Available October 3, 2023
In recent years, the Constitution has become a source of political controversy between conservatives and progressives. While the right defends our founding document, the left argues that it’s an antiquated plan of government that goes against basic principles of democratic sovereignty. In his new book, Democracy or Republic? The People and the Constitution, Jay Cost argues that the Constitution is being misunderstood. Its plan of government is for a republic, not a democracy. In both types of government, the people alone possess sovereignty, but republics go further than this. The point of the Constitution is to ensure that the people rule for the good of all, not just those who happen to make up a majority. Our Constitution does this by promoting consensus. The larger, broader, and more considered a majority is, the more able it is to govern under our system America, then, is not merely a democracy. It is something greater. It is a republic.
