Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Direct democracy" in English language version.
a democracy (the only pure republic, but impracticable beyond the limits of a town) … where the citizens cannot meet to transact their business in person, they alone have the right to chuse the agents who shall transact it … in this way, a republican, or popular government, of the 2d grade of purity, may be exercised over any extent of country
[...] individuals, Muslims and non-Muslims, Greeks, Arabs, Berbers, Africans and Amerindians, have lived according to the principles of a type of direct democracy in their societies. [...] In the West, since the great revolutions, from the English in the 17th century, the American and French of the end of the 18th century, elites and then all the people have gradually experimented with a liberal democracy whose principles are indisputably different from those of tribal democracy.
a pure democracy is the best government for a small people who assemble in person. … it would be inapplicable to the great country we inhabit. … it would be very burdensome, subject to faction and violence; decisions would often be made by surprise, in the precipitancy of passion, by men who either understand nothing or care nothing about the subject; or by interested men, or those who vote for their own indemnity. It would be a government not by laws, but by men.
in a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.
