic in an over-civilised, highly-centralised, bureaucratically-governed country, with a religiously hollow, hasty, violent, excitable, and explosive people, seems of all social experiments the least hopeful: and that is all that can wisely be said of it at present. ”

“ She attends to the substance, not to the form, in politics. At various times she has successively promoted monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; and at various times she has been betrayed by each. The three fundamental forms of all government are founded on the nature of things. Sovereignty must reside with an individual, or with a minority, or with the majority. ”

“ But those who are most afraid, or most decidedly aristocrates, subjoin to their registers, "All good republicans:" or, "Vive la republique, une et indivisible." ["The republic, one and indivisible for ever!"] Some likewise, who are in public offices, or shopkeepers who are very timid, and afraid of pillage, or are ripe for a counter-revolution, have a sheet half the size of the door, decorated with red caps, tri-coloured ribbons, and flaming sentences ending in "Death or Liberty!" ”

“ Such a form of government may prove to be the natural result and outcome of the ideas of liberty and popular rights, but it was then produced out of due time, and even if the life continued, the outer form decayed. ”

“ The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism. ”

“ Let us suppose a monarchical state administered in such a way that, although all goes on according to the will of one person, each citizen could persuade himself that he governs and obeys only his own inclination, we should call that government a liberal government. ”

“ But that glorious struggle in which your destinies were pledged in common with the illustrious characters of that day, has eventually proved that a system of government, now in the history of the world, a confederative representative democracy, is the best guarantee for the liberties of a great people, is now confirmed by the experience of thirty-six years. ”

“ What has been passing under my eyes has, with much greater vividness and force than I can convey in such a brief sketch, appeared to me to show the play of the same forces that have over and over again brought despotism out of freedom, anarchy out of order, and turned progress into retrogression. Popular government is not a new thing. All government in its beginning must have been popular government. And under all forms of government the people are the source of power. ”

“ So in like manner, if anything is done by those who have the management of public affairs where a democracy is established, their actions are to be considered as the actions of the state, as well as in the oligarchy or tyranny. ”

“ The Fathers created a republic and not a democracy. Before you dismiss the thought, examine your dictionaries again and settle once and forever that a republic is a government where the sovereignty resides in the citizens, and is exercised through representatives chosen by the citizens; while a democracy is a government where the sovereignty also resides in the citizens but is exercised directly, without the intervention of representatives. ”

“ The State, government with its functions and powers, is now the subject of vital interest to every thinking man. Political developments in all civilized countries have brought the questions home. Shall we have a strong government? Are democracy and parliamentary government to be preferred, or is Fascism of one kind or another, dictatorship - monarchical, bourgeois or proletarian - the solution of the ills and difficulties that beset society today? ”

“ In the name of Popular Sovereignty, — or of the indisputable right of every people, that is a people, to determine its political constitution for itself, — they achieved a hard-won success. On no other ground could they have met the gallant charge of their opponents, and on no other ground did they retain their hold of the popular support. ”

“ But from this grant I infer, as before hath been touched, that the sovereign, original, and foundation of civil power, lies in the people—whom they must needs mean by the civil power distinct from the government set up: and if so, that a people may erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their civil condition. ”

“ Well, then, let all admit, what none deny, that the only source of political power in this country is the people. Let us admit that they are sovereign, for they are so; that is to say, the aggregate community, the collected will of the people, is sovereign. ”

“ If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic. ”

“ We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No monarchical throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever. ”

“ In unbalanced governments—pure monarchy, pure aristocracy, pure democracy—such maxims are the only barrier which restrains the government from the utmost excesses in the direction of its characteristic tendency. ”

“ The laws are the determining principles, according to which the dominant body governs and restrains those who would, and punishes those who do, transgress them. He defines three kinds of constitutions, each of them having a corresponding perversion:—a republic, arising from the principle of equality; this at times degenerates into democracy; monarchy, and aristocracy, which arise from principles of inequality, founded on the preponderance of external or internal strength and wealth, and which are apt to degenerate into tyranny and oligarchy. ”

“ This government, Sir, is the independent offspring of the popular will. It is not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose, amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties. ”

“ If the balance incline towards a more liberal form of government, towards democratic institutions, and therefore towards self-government, and the participation of the many rather than of the few in the affairs of the State, I am not to blame, nor is it my ordinance, but that of History and of Providence. ”

“ Democratic states aim at administration, not at domination; they are states without dynasties; the so-called constitutional monarchy is a transitional form, a mixture of aristocracy and democracy.
Democracy is the antithesis of aristocracy and oligarchy; monarchy is a form of oligarchy. ”

“ They go to the form and substance of government, not to its policy, as in America, where every party cry, radical or conservative, is attuned to the music of a republican federation, and which is the sine qua non to all political conclusions. How can a nation progress until its people have chosen, or are competent to choose, a stable form of government, and are satisfied with certain organic political principles? ”

“ our great Republic is a Government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule." ”