Essay On Democracies

Developing Democracies Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there was strong debate, between common people and leaders, as to which is the most effective form of government. Citizens from European countries disagreed with their own governments on whether a democracy or absolutism was the most effective form of government. Even to this day, it is clear that a democracy is respected as the most effective form of government, proven as even current societies have democracies, while few countries maintain an absolute monarchy. Unlike absolutism, democracies grant citizen’s rights that monarchies don’t allow for. These privileges include freedom of speech, religion, press, and the right to act against a government that disregards

There were very few rules on what a monarch could or could not do. For example, monarchs would often spend all the citizen’s money on their own individual desires and when they ran out they would simply raise taxes, sending citizens into a deeper debt. However, in a democracy, this was almost impossible, as the branches of government were separated. “There can be no liberty where the executive, legislative, and judicial powers are united in one person or body of persons, because such concentration is bound to result in arbitrary deposition” (6). A separation of the three branches of government safeguarded that one person could not have so much control in governance. Particularly, as too much power in the wrong hands can be detrimental, and separating the branches of government, guarantees that no one branch becomes too powerful, because one of the other two branches have the ability to over-ride another branch. This is crucial in a government, as the potential for freedom of the citizenry to be eroded is high, if one person held all the power. Likewise, the rights and freedoms of a country’s citizens are imperative within a government. In early monarchies, such as those in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, monarchs cared very little about the people’s rights. They often treated the country very poorly, but residents were forced to live with it