[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by Raellus

That's not entirely accurate. Great Britain may have had a king, but it was also, to a large degree, a republic. The king's power was limited by English law (going back all the way to the Magna Carta in 1215). England had an elected law-making body (the House of Commons). English subjects had rights guaranteed by law (i.e. the English Bill of Rights, 1689). The English Civil War established the primacy of the Parliamentary system. By 1776, the English monarch, although political more powerful than today, was essentially a figurehead.

One of the reasons the American colonists rebelled is because they believed- rightly so- that their constitutional rights as Englishmen were being violated. The main reason was that, unlike other Englishmen, they had no direct representation in Parliament, hence the rallying cry "no taxation without representation". The idea that the colonists came up with democracy out of thin air is, unfortunately, a myth.

The rebellious colonists focused their criticism of this system on the king, since monarchy during and after the Enlightenment was associated with tyranny. This was a canny political move designed to garner the support of the Whigs in the British Parliament, while not alienating their English brethren in the Isles.

Once again, the whole "democratic colonists rebelling against British monarchical tyranny" is not entirely the case. The Founders had a much more recent (than classical Athens and early Rome) example of constitutional government to look at: their mother country, Great Britain.

Actually, the reigning monarch has one important power, no law is in effect unless they sign it. The down side is that they know a wrathful parliament could abolish their rule over refusal to sign.