Question #4: What is the American form of government?

June 14, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · 5 Comments

The most common–and grossly incorrect–answer to this question is that we are a democracy. The right–albeit simplistic–answer is that we are a republic. A more sophisticated answer is that we are a constitutional republic.

The most thorough answer came from James Madison, who said that our form of government is an “Extended Limited Commercial Federal Democratic Republic.”

By “extended” he was referring to geography–never before in history has there been a republic that covered so much territory.

“Limited” refers to the fact that the Constitution expressly defines what the government can and cannot do.

“Commercial” refers to our national character. The Founders said that there were three main national characters–martial, religious, and commercial. Rome had a martial character, as does China. Ancient Israel had a religious character. Since religious and martial-character nations tend toward tyranny, the Founders chose commercial.

By “federal,” Madison meant as much power as possible was preserved with the People, and that the federal government only existed for specific and limited purposes. The idea of federalism is that the closer one gets to the People the more power there is, while the closer one gets to the federal government, the less power one finds.

“Democratic” refers to the idea that we are a social democracy, although not a governmental democracy. Social democracy is the concept that intrinsic in our culture is the understanding that all men and women are created equal, that no individual is better than another, and that everyone has equal opportunity to succeed.

(As an interesting side note, Dr. Oliver DeMille, founder and President of George Wythe College, gives an updated version of Madison’s lengthy label. DeMille says that we are now an “Internationalist, Sometimes Constitutional (Except Where Prohibited By Law), Extended (Globally), Increasingly Commercial, National, Representative/Virtual/Popular Democracy, With a Technocratic Supremacist Court.” But that’s a conversation for another day…)

Why It Matters

As James Madison wrote Read more