How democracies trample rights.

Comptroller Walker makes a second point: the United States was designed as a "republic," not a "democracy"--which might preclude his ever becoming a columnist for the New York Times. The Founding Fathers probably wouldn't fit in at the Times either, since the Constitution makes no mention of "democracy" (nor does the Declaration of Independence). The Constitution does say (Article IV, Section 4): "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government." Indeed, the more "democratic" the U.S. has become, the more our liberty and economy have suffered. We took a big hit in 1913, for instance, when the federal income tax amendment was ratified, along with popular election of senators.

In order to insert the personal income tax into the body politic, assurances were given that the top tax bracket of 7 percent would never be raised. Yet, within a mere eight years, the progressive nature of the income tax, coupled with the ancient ruse of supposedly soaking only the rich, had driven the top bracket rate to 77 percent.

As James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," noted in The Federalist Papers (Number 10, where he also explained why republics are preferable to democracies), there is an inevitable "temptation" when collecting taxes for the majority to "trample on the rules of justice" against the minority. The results bear out Madison's prescience: in 1913, federal spending was but 2.5 percent of the Gross National Product; it is about 10 times that today.