Thomas Jefferson freely admitted that “the term republic is of very vague application in every language,” while, in its most simple meaning, it denoted but “a government by its citizens in mass, acting directly and personally, according to rules established by majority.” James Madison defined this same ancient city-state-inspired model of participatory democracy as “consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble to administer the government in person,” even if only to contrast it with the properly modern, republican government as representative democracy. It was equally clear to Jefferson that, in the modern world, “numbers, distance, or force oblige” people “to act by deputy.” Hence, “their government continues republican in proportion only as the functions they still exercise in person are more or fewer and, as in those exercised by deputy.” As to this conspicuously indeterminate “ideal” republic, it is notable that, in their Declaration of Independence, the American Revolutionaries were not opposing any specific form of government, be it monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, or the classic mixed regime that offered a more or less balanced blend of all the former elements. Rather, their argument was that, in order to secure their “Life, Liberty and . . . pursuit of Happiness,” they were, like any free people, entitled to abolish the now obviously corrupt British government and to “institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Perhaps more importantly, no particular form of government was claimed to be the only one capable of fulfilling the only historical condition set for all such governments, namely “the consent of the governed.”