ABSTRACT
Today, most Americans need a basic civics lesson on how truly unique the political experiment known as the United States of America has been in the course of human history. With the examples of ancient democratic Athens and the Roman republic foremost in their minds, the founders of our country established an exceptional form of government. For much, if not all, of recorded history prior to the American Revolution, the compact between the individual and the government was always one whereby the individual was subordinate to the government: to the Crown in England, the state in Prussia, or the emperor in China. Even the subsequent French Revolution placed the individual subordinate to the rule and tyranny of the mob (democracy in its pure, unfettered form-to the surprise of many Americans, including most newscasters, the United States is not a democracy, but rather a constitutional republic).
