Provocative thoughts

[Vexari]

All good government is and must be republican

But at the same time, you can or will agree with me, that there is not in lexicography a more fraudulent word

Are we not, my friend, in danger of rendering the word republican unpopular in this country by an indiscreet, indeterminate, and equivocal use of it?

Whenever I use the word republic with approbation, I mean a government in which the people have collectively, or by representation, an essential share in the sovereignty

The republican forms in Poland and Venice are much worse, and those of Holland and Bern very little better, than the monarchical form in France before the late revolution..


~ John Adams ~ 1735-1826)

Founding Father, 2nd US President

Source.. Adams to Samuel Adams, 18 Oct, 1789 in Works, VI:415,420-421



Comments about this quote:

The battle for the world is the battle of definitions. Even in Adams' time, the corruption of the meaning of the word 'republican' had begun. Today it is an archaic term replaced by the word 'democracy' -- a term even more fraudulent. In corporate America, we invent so many words and jargon that a glossary of terms is included in most corporate documents and contracts to better clarify what is being developed or agreed upon. Perhaps American government should do the same in their own decrees so that decades and generations later the People can clearly understand the original intent, meaning, and agreement. If republican government must be guaranteed to every State in the Union, then 'republican' ought to be defined in explicit detail within the accord, not centuries later after the word has taken on new meaning.
~ E Archer, NYC ~


What Adams is saying here is the basis of our country, that each and every individual man and women is 100% independently sovereign. Under English rule, only the King was sovereign who then dealt out rights, privileges, and license to the people who were NOT sovereign (Lords, Knights, serfs, etc.) The founders sought to make a system where all men were considered equally sovereign, just like the King-- a country of Kings, as it were. Each country has their own particular political foundations; some countries carry the facade of a Republic (in name only) like China or N. Korea, while other Republics base the foundation of their laws on different assumptions and verifying authorities than the United States. In America, after seeing the long train of human abuses throughout history, the founders sought to base THIS federalism on something that would never change, and the best thing they could find were the laws of nature (nature being the strongest constant they could find).
~ Logan, Memphis, TN ~