"Every student of political science knows that the American system of government codified in the United States Constitution is not actually a "democracy" as that term was defined in the eighteenth century. In fact, most of the American Founders considered "pure" democracy like that practiced in ancient Athens—where the people ruled themselves directly through votes of a popular assembly—to be a particularly unstable and dangerous form of government. ...despite this aversion to democracy and the absence of a popular assembly dictating policy by majority vote in the United States, American government could be said to embody the principle of "popular sovereignty"... Over the course of the nineteenth century, Americans... increasingly applied the words democracy and democratic to America's government and society. ...By the twentieth century, the term democracy had largely ceased to carry the stigma of mob rule... In essence, the term democracy was gradually redefined..."