The Dan Smoot Report, 1966: “A Constitutional Republic, Not a Democracy”

“The ideal of a constitutional republic is individual liberty. In this century, great strides have been made toward the goal of subverting our republic, and transforming it into a democracy. The foremost tactic of the subverters is subversion of “language” — by calling America a democracy, until people thoughtlessly accept the term, and use the term. Totalitarians have obscured the real meanings and principles of American government.”

Dan Smoot

Political leaders among us in our day, particularly who see themselves as “post-constitutionalists” now openly subvert and obscure these meanings.

The major political parties mutually contribute to our political degeneration or corrosion, through their particular understandings about this country. This is an observable and historical fact. Dan Smoot’s argument is not merely against equalitarian Democracy, autocracy and direct democracy, it contains a very technical and textbook understanding of the constitution and meaning of its terminology. He highlights the growth in executive power, something which I had seen expand massively during G.W. Bush’s administration. The goal for us is to piece together the fullness of the system of U.S. American government and Republicanism in a way that has not been done, or yet articulated outside of certain developments in scholarship. This object is primarily to research and document the abuse of Power in this country. Benjamin Rush and Early Federalist Republicanism: Fear of Democracy, Moral Degradation, and Corruption explains Dan Smoot’s concerns even further on the early American fear of mob democracy and the Roman republic’s fate of corruption.

Pennsylvanian statesmen Benjamin Rush explained, that Power is not seated in the people, as it is imagined today. All power is [derived fromthe people. They possess that power on the day of elections, when we elect our rulers (representatives), whose power exists so long as they do not abuse it. Rush adds, that anything other would lead the republic through two doors of tyranny: the mob (demos), or a Caesar.

Benjamin Rush and Early Federalist Republicanism: Fear of Democracy, Moral Degradation, and Corruption





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