By Mary O’KEEFE

We will soon be celebrating the 250th year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From now until July 4, CVW will be highlighting some stories about this period and how the American Revolution brought forth a nation like none other. 

“…And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people…” reads a portion of President George Washington’s inaugural speech on April 30, 1789.

There is a kind of shorthand when describing what type of government the Founding Fathers set up. Often it is described as a democracy but it has also been argued that it is in fact a republic. 

An explanation from historian Ken Burns, whose documentary “The American Revolution” dives into the time before, during and a bit after the Revolutionary War that established the U.S., explained the term “democracy” was an unintended consequence of the War. 

The U.S. is structured as a republic, meaning the power is held by the people and their elected representatives and is not a monarch and does not have a king/queen. 

According to Burns, the Founding Fathers were very concerned about a true democracy because in a pure democracy everyone votes, not just representatives. They feared “mob rule.” So the Founding Fathers designed a system of checks and balances as guardrails against any tyrant who might want to take over the government. 

So a democratic system is used to operate its republic in which the citizens’ power comes from their vote to choose their leaders. 

“Many commentators have made the careful distinction that the United States is a republic, not a democracy,” according to a paper by Danielle Allen, co-director of the Harvard Impact Lab. 

In her study she found that the question was not so much a republic versus a  democracy but for the Founding Fathers “it was, and it still is, how to enact a commitment to a government where sovereignty resides in the people.”

It has been explained that the U.S. is a constitutional republic and a representative democracy. 

The fact that there needs to be this much explanation on how the government was formed is an example of how complicated this idea of the United States was in the 1700s. The Revolution began long before July 4, 1776. It took years to move sometimes very reluctant colonists to reject the King of England’s rule toward an independent nation. It was not easy. It took a great deal of planning and citizens ultimately had to decide what side they were on: the Patriots’ [to leave England’s rule] or the Loyalists’ [staying loyal to the Crown].

One of the misconceptions of the Revolutionary War is that everyone wanted an independent country. According to Burns’ “The American Revolution,” most colonists were happy with England. The colonies were very much tied to England and English traditions; the tipping point was about representation – and the colonists had none.

Next time we’ll dive into the importance of newspapers in Colonial times.