Democracy and the Origins of the US Constitution

by Lewis Loflin

What’s Democracy?

In a true democracy:

1. Citizens elect leaders.
2. People can change leaders.
3. Elections are frequent, free, fair.
4. Individuals have rights.

Another take: democracy blends self-government—citizens shaping their polity—and pluralism—living your way within shared norms. Liberty and equality anchor it, tempered by reality, but vital for a good society. Equality’s not “equity” or forced outcomes, though—big difference.

Humanist democracy—think Europe—leans on relativism and sameness, pushing “rights of man” via state power. America’s different: individual rights, not mob rule. That clash fuels today’s politics. Democracy works only with a nation’s culture—ours isn’t pure democracy, but a constitutional republic guarding liberty from state and mobs (see Separation). Rights come from God, per the Founders—not the state, like France’s mess.

Ancient Athens

Athens birthed democracy—citizens, not kings, decided. Pericles bragged:

“Our government… is a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many, not the few.”

Direct democracy: 40,000 male citizens met, debated, voted. Women, slaves, foreigners? Out. Advanced for its day—most had monarchs—but impractical for big nations. Founders tweaked it into representative democracy: we elect reps to decide. Hence, we’re a republic, not Athens redux.

Magna Carta

In 1215, English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta—rights like jury trials, property protection, tax limits, some religious freedoms. Meant for the rich, not all. Five centuries later, colonists echoed it against Britain. Those rights hit our Bill of Rights—universal now, not elite.

English Bill of Rights

In 1688, the Glorious Revolution crowned William and Mary—Parliament made them sign the English Bill of Rights (*An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject*). Key wins:

1. No royal meddling in law—no solo courts or judging.
2. No taxes without Parliament.
3. Right to petition the monarch.
4. No peacetime standing army without Parliament.
5. Protestants’ right to arms, per class and law.
6. Free elections, no royal interference.
7. Free speech in Parliament—no outside questioning.

It listed grievances, like our Declaration did against King George. Precursor to our Bill of Rights, Canada’s Charter, UN and European human rights docs—jury trials, no cruel punishment, etc. Blackstone’s *Commentaries on the Law*, a U.S. law staple ‘til 1920, shaped Jefferson’s Declaration—rights from God, not man (see Blackstone). That’s our revolution’s soul.

Mayflower Compact

In 1620, Pilgrims on the Mayflower wrote the Compact—laws for Plymouth, “just and equal,” with colonist consent. Signed November 11 by 41 of 100+ passengers, half separatists fleeing England’s Church (Rothbard, *Conceived in Liberty*, 1975). Calvinist logic—self-rule, not state faith—oathed to England but hinting a God-man charter. That seed grew into the Constitution.

Bible and Ancient Israel

Jews birthed U.S.-style democracy—Protestant, not humanist like France’s mob rule or Greece’s philosophy. *Sola scriptura*—Bible only—freed interpretation from state churches. One view:

“Protestantism needed Jewish theologians… Congregations elect elders (Presbyterians) or pastors (Congregationalists), not bow to hierarchy. If democracy rules church, why not state?”

Anglo-Saxon Protestantism—separatists, Baptists, Deists, Quakers, liberal Anglicans—pushed this into secular life, especially in Virginia. Rights from God, immutable—not man’s whims. John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon saw a “new Israel,” a “city upon a hill”—messianic, but orderly under law, not chaos (Asia Times, Oct 28, 2003). Americans govern via local roots—elites shoving European mob rule today piss us off.

John Locke

Unitarian John Locke (1632-1704) shaped Jefferson’s Declaration most. No divine kings—power’s from people, born with “inalienable” rights: life, liberty, property. Government’s a “social contract” to protect them; if it fails, we replace it (see Locke). That’s democracy’s root—Jefferson ran with it. (Extracts: Levi Anthony, 2004; Wikipedia)

Conclusion

Founders—Jefferson, Franklin, Washington—weren’t French-style Deists with an absent God. They saw Him active, drew morals from Christianity, ditched Trinity, Original Sin, Calvinism (see Trinity, Original Sin, Calvin). Rational theists or Unitarians, mostly. Locke, Montesquieu, Bible, Greeks, Freemasons built the Constitution—not “democracy” as majoritarianism, but a republic. Ron Paul nails it:

“Democracy is not freedom… simply majoritarianism, incompatible with real freedom… Freedom is the absence of government coercion.”

Top image: Washington at the convention dais, with Hamilton, Franklin, Madison—Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952).