James Madison wrote five times in his essays of the Federalist Papers that we are a republic, and then explained what a republic is. He believed this to be necessary not only so that the Constitution may be properly understood, but because in their argument against the Constitution, the statists of the era were trying to convince the people that a republic, and a democracy, are the same thing. Democracy, in reality, is a transitional form of government, one that would lead America from being a republic to an oppressive oligarchy, argued many of the Founding Fathers. We must never be a democracy.