Mob Rule vs. Mob Rule

As the Founding Fathers wrestled with creating a constitution to replace the ineffective Articles of Confederation, one of their greatest fears was mob rule. These men were truly interested in creating a stable government, but they were primarily members of an elite minority of wealthy land owners and merchants who feared the common people (demos in Greek and the root word of democracy), who outnumbered them.

To protect their positions of privilege and wealth from the mob, they created a republic instead of a democracy. Their choice was based on the belief that an assembly of honest, educated, elected representatives like themselves could and would temper both the inevitable, wild swings in public opinion characteristic of the uneducated mob and also mitigate their own self-serving tendencies and instincts. 

It was a good plan, and it worked well for over two hundred years.

Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers could not foresee a time when the elected representatives would sell out the country and the Constitution for personal gain and support a would-be dictator hell bent on replacing representative governance with mob rule of the type practiced by the Mafia.