Jim's Mailings

History of Democracy

A Quick Review of the History of Democracy

In the first instance, Democracy, or rule by the DEMOS or people of Athens occurred before the appearance of Socrates, the greatest of philosophers. The Ruler, Pericles, was corrupt to some extent, but the Golden age of Greece lasted about 30 years.
Plato, the most famous of Socrates' students wrote "The Republic," which has survived as one of the greatest organized proposed utopias man has yet to face. Some feel that the ideals expressed in this document were the inspiration for the writers, like Nietzche, who were read by Hitler, and implemented in his "New World Order."
Nontheless, Plato's student, Aristotle, fell back on the master, Socrates, and created the greatest school of antiquity, in Athens, and was credited with the first World Emperor, Alexander (the Great). Dying at age 25 left a great gap on which to project what might have become of the Greek Empire.
A hundred or so years later, the brothers Gracchi attempted to institute Land Reform measures in a political atmosphere controlled by the Roman Senate, that resulted in their being killed by the existing powers, and the Reform eventually failed.
Over a thousand years later, on the banks of the Thames at Runnymede, a group of 46 nobles commandeered King John into using his great seal to approve the Magna Carta in 1215, to which he added several rights of the monarch to a list of demands from the nobles. John repudiated it soon after, which was confirmed by the Pope. A year later John I was dead and his immature son, Henry (III) succeeded, and soon approved of revisions to the Charter (1216) and (1217), and in 1225, after the pope ruled that Henry had attained his majority, the nobles returned and jointly created the Great Charter, by which England has been ruled in the years since. (See Constitution Below). I like to think of the signing of the Magna Carta as having occurred under a giant tree, symbolicly, an umbrella government under which the people could survive and talk in harmony.
The word charter has prevailed, with each of the American Colonies having a grant with a charter as an instrument by which they each in turn possessed the land they settled. The new Restored Government (Monarchy) of England granted Connecticut its rights in 1662, gaining independence from Massachusetts. In 1686 Gov. Andrus, acting on behalf of the then King James II attempted to reverse a number of the provisions of that charter, which incident is recalled by the present Governor of that state in his dedication of the Connecticut quarter of the present 50 piece Washington series of coins. (See Below) Here again, is the symbolic tree, the Charter Oak, which, pictured on the reverse, served to shield the colony from its enemies. Later charters, promoting democracy were generated by Japan, and in Russia (Charter of the Gentry). The latter served to inhibit democracy, however, because great powers were granted to Nobles, which served to increase their domination of the peasants(serfs) rather than free them.
The success of the American Revolution, under the Declaration of Independence, has been widely copied, for instance, in France. In America, British institutions were found to be wanting in the relatively primative frontier, and the founders chose to create a Constitution, so that the words, spoken so eloquently, could be reduced to paper, and afterward supervised as to law by one of the newly created branches of government, the courts. In Britain, the people chose to remain under their well established Constitution, which had never been reduced to writing save the Great Charter, and a few subsequent revisions. (See Below)
In fact, a movement in the early 19th century to spread sufferage and other reforms, called Chartism, failed on repeated attempts, but over the passage of years, five of the six major premises have been granted by Parliament. Still, no movement to strengthen the rights of the British people have been instituted. Possibly, the cause of this is simple. An Empire cannot have rights, which extend to conquerored people. In the beginning of modern England, William chose to administer his newly acquired dominions by fiat, but, when his son, Henry (I) succeeded, he had to be coronated along with his charter, which spelled out various rights and priviledges. Succeeding Kings, Stephen, Henry II, and Richard also had charters, but somehow it was omitted in the case of John I, and a great benefit resulted therefrom. At time great accomplishments come from purposeless events.



DEMOCRACY EB 2003
literally, rule by the people (from the Greek demos, "people," and kratos, "rule"). The term has three basic senses in contemporary usage: (1) a form of government in which the right to make political decisions is exercised directly by the whole body of citizens, acting under procedures of majority rule, usually known as direct democracy; (2) a form of government in which the citizens exercise the same right not in person but through representatives chosen by and responsible to them, known as representative democracy; and (3) a form of government, usually a representative democracy, in which the powers of the majority are exercised within a framework of constitutional restraints designed to guarantee all citizens the enjoyment of certain individual or collective rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, known as liberal, or constitutional, democracy.

Democracy had its beginnings in certain of the city-states of ancient Greece in which the whole citizen body formed the legislature; such a system was possible because a city-state's population rarely exceeded 10,000 people, and women and slaves had no political rights. Citizens were eligible for a variety of executive and judicial offices, some of which were filled by elections, while others were assigned by lot. There was no separation of powers, and all officials were fully responsible to the popular assembly, which was qualified to act in executive and judicial as well as legislative matters. Greekdemocracy was a brief historical episode that had little direct influence on the development of modern democratic practices. Two millennia separated the fall of the Greek city-state and the rise of modern constitutional democracy.

Modern concepts of democratic government were shaped to a large extent by ideas and institutions of medieval Europe, notably the concept of divine, natural, and customary law as a restraint on the exercise of power. Highly significant was the growing practice by European rulers of seeking approval of their policies—including theright to levy taxes—by consulting the different "estates," or group interests, in the realm. Gatherings of representatives of these interests were the origin of modern parliaments and legislative assemblies. The first document to notice such concepts and practices is Magna Carta (q.v.) of England, granted by King John in 1215.

Also of fundamental importance were the profound intellectual and social developments of the Enlightenment and the American and French revolutions, notably the emergence of concepts of natural rights and political equality. Two seminal documents of this period are the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789; see Independence, Declaration of; Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Declaration of the).

Representative legislative bodies, freely elected under (eventual) universal suffrage, became in the 19th and 20th centuries the central institutions of democratic governments. In many countries, democracy also came to imply competition for office, freedom of speech and the press, and the rule of law.

Numerous authoritarian and totalitarian states, notably the communist nations of the 20th century, have adopted outwardly democratic governments that nonetheless were dominated by a single authorized party without opposition. States with Marxist ideologies asserted that political consensus and collective ownership of the means of production (i.e., economic democracy) were sufficient to ensure that the will of the people would be carried out.

posted by James E. Opfell @ 8:50 PM