"James Madison and Democracy"

I have heard several Presidents in my lifetime refer to our nation as a "democracy." In common parlance, most people take it to mean a free country as opposed to an authoritarian nation like Saudi Arabia or a totalitarian government like North Korea.

However, the word "democracy" does not exist in any of our founding documents: the Mayflower Compact, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Nortwest Ordinance of 1787, and the U.S. Constitution.

To find out more of what our Founders thought of democracy, read James Madison's comments in The Federalist Papers. If you don't have time to read the whole book, here's a quote from Mr. Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," to give you an idea as to where he stood. In Federalist 10 he states:

"Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Madison, a very good student of history and human nature, understood that while no human government is perfect, the de-centralized, limited, constitutional republic is the best guarantor of freedom, not a democracy.