"A republic is, in essence, what a monarchy is not. That, in short, is the argument, based on a very long history of states called republics, and thinkers called republicans, who learned from each other. A republic is a state that has many rulers, instead of one, most of them independently elected rather than appointed. A republic is a state where most of the public business must perforce be publicly aired, since these many magistrates naturally differ about that business and thus cannot conduct it without robust argument. Though it is still said in our civic pedagogy that a republic is something called a "representative democracy," many of history's republicans have not been representative, and many have been far from democratic, including some which were undemocratic precisely by virtue of being representative. What all republics have been is polyarchal, ruled by the pluribus instead of the uno."