REPUBLIC, a state in which the supreme power rests in the people, or in officers elected by them, to whom the people have delegated powers sufficient to enable them to perform the duties required of them. In the small republics of antiquity the people usually expressed their preferences directly, but in the larger re publics of modern times representatives are elected to sit in law making bodies. The head of the state is usually elected directly, and in modern usage this fact distinguishes a republic from a mon archy in which the head is hereditary.
In the ancient world of Greece and Rome the franchise was in the hands of a minority, who were surrounded by, and who gov erned, a majority composed of men personally free but not pos sessed of the franchise, and of slaves. Modern writers have often used the literal translation of the Latin respublica, as meaning only the state, even when the head was an absolute king, provided that he held his place according to law and ruled by law. "Republic," to quote one example only of many, was so used by Jean Bodin, whose treatise, commonly known by its Latin name De Republica Libri Sex, first appeared in French in 1577. Englishmen of the middle ages habitually spoke of the commonwealth of England, though they had no conception that they could be governed except by a king with hereditary right. The coins of Napoleon bear the inscription "Republique francaise, Napoleon Empereur." Except as an arbitrary term of art, or as a rhetorical expression, "republic" has, however, always been understood to mean a state in which the head holds his place by the choice of his subjects. Poland was a republic because its king had in earlier times to be accepted, and in later times was chosen by a democracy composed of gentry. Venice was a republic, though after the "closing of the great council" the franchise was confined to a strictly limited aristocracy, which was itself in practice dominated by a small oligarchy. The seven states which formed the confederation of the United Netherlands were republics from the time they renounced their allegiance to Philip II., though they chose to be governed by a stadtholder to whom they delegated large powers, and though the choice of the stadt holder was made by a small body of burghers who alone had the franchise. The varieties are many. What, however, is emphatically not a republic is a state in which the ruler can truly tell his subjects that the sovereignty resides in his royal person, and that he is king, or tsar, "pure and absolute," by the grace of God, even though he may hasten to add that "absolute" is not "despotic," which means government without regard to law. The case of Great Britain, where the king reigns theoretically by the grace of God, but in fact by a parliamentary title and under the Act of Settlement, is, like the whole British constitution, unique.
There is in fact a fundamental incompatibility between the con ceptions of a government as a commonwealth and as an institution based upon a right superior to the people's will. Where these two views endeavor to live together either the ruler will confiscate the rights of the community to himself or the community, acting through some representative body, will confine the head of the government to defined functions.
The conception of a republic in which all males, who do not belong to an inferior and barbarous race, share in the suffrage is one which would never have been accepted in the ancient or medi eval world, for it is based on a foundation of which they knew nothing,—the political rights of man. When the Scottish reformer John Knox based his claim to speak on the government of the realm on the fact that he was "a subject born within the same" he advanced a pretension very new to his generation. But it was one which was fated to achieve a great fortune. The right of the subject, simply as a member of the community, to a voice in the community in which he was born, and on which his happiness de pended, implied all "the rights of man" as they were to be stated by the American Declaration of Independence, and again by the French in 1789. They could be vindicated only by revolt against monarchical governments in the old world and the new. They were incompatible with all the convictions which make monarchy pos sible as they embodied themselves in the modern democratic re publics of Europe and America. It is a form of government not much more like the republic of antiquity and the middle ages than the French sansculottes was like Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whom he admired for being what they most decidedly were not— believers in equality and fraternity. But it does, subject to the im perfections of human nature, set up a government in which all, theoretically at least, have a voice in what concerns all.
One of the major results of the World War was the discrediting of monarchical government in many European States. There swept over Europe a desire on the part of people for self-government which led to the adoption of republican forms of government by a number of previously monarchical states. As early as March 12, 1917, when the Emperor Nicholas II. abdicated, the Russian people began the conferences that led to the formation of the U.S.S.R. For analysis of this form of government see the articles UNION OF SOCIALIST SOVIET REPUBLICS and RUSSIA.
Germany became a republic on Nov. 9, 1918, on the announce ment of the abdication of the Emperor William II. The president is elected by direct vote of all the citizens over 20 years of age re gardless of sex, and the members of the legislature are chosen by universal suffrage on the proportional system. (See GERMANY.) Three days later the Austrian Republic was declared, and on Nov. 1o, 192o, the new Constitution drawn up by the National Consti tional Assembly went into effect. (See AUSTRIA.) On Nov. 14, 1918, the National Assembly of Czechoslovakia proclaimed the republican Czechoslovak State. The constitution passed Feb. 29, 192o, provided a Senate elected by a vote of all citizens over 26 years of age and a Chamber of Deputies elected by vote of all citizens over 21 years of age. (See CZECHOSLOVAKIA.) Between 1918 and 1925, in the order named, Finland, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkey and Greece declared themselves to be republics. For details of franchise and representation see under separate articles.