Colonial Democracy Essay example - 889 Words

Did democracy exist in the colonies during the eighteenth century before the American Revolution? Democracy is rule by the people, simply put. This on a large scale is nearly impossible. How could all the people of America, then or now, or even of a decent size town today all come together to vote on issues. We today have a representative Democracy, which in itself is a logistical compromise on a true democracy. In analyzing the government they had in the colonies and comparing it to the â€Å"Democracy† that we have today there are enough similarities that I would have to call the form of colonial government Democratic. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the colonies, not everyone was allowed to vote this was certainly not democratic, but the†¦show more content†¦Today about a third of those who can vote do vote, or at most say forty percent. In the colonial times eighty percent of the population had the right to vote. I’d have to think it would be reasonable to think that in those days a greater percentage of the population voted than today. So in that mathematical respect, they were almost more democratic than we are today. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;There was not a great divide between the haves and have-nots in colonial society. All the land and possessions weren’t held by a few aristocrats in society. There weren’t any large manufacturers employing many putting their will upon their many employees. People were independent, and free to vote as they pleased. It was easy to procure land, and therefore most people farmed that land for a living. No level of economic control existed over the people from lords and factory owners that existed in England and Europe. In this way the colonies were more democratic than the governments of Europe. The common man had no one to answer to. He was independent on his own land, growing his own crops. In our democratic society today our elected officials in many cases come from elite families. The Bush family, the Kennedy family, there are many examples of this. There is a measure of aristocracy in our governmental system today. This was also true of the colonial system. In the colonies the gentry were the ones elected to office, but as we do today,Show MoreRelatedIndia s Post Colonial Populist Democracy1733 Words   |  7 PagesThe recent experience of India’s post-colonial populist democracy with Moditva (the rise of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister by mobilizing varied sections of the Indian population: corporates, media, middle classes, Hindutva activists, a section of Other Backward Classes and Dalits along with the poor) has fundamentally challenged the liberal conception of democracy. 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