With their government design, the Founding Fathers sought to protect individual rights, not only from government, but also from our fellow citizens. As Alexander Hamilton explained: “We are now forming a republican form of government. Real Liberty is not found in the extremes of democracy, but in moderate government.” With democratic governance, individual freedoms can be subverted by majority rule. The Constitution seeks to advance liberty, not democracy.
Says so right there in the Preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
