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Many commentators have made the careful distinction that the United States is a “republic,” not a “democracy.” Drawing on a longstanding and ongoing debate about these terms, this essay contextualizes the presumed opposition between “republic” and “democracy” in Revolutionary-era writings by John Adams, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and other founders (including in particular lesser-read numbers of The Federalist Papers). As this evidence reveals, the problem was not so much whether to designate the new nation as a “democracy” or a “republic,” though this remains a widely held belief. Rather, the question was—and is—how to enact a commitment to a government where sovereignty resides in the people.