Early Forms of Government

Until the eighteenth century the world had little experience with republics. In the ancient world Greece and Rome furnished early examples of attempts to form democratic governments. In Grecian cities popular government was practiced, the free people directly making the laws. In Rome the townsman passed laws to his own advantage. And in the so-called Venetian republic the power was vested in a few nobles. After the failure of many experiments in free government the ancient world turned to monarchy, believing that the people were unfit to govern themselves. For centuries, political revolutions were struggles for better government, rather than self-government. At the time of the Revolutionary War the republican form of government was discredited throughout the world, monarchy and oligarchy being considered the proper forms of good government.