is the united states a democracy or republican?

Answer 1

We are sopposed to be a democratic style Republic. But big brother has changed it to a demo(n) cracy

Answer 2

CJohn317 is right.

Republic and Democracy are terms of art. Most people don't know what they mean and they throw them around and get it wrong. You can see that happening here. (Sorry "Republic" does NOT mean "independent of former rulers".)

A Republic is when the people elect representatives who govern them.

A Democracy is when the people themselves vote directly on issues.

For example in the USA the President asks Congress to declare war. In a Democracy you would have a national referendum (election) on the issue.


The term "Constitutional" is used to show that the country has (and follows) a set of laws that contstrain the power of the government.

Sometimes the term FEDERAL is used to denote that fact that the USA is not just one big nation, but a Union of States, each of which still retains significant governmental power and autonomy.

This works in the US as follows.

Because we are Federal different States can have differtent laws, as long as they don't contradict the Federal Government's laws. Texas has no State Income Tax for instance, but New York has State Income Tax, Car Tax, even City Income Tax. In New York you can't have guns, in Texas you can have almost anything. Liquor laws and speed limits are different in differnet states. So are envorinmental regulations.

Because we are "Constitutional" the Government's power is limited by the Constitution. This is why the Supreme Court can strike down laws as being "unconstitutional".

This was done to ensure that minority rights are respected. In a Democracy you can get 50%+1 of the people to vote for something the minority gets left out in the cold. The founders did not want this to happen, so they made sure that Individual Rights were part of the Constitution. (The "Bill of Rights" are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution.) This means that a few people, or even one person, can make the government change its ways if what it is doing violates their individual rights under the Constitution.

A good example is the case of Gideon v. Wainright. Gideon was a poor uneducated guy in Florida who went to jail for breaking and entering. He appealed, saying that he didn't get a fair trial because, being poor, he couldn't afford a lawyer. The Government said "He can have a lawyer, he just has to pay for the lawyer himself". Gideon said this violated his Constitutional Right to a fair trial. He said that a trial without a lawyer is not a fair trial and that the Government should have to pay for his lawyer if he couldn't afford one. Long story short, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with him, and now poor defendants are given free legal representation in the U.S.

Because we are a Republic the people don't vote on issues, we elect Senators and Representatives to do that for us. Also we don't vote directly for President. Instead we are really voting for ELECTORS who go to the Electoral College. It is the Electoral College that casts the votes that matter. This is why Bush was able to win in 2000 even though Al Gore had more total votes.

This was set up by the founders for two reasons. One was to make sure the whole country got represented in Presidental Electons. If it wasn't for the Electoral College all you would have to do to get elected would be to carry a few of the largest cities, and you could just ignore the rest of the country. (This was pretty much Al Gore's campaign strategy in 2000 incidentally.) The founders thought this would not be good, if for no other reason than the rest of the country would soon get tired of being ignored and just rebel.

The other reason was as a last ditch defence for Freedom. Remember that Hitler was ELECTED, all nice and legal. The founders lived before Hitler, but they had read their history and knew that both the Roman Republic and the Athenian Democracy had fallen when people ELECTED leaders that were very popular, but were also pretty clearly enemies of freedom. They knew that if this had happened before it would probably happen again, so they set up the Electoral College. The idea is that if somone who is clearly bad for the country gets the most votes the Electoral College has the power to say "Yeah, this guy got the most votes... but we talked about it and we all think he is a total evil moron and we are electing this other guy President instead." Theoretically that would stop someone like Hitler from becoming President of the USA. Don't know if it would work in real life, but it is an extra safeguard, just in case.

So we are a REPUBLIC, you could say we are a "Constitutional Republic" or a "Federal Republic" or maybe even a "Federal Constitutional Republic"... but we are NOT a Democracy.

Answer 3

The United States is a Constitutional Republic.
A republic is a government ruled by laws (The Constitution). A democracy is a government ruled by the majority of those allowed to participate.
The U.S.A. is governed by a democratically elected President and Congress who select and approve the third branch of the federal government which is the Judiciary.
All three branches of the government of the U.S.A. (the Executive - the President, Legislative - the Congress, and Judicial - the Supreme Court) are subject to the "Supreme Law of the Land", the Constitution of The U.S.A.

Answer 4

Federal Republic

Answer 5

The federal government is a republic only.

The state governments vary a great deal from one another but are generally a cross between democracies and republics.

Answer 6

A Constitutional Representative" REPUBLIC"

Answer 7

A Constitutional Republic.

Answer 8

A Republic is pretty much the same thing as a Representative Democracy.

Answer 9

A Democracy is a country in which the government body is elected on a regular basis by the population of that country.

A Republic is a country which has become independent of its previous ruler (ie: The Queen/King of England).

Countries can therefore be one, the other, neither or both.

America is, of course, both.

Note: "Republican" is also the title of a political party in America. Their major rival is the party known as the "Democrats". George Bush is a member of the Republican party, and was elected president as a Republican. 'republican" and "democrat" also denote support or acceptance of or belonging to the party. ie: "she's republican" "I support the Democrats" etc.

Em

Answer 10

The founding father Benjamin Franklin referred to it as a Republic. We are a democratic representative republic, which is our political system. Capitalism is our financial system