Democracy started in Athens, and the republican form of government emerged in Rome at about the same time. Usually the terms "democracy" and "republic" are used almost interchangeably, but they are not the same.
The United States has a republican form of government with a democratic electoral system. Every U. S. citizen has a vote and, by voting, is able to take part in choosing the people who will (in theory, at least) represent their interests in the federal government. Technically, however, in presidential elections, the real voting power rests in the hands of the electoral college, a very small group of representatives who cast votes for a presidential candidate.
Usually the vote of the electoral college is a reflection of the popular vote, but there can be conflict—and when there is, the electoral vote decides the contest. In
The 1888 presidential elections, Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland, even though Cleveland had more popular votes. The outcome of the Harrison-Cleveland election has troubled many people. If the electoral college can choose a president against the will of the people, then America is not really a democracy, is it?
In fact, America is not a democracy in the truest sense of the word. In other words, the government does not simply act on the will of the people at all times. The people make their will known by voting for representatives, not by voting on specific issues.
One of the principle contributions to freedom made by the Romans was their system of checks and balances, a setup in which no one person or area of government could gain too much power. They also introduced the idea of the rule of law, rather than rule by the people.
Against Rome. Pyrrhus did defeat the Romans in several battles. He did so at such a terrible cost of his men's lives that his name has remained to this day as a watchword for success that comes at too great a price: a “Pyrrhic victory."
By 275 B. C., the Romans had defeated Pyrrhus. The Romans had thus all but eliminated the Greek challenge to their dominance of southern Italy. In any case, Greece was on a downward spiral, having only recently endured a Celtic invasion of its own. Now the Romans had to face their other principal foe, fighting a series of wars that would stretch across
Rome did not live up to its ideals: jockeying for power, first by Sulla and later by many others, paved the way for the dictatorship of Julius Caesar and the imperial system established by Caesar's nephew Octavian. And certainly the United States has often failed to live up to the ideal expressed by a number of U. S. Supreme Court justices, who have described the American system as "a government of laws and not of men." What that means is that in some instances, no matter what people feel, the government is supposed to do what is right.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is an interesting example of how democratic and republican modes of government work together in the American system. For a century following the passage of laws forbidding racial discrimination, the federal government had failed or refused to enforce those laws
In the southern United States. It took a popular movement, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King (1929-1968) and others, to force the government to uphold the laws it already had on the books, and to create new laws ensuring an end to segregation.
The Civil Rights Movement was certainly the "voice of the people"—but only a small minority of the people, made up mostly of African Americans and some whites. The white majority in the South, on the other hand, actively opposed racial integration; and the white majority of the nation as a whole was not much more sympathetic. In other words, if America really were a democracy—that is, a nation ruled by the majority—it would have taken much longer than it did to extend full civil rights to all African Americans. Fortunately for America, however, the rule of law took over.
More than a century. These wars would end with Roman dominance over most of the Mediterranean.