A note from Bera, re: [pf] Representative Democracy?

A week ago, at 13:01 8/11/2000 -0800, Diane F. wrote:
>According to Talk of the Nation, the electors of Florida and some other
>states are not bound to vote the way they were elected to.  Think there 
>is any chance that they will vote the will of the people?
>

**  The rest of this is from Bera.  D.


The USA is a Republic, right?

It was the Romans who invented the Republic.  Now don't quote me on any of
this, 'cos I'm no expert, but this is how I think it went.  In the time of
the Roman Republic, before they had the Roman Empire, the top two positions
were those of the consuls.  (Unlike the US, they didn't have a single
"president", because that would have given one man too much power, and they
had bad memories of being a monarchy.)

Consuls (and various lesser positions) were elected, but the system was
hardly democratic.  Originally it was based on ability to contribute to the
military, so that those who could afford to be better armed (for example by
owning a horse) would have more say.  Men were organised into army units
(centuries) with one vote per unit.  Most units consisted of relatively few
men, those whose families were rich and powerful, while the poor were
crowded into a few very large units.  Women and slaves obviously didn't
count at all.  (There have been worse systems than the American electoral
college.)

To run for office one needed both wealth and influence.  Influence meant
belonging to the senatorial class, and it was extremely rare for an
outsider to become consul.  Wealth meant being able to afford to put on the
kind of public entertainment that would make one popular with the masses.

So what's new about American elections?



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