Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
Republic vs Democracy: America's True Political Identity
Our fearless leader Dr. Paul Carrese explores republicanism—small r republicanism—and how it is reflected in the US Constitution.
• We are a democratic republic, not simply a democracy
• The Constitution guarantees every state a "Republican form of government" in Article 4, Section 4
• A republic means a more complex form of government with representation of the people
• Ancient Rome provided the model for American republicanism, while Athens represented direct democracy
• Our complex system of federalism creates multiple avenues for civic participation
• Republican complexity protects individual rights by creating more space for argument and deliberation
• Understanding America as a democratic republic helps citizens participate more effectively in government
Get out your pocket Constitution and join us in exploring the foundations of American government.
Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum!
School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back everyone. Again. We have our fearless leader, dr Paul Carice, and we're talking about something that, if you've been listening to the podcast, this word has come up quite a bit and it's republicanism. So, dr Carice, welcome back. And we're looking at what is republicanism, and I want to be clear that republicanism here is little r republicanism, and how is republicanism reflected in our US Constitution?
Speaker 2:Thank you, liz. A very important question once again. So everyone, please get out your pocket Constitution. I'll eventually make some references to it. This is important because in the 21st century, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence, we tend to use the word democracy more often than we use the word republic, and then this difference of vocabulary can be somewhat of a partisan issue. I'll make a broad, sweeping argument. Of course there are exceptions. It tends to be folks on the left side of our political spectrum in America tend to use the word democracy more often and folks on the right, more conservative side tend to use the word republic more often.
Speaker 2:And my pitch here, in the few minutes we have together, is to say everybody should be using both words, because both words were used at the time of the American founding, from the 1770s and the 1780s to describe our form of government. My particular argument and of course it's a free country under this wonderful constitutional order, you're free to disagree with me, right? My argument is going to be the the precise technical way of describing the american form of politics and government, the national, national, federal, whole political order and your state constitutions, territories, is we are a democratic republic, the technical term, we really are a republic, and I'll explain why. But we're a democratic republic and that democratic part is crucial Democratic Republic and that Democratic part is crucial. And yes, you were right, this does not mean large D Democratic Party. It does not mean large R uppercase R Republican Party. On the other hand, it's kind of no accident that after a hundred or so years we've had settled into.
Speaker 2:By the time just before the Civil War we settled into two dominant parties with two names the Democratic Party and the Republican Party Not accidental. And then the trick of America, of course, is to make the best of that party system and understand. We need both words. We are a democratic republic. So now I gave you time, hopefully, to get your pocket constitution out. If you look in the constitution, look to Article 4. So it's going to be toward the back Article 1, the legislative power. Article 2, the executive power, article 3, the judicial power, so it's toward the back Article 4, shorter and look to the end of Article 4, section 4. The very end, right before Article 4, section 4, the very end, right before Article 5. Section 4,.
Speaker 2:This is often called the Guarantee Clause. The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government. We talked about this in earlier episodes. Capitalization was not so standard in the 18th century in English as it is now Capital R, republican, capital F form, capital G, government. It's a big deal. This is the form of government, implicitly that the Constitution is saying this is a republic, this new Constitution is a republic and every state will be guaranteed by this federal Constitution to have a republican form of government. There's some kind of rebellion, invasion, et cetera, et cetera. So this is why we know that under our constitutional form of government it's most appropriate to refer to our form of government as republic. But republic, in the history of Western political thought excuse me going back to the Greeks more than 2,000 years ago and then medieval thought, then modern thought, excuse me going back to the Greeks more than 2,000 years ago, and then medieval thought, then modern thought republics meant different things.
Speaker 2:So the basic distinction between democracy and republic is republic means a more complex form of free government based on consent of the governed or popular base of power, and democracy means a more simple form of government based on the people, ultimately unpopular consent. So they're both forms of popular government. We're not talking monarchy here. We're not talking some kind of tyranny or authoritarianism or despotism. Right, these are free, popular-based forms of government, republican democracy, but the Republican one is a little more complicated. Why? Because we'd have a more fair, a more just, a wiser form of government if we had representation of the people in a republic rather than democracy tending toward direct participation of the people in every level or every dimension of government. Okay, so sometimes the phrase will be used pure democracy or full democracy. Okay, so that's the basic distinction.
