A Nation Like No Other by Newt Gingrich Read Free Book Online Page A

constitutional settlements, had now passed on to the colonists.
    The Declaration of Independence was not radical in thought but in action. It took bold steps to enshrine these sacred principles as the basis of a new country. With the Declaration, America set itself apart, an exception from the ways of the other nations of the world, and embarked on a radically new course in history, in pursuit of neither wealth, nor power, nor racial or ethnic purity, but an idea: God-given liberty for all.

CHAPTER TWO
    HABITS OF LIBERTY THE SHIELD OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
    A s the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were completing their work, Benjamin Franklin reportedly walked outside and encountered a woman who asked him, “Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?” Franklin responded, “My dear lady, we have given to you a republic—if you can keep it.” 1
    In a single sentence, Dr. Franklin summed up the extraordinary drama that would play out for all of American history between the two vital forces that sustain American Exceptionalism: freedom and responsibility.
    In 1787, the American people created a government that maximized individual freedoms. In order to guard against the growth of unchecked federal power, the Founders carefully designed a republic that divided this power among three separate but co-equal branches of a central government of limited powers, with each having the authority to check and balance the powers of the others.

    Moreover, the Founders recognized that the effectiveness of these safeguards, and of the nation’s overall governmental structures, would ultimately depend upon the character of the American people. The people would have to exercise responsibility, both for themselves and for their neighbors, if they were to keep a republican form of government and the freedoms it was designed to protect.

THE REPUBLIC WE WERE GIVEN
    Notably, the Founding Fathers created a republic instead of a direct democracy. In a direct democracy, legislation is passed by a direct majority vote of all the people, whereas in a republic the people elect representatives who then pass legislation. In a direct democracy, the source of authority is the people. In a republic, the source of authority is the rule of law, which is typically codified in a constitution.
    Understanding both the flawed nature of man and historical precedent, the Founders were adamantly opposed to direct democracy, fearing such a system would fail to protect true liberty and would allow for the “tyranny of the majority”—the scenario in which a majority can adopt unjust policies and oppress a minority of voters solely on the basis of their numbers. James Madison argued that “democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” 2 According to John Adams, “[D]emocracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” 3
    The Founders, however, were also aware of the shortcomings of republics—especially their historical tendency to decay into aristocratic and tyrannical government, as was the case with the ancient Roman republic and with the English Parliamentary Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. They understood that previous republics had failed due to man’s susceptibility to the intoxicating temptations of power. As Sam Adams remarked, “The depravity of mankind [is] that ambition and lust of power above the law are ... predominant passions in the breasts of most men.” 4

    Acknowledging this inherent weakness in man, the Founders sought to diffuse governmental power so that no single person, group, or governing branch could accumulate enough to encroach on the people’s unalienable rights. In