America at 250: why the Constitution was built to restrain government, not celebrate majority rule
Fortune – Tech
fortune.com
Summary
Most people, including most Americans, would be surprised to learn that the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence (1776) or the Constitution of the United States of America (1789). They would also be shocked to learn the reason for the absence of the word democracy in the founding document. Contrary to what the public has been led to believe, America’s Founding Fathers were skeptical and anxious about democracy. Neither the President, members of the judiciary nor the Senate were elected by direct popular vote. The federal government had around 400,000 employees, less than 1 percent of the labor force. No federal regulations of capital or labor markets of the modern kind existed. Agricultural production and distribution were also largely free of federal regulation. There was no minimum wage rate and no social security. Under the Adams Act of 1916, the government became involved in labor-management relations. President Woodrow Wilson presided over this expansion of federal power under emergency powers granted to him by Congress in 1916.
From the source
Most people, including most Americans, would be surprised to learn that the word democracy does not appear in the Declaration of Independence (1776) or the Constitution of the United States of America (1789). They would also be shocked to learn the reason for the absence of the word democracy in the founding document. Contrary to what the public has been led to believe, America’s Founding Fathers were skeptical and anxious about democracy. They were aware of the evils that accompany a tyranny of the majority. Not surprisingly, the Framers of the Constitution went to great lengths to ensure that the federal government was not based on the will of the majority and therefore was not democratic. The Constitution divided the federal government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Each branch was designed to check the power of the others because the Founders did not want to rely only on the voters to check government power. As a result, citizens were initially given very littl
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