Speaker 2:Republic means a more complicated form of government with representation of the people Right. You know this from people who serve even on a town council Right. Then to people who serve in a state legislature, then to people who serve in the federal Congress Right Representation you could be elected by the people Right. Or this is complicated now. In republics you can have offices that are ultimately based in consent of the people, but they're not even elected.
Speaker 2:In the 1787 Constitution, as proposed, the executive, the president, we call him, was not elected directly by the people, indirectly elected. The Senate, the upper house in the Congress, was not directly elected by the people. Senators are elected by the states, but it's still considered a republic. It's just a more complicated form of representation. Then the House of Representatives is the more democratic, small d democratic, but even there it's not democratic Purely. It's elected representatives in the House. So the American Constitution, the state constitutions, are democratic constitutions, republics, and the democratic adjective or qualifier is important because republic is this ancient, classical term and we can talk more about that that has to be now understood in modern terms, enlightenment, philosophy, and so democratic republic is a crucial qualifier.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that you took us straight to the source on what to call our form of government, because I've read the Constitution a lot. I've actually never read section four of article four, but the answers are always in the text of the definition of a republic. You know, classic philosophers and historians are kind of this first idea of republic, right. Isn't Rome kind of important in that? Because I feel like, as I've read the Federalist Papers, there's a lot of talk about Rome. Is that their most important model of a republic for our founders?
Speaker 2:Yes, there were modern republics in Europe. You know the Dutch Republic, swiss Republic, for example. But Rome meant a great deal to the American founders from the 1770s onward and then, obviously, at the time of proposing the federal constitution in the 1780s and the ratification debate, rome was the standard. And here it's important to think of two great classical cities Rome versus Athens. Athens is the great democracy, but at the time of the American founding, figures like Adams and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and John Jay and others think that Athens, a democracy, didn't go so well. It was a brilliant flash in the pan and it's self-destructed because it didn't have enough complexity and breadth to its form of government. Too much direct democracy went off the rails, too much passion, too much populism. So republic was a better bet, more complicated form of government. And then they looked to Rome. Now I'm going to bring in another ancient city, now a Greek city. So Rome, a republic. In Italy, the Italian Peninsula, athens in Greece, democracy. Here's another Greek city Sparta. Sparta was a republic, fought a very long war against Athens, a democracy. So Sparta is another model of republic. Rome was a republic, sparta was a republic. The Americans looked to Rome more than Sparta because Sparta was a more aristocratic kind of republic, a more restricted kind of republic, only a few special people. They were called spartiates, warriors, an elite warrior group. They really ruled in Sparta. Rome was more complicated.
Speaker 2:Rome developed over centuries something like a proto-form of the American constitutional order. There's a Senate, but there's also room which is more aristocratic, with families and more elite people in the Senate, but there was also space for the people's voice, there were tribunes of the people and there were courts of law. So Rome ends up being a better model for the Americans. It starts more aristocratic, so to speak, more elite, few people ruling, and then it becomes a little bit more democratic. So Rome eventually becomes something like a democratic republic. Now more evidence of why Rome matters. The Americans had just used the word Senate, right, it's not accidental that the American framers in the 1787 Constitutional Convention choose Senate as the title of the upper body of the legislature. The Senate was the master strategic body in Rome which made it a very powerful republic, really an imperial republic dominating a huge set of territory in Europe. And then the republic falls into an empire. So Senate not accidentally the Americans use that word.
