Constitutional Republic
A constitutional republic is a form of government in which the head of state and key officials are elected representatives of the people and act in accordance with existing constitutional law, which guarantees the limitation of the government's power over the citizens. In a constitutional republic, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are strictly separated so that no individual or group can gain absolute power.
The fact that a power-limiting constitution exists makes a state constitutional. The fact that the heads of state and other officials are determined by elections-and that their positions are not transferred, for example, by succession or succession to the throne, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review-makes a state republican. In contrast to a direct democracy, in a constitutional republic the citizens are not governed by the will of the majority of the people, but by the constitutional principle of law; the right to vote is limited in that the elected representatives of the people must act within the limits of the all-embracing constitutional law. Thus, the people cannot themselves exercise legislative power through their election. John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws and not of men."
Constitutional republics represent a deliberate attempt to reduce the dangers resulting from pure majority rule, with minority rights protected from the "tyranny of the majority" through power-limiting measures for government officials. A constitutional republic is designed so that "no person or group can attain absolute power." No individual is entitled to hold executive, legislative, and judicial power; instead, it is divided into three distinct, mutually reviewing spheres.
The idea of a constitutional republic is based on Aristotle's work Politics and his concept of polity. In it, he contrasts polity or republican form of government with democracy and oligarchy in the sixth chapter of the third book.
Constitutional republics are advocated by classical liberals. The United States of America is the oldest constitutional republic in the world and it represents the first comprehensive experiment in this conceived form of government. According to James Woodburn in the book The American Republic and Its Government, "The constitutional republic, with its limitations on governmental power, is clearly embodied in the Constitution, as seen in the election of the President, the Senate, and the appointment of members of the Supreme Court." He says that in a republic, unlike a democracy, the people are checked not only in the election of officials but also in the introduction of new legislation. There exists a so-called Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution that guarantees certain basic personal and civil rights. These cannot be abrogated by the majority of citizens through appropriate elections in order to oppress a minority, for example. To eliminate these rights, government officials would have to overcome constitutional checks and obtain a two-thirds majority in a congressional vote to modify the Constitution.
A constitutional republic is a form of liberal democracy, but not all liberal democracies are constitutional republics. For example, although a monarchy does not have an elected head of state, it can still be a liberal democracy if it has a parliament with elected representatives of the people who rule according to a constitution that protects fundamental and civil rights (see constitutional monarchy).
Support
Alexander Tsesis expresses in The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History that, for him, a constitutional republic represents "representative politics based on fundamental law, in which each person has the right to follow and implement his or her own unobtrusive vision of the good life. In such a society, the common good is the cumulative product of free and equal individuals pursuing meaningful ends."
Critique
Karl Marx claimed that a constitutional republic provides a protective political framework for capitalist exploitation. He said: "All the bourgeoisie economists are aware that production proceeds better under the supervision of a modern police force than under the principle 'might makes right'. They only forget that this principle also contains a legal dimension and that the law of the strongest also applies in their 'constitutional republics', only in a different form."
