TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Politics > Influences on Madison, Hamilton and Jay (Democratic and Republican Thought)
Ideas concerning Democracy
Democracy mainly found in 6th century Athens. Mainly used as a system to rule small, independent city states.
In the late 18th century, when the Federalist Papers were being written, the word "democracy" did not have the favourable connotations that it does today.
Criticisms of democracy
- Thucydides - Democracy destroyed prudence and the ability to reason
- Aristotle - For Aristotle, Democracy was the "bad" or "perverted" form of rule. Democracy meant the rule of the poorer masses over the aristocratic. Just and virtuous government depends on the creation of mixed government. The virtuous counterpart of democracy was the polity, later called the "republic" by the Romans.
- Plato - The ideological foundations of democracy are a sham - people are inherently unequal, and thus should not have an equal say in government
Republican Thought
Mainly developed in Renaissance city-states, with a small territory that were constantly at war. They many accepted democratic arguments (participation of the people; some equality) but also agreed with Aristotle about mixed government.
Republican thought posited that republics could only survive through the defense of virtue, which entailed not deliberately pursuing wealth and creating a self-sustaining militarily active body of citizens.
Features of republican government
- Rule by (or on behalf of) the people by rulers or representatives had powers restricted by law so as to protect the liberties and rights of the people
- Virtuous rule - the rulers must exhibit the qualities of public spiritedness and concern for the common good. If they lost this concern, then would be deemed to have become "corrupt". If the ruler became corrupt, then the people would be in danger of losing their "liberty", that is, their ability to rule themselves.
The main problem of the old republics were that tended to be short lived as they destroyed themselves through corruption or failing to control the passions of their citizens. Both of these internal problems also left them as easy prey to other predatory states.
Madison, Hamilton and Jay wished to avoid these problems.
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