Voters in a county election, 1854. Etching by John Sartain after painting by George Caleb Bingham; National Gallery of Art

Why Franklin, Washington and Lincoln considered American democracy an ‘experiment’ – and were unsure if it would survive

Is American democracy an ‘experiment’ in the bubbling-beakers-in-a-laboratory sense of the word? If so, what is the experiment attempting to prove, and how will we know if and when it has succeeded?

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