Rush Limbaugh Quotes

There's a big difference in a representative republic and a democracy. We do not have a democracy in America.

America has never been a pure democracy and majoritarianism has always been as much feared as monarchism.

What is understood by republican government in the United States is the slow and quiet action of society upon itself.

Our founding fathers detested the idea of a democracy and labored long to prevent America becoming one. Once again - the word 'democracy' does not appear in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, or the constitution of any of the fifty states. Not once. Furthermore, take a look at State of the Union speeches. You won't find the 'D' word uttered once until the Wilson years.

I can't think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility than for the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were we supposed to be.

The American political system was created by a bunch of geniuses so that it could be run by a bunch of idiots.

The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also afraid of the mob. That's why they put so many checks and balances into our system, to guard against the excesses of a government that might be inflamed by public passion or perverted by a dictator's whim.

We have a constitutional republic, not a democracy.

Some have argued that the United States was designed to block majority rule; to be a 'republic, not a democracy.' This is ahistorical nonsense.

[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

America is not a democracy. I think if your kids understood that - and most people don't. We are a representative republic. We're not a direct democracy.

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

I prefer, in a word, the republican system, because it comes up more nearly to God's system.

And one of the frustrating parts, but it's an inherent part of our democracy, is we have separation of powers.

There is unquestionably some advantage, in a country like America, where no apprehension needs be entertained of a coup d'etat, in making the chief minister constitutionally independent of the legislative body, and rendering the two great branches of the government, while equally popular both in their origin and in their responsibility, an effective check on one another.

The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity.

We are still wrestling with a question that plagued the founding fathers: how to balance the role of the federal government with the separate powers of the states that constitute the republic.

In a Madisonian system, it is often more important how you do something than what you do.

Australians find the American political system lovable but odd.

In most countries, a lopsided election represents a mandate that the winning party could then use to implement their agenda, but the U.S. political system seems to have been made to prevent such an occurrence.

We have throughout our history been tested when it comes to the institutions of our democracy. And thank God our forefathers were smart enough to establish a government of checks and balances to make sure that power cannot be centralized in any one branch of government. And those institutions have proven themselves.

Whether ours shall be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.

Federalism is the best curb on democracy. [It] assigns limited powers to the central government. Thereby all power is limited. It excludes absolute power of the majority.

The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the legislature by deputies of their own election . . . They are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.