Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Demijohn" to "Destructors" Volume 8, Slice 2

DEMOCRACY (Gr. [Greek: dêmokratia], from [Greek: dêmos], the people, i.e. the commons, and [Greek: kratos], rule), in political science, that form of government in which the people rules itself, either directly, as in the small city-states of Greece, or through representatives. According to Aristotle, democracy is the perverted form of the third form of government, which he called [Greek: politeia], "polity" or "constitutional government," the rule of the majority of the free and equal citizens, as opposed to monarchy and aristocracy, the rule respectively of an individual and of a minority consisting of the best citizens (see GOVERNMENT and ARISTOCRACY). Aristotle's restriction of "democracy" to bad popular government, i.e. mob-rule, or, as it has sometimes been called, "ochlocracy" ([Greek: ochlos], mob), was due to the fact that the Athenian democracy had in his day degenerated far below the ideals of the 5th century, when it reached its zenith under Pericles. Since Aristotle's day the word has resumed its natural meaning, but democracy in modern times is a very different thing from what it was in its best days in Greece and Rome. The Greek states were what are known as "city-states," the characteristic of which was that all the citizens could assemble together in the city at regular intervals for legislative and other purposes. This sovereign assembly of the people was known at Athens as the Ecclesia (q.v.), at Sparta as the Apella (q.v.), at Rome variously as the Comitia Centuriata or the Concilium Plebis (see COMITIA). Of representative government in the modern sense there is practically no trace in Athenian history, though certain of the magistrates (see STRATEGUS) had a quasi-representative character. Direct democracy is impossible except in small states. In the second place the qualification for citizenship was rigorous; thus Pericles restricted citizenship to those who were the sons of an Athenian father, himself a citizen, and an Athenian mother ([Greek: ex amphoin astoin]). This system excluded not only all the slaves, who were more numerous than the free population, but also resident aliens, subject allies, and those Athenians whose descent did not satisfy this criterion ([Greek: tô genei mê katharoi]). The Athenian democracy, which was typical in ancient Greece, was a highly exclusive form of government.

With the growth of empire and nation states this narrow parochial type of democracy became impossible. The population became too large and the distance too great for regular assemblies of qualified citizens. The rigid distinction of citizens and non-citizens was progressively more difficult to maintain, and new criteria of citizenship came into force. The first difficulty has been met by various forms of representative government. The second problem has been solved in various ways in different countries; moderate democracies have adopted a low property qualification, while extreme democracy is based on the extension of citizenship to all adult persons with or without distinction of sex. The essence of modern representative government is that the people does not govern itself, but periodically elects those who shall govern on its behalf (see GOVERNMENT; REPRESENTATION).

DEMOCRATIC PARTY, originally DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, the oldest of existing political parties in the United States. Its origin lay in the principles of local self-government and repugnance to social and political aristocracy established as cardinal tenets of American colonial democracy, which by the War of Independence, which was essentially a democratic movement, became the basis of the political institutions of the nation. The evils of lax government, both central and state, under the Confederation caused, however, a marked anti-democratic reaction, and this united with the temperamental conservatism of the framers of the constitution of 1787 in the shaping of that conservative instrument. The influences and interests for and against its adoption took form in the groupings of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and these, after the creation of the new government, became respectively, in underlying principles, and, to a large extent, in personnel, the Federalist party (q.v.) and the Democratic-Republican party.[1] The latter, organized by Thomas Jefferson in opposition to the Federalists dominated by Alexander Hamilton, was a real party by 1792. The great service of attaching to the constitution a democratic bill of rights belongs to the Anti-Federalists or Democratic-Republican party, although this was then amorphous. The Democratic-Republican party gained full control of the government, save the judiciary, in 1801, and controlled it continuously thereafter until 1825. No political "platforms" were then known, but the writings of Jefferson, who dominated his party throughout this period, take the place of such. His inaugural address of 1801 is a famous statement of democratic principles, which to-day are taken for granted only because, through the party organized by him to secure their success, they became universally accepted as the ideal of American institutions. In all the colonies, says John Adams, "a court and a country party had always contended"; Jefferson's followers believed sincerely that the Federalists were a new court party, and monarchist. Hence they called themselves "Republicans" as against monarchists,--standing also, incidentally, for states' rights against the centralization that monarchy (or any approach to it) implied; and "Democrats" as against aristocrats,--standing for the "common rights of Englishmen," the "rights of man," the levelling of social ranks and the widening of political privileges. In the early years of its history--and during the period of the French Revolution and afterwards--the Republicans sympathized with the French as against the British, the Federalists with the British as against the French.