A Republic Is Not Majority Rule
by Michael Doyle

A republic depends on the rule of law.
It's not majoritarian rule, please recall.
It's a people whose struggle for liberty
Depends on the law for its binding authority.

Conflicts arise between life's desire and scarcity
In the political interplay of majority and minority.
But the adjudication is based on legal theory,
Not feeling, not persuasion, and not the majority.

Our government is ruled by the people's representation.
Neither slaves nor masters hold the reins of this nation.
The rule of the mob is prone to passions and jealousy.
For this cause, we cannot give our nation over to democracy. 

From ballot to bullet, there exists but little appeal,
Only stare decisis can keep our governance simple and real.
In all of our nation's history, we find a thread of preference,
That's what makes this work most is our habit of deference.

A deference to the will of the people expressed by election
Is to be allowed to suggest our nation's chosen direction.
When factions resist this general will, we have obstruction.
This tendency of late must be guarded against our destruction.

Freedom and liberty cannot depend on popular sovereignty.
Not wholly anyhow, as that can give birth to perversity.
Such perversity as voting a people subject to slavery.
Calhoun's paradox has been played out in our bloody history.

Political institutions tend to mesh and then to bind.
It may not be easy to see, but let's not be too blind.
Compromises have come and gone in this country's legacy.
The best we can do is to do our best to keep our dignity.

This then lends itself to the question of moral priority.
Sometimes, God's good truth transpires over sovereignty. 
Natural rights create the mandate of truest legitimacy.
This, then, is the ultimate guide to what creates primacy. 

It is in bowing to the will of the people's primacy 
That we avoided the absolutism feared in American history.
Feared as being the dictatorial impulses of tyranny,
That could most likely put us in the chains of slavery.

It awakens in us the need for our forewarned vigilance,
The awareness saving us from Kansas-Nebraska's violence.
Political differences sometimes birth widespread hostility,
And so it has been, at times, throughout American history.

(c) March 10, 2026   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved