- Click here for the wiki.
There are a handful of principles embedded in the Constitution. We begin our separate look at each look at each in this section on republicanism. The term simply refers to the fact that the people - or at least the electorate - does not rule directly. This means that they do not directly pass laws and then administer and adjudicate them. Instead this occurs through institutions. The best the electorate can do is hold the members of these institutions - or some of them anyway - accountable through periodic elections. James Madison explains the advantages of this design in Federalist #10, which is a central feature of this section of the class. The simple goal here is to understand why - from the founders point of view - direct popular rule was unwise.
Some old - and not so old - blog posts on the subject:
- Factions.
- Federalist #10.
- Federalist Papers.