What exactly did Lincoln mean by “government of the people, by the people, for the people?”

Presumably “for” means for the people’s benefit. That one's easy enough.

“By” could mean designed by, enacted by, performed by, etc. Those are subtly different, but they all basically mean that the people do the governing. (I read an article that interpreted "by the people" to mean chosen by the people, but I call baloney. "Look at this painting by my son." "He painted that??" "No, he chose it". Um, that's not what "by" means, man.)

But what of “of”? I always took it to mean made up of the people, but the more obvious interpretation of the phrase “government of the people” is that the people are being governed. Care of plants, treatment of animals, government of people. My hunch is that Lincoln had that second meaning in mind; the first one is a bit too close to the “by”. If that’s so, then he’s essentially describing the people governing themselves beneficially. Clearly, his version wins for poetry.

While we’re being pedantic, what does “the people” mean? The definite article seems to be doing heavy lifting. All government is by people; not all government is by the people. But where’s the line between those two? When is a person not one of the people? At what point do members of the public cease to be members of the public and become instead members of the ruling elite?

No cheap shots: politicians are still people. But unless we acknowledge that at some point people in power cease to be part of the people, then every human-run government is government by the people, which rather dilutes the idea of democracy. So we have to ask whether the leaders of our government part of the people. If not, and our government power sits with not-the-people people, then we clearly don’t have government by the people at all.

Just when you thought this essay could get no nerdier, I’m going to appeal to the US tax code to help sort this out.

Anyone who has ever filed IRS reports for a charitable organization in the US is familiar with something called the public support test. For an organization to keep its charity status, a certain amount of its organization’s funding must come from the public. Without that status, the organization becomes ineligible for tax-deductible donations and most grants.

So which money counts as coming from the public? Aren’t we all members of the public? Nope; the IRS draws a line. The gist is this: if I donate a little to an organization, my entire gift may be considered public support. If I donate a lot, say 10% of the organization’s revenue, then only the first percent or two¹ is considered public. We all count as members of the public until we gain too much influence; then we don't anymore.

I submit that the same is true of democracy. To the extent that many people are contributing modestly to collaborative decision making, we can claim government by the people. But if the same few people are making all the decisions, then they are no longer, in that context, members of the public.

As currently constructed, then, our government leaders are not members of the public. They have too much more power than the rest of us to be considered part of the people. So we clearly can’t claim to have a government by the people. We are not ruled by the elite, not the demos. By Lincoln's definition, we’re not a democracy.

The practicalities of elections mean that, in an electoral system, government by the people is all but impossible. The responsibilities are too concentrated. The selection process is too cumbersome. The time from one election to the next is plenty for each elected official to have morphed fully from one of the people to one of the ruling elite.

Lottocracies, in which deliberative government representatives are chosen at random, wouldn’t have this problem. Terms could be so limited and roles so narrowly defined that the people need not morph into something else; they could keep their status as members of the public. We could have government by the people after all.

Democracy as Lincoln described it, much like democracy as Aristotle described it millennia before, is not permission to pick our rulers. It is ruling ourselves. It is the people, not the rulers, governing themselves beneficially.

I say we try it. The people rule.