Early Democracy in the U.S.

Essential Question: How should we define democracy?  How democratic was the united states in the early 1800's?

      Democracy is defined as a system of government that arose in the United States in the early 1800's.  It is defined as a system of government in which the people have a say and they vote for the rulers and the laws.  To learn information about democracy in the U.S. in the 1800's, we began by looking at a painting which takes place in the center of town where all the people gather to vote.  In the picture, one of the men running to be leader is trying to get more votes by bribing people with booze.  Even though everyone supposedly has the right to vote in a democratic government, the women and colored people were not allowed to.  Therefore, to answer the second part of the essential question, the United States was not entirely democratic in the early 1800's, since not everyone was able to vote.  Also, since alcohol was a HUGE problem for the people of that time(it still is today), it made it a lot harder for the best man running for president to be actually elected since most of the people went for the man running that was bribing them with alcohol.  My groups thoughts on democracy are shown in the video we created.  Click the link and enjoy!