When New York’s Governor George Clinton gushed about the “majesty of the multitude,” Alexander Hamilton took up his pen to puncture the governor’s pretensions.1 Enamored with the loose-knit structure of the fledgling nation, prescribed by its Articles of Confederation, Clinton was fighting the proposed Constitution, which gave more power to the federal government. Convinced that Clinton was using flattery to play to the crowd, Hamilton wrote, in the first of the pro-Constitution Federalist Papers (published as a book 1788), “[O]f those men who have overturned the liberties of the republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.”2 (Of course, that same Constitution would later contain a bill of rights, protecting the citizenry from the “majesty of government power.”)

John Adams, America’s second president, joined Hamilton in expressing reservations at the unbridled will of the people: “We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power.”3 Shocking words in the present age of political correctness, where democracy is almost worshipped, but they are justified by the historical record and reflect a Christian understanding of human nature and political institutions.

Looking back from their vantage point at the end of the 18th century, America’s founding generation pointed to the experience of democracy in ancient Greece and Rome, and drew important lessons from its failure there, as well as from the collapse of liberty in the Italian republics of the Renaissance period (the 15th and 16th centuries). These lessons were reinforced in their eyes, and those of the next generation, by the violence and tyranny unleashed by the French Revolution (1789-1799). The subsequent history of democracy in the 20th century has provided even more dramatic evidence of the ease with which popular government can degenerate into anarchy and despotism. This has happened on a wide scale in post-colonial Africa but has also been a recurring feature of Latin American politics.4 Nor should we forget that Hitler came to power through the ballot box.

One common reason for the destruction of democracy has been the corruption of representative institutions by “bread and circus” politics. Time and again, unscrupulous demagogues have won elections by making expenditure promises that have used the power of the state to redistribute wealth from productive minorities to the less well-off majority. As a result, up-coming dictators have been able to buy the support of the people, whilst at the same time distracting their attention from assaults on personal liberty.

A related ingredient in the disintegration of democracy into tyranny, particularly in multi-racial or tribal societies, has been the politicization of economic life by so ordering society that most jobs and opportunities for personal advancement are the gift of the state. In such cases the struggle for political power literally becomes a matter of life and death, as different tribes and ethnic groups fight to gain control of the apparatus of state patronage and so secure jobs and economic livelihood. Democracy alone is no protection against such abuse that is a common feature of African politics.

The lesson for Christians today is the same one identified by the great thinkers and statesmen of America’s founding generation. Since human nature is fallen, the corrupting influence of power can only be contained by limiting the authority of the state—and this includes the state apparatus of democracies. Democracy is one means to the end of forming a government to run a country; of itself, it does not necessarily produce a good government or promise that the country will be run well. Good government requires virtuous citizens and effective checks and balances.
 
 
Footnotes:
 
1  “Biographical Note,” an introduction to The Federalist, in Great Books of the Western World, vol. 43 (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952), 23.
 
2  Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (New York: Modern Library, 1937), 5-6.
 
3  John Adams, quoted in John R. Randall, The Making of the Modern Mind: A Survey of Intellectual Backgrounds of the Present Age (New York: Columbian University Press, 1976), 348.
 
4  In the years 1920-1966 there were no fewer than 80 successful military coups. Ecuador and Bolivia had 9 each, and Paraguay and Argentina had 7 each. See Paul Johnson, The History of the Modern World from 1917 to the 1980s (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, Ltd. 1984), 616.
 
article from Kairos Journal

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