Speaker 2:And then, if you have a dollar bill handy or you find one later. There are Latin words on the dollar bill directly from the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire and the words are it's around that pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. So onuit coeptis is one Latin phrase and then underneath it is novus ordo cyclorum. This is from the Latin Roman poet Virgil you could say he's the poet of the Roman Empire. Anuit coeptis means he, the divinity, that's that I, over the pyramid. He looks favorably on our beginning Coeptis like inception, right, conception, inception, and then novus order cyclorum, a new order of the ages.
Speaker 2:So the Americans want to be something like the new Rome, a new order of the ages. But they do not want to be imperial. And the imperial republic of Rome became so warlike that warlord generals basically took it over. Julius Caesar would be the most famous one and then eventually it's his relative, augustus Caesar takes over. No more republic. So the Americans don't want to be that kind of imperial, warlike republic and it doesn't fit with the Declaration of Independence. America wants to be a great republic, in a way the new Rome, but different and better than the Roman Republic, because from the Declaration of Independence we believe in equal natural rights for all human beings. So we couldn't possibly be so warlike and imperial. But Rome mattered a lot.
Speaker 1:And again we will see this when we talk about the Federalist Papers. So does it really matter if we think of America as a republic, a democratic republic and not just simply a democracy?
Speaker 2:I think it really does matter, because this gets to the question of citizenship being a citizen and working hard just like everybody listening to this podcast cares enough to undertake civic education right. It's not easy to understand our form of government. Why? Because it's a republic. Why? Well, the argument from the founding is that it would be better for the protection of individual natural rights and better for sustaining complicated debate about the meaning of individual, equal natural rights if we have a more complicated form of government, if we have a republic rather than a pure form of democracy, and then again it's a democratic republic. So there is a real anchor in government being close to you and voice of the people and voice of individual citizens speaking out. So so our system of federalism, a federal republic, is meant to give the best of both worlds. Your local government really does matter. State government, local government Some people live in territories or District of Columbia, but local government really matters. That's the more democratic part of the democratic republic. But then the larger republic gives us security and power in the world and organizing commerce in a more complicated economy. So it matters to understand that we are a democratic republic and you are a citizen of a democratic republic in your state constitution and in the federal constitution. And then you can understand oh, how precisely can I participate? And then also, don't get so frustrated, or don't get so easily frustrated. We have a complicated foreign government. You might care about issue A or issue B. Why isn't that going my way? Well, I've got the Congress in my favor, but oh, there's this separate presidency. And oh, then there's this separate judicial branch. And then there are separate state governments and there's a legislative branch, usually two houses, and there's a separate governor and there are separate courts in the state constitutions. Why is it so complicated? Well, if you understand why it's so complicated, you might not be so frustrated and you might figure out how you can participate and get involved in a particular way. And again, it's complicated for a reason A republic will do a better job of protecting individual natural rights, equal rights for all, because there's more space for argument.
Speaker 2:You lose in one branch, you try in another branch. You lose in one level of government, you try in another level of government, you try for another election or something like that. Right, so we could talk forever about this. But it gives some space for expertise in the government. You know, it's nice to have judges who are experts in the law, who don't have to run for election every two years the way they do in a state legislature lower house or in Congress, in the House of Representatives.
Speaker 2:In the lower house, it's nice to have a separate executive or separate governor and then some administrative people under that governor, because, you know, emergencies come up or we need some policy judgment. But there, of course, the judges and the executive branch are balanced by the legislature, the upper house and the lower house, in the federal Congress and in the state legislature. So again, more argument is meant to make better laws, better policies, better judgments. Or, if you're a little more skeptical about politics, you say well, more argument is going to make it less unjust or less stupid and more likely to protect minority points of view. That's why we have a democratic republic. More complicated is better. And then this task that we're all undertaking right now civic education, understanding your duties as a citizen as well as your rights under this complicated form of government, this constitutional democratic republic.
Speaker 1:I would argue, the more civic education you have, the more you understand why things are complicated and how to go about making change, which is why we're doing the things that we're doing making sure that people have access to quality civic education. That's right, Dr Carice, I literally I feel like we could just talk forever, but for the sake of time, thank you again. So much for your expertise, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Liz.
