What Is a Republic?

Citizens of the United States used to know what a republic is, and they referred to it as one ... until about 90 years ago, when the progressive movement decided that it didn't fit with their agenda. In fact, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, formed in 1905, had a leader named Harry W. Laidler. According to The 5,000 Year Leap,

"Laidler explained that the ISS was set up to 'throw light on the world-wiude movement of industrial DEMOCRACY known as socialism". (p. 155)

So let's go to the source:

We may define a republic to be ... a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior. It is essential to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, nor from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.

(James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 39, p. 241)

In other words, it is a government which derives its power only from the assent of the governed, with that power flowing from the bottom up. If a "not-inconsiderable proportion" determines that the government is not acting in its (the people's) interest, that government loses its power, and other representatives are selected.

That's the way our Constitution was designed, and it's what the Founders had in their minds when they wrote it. That's the way it's supposed to work.

"Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

John Locke, 1690