Republic vs. Democracy

"Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths... A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking." (James Madison, Federalist Papers, the McClean Edition, Federalist Paper #10, page 81, 1788)

Read more from James Madison: Federalist Paper #10: Democracies Versus Republics

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" Franklin, Benjamin

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” - Thomas Jefferson  

“Our real disease - which is democracy.” - Alexander Hamilton  

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” - John Adams  

 “Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.” - John Adams  

“A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.” - Fisher Ames

Separation of Powers: Checks and Balances

"Under the American Constitution a new structure of government was established on a much higher plane than either the parliamentary system or the confederation of states. It was a people’s constitutional republic, where a certain amount of power was delegated to the states and a certain amount was delegated to the national government. There was a small dimension of power which they shared jointly. All other power was retained by the people. It is the delegation by the people of certain powers to the states and certain powers to the national government which we call ‘dual federalism.’" (W. Cleon Skousen, The Making of America, p. 199, The National Center for Constitutional Studies, 1985)

"Ours is a representative republic with a Constitution in which is recognized the natural law and the natural rights of man. It is a republic with a spiritual foundation characterized by freedom -- freedom for the individual and for his society." (Ezra Taft Benson, Department of Agriculture under Eisenhower, An Enemy Hath Done This, page 97.)

"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 1

"The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, law, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man’s farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph C. Cabell, February 2, 1816)