RE: Democracy or Republic

["William K. Medlin" <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

You'll find it in Jefferson's papers, Hamilton's Federalist, and it's 
implied in the general construction of federal government. It's also 
reflected, in keeping with social philosophy of that time, in the 
denial of voting in certain states to Catholics, Jews and members of 
other sects. to non-property owners, to women and, of course to 
slaves (counted as 3/5 persons to give the southern states more 
representation). If these provisions do not reflect a fear of the 
general population, whose disenfranchised people out-numbered the 
franchised by about 4 to 1, I don't know what you would define as 
fear of the popular will. Even since l920 and the voting rights act 
of l965, there are still many, many subtle ways in which some 
partisan politicians seek to prevent certain categories of citizens 
from going to the polls: outright intimidation, "running out of 
ballots", closing polls early, blockading access to polling places, 
refusals to assist minorities, elderly, infirm, etc to cast correct 
ballots, using worn out voting machines, confusing ballots, and still 
other devices. All of these things have been documented and, in the 
FL case, some of them no doubt will lead to legal cases filed against 
the FL government. We'll have to see.  WKM

>"founding fathers did not trust the public to make the right decisions"
>
>That is a pretty bold statment.  I don't remember leaning that in
>U.S. History.
>
>
>
>			John Cavalieri
>			jcaval@uidaho.edu
>
>_
>  >