A republic, not a democracy
… [O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention … intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often … oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.