Despite popular belief, The United States of America is, in fact, not a democracy according to the true meaning of the word. America is in actuality a republic. Although it is often referred to as a democracy, a democracy in its truest form is a nation in which the people do the actual voting on the issues at hand. A true democracy would place the power completely in the hands of the people, which can prevent matters from being handled in a timely matter. The founding fathers of this country feared a pure democracy after everything they studied had taught them that pure democracies “have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths", according to James Madison’s Federalist No.10 document. These types of government allow the people to actually vote directly on every issue that the nation has, which is not the way that the government of America works. It is a country in which the power in somewhat in the hands of the people which is why it is sometimes referred to as a democracy, but in reality the United States is a republic that only acts as a true democracy on a very few select issues that they place on the actual ballots.
A republic is a nation is which the people vote on their leaders that they think best represent them and their opinions and values, and has those people vote on the issues that require a vote. This places the power in the people’s hands as far as who those select few people are that represent them, but the actual voting and final decisions are made by a select few rather than the masses. In America’s government, the voters elect leaders to represent them on multiple levels depending on the issue and the area that the particular issue affects. There are mayors and city officials for issues within the cities. There are state