A democracy or a republic? History shows that some Americans are asking the wrong question

As the nation observes its 250th birthday, historians can help settle one present-day dispute: Is the United States a democracy or a republic? For years, advocates have argued the point. Yet the question itself is misleading. It assumes that the categories constructed by political theorists neatly describe actual practice. As a historian of early America, I know this nation has always been unwieldy, its institutions hammered out from conflicting ideals and the pragmatic lessons of lived experience. Just as Britain today is both a monarchy and a democracy, so the U.S. has always been a hybrid. Ideals of both republicanism and democracy have shaped the nation. To understand how requires a history lesson. No purity Let’s start with a famous definition. Here is the often-quoted “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, urging Americans to ratify the new frame of government proposed by the Constitutional Convention in 1787. In Federalist essay No. 10, Madison distinguished two sorts of governments for his readers. One was a “pure democracy,” which he described as “a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.” A New England town meeting might qualify for this definition, where voters assembled…

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