In 1787, James Madison traveled to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. He had spent the year before reading two trunks full of history books on failed democracies, sent to him from Paris by Thomas Jefferson. Madison now believed that impetuous mobs in ancient democracies had succumbed to crude and ambitious politicians who played on their emotions. He was determined, in drafting the Constitution, to avoid the fate of those ancient democracies.
So Madison and our Founding Fathers designed the American constitutional system not as a direct democracy but as a representative republic, where delegates of the people would serve the public good. They also built into the Constitution a series of cooling mechanisms intended to inhibit the formation of passionate factions, to ensure that reasonable majorities would prevail.
It was a foregone conclusion in Europe that this ridiculous experiment would end in disaster. It was inevitable, they believed, that a tyrant would seize power during the anarchy that was sure to come, or just as likely a tyrant would be elected by the people.
But after 244 years, our flag still stands for freedom. Thank you, James Madison, for saving America from a president that did not read and his impetuous mob.
