In today's world, in all probability, most people in the United States believe that we live in a Constitutional democracy, and that we are all part of a democratic society. In all likelihood that belief originates because the media propagates the illusion that this is a democracy, but also because it just seems that "one man, one vote" is, in fact, the very definition of democracy in action. The fact of the matter is, the United States was not created as a democracy; it was instead created specifically as a republican from of government. Further to this point, our Constitution states that: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," to which our President takes an oath to: …preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
The fundamental flaw with democracy, and the reason why the United States was deliberately not created as a democracy, is that a democracy in its most basic form is a form of government to which the majority rules, so that what the majority wants is what the majority gets. A republic on the other hand, is a form of government which has a Constitution to which the republic must at all time pay obeisance to, unless that Constitution is amended. This means that at all times the individual and by implication those of the minority position are protected by the Constitution from being subjected to arbitrary laws and rules. Further this signifies that the majority cannot democratically vote themselves powers that are not available to them by our Constitution, protecting the individual from not having his inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness trampled upon by his own government or majority rule.
During our great civil war, our Constitution and our republican form of government were tested to its very limits, of which Abraham Lincoln wrote: "I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Further to this, Lincoln wrote: "I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power." This signifies, in its essence, the importance and respect that Lincoln gave the Constitution, to which, in completion of his legacy, the 13th through 15th amendments to the Constitution were passed, assuring that the rights given to those that had formerly been enslaved, but liberated through the Emancipation Proclamation, became part and parcel of the Constitution, itself.
It would be better and truer to state that we live in a Republican form of government, of which, most legislators are elected democratically, that is by majority vote, to which each individual that is eligible to vote, is entitled to exactly one vote on each ballot issue. Further it can be said, that we live within a Constitution to which our laws, and our rule of law, all originate from, and it therefore follows that this Constitution applies to all, equally, that is to say that we have equal application of the law to all individuals, so that there is no one individual that is subject to different laws, separate from the people as a whole, because it there are those to which the Constitution does not apply, than you have the makings of a despotic government and the collapse of our republic.