...aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the...fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom to rest all our political experiments...

...two centuries ago, Madison wrote that the American experiment is based on the honorable determination to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. Science and technology pose a challenge sometimes to that capacity, just as slavery did, just as communism...