Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 21

Even if majority rule always prevailed, democracies would still face a second challenge—protecting minority rights, the basic freedoms of smaller groups within the general population. These may be racial, ethnic, or religious groups or individuals whose opinions differ from those of the majority. For example, what if a majority wanted to revoke a minority group’s basic human rights, such as the right to equal treatment by the government or the right to speak freely? The principle of majority rule would seem to validate this decision, but most people would agree that it would be the wrong thing to do. In a telling example, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, white majorities in the Southern states passed many laws pushing African American minorities into inferior, segregated schools and other public facilities and denying them the right to vote. Overcoming the preferences of these majorities did not occur until the 1950s and 1960s, and doing so took rulings from the Supreme Court as well as congressional and presidential action. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, majorities of voters in many states voted to bar same-sex marriage—yet another example of the tension between majority rule and minority aspirations.

majority rule The principle that 50 percent plus one of the people should be able to elect a majority of elected officials and thereby determine the direction of policy.

minority rights Basic human rights that are considered important to guarantee for minorities in a democracy.

When studying a democracy such as the United States, we need to examine how the country deals with these two basic problems: How (and to what degree) is majority rule ensured? And how are minority rights protected under majority rule? These two questions will figure prominently in the succeeding chapters of this book.