The Segregationist Slogan “Republic not Democracy”

Written in exasperation. Right-wingers seem to think that saying “republic not democracy” is an excuse for any bad idea they have and I'm here to remind them that that is white supremacist nonsense.

This, it turns out, comes from a 1955 pamphlet “You and Segregation” by Herman Talmadge, who was elected Senator from Georgia in 1956. It was a pro-segregation tract written in response to the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education, containing a mass of incoherent argument, similar to the white supremacist articles we see today. Here’s a taste of it from the section entitled “A Republic—Not a Democracy:”

Could it be possible that these Americans, who talk and write so much about "our democracy” do not know that this nation is a republic and not a democracy?

Could it be that they desire a gradual overthrow of our republic and the establishment of a “democracy”—as is advocated by the Communists and fcllow-travelers.

Could it be that these groups desire a “democracy” here in the United States where they will be only one race, one religion and one state?

It is evident that many of this group believe only in one mixed, amalgamated race; the anti-God Marxist religion; and one all-powerful central government not segregated by state lines or Constitutional barriers. This is obviously the “true democracy” they talk, write about and proclaim so brashly. – p. 17-18

So there we have it. If one reads on, one finds that Talmadge defined republic as a federation of independent states and democracy as a one governed by a powerful central government–one of the many iterations of the states rights theory that defended slavery and racism.

Talmadge won his Senate seat in 1956. I suspect that this pamphlet played a part. I am told that “republic not democracy” went on to become a John Birch Society slogan.

So the next time you see someone quoting this, you can call them on using a white supremacist slogan.

Oh, and the publisher? An outfit called “The Truth at Last” based in Marietta Georgia, which I found on the Nazi Stormfront site. It was operated by the neo-Nazi Edward Reed Fields. The edition scanned for archive.org was printed in the year 2000.

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Addendum, July 21, 2022: the idea, it turns out, is older than the Talmadge pamphlet. The original sources appear to be libertarian. Historian Henry Steele Commager, in his lecture series that was published in 1943 as Majority Rule and Minority Rights, cites founding right-wing libertarian theorist Isabel Paterson and John Corbin, who I have never heard of, as sources. I do not know when the idea went from libertarian theory to racist slogan; that might have been Talmadge's work.

The 1943(!) Commager lectures are a ringing endorsement of the “living constitution” theory of legal interpretation and a scathing critique of constitutional originalism; that will be the subject of another post. Thanks to $1000man on Twitter for putting me on to Commager's remarks.