Oldest Surviving Democracy

Submitted by Charles (United Kingdom), Feb 16, 2010 at 23:28

England, or Britain as it was by that time, had a King, but he had no power, and hadn't since the civil war. The power lay with Parliament and had for some time, which was what had caused the civil war in the first place. Claiming that Britain had a King, and therefore could not be a democracy, is kind of like saying that blacks could not vote in the US till the 1960s, ergo the USA wasn't a true democracy until the 1960s. Parliament was elected, Parliament made the laws. Parliament had the power. But Monarch was and still is Head of State. Incidentally, the first black man, a former slave, to vote in Britain was in 1789.

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