Would you consider the US a democracy in 1776?

[Bugfatty300]

In NL it's extremely easy to legally own a gun. But you do need a permit! You need two things to get one:
-A 'clean-sheet' report from the police
-A diploma from a registered gun-club, hunting club or something alike.

With these two you go to the townhall, where you will be provided a license. Buying a gun is no problem at all.
The real difference is that hardly anyone wants a gun.

Yeah but don't you have to keep the gun locked in safe which means its useless for self-defense.

And also don't the police come into the house every year and check to make sure your keeping it in the safe?

No wonder no one wants to own a gun.

 

[Stapel]

Yeah but don't you have to keep the gun locked in safe which means its useless for self-defense.

And also don't the police come into the house every year and check to make sure your keeping it in the safe?

No wonder no one wants to own a gun.

I think you got it terribly wrong. Apart from heavy criminals, there is nobody here who feels the tiniest need to protect himself, his family or property, with fire arms. The whole concept simply has no ground here.

 

[stormbind]

I have no idea how all the mechanisms worked

Then you have no idea how democratic the USA was in 1781, and you aren't in a position to judge it.

Can someone please explain how the US elections worked in 1781. Who voted, and by what mechanism?

And to answer the opening question: No, it seems the USA was a military dictatorship in 1776 - one of the least democratic western nations of the time.

I'm aware that some for the pre-1776 Colonies allowed ordinary folk to vote. That was quite extraordinary for the time, but I don't think this ideal carried over into the USA.

 

[Dragonlord]

Interesting thread,here...

As already stated by others, in 1776 the US couldn't have been a democracy yet, not having an elected government.
Nor was it later a democracy in the classical (Greek) definition of the word - but then, no state on earth is!

In a classical democracy all citizens vote on important issues. This was possible in the Greek city states with their limited franchise (remember that most of the population, namely slaves, women and underage men, could not vote!).
Since this form of government was simply unworkable for any sizable state - think about how much trouble the mechanics of a simple presidential election every 4 years are giving the US even today! ... - I personally would accept a broader definition of democracy and accept any of the abovementioned forms of government as 'democracies' which allow their citizens to freely elect the governments which rule them, no matter by which technical means... (though I find the Electoral College system of the US totally outdated and unwieldy.)

By that definition, the US after 1781 was certainly a democracy and the most democratic system of its time.

Interestingly, today we would, for the first time, have the technical means, using computers and the internet, to achieve true democracy in the classical sense. It would be possible to directly vote on important issues.
If there is one issue on which all politicians seem to agree, though, it's not allowing any more direct democracy than they have to... seems we're all much too stupid and uninformed to be allowed to participate directly

 

[Headline]

The United States of America is an organization that represents many nations in America. It is a grand alliance of nations bound by a contract. I, for example, am a Californian. The word American does not specifically mean the people of US. People from the other nations within America can also call themselves Americans. Notice that there is no word to describe the people as a whole who live in the United States. Technically, the United States of America is not a nation but nations. Oh well, I digressed.

US, as an organization, is clearly a Federal Republic. The Bush vs. Gore election, for example, demonstrate that. Gore had more popular votes, but Bush still won the election. It is not very democratic. Beside that, it is also now a Hereditary Presidential Republic. The Electoral College voted George W Bush to succeed George Bush as the executive.

I am afraid that most Californians, after 4 years of torment, cannot suffer from another reign of George III. We are considering the withdrawal of the membership from the Union. However, we can't, because we still owe load of money to the federal government for paying off our electricity bill.

Well, this is my failed attempt to make a satire, so don't take it seriously..

 

[Hamlet]

The key dividing line in political science is between Presidential/Parliamentary and Federal/Unitary systems. All this effort to distinguish the US as a 'Republic' is pretty pointless IMHO. 'Republic' itself is a completely useless term and tells us precisely nothing about a country's system of government, really.