An American Perspective: Democracy
Chapter 2- Law
§5. Democracy
A duly elected body of representatives can only plead to the decrees of those already established. The ability for governmental structures to change according to the convictions and decrees of the popular majority, while restricting the cognizance of the rights of the people individually, is only capable within a democracy, not a republic.
Democracy government- That form of government in which the sovereign power resides in and is exercised by the whole body of free citizens directly or indirectly through a system of representation, as distinguished from a monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy.144
A democracy is a form of majority rule. Many people mistakenly refer to democracy as “mob rule”, but there is usually order, and oftentimes a form of representation, in which the majority of the people have the ability to legislate away the rights of the minority. To put it simply, fifty-one percent of the population can vote away the rights of the forty-nine percent.
Quod per me non possum, nec per alium.
What I cannot do in person, I cannot do through the agency of another.145
Socrates was found guilty by a jury of one thousand people, and was committed to death by poison of hemlock146. The ancient idea of a one thousand person jury was that the more people you had in a jury, the more difficult it was to bribe. Thankfully, the founders of this country created a constitutional republic and secured the rights of the people by ordaining and declaring the law of the land, which upheld and secured our rights. Even if a lawfully elected body of representatives, according to the course of the common law, were to legislate any of the rights of the people secured by the constitution away, the act would be null and void ab initio (from the beginning), and would have no binding affect on the people whatsoever, and the people can engage in the right with impunity.
“There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of this exercise of constitutional rights.”147
“No state shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and attach a fee to it.” 148
“All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.”149
[144 Black’s Law Dictionary, 5th edition, pg. 388 (1979)
145 A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States of America, and of the Several States of the American Union; With References to the Civil and Other systems of Foreign Law, to which is added Kelhams Dictionary of the Norman and Old French Language by John Bouvier (1856); pg. 154; 4 Co. 24 b: 11 id. 87 a
147 Sherar v. Cullen, 481 F 2D 946 (1973)
148 Murdoch v. Penn., 319 US 105 (1943)
149 Marbury v. Madison, 5 US (2 Cranch) 137, 174, 176 (1803) ]