Progress toward a civilized society requires the separation of force from whim -- any whim (whether it be the whim of one man, a group of men, or a majority of the moment). Ultimately, this can only be achieved on the basis of and by the application of the rational principle of individual rights.

Since government is the official wielder of force in society, it is

extremely important that government officials and their official actions be held to a higher and stricter standard than everyone else. And, that standard is the natural principle of individual human rights as declared in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.

 Ayn Rand put it this way:

"The fundamental difference between private action and governmental action -- a difference thoroughly ignored and evaded today -- lies in the fact that a government holds a monopoly on the legal use of physical force. It has to hold such a monopoly, since it is the agent of retaliating against and combatting the use of force; and for that very same reason, its actions have to be rigidly defined, delimited, and circumscribed; no touch of whim or caprice should be permitted in its performance; it should be an impersonal robot, with the laws as its only motive power. If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled.

"Under a proper social system, a private individual is legally free

to take any action he pleases (so long as he does not violate the rights of others), while a government official is bound by law in his every official act. A private individual may do anything except that which is legally FORBIDDEN [i.e., the initiation of the use of coercion against others]; a government official may do nothing except that which is legally PERMITTED.

"This is the means of subordinating 'might' to 'right'. This is

the American concept of 'a government of laws and not of men.'"

--From "The Nature of Government" in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL, pp 331-332

         This is why the founders of the American Republic
adopted the Constitutio -- with its various system of "checks and balances", the Bill of Rights, the various rules of due process of law, the Electoral College, the arduous amendment procedure, etc. If the founders had wanted to set up a government by the whims of men, there would have been no need for a Constitution, or a Bill of Rights,
or any attempt at a system of checks and balances.  They wanted a republic -- not a democracy and not a monarchy and not an oligarchy. They wanted an objective rule of law, a system in which government power would not be used arbitrarily to favor some players at the forced expense of others; a system in which government would be confined to only certain specified functions and duties so that peaceful people would not have to contend with arbitrary and capricious intrusions by the legal force of government in their private affairs and peaceful pursuits of profit, happiness, and life.

   Although obviously imperfect, the American Constitutional Republic -- in the tradition of the Petition of Right of 1628 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (which replaced an Absolute Monarchy with a constitutionally limited monarchy) -- was a major step in the right direction toward the ideal republic, which uses principle and respect for law to maintain a workable separation of force and whim.    

The Three Categories of Human Activity and How They Relate to the Proper Role of Political Government -- or, Where Libertarians Would Draw the Line

Dr. Walter Williams on Violence & the Moral Limits of Political Action

Separation of Force and Whim -- The Laissez-Faire Republic vs. Whimarchy:  The Principle of Clearly Defined Individual Human Rights in a Limited Constitutional Republic versus the Tyranny of Unlimited Government by Whim

Constitutional Republic vs Democracy:  The Role of a Majority Vote in a Free Society Versus Unlimited Majority Rule in a Democracy  Did the founders of the United States of America intend to establish a democracy? Is a republic merely a representative democracy?

Selected Historical Documents   List of Major Documents, Books, Essays, Pamphlets, & Tracts in the Historical Development of the American Constitutional Republic, and how this increasingly placed legal limitations on the prerogatives of political rulers (first the King and then the Parliament itself), thus effecting a separation of whim from the use of government force by the assertion of private rights.

An Outline of Political Systems, and Where the Laissez-Faire Republic Fits