ABSTRACT
America’s claim to status as a democratic country depends almost entirely on the nature and extent of public participation in political life, and from the earliest years of the republic, there has been dispute and controversy over what, precisely, participation means. To the educated eighteenth-century man, “democracy” was equivalent to a republican form of government that limited electoral participation to those with an established stake in society-white men of property. Any further extension of participation raised the specter of rule by the mob and the eventual breakdown of civil society. In contrast, many artisans and small farmers, especially in New England, were imbued with a more egalitarian brand of democracy that implied participation by a much wider electorate. Slowly, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this egalitarian spirit gained ascendancy over the more elitist views of the founding fathers.
